Mind Mash

test post

I can’t tell you how many times over the past 9 months I have tried to update to the latest Apple firmware for our Time Machine, only to find the result is an unstable – unusable – wireless network. I always have to downgrade back to 7.3.2.

Please, Apple, GET IT RIGHT. This reminds me too much of trying to set up networks in the early days of Windows XP. It has to JUST WORK.

Phones need a “Report as Spam” button for text messages and phone calls.

I have been receiving junk texts for a while now, usually a few times a week, occasionally more frequently.

Today I received a text message which informed me that my bank account had been locked and that I should call some number to unlock it.

This kind of criminal phishing is disgusting. Law enforcement need to stop this but this morning I couldn’t even figure out how to report it. There is a form for registering a complaint at www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov but it does not seem to work well for for text message fraud.

Here is my suggestion: phones need a “Report as Spam” button for text messages and phone calls. Such a simple mechanism has helped to contain the vast diseased ocean of junk email. I’m sure it can help with text messages and phone calls too.

Quick post: yesterday I upgraded from Vmware Fusion 2 on my Mac to 3.0.

I also suffered the widely reported problem where the site could not find my previously registered copy of Fusion 2 and so would not give me the upgrade pricing option. Some broken web pages, and some hours later, I was unexpectedly presented with a page to actually pay for the thing. A little confusing because I wasn’t sure how I had arrived there. Still, I lived the dream and punched in my digits. I let it download overnight.

This morning I checked the instructions for upgrading an existing copy of Fusion in the “Getting Started” manual. No sweat: I just installed the new version and everything was OK.

Fired up my Windows 7 RC VM. First start seemed typically slow, with the scrambled graphics and resizing windows I’m used to seeing when starting Windows 7 in Fusion. Second start of Windows 7 was very fast.

Overall: slightly irritated about the site problems yesterday, but happy that the upgrade was smooth and – to a first approximation – does not seem to have broken anything.

I think the Kindle is a great way to read books, and I enjoy my Kindle 2. There are some definite negatives, especially the DRM on the books – what happens when Amazon decides not to support the format any more? – and now I have found another one.

The power management on the Kindle 2 is definitely under par. The battery drains in a few days, even when the unit is off. It will sometimes warn you that your battery is flat even after you have charged it, because it seems to generate the warning before checking to see if the battery state has changed.

Now, I have found a worse instance of that problem: my Kindle 2 seems to be unchargeable and unusable. The battery had become flat, and the Kindle was displaying a critical battery warning. I charged the Kindle, but when I turn it on it only gets part way through its boot-from-cold process before complaining again of the critical flat battery, at which point it stops doing any thing. The problem is described in a Kindleboards thread but the proposed solution does not seem to work.

What to do?

Update A few cycles of hard power off, charging, turning on etc seemed to fix the issue. Still, the firmware needs updating for sure.

Linux is great for the back end, but has continued to fall down for the consumer desktop because the UI doesn’t quite cut it.

Chrome OS uses the mature and continually developing UI provided by the web browser to fill this lack. No more problems playing video, music etc – the browser can already do that.

The recent controversy over Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app reminds me again that mobile is one of the key areas of development and therefore conflict between the major IT players.

It seems pretty clear that 90% of what people want to do with computers they would like to have on the go – email and internet are prime uses, gaming is another.

I have another post to write about the importance of migration of data and computation to the cloud, but briefly I’ll say that you can do almost everything you need to with your data and major compute power living in the cloud accessed through a relatively thin connection.

Network access is a key piece of both the mobile and cloud computing puzzles, which makes the phone companies key.

This game INSANELY TWISTED SHADOW PLANET looks incredible and the soundtrack really speeds the video along. exp(WANT,exp(NEED,exp(10,23))).

I am sitting on the train, reading my email on my iPhone, reading (nay, BUYING) a book or a paper on my Kindle, and it hits me again, harder, that I need my computer less and less, it’s essential functions decomposed and distributed into a handful of simpler objects – smaller, cheaper, specialized for a task.

I just came across the Tinkerlog store, which is selling a programmable LED. I love the minimal design – no PCB, just a few components soldered together freeform – and the photo on the shop site is beautiful too.

I read in Wikipedia the other day that LEDs can also be used as light sensors, so perhaps further design simplification is possible.