March 2006

Dear Sales Support:

March 14, 2006

What follows is an email I sent earlier today to NEC's Printer Supply Technical Support. I should perhaps explain that I have an NEC 4400N Color Printer that's made a few cross-country journeys with me and has generally been a great color laser printer. It is showing its age and as new catalogs come out I dream of donating it to a worthwhile charity and getting a nice new two-sided laser printer. In the meantime the little $58 part known as the fuser roller cleaner has reached the end of its hard working life. Three weeks ago I ordered a replacement from NEC's Printer Supply Store. You get the gist of what happened from my email to them.

Readers with an eye for detail will note that it refers to pictures that appear here as text. For some inexplicable reason NEC's support line wanted screen shots of my email showing the problem. Whatever... I think text would have been easier to deal with.

I'm perplexed as to why a picture of an email is more useful than the original that was attached to the message I originally sent. None the less, here goes:

Conflict of the ants

March 11, 2006

Earlier today I worked on setting up an Open Source Portfolio (OSP) on Mac OS X. It seemed pretty simple and the instructions said it would be. But each time it kept saying there was an improper flag "-cp". The problem turns out to be a conflict in configuration between the installation of Ant that comes with Mac OS X developer tools and the Ant included with OSP.

A calendaring solution?

March 9, 2006

There's been a struggle going on lately on my computer. I've about decided the only way to solve the calendaring conundrum is to put down the big bucks for Now-Up-To-Date. Then today comes news that Google Calendar is on its way. But of course the news doesn't solve the problem. Now it's a new problem: Can I wait for Google Calendar or do I have to spend cash on the interim? Oh, the complications of modern life.

About age or tradition

March 6, 2006

Daring Fireball writes about the reasons people who, in spite of dissatisfaction with Windows, won't switch to Macintosh. The article debunks some omnipresent myths such as the idea that Macintosh is more "locked in" to Apple than the Wintel platform is to Microsoft. A footnote suggests the iPod effect may have to do with "young people who haven't yet matured to the age where they're overly fearful of veering from the familiar. "

Possibly. But I'm not buying wholesale. I think there is another big difference between the lack of maturity to place where the familiar is uncomfortable. Rather it seems that teens today have a greater comfort level with various types of technology. Much more than those of us passing the three-decade mark, those of the next generations encounter a lot more technology a lot sooner in life. Along with a greater familiarity comes a much greater comfort in figuring out how different technology works.

A second important shift that accompanies growing up with technology. In older present generations, computers and technology are something new to learn. So much time has been put into trying to learn a few months behind those who created the technology that we've managed to loose site of the fact that our kids and their kids will come to know computers more as we consider mechanical pencils and ball-point pens.

AOL goes for second round of name calling

March 5, 2006

AOL's spokesperson, Nicholas Graham, evidently wasn't satisfied with referring to people raising concerns about AOL's plan to charge for email delivery a like a bar from the original Star Wars movie. Now he's gone on to accuse those wanting a public debate about the risky practice "deliberately confusing".

"There has been a philosophical debate that has been deliberately confused by critics. Their arguments are misguided and erroneous," Graham said. "We're taking these steps at this time because of the confusion that has been created in the marketplace."

Graham's comments come on the heels of news that AOL will allow "not-for-profits" to send free email. Though the news sounds good there are few details about which non-profits will qualify. Plenty of PTA's, community groups, school clubs and civic groups are informal organizations that lack official not-for-profit status at the state or federal level. Will these qualify? Will Graham have a new name for those who ask this question?

Three years of Drupal

March 5, 2006

Today marks three years since I publicly started using Drupal (Version 4.1) to manage this website. In that time I've ended up creating dozens of sites using this great tool. In my own web development experience it has replaced Userland Frontier and Zope which I had spent a lot of time with. There were a plethora of others that I've toyed with like the PHP-Nuke and PostNuke style programs that ultimately lacked the true flexibility of a first rate content management system. Today the project is headed towards a new release (4.7) which promises to be spectacular.

Once upon a time when I worked for a different firm they had just implemented a very expensive content management system from a major vendor. When I showed the implementers Drupal they shook their heads and said that it contained the taxonomy system that put it ahead of the product they'd just implemented. I'll be the first to say I think the implementation was a part of the problem with the expensive system. Too much politicking at the top and not enough project management in the trenches - but this was the most common state of affairs in that shop.

Nail in the coffin?

March 2, 2006

Make no mistake about it: AOL is about to commit suicide. Their risky plan to make senders pay for email delivery is a bone-headed idea if there ever was one. Though in the grand scheme of things it is not unexpected. AOL has long held on to its naive view that it can own people's connection to information. For the longest time they tried to ignore and then later awkwardly accepted the presence of the Internet.

Indeed at one time the company's services were popular enough to have their trademark new-mail phrase associated with a mass market movie. But then along came the internet. AOL reacted and put a little "view" of the internet into their product but seemed to keep digging the hole that was their online service. Now with strong opposition to their latest scheme their spokesperson refers to the broad coalition of opponents without respect.

Confession

March 1, 2006

First off a bit of a confession. When I wrote that I'd given up on SOHO Organizer I didn't entirely mean it. I continued (and continue for that matter) to hold on to the sliver of hope that some day the company that produces it would see the error in their ways and would come out of the funk. However today, just before making a purchase of a different calendar product to replace Group Organizer I thought I'd check once more. And sure enough, the message that says they really care about getting a converter for old data is still there. Amazingly I still believe it just as much three months later as I did the first time I read it - which is to say not at all.

Maybe Google will soon be releasing a calendar or somebody will point out a great AJAX calendar that also syncs with the Treo650. maybe....

Catching up

March 1, 2006

We watched Life as a House tonight. A great movie with so much to say about the dash in between - the part where all too often we spend too little of our time. Ironically while watching the movie I got an email from a childhood friend. He'd written a few weeks back and then computer problems prevented his getting back in touch. It has been great getting caught up on all the happenings of life and a reminder of just how small the world really is. My friend's brother now lives in the same town in Japan where my father spent his high school years. A small world indeed - just without the terrible music.

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