Monday, August 27, 2007
The death of the OoO reply
Once upon a time, one of the coolest things about email was setting up an out-of-office reply. A good reply would be pithy, to the point, and ideally make recipients jealous that they were sending email to someone who was, say, busy climbing a mountain or lounging on a beach.
The concept kinda faltered when people started moving to always-on email. First you'd get an OoO reply, then, a few seconds later, an often cryptic and typo-laden note from a handheld: "Got yr measg, wil reply ltr". Finally, the third email carried the response.
As people get more adept at always-on they tend to stop sending these "I'm on it" messages and simply provide the answer. Ironically, with always-on, an OoO would actually be more effective these days. Way back when, no reply meant the message had not yet been read. Today, no reply within nanoseconds means an inferiority complex: am I not important anymore?
However, the spammers have killed the OoO for good. I'd rather not send back a confirmation that my email address is live and receiving mail - it just means my email address is added to yet another spamlist.
In future ahead of spells when I'll be away from my email, I'm back to contacting people to proactively let them know. And this personal touch can only be a good thing.
The concept kinda faltered when people started moving to always-on email. First you'd get an OoO reply, then, a few seconds later, an often cryptic and typo-laden note from a handheld: "Got yr measg, wil reply ltr". Finally, the third email carried the response.
As people get more adept at always-on they tend to stop sending these "I'm on it" messages and simply provide the answer. Ironically, with always-on, an OoO would actually be more effective these days. Way back when, no reply meant the message had not yet been read. Today, no reply within nanoseconds means an inferiority complex: am I not important anymore?
However, the spammers have killed the OoO for good. I'd rather not send back a confirmation that my email address is live and receiving mail - it just means my email address is added to yet another spamlist.
In future ahead of spells when I'll be away from my email, I'm back to contacting people to proactively let them know. And this personal touch can only be a good thing.
Labels: tech
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wish I'd thought of this
The Fake Steve Jobs blog is just an inspired idea - I almost snorted coffee this morning when catching up on what's been posted over the last 24 or so hours.
Seems to be that there's an element of truth in those posts. Very cleverly done, and an enormous amount of work to keep it going. Catch it while you can.
Seems to be that there's an element of truth in those posts. Very cleverly done, and an enormous amount of work to keep it going. Catch it while you can.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Skype: I took a deep breath and now I'm blue in the face
When it starts, Skype warns: Take a deep breath. I've often wondered why. Now I know - because you need a massive amount of patience to keep on using a VoIP system that's been crippled by an outage for around 36 hours.
Maybe Google Talk has improved since I last tried it around 18 months ago. If it actually works, it'll be better than Skype. This probably isn't Skype's death knell but if the outage goes on much longer, it will be a reminder to millions of people to look elsewhere for their PC-based VoIP telephony. Remember Napster? Me too - it was the soaraway leader in its field once, but I haven't used it for years. In fact I saw the icon on the desktop of an HP machine the other day and this reminded me that Napster still existed.
It's tough at the top and the software industry is fickle.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Seeing stars
The Perseid meteor shower is almost over for another year - more's the pity. Cloudy weather on Sunday night blocked our view but with clear skies last night, it was possible to see shooting stars-a-plenty from our back garden.
Labels: stargazing
Thursday, August 09, 2007
At last - compelling "Web 2.0"
It's taken me a while to appreciate the benefits of the over-hyped "Web 2.0" - social networking sites where everything's linked. Way back in 2004-5 or so I tried sites like Flickr, del.icio.us, Last.fm - they were all cool in their own way but I was missing the interaction thing.
Take a bow Facebook. If you haven't created a profile yet, do it. This is the one: the site that best integrates info from other 2.0 sites although it's still early days. I'm very impressed. The site is just addictive, which is always a good sign. Thinking about ousting my 10-year homepage (My Yahoo) in favor of Facebook.
Take a bow Facebook. If you haven't created a profile yet, do it. This is the one: the site that best integrates info from other 2.0 sites although it's still early days. I'm very impressed. The site is just addictive, which is always a good sign. Thinking about ousting my 10-year homepage (My Yahoo) in favor of Facebook.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Blowing in the wind
It was, I suppose, inevitable. Bought my first Bob Dylan albums today, starting off with Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited (and remastered, actually). Dylan has been a missing piece in the jugsaw of my musical tastes. He's revered by Bowie (these days), covered by Ferry and if I had a $ for every musician who cites him as an influence, I'd have enough money to buy the entire back catalog. But for now, baby steps. A whole new world awaits me.
The reason I went into the store was to buy the Cat Stevens album Mona Bone Jakon but it was out of stock. I got Tea For The Tillerman instead, which will keep Teaser And The Firecat company.
I bought the CDs, although they're probably never going to be played. Ripping is underway already.
The reason I went into the store was to buy the Cat Stevens album Mona Bone Jakon but it was out of stock. I got Tea For The Tillerman instead, which will keep Teaser And The Firecat company.
I bought the CDs, although they're probably never going to be played. Ripping is underway already.
Labels: mp3
Busted (by the BBC)
And so my BBC iPlayer trial has hit the rocks. "Sorry, you appear to be outside the UK" and therefore no downloads. Ah well, it was worth a try and to be honest I'd never heard of any of the programmes that were on offer, so just chose one at random to test the download.What's particularly interesting is that even though I "closed" the iPlayer application, "Kservice.exe" is still running and seems to be the cause of a lot of network activity. This little beastie was installed as part of the iPlayer set-up.
Could it be that although I'm outside the UK and therefore "not allowed" to watch the BBC, I'm still able to "help out" in the file-sharing process?
According to its entry in the Windows console, Kservices.exe is a "Delivery Manager Service". It's pretty easy to switch off (for good) - run services.msc, go into the properties of kservice, change its startup type to disabled, and don't forget to manually stop the service if it's still running.
Immediately I stopped it, the network activity in my VM ceased.
Kservice has a sister - khost.exe, or the "KonTiki Secure Delivery Plug In". Today, Kontiki belongs to Verisign, but their website doesn't return any results for khost or kservice.
Deep on the BBC's website is the Kservice removal tool, Kclean although I'm going to leave the software in my VM, in its disabled state - ready for the next time I'm in the UK.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Diesel: the first 21st century fuel?
As I reluctantly ponder on a replacement for my 250,000km diesel BMW 525, today's issue of the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport does a petrol vs diesel test on six otherwise or near-identical models, including something I can't remember from Kia, the VW Polo, the Ford S-Max, BMW 525, Mercedes E class and Audi Q7.
Apart from the Kia, the diesels easily come out on top for price/performance. For the BM, from 5000km per year, for the Audi and Benz, from 0km. For the Kia, from 30k per year - which sounds like torture in a Kia, period.
What's most fascinating for me (here's the old motoring journalist coming through) is the in-gear acceleration times. AM&S has quoted from 80km to 120km/h. I'd have liked to also see 120-170km/h, since these are (German) real-world speeds, and a bracket in which my automatic BM simply flies (once the engine is warm) without kickdown. These are *the* numbers to look at. I'll have to grab the mag at this point, hold on:
Ok, I have to hurry as Jarim is busy learning by heart the new issue (he's the subscriber, not me):
VW Polo 1.4 16V petrol Vs 1.4 TDi / 80-120 in seconds in 4th/5th gears: 11.9/18.0 (petrol); 9.2/12.7 (diesel)
BMW 525 petrol/diesel: 11.4/11.2; 7.0/9.5
Ford S-Max 2-liter petrol/diesel: 13.4/18.7; 7.6/10.6
They didn't test the elasticity of the Mercedes or Audi since both were automatics, but the running costs over 30k per year were EUR1710/EUR1465 for the Mercedes and EUR1329/1144 for the Q7.
Casting my mind back to 1990, and the excited call from a Citroen press officer - they'd nudged the magic mark of 10 percent of UK sales being diesels. Peugeot-Citroen was an early leader in new diesel technology although it seems that VW caught up in the mid-90s, then BMW and Mercedes overtook.
As I'm considering a new car, petrol models haven't really come into the equation. I just love the torque, and since the performance figures are about equal to the petrol models, plus the better economy, plus the in-gear acceleration, diesel is the early leader in the 21st century fuel stakes. Today, alternative fuel technologies are where diesel was in around 1985 - bought by the hardcore, pre-early adopter. Let's hope that by by 2025, hydrogen technologies are putting diesel performance figures to shame in standard production cars.
It just makes me wonder: with no environmental "issues" around hydrogen-powered cars, will speed limits for "environmental reasons" be sustainable any longer?
Apart from the Kia, the diesels easily come out on top for price/performance. For the BM, from 5000km per year, for the Audi and Benz, from 0km. For the Kia, from 30k per year - which sounds like torture in a Kia, period.
What's most fascinating for me (here's the old motoring journalist coming through) is the in-gear acceleration times. AM&S has quoted from 80km to 120km/h. I'd have liked to also see 120-170km/h, since these are (German) real-world speeds, and a bracket in which my automatic BM simply flies (once the engine is warm) without kickdown. These are *the* numbers to look at. I'll have to grab the mag at this point, hold on:
Ok, I have to hurry as Jarim is busy learning by heart the new issue (he's the subscriber, not me):
They didn't test the elasticity of the Mercedes or Audi since both were automatics, but the running costs over 30k per year were EUR1710/EUR1465 for the Mercedes and EUR1329/1144 for the Q7.
Casting my mind back to 1990, and the excited call from a Citroen press officer - they'd nudged the magic mark of 10 percent of UK sales being diesels. Peugeot-Citroen was an early leader in new diesel technology although it seems that VW caught up in the mid-90s, then BMW and Mercedes overtook.
As I'm considering a new car, petrol models haven't really come into the equation. I just love the torque, and since the performance figures are about equal to the petrol models, plus the better economy, plus the in-gear acceleration, diesel is the early leader in the 21st century fuel stakes. Today, alternative fuel technologies are where diesel was in around 1985 - bought by the hardcore, pre-early adopter. Let's hope that by by 2025, hydrogen technologies are putting diesel performance figures to shame in standard production cars.
It just makes me wonder: with no environmental "issues" around hydrogen-powered cars, will speed limits for "environmental reasons" be sustainable any longer?
Labels: dieselhead, petrolhead
Reunited
My luggage has arrived - but shame on the Customs / airline people whose "inspection" of the contents included ripping open the gift wrapping on presents for the kids from my sister. We're not talking about a little, discreet tear - but literally shredding the paper to inspect the contents.
I think Amsterdam Schipol (or Sh*thole as a friend calls it) Airport needs to modify its slogan somewhat: See. Buy. Fly. Fume.
I think Amsterdam Schipol (or Sh*thole as a friend calls it) Airport needs to modify its slogan somewhat: See. Buy. Fly. Fume.
Labels: rant
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