This is pretty cool: people have figured out how to use GM’s OnStar hardware as a standalone GPS receiver. (See this site for some samples). To me, the real value of the OnStar service are its emergency-notification features, but having free driving directions and so forth would sure be handy too. It almost makes me willing to consider buying a GM product. Almost, I said.
Winged Migration (Perrin)
Stunning. We watched this on the projector, so that may have had something to do with it. The cinematography is beautiful; we were all wondering how the photographers were able to get close enough to get some of the shots they got. We see migratory birds in coastland, desert, Arctic, and estuarine environments, along with villages and a nasty-looking Eastern European factory of some kind. Incidental characters include some goose hunters, a French Navy frigate, penguins, an an old lady with a pot of corn. This was great family fare, and I’m glad we bought it– we’ll be watching it again. Highly recommended.
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Twas the night before Christmas
We have a family tradition: every year, on Christmas Eve, we read the Cajun Night Before Christmas to the kids. Some years I do it, but Dad’s much better at it, so he usually performs. This year, Dad recorded it to send out to friends, and I snagged a copy to post here for your listening enjoyment. We’re ready for Christmas now: the batteries are all charged, Santa’s snacks are laid out, and the (white, dead) turkey is in the fridge, ready for tomorrow’s trip to the oven. Merry Christmas to all!
Update: removed the link to the recording at the publisher’s request.
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Freedom of Religion
I believe in the 11th Article of Faith of our church:
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
This seems like a pretty basic concept, one that even witches understand. However, this understanding has been curiously absent from a lot of churches, to the point where “Christian” bookstores offer books about why one or another church is wrong (this, next to the section on how to ordain yourself and start your own church), or offering seminars on how to “save” people who are members of other denominations. Now here’s a radical thought– maybe the idea that freedom of religion includes tolerance is catching on:
Freedom of religion is not just to practice the religion of your own, but the freedom and decency to respect someone else’s desire.
This from William B. Helmreich, a professor of the sociology of religion, in an NYT story on “Christmas Jews”, or Jews who volunteer to work on Christmas so that their Christian counterparts can take the day off. The article highlights reciprocity and tolerance of other faiths as necessary attributes of society. If only that would catch on more widely! Sadly, my experience has been that some of the people who claim most loudly to be Christian are the same people who are rigorously intolerant of other people’s faith. Jesus had somewhat to say about that.
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Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
Toshiba M200: first look
I got my M200 yesterday, courtesy of CDW. I didn’t get a chance to play with it much, and I forgot the AC adapter in Redmond, so my time with it has been limited. However, I’ve used it enough to form a few first impressions:
- The screen is not as sharp or crisp as the screen on my T30 or T40, nor is it as sharp as the 1024×768 screen on my old PowerBook G3. Compounding the problem, Toshiba ships the unit with a default wallpaper with lots of light colors and subtle gradations that a) makes the screen look worse and b) is ugly in se. Having said that, the extra resolution is quite nice.
- The keyboard has an excellent, snappy feel to it. Some of the key arrangements are odd (e.g. the Fn and Ctrl keys are reversed relative to the Thinkpads, and the tilde is next to the space bar instead of up next to the 1). This will take some getting used to.
- The built-in 802.11b has a hardware on/off switch– a little slider on the left-hand side of the case. Nice feature for those of us who travel on airplanes.
- Perceived speed is quite good; even though this machine has a Pentium M 1.5 and my Thinkpad has a 1.6 (with more RAM), it boots faster.
- Toshiba installs a bunch of crap on the default desktop (including demo versions of TabletPlanner and Zinio, the Office XP Tablet Pack, etc). However, they also include the full version of OneNote, WinDVD, and a drag-and-drop CD burning tool (these last two are superfluous for me since this machine doesn’t have an optical drive). IT does make the desktop look awfully cluttered.
- There are three little rubber feet at the frontmost edge of the palmrest. These are obviously here to keep screen marks off, which is nice. IBM solves this problem by recessing the screen into a frame that acts as a standoff; Apple doesn’t attempt to solve it (bah). It’s too early to tell if the feet will annoy me after typing.
I’m going to use this machine to write the last chapter of my book (once, that is, the AC adapter arrives), so I should be able to log some serious hours on it for the next two weeks. More later.
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
Watch out, Julie
If Julie ever suddenly disappears, I know who (or, rather, what) should get the blame: cannibal death cats from hell™. (Note to self: make sure John’s cat gets E_ACESSDENIED when trying to enter my room when I stay there…)
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Gratuitious Notes bashing
Obviously these guys have been using Notes.
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Filed under Smackdown!
IBM 802.11a/b/g card finally arrives
Some time ago, I posted about my misadventure in ordering a T40 without wireless connectivity. Shortly after I wrote that entry, I ordered one of IBM’s tri-mode cards from CDW, since they were expected to ship in early September. September came and went without a card. So did October and November. Finally, last week, I got four cards (one for each T40) and eagerly installed it. However, I forgot the crucial step of attaching the leads for the built-in antenna, so after I put everything back together, I found that my signal reception was really poor. At first I fumed. “Stupid IBM,” I muttered. “All this time and they ship me a card that doesn’t work.” Once I discovered my error, I was still fuming (at myself), but I have to admit to being impressed that the card got a signal at all with no antenna. It works great now, and it’s nice to have both PC Card slots back (since one of them is more-or-less permanently occupied by my smartcard reader). However, IBM’s Access Connections software still doesn’t work right; every time it launches, it tells me that my wireless driver is bad. So it goes.
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Sushi vs burgers
Joel Spolsky has a great book review this month that tears into the meaty topic of why Windows and UNIX programmers are so different. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because Windows sucks, nor (as suggested by the comments here) is it because Windows programmers are all brainwashed. Joel claims it’s a simple matter of cultural differences, and that’s true to a very large extent. In my own career, I’ve written code for VMS, various flavors of UNIX, Windows, and the classic Mac OS, and I can certainly finger the cultural differences that underlie each of their APIs and programming models. It’s just that one cultural assumption most UNIX programmers bring is that if it’s not done their way it’s wrong… how very American of them.
And, since Jeremy wondered why Joel has a fan club… he writes consistently interesting essays. Whether or not you agree with them, they’re always thought-provoking, which is more than can be said of lots of other writers.
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Two-way communications
Jeremy had an interesting post about the difference between writing and explaining, which he sees as two sometimes separate topics. I’ve had the same experience he describes: it’s usually easier to explain something in a conversational way (even if it’s via email or IM) than it is to sit down and write an explanation from scratch. When you’re writing, you don’t have the same information about your audience’s assumptions and knowledge that you do when you’re standing next to someone at the whiteboard.
My solution has been twofold. First, I tend to write like I talk; one consistent comment I’ve gotten from readers of my books and columns is that they like my conversational style (although I do have to write less conversationally for more formal audiences). The other is to treat my writing like a conversation; at least for books, I actively try to find volunteer reviewers with a wide range of experience levels, then I push them to give me good feedback. This helps a great deal, especially if you can find people to bounce ideas off as you go. It helps if you’re really familiar with your audience and the things they want to know, which is why I spend so much time talking to Exchange and Windows administrators in the larger community.
Of course, neither of these approaches actually helps you get the stupid writing done in the first place. For that, I recommend Heinlein’s Five Rules, as amended by Robert Sawyer.
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SmileTrain
When I first started my own business, I made it a point to send thank-you gifts to my customers– normally, that meant some kind of holiday gift basket sent to the project editor of each book I did. It was a good thought, but it had some problems. First, most people have enough holiday junk to eat; second, lots of people can’t eat the treats due to dietary or religious restrictions. Third, it’s a transient gift. Even with those limits, though, it definitely helped build my relationships with my customers, which is very important in the computer publishing industry– your brand determines whether you get great title opportunities or junky ones.
So, year before last I switched over and made donations to The Heifer Project in my clients’ names instead. This was well received, and I liked it that our gifts were accomplishing something positive . A number of clients said to me that they appreciated the gesture much more than they would have appreciated Yet Another Gift Basket.
This year, 3sharp wanted to do something similar (spurred on by Microsoft’s draconian no-gifts-to-employees policy), so we made a donation to SmileTrain, a charity that provides medical training and services to help repair cleft palates. Their web site puts it simply:
The greatest tragedy is that all of these children are suffering not because they were born with a cleft, but because they were born poor. Too poor to pay for a simple cure that has been around for decades. Helping these children is the mission of The Smile Train. We help provide free cleft surgery and related treatment for children who would otherwise never receive it.
It’s a great cause, and I’m thankful that we are able to contribute. If you’re looking for a good holiday cause, I encourage you to consider making a donation. 100% of donations go toward providing surgeries; their overhead expenses are paid for by their supporting sponsors. (n.b. Computer Associates, perhaps the most evil software company in the world [well, besides Oracle– ed], is a sponsor– proof that even the bad guys can do some good in the world.)
Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
Come support Mark for sheriff
My friend (and fellow Rotarian) Mark Wasylyshyn is running for sheriff of Wood County. His candidacy had to be suspended because of an archaic Ohio law that prevents municipal employees from taking part in most kinds of political activity; because he’s a sergeant in the Perrysburg Police Division, the law prevented him from continuing his candidacy. Fortunately, he had the gumption to ask the Perrysburg City Council to pass an ordinance overriding that law, and eventually they did. Because Mark had to suspend his candidacy until the ordinance took effect, he’s behind in the process of gathering signatures to get him on the ballot. To help fix this, he’s sponsoring a petition drive at Maggie’s Family Restaurant (at the corner of Ohio Rt 25 and Roachton Rd) from 5-7pm on Monday, 12/15.
If you’re over 18, registered to vote in Wood County, and a Republican, please come by and sign the petition. If you’re not, well, come anyway; you’d probably enjoy meeting Mark, who I know will do a terrific job as our next sheriff.
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Death Rain potato chips
In this week’s column, I wrote:
Many administrators I know like spicy food. (I’m not sure why. Having grown up in southern Louisiana, I have a large extended family that glories in eating stuff hot enough to peel paint; maybe I just gravitate to people who remind me of my cousins.) I recently learned of Blair’s Death Rain habanero potato chips, supposedly the hottest chip you can buy. I have some on order; if you’re interested, drop me an email message and I’ll let you know whether they’re a worthy gift for the snack-happy admin on your list.
So, I go look in the mail folder where column comments go, and there are seven or eight messages from people wanting to know more. This is unusual, insofar that a typical column will generate one or two responses, and this one’s only two days old. I don’t even have the chips yet, but it’s cool to see my linkage between Exchange admins and spicy food being experimentally confirmed.
For my readers: I ordered the chips from IronQ.com. They were $30 for a mixed case of 2oz bags. We’re eating them at our holiday party, so I’ll post a full report once I’ve tested them.
What are the odds?
If you do a Feedster search for Robichaux, you’ll quickly find Julian Robichaux‘s site. Turns out he’s an expert on Lotus Notes, the biggest competitor of the main product I specialize in. Since there aren’t all that many people named “Robichaux” in the world in the first place, I wonder exactly how we’re related. Hey, Julian, if you read this and decide to come over to the light side we’d love to have you!
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Smartphones: Mossberg vs Pogue
What a coincidence: David Pogue and Walt Mossberg both have columns about Windows Mobile smartphones today.
Mossberg (who rather seems to have it in for MS lately) says:
Neither phone [the MPx-200 and the Samsung i600] is anywhere near as good as the Treo 600. Unlike the Treo, they lack keyboards for entering large amounts of text, so I can’t recommend them for serious e-mail users.
Pogue, for his part, is a bit more friendly:
The MPx200 itself ($300) is a gorgeous flip phone, clad in shiny black plastic that resembles the lacquer of a Montblanc fountain pen. You can recharge the battery either by plugging its cradle into a wall or, when you’re traveling light, by connecting its U.S.B. cord to your laptop – a terrific touch. Either the cable or the cradle can also synchronize the phone’s address book, calendar and e-mail stash with Microsoft Outlook on a Windows PC. The two-way updating is effortless; just connecting the MPx200 fires up the ActiveSync software automatically.
Both columns miss some key points, though. Pogue seems to have missed the fact that the Windows Powered smartphones aren’t supposed to be PDAs… they’re phones first and foremost, but they also happen to synchronize with your Outlook data. Most people will use this functionality to get mobile access to contacts, tasks, and emails. Both columns make the point that– without a touchscreen or thumb-board– these phones are inferior for heavy email use, but that’s not what they’re designed for. For an average email user, either of these phones would be fine, and I don’t think either column made that point clear.
There are a few other errors and omissions in both articles (Pogue para 5: Verizon was an American company last time I checked, their Vodafone partnership notwithstanding; Mossberg para 16: Verizon has unlimited data plans, but they also has an unlimited “Express Network” plan that counts voice and data minutes as equal). Neither points out that the MPx-200 can be had for free (with activation, natch) from Amazon, probably because an upgraded MPx-220, with camera and Bluetooth, is due early next year. Pogue doesn’t mention the difference in size and weight between the Samsung and Motorola phones; it’s substantial, with my preference being toward the Samsung (although I still love the form factor of my 7135).
Puzzlingly, Pogue doesn’t mention the slow caller-ID problem that Mossberg centered his column criticism around; I’ve never heard any reports of this from the many MPx-200 users I know at Microsoft. It’ll be interesting to see what the root cause turns out to be.
Now, I need one of these phones for the chapter on OMA/EAS security for my forthcoming book. I think an MPx-200 will fill the bill.
Update: Mossberg was kind enough to write me a note (although it was sort of testy) pointing out a couple of errors in my original post. He says that the “people in charge of the phone software” admit that the caller ID problem is real, but I reiterate that none of the real-world users I know of have complained of it. Then again, I haven’t asked them. At least he wrote back; that’s what Scoble calls having a conversation.
Update 2: David Pogue wrote me a nice note politely taking issue with a couple of points. We agree that some folks won’t want a phone without a touch screen, and we (now) agree that yes, Verizon counts as a US phone company. Now, off to figure out whether there’s a market for a Missing Manual book on smartphones.
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