The Wireless Explosion

There's just a mind-boggling article on PC World today on the expected explosion of wireless traffic over the next four years.

The article estimates that by 2016, that wireless traffic will average approximately 10.8 exabytes per month.  The scary thing is that I didn't know what an exabyte is so I read further in the article and one exabyte is one billion gigabytes.  This is per month, not per year.  This is an 18 fold increase over the average monthly bandwidth now.

It then goes on to estimate that in a year that the total wireless network traffic will be approximately 130 billion gigabytes.  To give this extreme number some context, the average DVD holds about 4.7 gigabytes of data, so this would be the equivalent of about 28 billion DVDs worth of data floating through the air (and I'd guess through our collective bodies too!.

Another interesting tidbit, the article estimates that wireless connections will exceed wired connections by 2015.  I would not be surprised at all if it's sooner.  I did a quick calculation in my own home and I have the following devices connected via WiFi: one notebook, one Playstation 3, 3 cell phones, one tablet PC, two Nintendo DS gaming systems and one printer.  That's 9 devices.  It's no wonder that when there's a power failure we barely know what to do with ourselves!

To close off of this article with one last fact, which I think more than anything else demonstrates the proliferation of technology in our lives, the spellchecker in this article flagged exabyte as a spelling mistake.  Apparently, even our electronic dictionaries can keep pace!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249922/mobile_explosion_wireless_traffic_could_reach_108_exabytes_a_month_by_2016.html#tk.rss_news

The Old "You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression" Lesson Learned...

...and for me, this lesson is to NOT totally depend on technology to do my "dirty work".  Case in point,  a couple of days ago, I needed to write 3 very specific emails within a time limit.  Typically, I am an extra-ordinarily good proof-reader - primarily with spelling, but also to a lesser extent with wording.  I am best when I'm not rushed - I know that.

Anyways, the mistake that I made was that the spell-checker on my Yahoo was turned on so I figured that between my eagle eyes and the spell-checker, I wouldn't have any spelling mistakes.  Well, there were a couple of errors that I discovered after the fact.  Not spelling errors, but typing errors.  I shoulda woulda coulda checked to make sure that my spell-checker was turned on.

Speaking of which, I'm not seeing and red-squiggles on this blog entry, let me run the spell-check before publishing.  Duh - Rick - totally duh!

Waxing Nostagically in the Technological Age

I know for any generation, there are challenges as it relates to accepting and adjusting to technological advances.  To a certain extent, we all learn to put the past behind us and to embrace the change as it leads us to different ways of doing things.

However, as is often the case, everyone has their little things from yesteryear that they miss.

For me, it's two types of experiences, going to the library and browsing through the video store.
The library so much isn't as much of an issue.  I love the convenience of being able to read online - and hey - there's nothing stopping me from visiting the library.  It's something that I do often and it's just such a different experience from browsing through books online.

The one that I really miss though is the experience of going to the video store.  The days of Roger's Video and Blockbuster brick and mortar sites are long gone.  There are some specialty mom and pop type stores, but it's just not the same.

Don't get me wrong, I just love the convenience of being to rent through my digital TV, and with my satellite TV subscription, I even get access to movies on the computer.  There's no question that I do not miss the "oh damn, I forgot to return the video" feeling the morning after.

But it's just not the same for me.  There was something very charming for me to be able to walk up and down the aisles - to go along the perimeter for a new release or perhaps to go browsing through a specific genre.  The thrill of "yes!  There's one last copy of <insert popular movie here>" and feeling like I just got lucky.  I loved picking up a case of some movie I had never heard of and read the back and just take a chance. 

It is, what it is - I guess.  I don't have to accept or like it though.  I'm going to pout and complain about this.  That is until I get home and I go and continue watching any of the three movies that I  have stored on my PVR that I've been recording.

So I like to eat my cake and have it too - I'm entitled!

3D Printing

A couple of months ago, I marvelled at a new innovation referred to as 3D printing.  I won't go through the details of the blog entry or to describe the technology as it can be found in this entry: Caught with my Technological Shorts Down.  In this entry, I talk about one of the areas that I can see this being a very viable and valuable technology - that area being the medical industry.

Lo and behold, earlier this week, there was an article on PC World on exactly this topic:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/249359/3d_printers_now_print_human_body_parts.html. 

 An elderly lady had a very bad jaw infection and due to her age, they could not fix it in the traditional methods, so that scanned her existing lower jaw - all of it - and printed her a new jaw. 

This is just mind-blowing and the more that I read about this technology, the more that I believe that it has (and is!) revolutionizing our society.

The very scary thing is that I think that this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. 

A Stick Is Just a Stick

..and sometimes a stick is something much more.

 A stick is just a stick…until it’s rubbed against another stick to spark a fire - then it becomes a source of heat.

A stick is just a stick…until it’s rapped against a rock – then it becomes a percussion instrument.

A stick is just a stick…until it’s used by a primate to scoop out ants – then it becomes a tool.

A stick is just a stick…until one end is notched and one end is pointed – then it becomes a weapon.

As I came into work this morning, I came up with this metaphor and I realized that this concept works just as well with our current computer based technology.  The very general point to this article is that the true driving force behind the tools is the thought process behind the tool – even more-so than the physical attributes of the tool.   As the context of a stick can be changed based on its intended purpose, such is also the case for our modern technology.

A computer is just an object manufactured of plastic, metals and other components.  What drives the success of our technology is the thought and the imagination of what tools we need; how the tools will be used and how they will need to be designed by their intended use.

As much as the physical components of our technology are critical, they are really just the ends to a mean – a way of delivering the creativity to fruition.  Without this creative process and the need and ability to solve problems, none of this technology would exist.

To continue on with the stick, I imagine that way “back in the day” before there were primates, then a stick truly was just a stick.  The broken off branch on the ground was just that and nothing more, there were no ancillary uses for it.

I can’t imagine the revolution or the process that started off with the realization that rubbing two sticks together caused a spark which can be used to start a fire.  The course of our history was changed with that one innovation.

In the same ways, as we speed down the technological path of our modern times, we too are starting those branches, the divides where the future historians will look back to 2012 and say “Look !  This is where it all started!  This is where _____  all came from”.

The challenge that we have as a society is how do we ensure that the path that we take is best?  How do we ensure that our collective brains create new technologies with minimal disadvantage?

I would hazard a guess that “most” scientists and visionaries keep this in mind as they think through possible solutions.   However, even in the most innocent situations, the intended use of a technology can be bastardized to create harm.

It would be too idealistic to expect that all technological advances are good, but that’s not necessarily the case.

The best solution that I can think of is to always remain a skeptic – to say to one’s self “gee, that’s a really interesting technology, but what happens IF…?”

Perhaps the problem is that we all have our own motivations – our own agendas.  

It was said that Thomas Edison grew his company for one reason and one reason only – to raise capital so that they can invent more technologies, to raise more capital to invent more technologies.  

Sadly, that type of a technological philosophy is not always the case.  Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with a company creating new technologies to increase the return on investment for investors or to create profits for whatever reason, but can we at least not pretend that at the very least that there’s a fundamental common good that we’re aiming for?

If we’re going to find uses for sticks, then at least let’s try to find more good uses for it than bad ones.

OtherInBox and Yahoo and Me!

I posted about this groovy add-in to my Yahoo inbox last year.  It continues to be a marvelous tool to sort and organize my inbox. 

Certainly, the same type of functionality can be mimicked with filters in Yahoo, but I find filters to be a bit limiting, and I like the fact that I can "train" OtherInbox to send similar types of emails from different sources to the same folder. 

Where I find this especially useful lately is really using my Yahoo inbox as a virtual filing cabinet.  I have many OtherInBox folders setup and when I find a particular article of interest on the web, I'll email the article to myself from within the web page.  Where the website in question allows, I'll add a little blurb in the subject line so that it's a bit easier to navigate and sift through the myriad of emails in one OIB (Other Inbox) folder.

Nice work, guys!  I'm a big OIB fan and will continue to looks for ways of managing my email better and sharing tips along the way.

Hard Disk Fragmentation

You might have noticed that it takes your computer longer to launch programs or load your files? One of the reasons for this is because of something called fragmentation.

The user of the computer would never notice, but your hard disk is actually logically divided into small chunks called sectors. During the life span of your hard disk, you will have added files, removed them and made changes. When you are installing a new program, the computer will need to determine where it should be located. It will look for a group of sectors that are free and will start installing the program (or saving the data file) in the first sector. As that sector is filled up, the computer will then look for the next available sector. Once it has determined the best second sector to use, it sets a pointer at the end of the first sector which indicates the physical location on the hard disk where the second sector is located. Large programs can take up many sectors with the first pointing to the second which points to the third, and so on.

When you have a new computer, the computer is able to find large numbers of sectors in the same physical region and as a result, the program will be installed in sectors that have a close proximity. The problem arises as your hard disk fills up. If it needs to find a second sector and there’s not one near the first then it will look for the next available sector which might be on the exact opposite end of the hard disk. Thus, in this scenario, you could have one program file where the sectors are scattered throughout the hard disk. Although the computer keeps track of this seamlessly, the reality is that the sensor that reads the hard disk needs time to move back and forth and the hard disk spins like a record player (cd player?) to bring the right physical location to the read/write head. When the file is split up like this, this is known as fragmentation.

To combat performance slowdown caused by fragmentation, Microsoft Windows includes a utility which can be located by clicking on the start button and then selecting Accessories followed by System Tools and then System Defragmenter. You can think of this utility as a “spring cleaning” tool for your hard disk. Once you run it, the utility will go through and temporarily move sectors to empty areas and then organize the sectors that belong together sequentially. When you first run the System Defragmenter, it will do an analysis of your hard disk to determine how much your hard disk is defragmented. 

 
This process is safe to run, and there should never be any data loss, but of course, we all backup our hard disks on a regular basis in case of emergency. Right? :)

The defragmenter can also be setup to automatically defragment on a schedule that you define. How often you should defragment depends very much on how often you install or change files, how quick your hard disk and how big it is, but probably a monthly defragmentation would be sufficient. If you run the utility and see that it appears to be fragmented past 25%, then you can always just run it manually or adjust your schedule so that it’s defragmented weekly.