RHFtech Help Desk (and more)

I received the following email from the Google Apps team:

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
The Google Apps team

The Lifehacker survey results, as of now:

The total cost of a usable version will likely exceed $1,000

The Apple iPad is more sizzle than steak, based upon what I read and see on the Internet.

Do I want one? Yes, to play with for a few hours.

Do I want to own one? Probably not.

Should you buy one? Not yet. Not this year. Wait for the 3rd generation before buying one of these. It will likely have big improvements and hardware additions, like a camera, over the announced first generation models.

The cost of ownership is much higher than it seems. The total cost of a usable version will likely exceed $1,000, and probably $2,000 with the cost of a data plan. The $499 model has only 16GB of memory, which is insufficient in today’s media file and data intensive world. The 64GB model is $699 but you want the Wi-Fi + 3G model, which costs $829. A data plan from AT&T Wireless is extra. AppleCare prices were not announced. I expect the extended warranty to run at least $200. You need to buy a case. You need extra charging cables and perhaps an external battery, which cost $80-$100 for the iPhone. You may want one of the iPad Keyboard Docks (price unknown).

The apps we will want are not yet written and app pricing is unknown.

The bezel, the black area around the screen, is huge and makes the device look clunky to my eye.

The lack of a built-in stand or a camera makes this thing seem half-baked.

Based upon my experience with other battery-powered devices, the touted 10 hour battery life is probably over-stated. The question is, "By how much?" Book readers like the Kindle can go 2 weeks or more on a single charge. The battery life at 10 hours max, means we will be charging iPads all the time. Also, battery life for all devices declines over time. Since the iPad battery is hard to replace, Apple intends these devices to be disposable.

Why do we want this? What does it add to our technological life that is not as well or better served by other devices?

Caution is advised. Let someone else be the beta tester for Apple.

Oh dear I received the following message from Apple.

I won’t be renewing. MobileMe is not worth $10 per year, much less $100. IMO, Apple’s cloud efforts are many years behind the cloud leaders Google and Amazon. They also trail Microsoft by several years. Microsoft is doing a good job of catching up to Google but still has a long way to go.

Click image above to watch video

It is ironic that I am writing about the decline and fall of the written word. The written word had a great run, starting perhaps as many as 6,000 years ago with Sumerian cuneiform. Writing has to compete today with more compelling and natural forms of human communication—audio and video—often served on the Internet.

Many people bemoan the decline of printed material. They equate the rise of the Internet, and inexpensive-to-produce video and audio, coming at the detriment of printed words, as a decline in civilization. You may be someone who holds this opinion.

It is easy to understand the sense of loss and disconnectedness caused by this technological shift. At its core, this attitude is elitist and reminiscent of the Luddites. This attitude ignores the democratic nature of the shift from printed to electronic communication. Time is limited. We elect to use our time in the way that makes the most sense to ourselves. Most people prefer to watch TV, listen to music, audio books or podcasts, or surf the Internet over reading a book, newspaper or magazine.

Writing and the written word is not natural. We must be schooled to read and write. It was the best disciplined, efficient way to communicate or archive information when alternatives were word-of-mouth, painting or smoke signals. The use of the written word exploded over the course of civilization because of this. Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of movable type printing accelerated the use of the printed word in Western culture and eventually worldwide. Public schooling further accelerated this trend.

Public schools, grades K-12, are conservative by nature. They are slow to change. They revel in the written word having had centuries to perfect their skills in teaching and assessing its use. Our teachers are written word experts. They are rarely expert in the creation and use of video and audio. Our children learn this from each other, from Hollywood, YouTube and other sites on the Internet. They have eclipsed the education system in their understanding and use of these newer technologies.

I find that listening to a well-narrated audio book trumps the written word. The narrator, often a professionally trained actor, brings the author’s words to life. The narrators often employ different voices for different characters. Non-fiction is also enhanced by having it spoken versus reading it yourself. Tables, charts and images are the only-missing piece.

I view audio and video is to the written word as oil painting is to drawing with pencil. These activities require training and discipline. The author, artist or director has to tell a story, communicate what is on their mind. The better the story telling, the more likely the audience will appreciate the effort. Mastering oil painting is more difficult than drawing. The painter often begins with a sketch but adds color, stroke, technique and dimension, as well as form and perspective. The same is true of audio and video. One begins with a script and then fills in the detail and enhances that script. Creating a good video requires many more skills than writing the script.

While schools may be slow to adopt technology many librarians understand and are changing. Librarians are evolving their missions from being keepers and lenders of printed material. Our local libraries, Westport and Wilton, Connecticut spring to mind, have become public facilities for all types of human communication. They have public computer terminals, lend audio books and videos, and host movies and seminars. They make online audio book borrowing available via the services of the Online Computer Library Center. If libraries are moving beyond the printed word, shouldn’t we all?

The Windows 7 Calculator looks meek and unassuming when first opened. But it has some super abilities hidden behind its Clark Kent surface.

A quick trip to the View menu shows that can be changed into a scientific, programming, or statistical calculator.  “Okay.” You say. “That is not so exciting.”

But it does more. It also converts units. Need to convert temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius or vice versa? How about feet to meters or liters to gallons (UK or US)? This calculator has you covered. There are lots of other preprogrammed conversion units.

But wait it does more. It also has some built-in worksheets that you might want to use. Need a mortgage calculation? It can calculate the highest purchase price you can afford, the down payment required, the monthly payment or the mortgage term in years. There is a worksheet for vehicle leases, and another calculator for fuel efficiency in either mpg (US) or L/100 km (everywhere else).

Oh yeah, there’s still more. It does date conversions too!

It does not slice or dice, and I did not see a 50 year guarantee. Maybe in Windows 8?

Yesterday I installed a Logitech Squeezebox Boom for a client. He purchased it on a friend’s recommendation. The unit retails for $299.99. Logitech describes it as a, “…compact all-in-one Wi-Fi music player that combines award-winning Squeezebox functionality with an integrated amplifier and speakers to deliver crystal clear sound—in any room in your home.”  

My client was unable to set it up on his own. The device requires a network connection, wired or wireless, and registering for an account with Logitech at mysqueezebox.com. You then configure various streaming Internet services and finally you listen. So I first set up a wireless network. It took me a few minutes to install and configure the newly purchased Linksys wireless router.

I next configured the Squeezebox to connect to the Wi-Fi’s encrypted SSID. I also installed a “server” application on the iMac that was supposed to connect the iTunes music collection to the Squeezebox. I had to configure the iMac server IP address on the Squeezebox. This step is likely to confuse many home users. We did not successfully access the iMac’s music. This was of no consequence as he had only two music files in iTunes.

We next subscribed to some “apps” at mysqueezebox.com that are installed on the Squeezebox. We installed Pandora and hooked to my client’s Pandora account without issue. I also installed the Shoutcast app to provide the client with a large choice of Internet audio streams.

The Squeezebox works. Once configured it can be controlled and programmed from the on-device controls, the small remote control or via a web application from any computer. It is easy to add a stream you like to your favorites and then to find and play it later. The sound quality is good and the choice of audio streams is large.

I prefer and recommend Sonos systems over the Squeezebox. Sonos is more elegant, simpler to control and more flexible in whole house audio configuration. Sonos is also more expensive. It you cannot afford a Sonos system then the Squeezebox may be what you are looking for.

Why is Avatar one of the highest grossing movie of all time? I believe the use of high quality 3D special effects is the answer, not because of a compelling story and great acting. I don’t know firsthand because the Bow Tie Cinemas projector malfunctioned when I went to see it over the holidays. I got a refund instead of seeing the movie. [Update: Finally saw Avatar. Story is a rework of Custer's last stand with environmental consciousness overlaid.  3D is ho-hum. CGI fantastic!]

Movie theaters have long been a test bed for new technology. Wide screen video first graced movie theaters in the late 1920s, but fell into disuse in the depression. It was revived in the early 1950s to compete with TV. 3D was introduced about the same time. I remember watching a 3D horror film in the 1950s. I wore cardboard glasses with one red-tinted lens and the other green-tinted. The movie was awful. The 3D effect was not good. 3D movies disappeared shortly afterwards. Hollywood recently revived 3D, using newer technologies to provide people with a reason to go out to the movies. If you have a good home theater, why pay $10 or more to go the movies?

Sound systems in most movie theaters are far superior to home setups. Theaters have many high quality speakers. The surround system is tuned for the theater. Surround sound premiered in theaters and has slowly made its way into home setups. Stereo systems gave way to 5.1 systems. Some consumer electronics manufacturers have pushed 7.1 or 7.2 systems to sell more speakers and related equipment. But there is no 7.1 standard.

Most home setups are acoustic nightmares. The rooms are asymmetric with windows on one or more sides. The room may not have four walls and may be opened on one or two sides. Often the seating area is not centered in the space. The surround speakers are hard to wire because they need to be placed at seated ear level on the sides of the seating area. Running these speaker wires is difficult. Wireless speakers exist. They have issues and are not really wireless. They need to plug into nearby A/C power outlets.

Tuning a surround system used to be a time-consuming chore, requiring experts with special equipment. Fortunately, that is no longer the case, most new audio/video receivers come with an inexpensive microphone and built-in hardware that lets you tune the surround system in 10 minutes, without needing an expert. Audyssey is the company that makes that possible.

Tomlinson Holman is the chief scientist at Audyssey. He is also a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His name may be unfamiliar. He is the “TH” of THX. He was the first to refer to surround sound as “5.1″ because “5.055″ didn’t have marketing appeal. (The “0.1″ is for the low frequencies played on the sub-woofer.) He thinks the next step in audio is to 10.2 surround sound.

The 10.2 system adds two more front speakers, to the right of right and left of left. The system adds a rear center speaker. Two front speakers, near the ceiling, sit left and right, high above the plane of the others. The left sub-woofer serves low frequency sounds for the left side speakers and the right does the same for the right side. The high speakers allow a movie to produce the effect of sound moving up or down. Imagine the effect of a space shuttle launch with those speakers in place.

Wiring one of these setups would be worse than 5.1. The back of a receiver is cramped now with 6 sets of wires. But tuning this would be simple with new Audyssey chips. And once we get holographic image displays like in Star Wars… we will be entertained.

On New Year’s eve I mistakenly uninstalled WordPress from this blog thinking I was working on WHIT.tv, the What’s Happening In… Telecasts, another site I own and manage. I wanted to change the WHIT.tv WordPress installation from the single user version to WordPress MU (multi-user) since WHIT.tv will host a series of Internet video shows, with multiple contributors. The first three shows will be What’s Happening in Fashion, What’s Happening in Gardening, and What’s Happening in Rolling Sculpture. I am working on launching the website and the shows.

How did this happen?
I pay GoDaddy to host both sites. They have great service, good prices and reliable hosting. They also have one of the most confused and confusing websites in existence. I went to their website, logged in and clicked on hosting under the My Products section of the home page.

This is what I saw:
I clicked on the second Manage Account link, the one for WHIT.tv. I was then taken to the Hosting Control Center v2.10.0 Home page, where I clicked on the Your Applications button. I navigated to My Applications – WordPress (installed), and clicked on the link to uninstall the application, thinking I was on WHIT.tv and only WHIT.tv, since the initial link I clicked on was to manage the WHIT.tv account. I was mistaken. I was on both sites and I had clicked on the wrong link, unknowingly uninstalling WordPress from RHFtech.com and not WHIT.tv.

I called GoDaddy and told them I had just deleted several years worth of work and that I needed them to restore the site. They said they could do that for $150. I gave them my credit card number and authorized them to restore my site, figuring I would save several hours worth of headaches in trying to restore my site myself from my backups.

GoDaddy tried and failed. After a week’s worth of attempts I asked for a refund, which is under review at GoDaddy. [Update: GoDaddy refunded my money.]

This morning I searched for how to restore from a backup. Yes, I have many backups as I am pretty good about that. First, I had to install the phpMyAdmin plugin into the WordPress installation. That took a minute. I then followed the instructions at WordPress.org Restoring Your Database from Backup. It took me a couple of minutes to follow those instructions.

And now this blog is back to the way it was before the New Year’s eve massacre. I am thankful that I backup regularly. I am thankful that my Google search found Restoring Your Database from Backup. I wonder, why couldn’t GoDaddy do this?