Friday, December 19, 2008

Your own personal lie detector, end of semester

Hi folks, this should be one of my last posts for the year. Your
grades have been submitted and I'm proud of the hard work you all did
and great responses you provided back in all our discussions this
semester, it makes it a lot more fun to teach this class when students
give ME a lot to think about!

Here's one for you to think about, is it a GOOD thing for everyone to
have their own personal lie detector? With a new 8 dollar iPhone app,
you can test it out for yourself and see if you believe it really
works:
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/12/19/no-lie-voice-stress-analysis-on-iphone/

I'm not so sure this is going to be a good idea for a lot of people, I
think it's a technology that just screams out for misapplication and
drama. We'll see how this one plays out, should be interesting!

Have a great break and Happy Holidays!
Sam

Friday, December 12, 2008

Re: Class is on for tonight at 6PM per the University - Students and Email/Texting

Students and Email/Text
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gmail_preferred_by_students_but_nothing_beats_texting.php

Sam

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:37 PM, Sam Posten <sposten@gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks, I have canceled my existing personal plans to make sure I meet
> with you at the designated time and place the University set up
> (without consulting me!) so that you may have the benefit of this
> final class period and can ask any questions you may have going into
> our final exam on Tuesday. This will not be a required meeting, but
> since I have done my best to be there I would appreciate it if you are
> available at that time that you take advantage of this opportunity and
> come to that session.
>
> "Your Tuesday evening class that was affected by the power outage has
> been rescheduled to meet Friday evening, December 12th as follows:
>
> IT 102 50 6-7:15 to: Plangeres, Room 234
>
> Sincerely,
> The Office of Registration and Records"
>
> Again, while it would be nice to meet and show you Maple/Matlab I
> believe this classroom is just that, a CLASSroom and not a LAB. If
> possible to demonstrate these functions in that meeting place I will
> definitely do so. As noted, Maple/Matlab and Powerpoint are not going
> to be parts of the final exam but everything else we covered this
> semester is fair game.
>
> Thanks and please keep those questions and comments coming and I will
> see those of you who can make it tonight at 6 in Plangeres 234,
> wherever that might be.
>
> Sam
>

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

FW: Introducing Windows 7

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.ht
ml

Looks like it might not actually suck.  Good for them, perhaps Apple has
lit a fire under MS after all!

Hopefully MS will release a demo video later today.

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

New Apple laptops confirmed for Tuesday!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/09/apple-notebook-event-is-on-october-14th/

Will it be 'the brick'?
Will it have Blu?
Will it be a sub-notebook for under $800?
Will there be a tablet version?

Tune in Tuesday and see!

FW: [IP] Nat'l Research Council report on data mining report: it doesn't work

Not surprising, the software guys have been saying this for years.  The bad news is that this won't kill it, it will be too easy for someone new to come along every 6 months and claim they have new technology that this report didnt count on.

Sam

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 10/8/2008 3:26 PM
Subject: [IP] Nat'l Research Council report on data mining report: it doesn't work

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peter Swire <peter@peterswire.net>
Date: October 8, 2008 2:45:24 PM EDT
To: "dave@farber.net" <dave@farber.net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Nat'l Research Council report on data mining report: 
it doesn't work

Dave:

I did not participate in writing the report, but attended the roll-out 
event yesterday and have read through most of it.

I really commend this report to your readers.  It does high quality 
work on data mining and behavioral surveillance.

A particularly strong aspect of the report is a detailed and usable 
"framework for program assessment."  This essentially takes the 
Privacy Impact Assessment required by the E-Gov Act of 2002 and 
deepens the process considerably.  Although designed specifically for 
assessment of federal programs, the step-by-step framework would be 
easily usable in private-sector, state, and local programs.

One noteworthy point in the report is that compliance with the "law" 
is not enough (in part because the laws lag behind technical 
developments).  Too often officials defend a bad program by saying "it 
complies with all laws."  Program assessment also must look at 
upholding "values," and the framework sets out a step-by-step way to 
do that.

Along with the committee members mentioned, your readers should know 
that the lead drafter of the report (who was presented as such at the 
event yesterday) was Fred Cate of Indiana University.

I think this is the best single document I have seen for how privacy 
issues should be addressed in the federal government going forward.

Peter

Prof. Peter P. Swire
C. William O'Neil Professor of Law
   Moritz College of Law
   The Ohio State University
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
(240) 994-4142, www.peterswire.net


-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 1:34 PM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Nat'l Research Council report on data mining report: it 
doesn't work

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10059987-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&ta
g=2547-1_3-0-20

October 7, 2008 9:30 AM PDT
Government report: Data mining doesn't work well
Posted by Declan McCullagh

The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can
be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion:
It doesn't really work.

A National Research Council report, years in the making and scheduled
to be released Tuesday, concludes that automated identification of
terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither
feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology
development efforts." Inevitable false positives will result in
"ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly
flagged as suspects.

The whopping 352-page report, called "Protecting Individual Privacy in
the Struggle Against Terrorists," amounts to at least a partial
repudiation of the Defense Department's controversial data-mining
program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by
Congress in 2003.

But the ambition of the report's authors is far broader than just
revisiting the problems of the TIA program and its successors.
Instead, they aim to produce a scholarly evaluation of the current
technologies that exist for data mining, their effectiveness, and how
government agencies should use them to limit false positives--of the
sort that can result in situations like heavily-armed SWAT teams
raiding someone's home and shooting their dogs based on the false
belief that they were part of a drug ring.

The report was written by a committee whose members include William
Perry, a professor at Stanford University; Charles Vest, the former
president of MIT; W. Earl Boebert, a retired senior scientist at
Sandia National Laboratories; Cynthia Dwork of Microsoft Research; R.
Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle's police chief; and Daryl Pregibon, a
research scientist at Google.
<snip>

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

FW: [IP] What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 10/1/2008 11:31 AM
Subject: [IP] What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/09/30/what-can-you-do-with
-a-12-million-digit-prime-number/


What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number?
By Andrew Heining | 09.30.08

The scientific world is abuzz this week with news that researchers at 
UCLA have discovered a prime number with more than 10 million digits. 
The find qualifies them for a $100,000 prize from the Electronic 
Frontier Foundation (EFF) and undeniable geek cred, but a decidedly 
unscientific survey of comments from around the web concludes that the 
overall response to the announcement is: So what?

Not being a math whiz myself by any means, I set out to find an answer 
to this question. Are monster prime numbers the key to clean energy? 
Negative. Can you prevent space shuttle accidents with a gigundo-
prime? Survey says: no. But megaprimes will help rid your golf game of 
that nasty slice, right? Wrong again.

When a frustrated parent questioned the importance of her daughter 
learning about prime numbers in school, the helpful folks at Ask Dr. 
Math pointed out that primes are the basis of RSA encryption. Whenever 
online shoppers send personal information and credit card numbers 
across the web, prime numbers provide the backbone of that security.

Besides keeping your identity secure, primes have long been used as a 
math shortcut, helping with factoring, linear equations, and other 
things you probably haven't thought about since high school.

But why did the EFF offer $100,000 for the first person to discover a 
10-million-digit-plus prime number? The hunt for large primes requires 
massive computing power – the production of which is prohibitively 
expensive for a single organization. Distributive computing – the same 
kind UCLA used to find their megaprime – makes a supercomputer out of 
many smaller individual machines, using the web to stitch all that 
power together. The EFF Cooperative Computing Awards provide an 
incentive for everyday Internet users to contribute to solving great 
scientific problems.

The method is the message.




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

FW: [IP] Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind

From the IP list.  Spooky.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 9/24/2008 3:31 AM
Subject: [IP] Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,426485,00.html




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Vincent LaForet shows off Canon's game changer

Vincent LaForet clearly demonstrates why the 5D Mark2 is a game changer for the 'film' and video industry.  This is as big a jump as the 'Red' Camera was and I'm really excited to see how it takes off.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
 
 

FW: [IP] Nice reading -- Diamond and Kashyap on the Recent Financial Upheavals - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

A must read

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 9/20/2008 6:29 AM
Subject: [IP] Nice reading --  Diamond and Kashyap on the Recent Financial Upheavals - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog


http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/diamond-and-kashyap-on-
the-recent-financial-upheavals/?em


September 18, 2008,  10:04 am
By STEVEN D. LEVITT

As an economist, I am supposed to have something intelligent to say 
about the current financial crisis. To be honest, however, I haven't 
got the foggiest idea what this all means. So I did what I always do 
when something related to banking arises: I knocked on the doors of my 
colleagues Doug Diamond and Anil Kashyap, and asked them for the 
answers. What they told me was so interesting and insightful that I 
begged them to write their explanations down for a broader audience. 
They were kind enough to take the time to do so. In what follows, they 
discuss what has happened in the financial sector in the last few 
days, why it happened, and what it means for everyday people.

-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Journalism student barred from liveblogging and twittering in Web 2.0 Journalism class

 
Kinda funny to ban this stuff in the class where it is supposed to be discussed and studied.
 
For our own class I'd probably be against liveblogging and twittering IN CLASS as we ask students to work strictly on the applications we are discussing at that point in time.  Outside of class I'd consider anything I (as the instructor) said or did in the class fair game but I agree that quoting other students or even talking about the other students in a given class is probably a violation of their privacy.  I'm not a lawyer tho, so I wonder what MU's policy would be on this, I imagine this incident will spark a deeper discussion on the subject by faculty.

Palin's email hacked, Microsoft dumps seinfeld, more

 
 
 
 
I shoot a Nikon d300 and a Canon 20D.  This new 5dm2 is a MONSTER and at $2700 isn't cheap but it beats out Canon's 8000 dollar flagship in many ways.
 
 
 

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Binary Math

Here's a great refresher to make sure you are up to speed on converting between binary and decimal. 

Monday, September 15, 2008

More employers than ever are watching employees/applicants social networking sites

ROBOTIC ARMS!!!! More on open source textbooks, Rockband2, more

 
(I REALLY like the new wireless drums.  I'm still very much a beginner but even I appreciate the changes to this new set.  My one complaint is that they don't seem quite as sturdy.  Haven't tried the new Guitar or the Mad Catz bass, and no way will you ever catch me singing)
 
 

Investigators looking into whether text messaging played a role in this weekends train disaster

Seems the engineer may have been improperly texting with "trainspotters", enthusiasts who love trains...
 

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Updates from "Let's Rock"

Get the full scoop from engadget or Gizmodo but here's the highlights:
 
-HD TV shows on iTunes-$2.99 for HD and $1.99 for regular SD. Viewable direct from PC/Mac as well as iPod and aTV
-NBC is back on iTunes. Heros, Monk, Battlestar etc
-iTunes 8 official - "Genius"=smart playlists on steroids. Grid view. 
-160gb ipod classic killed, 120 is the new classic, $249. ONLY ONE Classic now, not two.
-New nano confirmed. All as suspected. Thin, aluminum, tall, with accelerometer and curved screen. Genius function built in, calendar, stopwatch and voice recorder. Shake to shuffle. Worse battery life, 24 hours music 4h video. $149 for the 8GB model, $199 for the 16GB model 8 in stock today, 16 next week. Green manufacturing. Black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, violet, red
-New $79 headphones with built in mic and back/forward buttons. Engadget photos make em very Sennheiser like, looks good.
-New form factor for touch, similar to iPhone. Volume controls, speaker and Genius features. Nike+ integration built right in, get transmitter for your shoes. New UI.
-100,000,000 apps downloaded on app store. New games coming. Spore and Soccer zzzzz. D-Pad overlay could be a nightmare. Need for Speed.
-iPod Touch works with the new headphones. 36 hours for music, 6 for video. Environmental conscience. No size bumps. 8GB $229, 16GB $299 and 32GB $399. Weak. All starting today.
-"Funnest iPod ever." Double weaksauce.
-iPod software 2.1, inc Nike+ and Genius playlists. 2.0 Touch owners get a free update to 2.1, $9.95 to go to 2.1 from 1.x. Available today.
-Lots of bug fixes in 2.1 "Fewer dropped calls, big battery life improvements. No crashes with Apps. Backing up is faster"
-Jack Johnson performed, so thats it for one of the weakest Apple events ever
-Per Slashgear "Considering how "rock" the event started out, an acoustic performance by Jack Johnson seems a big strange ". Seriously.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Google's sat able to track your shadow? +more

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/06/google-launches-sate.html

 

The history of Wired:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/05/kevin-kelly-on-the-h.html

 

Have you consider the possibility that you might suck at photoshop?

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Big_Fat_Brain/You_Suck_At_Photoshop__Season_2/YouSuckAtPhotoshop16DefineBrushPreset_899.aspx

 

(If you haven’t seen it before, You Suck is actually a REALLY good tutorial site about Photoshop wrapped up in a ball of drama and ironic humor.  May contain NSFW (Not Safe for Work / School) language, so check that one out at your own risk!  This is this week’s episode which is part of Season 2, you might be best to start at Season 1 if you really have never used Ps)

 

Crypto wedding ring

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/05/help-design-a-cipher.html

 

We’ll talk a LOT about Cryptology and Encryption this semester!

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Monday morning nuggets

Posten's new logo!
 
Large Hadron Collider goes live Wednesday (this could be the most important physics experiment of our lifetimes)
 
More on the LHC here with snarky gaming news:
 
WiFi on the International Space Station
 
2 E-Reader stories:
 
Are you a virtual rocker?  Which one is on your mind, Guitar Hero World Tour or Rock Band 2?
 
 
(I just exported my RockBand1 songs in anticipation of getting RB2 on Sunday, it was easy and cheap, RB2 should be awesome)
 
DRM free old games?  Yes please!
 
The Microsoft/Seinfeld ad is a dud:
 
Google's satellite launch a success:
 
Fake Steve talks about Apple, shocker:
 
Star Trek is 42
 
Let's Rock is tomorrow:
 
Is it me or is it coincidence that Rockband and new iPods are launching this week, which coincidentally is back to school week?  =)
 
Ars reviews Spore:
 
Google turned 10 yesterday:
 
 

Thursday, September 04, 2008

FW: [IP] Summary One of your readers...My memory

There's a recipe for revolution for you, make a product 6 orders of magnitude (so if your initial version is 10, it would be 10^9 or 10,000,000 times) bigger for 6 orders of magnitude (10,000,000,000) cheaper.

If you can do that you've got something...

I like to give my own personal example.  The first hard disk I bought held 33 megabytes and cost me $888, and that was a LOT for a college student in 1988.  Today you can get a 1GB disk for $200.  So for 1/4 the price you get 30,303 times more storage.  I now have single pictures that are larger than my first hard disk could hold. 

My first 'real' computer, a Texas Instruments 99-4/a circa 1982ish, held 16 kilobytes of memory. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TI-99/4A

I expect my next computer will have between 4 and 16 GB of RAM but lets be conservative and call it 4.  That is a 250,000 fold increase in RAM. 

My first PC was a Radio Shack / Tandy 1000tx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000

It had 640k of memory.  This was 40x more than my TI but only 1/6240th of what a new 4GB machine will have.  Again, this was in 1988, only 20 years ago.

This phenomenon isn't slowing down either, we are still living in the age of Moore's Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

We're getting to the edge of what physics will allow tho!

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 9/4/2008 5:00 AM
Subject: [IP] Summary    One of your readers...My memory



Begin forwarded message:

From: Gene Spafford <spaf@cerias.purdue.edu>
Date: September 4, 2008 1:31:51 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: "ip" <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   One of your readers...My memory

So, to summarize what I got:

There were several one-off fully transistorized computers built by 
various groups in the mid-1950s.

The first commercial system that was offered for general sale that was 
completely transistors was the 608, announced by IBM in April of 
1955.  It had 3000 transistors.  In current dollars it was possible to 
buy a base model for a modest $700,000.

The price for transistors used by IBM in their machines circa 1958 was 
approximately $2 each (or $20 current), as cited in Thomas Watson's 
autobiography, Father, Son, & Co., on page 296 (thanks P. Capek and DV 
Henkel-Wallace).

I wanted to verify a calculation I had used in a magazine article (to 
come out in October) that in 50 years of semiconductor computing, 
we've seen almost a nine order of magnitude drop in per-transistor 
cost in current dollars (although we've also seen an increase in 
transistors per system use, by a factor of about 6 orders), and about 
7 orders of magnitude drop in per-byte cost in secondary memory (about 
$.10 per byte of drum in 1958).  Of course, other costs, including 
main memory have also dropped in a similar fashion. Total system cost 
has dropped by a factor of about 500, but capabilities have grown 
tremendously as well (I don't have a measure of that, but in the 
millions of times faster, I believe).

This all goes to points I've been making in invited lectures over the 
last year, but I wanted to reverify my numbers for the print article. 
(And I am going to let the magazine have priority on the essay, so I 
won't expand further until October...unless I end up speaking at your 
institution. :-)


My thanks to everyone who responded.  It was fascinating, and I 
greatly appreciate your willingness to respond!

--spaf




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Lets talk about using Macs in IT100/102

As most of you know I use both Macs and PCs for different things.  My laptop happens to be a cheapy Macbook, you can buy one of these today for about $1k, tho I got mine for less by buying used from someone who couldnt quite figure it out =)
 
You can even go to Macmall and get them preinstalled with Windows XP via Bootcamp (which we discuss below):
 
The nice thing about the Macs is that they have two ways of working directly with Windows XP and Vista applications.  The first is called Bootcamp, and this is software built into OSX (pronounced Oh Ess Ten) Leopard which is the only OS that Apple makes and supports directly on its products.  You can read all the details about that here:
 
Using Bootcamp enables a feature that Linux users have used for decades, also known as 'Dual Booting'.  In other words, in addition to having Leopard and all your Mac apps loaded onto your machine, you create a seperate area of your hard disk, called a partition, where you load a full copy of either Windows XP or Vista and each time your machine turns on it chooses to run that OS instead of OSX.  To make this choice simply hold down the Option (alt) key until the Bootcamp window comes up and lets you choose which one you want to run.  The advantage to this is that this option runs the Microsoft OS and all its applications that you have purchased and installed at full speed.  The disadvantage is that you have to take a significant chunk of your hard disk and dedicate it to a second OS and second set of applications and data.  Also, when running in this mode you lose ALL the advantages of running in OSX, for example it is rediculously easy to get malware such as viruses, trojans, and spyware unless you install the right software to protect against all of that junk too, which adds to the overhead of your OS and slows things down.
 
A second method is to run a program called a Virtual Machine that allows you to run an emulator of Windows XP or Vista in a windown directly within OSX.  Two of the biggest VM vendors are Parallels and VMware Fusion.  I dont have a lot of experience with those but the advantage is that you don't have to Dual Boot but the disadvantages are that the applications don't run at native speeds and you still have the possibility of getting nasty Windows Malware if you arent careful.  You need a lot of memory (and patience) to make this stuff work but if you get it going you can actually drag and drop data between OSX and XP which is kind of neat.  To see those kinds of software, start here:
 
One final option if all you are concerned about is Microsoft Office documents is to simply buy MS Office 2008 for OSX.  This is a native OSX application that leverages the cool things that Macs do that Windows doesnt and has a nice graphical overhaul.  You can import and export .doc and .docx files so its fully compatible with most of the new features enabled in Office 2007 on the PC.
It's not all roses tho, there is limited support for the other apps besides Word and almost no Access support:
 
Also, microsoft has now enabled older version (2004) of Office on OSX to open and close .docx files too:
 
By the way, we now have 2 Macs in our labs accross the hall in HH500, but they do not have Bootcamp on them.  I haven't tried them to find out if they have Parallels or VMware yet, but I would be shocked if they do.  Try them out tho, it's an easy way to get a free look at the Mac world, and if you haven't been to an Apple store yet, you might be shocked at how fun and elegant they are.  Beware the fabled 'Reality Distortion Field' in there tho, it's like a seperate universe...
 
More on this as the semester develops, but if you have any questions about any of this or are thinking over buying your first Mac and arent quite sure what the best choices are, I'd be happy to discuss it with you!  Remember next Tuesday is a big release event for Apple so I wouldnt buy anything from them until then!  It's probably just new iPods but you never know what else they might deliver.  I've been waiting for BluRay support for 2 years now, maybe this will be the time they finally get it out there!
 
Sam

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Happy birthday to GNU, cheaper iPods, more Chrome, more

 
 
 
(Don't ask me to explain ceiling cat...)
 
(Trying to explain the appeal of twitter is nearly impossible)
 
MUST read, how the 'net works:
 
Ars is on fire today, some great articles:
(Do read the comments on that one!)
 
 
(I shoot a Nikon D300 and a Canon 20D, but the new D90 looks interesting as the first consumer level DSLR to shoot HD video, check out the Chase Jarvis blog if that sounds interesting to you)
 
Sam
 

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

iPod event confirmed for next week

 
If you are in the market for anything made by Apple hold off until next tuesday afternoon!
 
Sam

FW: [IP] Another Voice Warns of an Innovation Slowdown - NYTimes.com

Another nugget from IP

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 5:25 AM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Another Voice Warns of an Innovation Slowdown - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/technology/01estrin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

September 1, 2008
Another Voice Warns of an Innovation Slowdown
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

MENLO PARK, Calif. - Judy Estrin, 53, has spent her entire career in 
Silicon Valley, a region that thrives on constant innovation. Ms. 
Estrin, the former chief technology officer of Cisco Systems, has 
founded four technology companies.

Yet she is deeply worried that Silicon Valley - and the United States 
as a whole - no longer foster the kind of innovation necessary to 
develop groundbreaking technologies and sustain economic growth.

"I am generally not an alarmist, but I have become more and more 
concerned about the state of our country and its innovation," she said 
last week, explaining why she wrote her book, "Closing the Innovation 
Gap," which arrives in bookstores Tuesday. "We have a national 
innovation deficit."

Ms. Estrin's book is the latest call to action during the last several 
years by scientists, technologists and political leaders worried about 
the country's future competitiveness in technology.

In 2005, the National Academies published "Rising Above the Gathering 
Storm," a report requested by Congress, which found that federal 
financing of research in the physical sciences was 45 percent less in 
2004 than in 1976 and that 93 percent of students in grades five 
through eight learn science from teachers who do not hold degrees or 
certifications in the topics. In 2007, the book "Innovation Nation" by 
John Kao, a business consultant, revived the debate.

And this year, both presidential candidates have made government 
support of innovation and technology a central part of their campaign 
platforms.

Still, not all technology watchers agree with Ms. Estrin about the 
extent of the innovation problem - or whether there is a problem at all.

"The whole innovation crisis thing is a bit overblown," said Paul 
Saffo, a technology forecaster. Innovation in the natural world, in 
the form of mutation, is lethal, so species do it only when they are 
under dire stress, he said. "What makes Silicon Valley unique is that 
this place has stumbled onto a way to sustain innovation even when the 
place is doing well," he said.

Ms. Estrin argues that short-term thinking and a reluctance to take 
risks are causing a noticeable lag in innovation. She cites a variety 
of contributing factors. A decline in federal and university financing 
for research has dried up new ideas, she said. When research does 
produce new technologies, entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists 
who back them have been too cautious to make big bets - especially 
after the costly failures of the dot-com bust. If start-up companies 
do find financing, she said, new regulations make it hard for them to 
grow, and the focus of investors on short-term performance discourages 
companies from taking risks.

Ms. Estrin's suggestions for bolstering innovation range from the 
vague, like advising venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to take 
more risks, to the specific, like mandating that schools pay teachers 
higher salaries.

Some of her prescriptions are unlikely to become reality, like her 
idea for a new government body modeled after the Federal Reserve that 
sets science policy without Congressional input.

Some thinkers on innovation agree with Ms. Estrin's assessment. "There 
is a remarkable telescoping in of vision and an unwillingness to make 
long-term bets," said Vinton G. Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist at 
Google.

Mr. Cerf led the development of the networking protocols that form the 
basic architecture of the Internet, a project to which Ms. Estrin 
contributed as a graduate student. He points to the Internet as an 
example of the need for long-term research and financing, since 
development of the technology used to transmit data online required 
two decades of government support.

Robert Compton, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, said that the 
United States is losing its innovation edge to China and India. 
Chinese and Indian children are required to take more science courses 
than students in the United States, said Mr. Compton, who recently 
produced a documentary comparing high school education in the three 
countries. Of college graduates, 30 percent to 45 percent in India and 
China have engineering degrees, compared with 5 percent in the United 
States. Venture financing and patent applications are falling in 
Europe and the United States and rising in China and India, he said.

Most alarming to Mr. Compton is that 60 percent of engineering 
doctorates from American universities are granted to foreign 
nationals, but they are no longer staying here to work. "The American 
economy is not as exciting as China and India, and a lot of them are 
going back home," he said.

Ms. Estrin and others acknowledge that the recent surge in financing 
for alternative energy companies is a sign that innovation is alive 
and well in some sectors. Still, she is concerned that investors will 
not have the patience to build these companies.

"If they treat these companies the same way they treated others - a 
couple years in, they need to see returns or cut the burn rate or 
start cutting people - they are not going to get to where we need to 
go," she said.

Some who track innovation in the United States say the alarm bells are 
unnecessary and sound like a repeat of similar fears in past decades 
that turned out to be unfounded.

A June study from the RAND Corporation found that 40 percent of the 
world's spending on scientific research and development comes from the 
United States. The country employs 70 percent of the world's Nobel 
Prize winners and is home to 75 percent of the top 40 universities.

"The United States is still the world leader in science and 
technology," said the study's co-author, James Hosek.

But Ms. Estrin said that the technologies at the root of new products 
like Apple's iPod or the Facebook social networking service were 
actually developed several decades ago. If a new round of fundamental 
innovation isn't seeded now, the country will suffer in the next decade.

She compared the situation to a tree that appears to be growing well, 
but whose roots are rotting underground.

"Too much of it is short-term, incremental innovation, and the roots 
of the tree aren't happy," she said.

-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

FW: [IP] OSHA (Uncensored)

Regardless of your view on unions this is a pretty cool use of the internet!

Sam

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 5:13 PM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] OSHA (Uncensored)


Here's a nice Labor Day story.

In 1980, the last year of Jimmy Carter's administration, the 
Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) commissioned a 
series of three 30-minute films about worker safety.  These were real 
pro productions, with Studs Terkel as narrator on two of the 
productions.  In 1981, Reagan appointed 36-year old Florida 
construction executive Thorne G. Auchter, who proceeded to 
systematically dismantle the agency.  Evidently, the 3 films disturbed 
Thorne greatly, because OSHA issued a recall, threatening to withold 
OSHA funds from any organization that did not return their copies of 
the films, which were promptly destroyed.

But, a few union officials defied the ban and "stole" copies so they 
weren't able to be returned.  Over the years, they would occasionally 
show them to their troops, using the fact they banned as a way to get 
them to watch the films, which have important messages about worker 
rights and workplace safety.  But, aside from these bootleg showings, 
the video disappeared.

Public.Resource.Org got a note recently from Mark Catlan, a health and 
safety expert for one of the unions for the last 28 years (he actually 
started working for the union the year the film came out, and 
remembers his education director stealing a copy out of his office so 
it wouldn't get returned).  A year ago, Mark decided the world needed 
to see these films, so he found 16-mm cannisters and made them 
available to us to transfer to DVCAM and then disk.

Making their public debut after 30 years are "Worker to Worker," 
"Can't Take No More," and "The Story of OSHA."

Link to YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=31E75CE43C7B93B5

Link to the Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22public.resource.org%22%20AND%20subject%3A%22osha.gov%22%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies

( http://tiny.cc/hdLvC )

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Follow up email with more details for class tonight

Hello again IT 102-50 students. 

 

Tonight we will organize a bit and dig deep into some of the fundamentals of computer literacy.  We will go over the syllabus plus several of the questions I posed to you in the first email this morning.  We'll take a look at the resources available to this class online, including our blog, our website, the MU web page, and talk about where you can get good leads for your weekly articles which will be due every tuesday.
 

Please be sure to check the class blog frequently at http://infotechbuzz.blogspot.com/

Our classes official web site at MU is:  http://zorak.monmouth.edu/~posten

Also be sure to log in to see the details and drop-boxes at:  http://ecampus.monmouth.edu

 
Your syllabus notes that you will need to purchase a USB key drive, iPod or other storage device to all classes.  If you haven't purchased one yet let me know what your budget is and I can make some recommendations.  You can get one for under $10!  You do NOT need to buy a $200 iPod tho of course many of you may have them already!

 

My email should you need to get me fastest is: sposten@gmail.com

 
You can also send it to posten@monmouth.edu  I do not check that one as often as the gmail one because I work at a government facility that does not have access to some websites, and Google is available while Monmouth U might not be!
 
PLEASE make sure that all emails to me have a valid and descriptive Subject: line.  My email systems will often remove messages without subjects as spam!  Emails with informative subject lines are likely to be given high priority and emails with no subject lines are subject to deletion or being ignored.
 

Make sure you have the following bookmarked:

http://www.engadget.com

http://slashdot.org

http://www.digg.com

http://www.wired.com

http://infotechbuzz.blogspot.com

http://zorak.monmouth.edu/~posten

http://ecampus.monmouth.edu

http://www.gizmodo.com

http://www.techmeme.com

 
If you know of other good technology related web sites that have interesting articles that the class should discuss, bring that URL with you to class.
 

Besides the ones I asked you about earlier, the question you should be thinking about when you enter class tonight is this:  "What is a computer".  I know what your BOOK says it is, what do YOU think of a computer as being and doing? 

 

Continue thinking about what you hope to learn from this class!  We have a wide variety of experience with Computers every semester, and it is my goal to help ALL of you grow and be ready for more in the IT minor program should you choose to continue down that route.  Other than this being a required class, why do you want to learn more about computers, what do you currently use computers for, and what is stopping you from learning how to better use computers in all of the other things you are REALLY interested in studying?

 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Sam

Welcome to the first day of class! Google Chrome, Open source textbooks, Wait on buying an iPod

Hope to see you all there at 6 tonight, we will have a ton of things to discuss.  Couple of things I want you thinking about as you come to our first meeting:
 
-How much do you _really_ know about computers?  Do you know just enough to get your work done or have you looked into ways that computers are invading every aspect of our lives? 
-What are computers doing today that we never expected just 5 years ago?
-What is more important to you where technology is concerned:  Flexibility, stability, coolness or ease of use?
-What do you want to get out of this course?  Are you here just because it's a requirement or does technology genuinely really excite you?
 
More on all that tonight!  Couple of news nuggets to get you started!
 
Google drops their big bomb for the year:  Not only are they developing their own browser, but it's done and shipping today for PC and versions for OSX and Linux are soon to follow!
 
Reminder, if you are thinking about a new iPod, wait till next tuesday the 9th!
 
Open Source Textbooks, could this really work?
 
 

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Re: Ed Bott on what's new in IE8

Ooops, that should have been:
 
Sorry!

 
On 8/28/08, Sam Posten <sposten@gmail.com> wrote:
Welcome new fall students, if you get this please reply to posten@monmouth.edu and let me know the list is working!  You can see the archives at http://infotechbuzz.blogger.com

Ed Bott on what's new in IE8

Welcome new fall students, if you get this please reply to posten@monmouth.edu and let me know the list is working!  You can see the archives at http://infotechbuzz.blogger.com
 
Just saw MU FINALLY got IE7 installed so at least we have tabbed browsing by default.  Which figures since IE8 is now just a few weeks away from being final and delivered =)
 
Ed Bott runs down the changes to IE8 Beta 2 and it looks like EVERYTHING has changed.
 

Friday, July 25, 2008

Spam kills (and more stories)

Sorry for the gruesome double entendre headline, but it's true:
A horrifically sad ending to a sad point in the history of the computer in general and for his family in particular.
 
While this doesn't have anything to do with computers except having been on Gizmodo, it's a must see:
 
iPhone 2.0 is a mess:
 
So is Mobile .Me
 
Be careful with iPhone game Aurora Feint, it gives away all your contacts!

Monday, May 19, 2008

FW: [IP] China's All-Seeing Eye

spooky.  From Dr. Farbers IP list via the EE Kid.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 5/19/2008 5:39 AM
Subject: [IP] China's All-Seeing Eye

"Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been
installed throughout the city. Many are in public spaces, disguised as
lampposts. The closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be connected to a
single, nationwide network, an all-seeing system that will be capable of
tracking and identifying anyone who comes within its range — a project
driven in part by U.S. technology and investment. Over the next three
years, Chinese security executives predict they will install as many as
2 million CCTVs in Shenzhen, which would make it the most watched city
in the world."

"The end goal is to use the latest people-tracking technology —
thoughtfully supplied by American giants like IBM, Honeywell and General
Electric... "  "...to identify and counteract dissent before it explodes
into a mass movement like the one that grabbed the world's attention at
Tiananmen Square."

"The mergers made L-1 a one-stop shop for biometrics. Thanks to board
members like former CIA director George Tenet, the company rapidly
became a homeland-security heavy hitter."  "L-1 can legally supply its
facial-recognition software for use by the Chinese government."

"I get to the customs line at JFK, watching hundreds of visitors line up
to have their pictures taken and fingers scanned. In the terminal,
someone hands me a brochure for "Fly Clear." All I need to do is have my
fingerprints and irises scanned, and I can get a Clear card with a
biometric chip that will let me sail through security. Later, I look it
up: The company providing the technology is L-1."


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye
/

________________________________
Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites
at AOL
Food<http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001>.

-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.

Monday, April 28, 2008

FW: [IP] : Vint Cerf, on things he's learned. (Al Gore was right)

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 4/26/2008 4:23 PM
Subject: [IP] : Vint Cerf, on things he's learned.  (Al Gore was right)

In the interest of peace, Vint was one of a very small set of people who
were validly a "creator" djf
________________________________________
From: Randall Webmail [rvh40@insightbb.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 1:23 PM
To: David Farber; dewayne@warpspeed.com; johnmacsgroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Vint Cerf, on things he's learned.  (Al Gore was right)

What I've Learned: Vint Cerf

Creator of the Internet, 64, McLean, Virginia

[http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/zw/vint-cerf-0508-lg.jpg]

"Surf the Web" is a happy coincidence.

You don't have to be young to learn about technology. You have to feel
young.

There was no one "Ah-ha!" moment. Not in the sense that many people want
to hear. They see the Internet now and think, Well, thirty-six years ago
someone imagined what it would look like in 2008, and that is what drove
the process. It wasn't like that at all.

When I first joined Google in October of 2005, I was warned that I
shouldn't be offended if people were doing their e-mails while a meeting
was going on.

There was a first "Oh, no!" moment. That was the first time I saw spam
pop up. It could have been as early as '79. A digital-equipment
corporation sent a note around announcing a job opening, and we all blew
up, saying, This is not for advertising! This is for serious work!

I was disappointed that pornography got to the Net. But I've come to
learn that pornographers are almost always the first ones to adopt new
technology. If there is a new way of distributing their product, they'll
find it.

Will we shoot virtually at each other over the Internet? Probably not.
On the other hand, there may be wars fought about the Internet.

Instant messaging and chat rooms have basically created a level playing
field for deaf people.

When I was a teenager, I used to wear a sport coat and tie to high
school. Mostly so I didn't look like anyone else. Instead of nose rings
or whatever it is kids do these days, I was carrying a briefcase.

The three-piece suit has become sort of my trademark. You don't see them
much anymore. It has several benefits: You may be overdressed on some
occasions, but you can manage to fit into a huge range of circumstances.

I wouldn't go on a safari in a three-piece suit.

One of my favorite books is The Swiss Family Robinson. The reason is,
I'm fascinated by the postapocalyptic recovery. What do we do in a
disaster? How do we make do?

It may seem like sort of a waste of time to play World of Warcraft with
your son. But you're actually interacting with each other. You're
solving problems. They may seem like simple problems, but you're solving
them. You're posed with challenges that you have to overcome. You're on
a quest to gain certain capabilities. I haven't spent a lot of time
playing World of Warcraft, because my impression is that it takes a
serious amount of time to play it well.

Humor is the only thing that allows you to survive every pressure and
crisis.

I find classical music a very beautiful way to focus my thoughts.

Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense
Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It
was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody
became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than
any of his elective colleagues. His initiatives led directly to the
commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit.

People on foot, donkeys, the standard sedan, lorries, bicycles, people
on skates. You don't see too many elephants, but you do see a lot of
cattle. The horn is not used there in the way Americans use horns. The
way I get around India is someone else drives.

In Silicon Valley, failure is experience. Now, if you fail at
everything, that's different. But a failure is a mark of experience more
than anything else.

The joke is that there are four words you have to remember in a
successful marriage: "You're absolutely right, dear."

My wife and I look at our kids and say, They're not ready for marriage.
Then we look at each other and say, Why did we think we were?

People are inventing not only virtual places but new economic
principles. We have economists in the Second Life environment studying
what people are doing, because these are real people making decisions.
Maybe you want to have a different hairdo or different clothing or a
boob job -- whatever it is. People will pay to enhance their avatar.

Reproducing isn't nearly as much fun in Second Life.

At the roots, people are still people. That's why Shakespeare is so
popular no matter what the language.

The closer you look at something, the more complex it seems to be.

Over a period of a hundred or a thousand years, the probability of
maintaining continuity of the software to interpret the old stuff is
probably close to zero. Where would you find a projector for an 8mm film
these days? If the new software can't understand, we've lost the
information. I call this bit rot. It's a serious problem.

I'd like to know what the Internet is going to look like in 2050.
Thinking about it makes me wish I were eight years old.

Find this article at:
http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/vint-cerf-0508

-------------------------------------------
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail Confidentiality/Proprietary Notice: The information contained in this transmission may be proprietary and subject to protection under the law. The message is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution or copying of the message is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please contact the sender immediately by replying to this e-mail and delete the material from any computer. Thank you.