Enough Already

If I get one more ad touting Cyber Monday I am going to stop shopping all together.

It was not enough that we had to suffer through all the Black Friday run up, with the faux sales and the pretend reasons to shop, but this whole Cyber Monday crap is getting a bit much. Everybody, from the ARRL to GCN is trying to create fake hype around a fake day. Today is Monday. In less than 20 days, it will be Christmas. The only think I can say is, if you have not made your yearly sales by now, that is not my problem, but if you keep bombarding me with more fake hype, you will find that I will find somewhere else to shop.

Should we just get rid of Daylight Savings Time?

On my drive to work this morning, I was marvelling at the sun glinting off of the top of one of the many glass buildings that line the road and I realized that the sun was coming up later and later every morning. This morning it was 7:30 before it showed its head. It was then that I realized we were still on Daylight Savings Time.

While a number of people will claim credit for coming up with the idea, I find it interesting that the current version of DST was introduced as a way to save energy by keeping it lighter later. Of course the counter argument was that children will be going to school in the dark, but that did not seem to deter the lawmakers who decided that DST, at least in the US and Canada would run from March to November. Reports analysing the impact seem inconclusive on the savings, which begs the question: If we are going to spend all but four months under DST, why not just make it the de facto standard time? Or go back to the way it was?

Time is a purely man-made concept. Yet we are all slaves to it in some way or another and daylight savings time is one of those concepts that indicates we might actually have gotten it wrong. We have, over time, been increasing the amount of time we spend seasonally adjusted forward an hour to the point that we are spending more time an hour forward than we are spending in our designated time zone. So why not just move forward the hour?

I know it would cause all kinds of havoc, especially with our heavy reliance on computers and those digital time stamps that determine everything from financial transactions to when the building doors open. But what most people do not realize is that computers don't actually use a clock, at least not like we understand it. It is all done by programming magic. So the computer would not care, as long as the underlying code that translates the epoch number to time is working correctly. And we actually know how to do that. Mostly.

So in these waning days of daylight savings time, enjoy the ability to see the sunrise while you are having your morning coffee, and drive safely.

Social Gaming Takes Another Step

Target will be the first retailer to sell Facebook Credits in its stores come Sunday. The Facebook Credits gift cards will be available in $15, $25 and $50 denominations at all 1,750 Target locations and at Target.com. (Mashable)

When I read this yesterday, my first question was why? The answer I received was "what do you mean, why? huge revenue potential. huge. holiday gift cards are big business. social gaming is big business." This caused me to pause a moment. And that moment lasted more than a moment.

Maybe it is because I come from a different generation. I grew up playing sports, on teams and as an individual, against other people, in real time on a field of grass, outside under a blue sky. Hey, we used to sweat on each other sometimes. Or, as a competitive swimmer, I would compete against them in a pool. To borrow a phrase, we could see the whites of their eyes. I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons. Laugh all you want about geeks in a basement, but these geeks were socializing, using their brains. Sure it was not always as physical as when we were banging heads on the football field, but we were socializing, face-to-face. Even today, with all of the various on-line poker games that are available to me, I would much rather sit down at a table of complete strangers and play a few hands than stare for hours (OK, minutes) at a video screen.

I have a number of friends. Some I only know through the Internet and I have been on it a long time. And I can assure you that knowing someone on-line leaves a lot to be desired. You really do not know them. You do not know what they sound like, how they react, who they are. I have been fortunate enough to meet a number of them face-to-face and get to really know them better. I wish I had the opportunity to do that will all of my on-line friends, but because of cost, distance or other reasons, I know that I will not get to meet them all.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Social Media, or more correctly, my increasing disillusionment with it, especially Facebook. I am more convinced than ever that closing my Facebook account was exactly the right thing to do. Target's decision to sell credit gift cards convinces me even more. I played Farmville, for all of about 10 minutes and all it did was convince me that I really should reinstall SimCity on my system.

I see two dangers with these cards. The first is people converting money into...I do not even know what to call it other than air (flushing it down the drain would be what our parents would say) without even the tangible benefit of something to show for it, just so they can purchase a virtual sledgehammer, or pig, or what have you. In Las Vegas, they convert your money into tokens (chips) because of the physiological impact losing real dollars at the tables tends to reduce the actually betting. But at the end of the day, if you win, you have the option of reconverting these tokens into dollars and taking your winnings home with you. Does Facebook intend to do the same thing?

The second thing that concerns me is that there are a number of people, so addicted to these games, that they will go out and spend the money on these gift cards. And more money. And more money. And in the end you have accomplished what? You have what to show for it?

In Las Vegas (and other places) it is called gambling and there are very tight rules and regulations, imposed by the State and Federal Government on what you can and cannot do. What do we call these social games? I mean other than a money making engine for Facebook. If this does not concern you, it should. And like me, you should be asking more than just why?

Waiting for Godot, IT Edition

ESTRAGON
(Entering with a list of PC names)

I need to know the IP address of this machine.

VLADIMIR
(Looking at the name)

It is assigned by DHCP.

ESTRAGON

So what is it?

VLADIMIR

I don't know, it is going to be 10.222.9. something.

ESTRAGON

But they need to know today what the IP address is, exactly.

VLADIMIR

(Exasperated, turning to his PC and opening the DHCP manager tool. After a few minutes, looks at Estragon)

It isn't listed. Is it turned on?

ESTRAGON

I don't know, it is a laptop, it isn't here. What is its IP address

VLADIMIR

(Sighing)

It is not certain.

ESTRAGON

But they have to know today.

VLADIMIR

(Turning back to his work)

Then ask Godot, he'll know.

(Close curtain)

With apologies to Beckett and real IT professionals everywhere.

The Beginning Of The End Of Air Travel?

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - An attempted terrorist attack on a Christmas Day flight began with a pop and a puff of smoke - sending passengers scrambling to tackle a Nigerian man who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to blow up the airliner, officials and travelers said. (WTOP)

Before we start bashing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which you know I have very little trouble doing, we need to look at some facts:

1) The flight originated in Amsterdam. That is in Europe for the average, geographically challenged American, and they follow a different security regime than the TSA follows here in the United States. I would normally have said it is more stringent and in reality it probably is.

2) This nut job carried an explosive in a small quantity through a checkpoint. In actuality he could probably have carried it through a US checkpoint just as easily as they screen for metal and large concentrations of explosives, which does not sound like what he was carrying

3) It does not take even the most inventive mind to circumvent the security procedures. It is pointless to point out how silly the 3oz rule is and how easy it is to circumvent if you really want to. Similarly, it is easy, if you are willing to go down with the aircraft, to bring down an airplane with the basic tools on board. Again, I do not need to go into details - any good search of the web and a couple of episodes of Mythbusters can tell you all you need to know.

Now, if we follow the bouncing ball, I am afraid it goes to some pretty ugly places. To start with, if you are flying to anywhere over the next 48-72 hours, I would tell you to expect worse security procedures than you have seen since they banned liquids at the checkpoints. If you normally allow two hours for security, you might want to make that four hours. And if you are traveling with inexperienced travelers, might I suggest the train?

What is more depressing about this breach, is not that it happened. TSA has been dinged for security breaches almost weekly it would seem by the GAO and the Congress and their own Inspector General, but that it happened on a plane, coming into the United States and it made the press, so now not only does TSA have to do something about it in the way of making sure it never happens again, but so does every other security agency in the Western world. And what do you think they are going to do to prevent this sort of thing from happening again?

If past history is any indication, it cannot be anything that the traveling public will consider positive.

- Following September 11, 2001, the Federal Government decided that the minimum wage, minimally screened private security screeners at the Nation's airports were not doing a good enough job, so they were replaced with a brand new bureaucracy of minimum wage, minimally screened federal employees. Forget for the moment that the hijackers were, up until the moment of the actual attack not violating any provisions of the security checkpoints. Forget for the moment that in the late 1980s it had been recommended by the NTSB and the FAA that all cockpits be locked from take-off until landing and the recommendations where never implemented. But hey, it improved security so it must be a good thing!

- For Reed, the shoe bomber they took away our shoes. Now we have to remove them and send them through the x-ray machine. Not a real problem if you are in good shape and wear slip-ons when you travel (and frankly, can you afford not to be spry and wear slip-ons to travel anymore?). If you are slightly infirm, the process of getting out of your shoes and back into them can cause backups. But hey, it improved security so it must be a good thing!

- For the liquid bombers, in the UK they actually went so far as to ban carry-on baggage for a short period of time, but the end result was that you could no longer carry liquid of more than three ounces per bottle per gallon bag through the check point. Of course, this also resulted in higher food prices behind security for the vendors and the now irreversible checked bag fee that you could go so far as to claim is sexist because most men can travel with a tube of toothpaste and some shaving cream and call it done while most women cannot travel with less than three ounces of anything, and since most premium manufactures have not made travel sized bottles, women are kind of in a bind. But hey, it improved security so it must be a good thing!

- Lately, they have introduced back-scatter x-ray technology at some airports. These are the x-ray machines that essentially render you naked for a group of observers in a back room somewhere and verify that you are not carrying some sort of unknown powder strapped to your leg. Of course, these devices have a number of people upset, especially those who are concerned about their modesty, among other things, and those that are wondering, with good reason what happens to the images afterwords. While TSA assures us they are not going to keep them, anyone who believes this should read up on what the State Department is currently doing with those who snooped on passport applications of celebrities and other famous people. How much for a back scatter picture of Angelina Jolie? But hey, it improves security so it must be a good thing!

So where do we go from here? Assuming the US federal government can find a couple of billion dollars, and the companies that make back scatter machines can churn them out fast enough, that is a very good question. But here are some scenarios.

Ban it all: This is perhaps the most extreme form of response, but I am not discounting that it is being discussed at some levels. This is the Aeroflot model if you will. All passengers will be prohibited from taking anything on board the aircraft, including but not limited to personal clothing. You will be forced to strip down to bare skin, put on some sort of modesty covering and proceed to the waiting airplane. You will be allowed, in fact, enforced, to carry your identification with you, but everything else, wallet, jewelery, pants, hats, and shoes will go via some other mode. Do not expect to receive them at the end of your journey. And do not expect the airlines to start feeding you again either.

Ban Carry On: It is more likely that you will be forced to undergo some form of invasive examination, like a backscatter with a follow up cavity search, but you will be allowed to wear your own clothes onto the plane. You will not be permitted any carry on however. While this is a likely scenario, it is also the death knell of the airline business. The majority of money made by airlines is in business travel, and business travelers, not permitted to take laptops and roller bags will not travel. And let's face it, there are things I would not entrust to the goons who load the planes either and would only take by carry on. If that privilege was taken away, I would be looking for other ways to travel, or I just would not do it. Imagine what would happen to places like Hawaii who rely on the airplane for their tourists? Or Alaska?

Tighter Screening: I cannot imagine how much tighter the screening can get. Really. It is about as impersonal as it can get. It has become so arduous to travel by air that I refuse to do it unless I am being paid to. It is not worth the pain and suffering, the constant waiting and the scoping as if I were a criminal and the person searching me was the good guy. Based on the IG reports from TSA, you would not let the screeners at most airports look after your children, much lest trust them to pick out the good guy from the bad guy.

You cannot kill an ism Terrorism is as old as man and will continue as long as there is a cause to fight for and people to fight for it. Sadly, while the world has shrunk to the point that data can circumnavigate the globe in a matter of seconds, it will be decades, if ever, before the human population is able to travel freely from point to point like they used to. And that is the sad result.

UPDATE: I had forgotten about the stay in your seat rule, since it was only enacted when flying in or out of National Airport here in DC, but even then it was thirty minutes on either end...not an hour.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some airlines are telling passengers that new security regulations prohibit them from leaving their seats beginning an hour before landing.(AP)

TORONTO — New restrictions on U.S.-bound flights are causing "very significant" delays and headaches for travelers at Canada's busiest airport Sunday...Among the stricter regulations are passengers are to have nothing on the lap and no moving around the flight cabin in the final hour before landing and only one carry-on is bag allowed.CP 24

New Security Rules Could Limit In-Flight Laptop Time December 26th, 2009 | by Adam Ostrow49 Airplane WiFi might be getting more prevalent on planes, but the amount of time you’re actually allowed to use your laptop and take advantage of it might be about to take a significant hit....The TSA has not posted specific new guidelines publicly yet, writing only that they are “working closely with federal, state and local law enforcement on additional security measures, as well as our international partners on enhanced security at airports and on flights.”

However, it appears that at least one of those measures involves no personal belongings on one’s lap in the last hour of flight, as a statement on Air Canada’s website reads:

“New rules imposed by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration also limit on-board activities by customers and crew in U.S. airspace that may adversely impact on-board service. Among other things, during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.” Mashable

Let's be clear here. So far, these new rules are for those poor souls traveling into the United States from other countries. If you are coming in from Europe or the Far East, saying in your seat for the last hour of the flight, while annoying, is not that much of a hardship. You have already had your work time and the battery on your laptop is already dead. But from countries like Canada and Mexico, it will but a significant crimp in traveling. I have already heard comments from travelers with children who are rethinking their trips to American destinations. Let's face it - if you have kids under the age of 18, keeping them in their seats is a full time occupation. Keeping them in their seats and not allowing them to have anything in their lap for more than half the flight is a non-starter. And remember, keeping them in their seat means not letting them go to the bathroom. There are many in the traveling public that are over the age of 18 that cannot be held to that rule, much less newly potty trained toddlers.

The point here is this. If these rules go into effect, it will not improve safety one little bit, and will make an already arduous travel experience that more difficult, which will have people start rethinking how they spend their vacation dollars and where they spend them. Look at what the slumping economy and the fall out from the Wall Street Fat Cats did to Las Vegas. Now start looking at places like Orlando and Anaheim. Do you think Disney and Universal Studios theme parks can survive if people will not travel to visit them? And that is the sort of traffic that is easy to gauge. This will impact business travel, convention travel, which is already hurting as anyone who has been to a convention lately can tell you, and casual travel.

I can only begin to wonder how many phones are ringing this morning with the following dialogue:

"Hello, your favorite tourist destination."
"Hello, this is Bill Smith, I want to cancel my reservation for the week of the 12th."
"Certainly Mr. Smith, can we reschedule that for you?"
"No, thank you."
"Alright and why are you canceling your reservation?"
"Because I don't feel like putting up with the airline security."

If you think I am kidding, keep an eye on the attendance records for Disney World over the next few months, and listen to the deals being offered by the Chamber of Commerce in places like Washington, DC, Honolulu Hi, Los Angeles, Ca, and San Diego, Ca. I do not think it will take long to register.

Social Media, take two - Facebook has issues

IDG News Service - Facebook confirmed Monday what some users have been noticing for the past few days: Its site is having problems. (Computerworld)

I thought this made an ironic follow up to my post on September 9, 2009. You will note that this article is dated the 21st of September and that Facebook indicates they have only began experiencing the issues that caused me to throw in the towel "this morning" (the 21st.).

Clearly, this makes me wonder if the owners of Facebook are doing any site monitoring at all. The problems I have experience are identical to those that they claim are being experienced, yet have impacted me, in an escalating fashion for more than three months.

Facebook may have some "fun and important challenges" and I wish them all the best. If they want to start with basic performance before added more gee whiz factors, I would suggest that would be their best course of action.

Social Media, take one.

For me, the great social media experiment is pretty much done. Be it MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, I have decided that there is little point to them, and even less point in continuing to use them.

My latest disillusionment is with Facebook. Ever since the denial of service attack, the holes in the service have become more glaring, knocking the already fading bloom off of the rose, and leaving the rather painful thorns, in the form of clunky interfaces. What is tragic is that these interfaces exist in much more mature forms elsewhere.

Maybe it is because I spend all day fighting with poorly coded apps that I have lost patience with ajax and database errors wiping out my content.

Maybe it is because I already have a number of perfectly good email and IM interfaces and Facebook is yet one more place I have to check in an already busy day because their email and IM interfaces are closed - and pretty rickety.

Maybe it is because of the poor third party apps that tend to go stale long before I have finished using the send more, get more hook because I have spent more time resetting the security. And that is on those apps I don't abandon outright because they look like they were coded with a random text generator.

Maybe it is because, like every tool before it back to the beginning, I am getting more junk - call it spam, call it marketing - than I am getting useful updates from friends, and even some of my friends have begun direct marketing things at me...or should I say ex-friends.

Maybe it is the generally siloed nature of the data sink that seems to consume increasingly more time to sort through that vexes me.

In reality, it is, at any one time, a combination of all of these things. I have watched the general decline in posts from my circle of friends, even those I consider good friends and watched their updates move back towards more traditional methods, like email, IM, on-line photo sites and just not posting. This is not a knock against my friends, rather, I think it highlights that I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion.

So I am going to return to the old ways. I will leave my profile up, but if you really want me to know what is going on, drop me a note. My email address is there and I am on all the major IM channels.

In the meantime, I have mission-critical apps to deal with.

Put down that cell phone

July 1 in Virginia is the day when new laws take effect, and today is no different. The most significant of the new laws is the one banning texting (or emailing), including the reading of emails or texts, while driving. The law was implemented as part of a larger failed effort to ban cell phone use while driving unless accompanied by a hands free device. There are a number of these laws popping up around the county so it was not surprising that Virginia would be the latest state to try to ban this particular activity. I will not discuss the esoteric issues associated with banning cell phones. The fact that most jurisdictions do not seem to think their reckless driving provisions are enough scares me, but the generally overlooked issues of dialing, looking up phone numbers etc seems overlooked in most of these bills, beyond the issue of defining what hands-free really means.

But I have serious problems with the texting issue. Not that I am opposed to it. In fact, there are so many people doing it that driving, especially during rush hour is a real contact sport. Usually between two twits that should know better. And that is the real issue. They have banned texting, yet as I am driving along this morning (in the passenger seat) I notice people eating, a couple with both hands; reading, both novels and the newspaper, propped over their steering wheels; talking on their cell phones and numerous other things that would make you cringe. And while I have not seen anyone practicing a musical instrument, there are enough videos and pictures in the wild of this sort of activity to make me believe that it happens as well.

The other problem I have with it is that there are legitimate reasons to be looking at your cell phone while driving. These sorts of blanket bans overlook issues like directions. They have not banned looking at or fiddling with GPS devices, or maps, and yet, people have been doing this for generations. How many of us no longer print out directions to a friend’s house but simply read it off the screen? I only recently purchased a GPS unit and prior to this, relied on map books, turned open to the page I needed and sitting on the passenger seat beside me. This was less distracting that looking at a cell phone screen? When stopped at a red light?

My point here is this. Driving is a full time job. In congested traffic in most of the cities in North America, it is more than a full time job; your head needs to be constantly on a swivel and your attention on where you are going. Too many of us are not doing that at the best of times, resulting in laws that are little more that feel good provisions to give local legislators something to crow about, yet do little to reduce the actual cause – in this case, gross inattention. It would behoove these legislators to look into the causes, not texting, but poor driving skills. Increase the tests, make them harder to pass. In Europe for example, there are several countries that have more non-drivers than drivers, simply because of the strictness of the test. Ever wonder why you do not hear about horrific crashes on the Autobahn? It is because German drivers have to spend three years getting their license and they have a no nonsense attitude about traffic violations, rather than the general namby-pamby attitude here in the United States. Even my home province of Ontario is getting serious about drunk driving and dropped the limit of intoxication from 0.08 to 0.05, which sends a clear signal that if you are in anyway impaired, you will be arrested.

But today, Virginia takes a baby step towards protecting its citizenry. Now if we could just get them to put the same amount of effort into maintaining and improving the transit network as they put into this no texting law, we might actually produce safer roads.

Texas takes a hard line on upgrading to Vista

Texas state Senate bans Vista from use in government agencies: Senate provision contained in a budget bill that still requires final approval By Eric Lai

April 2, 2009 (Computerworld) The Texas state Senate yesterday gave preliminary approval to a state budget that includes a provision forbidding government agencies from upgrading to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista without written consent of the legislature.

Normally, I would have let this go by without comment, but this is one of those cases where someone has sold the Texas Senate a false bill of goods and they have bought it, hook, line and virus.

"We are not in any way, shape or form trying to pick on Microsoft, but the problems with this particular [operating] system are known nationwide," Hinojosa said

Yes, there are known problems. The first is that you must run Vista on real hardware. Unlike other versions of Microsoft's operating systems, where you could limp along at or below the minimum requirements, Vista really will not behave on even the minimum requirements, despite what Microsoft's marketing people would have you believe. Secondly, if you are not keeping your applications up to date, you might experience problems running under Vista. Further, if you are running home grown software, sloppily coded, you will find problems running it in Vista because there are a number of improvements to the security model that will break several applications. I have experienced this with slipshod and older code. I have experienced it with XP, and with Windows 98 too, so I was not surprised.

Microsoft has stopped writing code for Windows XP. It will only write critical (and that is what Microsoft considers critical) patches for things that pop up. In a recent security sweep of my organization, I discovered a number of XP machines that were not even running the most current version of Internet Explorer (IE 7, we are still working on IE 8). IE 6 has a number of well known and unpatched security holes, leading to a more sieve like experience for most users.

Of course, Texas is taking this tact because of the costs of upgrading to Vista. This is not a surprise, but Texas is going to discover what most businesses found in the late 1990s - failure to stay current, just because things work, will lead to higher costs downstream as it becomes more and more expensive to become current. And that is the real burden that the taxpayers will have to bear.

Oh look...more rules...

Maybe I have been on the Internet too long. For example, I remember when Mosaic was launched. I remember reading about this great new protocol called http and a markup language called html. Heck, I remember using Archie, Veronica, gopher, and WAIS long before anyone had even considered using the term search engine much less Google.

Back then, it was pretty simple. Email was restricted to straight ASCII text and it was assumed that your signature would be no more than four lines long and you would, out of courtesy, delete it if your message was less than that. In those days, bandwidth, what there was of it, was slow, expensive and in some cases unstable. People would gently chide you if you TALKED IN ALL CAPITALS in your email or if you made some other faux pas. Occasionally the chiding was not so gentle and more than a few of the experts would occasionally suggest your RTFM before you sent or did something stupid again.

Fast forward to today. I received, via Twitter a link to yet another etiquette maven, this one on the topic of the same twitter. You know you are in for a lecture when it starts out like this:

Look, I don’t want to tell anyone how Twitter should be used

To be fair, the author is telling you the rules under which the author will drop you from the author's august list of followers. However, given the way Twitter works, it begs the question - if the individual you are following violates your rules, why are you following them in the first place?

To me, it seems very silly to have a set of guidelines that you are going to enforce when you can simply choose not to follow the individual in the first place. I do it all the time. I have a number of people that follow my feeds that I do not in turn follow because I do not see the value in following them. It really is pretty simple and would have saved you hours in coming up with your list.

The key here is this. Twitter rules, like IM rules and email rules are, for the most part, balderdash. And at the end of the day, if you do not like it, you can always unplug. All of this great technology can be turned off.

Economics of Employee Morale

Clearly, technology and the economy are on a lot of people’s minds these days. After all, if I was a savvy business owner, I would be doing everything I could to ensure that I could continue to pay my employees and stay competitive, including finding ways to ensure that I made my employees feel needed and valuable.

So I find this article in the Washington Post indicating that people are cutting back on their telecommuting, and other benefits, in an effort to appear more dedicated. Or to put it another way, more essential.

From the article:

Teresa Hopke, talent management director for the national accounting firm RSM McGladrey said that while senior leadership at her company remains committed to flexibility, some middle managers have become more resistant.
"I have heard comments like, 'now is our chance to take back the company,' [and] comments about the fact employees shouldn't feel entitled to ask for flexibility during this time because they should be lucky to have a job," she said.

There are a couple of trends here that disturb me, both as an IT professional and as a worker bee.

First, it would seem that the dinosaur mentality that made getting permission in the first place to work from home has not completely gone extinct in the corporate world. I find this disconcerting because it makes me wonder what their continuity of operations plans look like. After all, just because we are in an economic slump, it does not imply that things like natural or man-made disasters are not going to afflict our operations. A certain degree of remote access should be required for continuity of operations and if it is not, then you are overlooking a major risk factor.

Second, it makes me wonder who is counting the beans. I will be the first one to tell you that supporting telecommuting is not cheap, but if a large enough percentage of your workforce is telecommuting, there are savings to be gained in environmental and real estate costs. To reverse the trend, either consciously or subconsciously, those costs are going to increase. Of course, the counter argument is there are holes created by the massive layoffs, so there are not savings. I would counter with the argument that the savings have not been realized, but the point is made, or moot.

Thirdly, if you are injecting an atmosphere of we don’t allow this in times when hiring and firing is easy, you are going to have a difficult reputation hill to climb when trying to attract and maintain the good talent when hiring becomes more challenging.

Finally, from an IT perspective, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fewer people are using the remote access system, so less money goes into keeping it functioning, so fewer people use the system…until it is turned off. Then you have to go through the process of getting it all spun back up again. If you are lucky, the technology is still useable and the hardware has not been cannibalized for other purposes.

There is no question that people are under increasing amounts of stress and pressure as the economy goes through this rough patch. It is also clear that things like traffic and illness have not abated just because money is tight. It is at this point in the business cycle when employers should be doing all they can to keep the employees they have happy. While I have trouble with the argument that you pay bonuses to keep your best and brightest when your company is into the government for billions of dollars, there is a certain logic to ensuring that your already stretched thin staff does not get stretched any thinner and put your already fragile company into the broken business category, simply because of a few short-sighted managers.

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Maybe some thought would be good. More on IPv6

On the government side, another OMB mandate might be helpful. Siegel suggested one with a deadline for when agencies must stop using IPv4. (GCN)

I have been following this issue now since the first mandate came down from OMB, a bad decision at the time. And then I see this quote "On the government side, another OMB mandate might be helpful. Siegel suggested one with a deadline for when agencies must stop using IPv4," and I have to ask myself if Siegel has any clue what he is talking about.

Let me use small words. Printers, file servers, Windows software. All of these devices cost the Fed money, a LOT of money and you don't just throw them out. IPv6 support, in most agencies, is not, and will not be possible at the end node for another decade. Microsoft only just started supporting IPv6 in their templates in Server 2008 and most agencies are still running Server 2000 or 2003. There are still devices out there that are running NT server and there is no easy upgrade path for them. And these are critical devices.

If OMB were to issue such an edict, the bulk of the Fed would either 1) laugh. 2) demand more money from Congress (you can hear them laughing, right?) or 3) ignore it. As someone in the engine room who has to keep this stuff running, 3 is the most realistic result.

You can mandate all you want, but the reality is much, much different.

Here comes IPv6...guess who is not ready

In about 100 days, the United States Federal Government will be required to be running large portions of their systems on IPv6. Now, for the non-technical in the crowd, it means that the address your PC uses to connect to the Internet, in most cases, is IPv4. Version 4 has been around almost since most of you started networking your machines to the Internet (it was around in the early 90s when I started doing all of this). IP version 6, which debuted in 1995 was designed to "fix" some of the things that were broken in IPv4, such as the limited address space (it may surprise you but there are only so many addresses in IPv4 that can be allocated). IPv6 increases the address space to some ridiculous number like 1000 per cubic meter of the Earth - in other words A LOT!.

So, as part of my testing, I figured I would call my ISP and request a block. Might as well get while the getting is good right?

So, here is some of my chat with my ISP (try not to laugh those of you that are techincal):

Me: I want a block of IPv6 addresses. How do I request them?
ISP: As I understand, you wish to block the IP Address of any Domain name. Am I correct?
Me: Negative. I want to request a block (say a /48) of IPv6 addresses.

As you can see, we are off to a roaring start.

But it gets better:

ISP: I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. I am not getting your concern correctly, could you please elaborate your concern once again for me?
Me: I would like to request a block of IPv6 addresses for use on my home network. How do I do that?
ISP: Alright. As I understand, you wish to block of General Unicast IPv6 addresses for your Home Network. Am I correct?
Me: Correct.
ISP: I would love to assist you however we have a different department...

So, I call the department...and they do not even know what I am talking about...until they find a supervisor...who tells them that the "service" is not supported.

Tell me again why the Fed is pushing to convert?

Now, how do I apply for an IPv6 address block?

Meanwhile, at TSA Headquarters...

MacBook Air Stumps TSA: The suspiciously thin, port-free laptop sends airport security into a tizzy, until cooler heads prevail. Maybe it's time for some tech briefings at the TSA, no? (Yahoo News)

The web is abuzz this morning about TSA's technical fumble. Now granted, I would not want to buy a MacBook Air, but it would seem that someone at TSA would be responsible for notifying agents about the latest and greatest tech on the market...or at the very least you would think that someone had gone through airport security with one of them by now. Nope. Seems our friends at the TSA are on the job. I will resist the term keystone kops...too late. And what do they mean by "TSA approved?" Since when do devices taken on an airplane have to be "approved" by the TSA...or is that their way of saying, it isn't on our disapproved list (surely a shorter way I guess).

On Net Neutrality - Verizon Steps In It.

Verizon reverses decision to block text messages BY Grant Gross September 27, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Verizon Wireless Inc. has reversed a decision to block text messages on its network from abortion rights group Naral Pro-Choice America after an outcry from Net neutrality advocates and others. (ComputerWorld)

Now, I would think, by 2007, that the issue of net neutrality was pretty much a foregone conclusion. If you do not have neutrality, you cannot effectively have an Internet. It simply will not work otherwise. But clearly, the telcos, who cannot think from quarter to quarter, much less outside the box, still do not seem to get it and they are joined in their duplicity by the very federal agency that is supposed to be looking out for the citizen. Regrettably, it seems there is still a fight to be had.

Now, do not mistake me. I think that email and other services have been hijacked by spammers and all other unsavory characters to their own ends, making it harder and harder for legitimate users to really take advantage of the technology. What is especially bad about this whole case is that we are not talking about blanket SMS messages to just anyone, but targeted messages to people who have signed up for the service! That, to me, is not spam, regardless of how many people the message is going to. And in the case of SMS messages, unlike general email, Verizon would get their proverbial pound of flesh in the form of fees from receipt of message. So everyone wins. Of course, the suits at Verizon probably were facing a lawsuit over this and some sharp tech was talking to a marketing rep and said, why face a suit when we will make money and oh, by the way, here is another revenue stream (so look for this coming soon to a system near you).

The telcos can bitch all they want about freeloaders on their lines. The fact, as proven in other parts of the world, is that when you open the system, you get more opportunities and more opportunities means more money. You just have to spend a little more time thinking about how you are going to recognize the revenue, because the old rules do not apply any more.

SCO: Put a fork in it.

SCO says there is 'substantial doubt' it will survive: In SEC filing, company cites cash Chapter 11, legal setbacks By Robert McMillan September 18, 2007 (Computerworld) -- With its cash reserves running out and its legal case against IBM Corp. unraveling, The SCO Group Inc. says there is doubt that it will remain afloat. SCO made the statement in its most recent quarterly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission statement, filed today. The company cited its recent motion for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as well as a recent court setback relating to its intellectual-property claims as reasons for worry. (ComputerWorld)

Woohoo! Put the Champagne on ice and tell the fat lady to start warming up. One of the nastiest, most backward cases of FUD is about over and it could not happen to a nice bunch of morons. I do not know what is in the water in the SCO building, but clearly, they lost their way and a good company became the epitome of what bad corporations can do to the reputation, not only of themselves but almost an entire industry.

Almost single handedly, SCO has set back the ability of the consumer to choose and that is a pity. Fortunately, the European Union has slapped the mighty Microsoft's wrist and the International Standards Organization went thumbs down on a restrictive Microsoft "standard" too, so this is turning into a banner month. Since Apple has announced it does not want to go after the corporate desktop (which is probably a good decision) more work needs to be done in the Open Source community to show that there is an alternative to putting a file server under every user's desktop.

SCO files Chapter 11

Update: SCO files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection: Announcement comes just before next week's Novell trial Todd R. Weiss September 14, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The SCO Group Inc. today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, just a month after losing several key court rulings in its legal fight against Novell Inc., IBM and others over what it asserts is the company's Unix intellectual property. (ComputerWorld)

SCO files for bankruptcy. Could this really be the beginning of the end of this long, over drawn nightmare?

The kilo is loosing weight!

Kilo prototype mysteriously loses weight By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 12, 1:00 PM ET PARIS - A kilogram just isn't what it used to be. The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies. (Yahoo News)

Woohoo, so we are not really getting heavier! OK, put down that double fudge ripple sundae, you are not made of a platinum and iridium alloy!

DOJ and Net Neutrality. You were expcting something positive?

Net neutrality: "not normal" Grant Gross reports:

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should resist calls to impose net neutrality regulations on broadband providers because such rules could hurt the Internet, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Thursday ... [it] said net neutrality rules could "inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare." Rules that would prohibit broadband providers from giving priority to their own Internet traffic and prohibit them from blocking or slowing competitors' traffic could also prevent providers from charging fees for priority service ... [and] could, in turn, cause fees to increase to all broadband users ... [and] could also discourage broadband providers from investing in new, high-speed services and keep providers from managing their networks efficiently. (ComputerWorld)

At the risk of getting kicked off the net, this is bullshit. Pure and simple. The FCC has been in the hip pocket of the ISPs and telcos for the bulk of this administration and some of the previous one. How else can you explain some their decisions to support HDTV, Broadband over Powerline and other technologies that bring little or nothing (or are outright detrimental) to the end user but provide windfall profits for companies that do not have to upgrade systems or provide anything resembling services to their customer base, who is paying for the services.

Now, the Department of Justice says go ahead and write more rules that will inhibit technology growth and deployment (Google, Vonage, take note, the FCC and the DOJ are directing this right at your forehead) of slick solutions that would make doing things much easer. Instead, they are going to enable Verizon and Cox and Time-Warner to contiue to degrade service for third party applications, that probably work better then the crap they are trying to shovel, while continuing to jack up the price for their own applications (VoIP is the current one that jumps to mind) and pushing off technology upgrades as long as possible.

I read an article in just the last few days that looked at broadband speed and saturation levels in the world. Want to guess where the United States came in that study? Remember, the Internet was invented here. If you said anywhere but the bottom, go back up and read the DOJ's opinion again. Japan is leading the way with almost Gigabit to the desktop. Why? Several reasons. First, no surprise, they have an advantage because of density and a need to rebuild their phone network following World War II that the United States never had to face, but almost more importantly, the Japanese government forced, by law, the telcos to open their gateways to "upstarts." The end result is more competition, more bandwidth, cheaper prices and more services. Even Canada, which has vast wastelands of empty space has more bandwidth and more adoption than the United States (although not by much).

So, the next time you are wondering why that video on demand service so slow and there has to be a better way to do it, or you read about this really cool technology but it only works on "their" network, remember to thank the Department of Justice the FCC and your local telco and cable provider. They are there to help you...fail.