the finger-keyboard synapse

New Samsung 226BW Monitor for sale @ great price

When I buy computer hardware, I research the heck out of every product I consider buying, spend a week contemplating the best choice, and then finally jump. I don't usually make bad decisions, and while I didn't pick bad hardware, I just picked something not right for me after all. I'm hoping that one of my readers will be able to benefit.

I purchased a 22" Samsung 226BW monitor (link is to Samsung's description of the monitor) a few weeks ago, but unfortunately there were two problems, neither of them related to this great monitor that I selected. The first problem is that in the meantime I reconfigured my desk and realized that my plan would preclude being able to use a monitor that large in conjunction with a second monitor. The second problem is that I ordered from an online store that does not accept returns on monitors for any reason (unless it's defective, and then they will only replace it). So, I have this highly rated monitor, brand new in the box, and I need to sell it and recover at least some of my cost.

This monitor currently has a $40 rebate, and the best "after rebate and shipping price" I could find was $280. So, I'm willing to sell this monitor for $275, shipped anywhere in the US, and you can completely avoid the hassle of the rebate. Or, make me an offer. By not using eBay I'm saving a lot in fees, so that's why I'm willing to offer such a great price.

Update: the monitor is sold! :)

Resurrection

I'm quite sure that many folks thought BitWise had been completely abandoned, stuck forever at version 1.7.2. The fact that we just passed the one year anniversary of the most recent release was not lost on me.

The release of BitWise 1.7.3 is mainly to fix a few Vista-related bugs (thanks Microsoft!) and improve the IP detection and handling routines on Windows, along with a few other minor bugs that have cropped up since the last release. I know this isn't the video-conferencing, multi-way chatting, eye-candy release everyone was hoping for, but it should confirm that BitWise is still kicking.

So, we hope you all enjoy this update, especially the Vista users out there who have been very patient. And to everyone who hasn't upgraded to Vista yet, upgrade past Vista and wait for Mac OS X Leopard this fall, which is looking very cool.

Windows and PC makers shooting themselves in the foot?

Vista came out in late January, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I needed to set up some Vista systems. Come March, I was working on my first few and have done a handful altogether since then. I don't know if the problem is necessary with Vista, but I have been very disappointed overall with these new computers. I'm not really sure that Vista is to blame as much as the PC makers.

The first few systems that I set up all shipped with Roxio's drive letter access (DLA) drivers. DLA is a great tool for a lot of people and I have nothing against it, except that Dell was shipping DLA drivers that were incompatible with Vista. So, every time Vista booted, you got a scary message about a driver being disabled because it wasn't compatible. I can't help but wonder who at Dell thought that it was a good idea to ship a known incompatible driver with their systems. Messages like this are terrifying to many computer users. I hope Dell wasted tens of thousands of dollars on support calls from frantic new PC buyers who thought they had a defective computer.

These Dell systems also ship with some fancy DVD/media access software that lets you access your movies and music with play, pause, fast forward, etc. buttons right on the laptop case. Again, a wonderful feature to include. However, why do the drivers for this crash every few days, throwing up another really scary message about a program that has quit responding? I have also seen the same problem with HP's new "Total Care" software package. Is it really that hard to write software that doesn't crash so often -- especially software that is going to be shipped on every PC you sell and is enabled to run all the time?

Don't even get me started on all the junk software and trials that get loaded onto most new computers. The "Get a Mac" ad featured the bloated PC guy is probably the most true of any of the "Get a Mac" ads. The desktop comes 1/4 covered in useless software that most people never want, but they don't trash the icons because they're afraid of "messing up the computer." To Apple's credit, the desktop on a new Mac has exactly one icon -- the hard drive icon.

So even if Vista is one of the more underwhelming Windows releases, the PC makers aren't doing Microsoft or themselves any favors with how they are building and bundling their computers with incompatible software and bloatware. The bad news for Microsoft is that all of these factors are probably hurting the public image of Vista more than anything else. At least with the folks I've worked with, these problems have all been blamed on "that new Vista system" rather than the system builders who have poorly configured their computers.

It's no wonder Vista is being labeled a non-event. Sure, everyone will be using Vista in a few years (except the wise ones who jump ship to one of the increasingly viable alternatives), but if Microsoft and PC makers want better reviews and better customer experiences, they need to look at more than just the OS and hardware and clean up their act.

The best investment: shrink wrapped computer games

I certainly would not classify myself as en eBay junky, but I do occasionally like to do some searching to see what I can find, usually in the areas of music, games or old computer hardware. I recently came across a seller who was selling hundreds of old Commodore 64 games, some of them still in their original shrink wrap. I'm going to overlook the obvious question of why someone would have hoarded shrink wrapped games for the C64 until now and assume there's a reasonable explanation.

I put a few of these auctions on my watch list because there were a few items I was marginally interested in, and some others that I just wanted to see how high they would go. One of the items I actually bid on (and lost) was a copy of the game Hacker 2, which was still shrink wrapped. I don't know if anyone else remembers the game Hacker, but I spent many, many, many hours in that game and did finally decipher it and win. I wanted the sequel for the "collection," which I'm sure sounds rather silly to most of you.

One of the other items that I watched was a shrink wrapped copy of the Bard's Tale III, which is probably on my RPG gamers' lists as one of the top 10 RPGs of all time. It certainly is on my list. I didn't really want to bid on it, but I was curious how high it would go.

When it was all said and done, Hacker 2 sold for $48 and Bard's Tale 3 sold for $51. It's amazing to me that these games are still worth so much to someone. Out of curiosity, I started poking around the seller's other completed items. What I found nearly knocked me off my chair.

Some of the old C64 games are selling for hundreds of dollars, including "Space Taxi" for $512. I haven't heard of this particular game. Next highest were the first 3 titles of the Ultima Trilogy that sold for $446. Even some opened games sold for almost $200.

I hope that the author of Space Taxi is proud that his or her game has appreciated at least 1,000% over the past 20-30 years. That beats the average invest in the stock market by several times. Does this mean we should all start investing in shrink wrapped computer games? Time to re-evaluate the portfolio, I'd say...

Duh, hackers have their own encrypted IM networks

Back when we first added encryption to BitWise, people used to joke with us about if we were willing to accept that we might indirectly support hackers by providing an encrypted IM service. We have never really worried about this because it seemed highly unlikely that hackers would actually trust any company-created encrypted IM. It looks like we were right.

A recent ComputerWorld article caught my eye with the title Hackers build private IM to keep out the law. I have to say that this is one of the biggest non-news news articles that I've ever read because a) the "duh factor" is pretty high and b) it doesn't really say much other than these IM networks exist and are really hard to find. Since anyone with half a brain probably suspected this anyways, is it really worth reporting on any more than, say, "Grass growing as we head into Spring season?"

From a law enforcement perspective, I think that releasing or publishing this article was even more ridiculous. Andrew Moloney, business director for financial services for RSA, part of EMC Corp., has now publicly stated that they have agents inside of this hacker IM network. What ever happened to keeping your cards close to your chest? If the hackers have any sense (which they most certainly do), they'll be extra careful or maybe even start gravitating elsewhere. Unless they don't actually have agents inside and just want to raise the paranoia level, but that seems like a strange bluff.

I think the folks most enlightened by this article will be the hackers who now know to be extra careful on their infiltrated network. Certainly the rest of the world who cared to think about hackers and IM could have realized such a network existed without being told about it.

Anti-viruses really are worse than viruses

I have for a long time thought that anti-virus programs were almost a bigger pain than the viruses that they are supposed to prevent. I got my proof last week when MIcrosoft announced that their OneCare program could blow away your entire Outlook data file or individual Outlook Express mail boxes if you received an attachment with malicious code. Full story at ComputerWorld.

Hilarious. Just hilarious. It wouldn't be so funny if it were irreversible, but fortunately for those affected, it is.

Thoughts on digital books

Last week, Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) published his Thoughts on Music on Apple's web site. Prompted by the calls for Apple to open up their iTunes/iPod FairPlay technology, Steve in response suggested that we should instead be focusing on pressuring the music companies to license their music without DRM. He sites that 90% of the world's music is still sold without any DRM on traditional CDs, and that protecting the other 10% doesn't do any good. Whether this is a PR move or not, I can't say, but he does make a good point.

One of the reasons that this article interested me so much is that part of my work is protecting digital textbooks from illegal redistribution. The most straightforward method for distributing books online would be in an unprotected PDF. This option is clearly the most convenient for the consumer. The major downside to this option is that it is also extremely easy to send the file to others. In addition, anyone can make printouts from a PDF file and redistribute or sell hard copies of the book. Since my brother's company is not a huge faceless multinational corporation, these activities actually hurt the business and its ability to continue operating.

So, we were given the choice of using some form of DRM to protect the digital textbooks. It turns out that there are not many truly secure and effective solutions for managed distribution of digital books that are available for purchase/license. In the end, however, we did decide to employ a DRM solution that encrypts the books and limits the number of installations you have for the special viewer that allows you to decrypt, read and print the textbooks.

There is still a gap in this protection, however. When you allow printing, a digital book can quite easily become a printed book, which can then be copied and peddled anywhere. We never considered disallowing printing; some of the books are upward of 500 pages and it is impractical to expect anyone to read that much off of their screen. Disabling printing would stop the printed piracy, but it would also have inconvenienced every legitimate user to an extreme level that would surely run the business into the ground.

The solution to this was to include a text watermark at the top and bottom of each page when printing that identifies the person who printed the material, along with a note that the material is exclusively for that person. This allows us to continue offering the print capability, but it also will make it a little harder for someone to print out the textbook and then sell it, since every page displays a copyright notice along with the person's name. While there are some people who will not care, we do have some faith in the general human population. :)

So, how does this relate back to Steve Job's thoughts on music? The most obvious connection is that both digital music and digital books are easily copied in the absence of DRM. The difference is that music is also available unprotected, and therefore protecting a portion of the available music does no good. In our situation, there are no unprotected books to purchase, so the DRM actually works. To me, this is the crucial difference: 90% of music still has no DRM, where 0% of our books have no DRM. I think that this underpins the crux of Steve's point: DRM on music is completely ineffective, so why bother?

I know there are folks completely opposed to DRM in any way, shape or form. On the other hand, many corporate interests would probably DRM everything if they could. I believe that there is a delicate balance of protection, convenience and effectiveness. What we will have to figure out in the ongoing digital revolution is where these elements intersect. DRM itself is not the problem, but rather its many poor implementations that over-emphasize protection and effectiveness at the cost of convenience. On the other hand, if effectiveness is below a certain threshold, you may as well not bother.

Maybe I'll just keep holding out for a resurgence of good old-fashioned honesty.

Paved with good intentions

Almost every day I think "I really should take some time today and post on my blog." It looks like today is finally my lucky day. I see another month has gone by. But boy has it been busy!

My brother (the one that I work for), his wife and my two nephews came for an extended visit (they live overseas). Fortunately, cell phones, email and other wonderful technology has made it easier than ever to have flexible work time, so that was very nice. My four year old nephew loves everything Cars (the movie) and related to Cars, so I got a nice healthy dose of Lightning McQueen and crew. I think I have childhood worked out of my system for a while now. :)

On the work front, things have continued much as they were, though at a reduced pace while my brother was here for Christmas-time and half of this month. It took a little while to get caught up on all the mini-projects that I had let sit during the visit, but now those are mostly worked through. The BitWise front has been fairly calm, other than some new bug reports in the forums that seem to echoing some earlier ones about crashes related to voice chat. I'm still puzzling that one over. OxONet has seen some growth the past few months, so that's been very exciting as well. I don't talk about OxONet much, but it's still around, serving up web pages like a pro. :)

Earlier this month I debated making a me-too post talking about the iPhone but decided against it. No one probably cares what I have to say about the iPhone, nor do I probably have anything insightful to say about it that hasn't already been said. They look awesome, but I wish it had been Verizon instead of Cingular. See, I said I had nothing new!

Also in the Apple department, I was planning to get a Mac Pro when Leopard came out, but since that's still nowhere in sight and my old Windows 2000 machine was getting pretty cranky, I bought some new hardware and put together a shiny new computer, complete with Windows XP. I wasn't a huge fan of XP when it first came out, but a couple of Service Packs later, it's without a doubt a step ahead of 2000, which I had clung on too a little too religiously now that I'm looking back. :) I've also taken this chance to update some of my software to newer versions, which has been exciting too.

One of the programs that I updated was Trillian (yes, I too like everyone else still have to use one of the "Big 4" to keep in touch with everyone) to Version 3. I hate to say it, but that's a very nice program! Doesn't seem to have a whiteboard or the super-spiffy encryption, but everything else about it seems spot-on. I also like the new iTunes, though I suppose moving to iTunes as my media player is more just anticipation of my upcoming new Mac. :) Cover flow is pretty cool, too.

Some folks have been asking about any updates on the open source front. I will be meeting with one of the partners in February and will talk about it and hopefully come to a firm conclusion either to proceed in the near future or put it on the table semi-permanently. So, look for an update on that sometime next month.

Lastly, something to generate some discussion: are there any web sites out there for genuine newbies on the computer/Internet? I'm talking about really basic stuff like how to use email, basic word processing, etc. I'd be curious if anyone knows any sites like this -- good or bad. Thanks in advance!

Merry Christmas to me

If you're like everyone else in my family, you're really going to think I'm crazy now (if you didn't already before).

I just bought a $300 keyboard, the Kinesis Advantage USB Qwerty/Dvorak Black. See It.

Here were the factors that went into my decision (in no particular order):

• 10% off sale when ordering before Dec. 31.
  
• My current keyboard is going on 9 years old (amortize $300 over 9 years and it comes to $30/year or about 8.2 cents per day).
  
• It has keycaps with both Qwerty and Dvorak on them; I made the switch to Dvorak in 2001. The unit is hardware-switchable between layouts.
  
• It is USB and will work on future computers without PS/2 ports (unlike my current keyboard)
  
• It has a split spacebar, allowing the left thumb to hit backspace, something I have become very used to on my current keyboard.
  
• Over the summer, I was in therapy for an ongoing soreness in my wrist which seems was mostly due to mouse usage, but a more ergonomic keyboard can't hurt.
  
• I spend a lot of time on the computer for both work and pleasure. Assuming I spend 8 hours a day on the computer (mostly for work), my above calculation of price drops to 1 cent per hour. This is a small price to pay for my overall well-being.
  
• The keyboard is both Windows and Mac compatible with both Windows and Mac keycaps.
  
• 60 day money-back policy insures that I have sufficient time to test and get used to the keyboard and send it back if it's not the best keyboard ever.
  
• Last, but not least... I can justify anything. :)

Those are are my myriad of reasons why I splurged on such a high-end excessive ergonomic keyboard that gives me tremendous bragging rights meets my needs. Is it worth it? I sure hope so. I'll let you know. But, due the holiday and ground shipping from Washington state, I won't have it until the 9th at the earliest. :( Stay tuned...

A belated Merry Christams to me, and a big Happy New Year to everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone. May peace be with you on this day.