The Gray Geek

The Internet as Your Television

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:40:00 +0000

Mrs. Gray Geek and I were kicking some ideas around about ways we can save money. It's a brave new world out there, my fellow recessionists, and we all need to save dollars where we can. The path to digital enlightenment went as follows.

We don't watch anything "live" any more. Aside from sporting events, this is true. Now this really doesn't mean that we never, ever see anything when it's actually being broadcast, because we do. We turn on the TV when we want to be entertained in a manner that doesn't ask too much of our tired intellects and we will flip through the pages of the program guide on the Cable/DVR box, eventually winding up watching Yard Crashers or something like that on HGTV (that's a great show, by the way).

More accurately, we don't care whether anything is live or not. If we find something we want in the program guide in the first few seconds of looking, great! Otherwise we jump straight to the cable On Demand channel or switch on the XBOX 360 and Netflix.

We watch many things on the Internet already. Mrs. Gray Geek is a big fan of crime dramas (well, dramas in general), but they leave me cold. I feel as though I have enough drama in my life already, I don't need to get all worked up watching other people's pretend drama. She doesn't like putting things on TV that send me scurrying off to my office, so she will often watch her favorite dramas on her computer, back in her office.

You're not surprised to hear that Casa Lautenschlager has more than one office, complete with computer, are you? Good, I didn't think you would be.

The XBOX 360 just added Hulu Plus to its menus. Our game consoles, XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii, are already connected to the television in our family room. We use the XBOX 360 for watching DVD movies and streaming Netflix -- it works superbly for both. Recently I noticed that Hulu Plus joined the Video Marketplace lineup, and that was what started the whole conversation.

Could we replace our cable TV subscription with just Internet programming?

Right off the bat, you have to realize that you're not getting rid of your cable company entirely. You're still going to need high speed Internet access to make this work. You'll notice I didn't mention "DSL," and for good reason. DSL at 1.5 megabits per second download and 256 kilobits per second upload is the new dial up Internet access. Don't believe me? If you like reading geeky government documents, give this one a look. That is a PDF file of an FCC report in which they define broadband as a minimum of 4 megabits per second downstream and 1 megabit per second upstream.

That's right, DSL is officially no longer broadband.

More to the point, a 1.5 megabit per second download rate just won't do for streaming Internet television programming, and it won't even come close to handling HD programs. So step one to cutting the cord (or unplugging the dish, as the case may be) would be to get a nice big Internet pipe. Cable, AT&T U-Verse, or Verizon FIOS will all do.

Comcast advertises high speed Internet for $12.99 per month. That's for six months, however, and then the price goes up. Depending on your location, it will range from $42.95 to $59.95 per month. That's quite a lot! Competing services are no better. Do not be fooled by advertised prices. Those are nearly always an introductory special and subject to increase after a short while.

Let's take $45 per month as our Internet cost. Now we have the cost of premium programming.

After taxes, Netflix will cost you $10 per month for a streaming only plan.

Hulu Plus will cost $8 per month.

Keep in mind, you're going to want to watch TV programming on your television (that's why you bought that big screen TV, right?). So you're going to need a game console like an XBOX 360 or a PlayStation 3, or some sort of dedicated streaming device like the Roku Player or a Logitech Revue with Google TV. If you don't already have one of those, you'll need to spend between $100 and $300 one time cost.

While Netflix and Hulu Plus will give you a lot of streaming programming, they won't carry everything you want to see. You will also need some other subscriptions, depending on your taste. For things that are streamed through a network's web site, you will need a computer connected with your TV set.

Yes, I know, it doesn't have to be a computer. It could be a tablet with the proper kind of interface, or any one of a number of things. But a computer will work best. My favorite computer for this application is Apple's Mac Mini. You'll need to spend about $700 for the base model Mac Mini, then you'll want to buy some options to connect it with your TV and control it from across the room, so figure on $900 by the time you're done.

Of course, if you already have a computer that has an interface to connect with your TV and a control system that lets you run it from your recliner, you can skip that. But don't overlook it without giving it some thought. For the perfect Internet television environment, you're going to want a web browser in the mix also.

So where are we? Cable Internet plus Netflix plus Hulu Plus equals $63 per month. You may want to add some other subscriptions to it, don't be surprised if you spend another $10 to $20 a month.

If you don't have a game console and a computer connected to your TV already, you'll be spending something north of $1,000 to buy that equipment.

And when you're done, you still have to be prepared to jump between devices and programming services to find what you want.

We haven't really answered the question yet, have we?

Nope! Because there is no hard and fast answer. You're not going to save very much money by canceling your cable or satellite TV service, and you're going to make controlling your programming quite a bit more complicated. Of course, if you are paying for Netflix and/or Hulu Plus already, you can see more savings than if you had to add them.

But is it better? It might be, but again there isn't a clear answer. These Internet programming services are getting better every year, but they still aren't as simple to use as your cable or satellite box's program guide would be. You'll have more choices, but will you be able to find them?

And don't forget, your cable or satellite TV service is more than likely feeding several rooms in your house. We have three cable boxes, for example. You'll need to do something for each of those locations also.

This isn't going to save you any great amount of money, not really. It may give you the geeky cool head rush of commanding your Starship Entertainment, but before you let that make you dizzy and start ordering parts, picture yourself explaining how the controls work to your spouse, or your children.

Here is what I think will happen to make this a moot point.

The future is on demand programming. We're already so close to it that it's at most a couple of years away. The program guide will go away, as we know it today. You'll choose the show and episode you want to watch, and it will come on your television right then. When you want it, not when they happened to schedule it.

For what it's worth, it will be delivered over what is basically a high speed Internet connection. It might be a private network instead of the public Internet, but it'll use the same technologies.

And it will all be delivered with a single box and a single remote control. The battle will then become, can the Internet providers like AT&T and Comcast find a way to block you from using the competing service's programming box on the other's high speed Internet network. There isn't any technical reason why you couldn't do it, but I can see them lining up for the battle now.

All this has made my head hurt. I think I shall open a cold beer and watch an old episode of Top Gear on Netflix...

Chromebooks are not a Good Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 16 May 2011 03:27:00 +0000

I've been giving this a lot of thought. I wanted to like the idea of Chromebooks. Really, I did! But I just can't, and let me tell you why.

Oddly enough, I'm going to begin by saying something positive about them. I believe that Google has the right idea when it comes to "working in the cloud." Yes, there are certain things that require fast local processing and enormous local storage.

- Graphics editing and composing, desktop publishing
- Video editing and rendering
- Audio editing and mixing

That's my list, pretty much. If you have others, the comments are open for your ... I don't know ... commenting pleasure?

Anyway, as I was saying, I think Google has the right idea about working in the cloud. Email, calendars, most word processing documents and spreadsheets, and just about everything else I do with my computers is best done when I'm connected to the web and working online. The information can be shared, it's safer than on my local hard drive, I can access it from anywhere including my phone, etc., etc., etc.

What I give up in terms of features in the software I use is far outweighed by those conveniences. And no, I'm not joking.

So let me see if I'm following you, geek-boy. Google has the right idea about working in the cloud, but their Chromebooks that are designed to do nothing but that are a bad idea?

Yep.

You'd better explain that, son.

Sure thing. You said it yourself, mythical voice in my head that I dialog with in my blog posts. Chromebooks are designed to do nothing but. Netbooks, on the other hand, which cost the same as Chromebooks, can run Chrome. AND they can do all that other computer stuff, too.

Chromebooks run on Atom processors. Netbooks run on Atom processors. Chromebooks have long battery life. Netbooks have long battery life. Chromebooks boot up in 8 seconds. Netbooks, er, well, don't.

So are you willing to give up the OPTION of local storage and running Windows applications, to boot up in 8 seconds rather than 30 or 45? Especially because once you boot that netbook and just put it to sleep instead of shutting it down, it will come back to the desktop in just about, yes, 8 seconds.

Google can't tether the Chrome browser to Chromebooks, not without killing it. They also can't block their Chrome web apps from running on netbooks, notebooks, and desktop computers. There is absolutely nothing they can do to give any kind of killer feature to a Chromebook. You can run the same browser, use the same cloud-based apps, and have the same security and safety that you get with a Chromebook.

And you don't need a Chromebook. That's why they're not a good idea.

Google will sell a few of them, of course. They have their fanboys. Myself, I love Chrome and Android, Google Apps, and the whole Google cloud-thing. But I get them just fine on my current computers, including my fabulous MacBook Air (which is certainly no netbook, but is every bit as portable). So I wish Google well, and I hope I'm wrong. But I just can't see the point of a Chromebook, which is really a netbook that does less for the same money. Sell Chromebooks for $149 and you'll sell a million per week. But they're not, so they won't.

At least that's what I think.

Are Facebook Groups Another Violation of Privacy?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 20:12:00 +0000

It wasn’t all that long ago when I was hollering about Facebook Places, the feature that lets people “check in” to places and tag their friends as being there with them. If Tom and Mike decide to stop for a beer and Tom checks in at the bar, tagging Mike at the same time, Mike had better hope that his wife is not Facebook Friends with either one of them. If she is, she’s going to know that her husband is not working late – or at least she’ll know that Tom SAYS her husband is not working late. At least Facebook Places has an option under Privacy Settings to disable your friends’ ability to check you in.

(Let me pause here and say that if you don’t know where this is, that would probably be a result of Facebook burying this option. I’m guessing here, but I would say that Facebook really doesn’t want you blocking friends from checking you in, because they want Places to become popular and they’re convinced tagging friends is crucial to that. Here’s what you do. From the Account menu, choose Privacy Settings. Look for the link that says “Customize Settings” and click that. Scroll down to “Things others share” and look for “Friends can check me in to Places.” Click the Edit button to the right of that and on the next screen choose Disabled. How’s that for buried deep?)

Now we have a another new feature, called Groups. Anyone can make a Facebook Group. To explain to you what one of these is gets a little complicated, so bear with me. We’ve always had Friends. People ask to be your Friend, you ask to be Friends with someone else, and then you see things about each other in your News Feed. If you’re a Facebook user, then you’re familiar with how this works. One key element to it is that when someone asks to be your Friend, Facebook checks with you to see if that’s okay. I wish, no…I long for the day when people were smart enough to only become Friends with other people they actually know, but expecting people to be smart is asking too much. (There! My obligatory “Men in Black” reference. If you’ve never seen the movie, go Netflix it now.)

Then we used to have a feature called Fan Pages. Someone would create a page and others could become Fans of it. Fan pages might be for a person, a sports team, a business, an organization or cause – anything could have a page. When you became a Fan of a page, all of your Friends were told “Mark Lautenschlager became a fan of Burping Softly Around Women.” with the implication being that if I liked something, you might also, and you should go take a look at the page. We still have these pages, but we just don’t call them “Fan Pages” any longer. It seems that the word “fan” doesn’t translate well into other languages and cultures. In America, we know that it’s short for “fanatic,” implying the enthusiastic support of something. But the rest of the planet thinks fanatics are bad. Just ask the Brits, where people become “supporters” of their “athletic clubs.” (I’ll let you make your own athletic supporter joke here.)

So Fan pages became just Pages, and we didn’t become a Fan, we just clicked the Like button. We already were used to clicking Like for things about our Friends that we saw on our News Feeds, so it was a simple extension. And again, you must choose to click Like. I can’t Like something FOR you.

Finally, we had Lists. A Facebook List was something that we made for ourselves. We could assign Friends to a List, and then we could send a single message to everyone, etc. It was a sort of mailing list feature, not many people even knew it existed, and hardly anyone used it.

So, what’s a Group? A Facebook Group is a combination of all of these. I could create a Group for family members, for my interest in playing World of Warcraft, for my church, for the pub I frequent – literally anything! When I create a Group, a page for that Group is made and I am the Administrator of the page. “How is that different from a Facebook Page made by some company or sports team,” you ask? Excellent question. First, Facebook claims that only an “authorized representative” of the subject of that Page can administrate it. That’s not true, as it happens. I created a Page for our church, and while if you asked them they would tell you that I certainly am “authorized” to do this, there is no way Facebook knows this.

The really BIG difference is this: Business, organizations, or people who create Facebook Pages have to get you to click that Like button, in order to attach yourself to the Page. They have the task of getting the word out about their Page. Every company in Western society has the little blue “F” logo on their website, TV commercials sport the URL for their Page, etc. Most of all, they’re counting on people to Like their Page, hoping that Friends of the people who Like their Page will see it and exclaim “Oh-ho! I didn’t know that the Frog Admirer’s Society had a Facebook page!” followed by visiting the Page and Liking it also.

Not so with a Group. With a Facebook Group, any member of the Group can add you to that Group. “Yeah, but surely Facebook will ASK me, right?” I can hear your indignation. You’d think so, but no. Adding someone to a Group is just like tagging them in a Photo or Video. As long as someone is your Friend and part of the Group, they can add you to it also. And you can’t stop them, no matter what you do. Once you are a member of a Group, you will start receiving notifications of activity within the group, including email messages sent to the Group. And all of your other Friends will see that you’ve been added to this Group.

And you can’t opt out of this. So, what can you do?

Well, the first time someone adds you to a Group that you’re not happy about, you can remove yourself from that Group, just like you can remove your tag from a photo or video. Once you’ve done that, not only can you not be added back to that particular Group (unless you request to be added back), but the person who added you and prompted the remove request will not be able to add you to any OTHER Groups, ever. That’s something, I suppose, but it’s still definitely closing the barn door well after the horses have left.

In the past, when you wanted to recommend a Page to me, you could do just that. You’d send me a suggestion that would tell me you think I’d like this page, and I could choose whether I wanted to Like it also, or not. No more. Now all of your Facebook Friends have the power to decide what you might like, and sign you up.

And with the “one strike and you’re out” policy, you’d better never make a mistake in adding any of your Friends to a Group. One remove request and you’re struck with the ban stick, forever.

Mark Zuckerberg said at a press conference, “We aren't trying to be hyperbolic when we say this is going to be a fundamental shift in the way people use Facebook.” Personally, I’m troubled by the fact that the new design of Groups seems to be solving the “problem” of people either not recommending a Group to their Friends, or their Friends declining to join.

Facebook has fixed what was not broken.

Why Adobe is the best AND the worst company, ever!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Let’s get one thing straight, Adobe makes great programs. I use Adobe Audition for my audio editing work, I have photographer friends who swear by Photoshop and Lightroom, and I know a few video editors who will tell you that if you HAVE to use a Windows PC for video editing, you’re crazy and you should be using Adobe Premiere to make the best of an awful situation.

Flash, despite the fact that Apple doesn’t like it, has turned the web into an interactive, multimedia environment rippling with video and music. Hideous menus and web site designs also, but that’s not Adobe’s fault.

So why do I say they are the worst company ever? Because - brace yourselves - they are EVEN more draconian in their customer policies than Apple. They know their software is great, they know people will pay breathtaking prices for it, and they know they can make us hop on one foot while barking like a dog to register it, and we WILL. That sort of power must be intoxicating. After all, it makes both Adobe and Apple behave like Cold War-era dictators towards their customers, so it must.

Let me give you two examples. First, Adobe Audition. I have a desktop and a laptop. I do audio editing on both, but never at the same time. If I’m in the office, I use the desktop with its faster processor, bigger screen, and more comfortable keyboard. I use the laptop when I’m on the road. I would like to install my copy of Audition on both computers. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? It still seems like a single license, no? Well, no. Not to Adobe it doesn’t. Oh, I can install Audition on both computers, but in order to use it on the laptop, I have to deactivate it on the desktop, then activate it on the laptop. If I forget to run the deactivation before leaving the office, I have officially screwed the pooch.

Even Microsoft permits me to install Office 2010 Home and Business Edition on one desktop and one laptop under a single license. Dear Adobe, when your policies make Microsoft look good, you should be worried.

Next, we have the curious case of Student and Teacher Editions. I have a part time job working for the church I’ve attended for the past 25 years, editing the pastor’s sermons into a weekly radio show. (You’ll find that, aside from Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, most of us who work in radio have more than one job. Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to talk into microphones?) Because of my 30+ years working in IT support, I also help with the office computers.

The church has a school. The school has an art teacher. The art teacher wants to use Photoshop and Premiere for art projects. So we set up a “media computer” and set out to order software. The Photoshop and Premiere bundle is called “Creative Suite 5 Production Premium.” At Amazon.com, it sells for $1,675.20. Or, $429.99 for the Student and Teacher version. I’ll give you three guesses which edition we ordered, and the first two don’t count.

The product arrives, and with it is a notice explaining that before we can get a serial number for installation, we have to submit documentation that we are in fact a school. No problem, I think. After all, we ARE a school. I punch in the URL for the web site and it tells me to submit a scan of the teacher’s photo ID. If the teacher’s ID does not feature a photo, I’m told to submit a scan of the ID plus a scan of a letter from the school’s registrar saying that the teacher in question is the art teacher and will be using this software.

Let’s pause here for a moment and consider that. What difference does the picture make? Will Adobe only license its software to our art teacher if she’s hot? She’s a perfectly lovely person, but she’s a married art teacher at a Christian school. She’s not posing for your calendar, Adobe! But, I digress.

We scan her teacher’s ID, we scan a letter from the registrar on school letterhead, and I submit both documents. As I did so, I was encouraged to find that our school was listed on the drop-down menu of schools that came up when I entered our city. The service Adobe was using for this verification had at least heard of us. After a couple of days, I receive an email saying further documentation is required.

They want a scan of her driver’s license, because that has a photo on it.

(Insert scream of frustration, here.)

Why? WHY? Give me one single reason why you need a picture of our art teacher, before you can decide that she’s actually our art teacher. Do art teachers all have a certain look to them? Are you checking faces against a terrorist watch list, so bad people can’t use Photoshop to make illustrated bomb plans? What could possibly be of value in seeing a photo ID for a teacher from a school that you recognize to be a school in the community entered?

Okay, here’s the part where we have to rewind back to the beginning of this post and realize that Adobe wants to watch me hop on one foot and bark like a dog. Since Photoshop and Premiere are the best programs of their kind, and because we can’t install them without complying with this ridiculous request or paying $1,200 more for the regular retail version, I swallow my pride and my rage, and I hop while barking.

I emailed the school, saying that Jenny had to scan her driver’s license for me, also.

But I still hate you for it, Adobe. I hate you because your software is so good that you can treat me like a terrorist criminal pile of dog poop, and I’ll roll on my back and show you my belly.

Two thoughts occur to me in conclusion. One, there better never come a time when Adobe wants something from ME, or they’d better be prepared for a week of hopping and barking.

Two, I know for a fact that I am not the only one who hates how Adobe treats its customers like they were criminals, so the world is wide open for someone to be successful if they make products that are just as good (that right there is key, because there are competitors, but no one that is “as good”) and doesn’t treat its customers this badly.

Pro-tip: Facebook IS an Internet service, not your own personal playground.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:22:00 +0000

The Associated Press carried this story about a juror who updated her Facebook status, before the trial was over, to say they (the jury) were going to enjoy finding the defendant guilty. The defense attorney discovered what the juror had posted, and things got ugly from there.

First off, let me explain to you how I think the defense attorney found out what the juror had posted. There’s this nifty little free service from Google called Alerts. This gem lets you turn Google into your own research department. You just tell Google what you want to search for and how often to look, and Google emails you with whatever it finds. Because Google is constantly indexing the Internet, Alerts is a fantastic way of making certain you know the minute something is said about you or something you have an interest in. Like, I don’t know, maybe a trial you were working on?

Disclaimer: I have no idea whether the defense attorney used Google Alerts or not. But if I were a defense attorney, I would sure as heck put in search terms about my case, including the names of jurors. Why not? It only takes a minute to scan the emails Google sends you, and you don’t have to remember to search for things manually.

“But, how did Google pick up on the juror’s Facebook status?” you ask. Ah! Good question. Facebook’s “Recommended” privacy setting is for your status, photos, and posts to be public. (Also your bio and favorite quotations, and your family and relationships.) It’s easy enough, of course, to change this. But a lot of people don’t. In fact, Facebook would prefer that you didn’t. To be fair, they would say this is to make using the service “more social,” and that’s true. But I don’t care to share what I’m doing, or pictures of my kids, with “society.” If I’ve requested to be your Facebook friend, or I’ve accepted your request to be mine, it’s because I actually do know you. And every time I accept a request, I ask myself “would I care if this person knew the kinds of things I put on my Facebook page?” (I click Ignore, often.)

All that being said, I think there is a bigger issue here. People who use Facebook and Twitter regularly become comfortable with them. When you post status updates or tweets and your friends comment or reply, it gives you that warm, fuzzy, “connected” feeling. As it should. That’s what social networks were designed to do – give people a feeling of being connected with their friends, even though you might be separated by thousands of miles. However, the insidious nature of feeling comfortable makes you feel like it’s just you and your friends. You begin sharing things you shouldn’t (something the blogosphere has begun to call “over-sharing”), and you forget that anyone else using the Internet is, in effect, reading over your shoulder.

I have a friend at the Advanced Media Network, where I work on the Into Tomorrow show, who lives his life on social networks (hi, Rob!). He blogs, he facebooks, he tweets, he checks in on foursquare, and if something’s happening where he is – there are pictures of it, with video to follow. That’s not wrong, because that’s how he’s chosen to live his life. He knows you’re all watching, and he wants you to. That’s the whole point of posting. He doesn’t have to remember that social networks are public, because he’s counting on it.

It’s the rest of us (or maybe you?) who need to remind ourselves. Check your privacy settings on Facebook. Remember that Twitter is just ALWAYS public. Even text messages won’t STAY private, if you get yourself in any real trouble. Just ask Tiger Woods.

And remember – Google is always watching.

Swipebids.com Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:32:00 +0000

A few days ago, I posted my thoughts on the "penny auction" sites, naming Swipebids.com as an example because their advertisements on Facebook were intriguing enough to at least get me over to their site. I expressed my opinion that penny auctions are a scam. They are at best a form of gambling.

Today, I was emailed a comment apparently from someone at Swipebids.com. When I came to the blog to respond to the comment, I couldn't find it. However, since it was emailed to me, I'll copy and paste it in here.

Good Afternoon George,

My name is Jennifer, Head of Customer Service for Swipebids. I assure
you our website is not a scam and is entirely legit, please visit the
information below for confirmation.

The registration
page where your credit card information is inputted into our system
, has 4 locations where we notify customers of our
$159 Membership fee. Provided in the link below, you will see 1 right above where your information is inputted, 2 are off to the left and the last is right above the "Start Bidding" button, which will finalize your registration.
https://www.swipebids.com/registration_pg2.php

We show on our website quite a few pages of past winners, included we
show the price it was sold at, retail price and you can even confirm the
tracking numbers by clicking on the number itself. We have also given
away numerous cars to bidders within the United States and Australia
which can be verified at the link below
http://www.swipebids.com/all_past_winning_auction.php

We also sponsor numerous children through World Vision, the link below
will take you to the site where we describe how it all works and how we
started by sponsoring 100 children and we continue to add 1 more each
day in our effort to make a positive change.

http://www.swipebids.com/world_vision_charity.php

If you have any other questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me personally at jennifer@swipebids.com

Regards,

Jennifer
Head of Customer Service

Our Winners: http://www.swipebids.com/all_past_winning_auction.php
Our World Vision Charity: http://www.swipebids.com/world_vision_charity.php
Our Customer Service Page: http://www.swipebids.com/contact.php

My goodness. Where to begin? First, my name is Mark, it is not George. That leads me to question whether Jennifer meant to post her comment on another blog, hit mine by mistake, and after realizing her error, came back and deleted it.

Next, she defends the prominent placement of the $159 charge. I never said they were hiding it. My previous post mentions it clearly, in fact. It was right there on the home page. Let me be clear: Swipebids.com is not hiding the fact that you will have to give them $159 before you can bid. They're just hoping you'll do it anyway.

After that, we see a declaration that people win these auctions. That is correct. Someone does win every auction. However, that does not change my opinion that they are a scam. Your odds of winning reduce dramatically as more people buy bids on the site, while the site operator's profits go up sharply. It's a lottery. Yes, someone wins every item. But hundreds more don't. They spend $159, they don't get any of the shiny items advertised, and they're presented with a consolation price that is worth less than a coffee at Starbucks.

Jennifer, if you want to dispute that, please give me just one piece of information. On average, how many LOSING bidders are there for each item? I'm guessing you'll tell me that information is confidential.

And finally, there's the tug at charity. Don't misunderstand me, I support anything that will feed hungry children. I give money to charity frequently, and if this company actually does give money to World Vision, they have my appreciation for that. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with how they acquired the money. It's just a cheap play for our emotions, and it comes across looking weak.

These penny auction sites are not illegal. I am not suggesting they are breaking the law in any way. They are, however, a lottery, a form of gambling, and in my opinion, a scam. They scam you because they do not disclose exactly how these "auctions" work, and they do not warn you that your odds of winning an item are actually quite low. At least in Vegas, you know the house wins 90% of the time.

I did get a bit of email asking for specific details on how these sites function. I'm going to link you to a terrific bit of reporting from Wired.com, where they explain it plainly and reveal just what a sucker bet these penny auction sites are. They've done a better job at it than I could have, and they deserve the link. Wired.com "Penny Auctions Bet on Chump Change."

As for Jennifer from Swipebids.com, please do not hesitate to respond in a comment. I promise you that I will not delete it, nor edit it in any way. You can speak your piece. The facts are on my side in this discussion.

The scam of penny auctions: Swipebids.com.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Today I was motoring around Facebook, clicking status and taking names, when one of those sidebar ads caught my attention. They did it by appealing to my man gene. There are three ways to appeal to someone’s man gene. You can show him a woman in a seductive pose, you can show him a frosty mug of beer, or you can show him a BBQ Grill the size of a Chevy with wheels and tires and enough gleaming stainless steel to blind low-flying birds. That last one is what they used on me. Just below the picture of Grillasarus Rex was the following text.

Click here to see how our unique website can get you your dream BBQ Grill at up to 95% off retail price. No joke.

Wow. Ninety-five percent? That’s a lot, isn’t it? With my man gene fully stimulated, I clicked on the ad. I was directed to a website named Swipebids.com. Brightly colored pictures of vast warehouses of items, one of which just HAD to be Grillasarus Rex, were plastered across the page, and bold type proclaimed that they offered fantastic prices on brand new items because they bought from warehouse closeouts and overstocks. Furthermore, the text assured me, I could trust this because it’s been COVERED ON THE NEWS. (This, dear imaginary reader, is where my man gene was wrestled to the ground by my suspicion gene, tied up, and stuffed in to a burlap sack closed with duct tape.)

There was a prodigious array of logos from major news outlets across the top, and right dead center of it all was an embedded video showing some generic local newscast (I think I figured out it was from the Atlanta area) covering auctions. Only, it was covering auctions of police seizures and repossessions, and didn’t mention a single thing about closeouts or overstocks. The point was made during the report that the items were NOT new, they were just LIKE new, which again differed from the Swipebids.com text.

(Here’s a note to all you would-be scammers. When you slap up a video that has nothing to do with what you’re advertising, it’s counterproductive. We will notice.)

So now, I scroll down further and see a panel of auctions that just closed (allegedly), showing me screen names that had bought a Honda Civic for $1700 and change, a Macbook Pro for $120 and change, etc., etc. Pretty impressive stuff, if it was true at all. Under that were some more auctions that were just about to close. For the same sort of items, at the same sort of price. Clearly the pressure was on. Bid, damn you, BID!

Luckily my man gene’s muffled screams could not be heard through the burlap sack. I scroll down a bit further and see two things of interest. I’ll tell you about the second one, first. At the very bottom of the screen was the now-standard disclaimer of all Internet scam websites that vouch for their products by saying the news media has covered them. We have no affiliation with the companies identified by the logos above. They did not publish anything about our specific service. However, the subject of penny auctions was featured.

So, let me get this straight. I can trust you because the news media has covered you, only…they haven’t? Charming. Right above this disclaimer from hell was a list of names and beside each one it said “Name Goes Here invested $159 and won auctions worth $SomeHugeAmount.” Aha! The scam shows itself in the light of day!

Here’s how these penny auction scams work. They get your credit card and tell you that you’re “buying bids.” Get that? You’re not bidding on items, you’re not buying items, you’re buying bids. Once you’ve bought some bids, the auction site will bid for you on items, bumping the price up a few pennies at a time. What they SAY will happen is, as soon as there is no available bid for a given item, the auction closes and the last person who entered a bid on that item, wins it. The problem is, you have no control over what item you’re bidding on, and you have no control over how long the auction goes on. It’s not time limited, as legitimate sites like eBay are, it continues to run until it runs out of bids.

You could win something you don’t care about at all (a number of people complaining about Swipebids.com on scam alert websites said they “won” gift cards worth between $4 and $10), or you could pay the regular retail price for an item if the bids continued to come in. It’s all very vague.

The one thing that’s NOT vague is that YOUR credit card will be charged $159 for a supply of “bids.”

There are two lessons for us to learn here. First, always be skeptical. Look over the entire site first, and scroll down to the bottom where the disclaimers live. Any time an auction website wants money before you can bid, that’s a bad sign.

Second, just because the ads are repackaged into friendly little Facebook sidebar nuggets that look just like the official bits that come from Facebook itself means precisely nothing. Those ads are PACKED with scammers who want a piece of Facebook’s 500+ million users.

Make sure one of them isn’t you, okay?

The stock market and math

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:09:00 +0000

Not long ago, I had a meeting with a financial advisor and he shared something very interesting with me. Yeah, I know… What’s that got to do with tech, computer boy? As I’ve already reminded the both of you who read this blog, The Gray Geek is about me. And sometimes, I think about stuff other than technology. Not often, I grant you, but sometimes.

Anyway, the stock market. (My financial advisor friend did use a computer to show me this, by the way, so there!) Let’s say you have a dollar, to make the math easy. You invest that dollar and in year one, your investment gains 100 percent. How much do you have now? Two dollars, right?

Now year two. In year two, the value of your investment declines 50 percent. Now how much do you have? You’re back to your original one dollar. So, what is the rate of return on your investment over the past two years?

Zero? No. In fact, it’s 25 percent. Which sounds like you ought to be holding at least $1.25, but you’re not. You don’t have jack.

And that’s why you need to know the stock market’s dirty little secret. A smaller loss wipes out a bigger gain in dollars, but not in percentage. So the percentages look great, but long term investors are losing money. There’s an Oppenheimer mutual fund that I’ve been putting money in to for a long time now, years and years. Sometimes it’s been way up and sometimes it’s been down a bit, and recently I looked at the fund comparing what it’s worth to what I’ve actually paid in.

I’ve lost money. If I close it today and withdraw every dollar it’s worth, I will have paid more money than I have.

And the economists wonder why the small investor is getting out of the market and turning to bonds? They marvel over the fact that small investors don’t want to jump back in and catch the market at a low point, to profit on the ride back up? Really?

Here, I’ll help them out. Mister Economist, please take note. We can’t always figure out all your damn formulas and how those tricky percentages work, but we can count our money.

BlackBerry Media Sync errors on Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:32:00 +0000

Okay, here's the scenario. You have a computer that originally used Windows Vista. You downloaded the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 to it, in order to update and backup your BlackBerry. As part of that whole process, BlackBerry Media Sync was installed to help copy music and pictures between the BlackBerry and your computer.

Now that computer has been updated to Windows 7, and you notice the BlackBerry Desktop Manager 5.0 is now the BlackBerry Desktop SOFTWARE (perhaps we no longer manage things?) 6.0. Being a well trained computer user, you decide to update. Part of that update is to update the BlackBerry Media Sync from version 2.0 to version 3.0.

And then the entire process comes to a screeching halt. You're presented with an error box that says an invalid operating system has been detected, that BlackBerry Media Sync supports only Windows XP SP2 (apparently, they didn't get the memo about Service Pack 3?) and Windows Vista. It warns you that the program will now exit, and it does.

The problem isn't the new BB Media Sync 3.0 software. It works fine on Windows 7. In fact, so does BB Media Sync 2.0, but not the version you have! Version 3.0, you see, detects version 2.0 during its installation and attempts to uninstall the old version. And that promptly fails, giving you the false impression that the software you're trying to INSTALL won't work on Windows 7, not the version that's being UNINSTALLED.

This red herring can lead you on a wild goose chase, and if you give me a moment I'll think of some other archaic metaphors... Anyway, the solution is to update BB Media Sync to the very latest revision of version 2.0. You can download that file by following this link:

BB Media Sync 2.0

Run that, and it will offer to update your copy of version 2.0. Allow it to do so, and you have a Windows 7 compatible edition. Now you need to reinstall BB Desktop Software 6.0, so it can properly update you to the BB Media Sync 3.0.

Here's hoping at least one person is saved the hair-pulling that I endured tracking this fix down! :)

Windows 7 and the padlock icon

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:15:00 +0000

Have you ever looked at one of your folders using Windows 7 and noticed a strange padlock next to it? Have you ever wondered what in the heck that thing is? The padlock probably has several meanings, someone will need to beat the details out of some poor Microsoftie to know for sure, but one thing that it CAN mean is that some of the files in that folder (or sub-folders inside of that folder) have specific security permissions on them that are not inherited from the folders they reside in. In general, that isn't a good idea. You want to own folders, and then by extension anything in those folders. The good news is, there is a fairly easy - if a bit obscure - way of fixing this. You can remove the lock overlay in this case by resetting the permissions to be inherited, and removing all permissions that are not inherited.

Right click the folder, click Properties.
Click the Security tab.
Click Advanced.
Click Change Permissions.
Check Both boxes to Include inheritable permissions, and to Replace all child object permissions.
Click Apply then click Yes.
Wait for the list to refresh.
Remove all permissions that say "not inherited".

That should remove the Lock overlay.

You may need to uncheck Use Sharing Wizard in Folder Options on the View tab to see the Security tab, and may have to boot to Safe Mode as well, if running Home Basic or Premium.

Windows 7, Sleep mode, and the Blue Screen Of Death

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:29:00 +0000

For quite a while now, I've been having an occasional problem with my desktop computer. It's a big, fast, powerful rig from iBuyPower, the Gamer 930-I.

Core i7-860 processor
8GB of RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card
Dual SATA hard drives running in AHCI mode. The boot drive is a 500GB Seagate and the second drive is a 1TB Western Digital
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Like most old-time Windows geeks, I know that when you have a second PHYSICAL hard drive in your computer, you should put your paging file (aka the "swap file") on that second drive. Run your operating system off the boot drive, and page memory to a file on the second drive. That's been the rule for as long as I can recall, and it's a good one.

(Quick break for the non-geeks reading this.) No matter how much memory your computer has, it will want a paging file. This is a file on the hard disk to which Windows writes "pages" of memory that are not being used. A memory page is just a fixed-length block of memory. Rather than move things around in memory one byte at a time, Windows does it in pages. The paging file is where Windows will move pages of memory that have not been accessed for a while, if it finds that it needs that space for a program that's currently running. If you have two physical drives, you should always put this paging file on the drive where Windows is NOT. This lets your computer load the various bits of Windows at the same time it's paging memory without causing the hard drive to "thrash" by moving its drive heads around furiously. (Okay, enough of that.)

I was experiencing two symptoms. Both symptoms would occur when the computer was attempting to wake up from sleep mode.

Symptom #1: The computer would start to wake up, then crash with a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). The error message would be something like "KERNEL_INPAGE_ERROR" or something equally incomprehensible.

Symptom #2: The computer would wake all the way up, but suddenly be unable to access any file or folder on the second hard drive. Opening the Computer folder would show that the second hard drive was missing.

In both cases, a reboot fixed the problem. So what was it?

It turns out that when a computer is returning from sleep mode, it would expect that all hard drives would be ready in 10 seconds or less. It also turns out that sometimes, big hard drives like my 1TB second drive take longer than 10 seconds to be ready. Hence the BSODs and the disappearing act.

The fix is simple. You need an updated MSACHI.SYS file, which you can download as part of this hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178/en-us.

Please note there are three versions of the hotfix, one for x86 (that's the 32-bit Windows), x64 (64-bit Windows, duh!), and IA-64 (for the both of you running Itanium processors in your computer). Also note that there appears to be a "Version 2" of the hotfix. So when you go to download the file, take the one for your operating system with the most recent date on it. I noticed when I did that, there was a "V2" as part of the file name in the hotfix file after extracting it from the compressed file that you download.

After installing this, you should not see any more problems with your computer waking up from sleep mode. If this helps you, leave me a comment and let me know that it was worthwhile posting it.

And as quickly as it came -- it goes!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:12:00 +0000

In this post, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said they are dropping the plan to add Real ID (displaying your real first and last name) to forum postings. In my prior blog post on this (see below), I suggested that Blizzard did not have to use real first and last names, if in fact all they wanted to do was make people accountable for their forum posts. Create a "Forum ID," link it to your Battle.net login so you can only have one, and there you are. Still anonymous, yet accountable.

In the current post, Morhaime says you will post with your "character name + character code." I don't have the details on that yet, but it would appear that they are doing exactly what I suggested they should. Not because I suggested it, of course, I don't for a moment think they read my blog. I'm not even sure that YOU are reading my blog, imaginary friend, but still I press on in hopes that you do.

Now, two NEW questions beg to be asked.

1. Did Blizzard do this as a PR stunt? The outpouring of love to Blizzard for "listening to us" posted by the same people who yesterday were calling for heads on the chopping block suggests that we might have been played a bit, here. Personally, I doubt it, because of my next question, but it's still a valid topic for discussion.

2. Will the consequences be long lasting? People did quit the game over this. In our guild of 39 accounts (listing the characters is meaningless, since we all have more than one), 2 people have canceled their accounts. That's only 10%, but if it is representative of players worldwide, then 1.5 million accounts were canceled. Multiply that by $15 a month, and we're talking about a yacht's worth of income here. That's enough to make even the behemoth Blizzard Entertainment flinch.

And flinch they did. Wisely so, I believe. Now we will wait and see whether the canceled come back, and whether those who were angered will ever get over it.

Blizzard takes careful aim...at your privacy, and their foot!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:39:00 +0000

Is this the WoW killer? That's the provocative question asked by the popular MMO blog Massively.com in this recent post. Like everyone else, I have my opinions, but let's take a look at the facts, first.

1. Blizzard and Facebook are pals. Don't believe me? Here, read the press release. The plan, as I understand it, is to permit you to share your Battle.net identity through your Facebook friends list, AND to be able to import your Facebook friends into Battle.net. The net effect from either side is the same. Any of your Facebook friends who are also playing a Blizzard game will be revealed to you. You will be able to see what game and/or server they are playing on, and what their character's name is.

2. Blizzard added Real ID to Battle.net. Real ID is a system in which you send a friend request to someone in game using their email address (that's how you log in to Battle.net) instead of a character name. If they accept, you will then see them on your friends list under their real name, with the name of the character they are playing and what server they are playing on at the moment listed off to the right hand side. You have the ability to send a message to your friends even if they are logged in to a different server, or a different game altogether.

3. Blizzard announced that Real ID was coming to the official forums. Although it's not live yet, here's how it will work. To post a message on the official forums, you will need to sign in using your Battle.net account. Of course, you have to do that NOW. What will be different is that instead of selecting a character of yours to post with, your post will go up showing your real name, first and last. You can, if you wish, link a character name to the post, but you cannot post without giving readers your first and last name.

So those are the facts. The first question we must ask is why? Why is Blizzard doing this?

One reason is that Blizzard sees how much cash a game like Farmville generates through Facebook, and although none of the Blizzard games are casual social games like Farmville, Blizzard does not want to miss a money making opportunity. Don't believe for one minute that the sole reason Blizzard does something like this is to promote social networking among gamers. That might be the company line, but the TRUTH is that they are in business to make money. And if this helps them make more money, they will do it.

Another reason is that the official forums are, quite frankly, a cesspool. People create low level characters on a server other than the one they play on normally, and use that identity to post the sort of messages that you wouldn't take home to meet your mother. This has led to one of those phrases you only see on the Internet: "Post on your main or get out." Meaning, don't hide behind your anonymous character, post from your level 80 main character, the one we all will see in game, the one you have time invested in, and the one whose reputation you theoretically don't want to tarnish.

The flip side of that is sometimes you get more honesty when the threat of reprisal is removed. I have seen, on many occasions, messages posted by one of these anonymous level one characters that are brutally honest, saying the things that need to be said but aren't because of potential conflict with your friends. In a perfect world, you should be able to say anything to anyone, as long as it's the truth. But you and I both know that we don't live in a perfect world. People hold grudges, and the threat of that will stifle honesty at times.

Blizzard wants to change this culture. Forcing you to post under a single identity that is forever branded with your real name will pierce the veil of anonymity and bring accountability to the forums in the blink of an eye. There are some who applaud this and declare that it was long overdue. I am not among them.

The Internet is full of smart people. Even if I'm not one, and you're not one, they ARE out there. Time and time again, clever searchers have uncovered home addresses, telephone numbers, the names and addresses of relatives and employers, all from someone leaving their real name. It can be done and it IS done. If you have a disagreement with someone in game, it is not at all outside the realm of probability that this fight could spill over into real life. With everyone having access to the real first and last names of people who post on the forums, connecting the dots to enable such cyber-stalking is child's play.

Here is my opinion: This is a terrible idea and Blizzard does not have to do it simply to make people accountable for their forum rants. It would be a simple matter for Blizzard to link a "Forum ID" to your Battle.net account. All your forum posts would be made under that single identity, thus ensuring that you will not be able to hide when you insult someone, but without exposing people's real first and last name.

Whether this is a violation of privacy or not, legally, is murky. When you buy software or sign up for online accounts, you nearly always are presented with a Terms of Service that you must assent to in order to go forward. I don't read them, you don't read them, and they probably say we pledge our fortunes and our firstborn child along with our immortal soul, for the company to do with as it pleases. I'm quite certain that Blizzard has covered themselves for this somewhere, in one of the many Terms of Service screens we've seen and agreed to.

So I think Blizzard can do it. The question of whether they will do it still remains to be answered. My guess is that the backlash is so intense that Blizzard will back down and re-think this. But I wouldn't consider myself surprised if they pressed forward, either. Blizzard Entertainment, like my favorite fruity computer company, believes that they are Incredibly Smart and thus they know what's better for you than you do.

Oh, one final note. If you choose to exchange Real ID friend requests with someone, you should know that you can then see the Real IDs for all the OTHER people with whom your friend has done the same thing. And vice versa. Any Real ID friend of yours can see the real names of anyone else you've friended in this manner. You can't see any status on these friends of friends unless they send, and you accept, a Real ID friend request. But just having your real first and last name exposed in an online game makes my skin crawl.

A fix for the disappearing App World icon?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:36:00 +0000

If you follow my Twitter feed, you saw me warning people about a possible glitch with the App World update from 1.1.0.33 (which I shall call x.33 from here out) to 1.1.0.35 (yeah, um, x.35 it shall be!).

I accepted the update - hey, App World itself offered it! - and immediately lost all access to App World. I did a battery pull reset, but to no avail (that's the ultimate solution to most BlackBerry problems...with the power on, remove the back cover and knock the battery out by tapping the phone on the edge of your hand, and no I'm not kidding). I looked around to make sure it wasn't buried in a folder somewhere. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it a number of times.

Finally I visited the RIM Community Support Forums. It was there that I saw this gigantic message thread. While it was comforting to see that I was not alone and hundreds of others around the world were reporting the problem, no solution was being proposed. I saw a message where some guy said he received an update notice to the BB OS itself, installed that using BB Desktop Manager, and his icon returned.

I figured what the heck, I didn't have an update to install but you can reinstall the same version again if you want. Just click Application Loader and when it shows you your choices, the most recent one will be checked. The upgrade process will back up your data and third party apps, so the most you will lose is some preferences and the occasional key for the purchased app. (Which, assuming App World returned, I would have no problem retrieving!)

It worked. The App World icon returned to my desktop, just where I'd put it back when I was running the x.33 version. In a massively ironic moment, Verizon Wireless then pushed an ACTUAL update to the BB OS (from 5.0.0.592 to 5.0.0.732 - don't you love BlackBerry version numbers always looking like IP addresses?). So I had the privilege of repeating what I'd just spent an hour doing.

After returning to the support forums, I saw a post from one of the forum gurus that RIM was advising a "Security Wipe" (Options > Security Options > Security Wipe) to fix the problem. Right under that post was a message from a guy saying he'd tried it and App World was back, now where was his data and all his other apps? Here's a pro tip for you: Make certain you backup your data AND your third party apps because a Security Wipe means "delete everything on this BlackBerry and reload the basic software."

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, here's a post I made back in April that will walk you through it step by step. I feel bad for the guy who killed his BlackBerry, but come on! If the phrase "security wipe" doesn't clue you in to the fact that stuff is going to be erased, I don't know what will. But I also want to slap the guru for not including the simple warning to backup everything.

Here's the bottom line. RIM didn't really FIX anything. All they did was tell you to "reformat and reinstall Windows," to borrow a line from our buddies in Redmond. Will it work? Absolutely it will. Do we know what caused the problem in the first place? Not a clue.

Go ahead and update to the x.35 version of App World. It might work fine for you. But know that if your icon disappears, you get to spend an hour (or more, depending on how many apps need to be set up again) reformatting your BlackBerry. Oh, final note, don't worry about pictures, songs, or anything stored on your media card. None of these processes disturb anything on the media card.

Is it a matter of time before iBuy an iPad?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Scanning the post dates on this blog tells me one thing definitively. I have more ideas than I have the ability to sit down and write up. I can't begin to tell you, my imaginary reader-friend, how many times I will stop during the day and think "Wow! That would be a great blog post!" And by the time I get to a computer, even if that's just a few minutes later, I can't remember what the heck I was thinking.

Yeah, yeah. The AARP sent me a membership card in the mail this year. So what's your point? About short term memory? Ah, right. I'd forgotten.

Now I carry a very nice smartphone with me, a BlackBerry Tour 9630. With it, I stay on top of email, Twitter, Facebook, and the RSS feeds of my favorite tech news outlets. It's glorious. I can respond to emails, send text messages, tweet, and update my Facebook status. What I can't do, realistically, is create blog posts. Now I HAVE done it at times, but thumb typing is just too slow to do it regularly.

I know what you're thinking. Silly Mark, just buy yourself a netbook! There are two problems with that. The first problem is that netbooks are an endangered species. The price of full-fledged notebook computers are crashing down on the price of netbooks, and tablets like the Apple iPad are thumping them soundly on the portability front. The second problem I have with buying a netbook is that I don't need one for this. What I need is something that is easy to carry with me at almost all times, instant to power up, easy to enter blog posts with, with battery life that lasts all day.

Heaven help me, that sounds like an iPad. No! No! No, I tell you! Not until Steve Jobs gives me whiskey flavored Apple Kool-Aid will I become a zombie.

Someone needs to make a usable, working, ACTUALLY ON SALE Android tablet, and quick!

And that silly 5-inch screen Dell Streak doesn't count. It wishes it were an HTC Evo, if you want to know the truth of the matter.

Oh, man. This could get serious. I'd better get some iTherapy for this iDementia before I whip out an iCredit Card and do something I'll regret in the morning.

A funny thing happened on the way to living the rest of my life.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:09:00 +0000

A Facebook friend of mine who happens to be the daughter of some close friends got me to thinking. She's almost 18, you see, and she's a senior in high school. The last two weeks of school are killing her. She wants to be on to the Next Thing so badly, she almost can't stand it.

Wow. I remember that. I'm going to be 50 years old this year, and I can still remember that feeling as if it was yesterday. Your breath gets a little short, your stomach has this really weird combination of feeling hungry and nauseous at the same time, your skin feels a little bit itchy, and you have to go to the bathroom. Yep, that's it. Nervous anticipation with a super sized side order of impatience.

Some time ago, probably when we moved in to our current house (let's see, that'd be almost 14 years ago), I found a box that contained some notes people had written to me back when I was in college. I don't think I intentionally kept them, and I certainly didn't keep all of them, so whether by ranked importance or random chance, I had a small number of notes that represented about two years in real time.

Almost every single note was from a friend encouraging me to get some rest, and saying how they hoped I get to relax soon. I kid you not, I had to sit down when I read that. I was flat out stunned. You see, from where I am now, I remember college as a time of playing guitar for an entire day, going somewhere just because we felt like it, hanging out with friends (sometimes all night), and just generally one big party.

When I think back on that time, I have almost the exact same physical sensations now, wishing I could go back there, as I remember clearly having back then, wishing I was here.

I've had a truly incredible life. I'm married to someone who has made me a better person, and who has built with me a family that I never hoped or dreamed I could have. I have two children who are smarter, better looking, and more mature than I ever was or pretended to be. I get to do work that I love for people that appreciate it, I'm not rich but we're comfortable. Faith, family, career... It makes me get teary-eyed just to consider what I've been handed.

Yeah, I've had my health problems. Some chronic crap, and oh yes, I got fat somewhere along the way. I sure would've taken better care of myself, if I'd given much thought to how much I was going to need my body as I got older. But that's just the skin I live in, it's not me.

And still, I wish I could go back to 18 again. But, only if I could know then what I know now. Because just to rush through it all again would be pointless. Yet, to slow down, I mean REALLY slow down, and appreciate how wonderful, random, and free it was to be young? That would almost be worth a do-over. Except, of course, that I would have to give up all that I have and am today. And in that little moment of clarity, the longing disappears. What I am today is a product of how life went, and is still going, and I would not change a thing. Not. One. Thing!

So I guess I'll do the next best thing. I'll blast out a blog post to nowhere, on the off chance that no one reads it, and that this nobody is 18, just getting out of high school or just entering college, and they're feeling like time is just draaaaaaaaaggggggging on because they can't wait for what's next. That's who I'm talking to when I say this:

Slow down. Next will get here just as fast if you enjoy Now.

Just breathe, dammit! Take a deep breath and look around. The days you have, right now, are days that you will one day look back on with longing because of how simple and free life was for you then. Please don't live through them in such a way as to wind up with a shoe box full of regret that's shaped like notes.

Social Beat - An Awesome Free App for BlackBerry!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:16:00 +0000

The upgrade to the 5.0 system software on my BlackBerry Tour 9630 brought with it a new icon on the home screen. It read, simply, "Social Beat." Ever the curious one, I clicked it.

(Now, this is the spot where you pause for a moment, because the app wasn't actually on my phone. Verizon had given me the icon, which would now load the app, and then it would be on my phone. So please just imagine for yourself the time spent watching the progress bar fill. If you'd like music, feel free to hum something catchy. I'll wait.)

After the download, I clicked the icon again with far more satisfying results. Social Beat turns out to be an app that consolidates Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google Talk, and RSS feeds into a single unified stream of information. Now I've seen other social media programs that do this, but I've not yet seen one that also lets me choose from among my favorite tech news sources (Engadget, Gizmodo, and CNET, to name a few).

I find myself leaving the phone in Social Beat almost all the time now, and picking it up to periodically check on things throughout the day. It's Facebook integration is actually faster and smoother than the BlackBerry Facebook app (it doesn't do everything that the FB app does, really it just handles status updates and comments - but that turns out to be all I really care about from Facebook). And I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy feeling as though I'm keeping abreast of the tech news. This is a necessary thing, you see, because I happen to be "The Geek They Know" for a whole bunch of my friends, and they don't take it well when they ask me if I've heard about some new gadget or gizmo and receive a blank stare in return.

Social Beat is from iSkoot. It's completely free. However, at the present time, it runs only on BlackBerry smartphones and exclusively on the Verizon network. Hopefully this will expand soon, so the rest of you can also enjoy keeping up with ... well, everything, in an almost effortless manner.

More BlackBerry Shenanigans

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:50:00 +0000

Hi there, fictional people in Bloggerland who aren't reading what I write. That's okay, you don't have to be real. I'm pretending you're real in my mind, and it gives me a fluffy, warm feeling in my tummy. That's all one can ask of imaginary friends...er, readers, I think.

Today's blog entry is about how not to lose everything on your BlackBerry. Here's the deal: Your BlackBerry comes with some built in apps. Email, contacts, calendar, text messaging, web browser, etc. You will also have a handful of other things that your wireless provider put there for you.

In BlackBerry parlance, those last ones are called "virtual preloads." What THAT means is that you have an icon on your home screen and it looks as though you have an app loaded, but you DON'T, not really. What you DO have is an icon that knows where to go and download the actual app, the first time you click on that icon. Once the app is downloaded and installed, then clicking on the icon starts the actual app. Despite the fact that these apps had icons on your BlackBerry when you first turned it on, they are still third party apps.

But I digress.

To get back on track...you have built in apps on your BlackBerry. And if all that you ever do is use those apps, you don't have to ever back up anything except for your data. Your data is your emails, your text messages, contacts, calendar, and so forth. Backing those up is simple.

Start the Desktop Manager program.
Connect your BlackBerry to your computer with its USB cable.
Once the computer recognizes the BlackBerry and the Desktop Manager software connects with it, select Backup and Restore on the Desktop Manager main menu.
Click on the "Back up" button under the Backup category, and then tell the program what folder it can use to store the backup file. The backup shouldn't take long.

And that's it! Your data is safely backed up. If you've never downloaded a new app to your phone, then you're all done. Go forth, and worry not for thy data!

Oh, but that's NOT all, is it? You still have a few, some, maybe dozens of third party apps that you've downloaded to your BlackBerry. Sure, you could download them all again after a crash, but that requires an awful lot of time, and you might not even recall where certain apps came from. It would be better, would it not, to back up those third party apps? The procedure for this, however, is a bit more convoluted than backing up the data.

One of the things you will need to know, before you get started with this, is what your BlackBerry's PIN is. This is a unique ID that sets your BlackBerry apart from all others. It will become important, in just a minute. To find this PIN, look at the Desktop Manager main menu AFTER your BlackBerry is connected and recognized. You will see "Device connected (PIN):" followed by the model of your BlackBerry and the PIN. Write down that series of letters and numbers, so you can recognize them when you see them again.

Okay, let's get started. For this backup, you must use the Device Switch Wizard. (I'm picturing the mixture of surprise and confusion on your faces right now. It's kinda cool. I wish you could see it from my end. I'd draw a picture, but I suck at art.) There is a solid reason here, though. BlackBerry does not give you a tool for backing up your third party apps, but if you WERE going to switch to another model of BlackBerry, you would want your third party apps to move with you, correct? So the process of switching devices needs to be able to copy third party apps.

Return to the Desktop Manager main menu, if you're not there already. Then choose Device Switch Wizard.

Under "Switch BlackBerry devices," click Start.
Under Options, CLEAR the check mark for "Device data and options," LEAVE the check mark for "Third-party applications," and CLEAR the check mark for "Update the software on my device."
Click Next. The Device Switch Wizard will run, copying all your third party applications.
When it reaches the point where it asks you to connect your new device, STOP.
Click on the Start button and in the "Search programs and files" box, enter %temp% and press Enter. (This assumes you're running Windows. If you're running a Mac, that's great for you, but I don't know how to do this on Mac OS, sorry.)
This should open a folder view of your temporary files folder, no matter where that sucker happens to be. Inside, you should see a folder that is named with your BlackBerry's PIN.
COPY that folder (do NOT move it) to another place on your hard drive. I happen to put mine in my Downloads folder.
This step is important. RENAME the folder that you copied. If you don't, you won't get a complete copy of all third party applications when you do this again in the future.

And that's it. Told you it was more complicated, right?

In the event of a crash now, you will reload your device software in the normal manner. That is, you will click on the Application Loader at the main menu, then click Start under "Update Software." Once that's done, you need to add back your third party applications.

Click Start under "Add / Remove Applications." You'll see some progress bars flash about, and eventually it will stop and show you a list of the applications you can add to or remove from your device. To reload those third party apps, click the Browse... button. Navigate to the backup folder you renamed at the end of the procedure above. In it, you should find a file with a filename matching your BlackBerry's PIN and an extension of ALX. Double click on that file, and you should be returned to the Application Loader screen, where you will now have all your third party applications available for selecting, in addition to those applications that came with the device.

It's not as hard as it might sound. It IS a little tricky to do, but it does work, and it's the only way to protect yourself against losing those third party applications.

Good luck!

The best and the worst things about the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Just a short entry this morning. Something random, a fleeting thought. A gigantic societal NIGHTMARE that won't go away...er, sorry about that. I sort of jumped a bit there, didn't I? My point? YES, I have one. Hang on a second.

So, a Facebook friend invites me to an "event" that is a rally for weight loss. "Okay," I say, "I'm fat, so let's go check this out." Now I've been on every diet known to man, some of them more than once, and I'm curious to see which one this is. There's a link included with the event, pointing us to a report on this new diet that the event organizer is going to follow. The implication, of course, is that you and I should follow it also.

I check out the link for this "report" on the "new diet." What I find there is a web site mocked up closely on US News and World Report, only it's called "US World News." It's the same old acai berry and colon cleanse blah blah blah. If you like reading in the bathroom, go ahead -- that's a GREAT diet for you.

But, what's amazing to me is that almost 20,000 people seemed to be impressed by a web site that is so PLAINLY an advertisement. At the bottom of the page, it has a HUGE disclaimer saying we're not affiliated with any of the news organizations we mention at the top. *sigh*

The great thing about the Internet is, anyone can put up a web site.

The awful thing about the Internet is, yeah...same thing.

How to delete a custom ringtone on your BlackBerry

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:30:00 +0000

Why am I blogging about this? One reason is that I know if I write a blog post about it, I will remember THAT even when I forget the details, and I can come here to find the magic information once again. In effect, my blog begins to substitute for my memory. As I'm sneaking up on 50 this year, my short term memory has become increasingly...well, short term. It's in there, and then it's gone like a wisp of smoke.

But that's sort of what the Internet is supposed to be, isn't it? Where we, all of humankind, brain dump everything we know for the benefit of everyone else and so WE don't have to remember things any more.

HOW-ever! The second reason I'm blogging about this is that it drove me nuts for weeks, and I couldn't figure out how to do it from fiddling with my BlackBerry alone. Now, I'm a pretty darn good fiddler, when it comes to geeky technical crap, so if it was making me nuts, I can imagine it's been doing the same to some of you. I decided to search for the answer tonight, and I found it in the forums at Crackberry.com. If you use a BlackBerry and you don't have that site bookmarked already, then you have missed something wonderful. But that's okay! You can browse there and check it out, just as soon as you're done reading this.

Now, where was I? Yeah...custom ringtones.

At some point, one of my contacts picked up a custom ringtone. No matter what profile I had active, when she called me, the phone would ring. Loudly. With a clang-y bell sound. No problem, I thought, I'll just nip off to my Contacts, edit her entry, and no doubt resolve this little problem in no time flat.

Except that when you Edit a Contact, all you can do is CHANGE their custom ringtone. You can't define whether or not they get one. So where does THAT come from? It turns out to be in the Sounds option.

Pick Sounds (that's the place you change from ringing to vibrate to silent, and so forth). Scroll down to the bottom of the list and you will see an option for "Set Contact Alerts." This is a list of everyone who is activated for a custom alert, which you can so efficiently change through their Contact entry, but HERE you get to determine who's a special snowflake and who is not.

So I selected Set Contact Alerts and, lo and behold! There she was. I highlighted her name, pressed my BlackBerry Menu key, and picked Delete. After confirming the deletion, things were exactly how I wanted them.

Now, when my friend calls me, it'll play the same stupid music that sounds like the theme song from an 80s action TV show (think: Magnum P.I.) as it does when everyone else calls me. My kids will try to stop you from asking me what the music is, because they cringe every time I say "it's the theme song for Action Dad!"

Don't tell them this, but I live for those moments. You see, someday I'm going to be dead and gone, and my kids won't remember all the times I got phone calls in their presence. They will, however, smile and laugh with each other when they reminisce about their dad's stupid ringtone music.

And as long as the memories of me make them smile, then my work was done well. That's a long way from removing a custom ringtone on a BlackBerry, I admit. And I'm sorry if I dragged you somewhere you didn't want to go. But that's ALSO the nature of a blog. It's my mind, and what's in it. I sit here and I write, and you get to see a small part of what I am with each post.

Now you know I'm a geek AND a dad, and the latter is more important to me. My tech gadgets don't influence why I do things, or really even what things I choose to do in the first place. I find tech that makes my life easier.

But I make decisions that change my life, for the sake of my kids.

Verizon Wireless and the BlackBerry Tour 9630, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:33:00 +0000

Sometimes, you rant. That's what I keep telling myself, every time I rant.

Anyway, before I can move on to other topics, I need to post the second part to this whole "Error 552" issue and clear up something regarding Verizon Wireless.

First, Verizon. In my previous blog post, I took Verizon Wireless to task for two reasons. First, I criticized them for not knowing how to fix my BlackBerry error, and dogmatically insisting they had to send me a new phone because "an Error 552 can't be fixed." On this count, they're still idi...er, misinformed.

The second thing I was fuming about was their policy that the contract I had with them wasn't just for ME and my money, it was for my lines. Any attempt to move any line to another provider, even though I was willing to leave my contract untouched otherwise and pay the full amount, was considered an early termination of the contract and thus subject to heavy fees.

Dave Graveline told me that, while he understood how that seemed unfair to me, Verizon Wireless' policy here was essentially the same as every other wireless provider. All of them lock you up by controlling your number, because they know that your number is what you care about. If they let you move it, even if you "promise" to keep paying for the contract, once your number is out the door they have no leverage on you.

Subsequently, I noticed that Verizon Wireless TV ads were including the fact that the contract is with the LINE in their small print. I suppose, given that they are disclosing this, and given that every other wireless service provider has the same draconian policy, I have to agree that Verizon Wireless is NOT the devil, and if you want to do business with them, they are no worse than anyone else.

I do, however, still believe the practice stinks. I just can't criticize them, if no one else is any different.

Now, on to the matter of the BlackBerry Tour 9630.

Here, I have some good news. After digging around a bit in the RIM support documents, I found a page that said the Error 552 crashes had been escalated to a higher priority and a fix was anticipated soon. On some BlackBerry fan sites, I saw messages hinting that version 4.7.1.61 of the operating system would fix the 552s.

For some time, we'd heard from people running the 5.x OS that the problem was fixed there, but if your carrier hasn't upgraded your model to 5.x and you're still stuck on a 4.x OS, there is little you can do. Sure, I know you can get a "leaked" copy of the newer operating system and modify the installation files so it will install on any BlackBerry model from any carrier, but I don't want to swim TOO far out of the shark cage.

On the same fan sites, I saw a method for fixing the Error 552 condition. You see, the reason Verizon Wireless can't fix it is that the phone won't boot up. Since it won't boot up, they can't connect to it with Desktop Manager to reload the system software. And that's as far as their techs would go. But it turns out that the "fix" for this is INCREDIBLY simple. Just remove the battery.

Yes, that's it. Just remove the battery. Then open the Desktop Manager on your PC and connect the USB cable. The BlackBerry won't even try to boot (because...it has no battery! hurr, hurr). But it WILL connect with Desktop Manager using the power from the USB cable. At that point, it's a relatively simple matter to reload the system software. There is one important tip, however. Once the system files begin to install to your phone, you must carefully put the battery back in. Don't bother with putting the cover back on until later, and do NOT do ANYTHING that disconnects the USB cable. If you fail to put the battery back in, or you disconnect the cable, you'll get to start this process over. Once the system software has loaded, the phone will reboot (that's why the battery had to be replaced!). After booting, it will connect with the Desktop Manager again and complete the process.

This, of course, wipes your BlackBerry. If you have a backup, you're okay. And even you don't, you should be syncing your BlackBerry with SOMETHING (I use Google Sync to sync with my Google Contacts and Calendar), so it's quick enough to recover that data. Having to install your third party apps again is a bit of a pain, but BlackBerry App World keeps track of the ones you've bought through them, making it easy to recover them. Any of the apps that were free...are still free. Download them again.

Between the time that I had my meltdown with Verizon Wireless and the time that 4.7.1.61 magically appeared for download, I "bricked" my BlackBerry Tour 9630 with Error 552 on two occasions. Both times, I used this technique to recover and it worked perfectly. When it happened for the second time, Desktop Manager told me there was an update for my operating system. It was the magic 4.7.1.61 version. I downloaded it, of course, and installed it on the phone.

Since that time, not a single error. No 552s, no 503s...nothing. The phone has been completely stable. So, I have to take back where I called the BlackBerry Tour 9630 "broken, a bad design, and a piece of crap." Yes, a LOT of them have defective trackballs. If yours does, keep taking it back until you get one that's fixed. Now that I have one that works properly, I am kicking myself for tolerating a bad one for those months that I did. And, yes, there was something about the Tour 9630 that made this Error 552 crash happen more often than it did with other models. Perhaps it was the extra memory? I don't know. But it seems that the problem is gone for good.

And if it's not, then I know how to fix it.

The question is, why don't the techs at Verizon Wireless?

Verizon Wireless and the BlackBerry Tour 9630

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:58:00 +0000

Last August, I bought a BlackBerry Curve 8330 for my wife. She's an attorney and their addiction to BlackBerry phones is the stuff of legend. Because my Palm Treo 700p was getting long in the tooth, I decided that I ought to get a BlackBerry as well.

I chose the BlackBerry Tour 9630. It was smaller than the Curve, had a sharper screen, a higher resolution camera, and more memory. It is also a defective phone. I don't mean MY phone is defective, I mean it's a defective design. It's bad, it's broken, it's crap.

Six weeks after buying the Tour, it turned into a brick with "Error 552" on the screen, telling me to reload the software. Which is impossible, given that the phone won't boot or connect to your computer. So I went back to the Verizon store. There, a helpful tech said she knew a way to fix it. She slipped into the back for a while and returned with the phone working again.

By this time, I'd also begun having problems with the trackball. Vertical movement was fine, but horizontal movement was sticky. Often you couldn't move the cursor left or right at all. (If you want to have some fun, just Google "BlackBerry Tour trackball error 552" and see how many complaints you find. Not hundreds, but THOUSANDS. It's an epidemic.)

In December, about six weeks after the Error 552 crash, my phone did it again. Same error, same result. The phone won't boot and your BlackBerry is now BrickBerry. So back to Verizon I go, again. This time I complained about the trackball also. I'm told at the store that you can't fix an Error 552, you have to get a new phone. Since my trackball sucks, I'm happy to hear this.

Verizon overnights me a new phone. I move the battery and media card from my old phone to the new one, and I'm back in business. (I have to note that what's irritating about this is how Verizon sends you a phone, makes you do the work swapping parts, and gives you 10 days to get the old phone back to them or they'll charge you for a second phone. That's right, the phone they sold you broke, and now YOU have to do the work and do it quickly or they charge you hundreds for a new phone.)

Which brings us to today, about six weeks after the last crash. Once again, my phone stops with an Error 552. Yes, the new one. It's a brick, again. So back to Verizon I go. This time, I want a different phone. Another model BlackBerry, a Droid, it doesn't matter. I just don't want a Tour any more. Verizon's answer was that they'll overnight me another Tour. That's it. That's all they will do. I told them this was happening every six weeks, but because the first visit occurred "off the record," with the tech girl fixing it in the back room, they only show one visit from me thus far. They won't even CONSIDER helping me switch to a different phone until they've had to replace this one three times in 90 days. (Let that be a lesson to you. When someone offers to do something special for you, say no. You want all support calls and visits to be in their computer. You shouldn't let Verizon do anything for you without a paper trail.)

So I've had enough. I tell the girl I want to cancel the data plan associated with my BlackBerry and I'm going to port my number over to AT&T, and buy an iPhone. That's when I'm told that Verizon's contract is with the LINE, not the PERSON, and if I move my number I will be breaking my contract and subject to a $150 early termination fee. I'm sure that's in the fine print that I signed, but do YOU ever read all that crap? No, I didn't think so.

What's the moral of this story? Two things.

First, do NOT buy a BlackBerry Tour 9630. That model is a bad design. I can't speak to other BlackBerry models, but the Tour is crap. Bad trackballs and Error 552 crashes are common. If you already have a Tour and it's working well for you, consider yourself lucky and do NOT fill it up with apps. (Running a large number of apps on the phone appears to be what triggers Error 552.)

Second, and I can't believe I'm saying this, do NOT do business with Verizon Wireless. If you pick a bad model of phone, and I don't mean a bad phone - I mean a bad MODEL, they will do nothing to help you get into a better one. All they will do is overnight you a new phone. And, for what it's worth, they treat you like you've somehow mistreated the phone. Even though it's a software error, and my phone looked absolutely untouched, somehow it's my fault.

And then, when you've had enough of their "un-support" (let's coin a new phrase here!), you find out that you can't even take your number elsewhere without breaking your contract and being hit with a large fee. Even though you're NOT trying to cancel the entire contract and you will leave the rest of your lines in place, taking a number away from Verizon is "breaking your contract."

Bad phone, bad service. Learn from my hard lessons and avoid them both. Someone ask Verizon if they have a map for THAT, eh?

The Real World ... ... ... (of Warcraft)

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Some time ago, South Park (which is a very funny show that I never watch, and wouldn't possibly suggest YOU watch, either) made an episode called "Make Love, Not Warcraft." It was filled with the usual assortment of poop jokes and gross-outs, but running through it was a damned fine skewering of people who obsess over World of Warcraft.

Laughing loudest were guys like me. Ones who obsess over World of Warcraft. We tell you that we have "three 80s and the only reason we don't have a fourth is that we can't decide what class to level next." If you're looking for a WOW-speak to English translation, level 80 is the highest level a character in that game can achieve. Having one level 80 is good, having three is borderline crazy, and I know some people in game that have six.

Anyway, South Park ... where was I? Oh yeah. One great moment in that episode was when the board of directors at Blizzard discovered the rogue player who was threatening to destroy their game, and one of the minions blurted out with "This could mean the end of the WORLD!" and, after a few seconds, sheepishly added "of Warcraft."

Nice job, that, mocking those of us who really feel like a virtual game world is a living, breathing place. We deserve it. Marriages have failed, jobs have been lost, and personal hygiene is a forgotten skill because geeks fall so in love with who they PRETEND to be, they can't waste any attention on who they really are.

By now, most of you reading this (Hi, Mom!) think I'm going to argue that we shouldn't play video games so obsessively. You'd be wrong. In fact, I see nothing wrong with my obsession over video games. My two children also play WOW, and it's very fun to be the dad who comes riding to the rescue (literally! ... well, VIRTUALLY literally). When my son tells his high school friends that his dad has three level 80s and is going to help him with something in game, it provokes looks of astonishment. Almost as much as when he tells them his dad just bought the new Disturbed album. (How DOES that guy have any vocal cords left, anyway?)

No, the point of this rambling muse is that the weirder the REAL WORLD gets, the better and more sane the virtual world becomes. I don't log in to the World of Warcraft because I want to escape to a fantastical realm where magic is real and there be DRAGONS, I log in to the World of Warcraft because the world is stable and predictable. It reassures me to see that things in WOW are pretty much as I left them. The economy didn't become a turd overnight, Stormwind didn't suffer a terrorist attack, and Goldshire is still a cesspool.

(WOW-to-English Dictionary Sez: Stormwind is the capital for the human race, and Goldshire is a small town in the beginning area for human characters. Goldshire is well known as a place where players with overactive glands come to spew hormones all over, and through, their keyboards. If it wasn't so completely pathetic, it would be hilarious.)

In the real world, I have no control over things. I could lose my job tomorrow. I could lose my health tomorrow. I could lose my family to...okay, you get the point. Now, I believe that God exists and has control over things, but C. S. Lewis said it best. Aslan is not a tame lion. He permits things, he even causes things, for his own reasons. And if I don't understand what he does, I still have to accept that he knows what he's doing. What is best for the big picture might be really crappy for me, in the short term anyway.

So while I struggle to remain calm out here, in THERE (this is the part where you get to picture me gesturing at the computer on my desk) I can feel safe. I can take care of myself. And if I DO happen to die, resurrection is just a corpse run away. (Whoops! More WOW-speak. A corpse run is when you wake up as a ghost in the cemetery and run back to your body, at which time the game brings you back to life.)

The irony of it all is nearly overwhelming. Video games with their virtual worlds started out as someplace where we would escape from the mundane in search of adventure and thrills. Somewhere along the way, these virtual worlds have become where we turn to escape the terror of real life in search of safe, predictable surroundings where life follows the rules.

That South Park episode is looking less and less funny, all the time.

Let's Talk ... About Google Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:06:00 +0000

I'm a fan of Google. I have been for years. Google was the best search engine when we didn't know what search engines were good for, and they're still the best search engine even though Bing isn't half bad. I use Google Calendar to keep track of my life, Gmail serves as my webmail, email archive, and spam filter, and I use Google Documents more often than I do Open Office or Microsoft Office (I also introduced it to the Into Tomorrow show when it was still called Writely; today it forms the core of how the show coordinates...well, everything).

Oh, and this blog is hosted on Blogger, which is also a Google product.

So I'm a fan. We've all got that. For what it's worth, I don't get paid anything by Google and in fact I've never even met anyone of consequence who works for the company.

I was therefore quite pleased to get an invite to try Google Voice. This is their new telephony service that gives you a single telephone number that will ring multiple phones at the same time, with brilliantly fast voicemail and text messaging built in. After testing it out this week, I've compiled a list of my top five favorite things about Google Voice.

1. One Number to Rule Them All. Part of the sign up process for Google Voice is to choose a telephone number. They have them in all area codes it seems, and I was able to find one in the 954. (Hey! Do I sound like I'm all cool and stuff when I use phrases like "in the 954?" It would be nice to sound cool. At least once.)

After you've selected your phone number, then you link it to one or more of your existing phones. I linked mine to my cell phone and my home phone. Now, when someone calls my Google Voice number, BOTH PHONES ring at the same time. If I take the call on one phone, the other one stops ringing.

A buddy of mine told me yesterday that he HATED this feature, because he doesn't want people to be able to find him nor does he want to give up the excuse that he's missed their call. I suppose there is some point in that, but until I go into the Witness Protection Program, I don't seem to mind if people can find me more easily.

2. Voicemail to Text Transcription, Instantly. If I don't answer either phone, or I decide after answering and hearing who is calling to shunt the call to voicemail, Google Voice takes a message. In just SECONDS (and I mean it was FAST!), there is an entry in the Google Voice inbox, accompanied by an email in MY inbox and a text message on my mobile phone, with a transcription of the voicemail.

If you're anything like me, the bane of your existence is listening to LONG and MEANDERING voicemails. First, you're irritated. Eventually you begin to SCREEEEEAAAAAM at them, demanding that they get to the point! Having voicemails transcribed to text lets me get the entire thing at a glance, discretely, and it doesn't require me to stop what I'm doing and call in to play back the message.

Of course, you CAN play back the message if you want to, either from the Google Voice inbox, your email inbox, or even your text message. I've been comparing the transcriptions to the actual recorded messages, and so far they are extremely accurate.

3. Integrates with My Contacts. My contacts are maintained in three places. I have them in the Contacts application on my Palm Treo, in the address book on Mozilla Thunderbird, and in Google Contacts. The last one serves as the center hub, I suppose, since my Treo synchronizes with Google Contacts using GooSync (an excellent service, by the way, if you want to synchronize a handheld device with Google Calendar and Contacts), and Mozilla Thunderbird synchronizes with Google Contacts using the Zindus add-on.

So no matter where a Contact is entered or edited, eventually the information propagates around to all three places. All automatically, without me having to do a thing. I do something similar with my calendar. I love this system; it is a great boost to my level of organization.

Since Google Voice uses Google Contacts, when a call comes in routed through them, it will both send the caller's number to my Caller ID (as opposed to Google Voice's number) and it will announce the caller by name when I answer the call, which is very useful on the home phone because I don't have Caller ID on every handset.

Best of all, I don't have to do anything additional or different in order to keep this all up to date.

4. Integrated Inbox For Messages And Texts. Google Voice has a web based inbox feature that looks a lot like Gmail. There is a mobile version I can access from my Treo and a nice gadget for my iGoogle home page, so I can see who has called and what message they left at a glance. If someone sends a text message to my Google Voice number, that's forwarded to my cell phone. The text message comes from Google Voice, in this case, so my reply goes back to them and is forwarded to the original sender.

This allows Google Voice to keep a record of both sides in any text message conversation, and it stores these in the same inbox as my voicemails. In short, the Google Voice inbox gives me a permanent record of everything that I might otherwise forget, and there is no need to call in to a voicemail system, or even track down a telephone, in order to access it. It's fast and convenient.

5. Switch Phones in Mid Call, Silently. Google Voice offers conference calling for up to four participants and as a related service, it will let you switch from one phone to another in mid call. Here's how it works. Let's say you call my Google Voice number and I answer on the home phone. We're not done with our conversation yet, but it's time for me to leave. Instead of telling you to call me back on my cell phone, I just press the star button on my phone and the other lines, in this case my cell phone, begin to ring. When I answer, Google Voice conferences the three calls together and then I can hang up on the one I'm not going to use, leaving the other part intact.

If my cell phone voice quality is good enough, the person I'm talking with might not even know I've just transferred their call.

There are a lot of other things Google Voice does. The ability to record phone calls, or to listen in as voicemails are being left (giving you the option of breaking in, if you realize this is an important call that should be taken right now), these are both powerful features. You should check the web site for the complete feature list. Believe me, it's long.

The five I've listed above were simply the ones that made the biggest impression on me.

When I showed Google Voice to my wife, who is a user of technology but not a geek like me (in other words, she's normal and like 99% of the world), she made the observation that this seemed as though it would do for someone what a receptionist in an office might do. It's true, when you think about it. It answers your phone, forwards calls, takes messages, organizes the "While You Were Out" slips (so to speak), and does this all for free.

In these hard economic times, we all need to take advantage of any technology that lets us do more with less. Google Voice does a LOT more, for a lot less. It's on an invite-only status right now, like Gmail once was, but you should be able to get your own account very soon.

Oh, before I end this, let me mention one thing about this service. It's not designed to just be an uber-voicemail system. You don't forward your existing phones to Google Voice. It's not the LAST thing in the telephony chain, it's the FIRST. I've seen complaints from people who are trying to use it as a simple voicemail service (like J2's service, for instance). If you're not letting Google Voice take the incoming calls and manage them for you, then you're misusing the service and you probably won't like it very much (or, at least, not AS much).

Soon, you'll be able to port existing phone numbers to Google Voice. Perhaps that will help people who just didn't want to update everyone with yet ANOTHER new number to call. Or perhaps people are cranky and stubborn, and will be determined to pound their square peg into this round hole.

In the meantime, just browse the list of available numbers and snap up one that's easy to remember. If you try the service, leave me a comment and tell me what you think of it, and why.

Napster Confusion SOLVED!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Lautenschlager) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:52:00 +0000

One of the Big Four music services is Napster. I'd consider the largest to be the iTunes Music Store (which I shall refer to as iTunes from now on even though I understand the difference between the software and the service), followed by Rhapsody, Amazon.com, and Napster. Recently, Napster revamped their pricing and membership plans, and it seems to have created a great deal of confusion. As a Napster subscriber myself, I've taken the time to sort it out and perhaps I can explain what's changed more clearly that Napster themselves has done.

First, let's talk about how the service USED to work. Previously, you could create a Napster account for free, called Napster Light, that allowed you to listen to a limited number of full length songs and then buy whichever ones you liked for 99 cents per song. After you'd used your allotment of full length previews, you were limited to the same 30 second previews that iTunes Music Store has made famous.

For a while, these were DRM-protected Windows Media player format files that prevented you from playing the songs in your iPod or MP3 player (although you could burn audio CDs and re-rip the songs as long as you accepted the drop in quality). Eventually, however, Napster began selling MP3 files not encumbered by DRM protection, allowing you to use purchased tracks in any manner you wish. Play them on your computer, put them in your iPod or MP3 player, burn audio CDs, whatever you'd like.

Napster also offered two subscriptions. The basic Napster subscription charged you a monthly fee and then removed the limit on the number of full length songs you could listen to. You could still purchase albums or individual tracks as MP3 files, but you could ALSO download the PROTECTED songs, without limit, and play them offline. The catch was, the protected subscription downloads would play ONLY on your computer. You could not play them in your iPod or MP3 player, nor could you burn an audio CD with them. So, pay each month for the ability to play unlimited full length songs, download those songs without limit or additional charge as long as you accept the restrictions, and buy unprotected MP3 versions when you want to do more with the music.

Simple enough, right?

Napster-To-Go was the same plan EXCEPT that your downloaded subscription tracks could also be played in MP3 players that were compatible with the style of protection Napster used (something called "Plays4Sure"). iPods were not supported. You could still buy unprotected MP3 files, of course, and do as you please with them. But as long as you kept your subscription current and connected your computer and device with the Napster service on a regular basis, you could play as much music as you wanted, offline, for one flat monthly rate.

So what are the plans, now?

Napster Light has discontinued the ability to play full length songs. This free plan now lets you listen ONLY to 30 second previews, and then purchase any MP3 albums or tracks that you like. In doing this, Napster Light has become exactly the same as iTunes or Amazon.com. It all boils down to which service you prefer using now, as the value is precisely the same. Each will tell you their service offers better reviews, recommendations, and whatnot, but that's really for you the consumer to decide.

The base Napster subscription has been replaced by Napster Pass. This new plan costs $5 per month, sold either by the month or in three month and one year packages. You can listen to an unlimited number of full length songs while connected to Napster.com, and you will get MP3 credits to download tracks equal to the amount of your membership. That is, the monthly plans get 5 credits per month, the three month 15 credits for that period, and the annual plan gets 60 credits for the year. On the surface, that seems like a good deal, right? You can get your full length songs and you get MP3 credits for your membership price! What's not to like?

What you've lost is the ability to download files to your computer and play them offline. Subscribers who traveled with laptops full of music that they would play while not connected to the Internet are affected, as are those who downloaded songs to their computers serving as jukeboxes to their home entertainment systems. The latter preferred the downloaded songs, since those were immune to Internet slowdowns or hiccups.

Napster-To-Go is unchanged, but includes no MP3 credits for the $15 per month you pay.

So if you've been a Napster subscriber who downloaded large numbers of songs to your computer for offline playback, you can choose between upgrading to the slightly more expensive Napster-To-Go plan, or accept that your offline playback will no longer work.

If you're someone who has been using iTunes or Amazon.com to listen to 30 second song previews before purchasing the albums or individual songs, then Napster Pass does have something new to offer you. If you essentially prepay for some MP3 downloads, you get access to full length song previews in exchange.

Users of the Napster Light free service have lost something, as have Napster subscribers (other than the "To Go" versions). They will have to decide how angry this makes them, and whether they will continue to use Napster.

Oh, and why have three separate prepayment deals? Because your credits don't roll over. If you are on the monthly plan and don't download five songs, you lose those credits. People who are a little more sporadic in their music downloading habits should consider the longer periods to avoid losing credits.

Thus we have the new Napster. Is it a good deal or not? You tell me.