Professor Geek

Google’s stock dropped 8.5% the other day. That was almost all due to the fact that they are defying a Justice Department subpoena to turn over a random group of 1 week’s worth of searches. They have many reasons for not wanting to do it, including a strong desire not to reveal proprietary information. I have a feeling that they also want to appease their users by letting them know that “what happens here stays here” (to borrow a phrase from a current Las Vegas promotional ad).

Unfortunately, the other three outfits that were subpoenaed caved in and turned their records over. The last time I checked, a fishing expedition was not fair game for a subpeoena. Apparently, Google thinks so too, and they have vowed to fight the feds on this one. So what are some of the possible ramifications if they are forced to turn over such records? I think it will open a literal pandora’s box for privacy in this country. If nothing you do in the privacy of your home (and I’m not condoning any particular behavior or search regimen) will remain private, then where are we headed? Remember, this is different from a law enforcement agency having some evidence that a crime (i.e. child pornography) has been committed by someone in particular, and wanting additional evidence. They have every right to subpoena exactly these kinds of records if they know exactly what they are looking for. But to ask for a random set of records just to get a feel for what is going on is beyond reasonable.

Keep your eyes on this case. It could have many repercussions in the future. And remember another thing: Nothing you do on the Internet is anonymous. The bottom line: to protect your privacy, just assume that anything you do on the Internet is immediately public knowledge and act accordingly. Just because you can’t see anyone looking over your shoulder as you surf around doesn’t mean that they aren’t looking.

I have been using Onfolio for a couple of years now and have gone through (I think) about three versions of it. I frequently get upgrade notices from the software I have, and I just as often ignore them, as I rarely see the upgrades as being worth the money. Onfolio is one of my exceptions. I always upgrade it and keep it up to date.

I was originally alerted to Onfolio by PC Magazine. You can get a 30 day trial of it and after I had tried it for the 30 days, I was hooked. It works in your browser and basically lets you set up collections (which equate to topics). In each collection, you can have items. For example, if you are searching the web and you find a website that really fits your topic, you can just put it in the collection. You can save the link or save the whole page. Generally, saving the link takes a lot fewer resources, but saving the whole page is good if it is a page that is time-sensitive and may go away soon. So far, it probably just sounds like a glorified favorites list to you, but it is really much more than that. Each entry can have a description and a collection is basically equivalent to an RSS feed, with the items being each entry you have saved. In fact, with the professional version of Onfolio (highly recommended for researchers) you get Onfolio Publisher, which lets you pick items out of your collections and publish them as a web page (and an RSS feed). It therefore becomes a great tool for collaboration.

I have used this software on a number of projects and it has definitely become a “keeper” tool in my arsenal of research weapons.

Over the past few weeks I have been setting up wikis for my students to use during the spring semester that begins tomorrow. This has been a long process of identifying software, installing and configuring it, and learning how to use it. Of course, I have to do all this before I ask my students to do it, so it has been a rather intense few weeks.

Bottom line: I tried several packages, but couldn’t get them to work on the server space I have at my university. The main reason was because I didn’t have enough execution memory allocated to me. As I researched this, I found out that the amount I am allocated on my university server is almost exactly the same as most people get on their hosted servers, so unless I wanted to run this on my own server (where I have complete control), I would have to find something a little less intense that could be run within the parameters I have to work with. My only real requirements were that it had to be open source and run on my system. It was then that I ran into pmWiki. This software is great for small wikis.

pmWiki

This software is great for small wikis. It uses its own data structure, so you don’t need MySQL to run it. Further, its memory requirements are far lower than other packages. Finally, it is extremely easy to install and administer. It is php-based, so it uses scripts to do everything (making it platform independent). It has a large enough user community that the support is good and the documentation it already has is excellent. Thinking about setting up your own wiki? I set one up for myselft (private, password protected) to keep track of all my technical notes. Then I set three of them up for my classes. None of the installations ran into a single hitch. This is excellent, easy-to-use software that lets anyone set up their own wiki for whatever purpose they desire at virtually no cost and very little muss and fuss. My kudos to the developers.

I was reading a copy of PC Magazine (January 2006) today and was interested in some New Year’s Resolutions from Michael J. Miller’s column on page 8:

1. Back up your data
2. Keep your operating system up to date
3. Keep your antivirus software up to date
4. Run antispyware software
5. Check system-restore disks; make them if you don’t have them
6. Check your firewall regularly
7. Change your passwords regularly
8. Check your credit reports regularly
9. Back up again and keep a copy in a safe location

These are great tips for all of us and doing them would let everyone rest a little easier in the coming year.

I have been using AllWay Sync for about two weeks now and it hasn’t missed a beat. There are, however, some responsibilities the user must take. It’s good software, but it isn’t going to prevent lame behavior. Here are two habits you have to get into to make the best use of this software:

Always sync with your memory stick when you finish working. You might forget tomorrow morning when you take off for the office (and computer #2).

Always sync with your memory stick first thing. This sort of seems like the first habit, but it’s different. I sync when I start on a computer and when I end on that computer. In other words, I want my memory stick to always be up to date.

Here is another quirk, although it has nothing to do with the software. It is the user’s responsibility to make sure the folders being synched are the right ones! It’s easy to check, but also easy to overlook. The penalty? Really messing up your folders. If AllWay thinks that Folder B is really Folder A and doesn’t have any of the files it sees in Folder A, then it will put them there for you. After all, that’s what it gets paid to do, right? So you will have to take some personal responsibility for the proper use of the package. That said, it’s great software and a real boon to those of us who are migratory computer users.

Usually, I stick to things technical in this blog. However, every once in awhile I feel the need to vent with regard to politics and the like. This is not, actually, unrelated to technology. Since the invention of radio, American politics have changed forever. There are numerous pundits that make a living talking about how the new media has shaped politics, how politicians pander to special interests and big money, and how the system is broken, bearing little resemblance to that envisioned by the founding fathers.

I think this is our fault (”we” being all of us who vote or don’t choose to vote). We have allowed it to happen through apathy, disinterest, and a general attitude of powerlessness. So here are some of my suggestions for fixing things:

Do away with the current parties and replace them with three parties - The new parties would take all hard-core conservatives and put them into the Conservative Party. All hard-core liberals would be put into the Liberal Party and all independents and moderates (both current democrats and republicans) would become the Moderate Party. The moderate party, being the most reasonable and, ostensibly, encompassing the largest number of voters, would swamp both of the other parties, eventually leading to their demise, putting us back to a one-party system. We could then rename the Moderate Party the Federalist Party and start over.

Do away with the current parties and replace them with two new parties: The Haves and the Havenots - Since we’re heading the direction of Brazil (5% of the population holding 95% of the assets), why not separate the political parties by net worth. Then the Havenots would have a great voting block majority. They could make the Haves pay all the taxes and could eventually repeat the feats of the Mexican Revolution, taking all of the property from the Haves and redestributing it to the Havenots.

Do away with the current parties and replace them with two new parties that are age-specific - The Over50 Party would compete with the Under50 party. Yesterday, the Over50 Party members were called yuppies (young upwardly-mobile professionals). Well, these people are now retiring and I would propose that a new term be coined to describe them: grumpies (grumpy retirees with underfunded pensions). Interestingly, the Over50 Party would be losing members to death while the Under50 Party, still being quite fertile, could enhance their numbers through increased reproduction.

My last suggestion is to replace the current parties with geographically oriented parties. There would be the West Party and the East Party (formerly known as the blue states and the red states). They could duke it out with the middle of the country being the swing group. Living in the midwest, I could envision us taking over, allowing the two coasts to degenerate into their own countries and we could form a new country called the States of the American Heartland. The States of the West could have sushi as their national food, Hollywood as their capital, and rely exclusively upon solar energy or imports of gasohol from the SAH. The States of the East could increase the size of the current beltway to encompass the entire country and live as political junkies. The SAH, with the great lakes, the Mississippi, and most of the country’s food production, with merge with Canada and become the superpower of the 21st century.

Well, maybe the current system isn’t so bad after all. It just needs to be fixed, so let’s get to it.

I have four computers that I have to keep certain files synchronized on. I actually have more than four computers when you include my servers, but my primary workhorses include two desktops and two laptops. There are some files that I work on all the time, from any location I happen to be in, and I always want my files to stay up to date. Enter Allway Sync.

Allway Sync is a top-notch package that is easy to install and easy to use. I use it with a memory stick and began by copying the four folders in my documents that I wanted to keep synchronized to the memory stick from my primary work computer. I then installed a copy of Allway Sync on each of the four computers. From then on, I routinely sync when I am moving from one computer to the next and sync on that one when I start working. That way whatever computer I am working on is completely up to date before I start working. When I am ready to move on to the next computer, I sync it to the memory stick, grab the stick and move on to the next computer. When I sit down at that one to do some work, the first thing I do is sync again. This process has flawlessly and painlessly kept all of my four computers in sync. It’s a great software idea and is excellently implemented. Kudos.

I have been playing around with the latest addition to my software collection, Microsoft’s OneNote. This is very free-form software that gives you all the tools you need to organize all of your misc. thoughts. My problem is that I am generally working on so many projects at one time that I have a hard time keeping all my thoughts straight, especially when projects have some overlap. OneNote is designed to be a central repository for all of those misc. ideas, thoughts, notes, etc., that are generally relegated to the odd scrap of paper, only to be lost and forgotten.

The nice thing about OneNote is that Microsoft, for a change, isn’t trying to tell you how to do things. They simply give you a very versatile tool and let you adapt it to your needs. There are several levels of organization (the whole thing is a notebook which is subdivided into sections or folders. Sections hold pages, which can also have subpages. Folders can hold other folders or sections. So you see, with that you can create whatever type of hierarchy you want within your notebook. Each page can have a note, multiple notes, or subpages, which can in turn have notes. A note can be text, a handwritten item (from a tablet PC or PDA), an audio file, a video file, a picture, or another file. Notes can contain links of all kinds and virtually any type of content you want or need to insert.

I am using this software daily, and I will report back as I become better acquainted with it. First look grade is A.

My son recently bought a Sony Handycam DCR-DVD92. The main reason for his purchase was the ease of use of having a camcorder that recorded directly to DVD. The idea was to just record video, plop the DVD in the computer, and then edit, combine taping sessions, and write to an edited DVD for distribution to family and friends.

The camcorder is probably the only model Sony has that doesn’t come with any software and that doesn’t have a connection device (firewire, usb, etc.). The only way to get your video to your computer for editing is to use the DVD. Use of the camcorder was, as advertised, simple. It shot good video and had a relatively straightforward menu system. But the first time we tried to copy video data to the computer for editing, the computer didn’t recognize the data on the drive.

After some research (lots of Google searches), I found out that the camcorder creates its video in a format called VOB. That is a format that combines the audio and video track somewhat differently than most common formats. Roxio Easy Media Creator documentation claimed to be able to input VOB files, but we couldn’t read them. After quite a bit of time was spent messing with the disks, I finally determined that the reason that we couldn’t read the video was that my son was not finalizing the disks (he was using DVD+RW disks) before putting them into the computer. I suggested he finalize one, so he did that and, voila, problem solved. Easy Media Creator would recognize the files on the disk, import them (we had to use the “capture” mode) and then edit them with the usual editing features.

Bottom line: While vendors make every effort to make things user friendly, this stuff is still fairly complicated and it really does pay to read the manual (the solution to our problem was on page 44 of the manual, where it said that you had to finalize the disks before trying to use them in a computer drive). Take your time, read the documentation, and follow recommended steps in the proper order.

I have just set up another blog site. While there is a little bit of overlap (educational technology), the new blog, edProgress, emphasizes what I call 21st century learning. It’s about the use of technology and blended learning to improve education.