P.S. A Column On Things

Windows 7 Sucks

Let me be clear about this. My wonderful new Dell Portable, a gift from my daughters, is, well, wonderful. They took pity on me and my technology (as they do from time to time) and decided that my slow, small, decade-old portable was no longer sufficient, especially since I am going out of town more these days. They wanted me to get a Macbook, but I stoutly resisted. There are still a few Windows aps to which I am addicted . Besides, I have to keep at least one PC in the house for the websites I use to support my wife's psychotherapy practice which require (REQUIRE!) Internet Explorer (they aren't fooled by Firefox's spoof mode either), not to mention the applications my school district runs, which also require IE. The temptation to wipe the portable down to the metal and install XP was significant, but I figured I'd be dragged screaming and kicking into the future. I do mean screaming and kicking.

My first experience with the fact that

Windows 7 Sucks

came when I was installing the cable modem for a friend. Comcast insists that you run an install Wizard application that Windows 7 refused to run. I tried it. It won't run, even in "Run as Administrator" mode, which was readily available to me. If you don't run the ap, Comcast will not activate your modem. After two hours, I desperately pushed the button on the Comcast website for "technician" mode. Turns out there weren't any questions I couldn't answer. But when I was done, Comcast insisted on yet another ap that Windows 7 stoutly refused to run, no matter how far down I set the security mode. Again, fortunately, the friend had an XP machine. Thank God!

Windows 7 Sucks

Not since we went from DOS to Windows back in 1991 have I seen a Microsoft operating system that broke more aps than 7, even in so-called "compatibility" mode. One of my favorite word games, E-Words, simply will not work in 7. The software company is long gone, so there won't be an upgrade. None of the other (free or paid) word games I can find does it for me like E-Words did. There's another ap gone; if Microsoft keeps breaking them, there won't be any reason for me NOT to convert to a Macbook.

Did I mention that Windows 7 sucks?

And the file system! Don't get me started on the file system. The default is an absolute refusal to let you anywhere near the Documents and Settings directory. And you're told, even if you're the administrator, that you can't chance the permissions. After a LENGTHY Google search, I found that you need to change the OWNERSHIP of the directory, under the advanced button. How messed up is that? In trying to be more like a Macintosh, Microsoft has succeeded in creating a nearly unusable operating system. As Steve Ballmer used to say, BOGU (you can look it up).

Windows 7 and HP Laserjet 3015 printer and Networking (Network)

Here is something important. I have a 12-year-old, no longer supported by HP Laserjet 3015. It's a beautiful printer. Never given me a lick of trouble. If I hooked it directly to my new Dell, Windows 7 recognized it and installed it automatically. I spent three hours trying to install it as a network printer. All was futility. I could see it on the network, but I couldn't connect to it, no matter how much software I installed. I checked several dozen websites using various search terms. The last one I tried finally worked (isn't that always the case?).

The advice was simple, clear and brilliant. I am putting the link here in case you are having trouble (difficulty) creating a network connection between Windows 7 and an HP Laserjet 3015. That is, you cannot set up the 3015 as a network printer [that ought to be clear to all the search engines]. The only solution that works is Win7 Pro x64 bit HP LaserJet 3015 driver problem.

I am putting that link here, in my column, as a separate item, with a descriptive headline, in the hopes of boosting the Google rank of the helpful link above, since the solution it describes actually works. So, if you Google here looking for a solution, go have a look, and you're welcome.

Technobriefs Returns (Briefly)

Erstwhile techno-briefer Craig Reynolds notes that both Sony and Microsoft introduced new game controllers using motion tracking at the E3 game industry trade show in Los Angeles. The Sony device was demonstrated by two of Craig's co-workers, Rick Marks and Anton Mikhailov:
New Sony Motion Controller! (E3 2009)
Behold the motion-sensitive controller wars

Three from NYT Bits:
Google Is Top Tracker of Surfers in Study
The Obama Administration’s Silence on Privacy
Plugging In $40 Computers

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Prez tech: apparently the First BlackBerry stays: The BlackBerry accord of 2009. While there seems to be a party-line divide over what constitutes modern technology: Obama Staff Arrives to White House Stuck in Dark Ages of Technology and White House Already Well Wired, Bush Staffers Say (hmm "...Windows XP, BlackBerrys, Outlook..."  I don't use any of those but XP dates from 2001, BlackBerrys from 1999 and Outlook has been around since MS-DOS, how do these suggest IT modernity?) Also: Word Cloud Analysis of Obama's Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln's.

Belkin's web 2.0 payola: Belkin damages brand by paying for favorable reviews: LA company apologizes for paid online reviews, Belkin fake reviews case raises broad questions about peer ratings and Belkin Employee Sheds Light On Belkin's Supposedly Dirty Practices.

OS v. OS: Why I can't get enough of Windows 7 and Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Apple ups the ante.

Technobits: I had a nice visit to UC Santa Cruz and spoke in their CITRIS Distinguished Lecture Series on: Crowds and Emergent Teamwork --- Payment Processor Breach May Be Largest Ever --- Michael Arrington's Minimalist Web Tablet Prototyped, Fulfills (Most) Promises --- What's with Google's new mini icon? --- Twittering idiot hoist by own petard: Be Careful What You Post.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Astrophysics, stranger than fiction: OK, the wave/particle duality is odd, quantum mechanics is weird, spooky action at a distance is well, spooky. But those are all minor league odd compared to this: Our world may be a giant hologram. (Warning: read it soon, New Scientist articles disappear behind a pay-per-view wall quickly). Noise picked up by an instrument built to detect gravitational waves may doom the experiment because the universe itself does not have sufficient resolution since it is merely a hologram! Not what they were looking for, but a helluva discovery if true. Recent string theories suggest the apparently 3 dimensional universe actually has 7, 10, 11, or 26 dimensions. If Craig Hogan's theory is correct, the universe has only 2 dimensions. Welcome to Flatland!

Google: an attempt to estimate the power required to perform a Google search lead to consternation and controversy: How Google searches lead to our destruction, 'Carbon cost' of Google revealed, Measuring your Google search's carbon footprint, while Google Argues Its Searches Are Environmentally Friendly and Google emits rebuttal to carbon claims. Also, a response to last July's Is Google Making Us Stupid? article in The Atlantic (which as I recall ends up answering its title with "no, not really"): How Google Is Making Us Smarter.

Technobits: Apple Allows 3rd Party Web Browsers into App Store --- A Breakthrough in Imaging - Seeing a Virus in Three Dimensions --- Search the web for any song in the world.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

The Crime of Reason: I attended a great talk by Stanford Professor Robert B. Laughlin, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics, on the subject of his new book The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind. Prof. Laughlin laments the loss of public domain knowledge as more and more critical information is sequestered as a threat to security and commerce. If you research or innovate, you are increasingly seen as a thief or a terrorist. Watch the video, listen to a radio interview or read the book, its an important perspective on our world.

Music: rationality belatedly comes to the music industry's approach to online commerce: The RIAA's About-Face on Lawsuits and Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes. A book about that long journey: When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won on Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction.

Tech in the real world: applications in civil emergencies: Google search finds missing child and Police Study Way to Jam Cellphones in an Attack. On the MOBVIS system: Hyperlinking the Real World. A virtual world as microcosm: Sony's Home juggles free speech, hate speech. Diversification for a new world: Andy Grove urges Intel to build car batteries. The Submarine cables that tie continents together: The Internet's Undersea World.

Finding commerce in odd places: Firms Make a Killing on i-Phone Apps, YouTube Videos Pull In Real Money and Seeking Profit in the Need for a Bathroom Break.

Technobits: Obama considers linking Defense Dept. with NASA --- Blu-ray Format Struggles With Uncertain Prospects (previously in PSACOT: September, November) --- Google Hopes to Open a Trove of Little-Seen Books --- in case you are worried you are following consumer tech trends obsessively enough: 2009: Products I Can’t Live Without --- Scientists discover true love --- Fun with speed cameras, teen-style.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Just random technobits this week: Math Gains Reported for U.S. Students --- What the Search Engines Have Found Out About All of Us --- Intel Cites Advance in Using Silicon in Data Products; Claim Is Challenged --- Labels Open to Collective Licensing on Campus --- Verizon 4G Next year: A Pipe Dream? --- Top 10 Things You Forgot Gmail Can Do --- Cold Sore Virus Linked To Alzheimer's Disease: New Treatment, Or Even Vaccine Possible --- Proof That Meteors Could Have Sparked Life on Earth --- Critical Report on Health of Zoo Elephants Is Debated --- 3D desktop revealed in Apple patent filing --- Wikipedia Censorship Sparks Free Speech Debate (no mention of the (similarly NSFW) 1969 Blind Faith album cover) --- Sweeping Changes Coming With Smart Dust --- work on a biomimetic device, inspired by the razor clam, that might eventually become a self-adjusting boat anchor: Dig this: RoboClam - MIT News Office --- now I can easily translate My hovercraft is full of eels into several languages at the same time: Nice Translator - The fast, easy to use online translator.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Health: an interesting clue about language processing difficulties of autistic children researchers were able to measure a delay in processing phonemes, it may also provide a screening test for autism in very young children: Brain waves are window into autism language woes. Here is some good news for us nerds: Intelligence predicts sperm quality.

Web: as the online world expands, "finding the good stuff" becomes harder. Spotting trends and making recommendations are hot research topics these days: A Winning Web Formula and If You Liked This, Sure to Love That - Winning the Netflix Prize. The next generation is much less concerned about the surveillance society than us old farts: You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy? Free bandwidth and generic clients as computer networks become ubiquitous FCC to consider free Internet, cable carriage and IBM Targets Microsoft with Virtual Desktop.

Bad Apple: EFF raps Apple twice this week: Apple Confuses Speech with a DMCA Violation and Apple Downgrades Macbook Video with DRM.

VR: the eerie psychological effects of virtual reality Standing in Someone Else’s Shoes, Almost for Real and Body-swap illusion tricks mind in new study. See more about "VR psychology" from the Stanford lab of Jeremy Bailenson.

Camouflage: I have always been fascinated by the mechanisms of camouflage in the natural world, so I was happy to run across this stunning collection of photographs of leaf mimicry and to find it is just one post in a series on Animal Camouflage from The Conservation Report. I saw this picture of a pink katydid and assumed it was just clever photoshopping. Google found many more so it probably is legit! I am still trying to find out if the unusual color is a separate species, an atypical mutation, or related to diet. It could be effective camouflage if they spend much time on pink flowers. All the katydids I have encountered were green, but they are apparently quite varied, see this stunning black and white species.

Technobits: Do We Overrate Basic Research? --- The 10 big energy myths --- Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says --- Researcher designs robot that jumps like a grasshopper --- Firm makes one billionth mouse --- The space-age Aerohotel concept  --- Network Would Relay Data From Cars to the Authorities --- 45 Vintage ‘Space Age’ Illustrations.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

A turkey-shortened post this week:

Spam: Judge Awards $873M Fine for Spamming Facebook and Spam increasing again after shutdown of hosting company.

Google: I must occasionally sound like a Googleplex fanboy, so for counterpoint, several negative notes: Google cutting contractor workforce, Some question Google's 'rookie mistakes' with SearchWiki and Google admits that its iPhone voice search breaks Apple's rules.

Bio: biologists excited about video shot from an oil company's remotely operated submarine: Alien-like Squid With "Elbows" Filmed at Drilling Site, Top 10 Amazing Biology Videos and look at this fantastic picture of the bottom of a lilypad.

Technobits: wireless power from MIT The power to overcome a bad economy? --- Sources of Saturn Moon's Supersonic Water Jets Revealed --- 7 Beautiful Data Visualizations (With Videos) --- Tech of Yesteryear: Where Old Computers Find Their Final Resting Place.

Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Kay's DynaBook is 40: in 1968 Alan Kay imagined the DynaBook, a then-fanciful machine that anyone today would recognize as a laptop computer. (His original concept did not fold in half like a modern laptop, it was more like a tablet computer.) The Computer Museum recently hosted a panel discussion to honor the anniversary: The Laptop Celebrates 40 Years. Read Kay's vision in his 1972 paper: A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages. As a computer science student in the 1970s my view of the future were informed by the DynaBook and Ted Nelson's 1963 concept of hypertext which presaged the web, as described in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines.

Spam: wow, a surprisingly effective victory against spammers: Cybercrime crusaders shut down shadowy Web hosting operation and Spam traffic plunges after report blames server hosting company. Also an in situ analysis of spamming economics: Study shows how spammers cash in, they are profitable even if they get as little as one response to every 12,000,000 spams.

Health: several headlines about cholesterol and heart disease: Cholesterol-Fighting Drugs Show Wider Benefit, How Aggressive Should Doctors Be in Prescribing Statins After Jupiter? and Low Heart Disease Risk? Test May Show Otherwise. An amazing and heartening discovery: A Doctor, a Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS. A robotic device to supplement lower body strength for industrial and therapeutic uses: Honda unveils robotic legs (video: Bionic legs made for walking). Cool example of the power of data mining, tracking flu infections via self-reporting in the form of web searches: Google Uses Web Searches to Track Flu’s Spread.

Space: after years of indirect observation, finally the real thing: First Pictures Taken of Extrasolar Planets and Seen, Not Inferred: Exoplanets Galore. Looking back at an eventful five month career: R.I.P: The Mars Lander's Legacy.

Tech afield: most of our technology needs to be connected to lots of other technology for support. Two examples of stand-alone tech designed to operate with no such help: Wiring Disaster Areas to the Outside World and With Microbial Fuel Cells, Energy Project Taps Africa’s Dirt.

Technobits: Google Is Taking Questions (Spoken, via iPhone) --- MGM to Post Full Movies and TV Shows to YouTube --- 5 Sickening Habits of Mainstream Websites --- Why veins could replace fingerprints and retinas as most secure form of ID --- just a few years ago computation photography happened only in research labs, now you can buy it at retail: Taking aim at far-from-perfect photos --- 3D Display Offers Glimpse of Future Media --- for $230, a cell-phone sized HD camcorder with 60 minute capacity: Flip MinoHD --- Would You Buy This Funny-Looking Bulb? --- using cell phones to measure traffic conditions in real time: the Mobile Millennium project --- Exploring Old Rome Without Air (or Time) Travel --- cool electron microscopy: Peering into the micro world --- The world’s most super-designed data center – fit for a James Bond villain.