Author Archives: feeling entropy

Before I went out and bought a new shiny iBook, I should have looked into going back to high school first, high school in Arizona that is. A rather small high school (350 people) decided that it would be a good idea to give each student a computer instead of outdated and beat up textbooks. When I first got textbooks back the, I’d thumb through the book in search of written notes like “turn to page 106 to read the funniest joke ever”.

The ‘real world’ working environment is based on computers, I don’t see why each and every school has a computer for each student. Arizona is either ahead of it’s time, or their school administrators are huge Apple fans.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve fantasized about living wirelessly. Sure I change the TV channel wirelessly, carry a wireless mobile phone, use a wireless Bluetooth mouse, and have wireless internet in my household. Wireless is the way to go, and we’re going there. How do we know when we are there? For me, when high speed wireless internet access is as abundant as running water, we’ve made it. Jupiter Researchers are telling us that it’s not going to be as easy as we think. Their research estimates that a citywide wireless network would cost approximately $25.00/person. That’s not exactly free WiFi last time I checked. I hope Jupiter is wrong on this one.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), one of my favorite movies, has a scene where Ferris hacks into the school computer and changes the numbers of days absent in his file. Although this concept is more than 20 years old, it’s still making news today. I am unsure if the kids are getting smarter, and waging more attacks at the school’s systems. Or is the administration is getting wiser, by finding out that the attacks are being done. The University of Spoiled Children (USC) had a security breach lately and alarmed 270,000 people that their information may have been seen. A similar event has taken place at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, University of Texas, and California State University, Chico. Schools better beware because I don’t see it getting easier for them in the near future.

The terms Adaware and Spyware are usually coupled and even blended together. “What’s the difference between adaware and spyware?” people have asked me many times. “The difference between adware and spyware is actually very simple: Users have agreed to install the former on their computers. Spyware simply installs itself without your knowledge.” This article is amusing, the statistics are almost unbelievable, but the quotes are my favorite: “[I think] lightning had something to do with it.”

I remember playing the video game Robocop more than the actual movie. The film came out in 1987, and back then I was an 8 year old Nintendo addict. Meshing machine with man has always been the fantasy of us geeks. Some people are pretty close to having their mobile phones attached to their ear permanently, but for the most part electronics and mankind are two separate entities. Bill Gates was interviewed on the topic, and told that our sci-fi future is nearer than we think. Some people already have devices that help with hearing, seeing, and pain relief. I’m not in need to see or hear any better, but I would like to have a WiFi chip integrated into my head, and some sort of heads up display on the inside of my eyeballs, with speech recognition software. I could surf the net and read emails while pretending to pay attention.

I heart blogging. I have my very own “Blogger” shirt purchased via the Google store that I wear with the utmost pride. Written journals were for middle school girls, but as soon as someone put an electronic spin on them and let the whole world read, they were suddenly for everyone. General Motors has even jumped on the wagon. First they let everyone buy their cars at the employee discount, and now they’re blogging! I’m personally not a fan of American cars, but these guys are raising my brow. They allow comments. The filter only cuts out the SPAM and the obscene remarks. GM and blogs, what a great combination.

PC modding (modifications) was a new emerging trend. The boring industrial grey towers, monitors, keyboards, and mice bored us geeks. We dressed them up with see through enclosures, LED lights, graphics, and even water cooling systems. Some newer computer systems come bundled with these so called ‘mods’ which no longer makes them mods.

The Mini-ITX computer is screaming to be modded. The small form factor, and fanless CPU makes this system easy to fit into different, unconventional locations. I came across a website that really tickled my Mini-ITX fancy. I can’t tell which installation is my favorite. Check out the site, my dream is to make it on here one day. All I need is a mini-itx, an idea, time and energy, funding, heck… everything.

Microsoft has been in the works on it’s new operating system for some time. PC Magazine got a hold of the latest Longhorn build, in order to let us PC users know what lies ahead. Longhorn will be a 64bit system, have the Avalon graphics engine, and Indigo, which end users won’t see or feel. There were plans for a spotlight type indexed search function deemed WinFS, but that’s been postponed due to deadlines not meeting.

Microsoft has taken advantage of file attributes in the NTFS file system already available in Windows XP to make Explorer better at ferreting out documents according to author, camera model (for photographs), or genre or album title (for music files). The operating system lets you create virtual lists based on these attributes so that, for example, you can see every photo on your system or all Microsoft Word files, regardless of where they are stored and without having to explicitly search for them.

I heard that subliminal messages were piped in under those elevator jams that they got going in grocery and department stores. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. I do know that stores of all kind are moving towards technology to help market their products.

The club cards that track our purchases and cater coupons to our needs are just the iceberg’s tip. RFID transmitters that track item movements, (like picking up the leading brand of shampoo and then putting it back in order to opt for generic 2-in-1) and video cameras track shopper’s movements. Temperatures are adjusted, demographically aimed music is streamed via internet, and sensors alert bank managers when too many people pile up in a single line. Some people may feel that the stores are tricking them into buying more, or are invading privacy of shoppers. I say bring on the tech savvy stores, the tech-ier the better!

Almost everyone I know has a WiFi network in their house. For under $100.00 you can turn your wired mess into a personal internet hotspot. Most people plug in their newly purchased routers, turn on the computer, and start surfing the web. An unencrypted network is not an uncommon occurrence. What most people don’t know about is “wardriving” (driving around looking for unencrypted WiFi networks).

Illegal activity can be conducted on your open network unless you take a few precautions. Some people ask me, “is it illegal to steal WiFi if your neighbor doesn’t have a password on their network?” I answer that I don’t know. But one guy got charged a 3rd degree felon for doing so.

I love text messaging. When my friends tell me how to get somewhere, I tell them to text it to me. Need a phone number? Text it to me. Talking on the phone not only requires 70% of my attention, but it also eliminates my memory from distorting the vital information I retrieve via voice calls. “Was that address 1904 or 1409?”

Text messaging brings evils along with good. I’ve sent personal messages [hey cute stuff? Doing anything tonight?] to Christine my 50ish year old co-worker instead of Christine the cute freshman who I met at summer orientation. Or after a few drinks at the bar I may send a message to that girl who broke my heart last month. You all know how embarrassing that phone call is the next day “Do you know what you texted me last night?”

Samsung has fixed it, or wants to in the near future. Retract your SMS text messages with Samsung’s new patented idea. You’d have to act rather quickly, if the message is already read, then it’s just too late.

Ever sit in a WiFi café and wonder what that cutie over in the corner is working on? WiFi access points are becoming more and more abundant, which allows more of us to get out of the house and on to the net. “Computers are fabulous at connecting people over a long distance, but they can become a wall between people who are sitting right next to each other.” This quote is oh so true, I’ve been caught a few times doing just that.

Computers are sight, sound, and touch, so unless I’m smelling or tasting the person next to me they pretty much don’t exist. Well there’s a beginning to the end of this as far as Sean Savage is concerned. Bringing people together by the very means that pushes them apart, is his mission. You login and create a friendster-type account with the café’s system, then proceed to asking cute girls for their phone numbers. Great idea, if you ask me.