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Saturday, June 29, 2002 |
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Wireless Communities I think by now we all know how fast WiFi is taking off. Rob Flickenger just published a very comprehensive article in PC Magazine. The most impressive link he referred to is Wireless Communities. I have written about the subject too. See "Subway Surfing". |
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Did You Ever Wonder? I just visited a very interesting site called "did you ever wonder?". Some of the topics included "How to rebuild the surface of a cell?", "How soil keeps the world in balance?", "About the invisible marvels of the nanoworld?", and "How to carve with light?". Each month the site features new questions and new personalities. I discoved the site in the Scout Report, which I have been reading the every weekend for quite a few years. It is really excellenet. The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators. However, anyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). The Scout Report provides a short summary about each new link. There are three categories: Research and Education, General Interest, and Network Tools. In the pre-Google days I would add a link or two that I thought was particularly interesting every week to the Favorite Places section of my web site. It grew to more than 1,000 links and it is organized into a dozen categories with additional sub-categories. I still get emails from people saying they find it useful. I am sure there are some broken links there but I do my best to keep the old ones pruned out and add some new ones. Related links... Current issue of the Scout Report |
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Friday, June 28, 2002 |
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Authentication working group Yesterday was the first meeting of the Center for Strategic & International Studies authentication working group. This is a really important subject for the future of the Internet and I am quite honored to be able to participate as a member of the working group. I'll be posting more about this later. |
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Working For $1 Per Hour eBay is a great place. Over the last few years I have sold things from my basement for amazing amounts. As they say, what is one man's junk is another man's treasure. It doesn't always work as expected though. My wife bought a chandellier for a certain room but after installation decided she wanted to change the style. I said "no problem, I'll sell it on eBay". The bidding opened at $5 and seven days later it closed at $5.50. After already having spent non-trivial time getting it out of the box, taking pictures of it, and packing it for shipment I was not too enthusiastic about now having to address it and get it to the post office. I used stamps.com, printed out the postage, and my wife put it outside by our mailbox for the postal carrier to pick up. The carrier picked it up on Tuesday and then another carrier brought it back the next da with a note on it saying that the box exceeded their size guidelines and it would require a $28.89 surcharge in addition to the normal parcel post charge. Increasing the unedning investment in this chandellier, I took the measurements and used myups.com to create a shipping label. It included a surcharge for the "oversize" but was still half of what USPS was going to charge. I took the box to Mail Boxes ETC and it is now on the way to a very nice lady who lives about thirty miles away. My wife says we should have donated the chandellier to charity and gotten the tax deduction. My earnings as it turned out were about a dollar an hour! |
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Thursday, June 27, 2002 |
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Wednesday, June 26, 2002 |
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More on GIP Spam Workshop T Media coverage of the workshop included the following publications: ComputerWorld, Tech Daily, Washington Internet Daily, and LA Times. The GIP will continue to follow the Internet spam issue.... |
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Feedback on Subway Surfing I have gotten a lot of feedback on my little piece about "Subway Surfing". Some said WiFi is already "meat and potatoes"; some were amazed to learn what is going on in the WiFi area. Chris Davis told me how he is rolling out a community wide network in his rural Kentucky community. He also reminded me about Etherlinx which I had meant to include in my story. Steph Kesler pointed out that if you are running XP you can actually see the WLAN's in your area without Boingo. This is true and I find it is actually more reliable as a way to connect than Boingo. She also reminded me about a very cool program called NetStumbler that shows all WLAN's in the area, their names, signal strength, WEP, enabled,etc. I used it some months ago and at the time it only could detect a certain model of Wireless Access Point and did not include the Aironet/Cisco 350 which I was interested in. This may have changed. The story continues...... |
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002 |
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Learning curve with Radio UserLand I apologize for the broken links to some of my stories/reflections. I am quite enthusiastic about the Radio UserLand software as a tool to share and publish my thoughts. It is an elegant design. However, I must admit I am having some problems. I suspect it is the learning curve on my part that is mostly to blame. I hope that is the case. I still can't figure out why some of my postings are not getting published correctly. The email support from Lawrence Lee at UserLand has been great and I hope that by the end of the week that I will have a handle on all the issues I am having. Thanks for being patient (something I am not good at myself). |
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Monday, June 24, 2002 |
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Global Internet Project press release Global Internet Project press release The GIP will be putting the following press release on the wire tomorrow. Related links... |
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The Glass Engine There
The Glass Engine There is a very interesting new approach to searching and interacting with information at.... http://www.philipglass.com/glassengine Note: unfortunately it requires Microsoft Internet Explorer I suspect you will be as impressed as I was when you see this remarkable technology prototype. It was developed by Mark Podlaseck at IBM's Hawthorne, New York Research Laboratory. The project started when Philip Glass, the composer, asked what his catalog of music might look like online. (read more) |
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Saturday, June 22, 2002 |
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Subway Surfing I was driving down Main Street in a small New England town in early 2002 when I got a craving for a sandwich. I stopped at a Subway Sandwich shop and enjoyed a sandwich while looking at some offline email on my ThinkPad. Just before leaving I got the impulsive idea to fire up my Boingo software to see if there might be any wireless local area network signals in the air. To my amazement, a powerful signal popped up on my screen. At first I thought it might be some kind of spurious signal from a microwave oven or a diathermy machine in a doctor’s office. After starting my browser and seeing my Wall Street Journal start-page I knew I was actually on the Internet. I then started my VPN software and tunneled into IBM where I have an email account. While replicating my email from the server in IBM, I was having an IM chat session with some friends and colleagues. So, here I was surfing the web and using the Internet. I checked in with DSLReports and found that my speed was 1.2 megabits per second -- 24 times faster than a 56k modem. Where was this bandwidth coming from? No idea! Who was paying for this bandwidth? Same answer. (Read more) |
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Friday, June 21, 2002 |
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35th Reunion Hard to 35th Reunion Hard to believe that 35 years have gone by since I graduated from college. Surprising to me that less than 10% of graduates go back for their reunion -- even for those anniversary years which are multiples of five or ten. The 35th reunion at Lehigh University brought 40 of us back to celebrate. It was great to see fraternity brothers (Kappa Sigma) and curriculum mates (electrical engineering). Greg Farrington, the university president, came to our class dinner to accept a check for $186,000 that was contributed by class alumni. The best part of all was seeing fraternity brothers that I lived with for those fun -- and challenging -- years. I took some pictures which are in my photogallery. P.S. Speaking of education, I wrote about e-learning in my book, Net Attitude. |
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Thursday, June 20, 2002 |
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Cloudmark's SpamNet I wish I had Cloudmark's SpamNet I wish I had known about Cloudmark on Tuesday at the GIP conference on spam. As I was quoted in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, "this is promising". CloudMark claims to have over 5,000 users already. They just came out of stealth mode on Wednesday. They also claim to have processed more than 4 million emails and "caught" about a million and a half spam emails. The software only works with Outlook Express -- not my favoriate email program. I hope they also produce versions for Linux, the Mac, Eudora, Notes, and other email platforms. As someone at the GIP conference said, "there are more of us than there are of them", referring to spammers. If CloudMark's SpamNet can do what they says it does indeed sound promising. Related links... Presentations made at the GIP workshop -- Spam: Can It Be Stopped? You’ve Got Spam: How to "Can" Unwanted Email |
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Tuesday, June 18, 2002 |
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Global Internet Project Today, the Global Internet Project Today, the Global Internet Project convened a workshop in Washington, DC called "Spam: Can It Be Stopped?". The participants represented some of the leading experts on the subject from government, academia, law, and business. There was strong concensus that spam is a broad and deep problem and it is having significant negative economic and personal productity impact. That is to say nothing of the nuisance and privacy invasion factors. The other thing that emerged from the workshop quite clearly was that there is no "silver bullet" -- no simple solution. In fact, all the experts feel that spam will never be eliminated. The good news is that there was also consensus that much can be done. In particular, the following areas are already doing a lot but have the potential to do much more. 1. Internet Servcie Providers can take technical actions with regard to inbound and outbound email. It is not the total answer but is a key component. 2. Employers provide email services for millions of people around the world. They have the potential to take action on spam that arrives to employee email accounts. Many are taking action. 3. The user (consumer) is clearly in the best position to determine what is spam and what isn't. There are various technologies and web services that can help. Greater awareness is needed and ease of use needs to be better. This area has huge potential. 4. Governments are not irrelevant. Regulation won't work but prosecution of those who defraud can surely have a big impact. We have the laws -- now they need to be enforced. The GIP is going to stay on the case -- keeping visibility of the subject at a high level. Keep your eye on http://www.witsa.org/gip/ |
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Saturday, June 15, 2002 |
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The Spam Has Got To Go I have been out on the lecture circuit for quite a few years, along with Vint Cerf and others, praising the Internet for all the good it can bring to the world. The GIP put out a paper in 1995 about how the Net would yield better education, improved world health, and better economic opportunity for the world's citizens. At this point I believe spam is an issue which endangers this bright future of the Internet. (read more)
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Friday, June 7, 2002 |
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My PhotoGallery I started my first PhotoGallery in 1995, shortly after I built ibm.com/patrick. The nice folks at Kodak loaned me one of their new (at the time) DC-210 digital cameras and I began to take pictures all over the world. It is quite commonplace today but back in the mid-nineties it was a bit unique. I initially set up the gallery on some basic html pages but quickly realized that organizing them by category, providing a search ability, and creating some meta data would be key to an effective viewing experience. A colleague at IBM, Dipen Mehta, developed a Lotus Notes/Domino photogallery that was, and still is, quite unique. The way Dipen set it up, I could simply copy my camera files to a directory and then his utility would create a thumbnail plus a large (800 x 600), a small (640 480), and a preserved original picture. Each category could have a description and a nice page showing the corresponding thumbnails and links for the pictures at either high or low size. The only problem was that Dipen moved on to new opportunities and he was the only person who knew the details of how the gallery worked. I became determined to find a replacement technology that I could maintain on my own. I am convinced that the Domino solution which Dipen developed is an ideal enterprise approach but for a hobbiest like me, I had to have something simpler. I looked high and low and eventually, thanks to an unsolicited email from Don Means, I discovered Gazo. It is extremely powerful and relatively easy to use. I am in the process of converting more than 1,000 to the new gallery. I'll add a link here soon. |
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Thursday, June 6, 2002 |
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The Challenges of Security We We all want good security as we travel and after 9/11 most of us would agree that security is better than ever. I have said many times, as have others, that the inconveniences of security checks is a minor price to pay for the increase in security that we feel. At this stage I would have to admit that the "minor" inconveniences have at times seemed more than minor. I am still thankful for the increased security but am hopeful that more technology will be deployed to reduce the nconveniences. The major issue in my opinion is Authentication. If we can reliably establish that we are who we say we are and that we have a track record of safe travels and a lack of a criminal record it will be easy for the security officals to allow us to pass through the "system" efficiently. However, we don't yet have widespread digital id's (more on that in a separate story to come) and therefore the inconveniences are very real. My wife and I just spent an enjoyable 24 hours in Quebec City, Canada (see separate story). It was uneventful until it came time to depart for home again. We carried two bags each -- a carry-on suitcase and a briefcase or pocketbook. During the security check through the scanners, the security personnel wanted to check our bags. No problem. Turn on your computer. Turn on your camera. No problem. Open your briefcase. May we inspect? Sure, no problem. Then they got to my "gadget" bag. What is this? A memory key for my computer. What is it? It stores data and can be plugged into any USB port of a personal computer. Blank stares. Turn it on. It doesn't turn on unless you plug it into a USB port. We have to confiscate it unless you can turn it on. Hmmm. Ok, I plugged it into my ThinkPad USB port and the greeen light came on. They were happy. What is this, they said, as they fished further into my gadget bag? It is a camera. (The Spyz camera is tiny -- 1 inch by two inches by 1/4 inch). Turn it on. I would be happy to but the battery is dead -- the Spyz has incredibly poor battery life. It sucks a AAA battery dry in no time. A supervisor came over and explained that I had three choices. I could let them confiscate the $150 camera, I could go back to the terminal check-in area and check your carry-on back with American Airlines, or I could go buy a battery and turn this thing on for us so we know it is not something bad. Then the supervisor wanted to see my ThinkPad turned on. I explained that the other person had already done that -- twice. She insisted, so of course, I turned it on again. At this point I was beginning to fume a bit. I wanted to be understanding but it was getting to me. They wanted to see the tiny camera "on". I am thinking to myself, but didn't dare say it, that if they saw the tiny LCD panel show a number on it would that mean it is ok? Maybe that meant time to detonation! Doesn't matter. Until we get reliable technology deployed -- especially digital ID's -- security is going to remain a bureaucratic process. Ok, I went to the gift shop to get a AAA battery. As I approached the store, the attendant had just locked the door to go to lunch. I asked him to please sell me a battery and thankfully he was kind enough to do so. I raced back to the security station with my new battery, put it in the Spyz, and showed them the digits on the LCD panel. They were happy, but seeing my frustration, they decided to check more things in my bag. Turn this on, turn that on, etc. I was surprised they didn't ask me to take off my shoes -- as I have had to do so many times in the last six months. They then took my wife's nail file -- it would barely cut hot butter -- and off we went to the gate. Am I thankful for the increased level of security at our airports? Yes, very much so. Are the security people generally friendly or at least courteous and civil? Yes, they are. So what is the problem? The problem is not that road warriors like me are inconvenienced and at times frustrated. The problem is that the process doesn't really get at the heart of the issue. An electronic item that displays digits on an LCD doesn't mean that it is not a weapon. There is a huge inconsistency from airport to airport as to what is checked or not checked. Most important of all, there are no digital ID's that allow the security teams to know whether or not we are who we say we are. Authentication remains as the central ingredient to making things more secure. In total, the time spent in security clearance procedures represented a non-trivial portion of our short trip. Searches in White Plains, then in Boston, then in Boston again as we left the Admiral's Club to return to a connecting flight to Quebec, then in Quebec, and then two more times in Boston enroute to Newark for our car ride back to New Enland. We really need more technology deployment to have a safe and sane world. |
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Tuesday, June 4, 2002 |
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Experimenting with Radio Userland I Experimenting with Radio Userland I have been experimenting with Radio weblog software from Userland for a week or so now and I really like it. My current plan -- as soon as I master (learn some things would be a better way to say it) the features and details, is to consolidate my three main web sites.... Hopefully, I will not get things too fragmented and, worse yet, broken in the meantime. I will appreciate your patience and of course your comments and suggestions. |