Category: Tech

Dual Monitors with a Notebook

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I use dual monitors in my home office and have done so for years. It makes creating and editing documents much easier. Basically you have 2 side by side monitors, each having its own program(s) open. For example, I often have Word or my internet browser open on one monitor and another document in Word or my email program open on the other one. If you move the mouse over, it seamlessly moves from one monitor to the other and back.

Almost all desktops have the ability and connections to use two monitors, but notebooks are a different story. Obviously, no one wants to lug around an extra monitor to use on the road, but when you’re in the office it would be great to have dual monitor capability. Yes, you can connect one external monitor to the notebook and use it along with the notebook’s built-in monitor, but size differences and placement issues make this option less than ideal (because ideally you want the monitors to be the same size and to sit directly beside each other). Now there’s a way to use 2 external monitors with a notebook- the Matrix DualHead2Go. The suggested retail price is only $169.

An early review of the unit is pretty positive.

I will probably buy one of these for my downtown office, where I use a laptop, in order to get the dual monitor benefits I currenly enjoy at home

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Thinkpad Tablet: King of the Road

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I took my new Thinkpad X41 Tablet PC on the road for the first time this week. I went to San Francisco to give a speech. Here’s the report.

To begin with, packing and carrying the computer around is a breeze. It is small and light. It fits nicely into my medium size computer case with room left over to safely pack my digital camera. Working on the plane is easy and comfortable. In fact I’m typing this paragraph from a 737 while listening to an album by Gerald Collier.

The typing part is what really sets the Thinkpad apart from my prior traveling computer, the Fuijitsu Stylistic. That was a dandy computer, but the lack of a keyboard really limited my ability to get things done on the road. Of course most planes, including this one (even though I used some miles to upgrade to first class), don’t have internet access yet, so I’m still pretty limited.

The music via my Panasonic headphones is excellent. My battery life says I have 3.5 hours left, which means I’ll get all the way to San Francisco before I have to use the spare battery I brought along.

Unlike my last trip to San Francisco (when I stayed at the Fairmont and was able to connect to the wireless network of the apartment across the street), I was unable to find a reliable free wireless network from the Palace Hotel. There were a ton of networks nearby but they were either secured or too far away to give me a reliable connection. So I bought a day of access from the hotel for $16 (it’s ludicrous that hotels charge for this) and set up my Linksys WTR54GS. Within minutes I had a (somewhat) fast and reliable wireless network.

The Thinkpad was a pleasure to use, both in laptop mode and in tablet mode. My only complaint is the the stupid caps lock buttom is right above the shift key and I kept pressing it unintentionally until I disabled it.

On my return I was surprised to see that there is no free wireless network at trhe San Francisco airport. T-Mobile has the exclusive rights there it seems. Unfortubately T-Mobile’s interface is unfriendly and unusable. Even though I have an account with T-Mobile, I couldn’t access it. Even when I tried to buy a day pass for $10 I couldn’t get pass the credit card screen. I kept getting error messages saying that I had failed to fill in all the blanks, even though I had. I gave up in frustration. Wireless access from the road continues to be too hard and too expensive.

In sum, the Thinkpad rocks. A DVD drive would be nice, but would add to the size and weight. I didn’t try Movielink for a movie to watch on the plane, but I probably will give it a try next time. If that service works decently, it will nullify the main reason I miss a DVD drive- on flight movies.

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Blogs + Lawsuits = Less Spyware

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Here’s the wrap up on the Song BMG spyware story. Recall that I and many others have posted about hidden and unwanted copy protection software that some Sony music CDs install on your computer if you play the CD on your computer. This software can render your computer’s CD drive useless and is a potential security risk that could allow virus makers to access your computer.

Since I last posted on this topic, a couple of things have happened. First, some lawsuits were filed. These lawsuits added the prospect of economic pain to the immense public relations pain Sony was already self-inflicting on itself. It is my personal opinion (shared by Adrian Kinglsey-Hughes) that most of these lawyers who run around filing class action suits are doing it for only one reason- to pad their pockets with money while the alleged victims each get a coupon for 5% off their next purchase. But once every hundred years or so maybe a class action lawsuit results in some positive change. Maybe this was one of those times.

In addition, some trojans (the software kind, not the condom or USC kind) were discovered that exploit the Sony hidden software. So the argument that this hidden and unwanted software is harmless went out the window.

And most importantly, Sony announced yesterday that it would suspend manufacturing copy protected CDs and re-examine its copy protection strategy. Perhaps getting blasted by The Department of Homeland Security helped move Sony off the dime.

It’s a positive sign that bad publicity generated largely by blogs can actually result in positive change. Hopefully Sony will learn from this mistake and not resume making copy protected CDs or allow itself to get lead down some other improper path.

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Poll Validation

validatedSince the day I started blogging about technology for grown-ups I have said over and over that if you want people to embrace technology, you have to make it easy for them.

Now the Wall Street Journal has published the results of a poll (no link because the WSJ site is, in true dinosaur smoking-a-cigarette hail to the Farside fashion, a pay site) which shows that when adults buy technology the most important thing they look for is:

61% – Ease of use
58% – Customer service
57% – No-hassle installation

And when you think about it, those are three ways of saying the same thing. It has to be easy to install, easy to use and easy to get help for when you need it.

If you want a niche product that geeks will love (think Linux), it can be as hard to install and use as, say, Linux. But if you want a lot of people to use a product and keep using it (read buy upgrades), it needs to be easy. Easy’s the main thing.

A lot of hardware and software makers still don’t get it.

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TIVO Deathwatch: Throwing Ropes

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When you’re sinking, if you’re still conscious you start throwing ropes and hope someone grabs the other end. TIVO seems to be throwing them all over.

PVRblog reports that TIVO and Yahoo may be about to announce a deal that will embed “record to TIVO” buttons in the Yahoo TV section and add some sort of Yahoo weather and traffic feature to TIVO.

Also, Real Tech News has an article quoting some guy at the Motley Fool (an investing site that I do not like) about how Google should buy TIVO.

A bidding war between Yahoo and Google- now that might just the what the doctor ordered to save TIVO.

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Project Flickr: Final Update

Back in the summer, I decided to try to drag my friends and family into the 21st century by sending them invitations to join Flickr and share photos. Here’s the first part of the story.

Since then two things have happened. One, Flickr has gotten even better by adding lots of new features, including the ability to print photo albums and posters and the ability to order prints. Two, not one of my test subjects is using Flickr in any meaningful way. Neither my sister nor any of my cousins signed up and those friends who initially signed up either never uploaded a single photo or lost interest shortly after uploading a photo or two.

This could mean a couple of things. My friends and family could think I’m a honking nerd and decide that they’d rather dig ditches than join me in some sort of nerdathon photo-style. This is certainly possible, but most of these folks have enough other reasons (read relatives) to share photos that they could put Flickr to good use completely apart from me and my little experiment.

I think the answer is simple. A lot of people, particularly those my age and older, simply aren’t sold on the computer/internet as a time saving device. Either they think it’s too hard, or too dangerous or too time consuming. It’s not very hard. Flickr is very safe (since you can select who can see and print your photos). And it takes much less time to upload a photo for grandma than it does to drive to Walgreen’s drop off your film, go back and pick it up and then mail off the prints. True, grandma may not have a computer, but aunt and uncle probably do. So while Flickr may not be a complete substitute for all traditional prints (though it is for me), it can certainly be a substitute for some of them.

But it’s unfamiliar. Everyone understands how to drop off film. Most people understand how to email a digital photo. The new and different isn’t going to be universally accepted until it becomes familiar, the way it will seem to our kids who are growing up in the digital age.

All of this leads me to a couple of conclusions. First, my little experiment was probably doomed from the start. Second, and more importantly, all of these web services like Flickr, the various blogging platforms, My Space, iTunes and others still have tremendous, almost immeasurable, growth potential as the digital generation grows up. I will keep this in mind as I review and adjust my stock and mutual fund portfolio over the coming months. I’m not going to buy Google at a jillion dollars a share, but I’m starting to understand why it went that high.

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Rethinking Firefox

firefoxI’ve said a few times that I wasn’t all that impressed with Firefox. That was true at the time and it’s mostly true now. But here’s a confession: I’ve been using Firefox as my primary browser for the past few months.

It comes down to two things: tabbed browsing and, more importantly, the many extensions (a nerd word for add-ons) that are available for Firefox.

I have done the following to my initial installation of Firefox:

1) Added the Google Toolbar. Some Firefox purists argue that Google is “bad like Microsoft” and you don’t need the Google Toolbar. That’s hogwash. The Google Toolbar is a great add-on to any browser.

2) Performed the speed tweaks outlined here. Some comment that some or all of them are unnecessary, but things seem to go faster after the tweak. It may be the placebo effect, but it feels good.

3) Added the Bugmenot extension. I hate having to register to read free sites, with this add-on I don’t have to.

4) Added the extension that makes Blogger (the front-end I use to create, but not host, this site) always use the current date. Otherwise it uses the date and time a post was initially created and I often save posts as drafts for days or even weeks before I post them. This add-on saves me a lot of headaches.

5) Added the Onfolio Firefox extension. This allows me to use my beloved Onfolio in Firefox.

There are hundreds of other extensions, but these are the ones that I use everyday. Once Internet Explorer adds tabbed browsing (scheduled to be included in the upcoming new version), I always figured I’d switch back to it. But with all of these extra features to choose from I may not.

Who’d of thunk it?

Two cautionary notes:

a) It takes a little work to get the hang of finding and installing these extensions, but once you do it once you can do it again and it’s very worth it.

b) I just installed the newest version of Firefox (RC 1.5) and that broke all of my extensions. Some of them are available for this new version. Others, like the Onfolio one, don’t yet work in this version. Google Toolbar says is does, but it doesn’t. I suspect this will all get fixed before too long.

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Blog Wars, Round 2

catboxingI posted the other day about Jason Calacanis’ allegations that Creative-Weblogging has duplicateed Weblogs look and feel. I suggested this would make for interesting reading in the days ahead.

Torsten Jacobi of Creative-Weblogging has responded with some allegations of his own, including that Weblogs has copied other sites in the past.

While this is fun to watch in and of itself, the more important issue is the effect this argument and others like it will have on internet customs and practices- meaning what’s OK and what’s not OK in the cyber-frontier. Not just what’s OK legally (the lawyers will sort all of that out), but what is considred acceptable and not acceptable by the blogging community as we try to police ourselves so Congress and the lawyers won’t have to do it for us.

I don’t know the answer, but it’s an important question.

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Friday’s Link: License Plates of the World

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Tonight’s link is License Plates of the World. Yes, they have pictures of license plates from all over, and that is pretty cool. What I enjoy more is looking at pictures of license plates from the various states for virtually every year license plates have been made.

Here are the license plates for SC the year I was born and the rest of the 1960s

It may sound about as fun as watching paint dry (or even watching golf on TV), but it’s a fun site to explore.

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A Tale of Two Ripoffs

ripoffOne of the challenges of the internet is how to put your product out there without getting it ripped off. Yes, imitation is a form of flattery and we have all been inspired by things others have done with their blogs, web sites, etc. For example, I started my Top 50 project because I enjoyed reading similar lists from others.

And it’s OK to borrow an idea about layout or design from someone- that’s the whole basis of the creative commons movement on the web.

But sometimes this so called flattery moves beyond an inspiration or the borrowing of a layout idea. Sometimes it crosses the “know it when you see it” line from OK to definitely not OK. As a musician, I struggled with the decision about putting hundreds of fully produced song demos online. But in the end the desire to be heard trumped the desire to be safe. That’s how it is with a lot of stuff, particularly with bloggers who by nature desire to be heard.

One time I happened across another web site (this was way before Flickr) that was using a photo from Newsome.Org as its logo. I wrote a mostly friendly email and suggested that if were going to use the photo they should credit the photographer (my then brother in law). They never responded but the logo was changed. A little odd, but no big deal.

But now that some people believe you can make money with blogs (you can, but you can also make money playing basketball and the odds are better that you’ll become an NBA star than that you can live indoors based on blog money), the game has changed. Much like musicians, who start out as artists but once in a blue moon catch lightning in a bottle and descend into money management induced madness, bloggers who believe that their site is a potential money-maker have a lot of good reasons to protect their intellectual property. Stated another way, when some dude appropriates one of my graphics, so what. But if someone steals one of my songs or content from a blog that has financial prospects, that’s a horse of another color.

I read two posts today from bloggers who have seemingly been ripped off. The first, from JKOnTheRun (another Houston guy whose web site somehow won’t let me add a Trackback because while I live near Houston, my web server is in Pittsburgh), involves the use by a company he used to be associated with of a name and graphic very similar to his blog. The second one by Jason Calacanis seems to be a concerted effort by someone to duplicate Weblogs look and feel. Jason is quite a bit less diplomatic than JK, which should make for interesting reading in the days ahead.

I don’t know where the legal line falls when it comes to this sort of thing, but this is a problem that isn’t going to go away. To the contrary, add the prospect of making money and it will become a free-for-all out there.

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