Watson, come here, I need you.

Metrotalk 27 Feb 2005

Discussion Items from Today's Metrotalk:

What's New and interesting in the high tech world?

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com

ISP Choices: Verizon / AOL broadband / Comcast / Cox

Good Remotely monitored home security alarm, $8.95/month: www.nextalarm.com 

DSL Versus Cable?  Which is better?

• Cable usually faster
• DSL is a more direct connection
• You may live to far away from the central office for DSL.

You can check if you qualify for DSL at http://www.dslreports.com under the "Prequal" link on the left side of the screen.

Identity Theft:

• Don't put personal or financial info on your PDA or laptop without encryption.
• Consider subscribing to alert services for your bank (email of SMS phone alerts of balance changes, new account activity)

Check out Equifax Credit Watch to be informed of changes to your credit report: 

Metrotalk Online December 26, 2004

Discussion Items from Today's Metrotalk:

What's New and interesting in the high tech world?

Network on Wheels (NOW): Auto makers to create car-to-car wireless networks by 2006

BMW, Audi, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat won a German government grant to help develop the a standard method for car-to-car wireless data.

• The money will be used by Network on Wheels (NOW), a project that focuses on 802.11 wireless network technology to develop ways that moving vehicles can automatically set up temporary links with other cars, bikes and trucks in the vicinity, and share information about traffic slow-downs, bad weather, accidents and other road problems.

• The idea is that as soon as two or more vehicles are within radio communications range, they connect automatically and establish an ad hoc network. Because the range of a WLAN link is limited to a few hundred meters, every vehicle also serves as a router, allowing messages to be sent via a multi-hop process to vehicles farther away. The routing algorithm is based on the position of the vehicles and is able to handle the typically fast changes of ad hoc networks.

• Thought 1: Alongside the rewards there's a risk to personal liberties, as the potential is once again opened for government and law-enforcement agencies to track vehicle movement.

• Thought 2: Maybe the Car doesn't need to be smart, because cell phones could perform the functions instead!

A community for online New Year's Resolutions:  There's a great new project called Hugster (hugster.43things.com) that allows you to share a list of things you want to do with your life. 

This site is most accurately described as a marketplace for accomplishing goals.

• You can see the goals of other people listed, with larger type goals being the more popular ones.  You can add your own goals.  When you see a goal listed on the site, you have 2 ways to join that goal: "I want to do this" or "I've done this". This information then becomes part of your identity on the site--you are a collection of the things you've done and things you want to do (including your progress). Of course, you can create a new goal at any time.

• At the core it's about finding and working with people who share your specific goals. Plus, people who have accomplished goals become resources for those who haven't.

New To Me: Excercise Machines connected to the Internet:  I got a few week head start on my new years resolutions by going down to the YMCA for some excercise.  I was surprised to learn about Fitlinxx, a company that connects each machine to a computer, and to the internet, so that all my tagets, weights, and actual performance is stored on a personal web page automatically.

Great New Concept: The Wiki:

• Imagine a web site where every page has a link that says "edit this page..." and then imagine that everybody has permission to change everything.  Chaos, right?
• WRONG!  Check out the Wikipedia for a great example of a free encyclopedia, with millions of articles, completely edited by volunteers.
• Check out JotSpot for an upcoming Wiki that you'll be able to buy as a monthly service.  JotSpot will also offer many enhancements over the standard Wiki including structured data, email links, subscriptions via RSS and many, many sample applications to quickly develop your own GroupWare.  For the small company or organization, it will be a great way to harness the creative power of your staff or volunteers.

Finding the un-outsourceable job?  What should you do?

• Consider jobs that require hands-on presence: Data Center manager, help desk, deskside coaching, nursing-home aides, janitors, gardeners, dentists, massage therapy.
  
• Consider jobs that  leverage your cultural fluency, communication skills
• The other sort of jobs destined to remain here are high-end jobs. Some require exchanging information in ways that e-mail and teleconferencing don't handle well. Think about teaching first grade or selling a mansion to a multimillionaire or conceiving new forms of software. Others demand such intimate knowledge of the U.S. that it's hard to see foreigners doing them from afar. Think about marketing to American teenagers or lobbying Congress.

Does my site need a search engine?

Q:  Why does my site need a search engine?  Won’t Google do?

A:  Left to itself, Google.com will eventually spider and index everything, provided that:

• the content is linked to by another web page
• the content is publicly accessible from the internet
• the content isn’t blocked from search engines by a robots.txt file

This includes many non-HTML file types, including PDF, PostScript, and Microsoft Office formats.

The problem is that Google only crawls your site every so often.  The more dynamic your content, the more linked to you are, the higher your PageRank, the more frequently they crawl you, but you can’t make them come on demand. 

Also, you can’t make them crawl your internal pages, or your C: or S: or H: drives.  For your C: drive and your MyDocuments folder, you can use Google Desktop Search.  But GDS doesn’t crawl network drives, although you can copy the contents of the network drive to a local drive, and then GDS will index it.

Finally, Google makes an appliance, a lovely yellow box you can buy and stick on your LAN, which can index anything you tell it to.  More info here: http://www.google.com/appliance/faq.html

Metrotalk Online November 28, 2004

Discussion Items from Today's Metrotalk:

Holiday Shopping Tips:

• Consider eBay -- many deals available.  There's also a very good gift wizard if you're having trouble deciding what to get someone.
• Try using Froogle to shop for a bargain.  It's the shopping service offerred by Google.
• Encourage your friends and family to use an Amazon Wish List so they can know what you want, and order it simply on line.
• Do your homework beforehand: Read reviews on CNet or Circuit City sites.

Gadgets for Teenagers:

• For teenagers, the iPod is in a class by itself for portable music.
• Apple’s iPod for $299: 20GB of data or audio, 5000 songs
• Mini-iPod for $249: 4GB of data or audio, 1000 songs or 70 hours
• iPod Accessories; JBL Encounter speakers for $199
• iTunes gift cards for $15 and $25, can receive in 5 to 7 days.
• The Creative Zen Micro is a nice new rival for the iPod mini: It has guilt-in FM tuner/recorder; voice recorder; lots of color choices; removable battery

Gadgets for Adults:

• Consider to whom you are giving and what tech-toys they use the most.
• The Treo 650, Palm's new high end cell phone/PDA combo, is out, to mixed reviews; most love the product but wish it had WiFi, more memory and better memory management, and an improved camera.  But it's still an amazing device. 
• Which Type of DVD recorder to consider?  According to Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post, "the most important factor for a DVD recorder is disc compatibility--whether the recordings you make will work in other DVD players and computers. In this respect, there's only one clear winner, DVD+RW."
• Digital Cameras?  Look for cameras that use the SD card format.  More pixels is not necessarily better; try them out in the store and see what you think.
• Apple Airport Express for $129: A Compact and portable WiFi station that you can use at home or when traveling.  Plug it into the broadband connection in your hotel home to use.

Headsets: 

Consider getting a bluetooth headset for their phone, if it is Bluetooth enabled.  This is a wireless headset, and they cost between $50 and $150 now.

• Plantronics M2500 for $69 is rated the best. 
• New Plantrnoics M3500 for $89 which says it has noise canceling technology.  We’ll let you know next month.)
• A noise canceling Aliph Jawbone for $149. (Makes your cellular calls crystal clear by sensing when you are talking, thus elminating much ambient noise.  Built in software to clean-up sound quality.  But is currently only compatible with Motorala, Nokia, Ericson

Great New Concept: The Wiki: 

• Imagine a web site where every page has a link that says "edit this page..." and then imagine that everybody has permission to change everything.  Chaos, right?
• WRONG!  Check out the Wikipedia for a great example of a free encyclopedia, with millions of articles, completely edited by volunteers.
• Check out JotSpot for an upcoming Wiki that you'll be able to buy as a monthly service.  JotSpot will also offer many enhancements over the standard Wiki including structured data, email links, subscriptions via RSS and many, many sample applications to quickly develop your own GroupWare.  For the small company or organization, it will be a great way to harness the creative power of your staff or volunteers.

Don't Forget: DC Requires Hands-Free Cell Phone Use! Are you keeping your hands off the phone while you're driving?

Metrotalk Online: 24 Oct 2004

Discussion Items from Today's Metrotalk:

Google Desktop Search: Now you can Google your own PC!

• It's neat because it lets you search your entire PC in seconds, just like Google
• It adds an extra tab, called DESKTOP, to your Google page
• It searches your files, your web history, your IM chats, and your Outlook email
• Some people are complaining that it remembers *too* much... especially on a shared PC
• It can be disabled for short periods or turned off
• The market seems to like it; Google shares are up by $23 last Friday, twice initial price
• Microsoft will respond with their own version soon
• Link: Google Desktop

Monitoring Kid's Internet and IM Access

• Great article in NY Times about how parents can be "IM watchdogs"
• 55% of kids 12-17 use instant messaging
• Article describes tools for restricting or monitoring IM services
• AOL or MSN have parental control section that is very customizable
• With conventional ISPs you have to manually restrict the IM software or buy third party software like Cyberpatrol or Cybersitter
• Regardless, you should discuss online rules with your children: Never give out personal information like name, address and phone number. Never meet face to face someone whom a child has encountered online.
• Link to great NY Times Article

Podcasting: It's like Tivo for your IPOD

• Podcasting is a new term, about a month old, describing technology used to automatically "push" audio content from websites to listeners who typically listen to it on their iPod or MP3 player
• It allows individuals to self-publish (podcast) radio shows that listeners can subscribe to
• There have been commercial versions (audible.com), but are expensive and non standard
• Link to www.ipodder.org

Electronic Voting Machines

• Going to be used heavily in the upcoming elections
• No solution -- computerized, mechanical, or paper -- will ever guarantee that voting is 100 percent free from machine malfunctions or illegal tampering
• Many would like a paper audit trail
• There are some good features on many of these machines for blind or vision impaired

Don't Forget: DC Requires Hands-Free Cell Phone Use! Are you keeping your hands off the phone while you're driving?

Metrotalk Online: 28 March 2004

Discussion Items from Today's Show:

BLOGS

If you want to write your own "Blogs" (short for WebLogs) check out www.blogger.com

If you want to read a few good blogs check out these:

instapundit.com andrewsullivan.com livejournal.com thebaghdadblog.com

To speed up viewing other people's blogs check out this:

www.bloglines.com

YAHOO GROUPS

is a a forum for hobbyists, activists, discussion groups and formal and informal associations. Check it out at groups.yahoo.com

MEETUP.COM

is sort of a real-world version of Yahoo Groups, where you coordinate local meetings on hobbies, interests and political action. Check it out at www.meetup.com

OTHER LINKS

Federal Office Systems Expo www.fose.com

Federation of Galaxy Explorers www.foge.com

C-Summit.com: C-Summit is the must-attend conference for the exploding global Cameraphone market, www.c-summit.com