Fast

In Net Attitude, there is a chapter with a lot of discussion about "Fast". The world record for high-speed network applications has jumped by a factor of more than five since the book was released in late 2001. At last week's Supercomputing 2002 conference there was an application with a peak data transfer rate of 16.8 billion bits per second, more than 30,000 times faster than a typical home connection of 56,000 bits per second. Mike Nelson at IBM was at the Super Computing 2002 conference in Baltimore and saw a demo from one of the "Bandwidth Challenge" entrants. They were able to generate massive, high-resolution graphical images on a system 3,000 miles away at Lawrence Livermore and get the same performance as if the software was running on a PC at the conference.

Internet Technology November 29, 2002 11:07 PM

Clothing By Amazon

I suspect a lot of people were skeptical upon hearing that the world's largest bookstore would now be selling clothing. What does Amazon know about clothes? I don't know how many people at Amazon know clothing but they acquired hundreds of partners who are experts. Combing those partnerships with Amazon's incredible service and it may add up to a powerhouse in the clothing business. The first few days of their beta test brought some amazing results. (read more)

e-Business November 26, 2002 05:30 PM

Amazon Then And Now

Seven years ago, in the Fall of 1995, I made a presentation to a group of CEOs about the Internet. I showed them various web sites that I was fascinated with at the time, mostly related to engineering, scientific, government and academic projects. Probably the most exciting site to me at the time was The Visible Human Project. The word e-business had not yet been coined by IBM and there were not many exciting business web sites. One that seemed quite novel though was a site called Amazon.com. I asked for a show of hands from those who had heard of Amazon. Not a single hand went up. (read more)

e-Business November 26, 2002 04:50 PM

Media Wearing Out - Go Netflix

A lot has changed since the Fall of 1998 when I wrote "Will Our Media Wear Out?". In addition to "floppy" diskettes of the 8" and 5.25" variety, 3.5" diskettes, and cassette tapes of various sizes, most of us have also accumulated piles of CDs, and now DVDs. In time they will all be artifcats of the past.

This past summer I converted more than 400 CDs that I collected over the years into a MP3 digital collection which I can now select and play from a Lansonic digital audio system. It is clear that in time it will be just as easy to convert DVDs into digital format. It can be done already but it is not as easy as with music. I decided I don't want to go through the painstaking process when the time comes and so I signed up for Netflix. (read more)

Internet Technology November 24, 2002 08:58 PM

Cold Day On A Motorcycle

The sky was so blue, I could not resist taking a motorcycle ride this afternoon. It was 38 degrees and windy but the Widder electrics kept me warm -- except for my toes. I should have worn the Widder electric socks too. It was a nice ride across route 35 through South Salem and Katonah and then up route 100 to IBM in Somers, New York. I dropped off an envelope for someone at my former office and then rode back to Ridgefield via route 116 -- with a short stop at Radio Shack to pick up a digital sound tester. More on that another time. I hope to have a story finished for posting tomorrow about Amazon.

Motorcycles November 23, 2002 04:13 PM

More On "Will Our Media Wear Out?"

Thanks to JY Stervinou for commenting on my "Will Our Media Wear Out?" story. He pointed out that Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, has written a story that is relevant and related. It is called "Copy Protection Robs The Future". This is an excellent read.

Internet Technology November 23, 2002 11:01 AM

WiFi - Update No. 3

There is so much going on in the WiFi arena that it is hard to keep up -- even if you are more than a little interested. I am using these updates as a way to share what I have been able to learn with some opinions and observations thrown in at no extra charge! This update will report on five areas.

o  New Startup called CloudX holds a "Wireless Summit" in Tahoe
o  T-Mobile Expands Their HotSpot Network to more airlines
o  AirRunner Prepares Broadband Wireless Equipment for Market
o  The Public Internet Project
o  Agere develops new WiFi technology that exceeds 150 million bits per second

(read more)

WiFi November 22, 2002 08:27 AM

Café Salsa (Alexandria, Virginia)

Café Salsa in Alexandria, Virginia is the latest addition to my restaurant list. It was very good. Nuevo Latino Cuisine. Great Cuban & Puerto Rican Salsa. Lots of plantains. Excellent sangria.

Travels November 18, 2002 09:43 PM

Cantenna (show them your cans)

Thanks to Buzz Bruggeman at ActiveWords for telling me about Cantenna. I have been talking about the Pringles Can WiFi antenna for quite some time but Cantenna has taken the idea to the next level. If you’ve never heard of a Cantenna, don’t worry -- you are not alone. A Cantenna is simply an inexpensive version of the long range antennas used by wireless Internet providers and mobile phone companies. The idea is to extend WiFi's 100 meter range to miles -- how many miles depends on many factors. (read more)

WiFi November 18, 2002 04:06 PM

Will Our Media Wear Out?

This was written in October, 1998 but working on my photo gallery reminded me of it.

Ever think about media wearing out? I was cleaning out the basement the other day and I came across a box of 5.25" diskettes. Lots of them. They date back to 1979 when I had a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III. The diskettes stored 80,000 bytes! Seemed like a lot at the time. Are these diskettes worn out? Well, who knows? Probably not but they are "effectively" worn out because I can't imagine where I would find a diskette *drive* that could read them. I also found a box of cassette tapes that I had used as data storage on my Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1. Fat chance of retrieving any data from them. How about 3.5" diskettes? Sure they are ubiquitous today but how about ten years from now? How about 35 mm slides? I don't know the life of the slides themselves but like the Radio Shack diskettes, I suspect the limiting factor will be the life of the devices with which to retrieve the "data". There will likely come a day when the slides will be fine but there will be nobody who knows how to repair the carousel or obtain parts for the projector. There are countless other scenarios of similar ilk. (read more)

Internet Technology November 17, 2002 03:04 PM

Photo Gallery Updated and Will Our Media Wear Out?

The Photo Gallery started out as part of ibm.com in 1995. Having a photo gallery is commonplace today but back in 1995 it was somewhat unique. Sharing pictures with my family, friends and colleagues from around the world has always been rewarding. The original gallery was fairly crude but then Dipen Mehta, of the IBM webAhead team, created a Lotus Domino gallery that was a farily easy to use. Then Dipen moved on and nobody knew how the gallery worked. I searched high and low for a simple way to manage a large group (more than 3,000) of digital pictures. After experimenting with various galleries, the best one turned out to be Gallery. Gallery is a very slick program -- free, open source, and loaded with features. The management is all via the web exept for a Java applet for rapid uploading of pictures. The whole process is quite intuitive and easy to use. I think this will be my long term solution as long as they continue to improve it. It took me quite a while to get all the pictures converted but it should be much easier to add new pictures from now on. Thanks for your patience and your feedback during the process. I hope you enjoy the Gallery.

Internet Technology November 17, 2002 02:52 PM

Lou and Lou

I just watched Lou Gerstner in his interview with Lou Dobbs. The Lou's are both great guys in many ways. Lou Gerstner talked about the challenges in turning IBM around over the period starting in 1993. His new book, "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?", is superb. Lou Dobbs added the book to The Dobbs List and of course I added it to my list of book favorites. There are some additional comments about Lou earlier in this weblog. Now that I have read the book, my enthusiasm for it is even greater. Lou wrote the way he is; straight, focused and thoughtful. The book reads exactly the way he talks and acts. It is a really good read. You can find the book at the patrickWeb store.

e-Business November 14, 2002 07:30 PM

Grand Central is Grand

Grand Central used to be a noisy and unpleasant train station. It is still noisy, with millions of people rushing through it, but it has become not only a transportation hub but also a marketplace of spectacular beauty. My words could not possibly describe it -- you have to see it to appreciate it. (I found some good pictures at Haviland.org)

Most of us are always in such a hurry to catch a train or run to a meeting that we don’t notice what is around us – me included. Today I had a meeting at an office on Fifth Avenue right around the corner from the train station. I had a choice of inbound trains – one would get me there a half hour early and the other fifteen minutes late. I chose the former. The architecture and grand decor of the main hall is stunning with ornate columns and a star-lit ceiling that appears to be 100 feet up. (read more)

Travels November 13, 2002 03:40 PM

WiFi - Update No. 2

Each day that goes by makes it more clear that WiFi is taking a parallel course to what we saw with the web nearly ten years ago. Many grass roots initiatives are underway and many established leaders of major companies are unable to see the shift. WiFi is doing for "access" what the web did for content; i.e. making it ubiquitous. I have seen WiFi described as an American phenomenon, but this is clearly not the case. Prior postings here talked about WiFi in Europe. Thanks to JY Stervinou for letting me know that the French regulatory office (ART) announced that starting on January 1st 2003, external public WiFi networks will be "Ok" in 38 "departments" (geographic regions) of France including Paris. Click here to read the details (if you read French -- no English version yet). This is a good first step which will probably lead to the French Army opening up WiFi in all 100 regions. There is much more going on with WiFi across Europe. (read more)

WiFi November 11, 2002 01:06 PM

Stupid

We arrived at our destination for the night and unloaded the car. When I removed the key from the ignition switch, the car beeped to warn me that the headlights were still turned on. It was my wife's car and I am not as familiar with things as with my own car and I wondered if the lights would go off automatically after a minute or two like many other cars. I decided to find out so I shut the door and went inside and sat down. Then I decided to turn on my ThinkPad and since WiFi instantly came to life I was soon checking email and soon thereafter had forgotten my experiment. The next morning the car was as dead as a doornail. I felt stupid. Ok, it was a stupid mistake. (Webster: stupid = "acting in an unintelligent or careless manner"). Things went downhill from there. (read more)

Gadgets November 10, 2002 10:25 PM

Speedpass - part 2

Recently my speedpass stopped working as I described in a prior posting.The nice folks at Speedpass sent me a replacement for the broken one and my others too. I was surprised to find that the Speedpass had a battery in it and still wonder why they didn't just tell me to go to Radio Shack and get a replacement battery. I will call them today and give them the serial numbers on the old Speedpasses so they can't be used. The speedpass from one of my motorcycles (picture of card tag on Harley) had the serial number worn off and so I decided to destroy it. I was really curious to see what was inside of it anyway. After a half hour I would have to describe the Speedpass as indestructible! It finally took a pneumatic saw to peel back the electronics inside. Fairly simple -- in addition to the battery, there is an antenna, a small circuit board with one electronic element on it. Built to withstand nuclear attack. Here is a picture of the remains.

Gadgets November 9, 2002 11:49 AM

Subscribing to patrickWeb

I have been getting a lot of email asking how to subscribe to the patrickWeb weblog. The simple answer is click here. While I am at it, here are a couple of paragraphs to answer some of the other most common questions I receive. A more complete explanation of the various "bloginitions" can be found here. I will continue to refine this over the days ahead..

What Is A Weblog?

Weblog is an abbreviation for "Web log". An even shorter -- and more common -- abbreviation is "blog". Think of a blog as an on-line diary where someone with a point of view and a desire to share it makes "postings" to his or her weblog on a regular basis. Some do their "blogging" weekly, some do it daily, some do it hourly -- or even more often. A person who has an active blog is called a "blogger". The process of converting a web site to a web site with a blog in it is called "bloggerizing". Welcome to my bloggerized web site.

What does it mean to subscribe to a weblog?

Subscribing to a weblog is similar to subscribing to news alerts. When something changes at a blog you enjoy -- when the blogger writes something new -- you may want to know about it. The weblog is a new kind of publishing. There are thousands of blogs and there will be millions. When a blogger publishes something, a table of contents of all their recent postings is created. This table of contents is usually placed at the location of the blogger's web site, typically in the /weblog directory. The name of the table of contents file is typically "http://whateverWebsite.com/weblog/rss.xml". Unfortunately, the very competent and very technically astute people who invented all this decided to call the table of contents of a blog the rss.xml file. I think a better name would have been Webtoc -- the weblog table of contents. Click here to subscribe to the patrickWeb weblog.

Blogging November 7, 2002 02:07 PM

Internet2 meeting

Thanks to Mike Nelson at IBM for providing this update about the Internet2 members' meeting held in downtown Los Angeles. Internet2 is a consortium of about 200 colleges and universities and about 50 corporate partners working together to deploy and demonstrate high-speed networking applications. Internet2's Abilene backbone network runs at 2.4 gigabit/second with plans to upgrade it to 10 gigabit/second. There was a lot of discussion about videoconferencing, optical networking, authentication systems, high-speed networking in the movie and television industry, and new applications using IPv6 on the Abilene network. (read more)

IBM November 5, 2002 10:24 PM

patrickWeb Blogroll -- New!

I just set up a blogroll. You can find it here. I’ll add some graphics/icon to put it on homepage later in the week. A blogroll, for those who are not into this yet, is a list of blogs. In my case it is a list of people who are either good friends, people whose opinion I respect, or blogs I have found useful. I would like to acknowledge that I learned about blogrolling from Joi Ito and then learned how to actually do it from blogrolling.com. After figuring out what the concept was, I decided to build my own blogroll so I could tailor it with comments about each blog. I made a donation to blogrolling.com (lets call it tuition). The blogroll is just three entries for starters. I am sure I’ll add others on a regular basis.

Blogging November 4, 2002 09:52 PM

Any interest in a patrickWeb mailing list?

I am considering setting up a mailing list so that people who read my weblog, and who may want to be notified when there is something new, can enroll in a list. I would then send a short note to the "list" whenever I write something new. Complete privacy, of course. I would appreciate any feedback from readers as to whether or not this is an idea of interest. Thanks.

Blogging November 3, 2002 08:16 PM

Oops

Thanks to my friend Joichi Ito in Tokyo for catching a recurring error in the way I have been posting to my weblog. I use Radio Userland to manage the blog and Dreamweaver to write the stories. When I copy the first paragraph or so of a story to post into Radio Userland as the "intro" to the story, Radio gets confused with the directory structure the way Dreamweaver was looking at it. The result was that Radio substituted its local webserver (actually on my ThinkPad) address of http://127.0.0.1:5335" for the patrickWeb address that I had originally specified. From now on, I will specify patrickWeb as the root directory so this broken link problem should not happen again. For those not interested in technical details, please ignore this posting -- I am sure you already did! Sorry for exposing this but some of my techie friends will be interested. And thanks to Joi for catching this.

Blogging November 3, 2002 08:14 PM

Speedpass - gas, burgers, and more!

Got to add 35 miles to the motorcycle log this partly sunny Sunday afternoon. It wasn't as sunny as forecasted but still a very nice day. I am not much of a naturalist but the leaves in New England this time of year are beautiful. My ride took me to Home Depot and Stu Leonard's to pick up a few necessities and then across I-84 and down Route 7. The last stop on the way home was at the Mobil station to get some gas. For some reason, my Speedpass didn't work. After getting home I went to their web site to see if there was information on what to do about the problem and their web site didn't work either. No excuse for a major outfit like this to have their site down -- but I'll forgive them this time. I called and the customer service representative was very nice. She told me that the expected life of a Speedpass car tag is two to three years. I have had mine since May 1998 -- one of my early gadgets -- so it is likely that it is time for replacement.

In spite of my problem today, I think Speedpass is a really great thing. It definitely saves time when getting gas -- especially when on a motorcycle. Speedpass works using an RF (radio frequency) signal similar to WiFi. The system has an antenna and a transponder. There are two types of transponders -- one that attaches to your rear windshield and one that you can attach to a key ring. The transponder delivers a serial number to the Speedpass system and then a database lookup tells them which credit card you specified at enrollment. Your charges show up just like any other charges to your card.

The potential of Speedpass seems extraordinary to me. (read more)

e-Business November 3, 2002 05:12 PM

Pringles Can

I have been getting a lot of questions about the Pringles can. Here is a list of links where you can find it.

WiFi November 2, 2002 04:46 PM

WiFi Update - No. 1

There have been quite a few postings here in the weblog about WiFi. Seems as though there is something to write about every day. Today I want to share my thoughts on two aspects of WiFi -- "honeypots" and "World Wide WiFi". (read more)

Travels November 1, 2002 03:15 PM