I thought for a while it was just me. I thought I was the only one, certainly the only tech writer, who was sick and tired of hearing about the iPhone. Yes, it looks nice. But so does the Lamborghini Murciélago (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Lambo_side.JPG), and people don't go around talking about them all day and night in every forum I frequent. Both are a bit too expensive and too impractical for my tastes.

Now I find, to my relief, some of my colleagues are expressing the same heresy. John Dvorak's June 26 PC Magazine article titled "Shut Up About the iPhone Already!" was like a breath of fresh air in an Apple-obsessed environment.

And as I noted in this week's WXPnews, Engadget has done all us iPhone-weary folks a favor by making it easy to opt out of iPhone and/or Apple news on their RSS feed.

Still, I'm bracing myself for the actual release of the iPhone this Friday. Expect a fresh deluge of articles and blog posts about it once it actually hits the streets - most of them saying the same thing.

Funny thing is that I actually do find the thing alluring. Too bad it has too many drawbacks (non-removable battery, no support for Exchange email, service only through AT&T, $600 price tag) for me to seriously consider buying one.

Otherwise, I guess I could be one of those writers posting all about my cool new phone come the weekend.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Sunday morning I got up to find my mailbox curiously empty. I'm used to getting dozens of email messages overnight, but there was only one, from late the night before. My first thought was that something was wrong with our mail server, but a quick check of my junk mail folder showed that the spam was flowing in as usual (I suppose this proves that spam actually does serve a useful purpose now and then).

Then I decided all the folks who usually send me (legit) mail were just out celebrating Father's Day, and wished my own dad was alive so I could be doing the same.

The strange thing is that, although mail has picked up somewhat yesterday and today, it's still nowhere near normal levels. Did all those people enjoy their time away from the computer so much that they decided not to come back? Does that mean more bandwidth for the rest of us?

I suspect this, like all good things, will pass.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

A few weeks back, I did a WXPnews editorial on unintentional spammers - those who forward chain email letters that contain language urging the recipient to do the same and redistribute the message to all their friends. That unleashed a barrage of mail from readers about spam and the types of spam they find most annoying or outrageous.

Lisa K. reminded me of a common spam type that can be particularly insidious if you're married to someone who's not an experienced computer user. I get these all the time: messages with a subject line like "I missed you online last night" or "thanks for a fun time last week" or something more graphic that I prefer not to quote in a professional setting.

Most of these contain links, probably to pornographic web sites, and the message content often continues the theme of making it seem that the recipient has had an ongoing online (or even offline) relationship with the sender.

If your spouse is online all the time, as mine is, and gets the same sorts of spam, he/she would think nothing of seeing such messages in your mailbox. But what about less tech savvy husbands, wives and boy/girl friends who happen to see something like this on your computer? What sort of suspicions might it arouse?

It's a good point. Coupled with all the stories you hear about online infidelity (who among us doesn't know at least one couple who ended up estranged because one or both parties got romantically involved with someone they met online?), finding an email like that on your spouse's screen could certainly stir up some doubts.

I guess we can add "breaking up marriages" to the other grief caused by spam.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

This Thursday (June 21), I'll be participating, along with several other MVPs, in an "ask the experts" online chat sponsored by Microsoft. We'll be answering questions from the public about Windows security issues. Areas of expertise include general security, small business security, spyware and client protection, rootkits, Windows Server Active Directory and Group Policy.

Everyone is invited to attend. You can find a link to log on to the chat site at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/secnews/newsletter.htm (right column, under "Upcoming Chats": Learn How to Protect your PC.

The event starts at 4:00 p.m. Pacific (6:00 p.m. Central, 7:00 p.m. Eastern). Hope to "see" you there!

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Up until now, if you wanted a very portable laptop like my little Sony TX model, you had to pay through the nose for that compactness. Now vendors are waking up to the fact that there's a big market out there for teeny, tiny portable computers that are still big enough to have a full keyboard (i.e., bigger than the UMPCs) but small and light enough to take with you almost anywhere - but not everyone can fork over two grand for the privilege.

I'm excited about the new ASUStek Eee PC. I think it's a dumb name, but I don't care, if it lives up to its potential. This is a 7 inch computer that boasts a regular keyboard and weighs .89 kg - which translates to a little less than 2 lbs. It's not a powerhouse by any means, with just 512 MB of RAM and a flash memory chip in place of a hard disk. However, it comes with built in Ethernet and wi-fi cards, microphone and speaker and even a video camera. It should work okay for web surfing, email reading and simple word processing chores.

The best part? It costs $200. That's right, a tenth the price of my Sony. It's also an attractive little machine, with the same black and white color scheme as the very pricey Toshiba R400. Now if only it were a Tablet PC like the Toshie ... .

Here's a look at the specs:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11346

I can't wait to actually try one out.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

In one of last month's WXPnews editorials, I discussed how GPS and other technology now makes it easy for everyone - from our family members to the government - to track our every move.

A few weeks ago, here in this blog (May 30, "Surveillance Society"), I noted how Google now provides "street views" in their maps, complete with identifiable photos of people, readable license plates, etc. (and they aren't the only ones doing it).

I've ranted before about how credit card companies send mail - including blank checks - to my home address even though I've given them a P.O. box for my mailing address, and how the IRS insists on corresponding with you at your physical address rather than a PO box, even though their correspondence includes information such as your social security number that can be invaluable to identity thieves who steal mail out of street-side residential mailboxes (note that I don't object to giving my physical address to either the credit card companies or the government - I just don't want them sending me mail that contains sensitive personal information at that address).

The march toward extinction of all personal privacy goes on. This week, I got my new RFID-embedded passport. Since tampering with a passport is a crime punishable by 25 years in prison, I don't dare try to disable it. Of course, we aren't required to get passports at all unless we want to leave the country. But soon that may not matter.

The Real ID Act, signed into law in 2005, is set to take effect in December 2009 (it was originally scheduled to go into effect in 2008 but was delayed). It will create a system whereby our drivers' licenses will become de facto national ID cards that will be required for "all official purposes." It is required to use "machine readable technology." It's also required to have your residence address on it, not a P.O. box. Which means you now have to reveal that information to every store clerk, etc. to whom you have to show ID.

Of course, those store clerks are collecting even more of your personal info than that. A trend I particularly hate is that of using your phone number to identify you in stores' computers. I'll give you my phone number if you're going to deliver something or otherwise actually need to call me. Otherwise, it's none of your business. Especially if I'm paying cash. After all, I pay extra to have my number unlisted.

For a long time, I would just say "it's unlisted" when they asked me for my phone number. That got plenty of confused looks and a few arguments. I thought about using my old number, but it's probably been reassigned to someone else by now and that could cause even more confusion. Now I give most of them them a phone number from www.privatephone.com. It's a free voicemail service that allows you to keep your real numbers private.

But I'm afraid it's becoming a losing battle. By the time babies born today are grown, the whole concept of privacy may have been lost. I guess it's the price we pay for all the benefits of living in a high tech world - but, much as I like other aspects of the technology, I don't like this one.

Note: there is a tiny glimmer of hope. In May, the New Hampshire Senate unanimously passed a bill rejecting the Real ID Act. A resolution passed overwhelmingly by the Maine legislature in January refuses to implement Real ID and demands that it be repealed. A handful of other states have passed or have pending similar legislation.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

I've been using Windows Live Writer (beta) for many months to publish to this blog and I love the way it makes the whole process easier - especially the task of making a change to a post and republishing it.

Today I installed the latest build (1.0 (12.0.1183.516) and found that it includes some nice new features: the ability to quickly go to and view  or edit your space on Windows Live Spaces directly from the Writer interface, more insertion options, and the ability to set a publication date.

The latter is especially useful - now if I have the time and inclination to knock out several posts in one day but want them to be published at intervals over the next week, I don't have to manually save local drafts and then remember to go back and publish them on the desired dates.  I can just set publish dates for each and forget about it. Also at the bottom, there's a drop down box to set a category. This was on the top toolbar in the previous version.

Here's a screenshot of the new interface:

 
Subtle changes/additions to the interface of Live Writer

Now in addition to inserting links, pictures, tags and Windows Live maps, you can - with a click - insert a table, clipboard contents, emoticon or video. And the ability to make and insert text templates, which was added to the old version with an add-in, is now standard. Adding those plug-ins has also been made a little easier, with that option now appearing on the right sidebar.

In the top toolbar, there's now an icon for cutting and pasting, an Undo button (the option was in the Edit menu before, but it's easier to get to now), and a table formatting tool. I don't often use tables in blog posts, but I might start doing so now that Microsoft has made it so easy.
 (There's that easily-inserted emoticon now).

The table tool works fine and is easy to use:

It's pretty basic; I was a little disappointed not to find any way to color the cells, for instance. But since I don't use tables in blog posts anyway, I don't suppose that's going to be a big deal. I did find a "Colorize" button that's new, over next to the Help icon. But I discovered that what it colorizes is the LW interface, not the content (of course, you can change the font color from the Format menu).

The File menu has changed a bit. It now gives you the options to delete drafts and to post drafts and edit them online. The Format menu contains a new "Split Post" option. There's a Table menu added to the menu bar, which contains the same selections as the Table button on the toolbar.

The Options selection on the Tools menu (which was previously called Preferences) contains more items. Account setup and selection has been moved to this dialog box (in the old version there was an account icon on the toolbar, and I think I liked that better).

I noticed that the default automatic save option has changed from every 3 minutes to every 2 minutes - probably a good thing. I can type quite a bit of text in 3 minutes; this way I'd lose less if the program crashed. And in the File menu, there's a Save Local Draft selection if you want to save more often, without publishing. There's also a new option to choose whether you want to use a single window for editing all posts, open a new window for each, or open a new window when there are unsaved changes to the current post.

The Publishing options now allow you to have LW remind you to specify a title, add categories and/or add tags before publishing. For forgetful folks, that could be useful. There's now a separate options page for setting up the spell checker, and you can use real-time spell-checking, which will insert a squiggly red line under misspelled words as soon as you type them (like in Word). There's also a Link Glossary feature now, where you can add URLs with titles and text.

The Weblog menu has a new selection, Manage Weblog. As far as I can tell, it serves the same function as the Edit Your Space link in the right sidebar.

Finally, the interface looks sleeker and more sophisticated, with more intense colors and nicer icons. So far, I like it. I like it a lot. It's still a beta, but it works better than many programs in final release, and I hope they add even more features before the final.

The upgrade installation went smoothly and it retained my account settings and kept my existing text templates. What more can you ask for? You can download the new version at http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas .

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."