2004-02-05 · 14:52

Well, I’m keeping mine

My friend Bob Thompson asks a reasonable question about TiVo:

Why would I buy a product that allows the manufacturer to keep track not just of what programs I watch, but the details about how I watch them?

My answer: why wouldn’t you? Every system other than OTA broadcasting has the ability to track individual viewer usage. If you actually read TiVo’s privacy policy, you’ll see that TiVo can’t pull any identifiable data on shows that you have watched, recorded, or rated unless you opt in. They can pull some anonymous data. Their policy says that

“This information allows TiVo to know that a TiVo service user from a particular ZIP code watched certain programming but we are unable to associate those viewing choices with you. If you use the TiVo Plus service, you may request that TiVo block the collection of Anonymous Viewing Information from your TiVo DVR.”

I’m OK with that; in part, that anonymous data allows them to develop inferences about program relationships (e.g. if I record 24, I might also like MI-5 or Alias.) Since there’s a way to opt out of having identifiable data sent to TiVo (and since that’s off by default, IIRC), I am willing to allow the anonymous information to be collected. Hands down, the $600 ($340 for the unit, $250 for the lifetime service) we paid for our TiVo four years ago has been our best technology investment ever.

Comments Off on Well, I’m keeping mine

Filed under HDTV and Home Theater

2004-02-05 · 12:08

It’s in pages!

Major milestone alert: the Exchange 2003 book is in pages. What that means is that the editors and page layout folks at MS Press have turned the original lightly-formatted Word files (and accompanying screen shots and napkin-drawn line art) into camera-ready pages. Barring any major mishaps, that means that the book’s insides are ready to print. The cover’s already been designed (see it on Amazon), so that means that with a little luck the book’s ready to be printed!
And speaking of pages: I’ve set up Yet Another Blog, this one focused on the Exchange Cookbook I’m writing with Missy Koslosky and Devin Ganger. Check it out.

Comments Off on It’s in pages!

Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-02-04 · 11:13

Catching up

I’ve been so busy with evaluating my second-least-favorite software product that I haven’t had time to post here much. A few notes:

  • Betty and Julie snuck into town to surprise Mom on her birthday. Boy, was she surprised! It was great to see them both, too.
  • Steve McConnell has an update to his seminal book on software craftsmanship, Code Complete. If I was still a developer, I’d be badgering my teammates to read the new version, since it’s online now. Amazon doesn’t list the updated edition yet.
  • The Exchange Cookbook project is slowly gathering steam. I set up a web site for it, but there’s no real content there yet. I hope to get O’Reilly’s permission to post draft chapters and scripts there as we go along.
  • Thomas wants me to tell his best jokes to all my friends. So, here goes. Q: When do astronauts eat?
    A: At launchtime

Comments Off on Catching up

Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-01-30 · 11:10

Happy birthday, Mom!

Many happy returns of the day! I’ll see Julie’s picture and raise her a blog written by the two Mars rovers.

Comments Off on Happy birthday, Mom!

Filed under Friends & Family

2004-01-29 · 14:12

A real American hero

My hat is off to Wayne Hale, the new deputy program manager for shuttle operations. Here’s what he has to say in the postscript to an excellent letter he wrote to the NASA community:

P. S. A final, personal note: a worker at KSC told me that they haven’t heard any NASA managers admit to being at fault for the loss of Columbia. I cannot speak for others but let me set my record straight: I am at fault. If you need a scapegoat, start with me. I had the opportunity and the information and I failed to make use of it. I don’t know what an inquest or a court of law would say, but I stand condemned in the court of my own conscience to be guilty of not preventing the Columbia disaster. We could discuss the particulars: inattention, incompetence, distraction, lack of conviction, lack of understanding, a lack of backbone, laziness. The bottom line is that I failed to understand what I was being told; I failed to stand up and be counted. Therefore look no further; I am guilty of allowing Columbia to crash.
As you consider continuing in this program, or any other high risk program, weigh the cost. You, too, could be convicted in the court of your conscience if you are ever party to cutting corners, believing something life and death is not your responsibility, or simply not paying attention. The penalty is heavy, you can never completely repay it.
Do good work. Pay attention. Question everything. Be thorough. Don’t end up with regrets.

I hope his attitude takes root at NASA. In fact, I’d like to see it take root everywhere, starting at least with me– the principles he sets out in his last line seem to me to be pretty good ones to follow.

Comments Off on A real American hero

Filed under Spiritual Nourishment

2004-01-29 · 11:36

Return of the Mouse

Three years ago, when Matthew was still a passenger and Thomas had just turned three, we went to Orlando to visit Disney World (chronicled here). Now it’s three years later, and we’re +1 on the boy count– Matt is a little younger than Thomas was for his first trip, but I suspect he’ll enjoy it.
This time, we’re taking Mom with us; this should be fun for her and will make it easier to counterbalance the different things that everyone is sure to want to do. Unlike the last trip, where I used Priceline for hotel and car and frequent-flyer miles for airplane tickets, I bought everything via Expedia. Why? Airfares are cheap, so the miles are worth more when converted (say) to a business-class ticket to London than for a $220 ticket to Orlando. Second, availability for hotels is really tight since we’re going during the peak season (oops; we’ll remember that for next time), so the best balance between time spent and money spent turned out to be buying the package. Thanks to tips at MouseSavers, I spotted Expedia’s attempt to sell us full-price park tickets and bought them for a discount straight from Disney instead. Ha! Take that, robotic travel agent-oid!

Comments Off on Return of the Mouse

Filed under Travel

2004-01-29 · 10:36

Bow down to The Man

I am now officially a tool of the state. Why? A few months ago, various places reported that the Selective Service System (y’know, the draft people) were looking for volunteers to staff up local draft boards, just in case. Their original appeal seems to have been deleted, but not before I filled out the application. Lo and behold, last week I got a big manila envelope from the regional office with my application. No guarantees, of course, but I filled it out and sent it in. After all, if the paranoids are right, and the draft comes back, who better to sit in judgment than someone who already did some time in the Big Green Machine? So, all you 18- to 25-year-old young men… Uncle Sam might not want you yet, but if he does you know where to find me.
(and if that wasn’t enough proof that I am a hopeless authoritarian, I also signed up for Perrysburg’s Citizens’ Police Academy. So there.)

Comments Off on Bow down to The Man

Filed under Musings

2004-01-27 · 10:55

Resumes

Joel does it again with this terrific essay on résumés and hiring. Since we’ve been collecting résumés for positions at 3sharp, I wholeheartedly echo everything he says (especially the part about not being able to follow basic instructions).

Comments Off on Resumes

Filed under Musings

2004-01-27 · 10:54

Presentation tips

Thanks to an indirect tip from Scoble, I found this cool page of presentation tips. Even though they’re awfully tech-y, they’re valuable for even non-technical presenters. Case in point: I once had to extemporize about 15 minutes of my presentation when the big video projector died. I was able to because I’d thoroughly prepared; the alternative would have been for the audience to throw spitballs and chatter among themselves while we all waited for the AV guy to get it fixed. John, take particular note since you’ll be showing code at TechEd.

Comments Off on Presentation tips

Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-01-27 · 05:46

Computer folklore

On the one hand, Shel Israel writes an interesting account of his VIP tour of the Computer Museum in Santa Clara. On the other, Scott Knaster points to a very cool new site, Folklore.org, for people to post their first-hand stories of involvement with development of new technologies. The first story posted, natch, is about Andy Hertzfeld’s involvement with the design of the original Apple Macintosh. Great reading. Now, if we can just figure out some way to get lots more stories preserved there, David and I will have something fun to read together. I’d particularly like to see Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky (Palm Pilot), Dave Cutler and some folks from his team (Windows NT 3.1), and anyone from the TiVo team post their stories.

Comments Off on Computer folklore

Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-01-23 · 09:43

Making the M200 rotate button work

Last week, I tried to clean up some of the Toshiba-supplied junque on my M200. For example, at boot the system loads a half-dozen or so programs that have no discernible value for me (like the Panasonic DVD-RAM driver). I started uninstalling things and quickly found that I’d broken the ability to switch between the external and internal display ports. I was able to fix that (about an hour before I went on stage on Tuesday), but I also noticed that the “rotate” button wasn’t working: when I flipped the screen, it would automatically rotate, but pressing the button that’s supposed to rotate the screen in 90-degree increments didn’t work. The button itself worked physically (e.g. I could make other things happen with it), but it wouldn’t do what I wanted. I fiddled, and reinstalled drivers, and finally yelled for help on an internal Microsoft email list for tablet users. (Of course, I can’t actually join the list because it’s only for employees, not contractors… bah.) Anyway, the response I got included a forwarded note from a Toshiba support engineer, and it unveiled the mystery:

When in tablet mode and the unit is rotated, the system will NOT automatically reorient the display. This requires that the Tablet Rotation Button be utilized (see graphic). By first orienting the display as desired, then pressing and holding the Display Rotation Button for 1-2 seconds, the display will change to match the new orientation.

So, the trick is to turn the computer to the orientation you want, and then press the button. Works every time. I was pressing the button and then turning the unit. I was expecting to be able to mash the button repeatedly to change to the desired orientation. This is poorly documented at best, especially since it’s contrary (but superior) to the way the rotate button works on other devices, like the Acer C1xx series.

Comments Off on Making the M200 rotate button work

Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-01-21 · 10:30

SPOT wish list, part 1

In no particular order, a few SPOT features I’d like to see:

  • Make weather for my custom cities appear in the “glance” channel.
  • When I set up a travel date, make my home city weather appear in the “my cities” page on the weather channel. After all, MSN knows where my normal home city is.
  • Add the ability to send IMs to the watch from the Mac MSN Messenger client. Several folks I know at MS have made this same suggestion to both the SPOT and Mac Messenger teams, but it’s apparently rather a lot of work, so I don’t know if this is going to happen.
  • Provide better management of downloaded watch faces (lots of people have asked for this)
  • Allow me to get alerts for flight delays on the watch. I’d pay extra for this.
  • Offer a premium newswire service, with e.g. business news from Dow Jones. I’d pay extra for this, provided that the latency was still acceptable.

If you’ve got specific features you’d like to see added or change, list them in the comments, and I’ll forward it on to the SPOT team.

1 Comment

Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-01-21 · 09:46

3sharp’s new law firm

We don’t have a law firm yet, but I think we should hire Morrison and Foerster, based solely on their URL.

Comments Off on 3sharp’s new law firm

Filed under Musings

2004-01-21 · 08:08

Today’s irony

Last night I had dinner with Tom Meunier (a fellow Exchange MVP) and my partner, Peter. One of the topics for discussion was closed captioning; Tom mentioned that he and his wife often turned on captioning for DVDs so they could still follow the action when their kids were being noisy. It turns out that The Miracle Worker, a biography of Helen Keller, doesn’t have closed captioning. This struck us as particularly ironic: if you were deaf and wanted to see the definitive biography of perhaps the most famous deaf American, you’d be out of luck. (According to Tom, the DVD has French and Spanish subtitles, so all is not lost.)

Comments Off on Today’s irony

Filed under Musings

2004-01-16 · 16:08

Toshiba accelerometer utilities

Toshiba’s been touting the fact that the M200 has a dual-axis accelerometer that lets the computer sense what physical orientation you have it in. I couldn’t figure out how to enable the sensor, but it turns out that you need to download a tool from Toshiba to enable it.

Comments Off on Toshiba accelerometer utilities

Filed under General Tech Stuff