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Friday, November 14, 2003 |
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Disposable Email Addresses. 
There are times when I want to give someone my email address, but worry about where it might end up and whether it will become another source of SPAM. In the past, I've created my own disposable email addresses by simply creating an alias specific to the purpose, knowing I can delete it if it ever becomes a problem. People without access to the email alias file on their mail host use Yahoo! mail and Hotmail for the same reason. A large percentage of the email addresses on my newsletter are Yahoo! or Hotmail addresses. I recently discovered a more convenient way to create disposable email addresses. [ Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
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You've probably heard that Novell's buying SUSE Linux and taking a $50 million investment from IBM. Clearly this shows Novell is looking for be a player in a way that they could never accomplish by just selling applications and system add-ons for Windows. The acquisition of Ximian gave Novell a cache of great Linux products, but that doesn't really help them get out of their funk. Novell still has a large installed base of Netware customers that they need to migrate to a platform with a future---otherwise they'll lose those customers to Microsoft. Now they've got a server they can use to backfill Netware. They can't do that with a Linux server that they don't have pretty tight control over, so buying a Linux company is a natural choice: it gives them a product, lots of Linux expertise to tap, and some credibility. [ Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]
11:28:56 AM
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VoIP for Big Blue. An IBM executive told a conference in Atlanta on Nov. 7 that it hopes to move 80% of its 300,000 employees to voice-over-IP phone systems by 2008.This article in Businessweek states that "When the largest tech company on the planet announces it no longer needs the phone company to manage its calls, you can bet the communications landscape has fundamentally changed."
Why the Bells Should Be Very Scared
[ Smart Mobs]
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Smart Badges For Better Meetings. In an article to appear on November 15, the New Scientist tells us that the 500 attendants of the last Pop!Tech conference were carrying intelligent badges to put around their necks. EurekAlert! has released a preview of this article, "Hello, will you be my friend?"
These nTAGs, distributed by the nTAG Interactive company, contained personal details about their wearers. And as the nTags can communicate with each other via infrared links, they are able to send alerts when they see a good match between two owners. This doesn't come up cheap: expect $40 to $100 per badge per day, depending on the event.
More details and references are contained in this overview which also includes pictures. [ Smart Mobs]
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Automating Video Surveillance. New Scientist reports on a statistical technique that could automate video surveillance. Definitely a mixed blessing -- a technology that can save some lives and support totalitarian control of others. Especially interesting is the stat that there are 25 million CCTV cameras in the world. Wait until those aspirin-sized, el-cheapo, wireless digital webcams I saw at Dust, Inc. are deployed.
(Thanks, Library Bob!) [ Smart Mobs]
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XAML revealed. Don Box: XAML is just an XML-based way to wire up CLR types no more no
less... XAML is domain-neutral, so while it may be used to create
desktop apps, web pages, and printable documents, it could also be used
to create CRM apps, blogging backends, or highly concurrent web services
provided you had a supporting CLR-based library to do the heavy lifting.
I guess that clears that up. [ Sam Ruby]
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Let's assume for a moment, that XAML is HTML "done right" for rich
clients (suspend disbelief if you have to). It apparently has SVG
like elements, if nothing else. It doesn't have CSS, but
apparently there are other ways of solving similar problems being
proposed. Apparently, one can embed small amounts of code in the
markup. Unquestionably controversial, but often handy. This
corresponds roughly to the role that JavaScript plays in HTML... or does
it? What about Dynamic HTML? Namely the ability to modify the
rendering and content of the document on the fly? Isn't that lost
by a compile to bytecode approach? [ Sam Ruby]
10:44:36 AM
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I just returned from tonight's LA.NET User Group Meeting about "Future Trends in Distributed Applications". I hope you enjoyed this talk -- I definitely enjoyed speaking in LA! I'm also very interested in your feedback and opinions regarding the ideas presented in this session. You can reach me at ingo@ingorammer.com. Thanks!
Big kudos also go out to the LA.NET User Group organizational team - you really run a great group! Thanks for the gifts!
Thanks also to Richard Caetano whom I finally met here in LA as well! (And who picked me up at the hotel, invited me for sushi and handed me some - very delicious - samples of his company's products.) It was cool to meet you!
As announced during the talk, you can download the samples here.
Other downloads or documents I mentioned:
[ Ingo Rammer's Weblog]
10:42:13 AM
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I just received a follow-up question to yesterday's user group presentation regarding the books which I'd recommend alongside this topic.
This is by all means a non-complete list - but these books are great:
[ Ingo Rammer's Weblog]
10:41:23 AM
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My Acrobat 5 Reader installation started acting up again and I was dreading the move to ver6 especially after all the troubles I had from installing it the last time around. However, Darrell Norton came to the rescue with a
great little trick to make Acrobat 6 load as fast as the old ver5:
It is all the plug-ins that are enabled by default slowing Acrobat reader down. After removing all but 3, it loads pretty much instantly.
Here's how to do it:
- Go to C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Reader (replace the C if you installed on another drive, like I did).
- Create a new folder called plug_ins_disabled.
- Move all files from the plug_ins folder to the plug_ins_disabled folder except EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api. There should only be these 3 files in the plug_ins folder.
- You're done.
The trick works great and changed my Acrobat startup time from 15-25 secs to about 2 secs and I don't really think I'm missing any real essential functionality.
Thanks for spotting this tip go to Russell Beattie [ Sanjay's Coding Tips]
10:40:33 AM
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Suica (JR East / Sony). I got myself a Suica card yesterday. Currently the Suica cards are used as passes for JR railways in Tokyo. The Suica card system will eventually be installed in many stores in the stations to pay for various goods/services. Docomo iMode phones will support this system by the end of the year "Docomo Suica". Instead of having an IC card, the technology will be inside the keitais. The technology behind Suica is by Sony and is called Felica. Hong Kong's rail/subway/taxi systems also use the Felica technology.
Here are the multiple ways of paying for the JR fares:
- Buy a ticket from a machine. Usually you would look at the rail map above the machines to see where you want to go to check the price.
- Get a Teiki, which is a prepaid fixed destination pass (i.e. Teiki between Ogikubo and Yotsuya, you can get on and off anywhere between these points as many times as you want). (1st photo of the light green pass)
- IO Cards are prepaid passes, but unlike Teiki the destinations aren't fixed. The fares are the same as buying tickets except the advantage is you don't have to buy tickets everytime you want to go somewhere. (2nd photo)
- Suica cards! This is an IC card that can function as both a Teiki and IO. When you travel between your usual set route it knows not to subtract any amount, but when you need to go somewhere else it'll automatically subtract from the IO prepaid amount. (3rd photo)
(click to see larger photos)
  
Here's a video taken today of how fast the Suica card is:
- Suica (Windows Media 240x180 stream from Playstream)
Some links to Suica info:
[ Christopher Kobayashi: Streaming Videos]
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Honda Cog
I am so proud to present you with an advert for Honda I did NOT work on but still manages to be bloody great!!...
[IN-duce] KEWL 'CM' (That's what Japanese people call TV commercials). I didn't know what a cog was .. Dai looked it up. It's the tooth of a gear. Or that's one of the definitions. Here's the link to the video. [ Christopher Kobayashi: Streaming Videos]
10:36:33 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Ed Pimentel.
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