Nearly a month since my last post, but I couldn’t think of a better topic than this one. OpenID has slowly been gaining ground, rightfully so given that every site from Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Google/etc have been pushing their unified log in systems. It’s troubling at best, given the security history of some of these sites, and the sneakiness of web code these days. Why? Well, for starters my old school ways kick in and I flat out prefer to know what site has me logged in, and as ‘who’! Some people prefer to hide online, and I certainly lurk appropriately due to my own introverted ways, but there are times where being “me” is important (namely in a professional career standpoint).

Gina Trapani from Lifehacker/Smarterware has posted a wonderful little 2-line HTML tip (via Stack Overflow) to get OpenID working on your very own domain. It’s slick, easy and leverages Google Profiles (as well as other ID proxy type sites).

I also agree with her statement about tending to her online identity. I have found myself fending off various domain & identity predators. My biggest issue was a chap, who having my same name, actually tried to apply for something using a paper I wrote (and had published briefly online some years back). Imagine my surprise when I get a follow up interview call for a job I never applied for. Hilarity ensued. Cute. Ben C’s stealin’ my identity? It’s more likely than you think!

Given that there’s lots of people out there who share the same name, this little tip can help keep your personal identity in check. It’s like I wrote the evil-Ben: it isn’t that I frown upon the sharing of a similar name, because that would be silly in a world of 6.6 billion people, it’s the fact he was impersonating my credentials for a job that concerned me much.

Even without your own domain, being aware of OpenID and how these “top level sites” leverage their own code for logging in to sites, you’ll appreciate just how crazy the web is getting.

After a busy last month or so, I’ve been stuck on how best to address Pushing Ice. It’s a fantastic story, and probably one of the most important novels for Reynolds — at least in my opinion, since he seems to have improved upon some areas that were quite glaring from his Revelation Space series. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s brilliant at hard science fiction space opera, if not one of the best. Yet as any writer will say, the more you write, the better you get. Pushing Ice definitely reinforced that statement.

Reynolds, once again, stuffs his writing with brutally efficient and wonderfully complex descriptions. For some it’s probably seen as abrasive writing, but then what good novel doesn’t require you to take that little extra time. I read Pushing Ice in about four-and-a-half hours, with nearly all of it on a plane. Perhaps it was the gentle lull of the engines, and the noise cancellation routines chugging away in my headphones, but I found myself transfixed on the story. The pace he set maintained itself thoughtfully, unlike previous novels that were oddly paced, with areas receiving necessary focus as needed.

The characters were great, and with dashes of humour and some wonderful scenes of intense ‘hardcore space opera.’ The human quotient is never far, especially given the sheer vastness of the story. His mind-bending revelations hit the reader with a serious blow, especially when it comes to the scale of what he is presenting (though I will leave it up to you to determine whether that scale is in in terms of physical space or, perhaps, time). I did catch myself thinking upon Clarke’s 2001 series, with hints of Rama tossed in along side H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, but that’s neither here nor there. Comparisons exist for every novel, and for Pushing Ice to be rubbing shoulders with some Sci-Fi classics, I think that speaks highly of how far Reynolds has come.

Overall it was an enjoyable read, smooth comes to mind, much like the flight when I read this book.

I’ve written about Courier a couple times before. Alas, this appears this may be the last time I do!

Courier was a pretty amazing concept tablet coming out of Microsoft. Gizmodo reports today that the Redmond folk have decided to cancel the project altogether. This is kind of disappointing for a few reasons. As I’ve mentioned before, the interface being developed was really slick, and by slick I mean intuitive, clean and useful. I think what made Courier so interesting is that it was a concept project that seemed almost… un-Microsoft. The organic nature of the hardware and the OS/software combination was immensely cool. If you get a chance, watch the concept videos. It’ll drop your jaw.

Sigh! I still think the iPad is a fantastic little device, but Courier seemed to be focused on being an actual tablet. Not just a display board with multi-touch. Who knows, perhaps Microsoft will resurrect this at some stage!

I was recently interviewed for an article about Google Apps & Outlook Sync (I’m at the bottom; look for Ben). At any rate, here is the direct article quote:

Overall, Benjamin Congdon, a Google Apps systems architect and consultant in Ontario, likes the Outlook sync tool but suggests Google stamp out the bugs faster. “If they can keep up with the ‘known issues’ as quickly as they become known, that will greatly assist in building a better relationship with the Apps admins out there,” he said via e-mail.

Google just released a very positive update to the Outlook Sync client last week. This update addresses part of what I was quoted on: building better relationships with the App Admins. I should also point out that quote sort of indicates I work for Google; I don’t, I’m just a systems architect consultant who happens to work with Google Apps. :)

Prior to 1.8, and presuming you have already migrated your Outlook in to Google Apps, Outlook Sync would sit in the task tray, and spin its little arrow icon around doing stuff. We all know Google is a bit notorious for oversimplifying software, but in this case App Sync was too simple. Better put, there was a lack of information. A spinning icon can’t convey enough information to reflect what is a very complex process happening behind the scenes.

Let’s say an average user comes in Monday morning and finds their contacts are missing or out of sync. The proactive administrator will head to the file system, looking at the Sync Logs, except in most cases the errors are too generic, or too vague (e.g. Outlook has a problem, error 1001 — gee thanks!). More importantly, the end user is looking at a little icon in the task tray that isn’t doing anything, with a broken Outlook staring them in the face. Good deal, no one really knows what has happened, and where things are broken. Transparent software for things like sync is bad, even more so when you’re syncing with a VERY user focused interface — Outlook itself.

There’s something to be said about interactive software — not so much in the end user being able to control things, but rather to let them know what is happening (and without OVER doing it). Users can’t be subjected to this type of situation I just mentioned because the lack of information is very unhelpful, and it’s frustrating for them. They simply don’t know what’s happening, and quite frankly, nor do the admins.

This new version of Outlook Sync provides sync progress indicators for the address book, contacts, calendar, and email (you can turn this off by the way). Fiiiinally! Admins are in a position where the user can happily see the sync working, and the administrators can rest easier in terms of quickly identifying when particular aspects of the sync are failing. So, in other words, if contacts aren’t syncing, the progress indicator will tell us. The lesson here? Selective information is good for users — progress bars are meaningful concepts that provide quick and easy comprehension to whatever is happening. Users can see sync working now, and when it may be broken.

I’m a little tangential with my comments here, partly due to a long day, but this small GUI update is huge for Google. I feel far more comfortable that my Apps users can see the syncs are happening, if they want to. It also helps me diagnose possible issues far, far easier and directly. Ultimately this tiny little GUI change may seem silly or inconsequential, but this is an example of how Google is improving its relationship with Apps admins & their users.

This is a brilliant example of how versatile this medium is. The image above will take you back to this site. How is this capable? Well, from some incredibly awesome programming.

Dr. Manabu Hagiwara, a mathematician at the Japanese Research Center for Information Security (RCIS) has released a free downloadable QR Code generator called QR-JAM MAKER. It produces distinctive QR Codes with an image down a bar in the middle of the code.

VIA: http://2d-code.co.uk/generate-modified-qr-codes/

My ability to read any level of Kanji is nil. I would love to find out more on Dr. Hagiwara’s research in to how he managed to create a ‘white space’ capable of carrying an image. Could you imagine Hello Kitty embedded QR Code everywhere?

My barcodes bring all the…

Everyone knows about barcodes. Little stickers, white background, black vertical lines. They are information tattoos applied to nearly every product, and nearly every thing in our lives. Walk in to a store, you pick something up, the clerk passes the barcode over the scanner, bleep bloop there’s your total, pay up sucker. We peel them off, most times poorly, leaving a sticky mark behind. It’s quite a magical little thing we take for granted every day. What we’re dealing with is modern day symbology, no surprise there. But barcodes are so linear, physically and informational. We needed something better.

Patented Potables

A quick history lesson. Most people refer to them as UPC codes (redundant statement, ho!) or just barcodes. Since the 1930s people have been thinking hard about how to track merchandise. In 1932, Wallace Flint, a Harvard business student came up with a thesis paper on an automated grocery system. His system used punchcards, and flow racks which would automatically dispense the item (gigantic vending machine!). Resolved to continue his lust for punch cards, his master’s thesis was about a system in which a customer would choose punch hole cards where each card represented a product in the store. Sadly this didn’t catch on, but boy was he on the right track.

The modern day barcode dates back to 1949, and was developed by Norman Joseph Woodland, a graduate student and teacher at the Drexel Institute of Technology. A fellow student by the name of Bernard Silver mentioned to Woodland about how the university was conducting research in to an automated system to receive product information at the checkout. Woodland thought about Morse code, and how the two ideas were a perfect unison of dots and dashes to communicate information electronically. At first Woodland just took the dots and dashes and extended them downward as lines. The result was what we see today; a group of thin bars (dots) and thicker bars (dashes) representing some sort of serial number.

Given that most technological marvels have been invented through the combination of technologies, Silver and Woodland took the work of David Morse (telegraphy) and Le De Forest (movie soundtrack system). On October 20th, 1949, these two filed a patent for a “Classifying Apparatus and Method.” Their magic solution was a combining an oscilloscope (seriously these things have no end of coolness throughout science) to a very sensitive RCA tube. By moving the barcode side to side, images were created on the oscilloscope’s dial and behold we have the first machine capable of reading printed material. They did most of this research working for IBM, except IBM refused to fund the patent for proper research. Eventually RCA picked up the patent, but Woodland abandoned his efforts out of the fact his research didn’t exactly equate well to a real-world setup.

During the 1960s, the Sylvania Company had a problem with the ever increasing complexity of the railway system developing across the United States. Fortunately they had a chap named David J Collins on board. He knew he needed a method of labelling each freight car with a special code to identify it, and it needed to be able to be read electronically. Collins developed a modified version of the Woodland-Silver barcode, using a different set of colours of phosphorescent inks that could be read by a new light emitting system — the laser beam. One of the reasons he used the laser beam was due to its inherent error correcting feature. A laser would zip across the label hundreds of times per second, allowing it to sort out scratched or smudged codes. A true success, Collins realized he could apply this to the ever present grocery store scenario. They refused, and Collins quit.

The big idea here is that Collins found an actual real world case for the Woodland-Silver barcode, and in such a way that it was technologically smart (error correcting). Unfortunately for Collins, RCA still owned the patents of that idea, and so RCA began a research project in the early 1970s aimed at the grocery industry. The difference here is the engineers needed to work on a system capable of reading barcodes from various distances and angles. RCA eventually redesigned the straight-line system in to circles, and they named it the “bulls-eye code.” IBM by this stage got all frothy in the mouth at competition, and asked Woodland (who was still at RCA since the patent fiasco 20 years before) to research the straight-line system again. In the end, an IBM employee named George J. Laurer, completed the final work on this bar code system, and it comes as no major surprise as to who got their name on that patent.

On April 3rd, 1973, the IBM straight-line design was officially adopted by the grocery store industry. Later it was named the Universal Product Code, or UPC. The first UPC marked item ever scanned at a retail checkout (Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio) was at 8:01am on June 26, 1974. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The Smithsonian Museum now cares for that pack of gum.

By the 80s everyone was all over this stuff. Everyone finally clued in to the fact that a little bar code could help catalog and organize anything it was stuck to.

A Smidge of Geekification

UPC specifically encodes 12 decimal digits in to a bit pattern. A bit pattern is a fancy way of saying there’s a bunch of binary digits arranged in a sequence. The bit pattern for each numeral is designed to be as little like the others as possible, and to provide no more than four consecutive 1s or 0s in order (Laurer was a smart guy). This is done for reliability in scanning in combination with the fact lasers were becoming smaller (and cooler, like those crazy spinning mirrored ones at the grocery store). Eventually Europe had to get involved, and everyone agreed upon a new standard called EAN-13. The EAN-13 barcode (originally named the “European Article Number” it is now renamed as the ”International Article Number” even though the EAN abbreviation has been retained; one of those don’t ask situations I suppose) is a barcoding standard which is a superset of the original 12-digit UPC system. The real reason was this allowed for the 0th bit to be used as a country code identifier. This is what you see most often in retail stores these days. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with where the merchandise was made, but rather where it should be sold.

UPC-A with 11 digits (data: 12345678900)

EAN-13 with 12 digits (data: 123456789000), notice the grouping (left and right) consist of 6 digits, and not 5. Magical I know.

Because of how pervasive the UPC marking is, things like DVDs & CDs have suddenly started to be organized better because of software packages supporting the use of a camera to do the scanning (and cheap USB scanners like the famous CueCat) . From there the software takes over, figures out what the heck you’re scanning, and pulls down all sorts of information from covers to Amazon links. For OSX, there is a brilliant software package called Delicious Library. For Windows there is one called DVD Profiler. Both do the same thing. Type in the numbers (or scan the UPC bar), and the software runs off, grabs all sorts of information and puts it in to a local database. I can finally stop buying The Shawshank Redemption over and over again. Fantastic. Fun. Exciting! Even the US military bar coded everything in the early 80s. Asset tracking! What a novel idea.

The standing issue here is that barcodes are getting old. They won’t be disappearing any time soon, but boy are there some cooler alternatives out there.

2D Means 2Awesome (Ok, so that was a stretch)

During the 1990s we started to see a new type of code being developed. The Data Matrix. Sounds cool. And it is! The big idea is we can use a bunch of pixels, with the increasingly sophisticated cameras being developed, to make a 2D matrix of information.

Now that we have X and Y, we can make little squares of pixels. Two borders of the Data Matrix, made in to an L shape, allow us to locate and orient the symbol. Just like how the UPC laser needs to “cut across” the bars, the same principle of orientation needs to apply to these boxes. The stuff inside this shape is called the Timing Pattern, where Black is on (“1″) and White/empty is off (“0″). The Timing Pattern also lets us figure out how many rows and columns we have. As more data is encoded, the number of cells (rows & columns) would increase. Then there’s a bunch of error correction thrown in, and I’ll be up front in saying it’s really boring stuff as to how that works. Usual data size is from a few bytes up to 2 kilobytes (so 8×8 up to 144×144). What’s even cooler is it can encode up to 3,116 characters from the entire ASCII character set (with extensions)!

Data Matrix encoding the word “example”. Notice how the X & Y axis are “black lines”; that’s the orientation component.

The real power of the Data Matrix was quickly used for various commercial applications. You could make a little square as small as 300 micrometres, all the way up to 1-metre sized squares painted on the top of freight cars. The only limitation is how good (or how big) the scanning equipment is. Yet you’d still have all that data storage for anything you wanted to stored inside the symbol. Versatile & useful? Wow!

Unfortunately patents rear up again and all sorts of weirdness happened. The short story here is there’s a bunch of companies all squabbling over this, and in one case a company decided to demand licensing fees. Oops. It’s still being sorted out even thought it’s been nearly 20 years. Oh patents, will you ever stop being so fun!

What can MaxiCode do for you?

We haven’t even touched on barcodes used by post offices, and shipping companies, most of whom use their own variations, although based off of some standard out there. UPS uses MaxiCode, a densely packed 2d code with a bullseye. The bullseye in the middle, incidentally, allows for automatic symbol location regardless of orientation — incredibly important on high speed conveyer belt systems. 93 characters of information can be used, which back in 1992 when it was adopted by UPS, was a mega huge storage facility of information. Plus you can add 8 of these symbols together in a ‘string of glyphs’ so to speak.

MaxiCode encoding the phrase “It’s MaxiCode”. This is a high DPI version.

The same information as above, only using a low DPI version. Terrible quality I know — BUT that’s where error correction is useful.

FedEx has been using Code 128 symbol for its FedEx Ground bar code strategy. The silly part is, even though it’s officially UCC/EAN Code 128 (with a variant in the shipping industry called GS1-128), it is referred to as the “96″ bar code because it always begins with a “96″. FedEx breaks down the full allotment of characters in to various groupings from package class, to the package number, and a bevy of other important information. It is decidedly less cool than having a bullseye like UPS.

GS1-128. FedEx was feeling left out :(

Semacode, Exclamation Point

Along came the web. Suddenly we needed a way to quickly convey URLs. It’s all about marketing, finding a quick route to get people to your site. You have a vast advertising opportunity called cities. The Semacode is a visual code that – based on the DataMatrix norm ISO/IEC 16022 – codes character strings.

So it’s really DataMatrix, just in disguise, with a focus on encoding internet URLs. The other big reason why it’s so cool is because it’s fully open source, and it’s all about non-commercial use. Plus it’s Canadian. Semacode is in all sorts of interesting places once you start looking. Multilingual museum exhibits have been exploring their use with mobile phone users to allow them to be directed to the correct language explanation of the piece they are admiring. Name tags at conferences use Semacode to embed URLs to a person’s contact vcard. Did I mention they are from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada?

Semacode with the URL of coresite.org!

Semacode with the phone number of (555)867-5309. The decoding software would allow you to either open up the web site URL, or call the number. Well that’s the idea anyway.

Some folks even took the time to make a Semacode in a wheat field in Germany. This was done in the sake of art & technology to have it show up on Google Earth when the satellite zipped overhead snapping pictures.

Semacode, Wheat field version.

The message? “Hello, World!” of course.

QR Code, the coolest of them all

Enter in QR Code. This is a curious little creature I’m sure you’ve seen. If you haven’t, you will soon. Mobile phone companies in Japan/Asia have been all over this for years. It’s slowly started to be adopted here. If you own a BlackBerry and you’ve ever used their BlackBerry Messenger, and specifically sent or received a contact, you actually saw & used a QR Code. Android has also followed suit, using it for many of their products and in their marketing campaigns.

QR Code is still a 2d data matrix. It’s still square, but it has been solely designed to have a Quick Response — or in layman’s terms, it’s intended to be decoded at high speed. High speed is good, because mobile phones aren’t all equal, especially when it comes to computing power. It’s easy to hold a phone camera up to a QR code, take the photo, and some little bit of software (either in the OS, or as a standalone application) quickly decodes the symbol. It has error correction in case you have a terrible phone camera, *BUT* the real winning aspect is the symbol can hold up to 4,296 characters. The more information you put in, the bigger the QR Code would get.

QR Code with the encoded phrase of “QR Code example”.

Combined with the speed decoding aspect, and wicked good error correction, QR Code has huge storage capacity. I think that’s why it will edge out Semacode.

2D Matrices as Art

A while back, some fellow made these little patches under the name of p8t.ch. You can buy them from the Maker’s Marketplace. The idea is to encode a little tidbit of information (a redirector that lives on p8t.ch’s site) that you can adjust over the coming years. Sew it on to your jacket, or backpack, and let people find you, or perhaps embed a URL to a little piece of art. Or get Rick Rolled! Each patch this fellow makes is unique as is the associated URL (he’s using a redirector system that he explains on his site). I also believe there are different features to the patch. Very cool, especially for the super geek warrior.

More curiously is QR Code’s integration with urban art. The largest ever Open Air QR Code Art Project has been opened for 2010 Landesgartenschau (State Garden Festival) in Hemer, North Germany. The artist behind this, Frank Haase, explains part of his integration of QR Codes in to his art:

In some cases the codes in the paintings contain text messages, in some cases there are links to websites which show graphics or animations. So the buyer gets a static painting for the wall and also a dynamic and digital part of the work of art for the cell phone. As owner of the linked websites I can modify the content from time to time so that the owner of the painting gets digital surprises.
(http://2d-code.co.uk/frank-haase-qr-code-paintings/#comment-873)

To me, QR Code has its own elegance of design and artistry that tastefully encodes information. This bridges a secondary texture to whatever work has the embedded QR Code. Through adjusting content on the static URLs (that can obviously be redirected) we’ll see artists exploring that boundary in, what I hope to be, beautiful ways.

ARGs, the reality games not the pirate sound

Tron Legacy, due out later this year, revives a classic Disney movie. If you poke around the internet about the movie, you’ll probably stumble across a campaign called Flynn Lives. This is a weird site, at least to the untrained eye, that expresses aspects of the upcoming movie — that Flynn himself is still alive. Welcome to the Tron Legacy Augmented Reality Game (ARG). I’ve been following this myself, and I managed to get involved up to a point where I was part of a secret infiltration group and I needed to make a security badge.

Well, I plugged in my photo, typed in my address, and a few weeks later my real security pass showed up! I still have no idea what I get to use it for, but it’s quite a cool novelty item and should provide me some future hours figuring out what I do need to use it for. The best part is? The badge contained QR Code to help me continue my ARG-ing.

Even Iron Man 2 has jumped on board with QR Code. Tony Stark never looked so good. The URL from the QR Code it shoots you to a mobile site that provides all sorts of information from ticket sales, to trailers. A marketing masterpiece!

I expect QR Code to show up in most of our environment simply to provide you with “more information URLs.” Even Warnings or Emergency Information could be stored. Instructions too. And the benefit is, a quick photo lets me record and remember that URL rather than blindly ignoring it. That’s the power of 2D symbology. It makes you want to photograph it.

OMG I <3 STICKERZ

One thing that I notice is the combination of Semacode and QR Code being used in weird combinations. I personally will stick with QR Code, primarily because of its rapid growth, but also because the 3-square corner makes it instantly recognizable.

Even Facebook is offering QR Code generation. Talk about creepy. That’s a whole other post waiting to happen.

There’s some concern with “QR Overload.” If they are everywhere, we’ll turn in to zombies holding up our cameras trying to find out what secrets these pixel blocks hold, and possibly landing to some rather distasteful URL. Advertising firms will need to get their staff checking these to ensure the URLs aren’t bad or rude. Same goes from the phone software — it shouldn’t automatically open up a URL once you take the photo. I know QuickMark (iPhone App I personally use) shows the parsed information first, giving me options to continue (whether it be opening up MobileSafari, or Mail). It also keeps a history, a rather nice touch and useful too. I shouldn’t need to stress this, but the decoding results in text, nothing more. QR Codes are harmless in that respect.

The second part to QR Overload is that we’ll train ourselves to ignore them. Just like the old UPC. The only benefit of QR Code is that it provides anyone with meaningful information. That’s where I hope it will succeed.

Whether it’s QR Code, Semacode, or some other 2d matrix code system, these boxes of pixels are a truly wonderful use of technology and basic computing principles. Expect to see them more and more, tucked away quietly in a corner or highlighted prominently on billboards, online ads, newspapers, or even spray painted on the pavement in front of you.

References, Resources

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode ( parent topic )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_matrix_(computer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Article_Number
http://www.moyak.com/papers/history-barcodes.html

Articles:
- TOR for Android, using QR Code for software installation URL
- A movement by American Mobile companies to use Semacode
- Lifehacker article on how to make your own personalized QR Code (includes lots of resources)
- Facebook Kicks Off Implementation Of QR Codes

General Information Sites/Blogs:
- 2d-code.co.uk – A very good site dedicated to QR news
- Mobile Barcodes – A general information site about how you can use QR Codes, a bit fluffy but provides some good background. Also has a generator.
- Tagging the World using Semacode to reference Wikipedia

Online Generators:
- Tec-It – This generator does all sorts of barcode standards
- http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ – Yet another generator

Dear 4-Door Jeep Owners,

I know it’s not your fault, but I think it’s time for a chat.  I think things have gotten out of control, and I’m scared for all of us.  This is why I write to you all with a heavy heart.

When you buy a Jeep there are certain unwritten rules.  It was easy to understand up until 2007.  There was a clear definition of what a Jeep was.  We all had four wheels.  We all had a steering wheel.  Many of us veered off from the stock purchase and added some winches, and modifications that made our little Jeep our best friend.  And yet we still shared that common bond of 2-doors.

We have had a long standing appreciation that our 2-doors was the natural law of Jeepkind.  That any other modification was unnatural, and possibly suspect by some evil force.  Perhaps it was a Hummer disguising itself as a Jeep.  Stranger things have happened.  But it was easy for us to know when one of these things is not like the other.  Our kind and friendly way is a path that either you get or you don’t.  It’s also not like we flaunt our vehicles in the faces of others, although some glaring may occur from other “off-road” vehicles as we zip by.

Whether covered in mud (both outside and inside), whether driving in the fiercest of blizzards while everyone else cowers inside, or whether we are out for a pleasant drive, we all know the about the unwritten rule of owning a Jeep.  The Jeep Wave.

You may be startled to know that there really IS a reason why some other Jeep owners have been waving at you!  Perhaps you have scratched your head wondering if the person is on drugs, perhaps keen to say hello, or possessed with happiness and love for all people.  I suppose the latter may be true in that all Jeep owners do have an appreciation for our fine vehicle heritage.  Some of our kind are very old, ancient in some books.  They receive a certain amount of respect from everyone.  Even the new Jeeps have a certain squared-designed dignity on the road.  We may not be stately in some people’s eyes, but all owners, given the correct circumstances try to wave to one another.

This is a kinship.  A rather scared one at that.  Built off the backs of many Jeep owners, both urban and suburban, from the top-down-only Jeeps to the truly hardcore off-roaders with long-arm suspension kits worth more than the Jeep itself.  All ages are included in this family.  It really is a Jeep Thing.  And yet, you 4-door owners apparently need a gentle reminder.

When a Jeep waves at you, you should wave back if circumstances allow.

See, isn’t that easy?  We’re not trying to get your number, and we’re not going to hurt you.  We’re just saying “Hi, it’s a pleasure to know that you and I share a common bond, and I will express such with a simple wave.”  It’s not so hard.

I’ll admit, it was a little confusing seeing your 4-doors on the road at first.  We had a tough time understanding why you existed in the first place.  But with strange times for all of us, acceptance set in.  Even with all your fancy gadgets inside and the fancy multi-part top, it definitely raised some eyebrows.  But we 2-door owners recognized we had to embrace you, as a new and strange friend, and extend our previously exclusive kinship to your kind.

The problem remains that you guys aren’t pulling your weight when it comes to upholding The Jeep Wave.  And so this is why I write this letter, a proverbial tear shedding down my cheek for all our sake, and ask that you 4-door owners recognize your failure since 2007, and start to wave back.  I think you’ll understand a little better what owning a Jeep is all about when you do start to wave.  You may not get a wave back, you need to understand some of our kind have to shift around corners, but a nod is equal to a wave.

And so I end this letter with The Wave of friendship between our 2-doors and your 4-doors.

Sincerely Yours,

2-door Jeeps & their owners (inclusive of all years and types)

https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights

EFF has released a wonderful checklist that sheds some very important light on the topic of digital books, and your rights.

You may be asking yourself, who gives a hoot?  Well, lots of people do.  More importantly you should care, and you should know and understand what is happening when it comes to this subject.  We’re not exactly entering the age of Star Trek datapads being fully pervasive in our daily routines, but sure as sin we’re there with computers.  Same concept, only wrapped in a different physical device.  Even if you may not appreciate the value of such hardware/technology, it’s safe to say these devices are coming, and will be common place before you know it.

There’s much to be excited about when it comes to eReaders.  These little devices are fantastic.  The thought of being able to walk around with every book you want is overwhelming.  Think of all those miserable days lugging around kilograms of textbooks!  The tactile relationship between reading, and physical books will remain.  Let’s be honest, if I could get all my textbooks, or O’Reilly books in a single device I could read easily — I’d be pretty happy!  I appreciate books, I have close to a thousand in the basement, so it’s not like I want to replace the book.  I just see eReaders as a natural movement of technology for storing and displaying information.

Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Nobles Nook, Sony’s Reader series, and the upcoming iPad from Apple are opening up a huge can of worms on the subject of Intellectual Property and who owns what.  That’s really the big issue here.  Are you borrowing a book?  Or do you actually *own* it?  What happens if the publishers change the rules?

It’s happened before.  Amazon removed Orwell’s 1984 from Kindles all around the world last year.  As the software/OS allows personal annotations (a common feature of eReaders), all of that stuff was deleted too.  Nice eh?  Each Kindle owner had zero say in the matter — people just woke up, and no more 1984, all their notes and comments lost.  Irony aside, this is representative of the problems we’re going to have to address — and soon.

My point is we’re dealing with yet-another Elephant-In-The-Room scenario, one of many that exist in today’s technology that need to be resolved.  You need only query “eReader rights” on Google and you’ll see just how crazy this topic is.  We’re a long way from figuring this out, but at the very least the average consumer should know their rights.  The EFF’s checklist is definitely worth your time to read — perhaps if you are lucky enough, on your eReader.

Ever watched Star Trek?

Ever watched Star Trek The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine?

Ever notice those data pads?

Ever notice how the pads aren’t used for anything overly excessive except for informational/planning actions?

Ever notice how if the characters wanted to do something of value, a pad may have been used, but ultimately the hard work was done through a terminal, or interfacing with the Computer, there by allowing for multitasking and more difficult/complex computing to be accomplished?

Congratulations.  You just realized what they were using was an iPad in conjunction with a workstation/desktop.

TEH FUTURE IS NOW.  etc.  :)

My point is, the iPad is taking a serious amount of slag from people, but ultimately the apps, the creativity/imagination/ingenuity will make (or break) the iPad.  Those apps, the ones we HAVEN’T yet seen, will have a major impact on computing.  Just you watch and wait.

I’m glad that most people appear to be pronouncing the new year correctly.  Two-thousand-ten sounds terrible.  Twenty-ten is much more pleasant.

Considering everyone likes to make New Year Resolutions, I have decided to go against the grain and simply not make any.  Take that society!  I stab at thee with nothingness!  I should point out I never make resolutions purely because it’s a poor method to change your life.  Grand ideas like making a billion dollars, or losing 50 kilos of weight are examples of things destined to fail.  Smaller steps make for larger gains.

So rather than striving for a nugget of Unobtainium, aim for the betterment of your life at all times.  Reflect often, something people do very poorly these days, and see where you can improve.  I’m far from a perfect example of this, but I do try to be like that.  From my perspective, isn’t life all about trying to better yourself at all times?  If it’s not, I can say with certainty, I would be bored to tears. :)