West Coast Geek

For I am many?

2010-01-22T08:15:00.001-08:00

Over the past year there has been on off occurrence regarding my @gmail.com account and I do not mean the recent hacking of it. Now my address is fairly generic but that should not matter as I know the address is mine. Yet, six times now I have received email bound for someone else who has given out my address.

All of which appear to be legitimate emails, no spam messages or anything of the sort. One person was ordering Christmas gifts, another trying to sign up for housing at a college and another had given it to a patrol officer. Just one person doing this would have been odd but nothing bizarre, but so far six and counting?

This is a short and sweet post but I still wonder, has this happened to anyone else?

How to regain your Google account

2009-12-29T09:30:00.001-08:00

I recently lost my Google account for a while and everything associated with it. I never realized how ingrained services like gmail and reader were to my daily routine. We put an awful lot of trust in free services that exist in the cloud. Should we? Google, in the end, owes us nothing for these free services and could remove or charge for them at any time.

So what do you do if you lose you access? In my case it was compromised, which makes the situation even worse. Everyone on my contact list received an email that I had taken an impromptu vacation to England and had been mugged. The email had a repeat paragraph and was so otherwise poorly written that I had little worry anyone would actually believe it.

Google provides a few ways to get back into your account if it has been taken from you or you simply forgot your password:

You can have your password sent to another email address you specify inside of your Google account. If you have NOT done this yet you need to do so immediately. It is not done through gmail itself. There is also an option to set a security question and your cell phone number so that a code can be sent via SMS. To access your Google Account click here.
If the above does not work, and likely if the account has been compromised it will not, there is the password recovery form option. This will ask you a series of questions about your account. To access the automated password recovery form, click here.

The scary thing here is if both of the above options fail then you are out of luck. There is no one to call and no one to email directly.

If you feel a little more secure about regaining your account if you lose it be sure to keep track of the following things:

The email addresses of the top five people that you send email to.
Five of the folder/labels that you have created inside of the web interface if any.
The date that you signed up for gmail
If you use other services such as blogger, docs or reader it can help to know when, at least approximately, that you signed up for those services.

The addresses and folder/label information is especially important. I was unable to get my account back until I remembered some of the folder/label names that I had in my account.

Lastly, when you are logged into gmail at the bottom of the screen there is a line which shows the current accesses to your account. If you click on detail you can see all the recent connections.

The Tablet Craze

2009-12-13T15:10:00.000-08:00

It seems as of late that everyone is rushing to get a tablet computer out to market. This has been tried before and never really went anywhere. There has been talk regarding the mythical Apple tablet for a very long time now, despite there being no solid evidence there even working on one. Well despite the maker, or the operating system it contains, I cannot help but feel that they are not going to catch on in any significant way.

Given the price for a tablet, especially from Apple, that will have enough punch be worthwhile why not just get a laptop? Now there are circumstances where a tablet would be nice, sort of a like a coffee table computer for the masses with more practical uses for some industries. For the average user, given the cost of these units, it would make more sense to get a small laptop in the 13" variety. Yes, they will lack the touch screen but likely have more power to play with.

In regards to Apple am I the only one that it feels they may have been forced into this market? The device is going to underwhelm no matter what no considering the extensive hype. It is going to be expensive and that again brings me back to my solution... buy a laptop.

Chrome OS Impressions

2009-11-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Like much of the tech community when Google comes up with something new, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I got into "Google Wave" and while I see the vast potential, I have not yet found a solution for it to solve. Now, we have "Chrome OS" which is garnering a lot of attention as you can actually download a very early developers build.

There is a lot about Chrome OS to be interested in and there is also a lot that makes me want to shrug my shoulders and move on. First and foremost, I do not consider this to be an OS, at least not in the traditional sense. If you are interested in installing numerous applications, working offline from the hard drive or many other common traits of a standard computer, then "Chrome OS" will not be for you. However, if you are constantly wired and want a netbook that boots in an instant and give you a window to the cloud it may be the best yet? Possibly. Given that the "OS" will be limited to machines with solid state drives its speed will surely be something to see.

"Chrome OS" will fill a very niche market. I do not believe claims that it will cut into Microsoft's business... at all. I have also not been a fan of the marketing of the netbook to begin with. The devices are very good for very specific purposes. Yet I hear of many ill informed or ill advised people buying them not knowing of their limitations. Many of us on-line are what I hear refereed to often as "inside baseball" whereas we know the ins and outs of the industry. The "Chrome OS" means something to us but to the majority of other people it will not.

Now, admittedly it is still very early on in the development of "Chrome OS" and the versions that you can find on-line now are primitive at best. I would like to point out that you should be VERY careful on where you get your build of "Chrome OS"... very, very careful. Otherwise all you are doing is downloading something that will steal your private data.

The great site GDGT has posted a VMWare image of the OS which you can download by clicking here.

The EA Way of Things

2009-11-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

Living and working near Downtown Vancouver I regularly walked past by the large EA sign. This was the home to such popular EA titles as the "Need for Speed"series. Recently, EA shut that office down and moved the team to its Burnaby based studio.

I came across an article on cbc.ca which went into detail about the move as well as 1,500 people across Canada who would soon be losing their jobs. I found one particular quote rather interesting int he article:

"EA said the restructuring is being done in a tough market for game sales as a result of the recession. It plans to focus on higher-profit products."

Is anyone else just a little tired of hearing everything blamed on the recession? It has become the default catch all to justify just about anything. Well, perhaps, they are right in that the recession finally has shown people that paying $69 for a new title in Canada is simply to much.

I am a fan of EA's "NHL" series, but I only buy the titles perhaps once every three years. The studio pumps out these updates, year after year with what account to minor updates and want to charge the full $69 (or equivalent of it at the time) for it. If the updates were more reasonable, taking that into account, myself and others would buy them every year.

How many people buy brand new games anymore? I rarely do. When a title comes out I am interested in I may rent it to see if I like it. If I do I wait for the title to drop in price in the pre-owned section of the store to at least $40 and then pick it up.

Google Chrome

2009-11-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

I use a few Google products like everyone else. All of my personal mail is done through Gmail and I love using Google Reader to keep up to date. Just about the only Google product I take issue with is Chrome.

Now, while I use a lot of other Google products many of them share the same downside as Chrome. That is that they appear to be in a constantly unfinished state. Yes Chrome is fast, really, really fast... there is no disputing that. However, when you look at the options, the near complete lack of any polish in certain areas, it makes me wonder. I mean the browser is supposedly being released in Beta soon and there is ZERO ability to work with bookmarks???

It should be obvious from all of my posts here that I am a Mac user at home. Chrome, despite being in a "finished" version for Windows is STILL not officially released for Mac. There is no reason for it.

Anyway, back to the whole polish issue. Say what you will, Chrome will not gain the same sort of market share that Firefox and IE has until someone fixes it. I do not mean this to be insulting but people like shiny things when it comes to software. Us geeks will continue use Chrome despite its lack of glitz as we are more concerned with functionality.

So many Apps

2009-11-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

I was reading the other day that the App Store for the iPhone reached the 100,000 mark and it got me thinking. Out of those 100,00,0 how many are actually useful? How many get only a very small handful of downloads? After all if you look through the catalog to any great length there are thousands and thousands of apps which are barely distinguishable from one another.

Yes there are some up and coming software companies which have done very well with the iPhone but how many exactly? Getting your application noticed in the sea of 100,000 can not be an easy task unless you have a secondary way to promote it.

After all I think many people, if not most people, find applications by accident, word of mouth or the Apple commercials themselves. Searching the store is not an easy task and while the Genius method added in 3.1 was a step in the right direction, more needs to be done.

How do you all find your hidden treasure applications?

Backup, Backup, Backup

2009-10-15T12:23:00.001-07:00

Many of know someone who has lost something in the past on their computer when it failed. This is something that should not have to happen. There is some cost involved and how much depends upon how you want to protect your data. I am a photographer and losing photos that can never been replaced is just not an option.

The following is what I do to ensure that my data is never lost on my Mac:

I use Apple's built in Time Machine backup on a portable HD. This is automatic and there is no harm in letting it do its thing. With how incredibly cheap high capacity drives are these days there is no reason NOT to do this if you own a Mac.
I use SuperDuper to create and maintain bootable images of my Mac. In a pinch this would be an easy way to recover data from a failure.
I subscribe to Carbonite Online Backup which stores all of my data, encrypted, off site. This is a very important step as relying solely upon local backups still leaves you vulnerable. As of this blogpost they are still working on more solid compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7, which is something to keep in mind.

Now is it actually impossible for me to lose something? No, there is always some bizarre scenario given that computers hate us all that something will still be lost. What I have done is to cover all of my bases when it comes to backups.

Other options include burning to a series of DVD's (which can be tedious to keep track of) or synchronizing to a portable HD and moving it off site periodically.

I have heard it repeated many times that if you only have one copy of something then you do not really have it at all.

Wait, what do I do if I run Windows? All you have done is offer advice to Mac people!

There is a great tool that is free from Microsoft called SyncToy. If you have a portable HD then you can use SyncToy to keep a duplicate of your critical folders from your computer. You can download a copy of SyncToy by clicking here.

Out of touch

2009-10-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen I found the following quote here and found it to be a gem. The following is about the best definition of being out of touch. This is a prime example of the OLD way of thinking of controlling content within a walled garden. It is a dead or dying practice.

"The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content," Murdoch said. "But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators—the people in this hall—who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph."

Awesome right? Well the article makes an excellent point at what their real motive may be and I think it may be giving them to much credit.

The old ways are done and it is time to adapt or perish.

Humble beginnings

2009-10-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

Many of us who work in the tech field stumbled into the profession in one manner or another. My beginnings were doing front line technical support for a local ISP. I found the position after asking someone on-line one afternoon on IRC what they did for a living. They told me they worked for an ISP and as luck would have it, they were hiring.

You have not lived until you have troubleshot an Internet connection with Windows 3.1 using Trumpet Winsock.

In fact I think many of us started out in the support field and used that as a way to get our feet in the door. Yet more and more often, that lowly front line job is being out sourced. I am very grateful for having had the opportunity but worry that same chance is disappearing. Now I agree if you are persistent and want to get into the profession, there are numerous other ways. But still, given that it was how myself and many other people I know got into the business it is sad none the less.

As always, I am curious how did you get into the tech business?

Deauthorizing Computers with iTunes

2009-09-13T22:42:00.001-07:00

Have you reached your limit of five computers authorized for iTunes? Do you no longer have access to the other machines to remove their authorization? While it should be a simple task of removing the computers from a list this is not the case.

The following will work ONLY if you have reached your limit. The option is not available otherwise.

Login to your iTunes account
You will see a new button called "Deauthorize All" in the account information screen.

Note that this can only be done once a year via this method. If for any other reason you need to do it later you will need to contact Apple directly.

Our electronic children

2009-09-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

I know that I am not the only one out there who treats their prized gadgets as though they were kin. Just the other day while waiting for someone at a Future Shop I inadvertently sent my iPhone 3GS tumbling onto the ground. Now I have heard many a story of short drops onto non carpeted flooring doing major damage.

So there I was, seeing it flip through the air feeling my heart stop and the rest of the world around me. Sound dramatic? Considering that the warranty on the device does not cover dropping it and a new one would be in excess of $700, it was no small deal.

I was lucky in that it only suffered the smallest of dings on the bottom right corner. It may be the device is either sturdier than I assumed or I was just damn lucky.

So my question would be, do others obsess over their digital friends such as I find myself doing from time to time? We are all so increasingly tied to our devices, be them an iPhone, Blackberry, Pre or Android. Are we to dependant is another question. Everything now is a moment away. No waiting.

Snow Leopard Days

2009-09-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

I have been using Apple's new operating system now, "Snow Leopard", for a few days and have gotten a feel for what it is going to do for me. For now. That is the elephant in the room in regards to "Snow Leopard", in that much of the benefit for every day users is not there yet. Until applications really begin to take advantage of technologies such as "Grand Central Station" and "OpenCL" the benefits may not seem to spectacular.

Now I have an obsession about upgrading and trying out every bit of new technology that I can get my hands on. I fully understand that as a result I will have to occasionally battle with compatibility and other issues. So the question is if you are completely happy with how your computer works or you cannot risk downtime can you wait? The answer is yes.

Waiting for 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 likely will not impact anything that you are doing now. Given the price of Snow Leopard I can see developers requiring it in the future but that will not be in the immediate future. Not to mention some of those developers may not be so ready to cast off the PowerPC users such as Apple has done in "Snow Leopard".

Further Impressions

So far as the "new" features go I still have to say I like the new Quicktime but worry about the direction Apple is taking in removing so many high end features. I wonder if they have a card up their sleeve to release a new product to replace those features and leave Quicktime strictly for the masses?

Otherwise, to be honest, I am using my Mac the same as before. I liked the experience then and I still enjoy it now.

Snow Early Leopard Impressions

2009-08-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

Apple's "Snow Leopard" has arrived and I installed it late last night on my Mac Pro without, so far, any ill effects. Pursuing through the Apple forums I can see that there are many people having problems and as with any big release of OS X we will see a 10.x.1 version released pretty soon. As for myself I had backed up my system three different ways, just in case, but it turned out to be for nothing.

Given that this is my first major upgrade to the Mac OS I have no overt opinions of the previous methods. It is obvious that Apple wanted the process to be as stream lined as possible. Just about anyone could install this OS as there are virtually no options given to you anyway. While there are ways to do a clean install there is no clear cut, click of a button method as there has been in the past. I decided to give the "over the top" installation a try and was very impressed.

One tip that I have seen in numerous posts is that upgrading Leopard to Snow Leopard from any version less than 10.5.8 has reported more issues than those who do. It may be nothing, but, all in all you should be keeping your system up to date anyway.

Just about every single release of an OS, regardless if it is a point release, a service pack or whatever you will see people raving about how much faster it is. Sometimes that may or may not be the case but with "Snow Leopard" it is noticeably faster. Some of my larger applications that took a few bounces to start pop up almost instantly now.

Program Compatibility

So far any of the applications that I used on my late 2008 Mac Pro have been working just fine. Many popular programs such as Growl have not yet updated for Snow Leopard but so far appear to be working just fine. Those programs Control Panel entries will cause it to restart into 32bit mode before launching, which is mildly annoying.

Possible Issues

I have been reading that in some cases Mac's which are capable of using the 64bit kernel are booting into the 32bit kernel. The easiest way to find out if you're capable is to drop to a prompt and paste in:

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

If you are 64bit ready then you will see the following, if not then you are booted into 32big mode:

"firmware-abi" = <"EFI64">

Check out this page on 9to5 Mac for information on if you are 64bit capable and what to do about if you're for some reason booting into 32bit mode: click here.

Personally I do not think it is a terribly big deal, for most people, if you are not using the 64bit kernel.

Overall opinion

All in all "Snow Leopard" does exactly what it was supposed to do, improve and optimize your leopard experience. It was in my opinion a rather bold move to forgo the typical fancy, shiny new (and possibly useless) features that so many of us expect from an upgrade. This does, however, set the bar pretty high for 10.7 which people are going to expect to be a huge upgrade.

So if you are very happy with Leopard, unless you're using a PPC, there is little reason to rush out right away and get it. Yet, at $35cdn there is very little reason NOT to get it either.

The Debit Cloud

2009-08-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

For the longest time I noticed that fewer of us carry cash around and pay for everything with our debit cards. Yet, in the last year, I am running into more people who are switching back to cash. Even the new "chip" in the debit and credit cards have done little to stop rampant fraud. In the past year I have had my debit card compromised twice and the year before twice as well. In all cases I ended up not losing any money but some people are not so lucky.

Often times the criminals get your card by replacing the portable reader at the location with a fake that captures your information. Despite the fact that this is now, or damn well should be, well known many stores remain complacent.

The best advice that I can think of would be:

Do not use a debit machine from a store that you notice is unmarked and left out in the open. All stores should keep the machines either strapped down or individually marked to prevent duplicates.

This might be a hassle but stores are just begging for a problem if they do not watch out for their machines. Now all of this raises much bigger issues, that I am not going to cover in this short post, such as the security of our on-line credit.

Exclusivity Issues

2009-08-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

While I am not a fan of any Governmental agency telling a company telling a company how to operate something has to be done re cell phone exclusivity. It is not, no matter how you look at it, good for consumers in the least.

Why?

Well, for example, if every carrier had the iPhone then it would be a matter of who provided the best coverage, plan and service. Carriers would be forced to clean up their act. Right now if you want to use an iPhone in Canada and the United states you have only one choice. Sure, if you are the unlocking and jail breaking type then there are ways around that, but, I am talking about the majority here.

Now, unless you have money to burn, all of these fancy phones everywhere will not allow you to dump from one to the other. In order to pay what we're all accustomed to contracts will be in order. But when our contracts are due, or close enough that we can pay a small premium to upgrade we can do so at will.

I am not sure if everyone agrees with this, surely the carriers will not, but cell phone exclusivity has to go and soon.

The Fine Line

2009-08-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

A little more than a year and a half ago I made the switch from Microsoft to Apple and have been happy with that choice ever since. I did not change because of some grand philosophy that Microsoft was evil and that Apple would show me the way. At the end of the day I simply preferred the user experience and was willing to pay the premium for it. Do not get me started however on the incompetent Microsoft "Laptop Hunter" ads though....

Does this make me a fanboy? As much as I detest that term, I very well may be. However, as much as I am a fan of Apple they have made some really bone headed decisions over the years. Most recent of which was the choice to reject the "Google Voice" application. The iPhone is, or possibly was, poised to take a nearly insurmountable lead in the smart phone market. And then Apple may have stumbled.

Many great products have been over taken not necessarily based upon the skill of the pursuer but by their own foolishness. For example did "Microsoft Office" eventually overtake "Word Perfect" because it was a superior product? Or did it do so because "Word Perfect" took it's eye off the ball and then Novell put it out its misery? One could argue that Corel has not done a much better job either, but worlds better than Novell's efforts.

Now, I have an iPhone and do not believe that it is going anywhere, anytime soon. Yet, with a few adjustments I think Apple could silence Android, the scrappy up and comer for some time. Everyone is in love with Android at the moment to a degree that makes me a bit queasy. Tech journalism on the Internet is a fickle beast and prone to turn on a product at a moments notice. I have to wonder if all of the righteous indignation over the "Google Voice" rejection was true or simply done for the headlines.

Apple is King of the mountain at the moment, but they have to realize how much people enjoy to see the King fall after his ascension.

Anyway, as I was saying I think Apple could do a few small things to keep a sure footing:

Make the App Store approval process completely transparent. Give those companies who do not have the capital to risk a hefty investment in a project which might be arbitrarily turned down.
Open up the store. Wide open. I mean come on it is almost that way to begin with but there is such a perception of a walled garden that it taints it. It is important that Apple scan the applications for those that are malicious in nature but aside from that and a few other small points EVERYTHING else should be accepted.

None of this new and has not been said a hundred times already. This blog, this post is a means of venting. Well I think a lot of blogs are a means of venting actually. I really enjoy using the iPhone and am disappointment when it is set back due to inane foolishness.

Now if you do not mind I need to get back to playing "Field Runners".