15 posts tagged “geek”

In an effort to let people know where exactly I am I have compiled the following quick blurb and the Pips after that:

Microblogging - I am sitting at both Jaiku and Twitter.
        I like the commenting in Jaiku, but feature seem a bit too Nokia driven right now for me to be able to use them easily. That said, the Jaiku is getting my twitter stream so any mobile Tweets will show up, along with the rest of my web presence. I am using TwitKu to update from the web, and the twitter short code available form twitter for mobile

Tumblog-  Kalidor's Tumblog
     Tumblr is more of a test for random images and links and stuff I think is kewl.

Blog - Vox
   I am posting to this, using the LJ link so LJ gets the post too. Eventually gonna migrate to Unwired but I really need to play with the code over there.

Pictures - Gallery
   Pictures posted here. Gallery needs some tweaking but it's here

Bookmarks to me - Del.icio.us
    If you want to share a book mark with me, please use Del.icio.us and tag it to:Kalidor.

Pips
 
 

When most people hear the words emerging markets, they tend to think of third world countries that aren't in North America. I beg the question, is having a computer in nearly every home a true definition of an emerging market? Sure the computers are nice to have in the home, but how much value are we getting out of them. Many times, I've heard the pundits talk of technologies colliding and merging in the computer industry; but a lot of these technologies call for ever increasing speed and bandwidth. Can the content keep up with the technology?

While North America has been quibbling over which if faster, 40/10 Mbps Cable or 25/25 Mbps DSL*, Pacific Rim and some European countries have been using various technologies that can get them into potential multi-Gbps rates. Among the most covered is fiber to the curb. In a show that highlights Japan's broadband capacity, Sony Japan opened a video download site for  PSP customers. While it would be relatively useless to North America; in a country where the 1 GB file would take approximately 2 minutes to download this content delivery option is well placed.

"But wait," you might say, "isn't Verizon offering FiOS?" Sure they are; giving users 50/10 speeds in select markets. But in a market where users are willing to pay 30 or 40 dollars a month for current broadband technology I think US vendors are going to take sometime to come near Japan. Canadian vendors tend to be even further behind their US counterparts, and with no price points being offered by Rogers Communications on their Fiber site, I don't see this trend improving anytime soon. Just to put this in perspective, Japan hit a milestone of  25% broadband penetration in 2005 with 100 Mbps fiber data and voice (in the form of ip phone) to the home for approximately US$36.

* Laboratory conditions; actual usage tends to severely vary with price and regional infrastructure.

Technorati Tag : Broadband, FiOS, Rogers

"Wireless Power"

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/070423-11.html

What is the one tether holding us back from being truly wireless? The power cord of course.

Whether you just don't want to climb under your desk to plug in your laptop or, like Leo, you would be spending 25% of your time finding your phone's power adapter, the idea of wireless power is a major want of the tech friendly crowd. Over the past few years, several stories have been posted about various sheets that can be placed on your desk that will charge your devices when you place them on it. Most of these will not work directly and require some adapter on the device; which begs issues of extra weight and bulk. This is especially true when you take into account the various different modes of electricity that devices need to accept. Some major questions remain in this industry, but this is certainly and exciting technology that would be great to see.

Earthquake proofing the Net

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OOSREO0.htm

While Pacific Rim countries seem to be doing well with respect to connectivity on the internet, many Asian countries of the Indian Ocean aren't that lucky. With the convergence of so many tectonic plates in the area, earthquakes and other geological events are quite common place and aren't exactly the most conducive for fault free connection. The recent earthquake north of Taiwan, for instance, managed to decrease that countries overall connectivity to the global network by nearly 75%. Seventeen telecom companies are now stepping up to the plate to build a new US$500,000,000 undersea cable to provide an alternate route and more secure route to the North American region. With luck and good planning not only is this a boost for speed but should allow the region faster recovery during times of disaster.

Shrunk in the Wash

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=7098

Data Evolution Computer, not to be confused with Digital Equipment Corporation, has entered the UMPC market with their offereing of the Cathena CX. Priced at US$799, this entry level UMPC tries to offer an affordable path for people not yet comfortable with the market but wanting to experience the utility of an Ultra Mobile. The device, which reminds me of a Lenovo tablet that has been shrunk in the wash, makes some questionable choices for save money. One maybe the choice of AMD over Intel on a Windows platform. To save power, the system is already clocked at a fairly low 500MHz, but when adding the cpu cycles wasted due to XP's optimization for Intel's pipelining, I would worry it runs with a feeling of something closer to 180MHz. While it's certainly a cute entry, I have to wonder if you are already paying this price tag, might a WM6 phone not give you the kind of mobility you are looking for with applications better suited to such a low level CPU.

Techocrati Tags : Geek, UMPC, Tech

techchickblogger made a post recently that raises two interesting questions.

Basic core of the story is Gabrielle was adding friends so fast that Facebook thought she was a bot. My two questions are  ...

1) Is Facebook acknowledging by this that they are using a version of Captcha that is known to have vulnerabilities?
 
2) How exactly does Facebook determine too man? Amber MacArthur and other celebrities are up there and don't get disconnected.

Food for thought.

Technocrati Tags: Facebook, Gabrielle Atticus

    The Waterloo based "Research In Motion" has announced that it is developing an application suite for Windows Mobile 6 that will expand blackberry services to the platform. One of the benefits that RIM lists for this is the familiar look and feel of the "Blackberry Experience."  From the press release, this seems to basically put a RIM Runtime environment on the user device allowing access to Blackberry applications, as well as the ever popular Blackberry push email mechanism.

    This is a big win for RIM in that it widens their potential user database, as well as maintains their look and feel for Blackberry users who have switched to WM6. To a degree, this is also a win for WM6 users who are more comfortable with RIM's interface then a Windows Mobile approach. For windows this is a slight loss as they are trying to push the newest version of Exchange into the market, but this allows for Lotus and other applications through RIM's server plugins. Finally, for system administrators it's a mixed blessing as it simplifies their administration capabilities, but I fear it does this by taking security out of the hands of the same administrators.

    "Push" Email is the killerr feature that has kept the Blackberries in such high demand. While many phones have had email capabilites for a while, most would pull the information off the server requiring either a schedule or a manual requests to grab the emails.  RIM's server extensions basically allow a syncronization between you email servers and those located in RIM's server farm in Waterloo, Ontario. these servers then strip content from the email to make it as basic as possible and send it directly to your Blackberry.
    
    Microsoft recently released a server package that gives a psuedo-push system to the existing connection between their Windows Mobile devices and exchange server. I say psuedo-push because it doesn't quite push the email. When an email is recieved the exchange server sends a pre-specified notification SMS to the user; her phone, in turn, uses the prespecified method programmed into it to connect and download from the exchange server. Now, any mail administrator worth his grain of salt would contact his network people at the time of install and set up the windows mobile devices to make an encrypted tunnel to the company network and then pull email through that. This has the benefits of keeping the email encrypted, as RIM's services does, and the added benefit that the email never leaves your control.

    So why do I find this better? Simply put the control of the email. While RIM does ensure that emails are kept encrypted, I have yet to see any federal or otherwise enforceable mandate that makes RIM responsible if the data is released to anyone other then the intended recipient. Additiionally, to make the Blackberry viable in several eastern countries, RIM is actively developing tools that will allow it's encryption to be circumvented by government officials. Insert Orwellia n Republican joke here.
   
    The method Microsoft uses above is a tested method and while the software does require exchange the method by no means does. I myself have been using the same method since T-Mobile first gave an email to sms gateway as part of it's services. A small script forwards the basic header information in sms format to my cellphone. If it's something particularly interesting I have my cellphone download the headers and select the email which I wish to read. This is a bit more manual of an approace, and I admit that since my phone is Symbian based it wouldn't be too difficult to automate; however it's certainly not difficult to do it manually and might even save me data time in the long run. Only one caveat remains with this method, and that is I need a US cellphone to do it. Unfortunatly, in Canada, Rogers is pushing the Blackberry to exclusion of all other mechanisms. While my T-mobile phone roaming on Roger's is fully capable of grabbing my email; Rogers is blocking data unless you have a heavily charged Blackberry plan, making true email out of the reach of the average user. Even their WAP access is heavily surcharged. In short, the future is out there, but whether it's RIM's or some other companies is yet to be seen; except perhaps in Canada where the mobile market prices are restrictive to free growth in the industry.

Technocrati Tags : Geek,Research in motion, Exchange, blackberry, Rogers, Microsoft, Security

    So today was one of the more interesting days in hands on tech. While doing my spring cleaning I needed background noise and what better then "The Tech Guy." After yesterday's experimentation with ustream, it was decided that today's tech show will be streamed fromed the beginning. Afterwards,  Leo rewired his setup a bit to allow us to listen to everyone being recorded for the "This Week in Tech." After the netcast recording was over, Leo, Iluminatis and several other TWiTs got together with their ustreams, the rest of us on IRC, and messed around with the technology. 

    Great potential was the theme of the day. This is exactly what I think Production IG was thinking when they drew the Laughing Man chatroom in the ninth episode of Stand Alone Complex. The main mods and direcotrs of the chat can talk and discuss, while the remaining participants  chat and ask questions.  By being able to respond to the spectators by talking, rather than typing, it leaves the drivers of the discussion to pull up and deal with more resources.; this should then enrich the conversation.
   
    While I am still worrried that a lot of Web 2.0 is still way too fragmented resulting in information overload; I think that this is a great leap forward. in what the technology can provide. We are also seeing a major speed up in development again. Not quite Dot-Com levels, but the tech sector is definatly recovering.  

Geek, TWiT, The Tech Guy, Leo Laporte

The MPAA may generally treat netizen's as more of an nuisance then an asset, but it hasn't stopped them from adopting many radical ways to generate publicity for all the stolen movies that they are making record profits on. Hollywood's use of movie websites is nothing new, nor is their advertising in IMDB.  In their strive to reach greater audiences, they turned to more community based sites about 2-3 years ago. While still uncommon, you could find various movies making use of MySpace to generate attention, and more importantly user generated  content for up and coming movies.  MySpace, or as I like to think of it the meat market of the next generation, is specifically targeted at the teen demographics that many studios are aiming to hit. For better or worse, it provides wonderful fodder for Hollywood.

 Mor recently, as Amber MacArthur highlighted several weeks ago, independant artists have been using Facebook to generate the same sort of following, even if its much more muted. Prevous to that Six Apart manged to help pioneer another medium of advertisment. Shortly before "Blood and Chcolate" was released in the theaters, a sponsered Live Journal account appeared that was being ghost-written for the main character. I found this a great way to not only generate hype, but to shine a light on some of the character expressed in the movie.

With yesterday;s premier of "Drive" stateside, Twitter has been added into the fold. Throughout both the and east coast airings, director Greg Yaitanes (and various cast and crew who swiped his phone) twittered inside facts and fun thoughts to the presence stream. For those that are on twitter, and knew of the promotion, this was a very interactive way to watch a classically one way program. I for one already feel more engaged with the show then I would have otherwise.

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LiveJournal, Hollywood,

What was the highlight of this past weekend?

Keira Knightly , erm ... derr ... yeah. Finally got to watch Pirates of the Caribbean (The first one) for the first time. This means I can now go watch the new one. What can I say, it was a slow weekend.  Homeworking most of Sunday, went to visit mum-in-law on Saturday as she left her cellphone over on Friday.  Really which it's wasn't Monday. It's not a fun day.    

What's one thing that you hope to do or accomplish before the end of this year?

I'd like to finish school so I can go one and start revisting, upgrading, and adding to my certifications!