Missing Link

As I wrote yesterday – I use technology when it’s faster and easier than the alternative.  In the same vein, I’ve found that technology must be easy and intuitive or I won’t want to continue using it.  This isn’t a new concept – it’s common sense.

If you look at technology that’s been wildly successful – like Twitter or the iPod – you will see examples of things that are dead simple to use and understand.  Nobody has hours to spend learning how to use or configure new technology,  we just want something that works, out of the box, with little or no configuration. (continue reading…)

Earlier this week at work I had the good fortune of having a solid state drive loaned to me to test and play around with in my Macbook Pro.  Figuring that the only PROPER way to test a drive like that is to make it my system drive I had the occasion of doing a fresh install of Snow Leopard and setting up a fresh (and FAST!) system.

I don’t usually do fresh installs anymore.  With the advent of Time Machine I usually end up having all of my applications, files, directories, etc there waiting for me after a restore.   This time, however, I had no easy way of doing that as the SSD is not large enough to house all my files.  This gave me the excuse, and opportunity, to clean out the cruft, start with a clean slate and have only those files and programs that I know I’m going to use.

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If you own a Roomba, and also own an area rug that happens to have dark colors, you’ve probably run into an issue where your Roomba thinks the dark colors are actually perilous drop-off’s that will lead it to it’s doom.  In other words – it won’t clean that rug, or will freak out and get stuck.   This is because the Roomba’s Cliff Sensors have trouble distinguishing between dark colored carpet and an actual “cliff”, so to be safe it backs away.

The easiest fix for this is to tape a piece of white paper (cut to size) over the cliff sensors (four of them).  While this works fairly well,  I found with my Roomba that often this taped on paper gets torn up and dirty over time, requiring it to be replaced – which means further upkeep and maintenance beyond the fairly high routine maintenance you already have to do.  I often would not have the motivation to re-fix the cliff sensors,  meaning my Roomba would be benched for weeks.

Last night I got tired of fighting with my Roomba over this, and decided to implement a more permanent fix.

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As I write this, I realize that its usefulness to most of you who read my blog regularly is limited, at best.  For that, I apologize.  If you’re not someone interested in information security (and specifically, the technologies involved therein) you can safely skip this without missing anything you care about reading.

Back in January, PGP Corporation released a much anticipated update to their PGP Desktop lineup -PGP Desktop 10.0.  This update was much anticipated because it finally added support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.  The great benefit here is that those who would be so inclined to utilize whole disk encryption on mac, and choose PGP as their platform of choice, could now upgrade to Snow Leopard and have their drive encrypted.

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I have no great love for Microsoft.   I can admit that some of their products are actually quite good, I generally despise the company itself.  This is no great revelation – anybody who knows me already knew that.  Some of my friends have heard me utter the words “I will never EVER buy an Xbox”.

As my Mom always told me: Never say never.

Last week, Ann and I came upon a $200 gift card to Best Buy.  We collectively decided that the best use of that would be to break down and get a gaming console.   We wanted something fun we could do with friends when they come visit, and another thing to pass time and relax.    Our options were a PS3 or an Xbox.   Both are good systems and I would have enjoyed either one,  but the main draw for the PS3 (the fact that it also plays Bluray) doesn’t really matter all that much since we already have two Bluray players.   The big draw for the Xbox – the fact that I have a handful of friends who have them and play online regularly – ended up being the deciding factor.

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