Technically Speaking

A relative send me an e-mail forward today, and while I don’t generally read or respond to forwards, this one was quite disturbing.

The CBS Evening News recently reported on the dangers posed by digital photo copy machines. Essentially, every new copy machine made since 2002 has a built-in hard drive that keeps a copy of every document that is copied, scanned, or faxed by that machine.

Here is the story: (You can see the same story on CBS’s own site.)

Watch CBS News Videos Online

I think back on the copies I’ve made in the last year, which include:

• Copies of the listing form for our condo
• Copies of each offer we made on houses (there were 3)
• Copies of all the documents related to the purchase of our new house, including detailed financial statements and bank statements
• Copies of my tax returns including W2 and other documentation with private information

…And that is what I can think of off the top of my head.

I made some of those copies or scanned the documents at places like Kinkos, using my work copier/scanner and copies were done at my mortgage company, my title company, as well as the buyer and seller’s mortgage and title companies.

I had no idea that copiers were storing that kind of information. Did you?

However, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. I can’t control how the hospital copies my medical charts. I can’t control how the mortgage or title companies make copies of documents.

We live in a world where HIPPA and other privacy laws require paper copies of these documents to be securely disposed of, yet what about the digital versions of those same documents? How are we to protect our private information?

NPR reported yesterday that sales of Google’s Andriod-based smart phones outsold sales of Apple’s iPhone for the first quarter of 2010.

I love my iPod touch. I am green with envy every time I see somebody using an iPad. However, in the current market, I’ll never be an iPhone owner, and I doubt I’ll be getting an iPad. (Though, dear, father’s day and my birthday are happening in the same week, next month…) I don’t want a phone from AT&T, and frankly, I’m kind of annoyed at Apple over the whole Adobe Flash support issue.

I’m glad to see Android gaining market share. Products are improved through competition. As competitors like Andorid and Blackberry increase market share, Apple will have to adjust if they are to continue competing. Maybe they will even be forced to rethink their refusal to allow Adobe Flash on iPhone-OS devices. As Android and Blackberry user bases widen, application developers will increase their support for non-iPhone platforms, which will improve the application markets for all devices.

You have to admit, when Apple releases a new device, the world oohs and awes about it, because Apple makes some pretty incredible products. Owning one of those products, especially in the early adoption phase, is something of a status symbol. However, other handheld OS developers are closing the gap between their devices and Apple’s, and there are some really cool products running operating systems like Android. In some cases, Android is already leading the way, forcing Apple to play catch up.

So, as a current iPod touch user, I say “Congratulations Android!” Because my next device may or may not be from Apple. I won’t decide until I see who is willing to give me the features I want from my device and right now, it is pretty hard to say who that will be.

Dear John Ubuntu,

I don’t really know how to say this, except to be honest and up front. Please don’t take this personally. This just isn’t going to work out between us. I’d like to say that it’s all my fault, and that it’s not you, but I just don’t think that is really true. It is you. I mean, I tried liking you, I really did. I tried to install you on three different computers, and I can’t get one of them to work properly with you installed.

First, I tried to install you on my personal laptop. You created a 20 GB drive for yourself, and you installed okay (but not great — for some reason you couldn’t use my built-in wireless card; my computer is only a year and a half old), but when I used the administrative tools to check for updates, you started to update, and then crashed. Now you won’t boot up in normal mode, or even in recovery mode. Not only do you not boot, but you are still hogging up 20 GB of space on my hard drive. I’m going to have to go into Windows and delete the partition, and re-add the Windows boot files so I can even get Windows to load normally.

Next, I tried to install you on my personal desktop. This time you simply won’t install. You give a long error message. I’ve searched the Ubuntu forums to see if I could find a solution. Lots of people have a similar problem, but I couldn’t find an answer.

Finally, I tried to install you on my work laptop (sorry, boss). You installed fine on this computer, but for some reason, you refuse to display anything when you are docked. I have two monitors attached to my dock, and when I boot you up (or re-dock you when already booted), you show a bunch of blank screens. Again, I visited the Ubuntu forums looking for solutions, and again I walked away empty handed. Plus, you couldn’t run the update because you claimed that something else was blocking the process. No other programs were running (that I could see). When I went to try to install Flash player, first I was shown a list of five different Linux versions to choose from. None of them actually installed Flash for me. This time you recognized my wireless card, but you can’t connect to my work network. You give me lots of options for connecting to my network, but I don’t know what they are all for. Windows 7 just asks me for my username and password. But you need more information than that, apparently, because you won’t connect with just that information.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I guess we just aren’t meant for each other. I know that everybody loves to bash Microsoft, but I’m going back to my Windows 7. I turn it on, and it just works. My wireless works without a bunch of effort. Windows Update just works. Flash has one option for installation in Firefox, and it just works. It attaches to my docking station and both my external monitors just work.

My dear Ubuntu, you have so much growing to do before you are ready for a non-geek audience (and I consider myself a fringe geek!). Look me up when you have worked out your bugs. Let me know when I can reliably install you on three different computers and have basic features (like wireless cards and external monitors connected via a hardware dock) that work across multiple computers without a bunch of specialized configuration. Maybe then I’ll try you again. But in the meantime, I’m sticking with Windows 7. It just works.

Good luck, Ubuntu. I wish you well. But now just doesn’t seem like the right time for me and you. You don’t work for me, and Windows 7 does. But thanks. It was fun (kind of) while it lasted.

Can I please have my 20GB back on both hard drives now? I’ll send a friend over to pick them up.

The makers of the iPhone, Apple, today announced a “revolutionary” device: a tablet computer they call iPad. Now, normally I’m a big fan of things Apple. I have an iPod touch (don’t want the service contract or wireless provider of the iPhone), and I love it. So you might be expecting me to be geeking out over this new device. But, not so much.

Here is what we know: the new device will run the iPhone OS (albeit an updated version). The iPad will have an option for unlimited wireless 3G connectivity (again from AT&T) for $30 bucks a month (or a limited plan for around $15 per month). If you don’t want 3G connectivity, you can purchase the non-3G version and just connect over wireless networks.

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and presenter at today’s announcement, says that the iPad is thin and lighter than any netbook. In the $500 to $1000 price space, they are competing against similarly priced netbooks or low-end laptop computers. The iPad also comes with iBook – essentially an e-book reader, which puts iPad in direct competition with devices like Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader.

Essentially, it seems, iBook is a Kindle with the iPhone interface. Apps written for iPhone/iPod touch will run on the iPad, and Apple will roll out new apps (and released a developer’s SDK today so app writers can begin creating apps specifically for the iPad) so you can do word processing, spreadsheet data entry, and more on iPad.

But the question I keep asking myself is, “why?” I mean, Apple has been telling us for years now that smaller was better. Each version of the iMac seemed to get smaller. Each version of the Mac Book Pro got thinner. Apple even rolled out the Mac Book Air, and amazed us with a laptop that can fit in an manila envelope. Then Apple sold us on the iPhone and iPod touch, showing us that we can take the Internet, a bunch of very useful apps, and tons of our data everywhere we go.

Now Apple wants us to believe that bigger is better. Isn’t the iPad essentially an up-sized iPod touch (with optional 3G connectivity)? But are you going to carry the thing around with you wherever you go? That is what I love about my iPod touch–it goes with me everywhere. It is my PDA, it’s my music player, its my e-book reader, my e-mail client, and my portable gaming device all in one. Now Apple wants me to buy an iPad that does all of that, but is just bigger?

It will be interesting to see if iPad takes off like the iPhone did. I’m certainly not going to be standing in line to get one. I’m just not convinced that it will make my life that much better than my iPod already does.

What do you think? Are you geeking out over the iPad? If so, why? If not, are your reasons similar to mine?

Several months ago I bought a new laptop for my side business. I’ve tried to figure out a backup solution that would work for my computer, and after doing some research, I decided that I wanted an online backup solution that would work automatically in the background. I picked Mozy for several reasons. I got it installed, selected my directories I wanted to back-up, and let it go about its business.

Mozy has been great. It runs in the background and every so often updates the online storage with the latest files from my laptop. At under $5.00 a month, this is a solution that works nicely for me. I suppose, it is $5.00 of insurance because hopefully you’ll never need it, but it is $5.00 for peace of mind.

Like I said, I never expected I’d need it. Until last night. My computer had a catastrophic failure. I have no idea what happened. I hadn’t installed any new software or drivers or hardware for a couple of weeks (at least), but yesterday it failed to restore from hibernate. We ran several tests and it wasn’t able to fix itself.

Now, normally, I’d be panicking right now. This is the main computer in my house. It has all my writing for the book I’m working on. It has all the web work I’ve done including my backup files for my website. It has all my photographs and my music. I had over 60GB of data that was gone in an instant. But I’m not panicking, nor am I inhalint anti-anxiety meds. You see, I’ve got Mozy. And they’ve got my back.

Mozy is a great service. You download the Mozy client, and you tell it what directories you want to back-up. One folder I backed up was my “Users” folder in Windows, because that contains all my critical data.

Mozy gives you 2GB of backup free. If you want unlimited backup, it’s $4.99 per month (with discounts if you purchase larger blocks of time up-front). If you want to add a folder to the backup repository, but it isn’t already there, you can just right-click on the folder in Windows, and say “Add to Backup”.

When something goes wrong, you can either restore a specific file, an entire directory (including sub-directories), or in the case of a catastrophic loss you can request backup downloads, which get compiled in 3GB increments and which you can download from Mozy’s website. These backups are executable files that you can run to restore all your old files in their former locations. All of that is free (well, included in your monthly fee if you have more than 2GB of data).

If that solution doesn’t work for you, Mozy can even take your entire backup, burn it to DVD, and mail it to you. That is not a free option, but it is probalby the easiest option, and it is the option I chose for my data restoration. When I tried to restore my backup files, I was able to download several of the backups, but not all. I have high-speed internet (which, by the way, is required to use Mozy), but I think my ISP may have been throttling my speed after I tried downloading 15 GB + of data in a couple of hours. I didn’t have the paitence to keep waiting, so I decided that to restore all 60BG+ of my data, I’d request the DVD restore option.

Honestly, this option cost a lot more than I expected. They charge a base fee of $30 for setup, plus $.50 per GB for the media, plus $40 for shipping (Next Day Air, shipped via FedEx). So my restore of 60GB was just over $100.00. I understand the setup and media fees. I was dissappointed that the only shipping option was FedEx Next Day Air. There are many shipping options, and I wish Mozy had let me pick my price depending on how urgent my need was.

Now I await my restore DVDs. I am very happy that I selected Mozy’s service. Even though it cost me $100 to get my data back (because I dind’t want the free download), that is still a lot cheaper than what I would have paid to recover the files from my hard drive. And my music and images are worth the $100.00 restoration, because really, the photos are priceless.

If you don’t have a backup solution in place for your computer, I recommend you consider a solution like Mozy. It saved the day for me this week. When will it be your turn?

(By the way, I’ll write a new post after I’ve been able to restore my data, so I can tell you how easy/hard it was. Stay tuned!)