Hitting the High Notes

From a personal perspective, one of the things that I love about our technology is how it has provided me the tools to sample and listen to music.

The most obvious of these is the iTunes revolution.  I don't know how many albums that I've bought on iTunes, but it's been a ton of them.  Many relaxing weekend mornings are spent in the iTunes store either looking for new releases from old favourites, or sometimes just trying something totally off the wall.  It's with the latter that I have discovered some new favourites such as Swell Season and Angus and Julia Stone.

I'm also getting very hyped about satellite radio and am at present listening to my 7 day free trial of Sirius - something that will likely be turned into a paid subscription soon enough!

This ability to listen to music on demand, to explore, to listen to one specific genre on satellite radio - this has been a big part of my life and this isn't going to change anytime soon.

My only regret is how this has affected the brick-and-mortar music stores.  There was as much of an enjoyment physically flipping through albums in a store as it is pleasurable to walk into a library and walk up and down the aisles.

Still - onwards and upwards I suppose.

Now - you'll have to excuse me - I have to check on iTunes to see if there any new Christmas albums.  I'm currently sitting at approximately 125 albums of holiday music and I've only added 1 to my collection this year - any recommendations are always welcome!

The Good of Technology

I've alluded to this in the past...but as much as I slag technology sometimes, I have to admit that from a very personal perspective, technology has aided me immensely over the past few years as I've researched medical and legal issues.

The biggest problem that I can see in this research area is that there is a total plethora of resources out there and even within one specific site that I've used frequently, there's easily 50 years of history to sift through.  What this means is that it's important to develop techniques between sites and within sites as you're looking for information.

Having said all this, my primary piece of advice is that it's fine to look towards the Internet for information and resources - but to question everything that you read and to realize that (as I mentioned in previous blog entries), a slick and professional website doesn't necessarily mean that the information is correct, valid an impartial.

Of course, this caveat applies to more conventional sources like newspapers and radio news articles.  There is always some form of bias - conscious or unconscious.

Due diligence is the key - yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Blog Traffic

Just had a hit from what I gather is probably a spider...out of curiosity, I went to the site and it apparently had tips for using embedded tags and optimization and such to increase traffic.  I think that I will bookmark this page and come back to it, it would be a very interesting exercise in how to increase traffic.  Maybe then I'd make more than the massive $0.29 that I've made so far.

Serious people, click on some ads - papa needs some revenue!!

The Stepping Stone Generation

This is something that a very good friend of mine and I were discussing over lunch a couple of weeks ago.  He and I and all others of our generation - and those a little younger and a little older (but not much either way!) are in a very unique position, one that I think is safe to say will never be experience again.

This will probably come across as a couple of older guys reminiscing about the past and it may be the case to an extent.

However, the thing is that we are one of the very few who have experienced significant portions of a our lives before the computer revolution and the latter parts fully immersed in technology.


Certainly any generation can probably make similar claims.  For example, those who were alive in the early 1900's can probably make the same statement about the automobile and the irreversible impact it had on the society then.  Just the same as later generations will be able to compare their youth in the early 21st century and contrast it with the inevitable leaps and bounds of technology.

All of that having been said, I think that there is no generation that can point to a "simpler" (although not necessarily better) life before the digital revolution.

When my daughter was younger, she loved to hear "stories" of the past.  The equivalent "when I was a child, I walked ten miles to school" was replaced by my recalling how there were no cellphones, that most houses had one phone and there was no privacy as it was attached to the wall.  Or I would convey my stories of our first TV and she would giggle when I said that we had to get off the sofa to change stations or adjust the volume.

As always (and as I often say in this blog) technology has it's good and it's bad.  My only advice to people is to try to treasure those moments that aren't necessarily totally driven by technology.

Virtual(ly) Reality

 vir·tu·al·ly

adv
\ˈvər-chə-wə-lē, -chə-lē; ˈvərch-wə-lē\

Definition of VIRTUALLY

1 : almost entirely : nearly

2: for all practical purposes <virtually unknown>

The term “virtual reality” seems to be becoming more common in our lexicon. When I look at these two words together, it becomes apparent to me that virtual reality is an oxymoron, as much as “open secret” or “larger half” is. Most of us are aware of how an oxymoron is two terms that contradict each other and logically can’t be used in conjunction with one another.

I contend that Virtual Reality is another oxymoron – you cannot say that something “almost entirely” exists. If something fully exists – it’s reality, if it almost entirely exists, then it cannot be.

So many times this term is tossed around as if the two terms were complementary, but they’re not. I think that this is a symptom of our society. There almost seems to be this underlying thought that the lives we live online are just about comparable to the world we live off-line.

I look at social networking and see how people are proud of the fact that they have 452 friends on Facebook. Most of these people aren’t “friends”; they are people that you know in varying degrees of detail. For anyone with 452 friends, I challenge you to take 10 names of friends at random and step away from the computer and write down what they’re doing in their lives. I’m betting with the bevy of status updates and tweets that most people don’t follow more than 10% of their “friend base”.

Using social networking CAN be an effective communications tool once the relationship has been nurtured and established. It can be a wonderful medium where a loved one or a classmate lives across the country but not to the exclusion of the personal touch.

For me though, there’s no substitute for being the same room with a person. Being in person allows me to hear her voice, to see her smile or a flit of anger in her eyes. It’s impossible to communicate the same way online and words can be misconstrued.

One of the tenets of science faction (my term for technologies that aren’t here yet, but are probably inevitable, or at least they are feasible) is the development of technologies that allow lovers to experience touch via specially designed suits that are programmed to apply pressure according to signals received from their mate. The thing is that I don’t think that this would even be a pale comparison of the real thing. In this instance, it’s really still just a machine that’s applying pressure even though it’s controlled by the person on the other end. I doubt if any technology would be developed that would allow someone to be truly caressed from afar.

Social networking does have its benefits - in a limited and a reasonable context. Where we fail as a society though is where people think that the technology replaces instead of enhances the physicality of being with a person. If and when that ever changes and if technology develops to the point where this type of interaction is the norm …well…that is the point where I’ll just get off of this technological merry-go-round.

The Future of Software & Apps

There was a very interesting article that I read - sorry, don't have the link.  The basic premise is that "industry experts" are all saying that apps and software installed on devices (especially tablets, iPods, etc...) are for all intents and purposes "dead" and that the real "future" of application delivery is via websites.

As a guy who has been around software development since it's virtual inception in the 80's (as a mainstream technology) I am - to say the least - skeptical.

There's a lot of this I understand in that methods of distribution, ease of updates, developing for a common web based environment...this all sounds great in concept - and it way be. The problem will be though is that if this is going to be the new method of software, then there's going to need to be a mechanism somehow for offline delivery of content.  Maybe they've figure it out and have a plan.  What I can say is that when I see individuals on the subway where there's no cell or WiFi service - I really don't think that people will be too fond at having the functionality of their favourite devices tied so closely to online accessibility.

I will need to find this article and read some more - I can't imagine that this hasn't been raised as an issue.

Happy World Toilet Day!

Yes - that's right - can you IMAGINE that it's World Toilet Day already?  I can't believe that another 365 days have flushed by!

Now, I'm getting a handle on how to tie this in to technology.  After all, technology <> toilets, right?  Wrong!

Kohler has introduced the latest high tech toilet with it's own tablet PC built in to control it's functionality.  Now having a remote control for the loo - THAT my friends, is a movement!  Said remote controls lighting, cleansing spray action, general sanitation? 

Sorry, but I will give the high-tech toilet the poo-poo.  I'm just scared that I will be so dependant on this technlogy that I will be unable to "go" on my own.  It's been a long time that I haven't been totally in control of my own...ummm....functions...for lack of a better word (to put it delicately) and I am bound and determined to not go with the flow on this one!

Blogging in 2011

Just noticed the other day at how few blog entries that I had in 2011 - especially in the last 2/3 of it.  It's been a crazy year for me with lots of real world stuff going on to distract me, but I'm hoping that I'll get back to normal.

Google Sketchy...

...this is how I'm feeling by Google's recent announcement that they're taking on the big boys of the music industry, specifically iTunes.

First of all, that's a heck of a mountain to climb!  I don't know that the market saturation is for Apple in the download purchase area, but I'd have to imagine that they're not only the leaders but they're dominant.   It will be a heck of a battle to gain market share I'd think.

Also, let's face it, Google is monolithic and they've had some great products and innovations, but they've also had their share of misses that sucked wind.   I think that the folks at Google will throw lots of jello at the wall and if half of them stick, then that's great, but I think it's safe to say that there's not a lot of panic in Cuperinto

Happy Birthday to You!!!

Wow, I never knew!  Today is a very momentous day in the field of technology.  The very first single-chip microprocessor was introduced on this day 40 years ago!  The chip - the 4004 was a 4 bit chip running a slug's pace of 740khz and it had programmable memory of...4 K.

I'm sure that a lot of you like "big whoop", but this is the "Adam" to just about anything with a processor, from your cellphone to your car, your microwave, everything.

To give some context on how far technology has gone in the past 40 years, the current processor would run at maybe 4.0ghz.  Comparing this to the 740khz of the 4004 is like comparing thousands to billions.  Quite a difference.

For me though, it's the memory.  To have 4,000 characters of memory available - I just can't fathom that compared to the capacity of a modern processor.

I very badly want to fast forward 40 MORE years and see how technology has increased exponentially!

"The sheer number of advances in the next 40 years will equal or surpass all of the innovative activity that has taken place over the last 10,000 years of human history," said Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer, in a written statement.  

I'm not sure if this statement excites me, or scares the beejesus out of me - probably a bit of both!

Technological Anesthesia

The topic for this article came to me in a flash as I was innocuously talking about movies with a colleague of mine. We were talking about Remembrance Day and she was telling me how she couldn’t watch “Saving Private Ryan” as it was just too much for her; it was just much too intense. My response to her was that she’s very correct, that it’s an extraordinarily powerful movie and it wasn’t easy to watch. Further, I went on to say that I had a feeling that what Saving Private Ryan portrayed was probably very close to reality. My thoughts were that I didn’t mind the fact that movie was so graphic because the intent was to show how horrible war was – that the reality wasn’t John Wayne shooting some guy with a ten gallon hat who dropped down in a very tidy and dainty death.

Now, this started me thinking…

As a teen, I was a big fan of Star Trek. This conversation reminded me of one of my absolute favourite episodes. In this particular episode, the gang from the U.S.S. Enterprise was called upon to try to resolve a war between two feuding planets that had been going on for centuries. As Captain Kirk began to understand the situation, he came to the realization that these two societies had come up with a creative and “civilized” manner of warfare.

Instead of resolving their disputes with conventional warfare, each side had a computer which randomly selected citizens from the other planet. These chosen few dutifully marched towards the chambers where they were zapped into non-existence. The uppity-ups of society applauded this approach saying how humane, cost-efficient it was, not to mention the total lack of collateral damage. Kirk’s inevitable end of episode soliloquy stated that THIS was the whole problem – that they weren’t experiencing the travesty and the destruction of war so they didn’t have the incentive to resolve the conflict.

I relate this episode to something that I call technological anesthesia. Simply put, excessive use of technology in our day to day lives can numb our senses and distort reality.

There was a recent study where doctors noticed a phenomena where young male adults who normally are…how shall I delicately say – enamored with the thought of the physical attributes of the opposite sex are actually being diagnosed with withering sex drives. Their findings are that in many of these cases, these are men who spend just a bit too much time viewing the plethora of pornography online, and as a result, they’re quite desensitized.

There’s another aspect of technological anesthesia which becomes increasingly prevalent, and this is what are referred to as “trolls”. A troll is a term for someone who logs into a message board and posts something inflammatory or offensive, just to cause a ruckus. Many times when on message boards, there are “flame wars” or insults lobbed back and forth between combatants. The problem is that when we interact online, we often forget that there are actually people on the other end – all that we see are the digital personas and such, who cares if they’re offended or hurt by our words? It goes without saying that if you took all of the citizens of one specific inflammatory message board and put them all in a room and forced them to talk and engage with each other, I think that it’s safe to assume that the bravado which is displayed online would not be nearly as common, lest someone get a poke in the nose otherwise.

In my mind, this in a nutshell is one of the biggest problems with online communication, interaction and social networking. We have lost that humanity and are only seeing the bits and bytes of letters flowing across the screen without giving due consideration that the other person is someone’s daughter, someone’s father or someone’s aunt.

Tyrannosaurus Techs

There are many that believe that one of the contributing factors to the demise of the dinosaurs is the fact that from an evolutionary perspective, they were unable to adapt. In today’s society, this is exactly the context in which we refer to the same concept with people, products or companies today.

I find that with technology, it’s not always easy to adapt. I think that one of the main reasons why, is that technology grows at an ever-increasing pace and we simply don’t have time to get accustomed or to with the new technology. This is – I believe – one of the primary reasons why there is resistance to technological change. There is a comfort level that we have, with what we’re accustomed to, and to have that pulled out from under our feet can be very disconcerting.

However, this change is for most intents and purposes inevitable. Not to say that everyone has to adapt to technological change right away. If existing technology fits within your particular lifestyle, then all is good. As a matter of fact, I think that sometimes people that are able to buck the trend a bit have a certain charm!

I sometimes get asked what the impetus is for the subjects of my articles. For the most part, it’s just very random thoughts or experiences in my daily life.

In this instance, I was riding the subway and in the age of iPods and Blackberries and various other MP3-ish type of devices, I was just totally amused by the gentleman who was listening to music and then pulled out his CD player from his pocket, took out the CD and inserted a new one. As someone who listens to a lot of music, I was just aghast, I can’t imagine just having 3 or 4 CDs of music with me, but that’s just me. If this is how he enjoyed his music, then all the power to him.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, I’ve seen so much change in technology. This rapid rate of change isn’t isolated to my generation – it will continue to escalate in the generations of my children, and their children.

This is what makes it important to remain open-minded with regards to technology. I think that this is ever more critical when working in the technology sector. Not only is it necessary to keep up to date with technology professionally, but to a very large extent, one has to be very forward thinking and be able to anticipate where the technology is going.

It’s like when we buy that new computer – based on the current “newest technology”. How often do we get the computer home and we are benefitting from the latest and greatest? And how long is it before we sit there, mumbling and cursing at this dinosaur on the desktop, while casting a sideways glance at the latest offerings from Dell?

I think that the biggest lesson that I’ve learned from having thought through this article is that it is critical to identify where I need to stay current and not to be a technological dinosaur. However, I think what is also equally important is to be able to take a look at those aspects of technology where maybe it’s okay for me to stay within my comfort zone. As I see how many different aspects of technology are changing, I’m gaining the wisdom to realize that I can’t, nor should I, try to keep up with all technology.

Instead, I will pick and choose where I need to stay with the crowd, and where I’ll be equally comfortable being the equivalent of the guy on the subway listening to his CD player.

Caught With My Technological Shorts Down!

Okay, not really a great visual to start off with for this article, but probably very appropriate.

One of the things that I’ve noticed with technology is that it changes gradually. Technology builds upon existing technology and improves on it. Very rarely – if ever at all, has there been an instance where I’m totally taken aback by an advance in technology. Like a biological evolution, it is very gradual. After all, when man lost his tail, it’s not like we (as in our ancestors, obviously not us!) woke up one morning to find a pile of tails on the ground!

There has been an innovation that has totally caught me by surprise, and quite honestly, the more that I am exposed to this technology, the more amazed I am. I believe that we are the cusp of an innovation that will – without being overly dramatic – change the course of our society.

What I refer to is a new technology called 3D Printing. Now, I think that this term is actually misleading and it does this a great disservice. When I first read the article headline, I was thoroughly unimpressed enough that I didn’t even bother reading through to the body. In my mind, I was thinking that this is a cute way that we can print our bar charts and pictures of kitties that it would be an advance that has some benefit, but really didn’t have any meat and potatoes to speak off.

However, the next day, I saw another article and I was curious enough to read through the article and what I read just amazed me. This technology is more about creating solid 3 dimensional objects out a digital specification of an object. Before I continued to read through, I thought that this was interesting, but not yet beneficial as I imagined that the “printer” was essentially creating a play-doh’ish kind of object that looks like the original.

Once again, I was wrong. There are many videos of this technology on YouTube. The one video that I saw was that they took a normal metal wrench and had it scanned in 3 dimensions. They then “printed” this wrench and then they demonstrated that the item was functional – they took this wrench and they tightened a bolt using it.

The latest “wow” factor is another article that I read recently was that in the UK, they used this technology to design and build components for a small kit-sized airplane. When all of the parts where completed, they were snapped together without using any tools, and the plane can not only fly but it can fly up to speeds of 100mph. For those interested, the link for the article is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2023469/Aeroplane-created-using-3D-printer-world-Scientists-create-aircraft-100mph-max-speed.html. 

This is mind-boggling technology. I’m sure that it is very expensive and time-consuming, but in its infancy, most technology is.

The ability to prototype products will be phenomenal. This will allow designers and production staff to be able make quick changes and tweaks to the design of their products.

This technology will not just be rainbows and butterflies though; there will be numerous legal issues. For example, in the case of the wrench – if I purchase the wrench, I don’t have the right to be able to make a copy of it. The company that created the wrench spent numerous hours and dollars in product development and as such, this will be a real concern.

Where this would be an incredible technology is in the health-care sector. Can you imagine being able to go to the dentist’s in the future and if you need a partial denture, they can scan your teeth and produce an EXACT replica of each tooth? I’m sure that having the denture being exactly the same will make this so much easier. What about if someone needed to have their leg amputated? At least an exact replica of the existing let could be made and it should be so much easier to adapt.

We’re well on our way to the age of Star Trek and I anxiously wait for my replicator!

Paper Ghosts

For those of you who read my articles, you’ll perhaps notice a trend that I’m a great fence-sitter when it comes to the good and the bad of technology. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong about that – I think that it’s good to remain open-minded and see the pros and the cons of any situation or issue. However, as I thought about the subject of this article, I’ve come to the conclusion that this article will be a bit different and I will present a very definite opinion on thais subject.

There is an old saying that a ghost is a spirit that roams this earth because it doesn’t know that it’s died yet.

My recent revelation is that we have such a ghost among us now. This spirit that does not know that it has died a quiet and slow death is paper. I might surprise some people with the arguments presented here, especially with my love of reading and my *ahem* advanced number of birthdays. As I think along these lines, I see that technology has advanced to the degree where paper is not as necessary and in a lot of respects, it hinders us.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve obviously grown up with paper and I love the thought of a printed book, and I certainly can’t imagine my weekend routines with an early morning coffee and going to the front door to get my paper, but the benefits of the electronic age far outstrip the nostalgia of being able to hold printed paper.

Were paper to be made obsolete – basically eradicated from our world, would I miss it? Absolutely. The romantic side of me loves the theory of printed page, but I like to think that I’m pragmatic enough to accept its demise.

Through my lifetime, I’ve seen typewriters, adding machines and ledgers (physical paper based) having died a quiet death and we’ve managed just fine. Where all files were stored in file cabinets, there can be no doubt that our technological replacement of a database has given us capabilities that just simply weren’t possible with filing cabinet storage.

Paper has a wonderful feel and smell to it. Especially with a handwritten note you can get so much out of not only what was written, but how it was written and the underlying emotions and passion that you’d rarely see in an email. None of that is disputed. But the stark reality is that as a society, we evolve, and if we don’t evolve, we become extinct. Either or our tools become obsolete – or we do.

I’m not suggesting that paper will ever truly disappear from our world, but it is lost the vast majority of its usefulness and it has come to the point where it hinders us more than helps us.

Much like my “Cash is King” post, we need to accept technology into our lives and use it to whatever extent that we deem necessary.

When the ballpoint pen replaced the fountain pen which replaced the quill, I’m sure that there was equal uproar and concern about losing that esoteric aspect of our lives. We adapted and realized that the older way of doing things were wonderful, but totally impractical as a tool when we have so much more at our disposal.

To further illustrate my point (and yet, I know that I’m dating myself again!) I remember distinctly doing up assignments on a typewriter. When I made mistakes, I had to use white-out or replace the ribbon of the typewriter with the eraser ribbon and retype white powder over my mistakes.

It’s wonderful to be nostalgic – there’s nothing wrong with that but we need to keep in mind that we’re meant to expand our horizons – that one of the things that differentiate us from so many animal is our ability to use tools to grow.

Stupid Scam/Spam 101

Received an email today stating that I had a "express delivery" sent to me and that there was an attached file which included the tracking number and other delivery information.

Rule #1:  If you're going to try that scam, then do not let the recipient see that you've also sent it to numerous other parties.  Am I supposed to believe that we all have packages and that somehow the tracking number is the same for all of us?  How exactly is THAT supposed to work.

Rule #2:  Use a spell checker.  It's not that complicated of a technology and not using it destroys credibility, especially when you spell "adress" and "buisness".

Rule #3: Stop being such a dumb-ass.  Have you not figured out that people are not going to click on an attachment which supposedly contains the tracking number (which was also in the body of the email!).  Any reputable delivery organization would call, or at the very least give a 1-800 number for you to call to arrange for delivery.

I swear, people like this give scammers a bad name!

Security Breach - Redux

I don't think that it's a coincidence that a lot of my later articles have dealt with how security is implemented and the issue of security breaches.

I read an article today that I thought was very relevant to one of my points in the blog entry Multiple Locks -- One Key.

Within it, I mentioned that there one of the ways to work around using the same password on all sites without having to remember them all is to use a password manager.  Further, I go on to say that the only problem with this approach is if you use an online password manager, and it's security is breached, then all of  your passwords are potentially vulnerable to theft, which more or less defeated the purpose of having unique passwords.  The way around this is to have a standard prefix or suffix on all of your passwords, and don't write that -fix anywhere.  My example would if you added -@nan12w to all of your passwords.  That way, if the password manager was compromised, the full passwords wouldn't be.

Well it turns out that I wasn't far off the boat on this one.  The password manager site LastPass sent out a notice to their client that "they're not sure, but they think that their system was breached" and that users should keep this in mind and remain ever diligent.  This in itself bring up another interesting problem - as these attacks become more sophisticated, we may have instances where these companies are not even aware that their security has been breached.

This issue of security and protection is not going to go away.  Like it or not, we all have to remain sophisticated and intelligent and always try to make sure that our information is protected to the best of our abilities.  Quite obviously, these companies aren't doing a good enough job.

The Persistent Shadow

Regardless of the day and of any technologies in society, there will always be a segment of our population who would rather make their career out of subterfuge instead of putting in a hard day’s work. Unfortunately, that will always be the case.

There is a security leapfrog when it comes to those that are trying to protect our information and those trying to acquire it. As the ne’er-do-wells find some mechanism or scheme to steal our money, the guys in the white hat put in a process or technology to make it much more difficult for the criminal element to succeed. Of course, once this has been done, then the scammers go right to work looking for ways to circumvent the current security scheme.

One thing that has become readily apparent over the past few months is that fraud has become big business.

In the past, many of us had to deal with unsophisticated attempts by the fraudsters. It took no time for the vast majority of us to figure out that it was highly unlikely that we were the beneficiaries of some Nigerian will, or that we had won $5,000,000 in some lottery in which we had never bought tickets. Possible benefits from the fraudulent attempts were low; at the most, an individual might be duped out of a few hundred dollars.

In recent months, it has become evident that these attacks are more planned an d deliberate. Where fraudulent activity in the past was based on the concept of sending out millions of emails containing malware or that contained phishing attacks, there is a new gangster in town, and this one takes a more deliberate and patient approach. Not only is it more cost effective, but I believe that what they are finding is that the potential for reward is much higher.

Where the mindset of electronic fraud has undergone a fundamental change is that instead of attacking the consumer, the targets are now the holders of our data – the corporations that house our identities and financial information in their database. This type of fraudulent activity will become more and more common.

The other aspect of corporate database fraud that makes it more attractive to criminals is that it is an active attempt to break into the company data banks. The unsophisticated fraudulent email approach was very passive. All that the individual could do is to sit there and hope that 1 in a million individuals actually fell for the scheme.

Recent security breaches in the corporate world are not anomalies; these will be more and more common. A couple of months ago, a global player in the recognition & reward sector had their database breached, exposing individual names, addresses and other confidential information belonging to major credit card and reward program customers.

For the past two weeks, the entire Playstation network has been down as there was a significant security breach in their database as well. It’s currently believed that at least 100,000,000 (yes…one hundred million) subscribers were exposed. What makes this even more alarming is that it is believed that this theft of data has included credit card numbers, expiration dates and banking information. When one considers the value of 100,000,000 customer profiles, it becomes evident that for these individuals, even if it took them six months to plan an attack and to infiltrate an organization, the potential benefit far exceeds the cost.

On my way in this morning, there’s something else that I’ve realized and I think that this in an important point to keep in mind. There are many people out there that don’t necessarily purchase goods or services online and perhaps they think that they’re not at as much risk. The thing to consider is that anyone is at risk of having their information illegally accessed if their records appear in a corporate database.

The next time you go for an oil change, or swipe your rewards card at Indigo, or purchase an extended warranty at Futureshop, always keep in mind that the vast majority of your transactions with a company will be recorded in their database.

The sad reality is that all of us need to be continually diligent to checking banking or credit card transactions and doing a periodic review of our credit score and record.

Gone are the days of cash transactions, where a purchase transaction ended with the transfer of goods and cash.. The persistent shadow of fraud is our new reality and it is our responsibility to make sure that we practice due diligence to know who we deal with and how they protect our data.

Carpe Momento!

No, this isn’t some new spell uttered by Hermoine or Harry. The brother of this phrase is the more well known “Carpe Diem” which translates to “Seize the Day”. “Carpe Momento” translates to “Seize the Moment”. I can think of few other phrases that fully describe our eLives than Carpe Momento.

The whole premise of the advances of technology isn’t so much about how it gets easier to use, or to a lesser extent, if it becomes more powerful, but one of the biggest drivers of technological advances is in terms of speed. How much quicker can we run a report, close the general ledger for the month, create a Powerpoint presentation. It all seems to be about how much we can pack into a typical 7.5 hour day.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with having technology providing us with the tools to give us information quicker. There are many scenarios where having real-time updates are not only a convenience but in some cases, they can even provide direct benefits to our health and wellbeing.

I believe that the virtually instantaneous access to information has a distinct advantage when it comes to our medical care. Although our medical records are not yet fully computerized, you can bet that at some point in time they will be. Our pharmacist, our family doctor, our specialists and our surgeons will have immediate access to our complete medical history that is relevant to their care of us. In the future when we go to the hospital, our beds will have terminals directly linked into our medical records for doctors and nurses to access our medical history.

So where is this article going? What’s the “bad” part of this as it relates to technology? Well, I think that I’ve said as much in some of my previous posts, but this whole technological culture that has developed gives us a sense that we always need to be connected and that we always need to respond immediately. One of the biggest blessings and curses to our society is that of email.

Email liberates us; it allows us to communicate quickly and sometimes even effectively. The problem is that the nature of the communication method lends itself to communications diarrhea. In the era of the printed memo, one had to articulate and had to plan. It was known that a response might not be received in hours or days, so as much information has to be communicated to the recipient as possible in order to make the exchange of communications meaningful, concise and effective. Now, we read an email, think of it for as long as we think we might need to, and just respond – often to realize that there was something incorrect or missed out.

As always, I’ll add my disclaimer that I am just as guilty as others – if not more-so. I’m well known for my ten dollar answers where a ten cent answer would have sufficed. In addition, I have this horrible habit of thinking that if I’m emailed a question on something that I need to respond with my answer immediately. A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine joked that sometimes he’s amazed at how quickly I respond to some of his emails, his comment being “I’ve barely sent the email and in a matter of seconds (literally) you’ve responded.” I jokingly responded to him that it was my goal to respond to his question before he was able to ask it! I guess to be the Carnac the Magnificent of the email world.

As I said at the outset, Carpe Momento really should be our motto. I can’t really speak for others, but I suspect that there are many who could relate to my comment that I get so overwhelmed and immersed in technology that I forgot to live in the moment and to experience life.

This relates directly to a conversation that I had with another colleague at work. We discussed this very thing and how there seems to a distinct difference between the North American and European lifestyles (to generalize, of course). I’ve often heard it said that someone in the Western world lives to work, whereas someone from Europe works to live. These are two totally separate lifestyle choices and to be honest some days, the European lifestyle does seem intriguing.

InstaNews - I'm Torn

I watch these tragic events unfold in Japan, I can't help wondering if this nanosecond news reporting is a good thing - or a bad thing.  Probably as with the case with so much technology, it's a little bit of both.  As I said in my post refuting Jon Bon Jovi's comments, there is no black and white. Technology like anything else has it's good and it's bad, and that mix will be like pendulum depending on so many factors.

On the good side, we have virtually instantaneous access to information.  Especially for those in the danger zones, it can help them assess what their next course of action should be.  It also helps then stay in touch with their loved ones and I have to believe that this into itself is something that can be very beneficial.

On the bad, we have the same problem - instaneous access to information.  What we find is that the media can over-report - can report inaccurately and sensationalize and this can sometimes make the situation even worse. 

Like I said, there's good and the bad, every coin has it's two sides and it's impossible to know for certain which way the flip will go at any given point in time.

Welcome - China-Bot

Oddly today, I got 15 hits from China.  15 hits in one day is a large number, but 15 from a country that rarely visits my blog, is unheard of (there had only been 6 hits from China in the last year and a half).

I have a suspicion that this is closely related to my little experiment and it was some individual in China would had scraped my test email address and is now foraging through TecHumanity looking for more email addresses - sadly, none to be found.

Welcome aboard ChinaSpyder or ChinaBot - enjoy your crawling at TecHumanity.

The Fat Lady Has Sung...

...and Microsoft has officially pronounced the Zune to be dead.  Farewell Zune, you really never had a chance.  To the heap of discarded technology goes thou - to your brethren of useless electronic artifacts.

The Day that the Music Died?

Bon Jovi has stated his opinion that Steve Jobs aka Apple aka iTunes has killed the music industry.  To give him his fair due, I've copied what I'd assume to be a direct quote that states his position.

"Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time."

There is an awful lot of truth in what Bon Jovi claims.  It's not unlike a conversation that I had with a friend at lunch the other day where the assertion is that book-reading has likewise been affected.  For a true book-reader - or for some of them, there is nothing like the hard-cover book in hand, the sounds of the pages being flipped instead of the buttons being clicked to go from page to page.

That having been said, I would contend that in a lot of ways, the ability to publish and purchase music in a lot of ways has revolutionized the art.  My argument being that it is given independant artists a whole new avenue to get their work out there - that the artists that can't afford the big studio time...well, let's just say that it has evened the playing field a bit.

I don't really mean to contradict Bon Jovi - after all, he is much more qualified than I to speak on the impact of technology on music, but I can't help thinking that his opinion is totall one-sided.  Sure, there are probably areas where music has been hurt, but like so much else, there is good and bad - it's usually a matter of finding that balance - or if seeing which is greater.

I know that personally, I am nuts for discovering new artists on iTunes, without having this immediacy of being able to listen, ponder and purchase, I would have not bought half of my library and I have a big library of music (9,000+ songs at present).

On a side-note, I'm going to cajole my nephew to see if he can offer his professional opinion on this matter.  As he is a lawyer in the music industry, and a musician, I'd love to hear his comments.  However, given that his wife will be having their first child anyday now...this can - and will wait.

Apple iPhone - Daylight Savings Time Bass Ackwards

Oh come on, Apple.  You didn't have enough problems in the past with the clocks on the iPhone? 

November, 2010 was the first bug reported when clocks were supposed to go back.

Then - in the New Year, there were reports of timers not going off, so the few unfortunate souls who depended on their iPod/iPhone to go off so they wouldn't miss the New Year's celebration - and the alarm didn't go off?

Despite these two problems in the last 4 months, now when we run into DST and some models are setting the clocks back an hour instead of forward? That's just nuts.  I'm sorry, maybe there's an explanation, a reason, yada yada yada.  The long and the short of it - that's inexcusable.

Me thinks this doesn't reflect well on Apple at all.

"The Experiment" - The Only Downfall

Already received my first SPAM, I was interested to see which disposable address it was sent to, but the problem is (and I didn't consider this) is that if the sender uses BCC instead of CC or TO then I don't think that I can see the email address they used for me.

Still - I'm pretty sure I know how they got it.  First of all, I've created a brand new Hotmail account and I've made sure that I don't post the email address anywhere, so I know it's not that email.  That having been said, I've only created two disposable email addresses and used them as a test.  The first was signing up with Apple Support, so I doubt that it came via that route.  The second test was the disposable email address that I posted here, knowing that bots can visit sites and harvest email addresses.  By the process of elimination, this must have been the source.

On a somewhat interesting side-note, today, I've found that all of a sudden, I have 23 hits, all from the same O/S, country and browser, which leads me to believe that it's somewhat likely the same source.  Perhaps this bot is checking other pages on the site for other email addressed, but I don't think so.  Just from the posts that were viewed and the fact that they are older, I suspect that this is an individual how has stumbled upon TecHumanity.  I can't be sure, but that's what I think.

TecHumanity - The Global Force!

Said totally tongue in cheek, of course.  I'm pretty aware that a lot of hits that my posts get are probably nothing more than spiders and bots trolling and indexing the web for content.  Still, it's interesting to view the statistics sometimes.

No big surprise to me, but Windows is the predominant operating system with 89% of the hits being from a Windows based computer.

Similarly, the typical browser is either Internet Explorer (65%) or Firefox (18%) accounting for 83% of the traffic.

The posts with the most hits are as follows:

1. Yahoo! And OtherInbox...to Borrow from Monty Python "NOSPAM...NOSPAM...NOSPAM..."
112 hits. No surprise here.  This one was noticed and tweeted about from a company in the US.  All of the hits on this article came within a 24h period - the vast majority within an hour or so of it being tweeted about.

2. Social Networking
60 hits.  This is the one that I can't figure out.  This one page consistently gets a couple of hits a week, for no apparent reason.  It's not like it's recent, so I can't figure out why it's active.  It's not like there are click-throughs to it, that - I would be able to tell, but somehow this page is just navigated to.  It might very well be that the title of it "Social Networking" might be the key for a spider or bot to index it, I really don't know.


3. Ho-Ho-Wholly Straddling the Hi Tech World

43 hits.  I must say, this is probably my all time favourite article.  It was a lot of fun to write and was totally different from anything else that I had written.  I suppose that the part of me that loves to write fiction enjoyed creating a Santa Claus based article.  On a side-note, this article was also tweeted about, but definitely didn't result in the same traffic as my NOSPAM one.


4. Multiple Locks -- One Key
24 hits.  This is my most recent article and I think one of the more important ones that I've written about.  I've received a lot of positive feedback that it is given people cause to stop and think about how they use their passwords, and this is precisely why I wrote this article.

5. Blessing of The High Tech Tools
22 hits.  This one was an interesting article.  Well - to be honest, it was more of a short blog than an article.  I think that this one received a few hits as it was noticed and posted on some other blogs.

and finally, here's an extra tidbit about the importance of never trusting an appearance of a URL:
The Old Bait and Switch

Anyways, those are the top five.  Clearly, I'm never going to make a lot of money from all this traffic, but all is good.  So if you got rick-rolled - drop a comment and let me know!

Here's the current breakdown of hits by country:

United States      692

Canada             394

Ukraine             48

Russia              37

United Kingdom      25

Brazil              17

Poland              17

Germany             14

Malta               12

Romania            11

Experimental PS - Ducks Away!

I was just folding laundry and I had a Eureka moment (well - I'm not suggesting that it was so much of a Eureka moment that I was running around in my birthday suit - much too chilly for that!).

I was thinking to myself why all of a sudden I had this gust of inspiration and then it came to me - clear as day. 

As per my Saturday morning routine, I was having my coffee and reading the Saturday paper.  There was an article that I read and I can't believe that it is a coincidence.  I didn't consciously base my experiment on this article, but it just had to be the subconscious root of it.

The article was about a book that was written on an experiment that was conducted.  The name of the book is "Moby Duck".  The experiment is that scientists went out into the middle of the ocean with thousands of specially coded little yellow rubber bath ducks.  They had a "duck overboard" moment and dumped them all into the Atlantic.  The premise of this experiment was to use the coding on the ducks to track their movements through the ocean in order to study the currents.

I thought to myself, wow - this is EXACTLY what I am doing - it's just an electronic version, but the premise is exactly the same.  I'm tracking the ebbs and flows of the Internet.

Ducks away! Here's duck #1 to test for harvesting of email addresses on websites:
full_throttle_t01@hotmail.com

An interesting side note that I've noticed.  I've often wondered about some of these foreign hits that I get.  What I have noticed is that very often, I'll get a hit from UAE or some other location immediately upon posting.  Obviously this means that this site is being automatically monitored somehow.  Who knows why - it's a piddly little technology blog, but I'm going to check to see how quickly I get a hit on this blog entry and where it comes from.

Spam and Mailing Lists - An Experiment Starts

One thing that I've often wondered is how easily our email addresses proliferate as they get sold to marketers.  I'm going to try an experiment.  I'm going to create some Hotmail disposable email addresses and I will put out each email address to one specific location to see how quickly it gets harvested or sold/shared to other sites.  Part of this will be for me to identify some of these culprits of this mass marketing.  By only using this email address in one website, it will be very easy to determine how the address is used across sites/marketing partners.

This would clearly be a long term project.  I don't expect to get inundated with spam right away, but I am betting that I can find some sites/portals whose sole existence is to collect email addresses to sell them, so I just might stumble upon it.

Step #1 is to define my strategy - this could be interesting to see exactly how my email address is being shared.

iPod vs Crackberry - Part Deux

I was perusing my blog statistics and noticing something that I didn't quite expect.  Not that my blog gets a whole lot of traffic, but of the operating systems/devices, I have close to 30 page views from iPod and equivalent devices and only 1 page view off of a BlackBerry.  This leads me to one of three explanations:

1. By nature, iPod users are much more intelligent and discriminating than a BlackBerry user and recognize outstanding content.
2. The lone BlackBerry user just didn't like what he saw or
3. The BlackBerry inadvertently clicked on a link leading to my site and skedaddled away.

I think that I will go with option #1 - it's much better for my ego.  That is my story and I am duly sticking to it!

I Had Thought That is Just Common Sense - I'm Guessing I Was Wrong

There's an article on PC World today that states that more often than not, law enforcement are first turning to Facebook/Twitter when they have suspects for a specific crime.  I find this hard to fathom, but it's not all that unusual for the perps to boast or talk about it online.  Umm - okay, these people who would boast of their criminal exploits...well, let's just say that they're not likely to be spreading their DNA while in custody.

Multiple Locks -- One Key

I’m going to start off this article with some great news for everyone! I find it much too difficult to remember all the PINs for my banking cards and credit cards so I’ve decided to with one PIN number. I also don’t have a very good memory, so I tucked a note in my wallet with a sheet of paper that reads “Mr. PIN: (905) 555-1204”. That way, all that I have to do is pull out the handy piece of paper if I can’t remember my PIN. What a great idea!

Hopefully, people will realize that I’m not so foolish as to have done the above. I certainly wouldn’t set all my cards to one PIN and then put that PIN number in my wallet, so that someone who has my wallet could have the key to all of my accounts.

However, what this does illustrate is how lax and lazy we can be with regards to our online passwords. As wonderful as this technology is, one of the biggest problems is that there are just too many passwords for us to remember. Without some mechanism to keep track of them, it’s inevitable that we have our “standard” passwords. Unless you have a photograph memory, it’s next to impossible to keep track of all of the sites that you login to.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been as guilty about this as anyone else in the past and I had used the same password for many sites. Sometimes, I would have a site where the password that I used didn’t conform to their standards, so I had a second version which was more compliant.

There’s an old saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and this is very much in evidence with security on the Internet.

Intellectually, I’ve always known that this common approach to passwords is a problem, but it took a recent, real-life example to give me a wake-up call.

A few months ago, a popular dating website was hacked. That in itself is bad enough, but the problem is that this dating website did not (and I believe still does not) encrypt their member’s passwords. This gave the hackers immediate access to the login passwords for a certain subset of members. Someone’s initial reaction to this might be, “Not such a big deal, the worst thing that could happen is that they could mess with someone’s profile or send nasty messages to another user.”

Stop and think.

Imagine that some website was hacked and that your password was exposed. Perhaps it’s a message board and that you think that the impact and risk are inconsequential. However, think about if you’ve used the same password or maybe a version of it with some numbers at the end on some other site – and possibly you’ve used the same user id and the same password on other sites

Multiple locks – one key.

Let me give another analogy. Say that you are in the parking lot of the local mall and you’re going back to your car. You reach into your pocket for the key fob and when you press the button, not only does your car honk, flash it’s lights and unlock it’s door, but every car of the same model in the proximity did the same thing. Imagine for a moment that Honda had one key fob/code for all Honda Civics. How concerned would be that anyone can unlock your car?

Multiple locks – one key.

The “easy” solution is to have a different login ID and a different password on each site that you frequent. This brings us back to the original problem that most humans don’t have an easy way to remember all of these credentials and simply writing them down – anywhere (without it being secured) – is just as bad.

What is the solution? There are a number of them and it depends on your own circumstances (refer to disclaimer). I have stumbled across a website called PassPack (www.passpack.com) which for most users is a free online password manager. I’ve started to use PassPack and I’m encouraged by the security that they’ve built in, but I’ve come to realize that even with a website like PassPack, that there is still an inherent problem.

The problem is this – if I store ALL of my user IDs and passwords online, then I am right back to the same conundrum – a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. What if the security there was breached? In this case, it’s even worse as my entire login credentials are in one location. It wouldn’t matter if I used the password of gr81for#9930 on one site and yy3-9##9! on another, everything is fully exposed.

What’s the solution? Well – I think this whole issue of security will evolve and it will continue to be fluid as the nefarious hackers try at anything to login to our accounts, so keep in mind that how we handle our identities in the electronic age will need to become more sophisticated.

One possibility would be to maintain a separate login for each site, but have one or two standard prefixes or suffixes that only you know – one that someone would not be able to guess, perhaps something as random such as 2#pff. Don’t write this prefix or suffix down anywhere. Even if your login credentials are exposed, they won’t have your full password.

There may be some of you who don’t do any financial transactions online and as a result, perhaps this isn’t as much of an issue for you. Don’t make this mistake. The more personal information of yours that is available online makes identity theft easier. Having your name, address, perhaps phone numbers or date of birth that you had entered on a “safe” website when you registered, might be all the information that an individual needs to take out a loan or mortgage in your name.

When it comes to security, privacy in the electronic age, it pays to be skeptical and to assume that nothing is secure – there’s too much at risk.

Disclaimer: The author of this article does not recommend any websites, methodologies or practices within this article. The intent of the article is to give the reader cause for thought to examine their own practices, the risks and the best way to address this issue.

The Tipping Point of TecHumanity

Malcolm Gladwell has written a fascinating book called "The Tipping Point".  The basic premise (and please forgive me, Mr. Gladwell, for over-simplifying!) that each trend or fad has a moment when it takes on a life of it's own - that when one looks back in the past, there is one defining moment when that snowball takes on it's unstoppable momentum.

This may be a total fail, or this is my tipping point, but I challenge whomever reads this post, to spread the word of TecHumanity, to pass it to friends, tweet it, whatever.  More of an experiment than anything else (and maybe a little appeal to my vanity as a self-proclaimed blogger), but I would be fascinated to see if we can start the TecHumanity Revolution.

Ready...

Start.....

Go!!!

A Prayer for Steve Jobs

As much as I am a PC/Windows guy and not a fan of Apple at all (git yer mitts off my iPod though!), I follow Steve Jobs and his apparent health issues.  I'm not going to bother speculating, but regardless of the situation, I do hope it is something that he can battle through.

I'd be the first to admit that probably Apple has driven innovation in our industry, probably much more aggressively than Microsoft has, and I'm certain that Mr. Jobs is the main reason behind this, the visionary force, if you will (ed.  knock off with all of the commas, they, are, annoying!).

I'll probably always be more of a PC guy as opposed to anything fruity, but I'll give Apple their props and must have that must go to Mr. Jobs.

As with all of us, we have a limited time on this earth and I wish for him and his family, all the joy, love and laughter in whatever time they have together.

Technology In Athletics

Wow - too cool.

In Tokyo today, there was a 26m marathon.  The third place winner was an amateur, but this is where this story gets...bizarre?...intriguing?...innovative?

Yuki Kawauchi is just a regular Joe Shmo who decided to run the marathon.

What makes this story remarkable is that he ran it with 4 iPhones and 1 iPad strapped two him as he broadcast live.  One iPhone was pointed at the ground, one at his face as his ran, one was a GPS and he had an iPad strapped onto him so he could communicate and tweet with his followers.

How wonderfully odd and unique.  What doors will this open in up in terms of (virtually) being part of an athletic endeavour? 

I'm intrigued - to say the least - to see what doors this might open up.

Electronic Armageddon

As many who might read this blog (yes, both of you! lol), it continues to amaze and worry me how dependent on technology.  I've often wondered to myself what happens to our society if we have a partial complete electronic blackout.  This thought has gone through my mind so much that I've contemplated writing a fictional story about this.

In the news recently is an article from some scientists who claim that it's only a matter of time before a significant solar storm occurs on the sun, one big enough to significantly disrupt our communications systems.

I wonder if people realize how much we rely on technology.  As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, I'm sure that we'd adapt, that's what us humans do, but I think that when this does happen, the impact will be beyond immense.

The New Tech Way - and the Old Tech Way

I had to laugh about a story in the papers recently.  Newly acquired Leafs player Joffrey Lupul lost his iPhone in a cab.  Not sure what to do about it, he tweeted about his dilemma.  To his amazement, within a few hours, not only was his iPhone located, but it was duly returned.  What an amazing use of technology!  Can you imagine being able to use this hi-tech wizardry for something like this?

The funny part to me is how it was found.  One of his followers simply picked up the phone and called the cab company in question.  iPhone found.  I wonder if Mr. Lupul realizes that he could have done this himself.

Scammers 101

I wish that I could find the article in The Toronto Star today, but apparently, there's a website offering insurance who are allegedly scamming potential customers by getting them to send them the application fee by Western Union, when there is fact no policy for said customer.
The article went  on to say that the website was still up, so out of curiousity, I checked and sure enough it was.

However, the FIRST thing I noticed which would have clued me in right away that this at least warranted further investigation was that there was a banner on the bottom of the website saying that the website was being hosted by a printing company.  Now - don't get me wrong, this printing company is very reputable as far as I know but when I clicked on the site, it showed me that they offered free web hosting.  "Great Caeser's Ghost!", I said to me, "How reputable can an insurance company be who has to depend on free web hosting?".

My advice is this...never fork out any money to any site online without doing your own due dilegence, it's FAR too easy to put up a website.  Look beyond the glitz and the flash.  Looks to see if the have their own https: site for secure transactions...check for brick and mortar addresses, not just some random phone number.

Bottom line - be careful out there - don't assume that any company is legitimate without looking at the signs.

Blogging & Hits - What I Just Don't Get

Apparently, my #2 related blog is from the summer, and I see nothing extraordinary about it.  For the life of me, I can't figure out why that particular blog gets consistent hits - all the time - and others don't.  At first I thought that maybe there was a link to it from some other website, but that's not it, there's no referring site.

Go figure - how mysterious!

Pedestrian Dangers?

I'll admit that there are many times when I'll be walking and texting at the same time.  However, when doing so, I do try to remain aware of surroundings at least.  A 10 year old Italian boy fell onto the subway tracks while totally absorbed by his PSP.  Thankfully, he's okay.

Recently, there has been a viral video on YouTube where some poor chick was texting as she was walking through the mall.  Totally oblivious to the fact that there was a raised edge around the water fountain.  Dunk city.

Although to an extent these may be seen as things to derive a good laugh out of, it's a dangerous combination and I'm sure that we'll get more and more reports of this sort of thing happening, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Hotmail - New Disposable Addresses

Newest thing is new disposable email addresses via Hotmail.  Just a few years late on that one, but I'll give Microsoft a "gimme" on that one.

Hotmail - useless email - no real point - no value...yep - pretty much sums up it up nicely :)

- Signed, a loyal Yahoo email user since 1990-whenever

Cash is King - Unfortunately, the King is Dead!

For a significant period of time, this adage of “cash is king” held true. The basic premise of this saying is that having available cash gives one a huge advantage, especially in terms of negotiating and purchasing large ticket items.

Now, there may be argument with the premise of this article that the term “cash” is meant as liquid assets and as such electronic payments of any sort could be considered cash-like. There is merit for this argument, but for the purposes of this article, I am considering “cash” to be paper money.

One of the bigger impacts of technology within our society has been in terms of currency – specifically as it relates to paying for items or otherwise transferring money between two parties.

Gosh – I really hate this saying, but “back in the day”, one pretty much just had the option of paying cash or paying by cheque. Of course, there was and still is credit card availability, but that’s a different beast.

Debit cards made their debut in Canada in 1994 and quickly revolutionized not only how we pay, but also how we shop. No longer did we have to worry about if the vendor took cheques, nor did we have to take a quick peek in our wallet to see if we had sufficient cash.

Over the past few years, electronic fund transfers have been a boon to those of us who need to send money to a friend or relative. No longer do we need to go to a specific bank and deposit funds into an account. All major banks now offer electronic funds transfer. Again, technology has clearly made our lives much more convenient.

The next stage of storing and allocating cash will be to integrate our electronic devices to become electronic wallets. It will be possible to store our liquid assets on our electronic device and have it scanned at a POS terminal to initiate funds transfer.

The potential uses of technology in the area of funds transfer are unlimited.

The question that I do have though is this – what practical purpose does cold, hard cash have in our society? How much does this infrastructure to support paper money cost us? The inherent cost of producing cash and everything that is required for a cash-based society has to be staggering.

There are a few things about a cashless society though and this needs to be considered as this certainly appears to be the direction that we’re heading towards.

First and foremost, I think that having electronic funds is a true double-edged sword as it relates to counterfeiting. The advantage to having an electronic commerce system is that it will allow the government to continue to refine their security to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiters. As it stands right now, introducing any new security features on a bank note but be a tremendously complicated task, in addition to being a very time consuming one. By having digital wallets, not only can the algorithms be update quickly and easily, but the repositories for our cash can be protected with sophisticated security – a feature that’s not available with bank notes.

The real downside to having our dollars stored in electronic form is that we’d likely see a significant proliferation in counterfeiting attempts. Actually, the fraud will probably not be so much as counterfeiting as it will be attempts to access and transfer out our funds. If the undesirable elements did manage to find ways to access our digital wallets, then the potential amount of money that would be pilfered would be staggering. Currently a counterfeiter can only counterfeit a certain amount of money, and as he creates the counterfeit money, he is faced with hard production costs for machinery, paper and ink.

From an economy standpoint – I would have to defer to someone who understand economics much more than I do, but I think that another factor in the double edged sword category is that the more that our funds are accessible digitally, the more likely we are to spend it. It’s commonly accepted that when someone is making a purchase, they are much more likely to rationalize the purchase if they have to pay cold, hard cash. Many times, when paying by Interac or by credit card, one tends to be a little – how shall we say – less diligent about forking over our electronic funds. What I’m curious though, is if I’m correct that spending would increase, and if so, what would be the net impact on our economy? Would it benefit the economy as goods are sold = vendors make profits = jobs are created, etc... or would we be likely to see an increase in the number of people that can’t make ends meet each month as their spending has increased.

We’re probably a few years away from the day where cash has effectively been rendered obsolete. Maybe I’m wrong, perhaps there will always be a need for cash, but then again, maybe this is just an eventuality and that our economy is almost ready for that leap in evolution, just as it did when cash first replaced the barter and trade of goods and services.

Unwired - A Case Study

Recent events in Egypt have really made me question some issues as it relates to technology.  It's pretty common knowledge by now (for anyone who has read my blogs) that I have a fundamental concern with technology is that that we're overly dependant on it.

With the recent political crisis in Egypt, the government has decided to unplug the whole country from the world.  Yep - that's right.  They have pulled the proverbial plug on the Egypt that is wired.  The rationale is that it by doing this, they are preventing the dissemination of reports and images coming out as a result of the mass riots.  I am very hardly a political person, so I cannot comment on how legitimate this is.

However, there's a couple of things here that caught my attention.

First of all, when the plan was initially put in place, the government decided that the everything would be shut down, with the exception of the stock markets.  Ironically, after the markets lost 10% because of the instability, they put a freeze on them too.  This makes me wonder - what other aspects of the Egyptian infrastructure were not considered to be exempt from this unpluggage?  It's mind-bogging, unfathomable.

I don't think that it would be possible here in Canada to unplug the country in the same way.  Well - I guess anything is possible, but the number of Internet entry points must be magnitudes greater than in Egypt.  What I wonder is if this were done here, how can that be?  I can't imagine our society having the magic carpet of the Internet yanked out from under our feet.  What would the hospitals do if they needed to communicate with a colleague or to look in medical journals?  How would transportation agencies manage.  Banking - let's not even get into the impact of the banking sector if there were no Internet access.

As I alluded in a recent post, should something "happen" to our technology, it would clearly be catastrophic in all areas of our society, but we would adapt, that's what we do.

I'd be totally fascinated to see how the populace of Egypt has managed to adapt.

And Now For Something Completely Obvious...

There's a new warning out there of a scam.  Apparently, said scammers are cold calling people and saying that they're from Microsoft and that Microsoft has determined that there is a virus on the machine, so they are calling to 'help' them clean their virus up by either (a) getting access to their comptuer or (b) to redirect the poor sap of a victim to a phishing site or one that delivers malware.

Okay - maybe I'm not giving people the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure that there would be many people that would so be so naive to think that there's a chance in hell that Microsoft goes around offering to help people.  But still...really?

Technology Schmechnology - Talk About a Love/Hate Relationship

Probably no surprise to my millions of faithful readers but I am decidely Jekyll and Hyde when it comes to technology.  As evidenced by my many posts, it concerns me greatly and pisses me off to no extent sometimes, but Jiminy Cricket, I have to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds me.  As much as I'm critical of it from time to time (okay - more than just "time to time"), our lives have been hopelessly enriched by it.

Quite honestly, I can't imagine where I would be professionally and personally without technology.

--- Signing off

Oopsies - That Must Have Been Just a Tad Embarrassing

I have to admit that I don't know all of the details as I just skimmed the article, but when there are always so many questions and issues about security and privacy on Facebook and Herr Zuckerberg's profile gets hacked...well, I have to imagine that the old adage about poo running downhill probably applied in this case.  Man, I would not want to be the dude where said excrement stopped and collected in a proverbial puddle.

This May Fall Into the "Okay Ethel, Maybe We're A Bit Too Dependant on Technology" Category

News story about an elderly couple from the UK driving in Germany.  This is one of those cases where common sense should prevail, but they were just too trustful and dependent on their GPS instructions and drove smack dab into the side of a church.

However, before we all chuckle and guffaw (as I originally did), it made me pause for a moment and think, how many times have I just blindly followed what technology dictates.  Certainly not to the extent of something as immediate obvious as "oh dear, there's a brick wall, should I stop, or should I go..." sort of thing, but still, there are probably numerous subtle instances in my life where I have engaged fingers and disengaged the brain.

And the countdown is on...

...for the purchase of the ten billionth app through iTunes.

I swear, the one thing about technology is that it gives a whole different concept of magnitude of numbers.  Ten BILLION apps.  Really?  Wow.  Of course, my daughter is probably responsible for a goodly chunk of these.

Mind you, there was no discussion on how many of these apps performed some function or otherwise had intrinsic value.  How many of these ten billion apps are farting machines, talking characters, bubble makers, lighters, flashlights and other tripe that seem to have a monopoly in the App Store.

Not saying there isn't some great apps there, there really are, but man, sometimes it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Research Heaven

There are a goodly number of my blog entries that diss technology, and in most cases, rightly so.

The real benefit to me personally lately has been the incredible information available at my fingertips.  Now, before proceeding, one kind of has to define "information".  As I've suggested in previous posts, I think that it's very important to take anything that I read online with a grain of salt, to look for verification and backup and to understand that anyone can put an opinion out there and dress it up as a fact and themselves as a subject matter expert.

All of that having been said, 2010 and 2011 has been a revelation for me in terms of mining the web for information.  Without going through too many sordid (and personal, I might add!) details, those who know me, know that I am going through the Ontario court system for some family law matters.

At present, I have been able to navigate through the process and system without legal representation.  Before proceeding, I want to be clear that I'm not advocating this.  After all, proverbs say:

"He who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client."

Probably in my case, truer words were never spoken, but at this stage, I'm preferring to fight for the rights of my children and it seems counter-intuitive to me to be trying to protect their future while at the same spending oodles upon poodles on legal fees.

The experience that I will share is that being self-represented is definitely not for the faint of heart.  It's a nasty and intimidating process and system and every step is an adventure.

What has made this a little easier for me has been some guidance from a lawyer who has been fantastic about answering quick questions from me on how to file, what to file, how to word it.  Also, my girlfriend has been an amazing help to me too.  Although she doesn't have a background in law, she is very intelligent and has been my advisor through it all, and I'm thankful to her more than you can imagine.

The Internet too has been an amazing resource.  I was thinking of this fact this morning.  Without having this information at my disposal, I don't know that I could have managed to get this far along on my own.  I've found amazing resources, including the online database court rulings so that I can review cases to see what the judges ruled, and why they made their ruling.

All of this material has been a god-send to me.  It is a great feeling to be able sit down in front of the computer on a Saturday morning with some Motown playing and some coffee beside me as I research what ever needs to be researched or write a brief that needs to be written.

It's been a totally awesome tool for me, and as I mentioned, I don't think I could have gotten this far without it.

Stay tuned and buckle up - much more to come on this saga, I'm sure.

Hello, World!

Okay, for those of you that are not programming-related, this is a phrase that us developers use.  The context is that when learning a brand new programming language, the easiest task is to to write a program to display one line of text.  That defacto standard in the code-head society is to write a program that displays "Hello, World".

Anywho, my context for Hello, World is that I haven't forgotten about my TecHumanity community.  It's probably about a month since my last post, but Holy Cannoli, it's been a whacky few weeks for me.  Not only did I have Christmas to attend to, but I've had some biggish "personal issues" to work through over the last few weeks and I've badly neglected the millions of my loyal TecHumanity followers - well at least the 2-3 of them.

Tis a new year, and I've been negligent.  My humble apologies.  Onto an incredible 2011 in my own personal life and with TecHumanity.  Can you give me a "Woot!  Woot!"?