LB's Rambles

Say the Secret Word

2009-11-13T07:14:58-05:00

Let's face it: passwords are important. If you bank on line, or shop on line, or register for secure sites, or log on at work, or sign in to your office computer from home, you need a decent password. If you don't think there are people out there trying to steal your secret words, take a quick look at a lot of the spam caught in your spam filter folder. Identity theft matters, and sometimes a decent password can be your only protection against it. Using your dog's name can be a lot less secure than you may think.

So how do you come up with a decent password? One that will be virtually impossible for others to guess - but easy for you to create and remember? Writing at Slate, Farhad Manjoo has a surprisingly easy two-step solution which could solve your problem. Highly recommended before you start your online shopping for the holidays.

Hat tip: Steve Rubel

Flying the Wi-Fi Skies

2009-11-11T06:00:00-05:00

I'm seeing a lot of tweets and status messages from surprised and happy travelers over the past couple of days: Google and Microsoft are both providing free Wi-fi services to some airline passengers and airports. Oh, there's a price of sorts: usually the users have to sit through some brief promotion from the sponsor. But that seems a very small price indeed for a service which can make flying time more productive - and, if not productive, certainly more entertaining.

Om Malik has the details. He thinks it's a smart marketing move, and he's probably right. Seems like a nice holiday present for many of us. Or, as the irrepressible Gizmodo puts it, "Holiday season air travel just got a little less crappy." That's really saying something.

Hat tip: MediaPost (which calls it a "freemium." Not bad!)

Interpreting the Numbers About News

2009-11-10T09:47:14-05:00

There are some very interesting statistics about the news media, from the points of view of news providers and news consumers, contained in a new report from MediaPost's Daily Research Brief. The report, based on the results of a study by the American Press Institute, is focused on the question of paid online content, a topic of considerable discussion these days. And, as you might expect, news providers and news consumers have quite different viewpoints.

But what I found most interesting was some revealing numbers contained in the report. For example, there really is little difference between users and providers when it comes to considering online news and information very or somewhat valuable: 95% of users and 93% of providers. So far, so good. But when asked how easy it would be to replace online content if a particular news site chose to put it behind a subscription wall, only 31% of the providers thought it would be very or somewhat easy to replace - compared with 52% of their readers. That's a pretty significant disconnect, and it ought to be a warning bell for providers.

It gets worse: when asked what they thought would be a likely alternative source if free online content disappeared, 75% of providers said they expected readers would turn to their print editions. Only 30% of the readers agreed. If those numbers are at all accurate, those print editions could be in serious trouble.

All this comes just as News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch is making noises about blocking his websites from Google's search engines. That strikes a lot of us as suicidal; I recommend this analysis from Mashable to explain why. Murdoch is a very smart man, but if you want to get an idea of how boneheaded this move would be, go do a Google search for the Wall Street Journal (which is mostly behind a pay wall, but is indexed) and imagine what would happen if all those listings were to disappear. Would you go out and buy a hard copy of the Journal, based on intuition? Or would you simply go to the next search result on Google?

How to Help a Veteran

2009-11-10T06:00:00-05:00

With Veterans' Day coming up this week, it's a good time to remember that we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude towards this country's service men and women. (Disclosure: that would include my younger daughter and her husband.)

USA Today has a list of ten specific actions you may take to show your support both for troops on active duty and veterans. Some involved contributing money, some for contributing time. However you choose, your participation will be most welcome - and most necessary. Thank you.

Hat tip: @Remind_org via Twitter.

"Smallbone Deceased"

2009-11-09T16:02:13-05:00

It is distressing when members of a prestigious English law firm cannot find one of their prominent clients, the trustee of a charitable foundation. It is more distressing when that client turns up - quite dead - inside an oversized safe deposit box, or deed box. That's the situation in "Smallbone Deceased," by Michael Gilbert, which is reviewed on this week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast. You can listen to the complete review here.

Gilbert was a much-honored writer of all kinds of crime fiction, and "Smallbone Deceased" is widely regarded as one of his best books. It is a classic puzzle mystery, with the major clues made available to the reader who will be challenged to solve the mystery before the detectives can do so. First published in 1950, it is one of the few Gilbert mysteries available in print. If you're a fan of these puzzles, you'll enjoy it.

For more discussions about this and other mysteries, please visit www.classicmysteries.net and join in the conversation.

My New Droid

2009-11-07T19:36:10-05:00

I am not a first-day-adapter when it comes to new technology. My attitude towards cellphones, in particular, has been to treat them as necessary (and not particularly user-friendly) evils.

So why was I at the Verizon store yesterday to be among the first to buy Motorola's new Droid phone?

Several reasons.

First of all, I have long envied those who own and use Apple iPhones. But the iPhone is locked into the AT&T system - and that's a deal-killer for me. I left AT&T years ago, because their signal is virtually unusable in my neighborhood. End of story. So the iPhone, while I loved everything I heard about it - and I heard a great deal from tech-savvy people I know and trust - was simply off-limits for me.

But the Droid operates on Verizon's network, which is where I need to be, because it really is the only network with acceptable service where I live. Is it an iPhone wannabe? Not really - but it is a tremendously versatile phone. Here's a good, side-by-side comparison between the Droid and the iPhone. You can see for yourself where the Droid can do some things the iPhone can't do - and vice versa, to be sure. There's a good, thorough review at Associated Content, too.

As for me, I love the Google Maps-based turn-by-turn driving instructions (which I am still learning to use). I like the Facebook widget which lets me stay up to date there. I'm looking for a good Twitter app - and would welcome any comments you care to leave here. I like the way YouTube videos play on the remarkably high-res screen. I like the way new email is announced in a malevolent-robot voice that says DROID! The keyboard takes some getting used to - for a touch typist, that's true on ANY mini-keyboard, including touchscreens. I'm told I can convert DVDs to MP4s and take them on the road for viewing on planes. I'm really just beginning to explore the possibilities. But I'm glad I did this.

Oh yeah - and it makes phone calls, too. ;-)

UPDATE: Here's a very good review from Randy Neal at KnoxViews. Hat tip: Instapundit.

Impressing the Boss via Social Media

2009-11-05T20:06:20-05:00

What should be the role of social media inside most companies? Is there room for employees to use sites such as Twitter and Facebook to benefit the company and themselves? Scot Herrrick thinks so, and, at his CubeRules site, he offers five suggestions for becoming a star employee in social media.

Hat tip: IAB SmartBrief

Dash It All

2009-11-05T15:00:27-05:00

Privacy advocates have long been engaged in a battle against what they perceive to be invasion of user privacy by websites. They object to the collection of data by sites - particularly the big sites, such as Google - which could allow advertisers to target users with what could be relevant ads. It's a topic and a complaint which has flared repeatedly over the years.

So it's worth noting that Google is now making a kind of privacy dashboard available to users, to let them know what different Google apps may be collecting about individual users (or groups, for that matter). According to Mashable, it's a good way to create in one convenient place a one-stop report on everything the communications giant may know about you. You'll find instructions at the link that will take you to your own Dashboad page, where you may also choose to alter some of the settings to limit the amount of shared information.

I've Got a Little List...

2009-11-03T18:44:51-05:00

...or several people have a lot of large lists of the people they're following on Twitter. The mini-blogging service now has a built-in feature which lets you group the people you follow into lists, so that if, say, there are several people you find reliable talking about your brand, you can easily group them and stay current with their contributions.

David Berkowitz of 360i writes at the Social Media Insider blog that this is going to be a very useful feature, even though, as he says, there will undoubtedly be some users who try to game the system to improve their own standings (or followers). Whatever. He has some very practical suggestions about ways that Twitter lists can be useful to businesses - well, to be honest, can be useful to anyone.

One of his best suggestions, by the way, is to monitor the lists that you yourself are on. Follow the link above for instructions.

"The Longer Bodies"

2009-11-02T14:05:15-05:00

Murder most British is on tap this week, as our "Classic Mysteries" podcast reviews "The Longer Bodies," by Gladys Mitchell. This novel, which first appeared in 1930, features the detective work of Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, a psychiatrist who helps the police - and who is sufficiently eccentric in her appearance and her behavior to be one of the more memorable detectives in fiction. You can listen to the full review here.

The plot is complex, but it begins with an old woman's plan to choose an heir for her rather considerable fortune by encouraging her grandnephews to train for the Olympics. Her idea is to award her estate to the first grandnephew to win an Olympic medal for Britain. If that sounds odd, let me stress that it is only the beginning of a most remarkable book that incorporates murder and a bit of madness as well.

If you are fond of mysteries from the golden age, or of other classic mysteries both before and after that era, I hope you'll come visit www.classicmysteries.net - that's where we continue our discussions about these fine vintage mysteries. Come on over and join the conversation!

Interesting Comparison

2009-10-31T12:23:27-04:00

At FreelanceWritingGigs, Poster "Deb" makes an interesting comparison between free-lance writing and Halloween - and comes up with six remarkable similarities. Really.

Hat tip: Sree Sreenivasan via Facebook and @sreenet on Twitter

Happy Birthday, Internet!

2009-10-30T14:45:58-04:00

Okay, so we're a day late. But PCWorld reminds us that the Internet came into being on October 29, 1969, with an attempt (only partially successful) to send a message from one computer to another at Stanford Research Institute. Details at the link. Computers don't eat birthday cake, but wouldn't cookies be appropriate?

Hat tip: IAB SmartBrief

Fandom of the Opera

2009-10-29T19:14:11-04:00

If you enjoy opera, and you're curious about the technologies involved in producing and distributing the Metropolitan Opera to television, movie theaters and mobile devices, you would have enjoyed a breakfast this morning featuring Mark Schubin. He's a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) and also the engineer in charge of the Met's media department.

Schubin was the featured speaker at one of Bill Sobel's SobelMedia breakfasts at the Samsung Experience in NYC, presenting a lively talk and slideshow called "Fandom of the Opera." If you think that opera occupies a relatively small and obscure niche in our culture, Schubin will disabuse you of that notion. Some of those live broadcasts have reached as high as #11 at the box office in the weekly movie attendance figures - and that's impressive (not to mention lucrative). Super Bowl popularity? No. But pretty impressive all the same.

Schubin's presentation has some pretty amazing statistics - and you can see most of his slides here, courtesy of his website. Some of the material is pretty amazing; you wouldn't believe the amount of work involved, not only in producing a show using up to 16 HD cameras, but providing simultaneous titling translations in a variety of languages. I also wasn't aware of the important role opera has played over a span of more than a century and a half, in terms of media development - most of the important inventions were foreshadowed by operatic experiments. Interesting - and highly entertaining - stuff.

Project Valour-IT

2009-10-26T14:40:28-04:00

We interrupt our usual flow of communications-related posts to ask you to consider a special kind of communication, coming from wounded American soldiers. Project Valour-IT provides special technology to help wounded soldiers communicate and recover. It's important work. They're in a fund-raiser now through Veterans' Day - you can get full details at the above link. I hope you'll consider a contribution.

Hat tip: The Kitchen Dispatch and Instapundit

"The Widening Stain"

2009-10-26T08:06:13-04:00

This week's podcast review on Classic Mysteries comes with the due weight, solemnity and overall gravitas one would expect to find at a prestigious Ivy League university. Or maybe not. The goings-on in Morris Bishop's "The Widening Stain" were sufficiently irreverent and offbeat for Bishop, a Cornell University professor and later the school's provost, to hide behind the unlikely pseudonym of "W. Bolingbroke Johnson," which may have been a good career move.

The book is marked by a significant number of funny limericks, some unfortunate professorial behavior, and a couple of murders, including a quite-well-done impossible crime. The Rue Morgue Press has brought this 1942 comic mystery back from relative obscurity - which is a fine thing for classic mystery readers.

And let me put in my weekly plug: for those of you who enjoy good mysteries, come visit me at www.classicmysteries.net and let's talk about them!