In the Parlance of Our Times

So I've decided to blog. It's something I've been avoiding for a while, mostly held back by the belief that no one else really wants to read what I write and the reluctance to "put myself out there". I guess the latter kind of guarantees the former, doesn't it?

Anyway, I've decided that I can't avoid this any longer. My job requires that I support faculty who may want to use a blog and without real experience using one myself I can't do that job as well as I should. But I'm not going to do a diary-style blog (really, my life would not be that interesting to other people) and I also don't want to do something completely non-personal. A blog should be personal. There are other forms of web publishing more suited to non personal topics.

So here's what I've decided. I'm going to write about technology here, but with an eye to how it has made real changes in my life and that of my family. Born in 1954 (that makes me 52 at the moment, for those of you who didn't grow up doing arithmetic in your head and who don't have a calculator handy) I've lived an adult life both with and without many of the technologies my younger colleagues take for granted. Working at a college, and having children in their early-mid 20's also puts me in a position to closely observe people who are entering adulthood during a period that is the polar opposite, technologically speaking, of the world I lived in when I was their age. I think these things give me a perspective that while not exactly unique is at least somewhat rare among those writing about technology. So maybe this won't be totally boring.

The technology I write about won't necessarily be new or bleeding edge. But a lot has happened in the last 30-odd years, so there will at least be plenty of material.

Oh, yeah. About the title. If you don't get the reference you need to get down to the local video store..er, DVD store...er, Netflix (see what I mean about changes?)...and check out some older films. Start with the Coen Brothers. Maybe as I experiment with changing the look and feel of the blog I'll add some visual clues. Until then, the Dude abides.

When I first started thinking about topics for this blog, banking didn't jump to mind. It's one thing I pretty much do the same way now that I did 30 years ago. ATMs were already in use back then, so pretty much the only change is that I occassionally check my balance online. If the web suddenly went away, it would have little impact on my banking.

But recent conversations have made me realize that younger people approach banking totally differently than I do. They rarely step inside a bank, doing all their banking at ATMs and online. One young person I spoke with told me a story about how he needed to deposit a check and get cash for a trip one day, and was at a loss how to do this when he arrived at the bank and found the ATM offline. He ended up going inside the bank to ask a teller to help him through this process.

My kids never open mail the bank sends them. They don't save receipts. They don't keep a written record of deposits and withdrawals. And believe me when I say that this isn't because they don't know better. They've been shown what they should be doing, but they don't see the point. They'll ask the ATM for a balance, or go online to see what's up with their account.

This is not a good thing. With years of banking experience behind me, I could tell you several war stories - most notably the time the bank made a withdrawal of $23,260.45 from my account which should have just been a $260.25 withdrawal. But young people seem to believe the bank is incapable of making mistakes. The concientious ones will keep a close eye on their account - online - but they still won't write down what they do or save receipts. If they want to see how much they took out of the ATM last month, they'll look online. If they want to see how much that check they deposited last week was for, they'll look online.

There's a clear winner here, and it's not these young people. The bankers must be dancing in the street.

We'll be having a decidedly low tech Thanksgiving again this year. But for those of you who aren't disconnected for the holiday, here are some treats from two of my nearest and dearest:

Take a look at Louise's website, louisebarry.net. Many of her Paper Trails pieces are still available to buy at $10 a pop. Email me if you're interested. I have a basement full of them.

Tom doesn't have a website and as far as I know has nothing to sell yet. But I've posted two of the songs he recorded with his bands this summer. It was fun going to his concerts while he was home.

• Amani Funktet playing Little Wing, by Jimi Hendrix
• Root 5th playing Severed Negotiations

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I remember most about being a new parent - and what I was totally unprepared for - was the unsolicited advice that came at us from every direction. Every problem we had was our fault and if we only did what THEY did in a similiar situation we wouldn't be in this mess.

Parents today have all the same problems we had, but now they're also being subjected to advice about high-tech toys. A recent Boston Globe article (featuring advice from Matt Damon's mom, no less) warns of the dangers of raising your children with high-tech toys. High-tech is an all-encompassing term in this article and seems to apply to nearly any toy with a battery. (Can you say "EZ Bake Oven"?) Teachers are getting in on the act, too, with an 8-page Toy Action Guide including two pages of examples of toys to avoid.

To make matters way, way worse there's even a new term to describe a condition your child might end up with if he/she plays with high-tech toys too much: compassion deficit disorder. Scary sounding, isn't it? And remember, it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.

Now don't get me wrong. I think a lot of the toys listed in the Toys to Avoid list are junk, too. My own kids wouldn't have had much use for many of them. Sure, they may have played with them for a week or a month even, but then they'd end up at the bottom of the toy pile. It was the toys that they could mold to the play at hand - the Legos and the Playmobil, the dolls and stuffed animals, the trucks, the art supplies, the dress-up clothes - that got used for years and years. Some are still in our basement, and I've been warned they are not to thrown or given away. Ever.

But let's get real, shall we? Nobody's kid is going to turn out to be an axe murderer because they were given a Baby Einstein video for a Christmas present. If the toys we give our kids to play with could so easily determine the type of adult they grew up to be, don't you think we'd have already figured out which toys to give them to make them all happy, productive members of society?

So let's all take a deep breath and relax. Get your kids the gifts you know they will enjoy. And take notes, so that in twenty years you'll be able to tell the next generation of parents what they're doing wrong.

As I write, my Christmas puddings are at the beginning of their 6 hour steam on the stovetop. I've been thinking there must be a way to use modern technology to speed up the cooking of the puddings. Surely the microwave could help us out here.

Truth be told, I could - and often have - quite happily spent Christmas without any pudding at all. But once in a while I like to make one. Doing so gets me thinking and remembering about the years I spent in Ireland and the friends and family I still have there. In particular, it makes me feel connected to my mother-in-law, whose Christmas pudding recipe I'm using and who taught me what little I know about Irish cooking. As I rub the butter into the breadcrumbs I think of all the times I sat at her kitchen table watching her rubbing shortening into dry ingredients. As I pour in the brandy I wonder just how much a "half glass of brandy" meant to her. With distance and her Alzheimer's between us now, it's nice to feel this connnection to the past.

So I think I'll put thoughts of the microwave aside. Steaming the pudding gives me 6 more hours with her on my mind...how much of a boil would she keep going, how much water would she keep in the pot?

Sometimes it's just nice to do things the old way. Of course, I did use the food processor to make the breadcrumbs, grind the almonds, chop the dates and peel, grate the apple and carrot. No need to go overboard here.

My privacy conversation with Jason last week was temporarily sidetracked. It went something like this:

Me: I do crosswords and am careful not to search the internet for answers to certain clues, for fear of the pattern that might arise.

Jason: I do crosswords, too, and that's cheating.

Me: It's not.

Jason: It is.

Me: It's not.

Jason: It is.

Well, you get the idea.

Michael and I started doing crosswords after seeing the movie Wordplay with Louise in New York City last summer. Before this I thought of crosswords as either difficult or boring or both. After the movie we bought a NYTimes (it was a Tuesday) and found that the puzzle was not only doable, but fun. I've since got an online subscription to the NYTimes puzzle, and most days do the crossword on my computer, often with help from Michael and other resources.

And that's where the internet comes in. Sometimes the answer to a clue is some fact, maybe the name of a foreign city or an actress from an old TV show. It's just become second nature to pull up Google or Wikipedia and search for this sort of answer at other times, like when we're watching a movie and wondering what else we saw an actor in. Why shouldn't I do the same when I'm doing a crossword? After all, I'm already sitting at the computer, connected to the internet. The answer I need is just a click away.

So, is this cheating? I'm reminded of Louise when she was little. Whenever we taught her a new game, she'd announce a change in the rules, making the game her own (and tipping the scales in her favor). I guess I'm doing the same here. My rules say use any resources you have available.

You can play by your own rules, and I'll play by mine.

Today I came across this performace by spoken-word artist Rives, which starts "If I controlled the internet..." It's pretty entertaining. I particularly like the idea of emailing the dead. ("They would not email you back. But you'd get an automated reply. Their name in your inbox. It's all you wanted anyway.")

So what would you do if you controlled the internet?

This article about a person being charged with theft of services for using a public library's free wi-fi outside of library hours is perplexing. Even more perplexing is the number of comments supporting this that I've seen online.

Is there really legal basis for charging him with theft of services? Apparently he was given a warning previously, but that doesn't really answer the question. Given that this wi-fi is intended for free, public usage I have a really hard time getting my head around the idea that this guy did anything wrong in using it after hours.

A related issue is that of using your neighbor's wi-fi without their knowledge. Is there a law against this anywhere? And if so, how could it ever be enforced? Sure, your neighbor could see in logs that a particular MAC address has accessed the network, but then what? Send the police around the neighborhood demanding to inspect everyone's computers? Don't we need search warrants for that sort of thing in this country?

Seems to me the responsibility has to be on the owner of the wi-fi network to make sure it's only being used as intended. That means keep it secured or, in the case of this library, shut down after hours. Charge people with loitering or trespassing if they're hanging around outside a location for wi-fi access or anything else, but let's not criminalize the act of using the wi-fi.

This blog - more than any other blog on this server - has been bombarded lately with spam comments. And no matter how high I set my junk filter, they still don't get flagged as junk by the blog software.

Because I've grown tired of deleting hundreds of these comments a day, I've now set the blog so that commenters must sign in to the TypeKey authentication service before leaving a comment.

I hate having to do this, and apologize for any inconvenience. Once my blog has dropped off the radar of the spammers I will try opening up comments without registration again.

I have been in love with the Zipcar concept from the first I heard of it. They rent cars - by the hour or by the day - to members in several major cities. Members go online to reserve the car and then simply walk up to the car - Zipcars are parked all around the city - when it's time to drive. The company uses wireless technology to deal with all the details - making sure the right person has access to the right car at the right time, for instance.

I first heard about Zipcars in a newspaper article, and when Tom moved to Boston and became eligible I encouraged him to sign on to the service. For just $25 a year he can get a Zipcar membership through Berklee. Knowing that he has a car around the corner that he can drive should the need ever arrive is well worth the $25 annual fee.

As it's turned out, Tom hasn't actually had the need to drive one of these cars. Yet. Today he reserved one to use this weekend while we're visiting. We're going to drive down to the Cape to visit my parents, making a stop in Brockton for my brother and an IKEA run. We'll soon know, then, if the reality lives up to my expectations of this service.

I'm pretty sure we're not going to be disappointed. Stay tuned.

We had our first Zipcar experience and it almost went off without a snag. The car was where it should be, when it should be. Tom gained entry by waving his magic Zipcard at the windshield and off we went.

Our one snag was when it came time to gas up. Gas is included in the rental fee (as is insurance). A gas card is provided in the car, but we hadn't read the instructions carefully enough. The pump prompted for odometer reading and PIN. It took us three tries to get the odometer reading right (the first two times, Tom was reading TripA and TripB) and then a couple to figure out the PIN. When we finally had it all right, the card still got rejected. We don't know if this is because of our previous attempts, or if the particular gas station just doesn't accept that card. Zipcar promises to reimburse for gas if there's trouble using the card, so we'll be putting that promise to the test.

Tom was happy enough with the experience to rent another car for this weekend. He found it a little more difficult to reserve a car for a three day weekend than it was to reserve for just a day - none of the nearby cars were available - but he'll be visiting his friend in style in a Volvo. Too bad the Mustang convertible was booked!

Tom's been having a terrible time getting a UPS package delivered to him. He's never home when the UPS guy comes. So last week he was at school, a good 20 minute walk from his apartment, when he decided to rent a Zipcar to drive out to UPS and pickup the package. He needed to be back at school at 6, but had a couple of hours free.

Now, if he had his own car he'd have to walk the 20 minutes to get home, pick up the car, do the errand, walk 20 minutes back to school. But with Zipcar, he could get online and find a car near school to use, potentially saving 40 minutes.

He could do that. But he didn't. He didn't walk back to get a car near his apartment, either. Instead, he looked for the coolest car within a reasonable walk of school and drove out to UPS in a BMW.

Anyway you look at it, renting a Zipcar is a whole lot more fun than driving the same car all the time.

You know that dream you have where you're sitting at a red light with 3 cars ahead of you and you look in the rearview mirror only to see a one ton wrecking ball rolling down the hill coming straight towards you?

Well that dream was a reality for one poor soul today. This had the potential to be a tragic situation, but fortunately no one was injured. Quite a few cars were scraped and dented as the ball - which broke loose from a demolition site up the road - bounced its way down the hill and somehow ended up in the trunk of this car.

(And, yes, I took the photo with my iPhone!)

It happens eventually to every wildly successful product - the product name becomes synonymous with other products in the same category. So all tissues are Kleenex, all copiers are Xeroxes and so on. Until now, though, iPod seemed to mean only iPod. If someone called a non-Apple mp3 player an iPod they'd have been looked upon sadly by those in the know.

Until now. Today's New York Times Bits blog has a post titled Amazon Pitches a Wireless iPod for Books. I clicked the link to see what this was all about. Reading books on the iPod Touch maybe? No, the word iPod was being used in a very generic sense - not as mp3 player so much as handheld wireless device.

When your grandchildren ask you some day why a whole class of handheld devices are called iPods, you can tell them that it all started on a dark and stormy night in November 2007.

A month or so ago I discovered that I could post a photo from my iPhone directly to a Blogger blog and was disappointed that I couldn't do the same with Movable Type.

Today I learned that I could, via Flickr. I already knew that I could create a post to this blog from the Flickr website - it's an easy way to include a photo in the blog - but what I learned today is that this extends to posting to the blog from the iPhone. Just as with Blogger, all I need to do is send an email from the phone to a special Flickr email address. Not only will that post my photo and text to this blog, but it also goes to my Flickr account. Pretty cool.

I tried it with the post below and it worked just fine, except that the formatting was a bit funny - some unwanted line breaks - but that was easily fixed later.

I love the ease-of-use thing with Apple software, but sometimes that means it's real hard to learn about new features. If you're not the type who reads every bit of documentation or who spends hours on the web reading reviews - and sometimes even if you are - then you can go from one Mac OS to the next completely oblivious to some new feature.

Take my recent upgrade to Leopard, for example. I looked at the major new features as soon as I got it, but totally overlooked some of the smaller changes. Last weekend I read something that referred to the improved Preview in Leopard and how it pretty much negates the need for Acrobat. I'd been using Leopard's Preview for a few months and hadn't noticed anything special about it. So I started poking around but didn't see any major changes - in particular I was looking for a way to combine pdf's into one file or to extract pages from a pdf. Nothing in the menu items pointed to this sort of functionality.

When all else fails read the Help file, right? This did lead me to a way to do these tasks. And it's pretty nifty. You use the "Drawer" (they might call it Sidebar in Leopard) to make changes to the pages in a pdf - rearrange, delete, add, etc. It's all done with dragging or right clicks.

But how is someone supposed to know this? Documentation is hidden in the help, which I'd guess very few people use, and the menu items don't offer the same functionality. I've found this on other Mac software, too. In an effort to keep it simple they often put only some items in the menus. The rest you need to find out about some other way.

It's times like this - when I feel myself crying out for more menu items, more toolbars, more everything - that I think I'll never be a true Mac person. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Update: This Macworld article has lots more on the hidden features of Leopard's Preview app.