Ged Carroll

Category: technology | 技術 | 기술 | テクノロジー

It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t live through it how transformation technology has been. When I was a child a computer was something mysterious. My Dad has managed to work his way up from the shop floor of the shipyard where he worked and into the planning office.

One evening he broad home some computer paper. I was fascinated by the the way the paper hinged on perforations and had tear off side edges that allowed it to be pulled through the printer with plastic sprockets connecting through holes in the paper.

My Dad used to compile and print off work orders using an ICL mainframe computer that was timeshared by all the shipyards that were part of British Shipbuilders.

I used the paper for years for notes and my childhood drawings. It didn’t make me a computer whiz. I never had a computer when I was at school. My school didn’t have a computer lab. I got to use Windows machines a few times in a regional computer labs. I still use what I learned in Excel spreadsheets now.

My experience with computers started with work and eventually bought my own secondhand Mac. Cut and paste completely changed the way I wrote. I got to use internal email working for Corning and internet connectivity when I went to university. One of my friends had a CompuServe account and I was there when he first met his Mexican wife on an online chatroom, years before Tinder.

Leaving college I set up a Yahoo! email address. I only needed to check my email address once a week, which was fortunate as internet access was expensive. I used to go to Liverpool’s cyber cafe with a friend every Saturday and showed him how to use the internet. I would bring any messages that I needed to send pre-written on a floppy disk that also held my CV.

That is a world away from the technology we enjoy now, where we are enveloped by smartphones and constant connectivity. In some ways the rate of change feels as if it has slowed down compared to the last few decades.

  • Gates on spam

    Gates on spam

    Bill Gates wrote to me regarding the latest thinking by Microsoft (ok so its a Microsoft marketing ploy to make me think that Chairman Bill cares even for heretics like me) and some of their partners to curb spam. The mail is interesting, however I have a few concerns on the content of the email by Gates on spam:

    • the industry initative lacked networking manufacturers like Nokia, Juniper or Extreme Networks
    • no computing powerhouses like Sun Microsystems, Oracle, IBM, Apple
    • there was no reference to non-windows PC users (Mac, Unix, Linux, Symbian smartphones, PalmOS etc)
    • there is no independent experts on the panel like Phil Zimmerman

    From: billgates at chairman.microsoft.com

    Subject: Preserving and Enhancing the Benefits of Email – A Progress Report

    Date: 28 June 2004 21:47:34 BST

    To: *********** at ***.com

    During the past year, Microsoft has taken a number of important steps to help curb the epidemic of junk email, which is a major headache for computer users worldwide. We’ve made significant progress, including blocking more than 95 per cent of all incoming junk email – an average of 3 billion messages a day – on Hotmail. But more work remains to be done. We’re committed to finding additional ways to counter this costly nuisance.

    Over the next 12 months, we will begin to introduce several additional innovative technologies and processes that should further reduce the volume of junk email reaching customers’ inboxes. Because you’ve subscribed to receive executive emails from us, I’d like to update you on what we’re doing in this area. On the Web at www.microsoft.com/execmail, I’ve posted an in-depth explanation of Microsoft’s technology vision and strategy for ending the junk email epidemic as a major problem. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it.

    Thank you.

    Bill Gates

    More posts related to Gates on spam here.

  • TPS

    New regulations come into effect on the 25th June 2004 in the UK that will allow businesses to opt out of receiving unsolicited sales calls by registering with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service).

    – Registration takes 28 days to take effect. From the 25th June it will be an offence to make an unsolicited cold call to any number on the TPS list.

    – In the case of sub-contracted cold calling, the legal liability for ensuring no calls are made to numbers listed lies with the client.

    – Another legal requirement under the legislation is that all businesses must hold a “do not call” list of telephone numbers of people who have contacted you directly and asked that you do not cold call them, even though they may not have registered with the TPS. They are legally required to hold this list and we will need a copy of this “do not call” list.

    – At present, approximately 20 per cent of the companies called do not put sales calls through, either blocking calls or routing to voicemail.

    – DMA press release (Word document)

    – TPS website

    It is an interesting initiative, but only the honest actors will obey the rules. At the moment email is the new frontier for unwanted communications. More related posts here.

  • Plaxo Is the New Google?

    Plaxo is a useful addition to the arsenal of the knowledge worker. We go through lives developing thousands of connections but probably only keep in regular contact with a couple of hundred. (This is broadly in line with the Dunbar number proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar.)

    Plaxo vs. Google missions

    Where Google plans to organise all the world’s information, Plaxo seeks to organise all our address books.

    With Plaxo you complete an account and update it if you move jobs, that way your looser network can keep up to date if they are members of Plaxo too.

    Pros

    – Cheap, free software, you only pay for support. That also means limited growth

    Cons

    – Only works with Outlook at the moment, so not great for people orientated businesses like the creative industries, how about conduits for Lotus Notes, Entourage and Apple iSync?

    – Privacy concerns, where there’s data there’s risk and businesses are increasingly using online services to run their businesses; it makes sense for consumers to use similar services to run Me, Inc. Privacy restrictions makes it harder for Plaxo to monetise customer data held

    – Is reliant on a critical mass of users; Plaxo only updates less than 9 per cent of my contacts and its user base does not seem to be expanding at the rate of Friendster or LinkedIn

    Anyway, make up your own mind by watching an interview on CBS Marketwatch with the founders. More technology related content here.

    More information

    Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). “Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates”. Journal of Human Evolution.

  • Sleeping problem

    Japan has a sleeping problem. On the face of it, you might think that the sleeping problem was that people were getting too much sleep. It is a high trust society, so you occasionally see drunks safely left alone where they are to sleep. A drunken salary man can rent a catacomb like sleeping capsule to crash out, if they can’t make it home. You see people sleeping on the commuter train in the morning.

    But that is only half the story of sleep in Japan. In a society famous for its neon cities, long office hours, high stress levels and horrendous commutes. Since the start of the economic miracle there were some who indulged in even more methamphetamine abuse than an Australian roadtrain driver. And some parents enroll offspring in cramming programmes for infant schoolchildren.

    You may expect insomnia to be a problem. You’d be right.

    Its also big business, Matsushita (the mega-corp behind Panasonic, Technics and JVC) will be launching later this year a ‘sleeping room package’ that consists of a plasma screen TV, a tricked-out bed and ambient sound recordings. This is expected to sell for about 20,000 GBP.

    In the UK we have an assortment of reality TV shows to send us to sleep. For more Japan related content click here.

  • Microsoft security spin

    I read a classic piece of spin in The Business, Microsoft races to stop bank account hackers by Tony Glover. Tony who has been shortlisted in a category for Business Journalist of the Year wrote “Technicians at the US software giant Microsoft are working flat out to prevent a new security threat that this week could give criminals access to computer systems used worldwide by banks and governments.”

    The general threat that Tony outlined called phishing has been covered for quite a while by national newspapers, something that wasn’t made clear in the article. In fact eBay, HBOS and Barclays customers have all been exposed to phishing attacks. The article was an excellent piece of PR work (my hat goes off to the members of the Microsoft press team) that failed to point out:

    – Phishing has been going on for quite a while now, though the vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer is new. It is one of many security vulnerabilities in the product and phishing as a security risk is well understood

    – Microsoft was trying to plug yet another security gap in their software that facilitates phishing? . Despite repeated promises to get tough security, Microsoft have failed to do so

    – Using an alternative browser like Opera can help prevent the risk of phishing (though nothing in IT systems can be labeled foolproof)

    – It is yet another good argument against software bundling like Microsoft (and increasingly Apple) have been doing and is an excellent riposte to critics of the EU competition commissions case against Microsoft. Bundling of software restricts the ability of competition to spur innovation and improvements in both quality and service

    Free Internet calls move a step closer on page six goes on to talk breathlessly about a new feature in Microsoft Office that provides Internet calls. Its not that big a deal, I know of people who used Skype and before it Net2Phone and other over the net software phones. In fact Stephen Waddington, managing director of geeky PR firm Rainier was quoted in a newspaper case study talking about his firms uses of voice over the ‘net for international conference calls a few years ago.

    In addition, many instant messenger programmes such as Yahoo! Instant Messenger, AIM and iChat offer audio and video calls between users. Another fallacy in technology circles is the concept of ‘free’, you’d think that technology marketers would be mature enough to realise that nothing ever comes for free, even ‘free’ pirated MP3s or DiVX movie files via a P2P network is partly financed by banner advertisements, spyware and adware in the P2P software itself. Freeware is often produced for altruistic reasons, even if it is to build a community of users or make ones mark with an elegant solution to a problem. In the case of ‘free internet calls’ it will help increase sales of broadband connections, where calls leave the domain of a connection between IP addresses over PCs some sort of ‘interconnection charge’ will be due. Its not new, its history repeating.