GenXJamerican

According to this article in MIT Technology Review, the Apple operating system got it’s very first virus this year.  I suppose the “virus-free” label wasn’t going to last forever, but we should still be extremely impressed that it took about five years for a serious vulnerability to be found.

Even with the latest vulnerability announced, I’ve still found the Mac mini I bought last year to be incredibly stable and easy to use when compared to any of the Windows machines I currently use.  The only fallout from this announcement I see is that anti-virus software makers will be able to sell more to Mac users.

Awhile back, I read a blog entry (probably from Robert Scoble) about a venture called Ether. If memory serves about how he described their goal, they’re trying to be the eBay of services. I figured I’d sign up and see if they’d add me to their beta test list. Today I got their e-mail saying I’d been added.

Here’s the business card I generated after signing up:

Scott Lawrence (IT Advisor) 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01568799

I’ll post more as the beta test proceeds.

I came across the article today in Advertising Age (via a Wall Street Journal link).  The article hints that this is the first step toward advertising showing up on iPods.

I’m not surprised.  It was inevitable that advertising would show up on iTunes.  I’d been hearing it in some of the podcasts I listen to already.  I wouldn’t expect Apple to turn down that revenue stream forever.  It’s still a little sad that there’s one more place we can now expect to see ads.

These are the words I least want to hear, especially when it comes to my job. I heard them today from one of my bosses because I’ve been writing code for one of his projects. It has the usual immovable launch date and changing requirements. The latter is why I was added to the project. The client decided, in all their wisdom, that an application we were building for them needed to be bilingual (displaying English or Spanish depending on the viewer). This is after changing the platform from Java on Unix to ASP.NET & C# on Windows. All this, one month before the scheduled launch.

Part of me is amused by this situation because I’ve been telling this boss for months that we don’t have enough developers. Because my title is “senior systems analyst”, writing code isn’t supposed to be my primary job. This same boss has said in the past that he didn’t want me to write code. So it’s rather ironic (and annoying) that I’m who he asks to write code when it looks like his project will miss its deadline.

Needing heroism on most of your projects means something is seriously wrong with the process.  It’s particularly discouraging when your employer received a CMMI Level 2 certification within the past six months.  That level is supposed to mean heroism is in the past.  In reality, CMMI Level 2 means a ton of documentation (and a ton of time spent writing it).  It doesn’t fix inaccurate budgets estimates or timelines, clients that keep changing their minds about what they want or a lack of developers to actually build the product.

The ugly continues :-(

The sound on the satellite radio is back, but now some information on my radio display is missing. The next visit to the shop is April 4, when I hope Antwerpen will get it right once and for all.

Last month, I bought a new VW Passat from the folks at Antwerpen VW (who gave me a great deal on a demo model). So far, it’s been a great ride (better gas mileage, more room, and better performance than the Jetta VR6 I’d been driving about 6 years).

Having suffered through a couple of attempts to get my iPod to play through my old car (tape adaptor, iTrip), I looked forward to the opportunity to “iPod my car”. I finally had it done yesterday.

The good (so far)

• The adaptor charges the iPod and plays tracks simultaneously.
• The iPod lives in a secondary compartment above the glovebox completely out of view.
• Controls work just like the external CD changer would.

The bad (so far)

• You can only access the first five playlists in your iPod, or the list of all your tracks. It would be nice to able to pick which five map to the radio buttons.
• No display of track name or playlist name. Apparently you get that information if you put in a CD with MP3s on it, but I still need to test that.

The ugly The technician who installed the iPod adaptor managed to disable my satellite radio. It still receives channels and displays all the information, but there’s no sound :-(
They’re going to be fixing that today.

The verdict iPod integration is an improvement over the tape adapter, iTrip, or aux port options. It’s a bit pricey to install (around $350 for parts, labor, & tax). I’ve got enough songs and podcasts on my iPod that when the included 3 months of XM expire, I probably won’t miss them. Going the aftermarket route was probably the only way to address my hangups about playlists and display information, but for now I prefer how seamless the current integration setup is.

This morning I came across an article that asks whether Windows Live is better than Google. I blogged about Windows Live late last year and thought there were a couple of things that it did quite well. The Technology Review article highlights the ability of Windows Live Search to launch multiple search panes in a single window. No one should be particularly impressed by this because tabbed browsing has been a feature of Firefox and Opera for a really long time. Internet Explorer 7 (which still isn’t out yet) is the first version of Microsoft’s browser that will actually have tabbed browsing built in. The article also highlights the ability to view pictures at different sizes without leaving the search page, something Google has probably been doing for awhile already.

The article spends very little time on what is ultimately the most important thing about any search engine: relevant results. Bells and whistles mean nothing if you don’t get results you can use. I’ll do a side-by-side comparison for my own searches for a bit to see if Windows Live is giving me results as useful as Google’s.

This morning, when I was listening to the umpteenth radio story about the Justice Department subpoena of Google, it occurred to me that Google might know less about us than some other companies.

I’ll use myself as an example. I use Google for searching and Gmail for e-mail. So they know what terms I’ve searched for and when, along with who I’ve sent e-mail to (and received e-mail from). They could certainly know the contents of every e-mail if they wished. The biggest potential risk to me of someone knowing what I’ve e-mailed or searched for is embarassment.

Compare that to what credit bureaus can know about me. TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax know at least the following:

• current and past addresses where I've lived
• current and past employers
• when credit accounts were opened and closed
• what things I've bought with credit, as well as when and where I bought them
• all the loans I've taken out, and how quickly (or slowly) I paid them off.
• who has requested my credit report

According to this web page, there’s a long list of companies and people who can look at my credit report. There are a lot of potential risks to me if I have a bad credit report:

• I could be denied credit or other loans
• I could lose out on potential job opportunities (company background check)
• I could be denied housing (landloard background check)
• I could end up paying high insurance premiums, or be denied coverage (insurance company background check)

At least Google lets you look at your recent search history. The law only requires credit bureaus to give you free access to your credit report once a year. After that, you have pay to get access.

Somehow, I’m a lot less worried about how Google will use what they know about me.

I came across an application that generates signature graphics for Gmail, Yahoo, and other e-mail providers courtesy of this blog entry.

A friend of mine came across this page with a bunch of interesting googlemaps-related hacks. I haven’t sprung for one of those GPS gadgets yet, but I’m sorely tempted.

A quick note of thanks to the author of the illustrated tutorial, and Andy Skelton, the author of the import script.