Orcmid's Lair

I Blog, Therefore I Am

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:43:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Orcmid's Lair, Professor von Clueless in the BlunderDome, Numbering Peano, Pursuing Harmony, Spanner Wiingnut's Muddleware Lab, Orcmid's Live Hideout, blog themes

This is different than my main blogs. I wanted to experiment with Windows Live and have a blog that employed the features and organization of Windows Live blogs. I have since become disenchanted with having a blog that is not on a server that I manage. Thanks to the capabilities of Windows Live Writer, I can successfully lift the posts from the Hideout and repost them in the place that is more-appropriate for me.
This is different also. This is a sandbox blog that I use only for trying things out. It is different in style but it serves me as a way to try out various changes before introducing them on one of my current blogs. My four main blogs have the following descriptions:

I have six blogs to my name, where I set the purpose and content of the blogs. These are various expressions of me.

There’s one other blog that is an expression of my partnership with Vicki and her vocation as a potter, Millennia Antica: The Kiln Sitter’s Diary. My presence is as web master and technical support, along with contribution of my perspective on some of the activities that I participate in. But the purpose of that blog is to be part of Vicki’s expression of her vocation and love for pottery.

Amma Vicki and the Monks

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Amma Vicki, Victoria E. Hamilton, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami, Sadhaka Tejadevanatha, Bothell WA

On Wednesday, June 17, 2009, Bodhinatha came from the Kauai Hindu Monastery to the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell, Washington. The visit (pdf) is part of travels that will end up in Edmonton, Canada.

It is a rare treat for Amma Vicki, as she is known (scroll to the bottom), to visit with members of the monastery family at times other than her annual visit to Kauai. She is always hopeful to learn whether son Senthilnathaswami is along on the journey. She was delighted to be able to see Bodinatha and Tehadevanatha on this particular visit.

Although I have met Bodinatha, I had not heard him speak to a Hindu gathering until Wednesday. The subject, “Passing On Our Hindu Tradition” dealt with the challenges of Hindu grandparents and parents living in the West and raising children in the midst of Western cultures and schools. For a non-Hindu, I found the explanations and suggestions direct and remarkably gentle.

Let It Rain, Let It Rain …

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Seattle, weather, rain, drought, Summer

[Update 2009-06-19-08:47 –0700 (pdt) Let this be the end of silliness about rain-free-days records. There was a steady though light rain overnight. This morning at 07:15 the streets and grounds were wet except inside the drip line of some heavily foliaged trees. The rain has changed from light sprinkle to mist now, with the morning temperature just crossing 60F (15C). The forecast is for occasional light rain through Sunday, 06-21. This may not assuage the agricultural concerns.]

[Update 2009-06-19-01:54Z I got it all wrong. The first paragraph has been corrected based on information from King5.com for 2009-06-18.]

As of some time overnight on June 17-18, we had officially gone 29 consecutive days without rain, ~~breaking~~ tying the May-June ~~1951~~ 1982 record for such events. [The longest dry spell is the 51 July-August days in 1951.] For some reason, a local television station news team thinks that is exciting. Not at summer water rates and what it costs to sprinkle a lawn to keep it from going dormant, the dry-weather response here. Of course, in brushlands and forests there is even more to be concerned about.

The rainfall that we drove through yesterday afternoon did not count. The test is weather or not a sensor at the Seattle-Tacoma airport detects measurable rainfall. This shower we ran into was while driving on the I-90 floating bridge toward its connection with I-405 and our continuation North to Bothell, Washington. The rain did manage to make drivers nervous, apparently because most knew the roadway can be dangerously slippery when wetted for the first time after a long dry period and accumulation of surface oils and greases.

Cloudbursts and lightning strikes in the mountains to our West and East also don’t count as an end to our dry spell. (Can you say “forest fire?” Sure you can.)

Now, how the heck will we convince tourists and other visitors to stay away because they think the sun never shines in Seattle?

The Fate of Microsoft Outlier Customers

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Encarta, OneCare, Money, software longevity, trustworthiness, Maps, Works, MSN

I recently noticed that three of my favorite Microsoft products are to be no more: Windows OneCare (why are they still selling it?) , Microsoft Encarta, and Microsoft Money. That was striking for me and I have created a contingency plan for each of those products.

On reflection, it is not a new thing for various Microsoft applications to transmogrify and eventually disappear. Although I have never had an interest in Flight Simulator, I am still a devoted user of Microsoft FrontPage. If Microsoft Works were as clean and simple as the MS-DOS version, I would still use it. I have also used a variety of picture editors and photo editors that were bundled in various Microsoft products and that seem to come and go with each new computer system and occasional Microsoft Office upgrade. Some day, I suppose I will have to do without Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker, especially as future versions/replacements demand hardware capabilities I don’t possess.

Now, Microsoft is not making a fortune for me as an occasional upgrader of these products (though I quietly paid my OneCare subscription renewal each year). It is interesting that not until the abandonment of FrontPage was announced did I begin to feel the squeeze and the lack of an appropriate replacement for abandoned Microsoft products. (E.g., Expression Web is both more and less than what suits my current web-development practices.) Now I now need to look for three more substitutions and also look at long-term measures for protecting my systems and my electronic financial records as well as maintaining my web sites. For the three latest-discontinued products, I find that I have three different contingency measures in place.

Wait, I Like Encarta

When I read that Encarta was to be no more, I resolved to go find a copy of the latest version. I have a version completely installed on my hard drive and it is a handy reference. I confess that I mainly use the dictionary (the default setting for the Encarta Search Bar kept handy in my Windows XP task bar). The encyclopedia is handy but it doesn’t get searched by Windows Desktop Search (a little incoherence there) and I find myself on the web (and Wikipedia) more often than in Encarta because that’s where Windows Desktop Search (and now bing) lead me best.

I’m currently running version 14 (Encarta 2005) and I actually had one monthly update that I didn’t install until last week. The reluctance to update has to do with needing to be administrator when I do it, and I usually forget Encarta updates when I am running as administrator for other maintenance purposes. It is a demonstration of my unnoticed waning interest that I didn’t know I had one update left from 2005.

Nevertheless, I wanted to have the latest and greatest if there were to be no more. Unfortunately, the latest version seems to be Encarta Premium 2007 and it is still pricey, even though pro-rated refunds were cut off on April 30.

I settled for the less-expensive Britannica 2009 Deluxe with the hope that the included dictionary and thesaurus is as easy to use as the one I am abandoning from Encarta.

Not Money Too. No, Not Money!

The shocker for me is last week’s announcement that Microsoft Money will also be no more. I checked, and my oldest Microsoft Money backup is dated 1999 and it has entries from 1998-01-01. I tended to hold onto versions of Microsoft Money. I didn’t switch to Money Plus 2007 until the version I was running under Windows 98 couldn’t be installed on Windows XP as I was off-loading the Windows 98 machine at the end of 2007.

I don’t like Money Plus 2007 as much as the older pure-desktop versions. The change of the user experience to one with integrated web features is mostly a nuisance. The software performs more slowly and I don’t do those on-line things. But I like the reports and the extensive history of purchases (and depreciation records) is important for me. I prepare my tax returns from records maintained in Microsoft Money, and I have had some success balancing my bank accounts using downloads that Money will rely on. (The experience is rather variable and I often simply balance statements manually instead rather than deal with what it takes to correct for a failed automatic account update.)

I discovered that my version of Money Plus “expires” ~~in September~~ at the end of November. Ones activated this summer will have support extended through January, 2011.

It seems like a no-brainer that what I want to do is install another downloaded version and continue to use it until I have a satisfactory replacement. I will also want to keep a copy around as long as possible to enable my use of existing records. I will need to discover how to export some of those for use in other products, or as spreadsheets that I can preserve in OOXML/ODF.

So I have another Money Plus Home and Business download and a product key for it. I will install it at a point this summer when I am carefully backed up, exported, and ready to risk an upgrade.

Goodbye OneCare, It’s Been Good to Know Ye

Microsoft OneCare arrived at just the right time for me. I had tired of Norton Antivirus upgrades and a growing drift from what worked just right for me starting before Norton/Symantec Systemworks and going back to a time when there really were Norton Utilities. I valued the simplicity all-in-oneness of OneCare for the following provisions:

Annual support on up to three SOHO computer systems (exactly what I had that needed the protection around here)
Constant nagging and support for regular backups
Outgoing firewall protection

It wasn’t the most wonderful product, but it was also steadily improved over the time I used it, right from the beginning of its availability. It did deal with my dominant computer security concerns.

OneCare also provided me with a great source of system-incoherence anecdotes, and I must recount some of those while I can still capture screen shots of the experience.

Actually doing backups onto DVDs was not the most exciting experience, as much as OneCare made that possible. Once backup functions were taken over by WHS, the cleverly-named HP Mediasmart Server (with its Windows Home Server version of Windows Server 2003) now on the network, that difficulty was mitigated and there are now automatic, incremental backups every night.

Still, OneCare works well and effortlessly for us, even if it reports that backups are woefully out of date (a new little incoherence on how OneCare has forgotten WHS is on the job).

It was also great that Microsoft announced that all OneCare support agreements will continue until their expiration. That means mid-September 2009 here.

On the other hand, the promised Microsoft replacements for OneCare are not in sight. I believe the last promise was for around August. I am beginning to squirm.

There appears time to find an adequate substitute, taking into consideration that Microsoft will offer some sort of solutions for some unknown degree of protection where I find it the most valuable for the computers here. Unfortunately, it is not clear that there is a decent non-Microsoft product that works here, regardless of the high reputation a number of Antivirus producers have achieved. The low reputation that is Microsoft’s automatic prize is apparently more myth than reality in my experience. On balance, OneCare works better than anything I have attempted to replace it with.

Here’s how my search is working out so far.

Since OneCare is to be no more, Windows 7 beta and Windows 7 RC not only had no provision for it, those releases were actually hostile to OneCare. So on Quadro7 I have been going through trials of other Antivirus products, partly to determine a good candidate to be installed uniformly on all of the systems here. None of the products tried so far seem to integrate well with Windows 7, which has apparently changed the rules enough that AV producers are having some difficulty. In particular, I have not found an AV product (even the Windows 7 directed beta releases) where Windows 7 reports that it is protected and the Windows Home Server concurs in reporting that my systems are protected.

Having tired of Symantec (and enjoying the liberation that OneCare provided), I haven’t gone back. My latest experience with McAfee was on WHS and that led me to prefer no AV there instead. (That experience also led me to be more cautious about the judgment of folks at Hewlett-Packard and the trial installations they chose to push to WHS.)

Meanwhile, on Quadro 7 I have gone through one trial of Kapersky and another of Trend Micro. I actually bought a retail copy of Trend Micro but Windows 7 chokes on that. Instead, I now possess an useless license since the Trend Micro beta for Windows 7 won’t accept the older-product registration code except when it installs as an update, and that doesn’t work on Windows 7. I’m moving on to F-Secure’s beta for Windows 7 right now and the trial lasts out past August. With luck, I might have a consistent Microsoft solution to deploy across all of the computers here. And if not, I will need to find a product that has an affordable multiple-machine license (as Trend does) and that doesn’t require me to use a web site to know my status (as McAfee Total Protection does).

There are clearly interoperability issues here, and the level of coherent integration is a challenge. It is a challenge for Microsoft too, but as one might expect, OneCare integrates more cleanly and, apart from an apparently-inescapable level of Microsoft paternalism, works most consistently and coherently than anything else I have attempted to use in its place.

Update 2009-06-15-04:06Z Correcting an expiration date for Microsoft Money.

Just a Little Bit Facebooked

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:13:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social computing, social grid, social silos, orcmid, internet surveillance, privacy

When I said “I will Facebook no more Forever” in December 2007, I meant it. I really meant it.

On the other hand, I knew that Facebook actually maintained my account and all I needed to do was log back into it to have it operating again. There is evidently a full nuclear destruction available, but I didn’t go that option. I also didn’t discard my Facebook account password.

I recall being given a similar reassurance by an AOL telephone representative as I was cancelling my long-standing CompuServe account, the first place “orcmid” was ever seen in public. (The AOL-ized webified CompuServe was not the CompuServe that I devoted so much time to at the end of the 70s. It seems I am constantly ending up in the demographic that is no longer the one of a long-time vendor’s keen interest.)

At 10:00 this morning, I was noticing all of the folks on Twitter going on about having gotten their user-friendly Facebook name, or about someone else getting it first.

Oh oh, “What about Orcmid?” I say to myself at least ten hours after the name-claiming frenzy began. Well of course “orcmid” was available. I now have it.

I am not back on Facebook. Yes, my account is active again, but I am not back.

All this means is that when others talk about their Facebook page, or photos on Facebook, or anything-else Facebook, I can go look, because I have an account.

I am not attending to my Facebook page, I am not posting on folk’s walls, I am not friending anyone and I am ignoring mail that comes in saying so-and-so has friended me.

This is entirely an account of convenience. I am only a little bit Facebooked. Honest. I caught it from a toilet seat.

By Your Start Bars Shall Ye Be Known

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Windows, Golden Geek, computer setups

Wouter van Vugt and Jesper Lund Stocholm have unwittingly (?) started a new geek Friday pastime: Comparing computer Start Bars (or their equivalent among non-Windows users). Well, let’s see how many personality revelations I make here:

Scampo (main desktop)	Quadro7 (Tablet PC)	Compagno (web site dev host)

Senator, I have to the best of my recollection never opened Getting Started, Calculator, Sticky Notes, Snipping Tool, and Paint on Windows 7. That must have been someone else. (This must show how little my start bar has been auto-customized yet, and I have been using other applications. Hmm, gremlins perhaps?)

Now, the Start Bar is not the whole story. As you can see, what I might or might not have arranged in my Quick Launch area of the Task Bar is also revealing.

And, if you don’t find enough tea leaves to read into my psychological profile from the above clips, there is always the system tray for delving deep into the geek psyche:

Scampo:
Quadro7:
Compagno:

Excluding Vicki’s office desktop system, there is still one more machine in the Centrale workgroup. The fact that I actually had to learn how to use Remote Desktop reveals how much my arrangement is a maverick with respect to Windows Home Server design assumptions. I didn’t want to be a network systems administrator, but now I am one.

Well, that was boring. What can we come up with next week I wonder?

Golden Geek: Sibling Memories Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Golden Geek, growing up, siblings

In the 2009-02-02 post, Golden Geek: Sibling Memories, I suggested that the next time the three of us got together, we should restage the 1951 group portrait. Luckily, youngest sister Carol is vacationing in the Pacific Northwest this year. On May 23, we all met at Judy’s and recreated the photograph as we are now, 58 years later. Vicki, our superb photographer assistant, made it possible. Here we are in the same order: Carol, Dennis, and Judy. Carol is now taller than Judy and this is apparently a matter of sibling banter between the two of them.

Carol and Judy provided additional recollections on the original staging. It was dad who arranged for us to sit for this picture. We think it was around Spring 1951, when we were in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades, all in Horace Mann school in Tacoma, Washington. This was the last time that all three of us would be in the same school together.

The photo portrait was hand retouched, and that is evident on the black-and-white print I am holding. The version that was presented to mom, and hung prominently in our home, was hand-colored.

Carol remembers that dad did not like obligatory occasions and preferred to operate spontaneously. We think the portrait was a surprise gift not associated with any particular occasion. I recall being that way as well. Living in New York State and Pennsylvania, I would arrive for holiday visits unannounced, meeting dad at his work and then riding home with him. The only problem with that is mom knew I might do such a thing and was left in anticipation whether I was coming or not. When dad warned me about that, I made my intentions known in advance from then on. I also learned to shop for occasions, even in advance rather than immediately before, after observing an acquaintance do that and seeing how much enjoyment she got out of it. I don’t resist an opportunity for a good surprise, but these days the simpler pleasures are available more consistently.

Concerning photo-realism, I believe that I was already wearing glasses in 1951. However, I was near-sighted and often did not wear glasses indoors. (That was true until around 1980 when I needed my first bifocals.) These days, we all wear glasses and some of us cannot see very far in front of our face without them.

Monday Morning NaN: Confirmable Experience with my Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: confirmable experience, system incoherence, trustworthiness, dependable systems

Darren Rowse tweeted about Threaded Tweets, and I went for a look. I can’t remember the last time I saw a NaN delivered up by a web page, and this may be a first. I’m not sure whether 14996 replies is a very successful number, but I guess any thread that lives that long deserves some respect [;<).

There are three interdependent themes that I see around the development and sustenance of dependable systems: system coherence, confirmable experience, and trustworthiness. These and dependability itself are not independent notions.

I think this one is about confirmable experience

Something odd is happening. Thanks to screen-capture software, I can show you (and the producers of ThreadedTweets) what happened. In fact, I will tweet about this and if the cycle of learning and improvement is operating, the Threaded Tweets folk will pick up on it, if they aren’t aware of the glitch already.

It would be fun to create a threaded tweet about this as well, but I am not about to provide my Twitter credentials to ThreadedTweets in order to do that (and you can see the reason for distrustfulness here even though they claim to be using OAuth to protect me, yes?).

There is a part of the confirmable-experience cycle that figure in trustworthiness that I can’t account for. I have no idea how to the tweet threading folks are able to identify the specific difficulty, although it appears to be a stand-out no-brainer, so long as they can see the data on which the failed time-lapse calculation is being done. Smells like there is a division by zero or a failed data conversion in there somewhere too.

But as an end-user, I don’t know about any of that and my speculation is not the same as having visibility on the process for confirming what is happening, as opposed to confirming how users experience it. That’s the part I provide. Also, I notice that the NaN message has disappeared in the past few minutes, possibly because the defect has been noticed, possibly because it is transient and difficult to find.

The tie-in to trustworthiness

ThreadedTweets has a feedback and a support link that I could use to communicate what I noticed to them. Now that it the NaN is gone, I’m not sure whether that will help. They want an e-mail to the support address. I’ll send them a link to this post.

The tie-in to trustworthiness has to do with the demonstration of care for the adopters (a.k.a. users) by the producers of ThreadedTweets. In this case, it is how friction is removed from the ability of adopters to communicate their experience to the producers. The back half is how the producers demonstrate remedies or other solutions in a reliable way.

Since I am very much into identification of confirmable experiences and occasions where system incoherence show up, I have a screen capture utility at the ready at all times. This is necessary but not ordinary behavior required to to demonstrate what my experience is.

An interesting problem for an organization that wants to be trustworthy in delivering a dependable web-based service is this: what can be done that would allow ordinary, casual adopters to convey their experience to the producers in a way that is confirmable? That’s the question to consider.

And your assignment, if you choose to accept it …

That’s the bigger point of this tiny object lesson. Look for more to come. Notice ones in your own experience. Collect the full set. Entertain your friends.

Most of all, begin to notice those little moments of truth where your experience of products raises “uh oh” and “ick” experiences for you. What do you do about them?

This is not a trick question. I don’t do much about many that I experience. It is valuable to notice and even question that, though. What is it you are putting up with?

I arose at 5:30 am to be prepared for the 7:00 am Monday morning conference call of the OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) TC. The cancellation notice went out about 2:00 am, my time, from Germany, and I had the opportunity to crawl back in bed after a poor night’s sleep or start my day early. Oh wait, I can post on my much-neglected blog. Aren’t you the lucky ones.

Saturday Geek Photo: A Back-to-the-Future Moment

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Mon, 04 May 2009 01:02:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Commodore 64, computer store, Quidnunc, Golden Geek

When I happened to glance into this window of the neighborhood computer store, I had a sudden back-to-the-future moment. I had to check my surroundings to ensure that I hadn’t step through a time warp.

I don’t have any explanation for this being here, and I didn’t step inside to ask. I did have my camera along.

As I look around me today, it is difficult to recall how exciting these machines and their brethren were for us. Despite their considerable limitations, they inspired the imagination in ways that won’t occur in that way again.

The original Commodore Business Machine (CBM) was an all-in-one unit that resembled some sort of Aztec pyramid with its monitor on top. I remember checking them out around 1977. I was concerned enough about the cost of service and maintenance for those and similar units that I spent the months before my first microcomputer going through the Heathkit courses on DC and AC Electronics while building my own instruments, starting with a multi-meter and culminating with an oscilloscope. Having done that, I ordered my first H8 computer and rapidly assembled that, the matching floppy-disk units, the H19 terminal, and then an H89 all-in-one computer, starting in 1978.

Although I was a Z80 Assembler and CP/M-80 hold-out, the microcomputer era ended for me when I purchased an assembled Heath-Zenith Z158 PC XT clone. Although the Z158 sported the original MS-DOS 64k RAM and Intel 8088 processor, I recall adding a memory-expansion board, additional hard disk (on an add-in board), and Microsoft Windows 1.03. I managed to keep Windows on it all the way through 3.0. My use of Windows was primarily as a shell for the basic Windows utilities and MS-DOS programs, including Microsoft Works, and Turbo Pascal. Nothing stressed Windows much and the result was tolerable performance on my underpowered system.

I had an early version of the Windows SDK as well. My favorite text editor was the Microsoft Editor that was packaged with Microsoft development tools at that time. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the command-line C compiler, having far more affection for Borland’s Turbo C and, later, Turbo C++.

And, in a side room, there was also an Atari 800. Although the 8-bit Atari was kept mainly as a recreational machine with limited floppy-disk capacity, I was inspired to publish an article on fractal dragon curves [Compute! October 1986, pp. 78-89] that exploited the relationship of dragon curve-walking to carry propagation in a binary counter.

Friday Cat Picture: Hide-and-Seek Fail

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:22:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: cats, Friday cat pictures, Orcmid's Lair

Fourteen-year-old Teh Amor is inclined to sit on the edge of the bath tub in solitude between the decorative shower-curtain and the internal liner. Even then there can be evidence of his tail, and he’s not always very quiet about his presence.

The other day he demonstrated another version, simply parking on the floor behind the shower curtain in front of the bath tub. He appears to be waiting to be discovered.

We have no idea what this is about and what it provides, if anything, in the ordinary life of a cat, or of those cats who have never lived anywhere but in a human household.

This reminds me of the other curious behavior of our cats, especially Askani, who will crouch nosed into a corner with their back to everything happening in the room.

At the moment, Teh is running up and down the stairs and around my office as if he is chasing something. He just jumped onto my office chair, ran across my shoulders, and climbed onto my computer tower where he can look out the window. He lept onto the narrow window sill and is looking outside as if he is expecting something to appear.

Now he’s sitting on top of the open spiral notebook on my desk surface watching my fingers typing down at the keyboard tray. Oh, he put his paw down on the space bar and I had to back out that text.

I have no idea if this is anything like entertaining for the cat. It certainly is for me. Just so long as Teh doesn’t decide to take a bite out of my wrist as I move the computer mouse on the desk surface.

Friday Cat Picture: Household Territory-Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: cats, Friday cat pictures, Orcmid's Lair

I just stumbled over the book “Do Cats Hear with their Feet?” in the local public library. It’s a quick read and, while I may have been reading faster than necessary, I don’t think the book answers that particular question.

What I did learn were some facts of cat territoriality that I had witnessed in an anecdotal fashion when Askani (pictured on the right) came into the life of our twins, litter mates Teh Amor and Princess Psyche (looking like a two-headed cat on the left, with Teh in front).

Since Teh and Princess came into my household as tiny kittens, they have been constant companions. They still nap and sleep together curled in a ball.

Askani had a hard time being accepted into that companionship, although there are moments of quiet truce.

The first problem was that the original female, Princess was so disturbed about the arriving stranger that she hissed and agitated when anything black was nearby. This created a problem for Teh, who didn’t understand what this had to do with him. Teh spent a great deal of time flopping on his side and being submissive to Princess. (On occasion, when Teh would be agitated over another cat seen or scented outside our windows, he also was aggressive to all other cats in sight, including his sister.)

Askani was mostly a scaredy-cat during those early times, spending a great deal of time under furniture. She still tends to do that, although she also has some off-the-floor places where she will curl up and sleep undisturbed by the other cats.

The first signs of a truce came in the first years in Sunnyvale, California, when all three cats decided it was all right to sleep together on the bed with Vicki and I, so long as the twins (also known as the kids and the teen-agers) were on one side of our sleeping bodies and Askani found a spot on the opposite side.

For the ten years we have been together in Seattle, there’s been a new pattern. Teh is agressive with Askani and the fur flies from time to time, far more than when he scraps with his sister. On other occasions, Askani will take a paw-swipe at either of them passing too close to her, and she is the one with the growling and hissing over intrusions too far into her personal space.

Lately, they have found a common hang-out on the comforter-covered sofa in my office where there is the only day-time human presence. Askani is the regular, with an occasional appearance of the twins. At night, they all spend their time here and I am sleeping on the sofa so that my phenomenal snoring does not disturb the peace of the household upstairs. They arrange themselves around my body atop the comforter with Askani at one end, usually along my flank, and with the twins curled up at my feet.

They have also become comfortable being together alone on the sofa, with or without the teddy bear as a barrier. But it is clear that the twins are family and Askani is not of that clan. I also think my presence in the room influences their good behavior with each other.

The teddy bear came with the twins. I recently unearthed it while going through some boxes in the storage room adjacent to my basement office. I have been putting it on the sofa just for fun. It doesn’t seem to mean anything to any of the cats, except for Teh. He will use the poor teddy for kneading his claws in some sort of tactile frenzy. I supposed that is better than his usual attacks on arms of the sofa, but not by much.

The village-of-the-damned-cats eyes are a consequence of using on-camera flash. I used this photograph anyway, since here Askani has her eyes open while being wary about the goings-on, but not wary enough to rouse herself and move.

Software: Rust Never Sleeps

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Office 2003, Windows XP, end of support, software obsolescence, Document Freedom, interoperability, open standards

[My favorite track from that album has always been Hey, Hey, My, My (Into the Black). Now I can replace that long-lost LP track here, but the MP3 resampling seems to lose the beauty that I found in the carefully-crafted overdrive and tonalities of the original.]

When it comes to technology, I tend to be a late adopter, despite the Tablet PC running Windows 7 beta just off to the right on my desk. Or maybe I am a sporadic adopter.

Old Software Never Dies, It Just Quietly Rusts Away

In September 2008, I retired my last desktop machine still running Windows 98. It had Office 2000 also. The biggest concern was moving all of its peripherals and exotic software to my Media Center PC with Windows XP SP3. With that accomplished, I managed to rearrange my systems and introduce a Windows Home Server. The WHS (an HP MediaSmart Server) had been sitting in its box for over a year while I nerved up for those changes. The WHS is based on Windows Server 2003, not anything more recent.

My oldest machine is still the 1998-vintage Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop that, shipped with Windows 98, now runs Windows XP SP3 and remains a faithful little web-site development machine with its local IIS, FrontPage extensions, and Visual SourceSafe. I am looking into a progression by which I incrementally move and confirm those functions on the Windows Home Server. Then I can retire the Inspiron before it finally succumbs to entropy death.

Since every production desktop machine in this 4-computer + server SOHO operation is running Windows XP SP3 and, if used for e-mail and documents, Microsoft Office 2003, I am moderately concerned that those software products are now at their end-of-support time limits in April, 2009. (The Tablet PC normally runs Vista and even has Office 2007, but for now it is running Windows 7 beta for my evaluation purposes. I expect to restore Vista at some point after the Windows 7 Release Candidate arrives and then expires.)

I am not overly concerned. As indicated here, security updates (including Outlook junk-mail filter updates) will continue to be available for Office 2003. In general, there will be security fixes and on-line self-help available out another five years here in the United States.

I have no plans to update production work off of Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003. That can change, but I have another five years to sort it all out. A great deal will depend on future support for peripheral equipment and compatibility with the Windows Home Server and the way I develop and maintain web sites.

While my frugality around upgrading is not heartening for PC manufacturers, software companies, or the automobile industry (having kept my last vehicle for 18 years), I think it is representative of the general tendency to not fix things that are not broken. It is also an useful reminder that a system lifecycle for its users is quite different than it is for its suppliers.

Freedom for Rusty Documents?

At the same time, I know that I need to look at the degree to which my documents and digital materials are preserved beyond the life of Office 2003, FrontPage 2003 (RIP), Visio whatever, OpenOffice 2.4, Nikon Capture, etc. How “free” are my documents, and how much are they truly mine?

I already have the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack and its support for the OOXML formats as an Office 2003 add-on. I suspect that OOXML will be supported for a very long time. I am not so sanguine about the ODF documents that I have, especially the ones in OpenOffice.org Calc format. I am going to be more cautious about that, at least until I have an useful set of tools for ensuring the preservation of recoverability of documents in both original OOXML and ODF 1.0/1.1 formats.

But eventually, I will run out of gas on my Windows XP SP3 systems, and I’ll probably be looking at hardware and software of the Windows 7 (or later) vintage. Having all of the ducks lined up will involve the hardware (scanners, audio gear, displays, and printers) that I want to preserve and also figuring out how to upgrade/replace application software with products that still let me do what works and also use the formats and documents that I am invested in. I have to gulp when I think of all of the photographic images that are in today’s version of Nikon NEF format, all of the web pages authored and maintained via the now-obsolete FrontPage extensions, and the many documents of one format and another stashed in today’s version of Zip files (and some in old ARC files, remember ARC?).

That I will leave documents of one form or another behind like so many dried leaves is not confidence-inspiring. An additional concern is that I don’t see the champions of open document formats (not to mention “Free Documents”) doing what it takes to make me more confident than I am in Microsoft’s assurance that upgrading is safe for our documents and software (though, ultimately, upgrade we must).

I will soldier on, wondering what is in my power to alleviate my concern.

Stimulate This! Sustaining Life in the Slow Lane

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: James Galbraith, economic crisis, economic recovery, civil society and democracy, Barack Obama

Thanks to Tim O’Reilly, my attention has been captured by the lengthy cautionary analysis of James Galbraith, “This Crisis Is Way Bigger Than Dead Banks and Wall Street Bailouts.”

This is a lengthy analysis with much to consider. Here is the worrisome bit about the current approach [with all emphasis mine]:

“That chance [of bad assets recovering value] can be assessed, of course, only by doing what any reasonable private investor would do: due diligence, meaning a close inspection of the loan tapes. On the face of it, such inspections will reveal a very high proportion of missing documentation, inflated appraisals, and other evidence of fraud. (In late 2007 the ratings agency Fitch conducted this exercise on a small sample of loan files, and found indications of misrepresentation or fraud present in practically every one.) The reasonable inference would be that many more of the loans will default. Geithner's plan to guarantee these so-called assets, therefore, is almost sure to overstate their value; it is only a way of delaying the ultimate public recognition of loss, while keeping the perpetrators afloat.

“Delay is not innocuous. When a bank's insolvency is ignored, the incentives for normal prudent banking collapse. Management has nothing to lose. It may take big new risks, in volatile markets like commodities, in the hope of salvation before the regulators close in. Or it may loot the institution -- nomenklatura privatization, as the Russians would say -- through unjustified bonuses, dividends, and options. It will never fully disclose the extent of insolvency on its own.

“The most likely scenario, should the Geithner plan go through, is a combination of looting, fraud, and a renewed speculation in volatile commodity markets such as oil. Ultimately the losses fall on the public anyway, since deposits are largely insured. … ”

There is a part that reflects my own experience, begun in early 2008 well before the year-end crash but not sufficient to endure it unscathed:

“A brief reflection on this history and present circumstances drives a plain conclusion: the full restoration of private credit will take a long time. It will follow, not precede, the restoration of sound private household finances. There is no way the project of resurrecting the economy by stuffing the banks with cash will work. Effective policy can only work the other way around.”

I don’t know what you are doing but I am looking at ways to save. If I am looking for credit, it is for something that is secured, inexpensive, and protects me from having to dig into my nest egg. And the use of credit is essentially for a bridge that allows my continued saving to create a cushion against unexpected expenses such as automobile maintenance, health problems, and rising costs of insurance, utilities, and current rents. I am not keen to spend cash on anything inessential. If I have discretionary funds, they are to be saved.

For this next worrisome part, some disclosure: We are working at living entirely on Social Security benefits, the payments from an annuity, and the limited earnings of our two small businesses. Those earnings, along with seriously-curtailed spending, are indispensible in improving and building a financial cushion outside of my 401k which is too devalued to touch, especially because withdrawals are taxed and subject to withholding (the appropriate payback for allowing the contributions and their appreciation to be untaxed, but economically terrible if touched now). Here is my worst nightmare, since any reduction in benefits (Medicare or Social Security) would put us on the street. And, hey, do you really want me competing for your job, which I would do cheaper and smarter although certainly not faster?

“ … We should offset the violent drop in the wealth of the elderly population as a whole. The squeeze on the elderly has been little noted so far, but it hits in three separate ways: through the fall in the stock market; through the collapse of home values; and through the drop in interest rates, which reduces interest income on accumulated cash. For an increasing number of the elderly, Social Security and Medicare wealth are all they have.
“That means that the entitlement reformers have it backward: instead of cutting Social Security benefits, we should increase them, especially for those at the bottom of the benefit scale. Indeed, in this crisis, precisely because it is universal and efficient, Social Security is an economic recovery ace in the hole. Increasing benefits is a simple, direct, progressive, and highly efficient way to prevent poverty and sustain purchasing power for this vulnerable population. I would also argue for lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare to (say) fifty-five, to permit workers to retire earlier and to free firms from the burden of managing health plans for older workers.”

It is interesting that the European Union resistance to stimulus of financial institutions is reported to be because their social-welfare systems are actually providing softer responses and security for the public and workers during the economic retrenchment. In particular, instead of lay-offs, there are work reduction strategies in which the social system compensates for the wage reductions. Galbraith continues,

“This suggestion is meant, in part, to call attention to the madness of talk about Social Security and Medicare cuts. The prospect of future cuts in this modest but vital source of retirement security can only prompt worried prime-age workers to spend less and save more today. And that will make the present economic crisis deeper. In reality, there is no Social Security "financing problem" at all. There is a health care problem, but that can be dealt with only by deciding what health services to provide, and how to pay for them, for the whole population. It cannot be dealt with, responsibly or ethically, by cutting care for the old.”

I obviously have a self-interest that finds reassurance in these statements. There is much more to the analysis and I encourage thoughtful reading of the entire piece. It may be necessary to read it more than once to overcome ones initial rejecting reactions, to the extent those are aroused.

Meanwhile, two bits from the concluding passages:

“ … The government must take control of insolvent banks, however large, and get on with the business of reorganizing, re-regulating, decapitating, and recapitalizing them. Depositors should be insured fully to prevent runs, and private risk capital (common and preferred equity and subordinated debt) should take the first loss. Effective compensation limits should be enforced -- it is a good thing that they will encourage those at the top to retire. As Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut correctly stated in the brouhaha following the discovery that Senate Democrats had put tough limits into the recovery bill, there are many competent replacements for those who leave.

“Ultimately the big banks can be resold as smaller private institutions, run on a scale that permits prudent credit assessment and risk management by people close enough to their client communities to foster an effective revival, among other things, of household credit and of independent small business -- another lost hallmark of the 1950s. No one should imagine that the swaggering, bank-driven world of high finance and credit bubbles should be made to reappear. Big banks should be run largely by men and women with the long-term perspective, outlook, and temperament of middle managers, and not by the transient, self-regarding plutocrats who run them now.”

…

“… What is required are careful, sustained planning, consistent policy, and the recognition now that there are no quick fixes, no easy return to "normal," no going back to a world run by bankers -- and no alternative to taking the long view.

“A paradox of the long view is that the time to embrace it is right now. We need to start down that path before disastrous policy errors, including fatal banker bailouts and cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are put into effect. It is therefore especially important that thought and learning move quickly. Does the Geithner team, forged and trained in normal times, have the range and the flexibility required? If not, everything finally will depend, as it did with Roosevelt, on the imagination and character of President Obama.”

2009-03-24: Finding Ada

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:51:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Finding Ada, Ada Lovelace Day, Women in technology, Linda Bergsteinsson

Months ago, I pledged to write something in honor of Finding Ada and post about it when today arrived.

I now have three thoughts about this, and I need to figure out where to start.

First, I am impressed by young women entering technology, and how much that entry seems to be in Asia and other parts of the world where information technology is seen as an inviting vocation. There is something instructive in that.
Secondly, I notice how many women in technology I have known and worked with. Despite whatever change is happening with newcomers, I notice that there remain places where women are active and do well. I continue to encounter younger women technology professionals at places like Microsoft.
Then there is the prospect of recording some personal reminiscence of Grace Hopper, starting with when I first met her.

Singling out a particular woman who I have known and admire is a great way to focus. A few come to mind. I just ran across Linda’s photograph while looking around for women in technology of my direct acquaintance, and here is what I have to say about that.

Linda Bergsteinsson: Pioneering Woman in Technology

I first met Linda in 1989 when she visited the Xerox advanced-development team I was a member of in Rochester, New York. She’d flown in from the California-based Xerox Office Systems business unit, home of Ethernet, the Xerox work stations, and publishing-system software. Linda was taking on a crash project for development of a document-imaging system. The product was required to work with the soon-to-be-announced Xerox Docutech system and it was required to be demonstrable at the launch event.

I joined her new team. Not prepared to move to California, I remained in Rochester as part of a satellite operation. I commuted to El Segundo and Palo Alto until the project and its staff were scooped up under a Rochester-based organization. I lost touch with Linda until the Spring of 1992 when, knowing that I was finally looking for a way to move to California, she informed me of an urgent need for a software architect on XSoft document-management products.

I arrived in Silicon Valley in August 1992. Although I didn’t work with Linda again, we remained colleagues and friends until neither of us were in Silicon Valley any longer.

I learned, as part of our acquaintance, that Linda and I were the same age. She graduated from UCLA in 1960 as a mechanical engineer, a very unusual choice at that time. She had worked in Germany and at Ford Aeronutronics. She was solidly into computers on joining Planning Research Corporation, in Los Angeles, around the same time in the 60s when they were contracting support to some Univac software in arrangements I was tangentially on the far end of.

At Xerox, she was involved in the original Xerox Workstation software effort and was working at the descendant of that PARC-associated organization when our paths finally crossed.

Although I would learn of her history as our acquaintance grew, there was something pronounced that I learned from Linda early on. She just accepted people. And she liked people that I had quite different snap-judgments about. Struck by her generosity, I began to question and revise my existing snap impressions of the same people. She seemed to have a decisive practical nature, and the usual changes of organizations and directions did not distress her so much that it showed. When she was deposed as part of the document-imaging team being scooped up by another organization, what seemed most unsettling for her was that the principle actors in that play were personally mean about it. When I later introduced Vicki to Linda, Vicki’s experience was of immediate acceptance and of interest in what was important to Vicki.

Although her career was in technology, Linda also managed a Palo Alto home that always had housemates or visitors. She collected and displayed art all over her home. She loved to cook and held wonderful dinners. I had the opportunity to meet members of her family in town for a little reunion at her home. Her relatives were struck by the fact that I had worked for and with Linda. They would confide to me how much they were still somewhat mystified by Linda’s connection to engineering and technology and her taking what seemed such an alien path through life.

As the XSoft organization dwindled and shed senior management team, Linda retired from Xerox Corporation a few years before I did. Too young to fully retire, I remember how pleased she was to obtain her own PC at home and train herself to work on the Internet. Freed from management responsibilities and the concerns of senior staff, she found work as a web developer for a local firm. It was one of the most satisfying experiences she’d had in a long time.

In January 2001, Linda moved from her Palo Alto home to Southern California. On February 10 she married Tom Criswell, a long-time friend and companion. They were preparing to move together into a home in Rancho Palos Verdes. On Tuesday, August 27, 2002, Linda Bergsteinsson Criswell died of cancer. She was 63.

It was a gift to know her. Looking back, I see all the ways that I didn’t know her very well. And, today, I miss her and her calm steadiness.

Friday Cat Pictures: More Heat Please!

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: cats, Friday cat pictures, Orcmid's Lair

Now that I have rearranged my work area, the heat-seeking obsessions of cats are more evident.

Her Highness, the Dowager Empress, Askani, is rarely photographed. She sleeps a lot, often next to a heat vent where the gentle warm breeze warms her face and flank.

On visiting my office, Askani will find one of the two flat warm surfaces. If I am somewhere napping, she will find me and pin down one of my shoulders and snore in my ear (the two younger cats having already claimed other parts of my anatomy).

Not seeing her preferred spot available available, she parks atop her second choice, my LAN expansion hub.

Wherever there is warmth, Askani will find it.

I first noticed this when I was recovering from having my gall bladder removed. In the first days of recovery, Askani would lie on my comforter along my healing flank. I credited some mystic Florence Nightingale instinct of cats for ailing humans. Once I stopped taking the Vicodin, it dawned on me that this was a warmer part of my body and the cat sought out the heat. I am sticking to that hypothesis.

If, on the other hand, she is attempting to park on my Wi-Fi access point, the imagined scowl is probably because I don’t know the WPA key, even under telepathic interrogation.

Princess Psyche, Askani’s young cousin (they were born a continent apart), claims the newly-popular primary warm spot atop my audio dock. Askani, when she gets here first, covers it completely and finds my clever headset-hanger arrangement a bit annoying.

Askani has not shown any tendency to gnaw on the headset, although I have numerous pairs of glasses with pitted earpads. It is a greater risk that this 14-year-old kitten will decide to attack the cord and sever or short the connection.

I recently thought the cats had murdered the USB adapter-cable that I keep attached to my computer for synchronizing my camera and my Mobile PC phone. I thought my phone was dead because the cord had been messed up. I forgot that I had powered-down the phone while at the movies and hadn’t powered it back up.

The remaining hot spot is atop my battery-backup UPS unit next to my desktop tower. This is the haunt of Prince Teh Amor although the other two have been sighted there. Teh normally faces the window instead of into the room, and he’ll hop up onto the computer tower, and even the window frame, if he senses something compelling outside.

Golden Geek: Picture Personality

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Golden Geek, Stephen Peront, Picture Personality, Mary McCormack

Stephen Peront came across this wonderful timewaster project to derive picture personalities. This is mine.

There are twelve questions that one must answer and then use Flickr search to find a chosen image for incorporation in a mosaic. Here are my questions and responses:

What is my name? Dennis. I had to use Dennis Oppenheim’s ‘Device to root out evil.’ Although I used the picture that came up, I much prefer the one here. Until I read the description, I did not notice that the work depicts a church. I take that as an affirmation, although I don’t appreciate the metaphor around good versus evil.
What is my favorite food? Peanuts. But the chocolate chip peanut butter cookies put me over the edge.
What high school did you go to? Lincoln High School. There is a different Lincoln in nearby Seattle. I changed the search to Tacoma Lincoln High School and found mine. (I figure this is only slightly cheating because the first search is dominated by football photographs from one contributor.) My Lincoln HS It is approaching its centenary. I forgot that it is officially Lincoln Park High School, and that is the park land adjacent to the school. My sisters and I and both our parents attended this school. Since I was one of the student photographers, I have old photographs of my own, and a number of them are in the Lincolnian 1957 yearbook.
What is your favorite color? Burgundy. I hope I’m not asked what my favorite flower is. This is not a match for the color, but roses are significant for me in a couple of ways, so that’s the choice.
Who is your celebrity crush? Mary McCormack (of In Plain Sight). I have no idea what the mosaic process will do with the composition of this photo (hmm, not bad, not bad at all). I don’t think it is a crush, and there are a couple of other actresses in commanding TV series roles that come to mind. But Mary occurred to me first. Now, I had to go to Hulu to find out what here name is, so you can calibrate with that too (and the same is for the others that I notice).
Favorite drink? French roast coffee. I don’t know who this guy is, and I hope he doesn’t mind.
Dream vacation? Olduvai Gorge. This is the inspiration. But I like the group photograph more. Funny, the exhibit of Lucy’s Legacy is here at the Seattle Center until Monday. I decided not to go see it yesterday. I think I will reconsider if they are open on Sunday, March 8.
Favorite dessert? Chocolate Cream Pie. Tiramisu is a recent favorite, but I didn’t think of it first.
What I want to be when I grow up? Inspiring Teacher. I was tempted to say Linda Zraik, but few would get it and, fortunately, Flickr came up empty. (I tried simply “teacher” but the cupcakes drowned out the selections. This selection would have been even more mysterious.)
Favorite morning pastime? Surfing the Internet. This little guy says it all. I call it research and it goes with processing my morning e-mail and reviewing RSS feeds and Twitter.
One word to describe me? Brilliant. This is not meant to be a good thing, but something I am driven about. I like the picture enough to use it, even though it is part of a private joke. I was hesitant to use this, since it comes across as arrogant (with this selection).
My Flickr name? orcmid. That’s tricky because it brings up mostly my material. This avatar (and my Second Life one) is reflective of me.

The Credits:

1. 'Device to root out evil' by Dennis Oppenheim, 2. plain and chocolate overload peanut butter cookies, 3. Lincoln Park High School Postmarked 1916, 4. Pale lemon yellow, Burgundy red., 5. NUP_115610_0962, 6. Peruvian French Roast at Duckpond Coffee, 7. Olduvai gorge, 8. Chocolate Cream Pie - 4, 9. *Inspire* hand stamped necklace , 10. Surfing the Internet, 11. Brilliant*, 12. Technogeek avatar

Friday Cat Photos: Agriturismo Kittens

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:09:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Italy, Tuscany, cats, Friday cat pictures, Victoria E. Hamilton, agriturismo, Lastra a Signa

The afternoon of our arrival near Florence on November 7, 1998, this farm kitten has checked out Vicki, the cat magnet, and decided she is welcome.

We’re on our second visit to Italy. This time, we’re having our first look at Tuscany, the place of Vicki’s dream of herself in a peasant blouse, blue feet, a glass of wine in one hand, a plate of pasta in the other. She has dreamed of Italy since she was a child. Now, she’s here to connect dream and reality.

We flew into Pisa, spending two nights there before picking up our rental car and driving to Villa Saulina, an agriturismo –- farm with tourist accommodations –- outside of Florence. After visiting Florence, Siena, Lucca, Volterra, and many villages and sites of the area, we returned to Pisa for two more nights and our return to Silicon Valley.

I applied for a special retirement-incentive package in May 1998 and my retirement date has been set for December. We are here determining whether we are prepared to move to Italy for the next stage of our life. The answer is yes.

Social-Grid Identity: Please Enter Your Twitter Credentials Here

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:57:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: twitpic, social networks, internet identity, password antipattern, start-ups, internet security, internet safety, security theater

[update 2009-03-06T20:43Z Hmm. I just checked onto Twitter over lunch and the first update was from Ed Yourdon about Twitter being hacked in some way that allows accounts to be used or users impersonated in some way. The instance on Yourdon’s update page suggest that these came in under the guise of posts using the web, so the exploit appears to be against the Twitter home page or the web site. Ideally, Twitter has finer-grained detail about the path over which these tweets arrive and what the likely exploit is. I had no knowledge or suspicions about this when I researched and created this post yesterday.]

It’s still happening. First it was Facebook credentials. Now it is the new hot: Twitter.

There’s an onslaught of web-based applications that integrate with Twitter and provide additional functions and services for you. Sounds exciting, yes?

But all of them want my Twitter credentials. Like TwitPic, when I wanted to make a comment on this photographic complaint about someone taking a single bite out of the P-I newsroom’s fat-pill supply. That stopped me short. They wanted my Twitter credentials simply to comment on the photograph. I passed.

WAIT!! Have I already fallen for this?

This has me wonder who else I may have already given my Twitter credentials too.

FriendFeed? No, they just wanted to know my Twitter name in order to include my tweets in FriendFeed.
FriendFeed posting to Twitter? Not sure. I can’t tell what it took for those tweets to be forwarded. I’ve turned it off, turned it on, and turned it off again. No credential request, but I’m leaving it off anyhow. I don’t remember providing my Twitter credentials though. That sort of request usually triggers instant uh-oh on my part. I know the Linked-in connection ceremony does not involve disclosure to FriendFeed, and expect that no other arrangements like this do either.
Twhirl. Well, this is a desktop (Adobe AIR) application. It does know my Twitter and my FriendFeed passwords. It also will forget my passwords if I tell it to. Apart from the prospect of the application simply stealing that information via my authorization to access the Internet through my firewall, there is no more exposure here than my entering the a password on the Twitter and Friendfeed pages. Not perfect, but at least retained only on my machine and not someone else’s.

So there are mixed results.

It doesn’t have to be that way. When I configured Windows Live Photo Gallery to update to my Flickr account, I never divulged my Flickr (that is, Yahoo!) credentials to the program. Instead, it worked more like a PayPal transaction, with Flickr arranging a unique credential for Photo Gallery to use that applies only to it, apparently. I don’t know the details of that arrangement; I will find out more. This sort of arrangement needs to be more widely understood. (I’m pretty sure that I can use an Information Card to accomplish arrangements like this too.)

And Now, Some Security Theater

I have resisted two invitations to supply my Twitter credentials, not counting the one at TwitPic today. On reflection, they are each instructive.

Mr. Tweet Sends Me a Message

Mr. Tweet sent me a direct message. Well, that means I am following Mr. Tweet, doesn’t it? Apparently not. If I go to this page, it tells me I need to follow Mrtweet to start receiving the benefits. And when I check MrTweet on Twitter, I am not shown as already following it. Since my only contact with Mr. Tweet was 76 days ago, I have no recollection of anything I might have done that invited that original direct message to me, but I could have.

On the other hand, this appears to be an interesting arms-length arrangement. Mr. Tweet apparently provides support that does not require my credentials to access. Furthermore, its communication with me is via Twitter direct messages. My opting-in by direct-messaging Mr. Tweet does not require me disclosing my Twitter credentials.

I would say I am safely intermediated by this clever use of existing Twitter provisions.

Because I’m not interested in this service, especially not enough to receive direct messages, I am not following Mr. Tweet. This personal choice has to do with my direct messages coming to my e-mail inbox and also my mobile phone. I want to limit that traffic.

Hmm, looking deeper while researching this post, I see that the Mr. Tweet page does have a (Twitter?) login panel at the very top. Maybe this isn’t cool after all? Worse yet, if I choose to follow any of those Mr. Tweet lists as interesting followers using buttons on the Mr. Tweet page, it requests my Twitter credentials. Even though I can click through the links provided to the Twitter pages of those followers and follow them there.

FAIL!! I did notice someone that I thought I should be following, but I went to the Twitter site to do it.

Mr. Tweet should stop being so helpful and take those follow links of their recommendation page, letting us use Twitter to do it. Links to individual Twitter pages are all we need.

Now I wonder what the direct-message enablement is all about. It should be a way to establish that I am the user of the account I would use Mr. Tweet for, but they don’t really need to establish that, it appears.

Mr. TweetSum has Data just for Me. Not Really.

Tweetsum was being recommended in a Twitter update from Andrew Woods. I still don’t know what a DBI is, but I saw immediately that I must use my Twitter credentials to get started. That stopped me cold, as usual.

On questioning Andrew about this, I was not inspired by his remark that he knew the developers and one was a security expert so he had no problems with providing his credentials. What failed to inspire my confidence is that there does not seem to be any need for my twitter credentials for them to accomplish what they offer.

I now see on the TweetSum blog that they know they don’t need the credentials too. They promise not to keep them and “don't worry, we don't keep this info -- twitter merely tells us you are who you say and we believe twitter.”

So, wait a minute. They don’t need my Twitter credentials to do what they do, just as I thought.

Yet they want to be sure it is me? Why?

Someone who asks for Tweetsum analysis for orcmid still can’t impersonate me to Twitter or any of my followers or anyone else. They can’t do anything with information from TweetSum that they couldn’t do anyhow (like, stalk all my followers or something), with or without automated assistance. So what’s the point?

TweetSum having my credentials even for that one check is just security-theater ceremony. There are a lot of those being passed around these days, but that is no reason to tolerate them.

There is value in learning to spot security theater illusions, though. When we encounter these charades it is also legitimate to wonder what else is not being understood about security on the behalf of a service’s users.

Productivity: Cleaning Up the Workspace

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:04:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Productivity, GTD, TRO, Getting Things Done, Total Relaxed Organization, workspace cleanup

At Seattle MindCamp 5.0 at the end of November, 2008, I resolved to finally upgrade my productivity support and take some ground cleaning up my workspace. To fit with my work practices and record-keeping approaches, I started the Total Relaxed Organization on-line training, along with installation of the TROG Bar Outlook-integrating productivity tool.

One problem with a major productivity overhaul is the need to clear out all the junk and reconstitute an inviting workspace. My workspace was in terrible shape, and I had no way to clear it all out and rebuild it. Instead, I am involved in a steady shuffle of reorganization. I have been slacking off about that, in the midst of other commitments, but I have made considerable progress in the heart of my office work area.

*Before*	*After*

Lap-Top Server. This 1998-vintage Dell Inspiron 7000 just keeps on ticking. It is too decrepit for lap-top usage, with a failing screen hinge and broken keys and mouse buttons.

The machine works just fine as a local web server and Visual Source Safe repository that are used together for web site development and back-up of software projects.

Once the table surface was cleaned up, I also upgraded the laptop from Windows XP SP1 (!) to Windows XP SP3, with all junk cleared off and regular clean backups.

I only operate the machine directly when I need to FTP updates from the development server to the hosted web sites and when I need to backup the hosted blogs and comments onto the development server. I am now poised to retire this machine, once I have successfully migrated the server and source-code-control functions to my Windows Home Server.

*Before*	*After*

Desktop Media Center PC and Development System. My main desktop system was on a crowded and cluttered desk. I have reduced the clutter by having just the one in-box and a separate set of working files (not shown).

On the left, I moved the audio control surface and my audio dock to an easily-accessible position. My audio receiver is now a platform for the turntable I use for rescuing old vinyl records.

Although this does not provide much more open work surface, that will improve when the docked Tablet PC can be moved to the location of the Laptop Server.

*Before*	*After*

Media Table and Network Center. By parking the turntable atop the audio receiver, I was able to bring the scanner over beside the desk.

That freed the rest of the media table to hold my H-P MediaSmart Server (a Windows Home Server) and all of my network units: hub, wireless access point, household router, and DSL modem (on the shelf below the scanner).

This allows the network center to be all in one place and supported by a separate battery-battery backup unit connected to a properly-protected outlet.

The job is not done. Although I moved the network units and confirmed operation in the new location. Now there is much left to do with the wiring behind all of these units and along the floor.

What I have accomplished is having a smoother setup and more comfortable operation in that area where I spend most of my working days.

I have extensive electronic materials that I am now reorganizing, including a gigantic collection of incomplete Outlook tasks that I am pruning down a little at a time. The recommended approach for any Getting Things Done or TRO cleanup is to simply trash that material. Those are also records and research materials for me and I am going to retire them cleanly, as painful as that can be.

Friday Cat Picture: Più Gatti di Roma

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:57:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Italy, Rome, Friday cat pictures, cats, Area Sacra

Before our detour while looking for the Appian Way (Appia Antica) on New Years Day 1998, we had walked past Area Sacra a few days earlier. We noticed the cats and we decided to take the tour that was offered on January 2, our last day in Italy on that trip.

At the tour on January 2, we learned that the cats were being fed by those who looked after the site. Considering how much subterranean structures there were, I suspect the cats were also being honored for their control of vermin. The tour guide’s narration was given entirely in Italian, but we did manage to stumble our way through the presentation.

It was raining at the beginning of the tour. By the time we left, it was raining so hard that we were completely soaked by the time we returned on foot to our hotel. We used the hotel room’s electric pants presser as well as we could to avoid packing wet clothes for our morning flight back to San Francisco. We laughed through the entire experience. We still marvel at that day and Vicki’s eyes twinkle when we reminisce our magical first visit to Italy.

[update 2009-04-16-16:22Z: Vicki just received a copy of the Pauline Marascutto and Anna Zane book, I gatti di Venezia. The photographs are wonderful, athough the narrative demonstrates how rusty even my limited Italian has become. The book was from one of the students at Moshier Arts Center where Vicki is a resident potter. What I did learn from the book is that I must change the title of this post from “Gatti a Roma” to “Gatti di Roma.”

I also just learned that the Schmap!! guide to Rome features Area Sacra as one of the sites in the vicinity of the Pantheon in Rome. You’ll find more photos there, including one from this post.

As many times as I have seen that announcement of the tours, it has only dawned on me at this moment that the 10:30 and 12:30 tours were to be in English, with the rest in Italian. I don’t know if we arrived at the wrong time or there was no English tour on January 2. The guide was careful to warn us that her tour would be entirely in Italian and we agreed that we wanted to take it. I don’t think we realized they were done any other way.]

Friday Cat Picture: I Gatti di Roma

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:32:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Italy, Rome, Friday cat pictures, cats, Victoria E. Hamilton

Our first visit to Italy was the week of New Years Eve in 1997. New Years Eve Day was our second anniversary. On New Years Day 1998 we participated in the Roman custom of walking the ancient Appian Way (Appia Antica), closed to traffic on that day.

We had learned to get around on the buses and the Metropolitana subway, but had not ventured beyond the central areas. Our plan was to take a bus along a route that more-or-less paralleled Appia Antica, walk a cross street over to the ancient route, and then walk along Appia Antica back into Rome.

Coupled with our crippled parliamo italiana, no sense of distance, and unfamiliarity with the route, we missed an appropriate intermediate stop and ended up taking the little bus to the end of its route where the bus did a layover until returning toward Rome. Vicki used the opportunity to befriend a local cat. We had seen many cats in the city, and I was learning Vicki’s inclination to become acquainted with every cat in her path. Fortunately, we were far enough away (and our three) that they couldn’t follow us home.

And with the attention that Romans lavish on the local cats, I don’t think there was too much chance that one would stowaway to the US.

[update 2009-04-16T20:53Z I am also fascinated by these little Schmap!! widgets, so I am including one here. Once we came out on Appia Antica, we were close to the place shown on the map for it. I haven’t figured out how to have the widget show the map at a given zoom with the picture frozen in place. I am sure there is a way. Meanwhile, the lowest-right photo symbol on the map of Rome will locate Via Appia Antica. These photos on Flickr also have location maps.

update 2009-04-16T16:49Z I corrected the grammar of the title, from “Gatti a Roma” to “Gatti di Roma.” The explanation is here.]

Friday Cat Photo: Maple Snell

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: cats, Friday cat pictures, Maple Snell, Jamie Snell, Sara Snell

From January 9, 2009, a glimpse of Maple sitting among the humans at a small dinner among friends. Maple may not be too sure about the photographer, here, although the cat seems quite at home among the crowd at one of the Snell’s annual holiday parties.

Golden Geek: Sibling Memories

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:53:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Golden Geek, growing up, siblings

Having passed my 70th birthday, I was reminded of this photograph by the birthday cards I received from my sister Carol (left, above) and my sister Judy (right, above). I don’t recall this photograph being taken, although a large version was prominently displayed near the front room of our family home in Tacoma, Washington.

It is touching to think how I and my two sisters stay connected after all of this time. I am the oldest, with Judy just over two years younger, followed by Carol at a little over two more years. (My birthday is first each year, followed by Judy in the Spring, Carol in the Autumn).

As youngsters, the three of us spent a lot of time together, especially on those rainy Northwest days when we weren’t in school.

We also followed through the same school systems. Once I moved from 6th grade at Horace Mann School to Stewart Junior High School, Judy and I would be in the same school only once out of every three years. Carol and I were never in school together once I entered the 7th grade. After high school, I went off to college in Pasadena for a short time, then moving to Seattle. Shortly after Carol graduated from Lincoln High School in ~~1951~~ 1961, I moved to New York City and remained in the Northeastern United States until I moved to California in 1992. Returning to the Seattle area in 1999, I reconnected with Judy, who had remained here.

Both Judy and Carol attended Washington State University. Judy returned to teach school. Carol married and moved to Minnesota, where she remains near her two daughters and her grandchildren. A few years ago Carol obtained a masters degree and began working in special programs for youngsters and young mothers.

The three of us have our separate lives. Although Judy and I are nearby, we each have our own connections and activities, and we treasure the times we get to spend together. It is a special treat when Carol is visiting out this way and we can connect in person. Carol and Judy are more connected, often finding vacations and trips to take together.

The next time the three of us are together, we should restage this photograph.

All of this reminiscence is triggered by my birthday cards. They remind me that as much as we have traveled quite different roads, our childhood connections hold on. It also shows me how much I can be reminded of shared experiences that I have forgotten and that were memorable for my sisters. It is one of those benefits of growing up family that we remember for each other. I am thankful that our growing into adult friends is not marked by the turmoil and separation that I’ve seen in the families of others.

From Carol:

“Hope you have a wonderful celebration for your 70th. I am working with a woman in Hospice, who 3 days after you turn 70, will turn 101. When I told her I was 65 she said I was so young … so it is all perspective! Enjoy life now.”

From Judy:

“I have been reflecting on some of our childhood times … . Those decades may seem far away now that you are starting your 7th, but they are some of our sister and brother moments which I cherish.

“My first memory was when you were pushing me in a swing at McKinley Elementary school. How awesome that my strong brother could send me soaring to the clouds that I wanted to touch. Then with one last push, I tumbled off and landed in a mud puddle. From sky to land how could I forget! But I loved it.

“The car travels to Illinois were also memorable as we shared the back seat. There was lots of singing and wondering who would get to sit by the window. That is also where I learned that there is no such thing as a bigger half and just because my brother was older he didn’t get to have the larger half of the candy bar. I have used the half story many times in my teaching career as well that nickels aren’t worth more just because they are larger than a dime. You were an important teacher of math skills on that trip.

“In Kankakee, I remember walking back and forth to school with you, going to outdoor theaters in cornfields and lying on blankets while we tried to act grown-up as we smoked candy cigarettes and puffed on licorice pipes. I admired how fast you were when we played chase with Duchess the neighbor’s Great Dane. Boy, you could get to a safe spot while she frequently ran me down.

“I went to my first scary movie with you and you didn’t have nightmares while I did. How brave my big brother was not to see the creepy shadows on the bedroom walls.

“How awesome that you could ride a bike while I was still learning. I bet you remember the numerous times I got my pant leg caught in the chains or my foot in the spokes when you were giving me a ride. That bike ride learning certainly came in handy back in Tacoma with all the miles we spent biking to Chambers Cree, the South Tacoma Cut, Wapato Park and our neighborhood.

“Lots of memories in the Tacoma days. How I loved that you would read the Sunday comics to me while lying on the living room floor as I was still learning to make sense of writing. Man, you were such a reader. You would disappear and read while other activities were going on in the house. School kids would call you the brain and mention how smart you were (are). I also knew how impressed teachers were with you. I though that was terrific and I was proud to be your sister.

“Do you remember the hours we spent together playing ping pong in the basement? The challenge was to avoid hitting the overhead floor joists with our heads as well as keeping the ball out of the floor drain or the spider hiding places. Of course, I will never forget the bomb shelter you started digging by the chimney base in the crawl space. Quite a secret until Dad found out.

“You always seemed to have activities going that seemed mysterious and ‘male’ to me. Chemistry mixes with obnoxious smells, photos dripping from laundry lines, red lights that signal do not enter my boy domain. Hot dog cookers and earthworm zappers were made in junior high shop and brought home to demonstrate. You had a paper route and later worked in a camera shop. You had so many interests that seemed amazing to me as your younger sister.

“We had lots of evenings without the folks being around. Those were the moments of snapping towel fights, sneaking up on each other in the bedrooms with the intent of scaring each other, talking back and forth from bedroom to bedroom, and just having sibling time. I remember the sneaking of Dad’s cigarettes. Hmmm, how did he know?”

It is wonderful to be able to look back and learn what was the best of it for each of us.

What Game? I Missed a Game?

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: Super Bowl XLIII, Alec Baldwin, Super Bowl Ads, Hulu

I had some Golden Geek projects to carry out on Sunday, February 2, like teaching my up-and-running Windows Home Server to dance and finally upgrading my 1998-model decrepit laptop and home-office web-development server all the way to Windows XP SP3.

Not having a television, I didn’t suffer at all from Super Bowl mania. On Twitter there were some posts about Alec Baldwin being a complete comedic wacko, and some moaning about the last Quarter and how the game ended. For calibration, I had no idea who was playing and I guessed the wrong Pennsylvania team.

Well, I do watch Hulu quite regularly, and Vicki is now experiencing that what’s-on-Hulu craving too. I think we’re going to need more bandwidth around here.

In checking my Hulu RSS Feeds for future viewing opportunities, I now see what Alec Baldwin got himself into. I liked it. But then, I liked the Microsoft ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Your mileage may definitely vary.

But if you missed any commercials, or you just want to watch the Victoria’s Secret one to verify that you haven’t died yet, Hulu has the line-up, along with their very own venture into Super Bowl ads.

Friday Cat Picture: The Kiln Sitter

noreply@blogger.com (orcmid) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:38:00 +0000

Technorati Tags: cats, Friday cat pictures, photography

This fellow watches over the gas kiln at the Moshier Community Art Center in Burien, Washington, where Vicki is an instructor, part of the “firing squad,” and also a resident potter.

While it is not Friday, the photograph was taken on Friday, January 30, on the occasion of the Empty Bowls event there. The folks there tease me over the number of photographs that I take and that none get to see. So here’s one as a promise of more to come.

This is cross-posted to The Kiln Sitter’s Diary because it is appropriate to the theme there and that was my inspiration to post this.