Netrosexual

I am not sure i can take credit for coining this word, but it popped into my head today: "netrosexual."

In preparing for a panel discussion, I realized how much of the internet is free of gender stereotypes. The web and software in general are very unisex, neither too male or too female. It's a wonderful common ground when intellectual pursuits and knowledge are so gender free. Maybe the web is indeed the great equalizer.

Email: Out with the old

We lived without email for generations, but now that it has been in common usage over ten years old, we see signs of wear and tear: that's "tear" as in crying, not ripping up.

We try to get rid of messages once read and file those we need to keep, but they keep pouring in and, as we all know, it's hard to find what you're looking for in a mailbox full of bits and bytes.

My manual solution is to:

Prioritize
File
Archive

Yesterday, a friend told me about a unique strategy you can start doing today. Ready for this?

For each email you receive and read, get rid of two.
So, as she said: "If I get 18 messages, I have to get rid of 36."
What a great way to start slowly conquering the overflowing mailboxes. Thanks JB!

Another wonderful thing about technology is that people are always working on new ideas, and there will be smarter email tools in a couple years. What's in the works? It's a concept called Categorization Technology. Think of it as "tags" or the tagging process that shows instantly how many web pages (or in this case, emails) contain certain words.

Tools like SenseClusters, Digitality, and my favorite name: Pigmail, are underway. We'll soon see which rises to the top and helps conquer email overload. One of the companies working on this has obtained the 3000 Enron emails released by the courts and are using them to create the classification models. If you want access to that file, email me!

Putting computers where they're needed most

We all know people with multiple computers: desktop(s), laptop(s), handheld(s), and none of them are fast enough, new enough, good enough for all their needs. New tech pops out in this industry so fast, we can't keep up.

Yet, I'm constantly aware that the Digital Divide is not closing the gap. A nation with so much tech power doesn't do a very good job of bringing it to the people who could become empowered with a computer and with some training. The past ten years have shown few advances, but now there is good news.

A Chicago Tribune article by Barbara Rose 10/04/07 speaks of a Chicago-area pilot program to "provide low-income working parents with laptops, printers, career assessments, online courses and 12 months of internet access."

Isn't that wonderful? There are only ten participants in the pilot program, but let's hope it thrives. The pilot was launched by National Able Network Inc. and receives funding from the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust and a private family foundation.

Recycling at the rate of 700 cars in 2 hours

Yesterday was the SWANCC electronics recycling event at Motorola in Schaumburg. We filled Jerry's car to the brim with computers, printers, TV's and those old heavy monitors.

Two hours after the event opened, as we waited in line to move forward to the handlers who unload the car, we were stopped for a photo op -- because we were the 700th car - in just two hours !! And, we won a prize: A Bluetooth wireless headset.

Thanks to everyone who helped this recycling event. Below you'll see the full scope of the process.

A 1945 technology prediction

An excerpt from "As We May Think" in the July 1945 Atlantic Monthly.
The author is Dr. Vannevar Bush, a man with imagination...

"Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk."

I'd say his idea indeed came to pass, even better than predicted 67 years ago.
Curious? Read the full 1945 article online here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush/4

Are you an Utne reader?

I'm one a number of lucky people who get to vote on Utne magazine's covers. Last month, my first choice was the winner, for an article on censorship. It was titled: "History, What we're taught, and what's ignored."

If I get my vote, here's the cover you'll see on their next issue. I just couldn't resist!!

Lazy Library offers short books

We have so many days with no time to slow down and read, so was intriqued by this site's slogan: "read less, get more."

Turns out, Lazy Library specializes in offering books under 200 pages, for concise and effective books.
And, it was especially fun to find my own book featured there, at a nice, trim 120 pages.

Dell's Vostro so-so review

If you like reading Walt Mossberg's reviews in The Wall Street Journal, here's a video clip of his review of Dell's new Vostro computer line. Intended for small, small businesses, the system gets only a mediocre rating by Walt. Put your money into the home office line of Dell's if that's still your brand.

Dell Vostro audio-video review

Is your computer down for the count?

Even with better security suites, combining anti-virus, spyware and firewall, we still see the summer meltdown - about the fifth year in a row that Computer Clarity has been called to fix or diagnose a computer problem due to a slow computer that just won't do anything. My book, Computer Ease, has an entire chapter covering spyware. The Chicago Computer Soceity reviewer said that chapter alone is worth the $14.95 price of the book.

It happens most in families where children of all ages use the Internet, and inadvertently get themselves into trouble. Often it is not worth fixing the computer because of the high labor cost involved, and because if they did it once they will likely do it again, without a proper protection suite.

Consumer Reports recently cites the facts:

• Lack of protection on the Internet has cost consumers $7 billion over two years.
• Computer viruses have prompted 1.8 million households to junk their PCs over the past two years, while spyware has claimed another 850,000 machines in the past six months.
• And, one-third of U.S. households don't protect their computers from spyware.

Best anti-virus, spyware and firewall suites include:
Computer Associates Internet Security Suite
Panda Software
TrendMicro


Better to spend $50/year on protection than send your computer to the next electronics recycling event... which is Sept. 29th at Motorola in Schaumburg. Do not throw computers, printers, or monitors in the trash.

Fix your Norton Anti-Virus program today

If you use Norton Anti-Virus, you should run Live Update as soon as you can. The company patched a serious flaw on August 12th.

Through an error in its product, programming language flaws could allow another computer to take control of your software. Norton was not properly checking the data it received to make certain malicious commands did not pass through.

Thanks to Network World for announcing the problem - there's no record of it on Norton's Symantec site.

Is it a phone bill or a novel?

Now that iPhone customers got over the shock of paying $500 or $600 for a phone, their first month phone bills are landing with a big THWAK in the mailbox or on their doorstoop. A 50 or 100 page bill??

Seems the sleek-minded Apple folks and the AT&T Service provider screwed up big time.

Here's an example, from the hilarious David Pogue of the New York Times.

..."It’s a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion.

For starters, although I signed up for what iTunes told me was a $60 plan (450 minutes, unlimited Internet), the bill says I have a $40 voice plan and a $20 Internet plan, and lists them on separate pages.

The first bill, believe it or not, comes to $150. It’s filled with unexplained services and features that were never mentioned during the signup process, like MEDIA MAX, EXPD M2M, VOICE PRIVACY, and AT&T DIRECT BILL.

... It’s an unadulterated waste of paper, ink, and fuel to deliver it. It helps no one; dudes, we’re all on unlimited data plans! Who the heck needs a breakdown like this? If AT&T thinks anyone cares, they should stick it on the Web, for crying out loud."


If you have time, read more at David's blog at http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/iphoneatt-billuh-oh/

Of course, the only reason I find this so funny is because I didn't buy one !

The virtual reality of Web 2.0

I've written before about Web 2.0 - the convergence of social networking that puts the MeMe generation in a homogeneous sandbox with all their playmates. Web 2.0 sites like Digg and FaceBook draw crowds who post their favorite things online - lists of web sites, books, photos, music, and surround themselves with others who share their interest.

Many of these social networking site owners don't do much except pay the electric bill, yet they make a zillion dollars on advertising.

What are we wasting in the earth's resources by dreaming up ways to waste time through these social networking venues? Are you ready for the answer? ....


One site, secondlife.com, allows you to create an "avatar," a fake you, in a land of make-believe where you can create essentially a cartoon version of yourself, your town, clothing, etc. Or a fantasy life for yourself as a billionaire, movie star, who knows what else...

Second Life describes itself as "a 3D online digital world imagined, created & owned by its residents." It lets people live in a fantasy world, acting out behaviors they can't get away with in real life, and buying and selling goods with an imaginary currency called "Linden dollars."

Once the site became popular, large companies even created avatars for their brands and create an entire imaginary society online.

Fascinating in itself, sociologists are surely working on an analysis of "people with too much time." But more interesting at the moment, author Nick Carr, author of Does IT Matter? has calculated that an avatar on Second Life essentially uses as much electricity as a real live resident of Brazil.

The avatar world on Second Life has an average of 12,500 people online at any time. Carr calculates the computers of the real people who create these imaginary lives would use 12,500 computers, and the servers that host the site might require 4,000 computers. Based on typical watts of electricity consumed by computers, a day on Second Life therefore consumes about 60,000 kilowatt-hours.

So check the world electricity usage stats and that's a close measure to the daily electricity used by an average person in Brazil.

Now should we measure the lost productivity in the world economy by people creating and dressing these fake personas?

An executive at Sun MicroSystem's Dave Douglas took this moral dilemma a step further and calculated the CO2 emissions (greenhouse gasses) from the production of all this electricity. Douglas writes the avatar uses "1,752 kWH/year per avatar -- about 1.17 tons of CO2. That's the equivalent of driving an SUV around 2,300 miles (or a Prius around 4,000)."

You can read more at Nick Carr's blog: http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php

or post a comment here to share your thoughts.

Information grab by Google?

As an update to the post of July 8, about Google:

The Google program that ran on PBS in Chicago on July 12th, a film called "The World According to Google" was surprising.

Instead of celebrating the behemoth, it dug into assessing the scope of the enterprise, questioning the right of one company to collect all the world's information. I've long suspected Google and other big internet firms were on that path.

I listened with interest as Brewster Kahle, the man who made a fortune with the Alexa search engine, and founded the Internet Archive in 1996 discussed the issue. Unlike Google, the Internet Archive purpose is: "offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format."

There's an interesting interview with Brewster Kahle on SecondLife.com.

The business model for Google is sound: give information away for free, get money from advertisers. But who owns that information? We do. And, while it is clear that large internet companies collect user data, they are also giving that information away, either through strategic alliances, or if the government demands it.

Do you want all your private photos, email , address, web search history and files on your computer archived forever by them? And given or sold to others?

The Internet archive has received a grant to challenge Google Library's right to own digital book rights. See CNET http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=73142.

Are you still with me? Contrary to Google's efforts to capture and digitize books from the world's libraries, the Open Content Alliance, is a joint effort by the Internet Archive, Yahoo and Microsoft to digitize library collections, including those of the University of California system and The University of Toronto. Unlike a similar project from Google, which allows users to read the digitized content only through Google's Web site, the OCA material will be searchable through any service and everyone will be encouraged to download books.

Who's to say Google will always live by its 'do no evil' motto, once they compile more information than any other source?
Who's to say what is free on the web today won't suddenly require prices once needed information is locked up by a corporation?

I'm only asking the questions, here. I don't have the answers, but hope you'll spend a few minutes noodling the ethical dilemma posed by the problem.

--
Helen Gallagher
Computer Clarity
www.cclarity.com
Tech news at cclarity.blogspot.com

Have mouse, will travel ~ and travail

I burned my finger with a too-hot touchpad. Here's my solution:

I love using my notebook computer, all day, every day, from cafe, to client, to summer on the balcony.
My Averatec notebook has a speedy built-in touchpad but lately it has become so HOT I'm hurting my fingers. While waiting for tech support to determine if there is a recall notice, I switched to my wireless mouse.

The Logitech Optical Wi-FI mouse connects wirelessly via a USB sensor that plugs into your computer's USB port. The connector looks just like a thumb drive. When you roam, you pull the USB out, snap it onto the bottom of the mouse and you're ready to go. Without a rolling ball on the bottom, the mouse works on any surface, knee, dashboard, even on your laptop wrist rest.

I have been using it lately as a portable mouse wherever I go and it is fantastic. Office Max has a big selection, and I'm sure other retailers do too.
Logitech Mouse

PS - it's a perfect present for all those Leo's with an August birthday!!

Read more Good Mousekeeping tips in "Computer Ease."

On PBS this Thursday, July 12, 2007

Google truly is an amazing empire. Be sure to watch this PBS show Thursday night.

The World According to Google

Thursday, July 12, 8:00pm

CHANNEL 11 (WTTW)

A look at Google, the Internet company whose motto is "don't be evil." Included: the company's "chief Internet evangelist" Vint Cerf; Google's hiring process; and the ethical and philosophical questions it faces.

And while Google has grown from good to great, and bred more than a few multi-millionaires, remember, it's not always the best search tool for your needs.

Read about "Search Engines: Order out of chaos," in Computer Ease.

Is more RAM the answer?

If your computer is slowing down, it is not likely due to the number of files you've saved. No need to feel guilty and start emptying the trash. It's more likely the amount of random access memory (RAM).

I know what you're thinking: The computer has the same amount of memory it did when it was new. Why wouldn't it be enough now. Well, more programs, like web browsers and Microsoft Office use much more memory. They are now graphic-intensive resource hogs.

The less memory you have, the slower the computer is to switch between programs, open and close files, and save your data. The more time you're online, the slower it works, perhaps needing a reboot to refresh the memory. When memory is unavailable, the computer starts using disk space for temporary, virtual storage.

Memory is an expensive component of computers so PC manufacturers skimp on memory. If you can, next time, buy a computer with double the original memory.

For now, if your computer acts downright lazy, the easy solution is to double the memory.
You can also use a utility like MemTurbo or SpeedUpMyPC.

Act completes turn-around

The many fans of Act in Computer Clarity's database will be thrilled to know the newest versions are stellar.
We mourned the loss of speed and clarity after version 2000, when Act was sold to Best Software, who made it second-best with version 2005. Very slow ... I mean v e r y s l o o o w. It was maddening.

Act is now owned by Sage Software and version 2007 is terrific. Performance is up to speed if your computer has at least 1 GB memory, and the appearance is improved. The beta of their next version shows Sage is on the right track, and is rewarding our patience after a rocky change in ownership.

You can still purchase older versions of Act on the secondary market (amazon, buy.com, etc.) but spring for the newest if your business needs a fresh start on managing contacts.

AT&T = Ameritech = SBC = AT&T

Now that "the phone company" has come full circle, most clients who signed up for SBC Global DSL service are being phased into the AT&T DSL service. If you did not receive an email from AT&T instructing you on how to change your POP and SMTP mail servers, and are having trouble with email, here are the correct settings.

Instead of:
pop.sbcglobal.yahoo.com use pop.att.yahoo.com

Instead of:
smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.com use smtp.pop.yahoo.com

Change the POP server port to 995 instead of 110 and
change the SMTP server port to 465 instead of 25.

Got it? If not, let me know if you need a housecall.

Helen

Most-asked tech questions

Having just returned from a brief vacation, the voicemail and email show a trend. Here's what's on the minds of my clients:

1. Should I buy another Windows XP computer while they are still available?
Answer: Yes. Don't get Vista unless you have lots of spare time to play around with it.

2. What's the easiest backup method.
Answer: USB thumb drives or online backup service like Genie Backup Manager.

3. Email is becoming a terrible, messy burden.
Answer: I know, I know. The best strategy is to reply, file or delete. Don't let the Inbox, Sent or Trash build up to hundreds of messages. It's anxiety-producing and inefficient. Read, Act, or Dump, that's all we can do.

4. Isn't there an easier way to find my files?
Answer: Windows Explorer with it's nested folder system, and quick search ability is the best we've got for now. It does take time to manage, but it takes less time than paper files. Make folders, drag your stuff into them, and do a backup. Then, grab a book and go to the swimming pool to relax.

There is an entire chapter in Computer Ease on handling these mundane tasks. But if they make our life easier and let us work faster, they're worth learning.

Jim Coates retires from tech writing

Chicago Tribune columnist, Jim Coates, a nationwide favorite, is retiring today. He provided more laughs, compassion and clarity than any other tech columnist in the country. No one could sort out the facts, labor hours over re-creating errors, testing software, interviewing company execs, and sniffing out the truth about the way things work.

Here at Computer Clarity I always thought the battles I fought to make things right for clients were in unison with Jim and his thinking about the way technology should work, so I'll miss his columns. His retirement may be the start of a book career, so we haven't heard the last of him.