They just can’t win can they? More battery recalls this week, from Lenovo, Toshiba, Fujitsu and … yes, Dell, as they added 100,000 more batteries to their initial recall. My original look at the list of Dell batteries recalled was good, in that both the batteries for my XPS Gen 2 were OK.
Now, as I type this, time to check again. And … whew, safe again.
However, at this rate, Sony should just recall all the batteries they’ve made as this is starting (starting?) to get ridiculous.
As I wrote just a few days ago, people have become so enamored with texting and IM-ing that they feel conversations held within those domains are more honest and open than talking. Here’s technology that eliminates even the “Hello, I’m blah, blah” introduction. Rings that exchange information with a handshake.
Designed by Hideaki Matsui, these Information Rings might not save us from human contact, but they’ll at least make interactions much shorter and less necessary. Each of the rings stores the wearer’s personal information, so when a handshake
puts two rings close together they exchange the stored info, making small talk and introductions unnecessary. Source: SCI FI TECH
All I’ll say is soon shy geeks will inherit the world as no one will interact personally. The only change I might make is eliminate the handshake. Currently you have to touch the person. 
Tags: Jewelry, Information, Privacy
Long, long ago I wrote a post about the possibility that we were becoming too connected to our gadgetry. Today the SF Chronicle has an article called “Why tlk whn u cn txt?“, which writes about how many people are avoiding talking to each other by using technology — such as text messaging or email — instead. What’s frightening is that the young people that have grown up with this technology feel that hiding behind it actually presents a “more authentic self”.
“Teenagers and early 20-somethings would tell me that things like face-to-face and telephone and even e-mail are a cold medium and you can’t trust them, but the way you can really be authentic is through texting and instant messaging,” said San Jose State University Anthropology Professor Jan English-Lueck, who with her colleague, Professor Chuck Darrah, is conducting the Silicon Valley Cultures Project. Source: SFGate
Speaking to my psychologist wife, this is extremely frightening. If you live in a cocoon where you just IM and text people, you will unable to interact in real-life. You will end up, according to my wife, with two classes of people, withdrawn or disorganized.
And, despite why the story says, interaction and communication between people is more than words. There’s a whole non-verbal realm, and a psychologist should know better. My wife as far as to say, since this person has a website for therapy, it’s kind of obvious what she would say, isn’t it?
Tags: Psychology, Cellular, Text Messaging
Free wi-fi is cool, but sometimes you have to resort to an Internet Café. That’s nice as well, if you really need it, but what I miss is having the programs that I normally use installed on the computer. U3 Flash Drives take care of that issue by having the U3 Platform pre-installed on the flash drive, along with any of your personal favorites that have U3 versions.
Enter the Sandisk Cruzer Titanium 2GB flash drive (my thanks to Sandisk for the unit). Let me tell you, usually when I use a flash drive it’s a generic SD card stuck into my old trusty Lexar Jumpdrive Trio. But that’s not exactly an elegant solution, and the Jumpdrive, being fairly old, is pretty clunky and does not fit well into vertically mounted USB ports (if you have something else plugged into the other port, the Trio won’t fit).
What do you get in the package? You get:
The dimensions of the drive are 2.28″ x 0.75″ x 0.28″. Unlike the Trio, it has no problem fitting into a USB port with something else mounted. Also, unlike some drives, it doesn’t have a cap, but a connector that’s retractable and moved via a slider. The slider requires a reasonable amount of force to move, so it’s not going to accidentally move. The slider also doubles as an activity LED, which glows blue when the device is plugged in and active and blinks with activity.
The belt clip is nice, but it’s so tight, I couldn’t put it on a belt. At least not easily. On the other hand, it certainly won’t fall off either.
More info about U3 drives in general can be found here. When you start up a U3 drive, the launchpad will start up. 
Programs included on the drive are:
In the image you can see I also installed RoboForm2Go. More on this later.
Nicely, CruzerSync detected there was a new version when I launched it and asked to update the flash drive.
The programs are OK, especially Signup Shield, but I didn’t use any of them except Avast! I’m familiar with Avast! from it’s free PC AV solution, and it’s nice to go into a situation with an unknown PC and be safe. On the other hand, it takes a lot longer to update the Avast! program on the U3 drive than on a PC. Finally, unlike the PC solution, it’s not free, and apparently after two months the AV will stop updating.
As I said, I didn’t use Signup Shield, as I use Roboform on my home PCs, and thus I also used RoboForm2Go for U3 … but their uses are the same. I hadn’t used RoboForm2Go for U3 before, and I especially liked the new integration into the browser … rather than being limited to a toolbar at the bottom of the screen, which is what the non-U3 protable version does, it actually integrates the normal Roboform toolbar at the top of the browser window. Much nicer. (BTW, if you don’t already know, you can set, through the U3 Launcher, each program to start … or not start … immediately when the drive is inserted.
Claimed R/W speeds:
Read transfer speed: 15MB/s
Write transfer speed: 9MB/s
I actually got a write transfer speed of 10.8MB/s and a read speed of 14.8MB/s, using a 256MB file. Very nice, but naturally, your mileage will vary.
I’m not going to run through all the U3 programs, but one thing that’s nice about the U3 platform is that there is plenty of free (and not free) software out there. You can get to it through the launcher itself, though a menu option under the “Add Programs” menu item … it’’s called U3 Download Central, but you can also find it on the web. And of course your favorite search engine will lead you to other such programs.
Of course, I have to rant about something, and that would be the manual. Like most manuals nowadays, not just tech stuff, the manual leaves a lot to be desired. What I mean by that is that usually they skip some important stuff. Like how to move the slider, for example. I mean, I figured it out, but still. Reminds me of the coffeemaker I just bought. They combined the manual for the coffeemaker with a different submodel so I had to figure out that yes, the maker did have a strength selector and that I could choose the strength of the coffee.
Pricing for this product? For a 2GB version, the suggested retail price is $109.99. A 1GB version is $69.99. Naturally, you can find it for a lot cheaper if you try.
What’s my conclusion? This drive is fast, purportedly indestructable, small, light … and if I can ever get it on my belt, would actually stay put, as opposed to a lot of other stuff I carry. The U3 platform and the generous 2GB of space means you can carry around just about everything you need to “personalize” any PC for your use. I’d highly recommend this product.
So where have I been? No posts for 5 days. If you followed my switch from SBC (now AT&T) DSL to Comcast, my performance results with Comcast were good, but the installer forgot some things, which didn’t leave me with a high sense of confidence.
About 3 weeks ago there was a Comcast outage in the area (confirmed by the auto-message I received when calling tech support). Since then I have had intermittent high packet loss across all hops (confirmed by PingPlotter) to Yahoo. Alternatively, I get high packet loss, including around 70% to one hop, to 3 Comcast servers in Hayward.
They sent out a “Premises” tech on 9/7 (or really, 2 techs). They said, yep, nothing wrong with my stuff, has to be something to call in a network tech for. They said others in my area have been seeing issues but that they had to escalate.
So, I called again on Thursday 9/14 and they had no record of anyone coming out on 9/7, and definitely no indication of a network tech being ordered. What happened?
Before we get to that …
I had to call in another Premises tech and then go through the process again. Mind you, it can take 10 biz days for a network tech to be scheduled after the initial visit.
Naturally this didn’t sit well with me. I spoke to a supervisor, and she kept giving me the “we have to follow procedure” idiocy. Finally she hung up. Incredibly unprofessional since I had not raised my voice or become impolite.
Anyway, I called back, spoke to a different supervisor who said it was unprofessional of the first supervisor, and said he would try to set up a network technician for today, 9/16.
Unfortunately I received a call from Comcast and it was another premise tech. I called Comcast to confirm a few things. Note that despite saying I was calling about HSI, I was connected with a rep who a) could not read me the notes from the prior day (for some reason), b) was not with HSI. When she connected me to HSI, she transferred me to the business support center, who were closed.
Sigh. Called back angrily. Anyway, the premises tech came out and here’s what he said: Comcast uses a lot of contractors. Those contractors like to come to a site, get paid, and say the customer cancelled to cover their tracks. That’s what happened to me!
This new tech found a chewed up cable, which he replaced, and he said they also had added an unnecessary filter. He removed it, and said things would be much better. Which they are. Thanks to Lee of Comcast, BTW.
So what have I learned? If you need Comcast to come out to repair your HSI, make sure you say, “no contractors!”
Tags: Broadband, Comcast, Tech Support
An experiment with old smartphones and PDAs bought on eBay showed there was a large amount of data on them. People didn’t do the necessary hard reset to remove the data.
For devices such as the Palm 650, that involves pressing the reset button and holding the power key down at the same time … then you should get an “Erase all data?” prompt.
This varies from device to device, and from OS to OS, which is what makes it a pain. Still, so many execs carry these devices now, with a lot of sensitive information, that it’s necessary to be able to do this.
Tags: Smartphone, PDA, PalmOS, Pocket PC, Security
Want to know where your Mac or iPod was built? Personally, I still don’t have a Mac, but my wife has an iPod … hmmm …
Anyway, there’s a freeware program called coconutIdentityCard that will do that, as long as your Mac is built after 1997 and has OS 10.3.9 or later. It’ll also tell you if your Mac’s serial number is in the database of stolen Macs.
Why would you want to do this? Honestly, I can’t really think of a good reason … except that the geeks among us (including me) are usually so obsessive, this would interest them.
Tags: iPod, Apple, Mac, Technology, Freeware
Granted, the poll was only in London, but a unscientific poll (meaning, I asked people) shows most people agree with this. I mean, it seems like we can’t rely on people to be polite and shut off their cell phones when asked (or when it would be polite), so why not enforce it?
Of course, there are plenty of people who will say, well, what if my child gets sick or there’s an emergency. How often does that happen, however? Let’s say we agree to this, how would we get around this, then?
Ars Technica has an idea of technology that would force cell phones into vibrate mode. And, as the article says, that sort of tech would have to be developed and built into phone. He thinks that would be a better solution, and long-term, he’s probably right, but for now, I would rather have small bricks for 2 hours or so than nagging cell phone ringing during a performance.
Tags: Cell phones, movies, technology, theatre
And why not? Microsoft has always struggled against Japanese rivals Nintendo and Sony in Japan. The XBox 360 hasn’t been selling anywhere near as well as in other countries there.
Business daily Nihon Keizai said Microsoft plans to launch a simpler version that lacks a hard disk drive and other accessories on November 2 for 29,800 yen ($255), about 10,000 yen ($86) less than its standard version. Source: Yahoo! News
But besides why not, I have to say … a version with no hard drive? Ugh.
I wrote recently about Jury Selection software, which was used to supplement human decisions on jury selection. China has gone a step further, and actually hands out court sentences via software. Of course, things are not quite so cut-and-dried as they may seem.
The Zichuan District Court in east China’s Shandong province has installed programs on judges’ computers that provide advice on the proper verdicts in criminal cases, the state-run China Daily reported. The move appears to be aimed at ensuring standardized decisions and addressing common complaints that China’s judges are ill-trained, corrupt and make arbitrary rulings. Source: Yahoo! News
So, the decisions are still finalized by humans, but the program gives out what it feels are appropriate sentences. The words “ensuring standardized decisions”, “ill-trained, corrupt” give a peek at what’s really on the minds of China’s government, in using this software.
Still, I would not be too happy if there were bugs in the software and I was a defendent!
Tags: technology, China, Government, Court, Judge
