Setting up Open Firmware Password Protection in Mac OS X 10.1 or later
If you reallly want to protect an iBook, or make it useless to most thieves. Sure they could pull the drive, but most won't bother. If you use this and an encrypted disk image for vulnerable data you have pretty good mobile security. That combination wouldn't defeat a real guru, but it'll take care of everyday thieves. (Probably a good idea to put one's address info on a biz card taped to the inside of the battery, an honest person won't be able to get at your data so they can return your lost iBook.)
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
SONY CLIE PEG TJ-27: lessons in PDA reliability
Society for the Preservation of the True PDA (SPTPDA): May 2004
Last May I started using a SONY CLIE PEG TJ-27. It often lives in my front pants pocket. This is a very inhospitable environment for an electronic device, but for me the entire value of a PDA is portability and availability. I don't carry a purse, and it's useless in my backpack. I've had phones on my belt, and that's at least as bad.
The Palm III and Palm Vx devices I had survived in this harsh environment for years. Even the Tungsten T did pretty well.
Today, seven months after buying the CLIE TJ-27, I happened to notice that 3 of the 4 screws that hold it together were missing. In other words, it's about to come apart. It's design is not suited the pocket environment. It's too bulky, and screws don't work when a device is subject to regular flection stress. Fortunately I have an old JVC "walkman" tape device that died about 20 years ago; it's a rich source of small screws. They will substitute for the missing CLIE screws. (BTW, some of the original SONY CLIE screws cannot be tightened with a conventional tool. Ahh, genius at work.)
The phone or PDA vendors don't have a handle on the portability issue. There are versions of the Blackberry that might have the belt problem licked, but I've no personal experience with them. The last device I had that solved the portability issue, other than the Palm Vx, was my old pager.
Fundamentally this is not a priority for most of (dwindling) base of PDA customers. The PDA, might be a "Personal Digital Assistant", but at least for men resisting purses it's not a "Portable Digital Assistant". The same can be said of most cell phones.
Last May I started using a SONY CLIE PEG TJ-27. It often lives in my front pants pocket. This is a very inhospitable environment for an electronic device, but for me the entire value of a PDA is portability and availability. I don't carry a purse, and it's useless in my backpack. I've had phones on my belt, and that's at least as bad.
The Palm III and Palm Vx devices I had survived in this harsh environment for years. Even the Tungsten T did pretty well.
Today, seven months after buying the CLIE TJ-27, I happened to notice that 3 of the 4 screws that hold it together were missing. In other words, it's about to come apart. It's design is not suited the pocket environment. It's too bulky, and screws don't work when a device is subject to regular flection stress. Fortunately I have an old JVC "walkman" tape device that died about 20 years ago; it's a rich source of small screws. They will substitute for the missing CLIE screws. (BTW, some of the original SONY CLIE screws cannot be tightened with a conventional tool. Ahh, genius at work.)
The phone or PDA vendors don't have a handle on the portability issue. There are versions of the Blackberry that might have the belt problem licked, but I've no personal experience with them. The last device I had that solved the portability issue, other than the Palm Vx, was my old pager.
Fundamentally this is not a priority for most of (dwindling) base of PDA customers. The PDA, might be a "Personal Digital Assistant", but at least for men resisting purses it's not a "Portable Digital Assistant". The same can be said of most cell phones.
Webstractor: transform web pages into documents
Softchaos - Webstractor
The one thing I like from IE is the web archive (mht) format. I think it's even a net standard file format. I don't know why noone else has done it.
This is the next best thing.
The one thing I like from IE is the web archive (mht) format. I think it's even a net standard file format. I don't know why noone else has done it.
This is the next best thing.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Digital camcorder: Sony DCR HC40 MiniDV Digital Handycam Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom
Amazon.com: Camera & Photo: Sony DCRHC40 MiniDV Digital Handycam Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom
I will give SONY credit, however, for the best lithium ion batteries in the business. I think they must have some unique patents. My old analog SONY monster camcorder has a battery that seems to last for weeks -- and its about 6 years old!!
Another good thing in favor of this camera: low zoom numbers! Most vendors cameras are going to absurd zoom numbers; and sacrificing wide angle support.
Analog To Digital Conversion with Pass-Through: Convert and/or record any analog NTSC video source to digital video via the analog inputs. Analog NTSC video can also be passed through the digital Handycam camcorder directly into a PC via the i.LINK interface in real-time for easy PC editing of your analog footage.I wanted to find a Canon digital video camera. Alas, Consumer Reports documents a poor reliability record with Canon digital video. SONY is substantially better. This is most unfortunate, because my general impression with SONY has been that they truly dislike their customers.
I will give SONY credit, however, for the best lithium ion batteries in the business. I think they must have some unique patents. My old analog SONY monster camcorder has a battery that seems to last for weeks -- and its about 6 years old!!
Another good thing in favor of this camera: low zoom numbers! Most vendors cameras are going to absurd zoom numbers; and sacrificing wide angle support.
Usability guidelines from mainframe days remain largely valid today
Durability of Usability Guidelines (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
70% remain valid
10% invalid though underlying concept is valid
20% valid but not relevant today
Computers have changed less than we think, people have changed not at all. Good reference article with pointers to some old guidelines and to Nielsen's current material.
70% remain valid
10% invalid though underlying concept is valid
20% valid but not relevant today
Computers have changed less than we think, people have changed not at all. Good reference article with pointers to some old guidelines and to Nielsen's current material.
Removing those cursed Microsoft Windows toolbars
Lose that Adobe Acrobat Toolbar
The Adobe Acrobat toolbar is only one of several pieces of toolbar flotsam that infest my XP environment. No, I don't have any spyware infestations (oddly enough I've never gotten anyway, perhaps because I don't use IE!). These toolbars are all legit commercial products that just won't go away. I'm beginning to understand, though, why spyware vendors typically target toolbars to deliver their wares. It looks like the Microsoft Windows toolbar architecture is a festering mass of muck -- with many different backdoors and hacks that one can use to inject code into an application. Yay Microsoft.
In particular I'm cursed by pieces of Acrobat 4.0 and, more recently, the the silly Yahoo Desktop search toolbar (I like X1/Yahoo Desktop Search, I don't like Yahoo's toolbar -- which is starting to feel a bit like Adware).
This page provides some tips. I found 2 copies of PDFMaker.xla in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART" and deleted the older one, that seems to have gotten rid of the ghost Acrobat 4.0 toolbar in Excel. A search of my file system for "PDFMaker" found flavors of that beast in the Acrobat 6.0 folders and in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\STARTUP and C:\Documents and Settings\[myUserName]\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART.
I still haven't figured out yet how to remove the Yahoo Outlook toolbar. Deleting it from the Outlook toolbar list doesn't work. (Hmm. Feels like spyware indeed ...). Regedit tells me I have "Yahoo! Desktop Search Outlook Addin" loaded. Unfortunately I can't parse this further or find a file corresponding to the Addin. I'm defeated for the moment ... I might need to let the web chew on this one for a while.
Update: I received an email from Nigel L. He suggested: "You can remove the YDS Outlook toolbar by simply deleting the X1Outlook.dll ... I have not noticed any other unwanted effects from doing this (YDS can still index your PST files etc.). I also removed X1Launch.dll to stop YDS from trying to open up an internet connection…". These files are located in the Yahoo Search directory. I tried both of his suggestions and it seems to work well. The desktop toolbar still works.
Update 8/17/05:
By chance I found the official way to remove the YDS toolbar.
The Adobe Acrobat toolbar is only one of several pieces of toolbar flotsam that infest my XP environment. No, I don't have any spyware infestations (oddly enough I've never gotten anyway, perhaps because I don't use IE!). These toolbars are all legit commercial products that just won't go away. I'm beginning to understand, though, why spyware vendors typically target toolbars to deliver their wares. It looks like the Microsoft Windows toolbar architecture is a festering mass of muck -- with many different backdoors and hacks that one can use to inject code into an application. Yay Microsoft.
In particular I'm cursed by pieces of Acrobat 4.0 and, more recently, the the silly Yahoo Desktop search toolbar (I like X1/Yahoo Desktop Search, I don't like Yahoo's toolbar -- which is starting to feel a bit like Adware).
This page provides some tips. I found 2 copies of PDFMaker.xla in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART" and deleted the older one, that seems to have gotten rid of the ghost Acrobat 4.0 toolbar in Excel. A search of my file system for "PDFMaker" found flavors of that beast in the Acrobat 6.0 folders and in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\STARTUP and C:\Documents and Settings\[myUserName]\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART.
I still haven't figured out yet how to remove the Yahoo Outlook toolbar. Deleting it from the Outlook toolbar list doesn't work. (Hmm. Feels like spyware indeed ...). Regedit tells me I have "Yahoo! Desktop Search Outlook Addin" loaded. Unfortunately I can't parse this further or find a file corresponding to the Addin. I'm defeated for the moment ... I might need to let the web chew on this one for a while.
Update: I received an email from Nigel L. He suggested: "You can remove the YDS Outlook toolbar by simply deleting the X1Outlook.dll ... I have not noticed any other unwanted effects from doing this (YDS can still index your PST files etc.). I also removed X1Launch.dll to stop YDS from trying to open up an internet connection…". These files are located in the Yahoo Search directory. I tried both of his suggestions and it seems to work well. The desktop toolbar still works.
Update 8/17/05:
By chance I found the official way to remove the YDS toolbar.
| 1. | On the Tools menu, click Options. |
| 2. | On the Other tab, click Advanced Options. |
| 3. | In the Advanced Options dialog box, click COM Add-Ins. |
| 4. | Click to clear the YDS Add-in check box then remove it. |
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