Category: Technology

Data Grief

Technology

Damn Damn Damn…

My hard drive died on Thursday, and I didn’t even know it was sick. And being someone who works in the technology field, someone who claims some familiarity with computers and their operation, it makes me a bigger idiot than most who suffer this painful fate. No joke, top among the items in my computer’s ‘to-do’ list was ‘Backup Powerbook’.

The magnitude is only slowly sinking in. Things weren’t a total loss. My work stuff is all backed up at the office as of a couple weeks ago, and my Treo has my address book and calendar, no loss there. All of my music is on my iPod, and I hoped all of my photos were as well. But last night I learned it only had thumbnail size iPod-friendly copies, not the originals at their full resolution. Thank goodness for Flickr, my share-worthy photos are safe.

I bought my Powerbook in April 2005, so it’s hard drive managed less than two years of use before its total failure. That’s a discouraging fact. My son inherited my old laptop at the time and I left my own account on it, so my memory wipe isn’t total, it just reaches back to April 2005.

The most painful losses; emails, photos, quicken data, family tree information, notes/writings…I am a digital amnesia victim, trying to rebuild my technical self. And how much will I invest to try and recover any of it? I’m already in for a few hundred dollars on the utility software that wasn’t able to do the job, the initial professional attempt, and the replacement hard drive to get the computer working again. The repair shop recommended a company called Drive Savers, I think I’ll look into that. They say it’s very expensive.

OK, this time for real, I’ll get religion on backing up regularly, really…

Damn damn damn!

UPDATE: I heard from Drive Savers today… ‘severe media damage – unrecoverable’. Damn damn damn!

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Learning to Swim While Drowning in Spam

Rants, Technology
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I already knew I got a lot of spam, probably more than many since I have multiple email accounts, manage domains that default to my email, and have recklessly shared my own email address online for many years. But back in October, I decided to check just how much. So for a week, I saved my spam and counted it. During the week of October 2-8, I received 3,129 spam email messages, an average of 447 each day. Among the top subject lines were:Re: HI, Need medicine? All here!, We cure any disease!, Full of health? Then don’t click!, and Our store is your cureall!

And it could have ended there, a sad peek into the ugly wasteland that email has become. But no, it got worse, I could just tell. And so later the same month I repeated the same spam counting experiment. And during the week of October 23 – 29 I received 5009 spam emails for an average of 715 a day. Please, can I get a sympathetic WTF here??!!

At the end of my rope, I finally took steps that I had long resisted in order to stem the flow by signing up with Spam Arrest, a spam filtering service. I had heard good reviews from a few people, but was still hesitant to put anything between me and my email. Now I only regret having waited so long.

Sometimes a simple technology change can be a real lifestyle change. Caller ID, and Tivo are a couple of examples. Add Spam Arrest to that list. For the first time, I feel like I’m fighting back and maybe even have the upper hand in the fight against spam. Ninety-one percent of my email is spam! It’s sad that so much time and effort has to be wasted because of these lowlife email hucksters. It’s sadder still that there must be more than enough suckers in the world who respond to their crap that spam is a viable business at all.

It’s a big problem, and getting worse. Thank you Spam Arrest for giving me a way to fight back.

For further reading…

What’s with all this spam?
Network World, 11/8/06

‘Pump-and-Dump’ Spam Surge Linked to Russian Bot Herders
eWeek, 11/16/06

‘9 out of 10 e-mails now spam’
CNN.com, 11/27/06

Spam Doubles, Finding New Ways to Deliver Itself
The New York Times, 12/6/06

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Big in Beijing and Bankok

Rants, Technology

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Click on the map on the right. It is a visual display of where traffic to this web site originated during the month of February, 2006. Does anything jump out at you? I’m huge in Beijing and Bankok. And after the United States, the Phillipines sends more traffic to this site than any other country. Why?

I’d like to think it’s my thoughtful musings that attract such an international audience, but I suspect something more sinister. I’ve been a big fan of Movable Type, the software I use to manage this blog, for a few years now. And when I upgraded to the current version, I was particularly pleased with its built-in capability to recognize and divert junk comments. But recently, the junk has been slipping through, big time. I had the settings configured so that no comments went live until I approved them, so none of them ever got posted. But my time was still wasted in having to delete them by the dozens, day after day.

Here’s an example, “Your site is very nice 🙂 Respect to admin !”. In February, I had about 1300 such junk comments posted here.

What’s the point? Apparently it’s all about the return link to their own web sites that they can put in their comment, and the boosted Google rankings they will gain by widely spreading links to their site.

Well, as much as I enjoy the legitimate comments I do receive on my blog, I’ve got better things to do that clean-up the digital trash being left here from the other side of the world. So, for now anyway, I’ve disabled all comments in hopes they’ll go away, or a new upgrade of Movable Type can again give me the upper hand in this ridiculous battle against comment spam.

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Passed the Dem Test

Politics, Technology

Wow, I need to pay closer attention to my log files. I had noticed that I was getting a bunch of referrals coming from The Daily Kos, but hadn’t bothered to look into why. And a photo from my Flickr album of my daughter and I in the hot tub is my #1 most viewed picture among my Flickr photos, and again, I was unsure why. I guess I thought maybe lots of folks on Flickr searched the ‘hottub‘ tag looking for more attractive subjects. But no, that wasn’t it.

Tonight I finally stumbled across the answer. In the comment thread following a posting by Senator Kennedy on The Daily Kos, skeptics sought to determine the legitimacy of Kennedy’s campaign domain, did their online sleuthing, and shared their dossier on me in their comments. Happily, when Kos’ Commenters subjected me to their background check, I seem to have passed their Dem Cred test. Thank goodness for that. I wonder if any of them bought my book, or at least a casey.com t-shirt 🙂

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The Political Perils of Photoshop

Politics, Technology
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Memo to political consultants: be careful how you use Photoshop. Back in 1996, Senator John Warner’s campaign got caught moving their opponents head onto another body, and last year George Bush’s web site had a photo of him talking to an audience of cloned soldiers.

They both won their races, so a Photoshop scandal may be more a cause for brief embarrassment rather than lasting damage. But do you think that just days before the Republican primary in his campaign to become Governor of New Jersey that Bret Shundler would prefer not having to explain why the audience in this photo from his web site is so strangle reminiscent of this photo from a Howard Dean rally that took place in Virginia last summer?

In the world of fashion models, we accept or ignore the fact that the beauty we see on magazine covers isn’t necessarily reality as captured on film. So why should we expect more from a politician? Because fashion photos are selling fantasy, a visual ideal that doesn’t quite exist in real life. But from politicians, we cling to some hope that we can expect honesty, reality.

Joseph Stalin was an early proponent of re-touching photos to suit his needs. In Shundler’s case a “junior staffer” is wearing the blame for borrowing a Democratic crowd for his Republican client. And maybe that’s how it happened. Digital cameras and Photoshop have made such manipulations much easier, and so more tempting an option when the real photo isn’t quite what you’re looking for.

My own kids have grown up as photo skeptics, certain that they can’t always trust what you see in photos. I can’t imagine why.

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for further reading:

NJ-Gov: Schundler’s big F-up
Daily Kos

GOP candidate’s Web site used doctored Dean photo
AP

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Screwed by our Tivo!

Rants, Technology, Television

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I love my Tivo. It may sound wrong to love a product that’s only purpose is to help you watch TV. But the reality is, Tivo helps you to watch TV efficiently, on your schedule and terms.

But now and then, Tivo can let you down. Last weekend ours let us down in a BIG way.

We’re big fans of the CBS Reality show Survivor here at the Casey house. It’s one of the few shows on Television that we watch together as a family. In between seasons, we look forward to the premiere of the next show with anticipation. We have a ‘Season Pass‘ set on our Tivo so that it automatically records and saves Survivor so that we can watch it together as a family. Sometimes that means on Thursday nights, when we might start watching about 20 minutes after the show starts so that we can skip past the commercials. And frequently, due to many schedule conflicts, an episode sits on our Tivo waiting for such time as we can all watch it.

That was the case last Thursday. Jenny’s folks were visiting, and her and I were both out at evening events. The show recorded, and we eventually caught it. But somehow we missed the fact that the 2-hour season finale and reunion show would be on Sunday night rather than the regular Thursday night. And here’s where Tivo dropped the ball, it DIDN’t record the season finale for us! It was only by accident we discovered this fact and manually started the recording more than halfway through the show. So we caught the last 45 minutes, and the subsequent reunion show.

I love my Tivo, but I feel like it’s a friend that let me down. Maybe I’m an idiot who can’t work his toys, it’s happened before. But I don’t think that’s the case this time. Regardless, I’m sure I’ll forgive and forget.

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Riding the Tiger

Technology
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In the past I haven’t been the sort to rush out and get a new OS on Day 1. I mean really, if your computer is working, then why not wait a few weeks and let other bleeding edgers discover any lingering bugs for you? But the reviews for Apple’s new OS v.10.4, also known as Tiger, have been roundly positive and with my new Pbook barely two weeks old, I just had to have the latest and greatest, right?!

So far so cool. As system upgrades often do, Tiger incorporates a number of useful shareware items I’ve grown used to. The weather widget won’t replace WeatherPop for me, but Spotlight seems certain to mean the end of LaunchBar. I’m also not sure if the RSS feeds in Safari will replace my Newsreader NetNewsWire, but again, we’ll see.

I haven’t played with Automater much yet, seems to be friendly only with Apple apps that know what to do with it. But I’m looking forward to smart folders in Mail and Address Book.

Bottom line, if you’re a Mac user, get your Tiger. If you’re not a Mac user, then I’m very sorry for you.

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Money Earned & Comments Blocked

Technology

Since relocating and rebuilding casey.com and this blog, I have been enjoying the benefits of two new features; Google Ads and MT-Blacklist.

In the six weeks since I joined Google’s Adsense program and added the Google Ads that appear in the top banner of this blog and the search block that appears on the main page, I have earned $15. It’s not exactly a start to the kid’s college fund, but it’s thirty-five cents a day. I’m the sort that will stop and pick up a lucky penny if I come across it, so seven nickels a day is not too shabby. I don’t maintain this site to generate income, but I’ll take it if it comes my way. Besides, it’s kind of fun to see what kind of ads Google matches up with my varied postings.

The other big improvement was installing Jay Allen’s Movable Type Plug-in module for blocking comment and trackback spam, MT-Blacklist. Since re-launching this blog, MT-Blacklist has blocked 1,042 comment spams and removed numerous unwelcome trackback pings from appearing here. To all of the online low-lifes who wish to muddy my blog with their unwelcome pitches, I’m glad to say ‘piss off’. The only ads here will be the ones I invite.

So tonight I took the $15 that I have earned from Google, and donated it to Jay Allen. It’s not enough, but it’s something. Thank you Jay, your work is much appreciated.

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Google Maps

Technology

For a long time I have preferred using Yahoo! Maps over MapQuest. It just seemed to me that Yahoo’s offering provided more features and often found locations that MapQuest could not. But move over boys, there’s a new kid on the block.

Google has launched a beta version of a new service called Google Maps. My early review is that it leaves the others in it’s dust. As with Google’s other resources, the interface is much cleaner than both Yahoo and Mapquest, not cluttered with advertisements. Some may appreciate the direct links for finding things such as ATMs or WiFi hotspots on Yahoo and Mapquest, but Google Maps takes a more Google’ish approach. Looking for something in particular? Type it into the ‘Local Search’ box and see what you get.

I used a well-known address in an experiment to compare results among these three services; 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, better known as The White House (find each map yourself here: <a href=”http://us.rd.yahoo.com/maps//maps/extmap/%2A-http://maps.yahoo.com//maps_result?csz=Washington%2C+DC+20502-0001&state=…“>Yahoo, Mapquest, and Google). Of the three, only Google accurately places it’s marker for this address (maybe I’m nitpicking, Yahoo’s star lands on the entrance gate, but Mapquest lands on the wrong street, providing a back yard view of the White House from the Ellipse).

There are still a few things to be sorted out. Don’t look for a ‘bar’ near the White House, unless it’s a Bar Association you’re after. Maybe a ‘pub’? That will get you to Pueblo Memorial Airport in Colorado, no matter what your starting point. Try ‘tavern’ for better luck. And for Mac users, Google admits it’s not quite working yet in Apple’s Safari browser (my default), but that they’re working on it.

Yesterday Google Map’s directions helped us navigation our way to a high-school in Faquier County, about 45 miles away, without few hitches. The printed map didn’t highlight the route like the on-screen one, and the directions came on page 2, requiring a run back into the house from the driveway to grab them. Minor bumps. All in all, I’m eager to see how Google Maps develops. It’s off to a promising start.

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