Steve Jobs

The outpouring of stories about Steve Jobs has been impressive and certainly justified in tribute to an incredible person such as Steve Jobs. I am very saddened by the loss of such a vibrant and creative human being. I don’t think about the price of the Apple shares I own, but I can’t help but think about the human and medical aspects of his passing. I don’t know much about his wife and children, but I feel for them — it must have been painful for many months and perhaps years knowing that their husband and father was likely going to die. Miracles happen every day in healthcare, but in spite of a patient who no doubt knew more about his condition than many doctors might know, no cure was possible. If you have not read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, I highly recommend it. The novel-like non-fiction book tells the story of cancer from thousands of years ago through the many episodes of research.  In 2010, more than 500,000 Americans died of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease. In spite of these large numbers,  to die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 is rare. And Steve Jobs was rare. Some say there will not be another hero such as him for a very long time, if ever. I never met Steve Jobs, but I did talk with him by telephone back in the early 1990′s. My assistant said that Mr. Jobs was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. He was CEO of NeXT, Inc. at the time. I was vice president of marketing for IBM’s personal software products. Our product was an operating system for PCs called OS/2. NeXT had an operating systems for PCs. It was not well known, but Tim Berners-Lee was using NeXT when he invented the World Wide Web in 1989-1990. Steve wanted to talk about possible collaboration. What amazed me was that the CEO of a company seemed to knew every detail about NeXT, how it worked, how it was built, what it could do. Attention to detail and unmerciful demands for flawless execution seem to be what brought the company from near failure to the most valuable company in the world. I read in one article that Steve had coached his team on how to handle the launch of the iPhone 4S on Wednesday. It would not surprise me if that is what kept him going near the end, and then when the launch was over and successful, he passed away. It would not surprise me to see a philanthropic move emerge that will be as beautiful as his products. I am currently reading the biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson. In two weeks the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs will offer great insight about the legend.

Tags: apple, einstein, iPhone, isaacson, jobs, steve jobs

Digital IDs: a tool to reduce Spam

Reflection – written July 18, 2002

I have been writing and speaking about The Future of the Internet for more than eight years — as many others have. One of the joys of this is the feedback received from all over the world — in particular, emails I have much appreciated and from which I have learned a great deal. Never in all of these years have I received so much feedback on something I have written than my recent weblog posting and reflection about Spam.

A number of people have told me they don’t really get that much spam — maybe a few a day. And then I got a note from Danny Goodman (http://www.dannyg.com) who feels he is as much a victim of each major e-mail outbreak as anyone. Danny isn’t just emotional, he has done some analysis of his e-mail traffic and it is a real eye opener. During a recent 24-hour period he received 410 messages (13,146,928 bytes) of which 67 messages (685,303 bytes) were genuine. That translates to just 16% of the messages and 5% of the bytes! (see details)

A number of the emails I received were urging some form of economic penalty for spammers. The concept is that if the spammers had to pay they wouldn’t send so much fraudulent mail. Maybe, but I am not convinced of this approach. To make spammers pay, we would all have to pay. You could argue that it would be pennies, or at nominal, for most of us. However, it is the overhead and complexity of implementing a system to do the charging, keep track of messages, collect the fees, resolve disputes, etc. that I am concerned about. The last thing we need is to make email more complicated. Its great power and ubiquity has come about because it is relatively simple to use. Lets not make email something that requires an MBA to understand.

I continue to argue for an authentication based solution. This area requires care to not become complicated too but I believe that fundamentally it is sound and understandable. I would like to be able to set an option in my email program to accept email from “real people” – and place it in my in-box. All other email could be looked at by filters and if it clearly spam then it would be deleted and I would never see it. If it is questionable then it would go into an archive folder that I could look at later if I am expecting something and haven’t found it. So, what does it mean, “real people”?

It means that the sender is a person who has been authenticated. I don’t mean by the “government” or by any central authority. It means that some organization has said they know this person and have given them a digital ID. It could be their employer, their ISP, their insurance company, their bank, or other third party. My email program would automatically check directly with the “certificate authority” that issued the digital ID to verify that it was in fact issued by them. I could then have further flexibility. For example, I could say that any email from a person who got their digital ID from IBM is OK. From other organizations (or even ISP’s) I could say no. The point is that I don’t want email from nameless/faceless individuals or organizations.

Some people are erring on the side of “if I don’t know them or I haven’t approved them, then I don’t want mail from them”. That is OK for some but for me, I get a lot of email from people that I don’t know. It contains valuable feedback or valid questions. I am willing to sift through it. What I don’t want to sift through is email from people that have no identity.

Just to make life interesting, we are going to need digital IDs for “things” too — software agents, servers, and perhaps virtual entities.

Internet Security – the glass is half full not half empty by John R. Patrick, Thursday, October 21, 1999

Do We Need the Interstate Highway System in America?

Reflection – written July 1, 2002

I had long wanted to take a trip from my weekend retreat in Pennsylvania down to southern New Jersey to visit my mother and then back to my home in Connecticut — all without using the Interstate Highway System. An extensive study was done entitled“40 Years of the US Interstate Highway System: An Analysis”, but my study was to be a motorcycle ride to see for myself. I am not really a “road geek”, I just wanted to see for myself what it would be like and how long it would take.

It’s a forecasted to be a hot day with highs in the 90′s and the possibility of thunderstorms. I departed at 10 am from Greentown, Pennsylvania and headed south on route 507 with the Garmin StreetPilot pointing to Pennsville, New Jersey. It would be 126 miles the way the crow flies. The Street Pilot shows color maps and, although it doesn’t tell you when and where to turn, it would always be pointing precisely at Pennsville. I purposely did not do much planning — I would just use a form of ”dead reckoning”, pick interesting “back roads” and use the GPS to confirm that I was heading in the right general direction. My adventure had begun.

The early phases of the trip were very enjoyable. I picked up route in New Foundland, Pennsylvania and continued south. It was absolutely beautiful weaving through the hills, mountains and along the creeks and rivers of northeastern Pennsylvania. It was fun to see the various farms, businesses, homes, people to wave to, and other scenes that I don’t normally notice when driving a car.

Avoiding the interstate highway system was no problem — until I got to East Stroudsburg. This was the point at which it was time to cross over from Pennsylvania into New Jersey. I knew there was a bridge there, but didn’t recall that it was connected to Interstate 80 on both sides. So for a short few miles, I was on the interstate system.

I took the first exit I could after arriving in New Jersey and shortly thereafter found myself crossing back over a bridge I didn’t know about into Pennsylvania! At this point, I decided to continue down Route 611 which meanders along the Delaware River which separates Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I’m glad I did — it was a beautiful ride. I arrived in Easton, Pennsylvania, crossed back over a bridge into New Jersey and used dead reckoning to find my way through Phillipsburg, back into the countryside of North Jersey and headed down route 519. I stopped at a Citgo gas station and food mart for some gas and a sandwich.

I am now 70 miles from my destination, the way the crow flies — probably closer to 100 miles the way the roads go.

I continued along the Delaware River — but now on the New Jersey side. There are many historical sites along this route. I passed by Washington Crossing State Park and it conjured up an image of the famous picture of the General in the boat with his aides rowing him across the river. Beautiful historical homes were in abundance and later the gold dome of the capitol of New Jersey in Trenton came in view. I had a patriotic feeling for this whole phase of the trip.

Then it was into real South Jersey. No more big buildings. No more mountains or hills visible in any direction. Corn fields, barns, farms, farmhouses, and flat roads make up much of this part of the world. One of the most impressive historical towns in New Jersey is Haddonfield. Cruising down Main Street was a treat — stunning 200+ year-old homes with American flags and flowers everywhere. It was a real treat. I arrived at Mom’s place around 4 PM — odometer reading was 187 miles. That meant that there was about a sixty mile and three hour penalty for my adventure but it was well worth it. The return trip was a different story.

The forecast was hazy, hot, and humid. All three turned out to be true. The day was to be a brutal endurance test. I was at times tempted to get on the Interstate and shorten the trip but I resisted. The trip started out with a ride by the house where I grew up and then off into the countryside. Flat roads and a lot of farms. This lasted for about an hour but as I headed up the fiddler of the state the population, the traffic, the congestion, all increased dramatically. I got to see the inner-city view of North Brunswick and other cities in the Northern part of the state. Route 202 was part of my plan but I learned that in some places it just stops. No signs, no detours, just an end where another route picks up. Using my GPS I continued east or west and then north and eventually picked up 202 again. This happened several times. I made a number of mistakes in judgment but eventually got to the top of the state. I didn’t want to take the George Washington or Tappan Zee bridges to cross the Hudson River so I continued north through the beautiful Harriman state park to Bear Mountain and then across the river. The last part of the trip was on route 301 which goes from Cold Springs to Carmel. It is a lot of curves and was a joy on the bike — although it would have been better if it had been cooler.

I stopped four times for a soda or water and to stretch. The trip would have been 185 miles by the Interstate System — my trip was 270 miles and took eight hours. I am glad I did it but won’t be anxious to repeat it for awhile! Do we need the Interstate Highway System? . I don’t believe for one second that we can do without them anymore than we can do without the train system or our airline system. My adventure made me appreciate the back roads, communities, and ways of life I witnessed. The physical drain of the trip made me appreciate the efficiency of the alternative. It’s a good thing the nation’s commerce doesn’t depend on back roads and motorcycles.

Related links…

I discovered with a simple Google search that there are vast resources about every aspect of roads and highways. See Personal Road and High Pages for example, orHistory of the US Highway System. There is even a Road Geek E-mail list.

The Glass Engine

Reflection – written June 24, 2002

The Glass Engine represents a very interesting new approach to searching and interacting with information. (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. Mark thought the music should be an integral part of the navigation experience, like it is when “surfing” the radio or television. He wanted to be immersed in the sound of it, making micro-decisions about whether he liked something or not as opposed to making arbitrary, uninformed decisions about whether he wanted to hear chamber music or film soundtracks, or Symphony #1, #2, #3, #4, or #5.  (read more)

Mark, explains that “radio and TV arrange their content along not very useful spectrums”. What would be a meaningful spectrum for us to use; title? date? mood? At some point, we could end up using all the attributes we can think of as what Mark calls “interconnected spectra”. This makes the catalog extremely porous, enabling you to insert yourself into the catalog just about anywhere and to express and explore the many characteristics of the content.

As a result of IBM’s early studies, it became evident that would-be power users wanted to interactively refine or personalize their view of the catalog and as a result they made the endpoints of each attribute adjustable. This makes very complex queries possible.

The potential of this technology goes beyond music. Potential applications and collaborations for the Glass Engine being considered include:

Using the glass engine to navigate artifacts in IBM’s egyptian culture project

Developing a prototype navigator with the CIA for their World Factbook

Same thing with Frans Lanting, the National Geographic photographer and about 2000 of his photographs

Here is some of the early feedback about the Glass Engine……

Some are saying that the Glass Engine is nothing short of genius. It clearly could be the missing link in content management as currently applied in the world today. There is a lot of good technology around but the point at which it inevitably breaks down is se arch_and_browse. According to David Walske, Information Architect, Glass Engine answers this problem with simple elegance of design and function that allows the user to interact with the content – not the UI – in a way that is so natural to the human thought process that the se arch_browse tool seems to disappear, gracefully acquiescing to the content itself.

Your Web site (http://www.philipglass.com/glassengine/index.htm) was selected as a Hot Site in today’s edition of USATODAY.com a free and highly popular news service on the World Wide Web.

“This is the best site I ever saw.”

“I have just visited The Glass Engine website, and I have to say it is one of the most innovative sites I have ever seen. I hope you will use this site to promote other artists.”

“Breathtaking”

“The results are very impressive! Beautiful presentation! Awesome!”

From Yahoo! Picks…

March 15, 2002

IBM Glass Engine

Minimalist composer Philip Glass inspired the brilliant minds at IBM to create this labor of love. The beautifully designed Glass Engine allows users to immerse themselves in the composer’s work. Use an innovative Java application to select music by title, year, type of work, or length. If that doesn’t grab you, sort tunes based on subjective emotions such as joy and sorrow. Lighting the way is an elegant system of sliding bars.

Navigation can be a little tricky — we recommend reading the instructions. Once you’ve mastered the controls, a full sonic exploration awaits. (in Music)

IBM Glass Engine (Yahoo) – enables deep navigation of the music of Philip Glass. Personal interests, associations, and impulses guide the listener through an expanding selection of over sixty Glass works. (featured in Mar 2002)

“What a brilliant idea! As someone who is at a computer all day – every day and as someone who enjoys music while working and playing, I appreciate this site.”

“Ever since the demise of Napster I’ve been searching for a site that stores music, and provides it for the listening audience. I don’t care so much about downloading or “bootlegging” music as much as I do finding something worth listening too over a long period of time. I usually spend 10-12 hours a day at a terminal working and playing and studying so having a site that runs independent of swapping CD’s is wonderful.

Whenever I found a song on Napster I liked I usually tracked down the CD at my local music store so downloading isn’t a big thing for me.”

“This is certainly interesting, and I’d like to see more sites with this option. Again, thank you for making this site available. ”

“The Glass Engine is a remarkable site”

“I honestly think that the Glass Engine is THE best thing on the web.”

Subway Surfing

Reflection – written June 22, 2002

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.

What is going on here? It all goes back to the LAN – the local area network. For quite a few years businesses of all sizes have exploited the idea of hooking all of their PC’s together using Ethernet cabling. This has allowed them to share files and printers and generally increase productivity of “work groups”. However, in some buildings it is prohibitively expensive to do all the wiring to make the local area network possible. TheIEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – of which I am a senior member) developed a standard called 802.11b which allows PC’s to connect to each other without the Ethernet cabling. The popular name for 802.11 is “WiFi” (wireless fidelity). It uses radio waves at a radio frequency of 2.4 gigahertz, the same as some cordless phones, e.g. the Gigarange by Panasonic. Each PC must have a WiFi transmitter/receiver and antenna. The latest laptop computers, such as IBM ThinkPads, have the antenna built into the lid of the laptop and the transmitter/receiver plugged into the laptop “under the covers”. The PC’s then communicate with a “wireless access point” or WAP which is a small box with an antenna on it that has a range of about 300 feet. As long as the WAP and the PC follow the WiFi standards, they can communicate. No wires.

The range of WiFi is about the same as the cordless phone – approximately 300 feet. Until the emergence of the Pringles can solution. Some enterprising young people have discovered that they can make a long distance antenna from a Pringles can! With less than ten dollars worth of parts the can can be converted to a long distance antenna. Putting the antenna on a roof is making it possible for people to use the high speed Internet connectivity at their place of employment – from their home or apartment miles away!

Note: there are numerous high quality antennas on the market now.

WiFi has been a great thing for companies of all sizes. It has enabled employees to use their laptops in conference rooms or at their desk without regard to where “in wall” wiring may exist. Employees are also getting WAPs in their homes which they connect to their cable or DSL modems and thereby are able to work on their email on the deck or at the kitchen island. In the past year, IBM Global Services has setup WAPs in Starbuck’s so that people can be connected there too. The Admiral’s Clubs and the Austin Airport also have WiFi. This is the tip of the iceberg. Think about all the places where you have to “wait”. JiffyLube while your car is being serviced, the doctor and dentist offices, hotel lobbies, restaurants, the hospital lobby, and of course bus, train, and airport waiting areas.

So, there I am sitting in a booth at Subway Sandwich shop in Ridgefield. Checking my email and surfing the web. Where is the bandwith coming from? I suspect there is a lawyer’s office upstairs or across the street. It was a strong signal. The wireless access point name was “tsunami”. That is the default name of a Cisco wireless access point. This means that the supposed legal office was probably not aware of the encryption option and had not turned it on. Later the same week I was talking to some teenagers. They told me that they were using a cable modem and their next door neighbors were using DSL. After a couple of beers they decide that one of them would cancel their subscription and, since they all had WiFi cabability anyway, that one of them would cancel their subscription and that they would all share a single source of bandwidth.

The issues here are many – security, privacy, business models, scaleability of the infrastructure, etc. If you had made a list of the issues and concerns about the Internet in 1993 it would have been the same list! Yes, there are issues but just like the Internet of ten years ago, the emergence of WiFi is a grass-roots trend that is irreversible. I believe this is a good thing.

As I was sitting in the Subway Sandwich shop, I was thinking about community services. I left Subway and walked down the street. The signal was strong for the whole block. There is a park bench across the street. Too cold to use it today but in the summer it would be nice! When people are downtown in their communities they expect to have street lights, fire hydrants, and parking spaces. I believe soon they will also expect WiFi connectivity. Sitting on a town or city park bench and checking email will not seem so strange, in fact it will be demanded. Not that everyone needs to be connected all the time – tethered to the Internet. But when people are waiting or watching, and if they want to be or need to be connected to the Internet, they should be able to be. The Internet has transferred power from institutions to people. It is time to enable this power to become pervasive.

Community based networks are close. Your next coffee order may not be a “to-go” order, especially when you can relax with your coffee and be connected to the Internet. No longer will people have to look for the fax machine to get connected. Companies such as Wayport and MobileStar are rolling out services to hotels and airport lounges now. Boingo and Joltage are building “footprints” and services to enable WiFi everywhere. The fee structure and relationship to local phone companies will be worked out. People will have high-speed access, no hassles with dialing, and be connected in their homes and anywhere they want.. A new version of the wireless technology, called 802.11a, will be launched in 2002 that will be approximately 1,000 times faster than the 56K speed that comes with PC’s today.

As I said, there are many issues. Is using the Internet at Subway stealing? There are different ways to look at it. If you take unlicensed software without permission of the owner you have possession of it and can use it at your will. If you “take” a WiFi signal that someone has made available you can only use it when you are in range of the wireless access point. Whether you should “take” the signal is another question. What does the owner of the wireless access point intend? If they turn on encryption and you hack your way into it somehow I would say that is stealing. The owner clearly does not want somebody to be using their signal. If encryption is turned off then it could be because the owner doesn’t mind others using it or it could be that the owner doesn’t know about the encryption feature or how to turn it on. I think at this stage the “stealing” that is going on is mostly a result of WAP owners not being aware. Has the “free lunch” arrived? I don’t think so. Like the early days of the Internet, when many people thought the Internet was free, it became clear what was going on. Owners of WAPs who don’t want to share it will turn on their encryption. Hopefully, many others will help create community wireless networks and purposely make them available as a public resource. The business models for making this happen are not yet clear but I am confident they will emerge.

Subway Surfing (first patrickWeb WiFi story)

Archive of other patrickWeb WiFi stories

Other WiFi links at patrickWeb

Pringles Can (The Famous)

WiFi Antennas

Wireless Communities

802.11 Planet

The Spam Has Got To Go

Reflection – written June 15, 2002

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.

The daily flood of emails is getting more pernicious each day. Emails contain JavaScript programs that display pornographic material in vivid color and animation, not only when you go to a web site, but right in your private email in-box. Not as an attachment — but in glaring view in the main body of the email. Parents, understandably, may forbid their kids from going on-line if they are going to exposed to such inappropriate content.

If you are new to the Internet or if you have not participated in discussion groups or registered at many web sites, you may not get too much spam. If you take full advantage of the many capabilities of the Net, your email address gets “mined” and you may get 100 or more spam emails per day and then, like me, you will begin to spend a nontrivial part of each day deleting unwanted email. The first half billion people got connected and were very happy about their daily use of the Net. If the current trend continues, many of the next 2 billion may decide the Internet is not worth the trouble. This in turn can imperil the broad potential of e-business.

I used to think that spam was akin to junk mail that we all get in our physical mailboxes. I once even argued that I got more junk postal mail than junk email. Those days are long gone. It has now become a daily deluge. It is analogous to people driving by your house and stuffing your mailbox with trash and pornographic materials and other insults to your intelligence and your morals. People are advised to get a new email address to avoid the problem. That is analogous to having to pick up your furniture and family and move to a new house. And then within days if not hours, be found and have your mailbox stuffed once again.

The Internet definitely boosts our productivity in many ways. However, because of spam a chunk of that productivity is being given up to faceless, nameless people. You have to clean your driveway and mow your grass every day. Filter rules? Redesign your mailbox, dig a new hole, pour the concrete — every day. Build filters to screen out certain topics–but in the process raise the possibility that you will miss something important. In some cases the JavaScript embedded in emails is flawed and crashes your email program or even your system and you are forced to spend your time recovering.

Spammers rely on the law of large numbers. If you send out ten million emails and only one hundredth of one percent respond, that is 1,000 potential customers (or suckers). Consequently, the spammers go to great lengths to get you to read their email. The subject line is often “You have been approved”, “Your order is on the way”, “Regarding your recent order”, “Talk to customer support about your problem”, “From Bill, about our discussion”, “Replying to your question”, or even “Urgent, from Mom”. Recently I have received a lot of email from friends and family asking why I had been sending out spam. The email said it came “From: John Patrick” but in reality was spam that came from someone else “spoofing” my name in hopes that it would result in higher odds of the email being opened.

The statistics are beginning to show the huge loss in productivity and the associated costs. I for one am getting indignant about spam. I am not in the market for enlarged body parts, getting out of debt, losing weight, winning a million dollars, inheriting a million dollars, gaining a million email addresses of other people, extending my life through miracle drugs, or getting government grants. If I need something I can usually find it in a few minutes or less with Google.

People are going to demand that their political leaders do something about spam. This will lead to regulation of the Internet. I think most of us feel that Internet regulation can be costly, limit innovation and hurt productivity. I believe that an ingredient of the long-term answer to the problem is authentication. If an email arrives from a person with no digital ID, I want it deleted. If the sender is not “real” I don’t want to see their email. If the sender has a digital ID but I have never received mail from them before, then I want to know who issued the digital ID to them and what the subject of the email is. If it is not an offensive topic or something I know I am not interested in and the issuer of the ID is an organization I have heard of then I’ll let it into my in-box. This isn’t the perfect solution but it could help a great deal.

The Global Internet Project is very interested in raising visibility to this problem, bringing the world’s experts together to focus on it, and urging private sector initiatives to deal with it. A workshop on the subject is being held in Washington on June 18th and I am hopeful that it will result in action plans that can bring relief. The alternative is a regulated Internet that may not be able to deliver on the great promises and potential that we all believe in.

Website Consolidation Project

Reflection – written June 8, 2002

ibm.com/patrick has been around for more than seven years now. In April of 1998patrickweb.com was registered with the long-term idea that someday it would become the “portal” into all of my activities. Initially patrickweb was used just for private email but then in early 2000 a patrickWeb homepage came to life using Net Objects Fusion. Rather than host it at IBM along with ibm.com/patrick, a small ISP in New York City (which has since folded it’s tent) hosted it. Since patrickWeb was intended to be more personal, it was better to move it to outside of IBM. Since my “retirement” from IBM, a transition plan has commenced that will consolidate all of my activities, weblog,photogallery, etc. onto patrickWeb. I will continue to use ibm.com/patrick as an alias so that people who have it bookmarked can still find me. Hopefully, the consolidation will be completed by the end of the summer. I am using Dreamweaver for the homepage and much of the content. Radio Userland will be my weblog tool. Thanks for your patience as I work my way through this project. Comments and feedback always welcome.

My PhotoGallery

Reflection – written June 5, 2002

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.

Challenges of Security

Reflection – written June 4, 2002

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 inconveniences.

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.

Not As Easy As It Looks

Reflection – written May 27, 2002

I have been looking for a long time to find a motorcycle trailor that is really easy to use. On occasion it would be really nice to be able to tow a motorcycle somewhere and then ride it back home or visa versa or to tow it to a destination and then take a local motorcycle trip. I have a flat trailor made by Haulin which I bought at Home Depot. It was inexpensive and seemed like just the right thing. I made sides for the trailor from 2 x 6 planks with the idea that one of them would then serve as a ramp to drive a motorcycle onto the trailor. I found a bracket somewhere on the Web that mounted to the trailor bed which was designed to hold the front wheel of the bike in place. The final step in preparing this home made bike trailor was to have tie-down rings welded to the sides of the trailor. All set — ready to use. What a disaster! (read more)

The part of the plan that I did not anticipate was the weight of the motorcycle. The Harley-Davidson Sportster weights about 600 pounds. The larger sized bikes weigh 700-900 pounds. My first attempt was with the Sporster. The eight foot ramp makes a non-trivial angle from the ground to the trailor bed. The bike is much too heavy to push up the ramp. That means you have to ride it up the ramp. If you go fast enough to make it up the ramp and you miscalculate you are in for an accident. If you go slow you lose your balance and once on the ramp there is no place to rest your feet to get balance. I loaded, transported and unloaded the Sporster two or three times but that was enough. Last time was a near disaster. Fortunately, my wife was nearby and helped me regain my balance after coming within inches of dumping the bike on its side. In short, unless you are Evil Knievel, then forget about it. I now use the Haulin trailor for transporting firewood. The quest for a more suitable trailor was underway.

During a visit to my local Harley dealer, I saw a really slick looking trailor made by Kendon. I was very tempted. Not only is it slick looking but it also has a slick design that enables it to be stored in your garage in a standing up postion, thereby taking minimal space. There is only one catch — it uses a ramp to get the bike onto the trailor. The dealer assured me that it was easy but after looking at it closely and thinking about it a lot, I concluded it would involve  the same peril as my modified Haulin trailor.

After a lot of time searching the Web I found the Razor trailor. It has a very unique design that allows you to lower the bed of the trailor to the ground and then just drive on. You then crank it back up and in the process it lowers the trailor hitch to your car or truck. Extremely clever. The Razor is made — one at a time — by an expert welder inDahlonega, Georgia. I bought the Razor from John Revelle in Simsbury, Connecticut. I stopped by to see it on a Sunday afternoon and John was nice enough to deliver it to me later that same day. One alternative to the Razor is the Easy Hauler. It is a similar idea but when you add the features to make it comparable to the Razor it is quite a bit more expensive. John Revelle easily convinced me that the Razor was a better choice.

Today (05-27-02) was  my first attempt at using the Razor and it worked out fine — although there were tense moments. The goal was to bring the Ultra Classic Electra Glide back from a trip to Pennsylvania. I lowered the trailor bed to the ground, rode the bike very slowly onto it, and then put down the kickstand. The nice thing about the Razor is that it has a wide bed and it is made of a solid sheet of steel. Not sure of the gauge of the steel but it is very solid. It was a bit tricky riding the bike to exactly the center of the galvanized channel that is attached to the bed. On the “dresser” it is impossible to actually see your front tire. I am sure it will be fine as I get some practice. One lesson learned is to make sure you have flat ground under where you lower the Razor. This wasn’t the case for me as you can see from the picture. Uneven ground makes it harder to tell if you have the bike tied down level and generally increases nervousness — at least for me.

The major difficulty was finding the optimum place for the tie-downs and operating the ratchets. Ratchet tie-downs are very reliable once you get them in place but operating the ratchet mechanism requires a degree in mechanical engineering to operate. There has to be a better way. If you have ever tried them you know what I mean – they can be a mess. The front tie-downs worked best by putting the straps on the handlebars — being careful not to pinch wires. The service manager at Baer’s told me to compress the front forks about two inches and that rear tie-downs should not be necessary unless you want a security blanket. I did so I tried various places to apply the tie-downs. At one point I sprung one of the hard bags out of place. Fortunately, it went right back into the right position when I relieved the ratchet. Still not sure where best place is but I did finally get the bike firmly in place. I won’t go into further details. Hopefully, practice will make near perfect. The bike was ready to roll and the 150 mile trip was uneventful.

I was nervous about how the unloading would go. Turned out to be a piece of cake. Very simple and straightforward. I would highly recommend a Razor to anyone with a reason to tow their bike from time to time.