Pale Musings

While I am not saying that spelling is unimportant, indeed we should all try a little harder to improve our spelling and grammar, the update made available to me today in Vista just blows my mind.

Update for Windows Vista (KB995020)

It’s not so much that Microsoft feels it necessary to push out an update with five…yes that is only 5… words to the English and German dictionaries, it is the fact that it is flagged as important and that it may require a reboot!  The last time I looked, checking spelling has the option to add a word that has been flagged as incorrect to your local dictionary.  One button click is required to do this.  Uno.  Eins.  That’s it!  Yet, if I accept this update, according to the informational dialog, I may need to reboot!?  C’mon Microsoft!

I decided to read the knowledge base article for KB955020.  It shows me that the five words that will be added to the dictionaries are:

• Friendster (Is that a real word?)
• Nazr
• Obama (Oh c’mon, that’s a proper name!  Surely we can add that manually?)
• Racicot

KB995020 Article

Scrolling down in the article to the resolution section I see under Restart requirement that indeed I will have to reboot my computer.  Looking further down the page to the Workaround section shows me the Add to Dictionary method which I have already deduced.  The update itself just seems a bit unnecessary, don’t you agree?

In closing, beware of KB95502 from Microsoft Update as it may require you to reboot….all in the name of proper spelling.

It has been ten months since I reported about a local business owner and cluster balloon enthusiast Kent Couch took his ride from Bend across Oregon.  After a little more than 10 months, someone finally found his lawn chair and video camera!

Congratulations to Kent!  I know that the longer the lawn chair and video camera stayed missing, the less likely that it would ever be found and reported.  I’m sure he’s quite happy about it since the camera contained the documentary of his flight from the perspective of the rider.

OK, I’ve been through this twice now, so I figure it is time to write it down.  Yesterday I had to do a hard reset on my HTC 4300 running Windows Mobile 5.  I would LOVE to upgrade to 6, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

I had previously had a version of the Gmail for Mobile application installed and working, but forgotten how I’d done it.  After a couple of hours repeatedly trying to install the current version 1.5.0.1191, upgrading my Java Intent MIDlet Manager, trying to install again, downloading the .jar directly and more, I had no luck.

I finally decided to try the 1.0 version of the applet.  Viola!  That worked!  If anyone from Google happens to read this, you may want to test the current version with WM 5 since there are a lot of phones out there waiting for their providers to upgrade.

Here is the direct link to the 1.0 jar file.

Good luck!

A buddy of mine sent me a link to The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives | WHDb recently.  It was an interesting list so I thought I’d share it with you all.

Most emails that I receive concerning some new scam turn out to be little more than a hoax.  It’s the sad state of our society that many find easy methods to waste time of those they do not know.

Today I received an email from a source I trust which sounded like an example of the above; however, I did my due diligence to make the determination for myself due to the regard I have for the person who sent it.  To my surprise it turned out to be the one in a thousand (or more) that is true.

If you have loved ones that may not be savvy to official sounding phone calls, who are perhaps not as skeptical as you are when someone asks for information, please, I implore you to make them aware of this and impart the seriousness. This is identity theft via social engineering at its worst.

According to snopes.com, the scam first surfaced in 2001.  It has cropped back up several times in different states up to at least 2005 which probably means it is destined to show up again.

First the corroborating links, then the story:

• FBI’s official story on the Jury Duty Scam.
• Snope.com information regarding the scam.Jury Duty Scam

Jury Duty Scam

From the Tinley Park Police Department,
This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below).
Please pass this on to everyone in your e-mail address book. It is
spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take
those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on
their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.

The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never
received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social
Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information
and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and
bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma ,
Illinois , and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious
because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into
giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI
and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web
sites, warning consumers about the fraud.

Certain artists are starting a trend of releasing albums direct on the Internet rather than going through a big record label. One of the recent bands to do that was Radiohead with their album In Rainbows. Now Trent Reznor has been working with Saul Williams and Saul is releasing The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust on November 1st. The price? $0 or $5, depending on your choice. Here’s an excerpt from the email sent by Trent:

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! has arrived! After my own recent dealings with record labels we decided to release it directly to you. Head over to http://www.niggytardust.com for all the details

and

A word on the way we’ve chosen to release this. There are obvious similarities in how Radiohead just released their new record and the way we’ve chosen to. After thinking about this way too much, I feel we’ve improved upon their idea in a few profound ways that benefit you, the consumer. You obviously will be the judge of this in the end. One thing that IS very different in our situation is that Saul’s not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is, and that means we need your support on this more than ever. If you like what you hear, spread the word.

My take on this is, support these guys! They are fighting the big business music industry and the hold they have had over album sales for decades with the power of the Internet. If you want the music and you want to make your voice heard, pay thee $5, it’s chump change for cryin’ out loud.

Personally I want to send the record labels a message; quit sticking it to us! Stop being so greedy! At the same time I want to thank the artists for their time and effort, they are making my life more enjoyable by the music they create.

Update: One of the things that Saul is doing differently with his distribution is this. For free you can download a 192k mp3 file. For the $5 you get the choice of 192k, 320k or flac(lossless) formats. You also get a PDF with all of the artwork and lyrics regardless of your price.

It is my sincere hope that people do not take advantage of this. Sending a message to the record companies begins with this sort of grass roots movement.

Update 2: I just had to mention this.  Wikipedia already has this article about NiggyTardust, including references to the email  sent by Trent last night!  What a world we live in.  It is no longer the Information age but the Wikipedia age.  You may say, same thing, but in my opinion Wikipedia is faster than other medium!

Robert Scoble was recently ripped to shreds again concerning his recent video. (Note, part II and part III in case you didn’t see them on the site.) I can understand why. His ideas are diametrically opposed to the current business view of finding things today.

I say Bravo. As a developer working with the intricacies, guesswork and sheer superstition surrounded the art of gaining rank with Google, Yahoo and MSN I have been dealing with many frustrations. You see, software engineers like to work in a couple of ways. First, they like to build something. In order to do that, you have to know what you are building. Trying to build pages that work with the algorithms in place today is guesswork at best. Second, we like to break things. We like to get the new gadget, tear it apart to understand it and then put it back together. Once we’ve done that, we know how to build something for it.

Today’s search paradigms do not fit within that mold. It is impossible, no matter what someone tells you, to be certain of what will affect the algorithms in what manner. Want proof? Just look at the great viewstate debate. From tests I’ve seen there is absolutely no evidence that search engines do not like it. In fact, in the test a co-worker of mine performed a page with a huge viewstate ranked highest out of other samples!

So what’s all this about? Maybe a shift in the way we think about finding credible information on the Internet.  Finally entering the Circle of Trust.  Scoble has some interesting points and let’s face it, this is what he does. He’s been deep into finding the new, better thing for many years now, he must know something! Is he always right? I doubt it. he’d probably admit that as well, but is it worth a listen? Absolutely.

Frankly, I hope he is right. I want to find my way easier, faster and with better success then Google lets me today. I am already starting to believe his hype about Facebook when at first I viewed it as just another “MySpace”. Now even my wife is using it! (Here’s my page if you want me to add you as a friend).

Oh, and check out Mahalo, it’s pretty nice.

Yes, it is the last Friday in July and that means the 8th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day.  If you’re able to read this post, thank your sysadmin!  Let’s face it, they go mostly unappreciated and at times cursed for the efforts they take to keep you online and safe.

The official site has some good information about how the diligent sysadmin affects your daily online life.  Let’s give it up for him/her and help promote this international day of recognition!

Kent is certainly getting his 15 minutes of fame.  I watched his segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this morning (DVR’s are the ONLY way to go!) and I must say he handled himself very well.  We was funny and appeared calm.

My coworkers Mark and Doug, good friends of Kent, flew down to Burbank to help with a special project.  They constructed a lawn chair with about 80 balloons for Jay to take a tethered flight in.  Mark and Doug even made it into the show holding the chair while Jay got ready to launch, way to go guys!

Still no recovery of the original chair, video camera and other equipment from Kent’s 193 mile balloon ride.  Hopefully somebody will find it and claim the reward.

For those of you readers that get my content through an aggregator that does not inform you of updated posts, here’s the latest on Kent Couch’s lawn chair ballooon ride.

[Update] Kent is going to appear with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show this evening.  Tuesday July 7th for those of you that didn’t see the date

[Update] His balloon and chair has been reported as seen over Michigan by two sources.
Side Note: Google Maps is just downright cool!

[Update] I just found out that the video has been posted on You Tube and can be seen here.

[Update] Looks like you can now digg this story as well.