Passing Thoughts

iiw6: lots I didn't know about identity!

2008-05-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon was a fascinating introduction to digital identity management. Today: discussions on creating "newbie" documentation to the field, interests of data silos, and shortly: videos, use cases, sandbox development, and more!

I'm going to take things a bit out of order here. First speaker: Ryan Jenssen, who has a very informative blog that's been tracking this space for the last 6 months. He provided a very nice overview of digital ID management, pointing out that our digital ID is "the stuff you assert about yourself."

There are site-centered and user-driven identities that you use to establish an "account" with entities that you want a relationship with. The biggest problems include 1) the need to repeat information each time, 2) managing our multiple identities and personas, and 3) each entity you connect to may not have any need or desire to protect your information. More of me in more places, shared with more entities.

In the case of a user-driven ID, sites can vouch for their users to other sites (relevant terms: identity providers, relying parties--good def needed). Your identity has several aspects: you connect with your friends, you have specific preferences, you develop a reputation, and you have assets associated with who you are. Taking this one step further, your assets are related to you by a personal broadcast service, and your reputation becomes a reputation engine for recommendations.

Here's an overview of some of the players in the ID Commons space:

Major Players:	OpenID	ID-WSF	iCards
Products:	-	SAML	-
Projects:	LID, Yadis, iNames	Liberty Alliance, Shibboleth	Pamela Project, Bandit, Higgins
Companies:	NetMesh, JanRain, Cordance	Sun, Oracle, NTT Group, Novell	Microsoft, Novell, Parity

The challenges at this point come from people who use software, need to develop compelling business models or funding sources, and the need to respect the people who have been working in this field for a long time (foundations, early adopters and developers, etc.)

Ok, give me some time to digest this.

Web 2.0 Expo

2008-04-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

O'Reilly recently convened the Web 2.0 Conference and Expo in San Francisco. I registered for the expo (a few pictures), attended a couple of sponsored sessions, and came away with two significant things: 1) I'm not missing much yet, and 2) a laser etching on my laptop (thanks Instructables!).

First off, the expo floor wasn't all that crowded so it was easy to make my way around. Secondly, I wasn't attending as an "enterprise" representative, which made my journey more strategic. Many of the booths on the expo floor were touting ways to "mash up" legacy systems to create new forms of data (e.g., reports previously unavailable) or to be the next "social" apps hosting platforms (e.g., hosting the corporate wiki). [Related post]

Here are my notes from crawling the expo floor. Note that I'm only commenting on a few of the companies that struck me. I missed a few, and avoided others. Such was my timeframe for this event.

Springnote: online wiki-like notebook, uses OpenID.
Rackspace: enterprise hosting provider. I was already familiar with them. Thanks for the pen.
Blist: (pronounced BList, not B-list) I checked them out a while ago following their launch at DEMO. Intriguing database service, but s. l. o. w. I asked about this, and was assured that they've addressed their performance issues, and have added international characters and sharing capabilities. I need to check them out again.
Camwii: Interesting screen-sharing app. Best described in their video. Good: lets me share the part of the screen that I want (via a "looking glass" frame), lets me see what my shared partners see (feedback loop), and can be "private labeled" for customized use (1:1 or 1:many). Questionable: is 100% flash, which means it works on most computers but is tied to Adobe proprietary format. Also uses your phone number as ID. Now that becomes a database with a good key value.
Truvico: one of several companies that provided continuous data analysis (words, statistics, what's happening on your site).
Amusing side note: someone cut the lights on the expo floor for a few minutes (1:40pm). Something eerie about the whole space going dark. This happened on top of what many booths were reporting (and I was witnessing): s-l-o-w network access. Holy cow.
Magnify360: a "behavioral targeting platform," which was explained as real-time behavioral programming. This is about "targeting" and "personalizing" to "increase conversion rates." I feel better already knowing that my every need is anticipated and provided for.
Kapow: two things: buzz phrase kings (see photos above), and really, really expensive.
ConfIdent: Weirdly, I didn't learn what ConfIdent was about, and couldn't really tell from their website either. What I did see was Vidoop: a system of gaining access to a site by using picture passwords. This was interesting. Passwords were determined by a set of images. The images are random-ish, but they fall into categories like food, travel, space, etc. I somehow would choose or have, let's say, 3 categories so I would choose the 3 pics out of 9 shown that correspond to my categories. Vidoop is also an OpenID platform/service.
Nokia: Nokia was one of the big sites on the floor. I went to the table/area designated as "Advertising" to find out what that meant. Nokia has partnerships with various vendors (no surprise) like Sprint. Nokia claims to be carrier and handset agnostic. They act as advertising middlemen, gathering all of the demographic data from Sprint that helps them target your desired audience. Let's say you want to reach all of the moms, ages 24-35, living in a particular area and having a specific income. No problem, Nokia can serve that group. This was one conversation that made me want to wash my hands and face afterwards. No sign of a cluetrain at this station. Better not be on the tracks when Nokia comes through.
Etelos: a platform for application deployment. They had several partners and clients represented in their booth.
Spinscape: a hosted mind mapping tool (similar to The Brain?) that's web driven, collaborative, extensible with Google Apps and Gadgets. This thing can "auto-discover" everything on your hard drive. In collaborative mode, you can have nodes and assign roles and responsibilities for various levels of collaboration.

That was a first pass at the expo floor. Next I ran to catch the OpenID sponsored session.

OpenID is promoted as a bridge to sharing. It's being engineered for adoption at an ID layer. Question about open sourcing, noted that it works well with Novell and others. Why relevant, why only authenticating? OpenID has been around for three years, OpenAuth is brand new and needs to focus on what it can enable: integrating contacts. Concerns expressed about it being hard to grasp. Challenge: user experience not optimal.

I asked about how this is taking back control of our IDs when each silo has its data and can gather additional intelligence about us by partnering with other data silos. The answer was largely about the inability to get any hosted service site to delete info on request (once you register, it's their data). Yeah, we know. Then how is it that openID will help me "manage" my identity?

The question remains. Back to the expo floor.

Photobucket: claims they are the world's largest repository of photos, video and more. (Somewhat similar to Flickr, which is limited to photos.) Photobucket has facility for doing minor photo editing. They do not have a search capability to find CC-licensed resources. Bummer. The best thing about Flickr is an unrelated site, compfight.
Topix: a "top 20 news site." (huh?) Shows news that's local to you, as they determine where you are. You can also change locations of course. Extensive news forums, and users can edit stuff. They also offer commercial feeds.
Yugma: collaborative desktop sharing with chat, conference calls. Java, subscription basis.
Sprout: a web-based authoring platform for creating widgets: layers of stuff with links and functions. Can do limited mash-ups. Interesting: no sign-up necessary to create. This actually looked like it could be fun, but my old computer didn't want to work at any reasonable speed with sprout's programming.

At this point, the expo hall closed. We were all shuffled out. Many of us went to see O'Reilly's keynote and the talks that followed. I have notes, but on re-read, they're pretty boring.

Clay Shirkey was the reason I stayed. My notes fail in light of his post of that talk.

That was a great way to end Day One.

As for day two, nothing really struck me. The sponsored session on "Creating a Social Network, It's Easy" seemed to be more about hiring the group than learning how. Afterwards I went to the women's networking event. I wasn't already part of the small leaning-together cliques and didn't find a conversational way in. So much for networking.

Web 2.0 and emerging answers

2008-03-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

In an insightful article called "How to Hit the Enterprise 2.0 Bullseye," Professor Andrew McAfee (Harvard's Business School) offered a summary view of what Web 2.0 technologies can offer businesses.

The use of various Web 2.0 tools are based on four types of relationships within the enterprise, from the "small group of close collaborators," to those that don't know each other or may be professional acquaintances. Based on these four types of ties (strong, weak, potential or no ties), appropriate application of Web 2.0 tools creates four types of emergent benefits:

Tie Strength	Potential Benefits	Technology Example	What is Emergent?
Strong	Collaboration, Productivity, Agility	Wiki	Document
Weak	Innovation, Non-redundant information, Network bridging	Social Networking Software	Information
Potential	Efficient search, Tie formation	Blogosphere	Team
None	Collective Intelligence	Prediction Market	Answer

The notion of a prediction market got me asking around. Generally, the concept is well illustrated in sites like Intrade.com or the Iowa Futures Market. In McAfee's case, the term applies to how well the enterprise will do in certain ventures, with certain projects, or against certain deadlines. Interesting.

Happy Alternative Birthday

2008-02-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

Leap day is my alternative birthday. I use it for web sites that demand my birthday without offering any compelling need or reason. So for them, I wish myself a happy day today!

Shades of Bureaucracy

2008-02-29T12:43:00.000-08:00

There are few cases where there is broad social acceptance for the government to cast judgments on one's life in a way that directly affects that person's livelihood. Practicing as an attorney is one such example. Attorneys must pass through the pearly gates of judgment in order to get a license to practice law.

In California, this amounts to three things:

taking and passing the Multi-state Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE),
taking and passing the California Bar Exam (current cost: $529 + $119 laptop fee), and
applying for and receiving a positive determination of your moral character.

The latter involves filling out an application (currently 37 pages), paying the $431 fee (plus an additional amount for a live scan fingerprint), then waiting about 6 months for the Bar to determine if you're hiding anything and thus not determined to be of acceptable moral character.

For anyone following it, my moral character (applied for on May 10, 2005 and determined on Sept. 29, 2005) has now expired. I guess that in the eyes of the Bar examiners, I can't stay a good person for long.

Listening

2008-01-13T19:59:00.001-08:00

In an article called "What Can Be Done About Listening" (.doc, html), author Ralph G. Nichols outlines Ten Bad Listening Habits. These habits include pre-judging (the subject, the speaker, the facts) and being distracted (outlining, disturbances, challenging subject matter, emotions). The amusing point here is the last: "Wasting the differential between speech and thought speed."

Americans speak at an average rate of 125 words per minute in ordinary conversation. A speaker before an audience slows down to about 100 words per minute. How fast do listeners listen? Or, to put the question in a better form, how many words a minute do people normally think as they listen? If all their thoughts were measurable in words per minute, the answer would seem to be that an audience of any size will average 400 to 500 words per minute as they listen.
Here is a problem. The differential between the speaker at 100 words per minute and the easy thought speed of the listener at 400 or 500 words per minute is a snare and a pitfall. It lures the listener into a false sense of security and breeds mental tangents.
However, with training in listening, the difference between thought speed and speech speed can be made a source of tremendous power. Listeners can hear everything the speaker says and not what s/he omits saying; they can listen between the lines and do some evaluating as the speech progresses. To do this, to exploit this power, good listeners must automatically practice three skills in concentration:
Anticipating the next point. ...
Identifying supporting material. ...
Recapitulating. ...

Simplicity

2008-01-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

A good deal of the paper crowding my life is interesting articles and thinking I would like to have been influenced by.

For example, on my wall I used to have a quote from "Made to Stick," on Simplicity. The part I will borrow for this post, and which I will learn to use as a guiding light, is this:

To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize."

The New Plan

2008-01-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

One thing about being horizontally organized and not entirely digital in my "interesting resources," I sure occupy a lot of surface area. Since my currently available surface area is at a premium and much of my interesting resources are unavailable to me anyway (most is in boxes, mixed with other stuff), I'm motivated to go through a lot of it, evaluate and summarize, then dispose of the physical part.

This is all in support of my new plan: be more consistent about blogging, get rid of boxes, and ultimately move to Hawaii.

This is an ambitious plan. Much of my life has been in storage for more than a year. Boxes and more boxes of paper (files, books), office hardware (filing cabinets, old computers & gear), kitchenware (including packaged food that has, I'm certain, passed the expiration date), clothing, sheets and towels, and a lot of shelves. Oh, and a really big desk. You can bet that I'll be sorting, shredding, recycling, freecycling, and selling this stuff as soon as I can get myself properly motivated. Right now, I'll confess: it's overwhelming.

The remedy, of course: one box at a time.

Riding School: Day Two

2007-06-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

There is something rather primal about having hundreds of pounds of rumbling metal under your seat and between your legs. This primal feeling was aided by the fogbanks rolling into our reservoir rainforest. It was another cold, gusty day with air thick enough to keep us in our place.

Our RiderInstructors for the day were Michael (again) and Ty, two very amenable characters. The first exercise of the day was the toughest for me. We rode into a smallish box, then turned most of a figure eight, zipped out of the box, then swerved to miss a "flaming catastrophe" (marked off by little orange cones). A RiderInstructor was behind the cones. At the last minute, he would indicate whether we were to swerve right, left, or stop. The zooming, swerving and stopping was much less of a problem than the tight figure eights. They called the box "U turns." Another RiderInstructor later called those turns a "convenience" maneuvering exercise. I called it a continuing challenge. Much more practice will be required before I feel like I know this one.

Other exercises involved turning within a specified radius, stopping quickly, veering from side to side, and lots of sitting in line breathing the exhaust fumes from the bikes nearby. For all the blustery weather, the fumes hung around or were blown into our faces all day. What a headache.

Finally, we got to the "Celebration of Learning." It was a set-up: this was the exam. We did the figure eight maneuvers, the swerving to miss certain death, a faster braking than we had practiced, and a faster set of corners than we had practiced. I certainly got up to speed on the fast breaking, but they didn't think I was quite up to speed on the final cornering.

Now as a matter of perspective, I'd rather have come out of the course being good at stopping in an emergency than being able to race around corners. I don't plan to race. I'm about touring, seeing the sights. There will be no hurrying on my first few tours. There will certainly be more practice, maybe in the reservoir, doing more cornering and braking before the tours begin.

The last activity of the day finally came. We gathered around the storage boxes and debriefed: evaluation forms for the course and for the police department. An individual evaluation of your performance during the "celebration." Finally they told me: I passed the course!

Here's Meredith

Meredith and Gabriel

Our RiderInstructor Michael

Now on to the DMV for the written test, then I am licensed to ride.

On to Riding, Day One

2007-06-02T22:59:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture that's something like the bike I was riding today. It's a Kawasaki Elminator--a nice little cruiser. Mine was black instead of silver (as pictured), by choice. One of my classroom and riding pals, Meredith, chose a bike near the front, then smiled and pointed to the one next to her when I got ready to choose my ride. Her motorcycle was also black, as was her official biker leather jacket with appropriate patches, and her helmet (flat black--she was stylin'!).

Our RiderCoach instructors were Michael and Caroline. Both had impressively upright postures and remarkable control when demonstrating our tasks. I think we had nine exercises today.

Use of brakes, especially the hand control for the front brake, was among our first lessons: engage the hand control (on the right side of the handlebars) before we even begin to lift a leg over the seat. The front brake on the bike is where 70% of the stopping happens. There's a second brake control for the rear brake, on the right side above the foot pedal. My brake pedal wasn't intuitively placed. I felt like I had to move my toe in pretty far to find it. After some practice and fumbling, I began to get a sense of placement and tried to keep coordinated with braking.

Another early lesson was rocking back and forth, getting used to the clutch friction zone (the point where the clutch begins to engage the gears, moving the bike forward). The clutch moved us forward a bit, then a push from our legs moved us back. Repeat. Several times.

Coordination was a special challenge for most of us today. I am proud to say that no one dumped their bike or took a tumble, but most of us had our share of stalls, wiggles, missed cones, and wide corners. A few of us started out with ferocious zeal, a few with ongoing timidity, and the rest of us moved along like the inchworms we became.

We spent the afternoon zooming, cornering, slowing and creeping, weaving around cones, shifting gears, then catching up with and waiting for our peers. The weather was not kind during our practice. We were in the southern part of San Francisco, at City College, in a reservoir parking lot. Today was cloudy and cold (65 degrees, if that), and windy. Toward the end of the afternoon, the air was thick with drizzle. All of the guys were freezing, and my poor friend Meredith was shivering most of the day. It was hard to be coordinated when we were that cold. I had long underwear on, and extra wintery gloves (which interestingly, made my hands sweat, making them cold and clamy), and still froze my butt off.

So much for day one. I have a lot of processing to do in my dreams to get ready for tomorrow. I'm sure we'll be a much puffier dressed lot tomorrow. We will be practicing the skills that are most likely to save us from THE most common cause of crashes and fatalities: cornering and braking.

Rider Training: The Classroom

2007-06-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended the classroom portion of my Motorcycle Training program with 23 others (5 of them women).

The class was taught by Wenona, a lively and engaging teacher, and an experienced rider. She pointed out that this motorcycle training class was designed for "adult learners," a profound if obvious insight. Thus the learning methodology was designed to teach us what we needed to know.

We were sitting at four tables, and so naturally we fell into four groups. Each group was assigned a set of questions, which we answered back to the class on cue. In this way, we moved through the material quickly, with some prompted discussion.

We first learned about the risks of riding: awareness, acceptance, and managing risks by using a strategy with the acronym SEE: Search for factors that might lead to risk, Evaluate how those factors might interact to create risk, and Execute actions to maintain our safety. That latter part, maintaining our safety, is paramount.

Next: Preparing to ride. This lesson included safety and protective gear, inspecting your motorcycle before riding, basic maintenance (don't overlook it, and RTFM), controls on the bikes, and safety and signaling rules for riding days.

Finally, we learned street strategies such as positioning ourselves on the road, being visible to others, the affect of various mental states (including DUI, which happens a LOT sooner on a bike than we knew, in fact it is 5x faster!), about braking and swerving, and a few special situations.

Overall, the night made my head spin with details, memories, overviews, and theory. It took me the night to process much of it. However, before we left, we took a 50 question multiple choice exam to test what we retained. I must have learned something over the course of the night--I passed the test!

Getting Back To Riding

2007-05-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

At one point back in the day, I owned a nice blue Honda 400 4-cylinder motorcycle. I rode that bike everywhere, until a series of real life moments derailed my riding. Then many years accidentally but quickly passed without a bike.

Recently I've been a happy passenger on a series of motorcycles (Harley Softail, Honda Gold Wing, Suzuki V-Strom) driven by a couple of seriously experienced riders. The trips along winding forested roads in northern California, including one night ride up the mountains (froze my undies on that one!), a nice long ride over the hills and along the western coastline, and several rides through the local hills, brought back my inner rider. Somehow I had to get back to it.

A lot has changed since back in the day. To do this up right, I signed up for a motorcycle training course. A motorcycle rider can never be too well trained, especially in light of recently released statistics about most serious accidents involving untrained and unlicensed riders. Sure, I know that the shifting, braking, and cornering will come back, but I also know there are many things I never quite figured out. Gravel, for instance.

This is the week of my training classes at Bay Area Motorcycle Training. First I will attend a lecture and information class on Thursday night, followed by two weekend afternoons riding in "the range." More on that later.

But first I had to go shopping! My over-ankle hiking boots will do fine for now, but I needed a decent jacket and a pair of gloves. I was surprised at the lack of women's motorcycle wear online. Many of the sites that used to be widely linked-to are now owned by adver-marts: domains now owned for the purpose of delivering advertising to the still-ongoing stream of traffic. I ordered a couple of catalogs, and I planned trips to the local motorcycle stores.

I went in with clothing that I considered reasonable for the occasion: a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. I asked the friendly sales agent for help, since I was curious to hear what she would say as well as what bits of wisdom she might share. We located the women's racks of jackets, and I started trying them on--first to figure out what size I was in motorcycle gear.

The first problem: too many clothes. I was advised to remove my sweatshirt for a better fit. That seemed odd, but I can follow advice. These were "fitted" jackets from Spidi (leather,$560), Revit ($300 textile, or $330 leather), Arlen Ness (heavy leather, didn't even look at the price). Turns out I'm a 38-42, without a sweatshirt. I've never looked more stylish! Still, this was a purchase I had to think about.

My sales agent did mention one more helpful thing: this store offered a 10% discount for 30 days following a motorcycle training course. I wondered if this was a wide-spread practice. A 10% discount can come in handy, especially if it covers goods on sale.

My second visit to a motorcycle store was with a friend. A second opinion can be valuable, especially when it is a well-informed one. The second store was Cycle Gear, a chain with a good supply of nearly everything. The day I visited, they were short on women's sized boots.

Cycle Gear didn't carry the same brand name jackets as the prior store. However, they had a jacket from UK brand Frank Thomas, called Sofia, in my sweatshirted size, on sale. [link to jacket, not on sale ]

This was a decent "textile" jacket. It too was fitted and claimed as waterproof*, with inverted V-shaped zippers from the waist to hips, three snaps to variably tighten the sleeves around my wrist, and a lady-shaped fit overall. There's a stylish silver reflective stitched design on the front and back, as well as reflective piping down the sleeves and down the front and back of the jacket, highlighting a woman's curvish shape. Several well-placed zippers (front of shoulders, upper arms, back lower waist) zip down for ventilation. Outside zippers zip up to close -- a good way to make sure stuff doesn't accidentally fall out of your pockets.

The jacket has plastic armor in the shoulders and elbows. Interestingly, there is a conspicuous note on the inside of the jacket that points out the "Armasport Plus CE" armor, approved to EN1621-1/97 European standards, but is not considered "personal protective equipment" as defined by EC Directive (Regulations 1992, S.1.1992 / 3 139). [link] However, I'm satisfied that if I take a tumble during training, this jacket will keep me from serious scratches and bumps.

I've read good reviews and also concerns about overall quality (*including "problems" with waterproof jackets and gloves in the rain, inferior design and execution of stitching of Frank Thomas cycle gear [see, for example, this review and picture, and a review of FT gloves]. I hope I don't put my jacket to the test, but if I do I will report in. And after all, I've gotta start somewhere. This was, under the circumstances, a very affordable jacket.

Where does the time go?

2007-05-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

The last post in this blog is from nearly a year and a half ago. I'm learning that life gets in the way of things. But then it's always a matter of priorities, isn't it?

For whom the bell tolls...

2005-01-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

This is the beginning of the new year based on the Gregorian calendar (which many in the United States follow). I rarely make new year's resolutions because I'm no more likely to follow through on one made today than, say, any other day. However, looking around my office, I'm putting a stake in my virtual ground that declares my intent to be a little more mindful of my horizontal surfaces.

The passing of Keith W. Porterfield

2004-07-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

I am sad to note the passing of friend and mentor Keith Porterfield.

Keith was the person that introduced me to the web back in 1990 or so, and gave me certain values about Internet servers, connectivity, and communications. When Eric Raymond first wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar (now an evolving book), Keith pointed me to it. Over the years, Keith wrote a number of papers including one at NetAction: Information Wants to be Valuable: A Report from the First O'Reilly Perl Conference. He was a man of few but tremendously significant discussions. A white-bearded Internet geek at his core. And a nice guy.

What Bob said...

2004-06-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bob Frankston said it best (about the future of education, intellectual property, R&D, and the future of technology):

From: Bob Frankston
Date: April 24, 2004 12:13:11 PM EDT
To: dave farber
Subject: RE: [IP] more on Losing Our Edge?
This reminds me of the fears about Japan getting the lead in AI because of their fifth generation project. What I fear most are the attempts to keep "the edge" by clamping down on education and assuring that it is highly tuned for the past.
Our lead over the long term is dependent upon not trying to over-tune the educational system for a narrow vision.
It's our incompetence at imposing the one true solution that has kept us from getting caught up in the local optima.
While the Nobel Prize is far form a perfect indicator I do note that Japan, for example, has very very few in the hard sciences.
This is one reason why I point out that the first amendment is an economic mechanism -- it is a way of providing opportunity for stupid ideas. It's only with enough stupid ideas that we discover the brilliant ones.
I don't want to defend ignorance but neither do I see a focus on big R&D as the necessarily that much better than a focus on quarterly results. Both are optimized for the present.
The question is what environment is best for leverage individual initiative. Very few such efforts will succeed but that might be enough to seed the future.

Customer Service

2004-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the notion of "customer support" swirl toward the drain lately. It's not just the offshoring, certainly part of the larger problem. It's the attitude, limits, impatience, downright surliness, anger and obliviousness in the support staff that lead me to believe that 1) the HR and management departments aren't paying attention, 2) support staff isn't being paid enough to care (is there "enough" for some of these jerks? I doubt it.), and/or 3) the companies don't WANT to support their customers. After all, it's only a HUGE expense to a company... why would they want to do it right?

For example, here's an actual chat from Nov. 9, 2003. Note that this particular example is one of tech support not knowing the first thing about tech support. Happens here as well as there.

> Welcome to Earthlink LiveChat. Your chat session will begin shortly.
Tired of Spam? With Earthlink's free spamBlocker you can customize your settings to eliminate all of your unwanted email!

> Please wait for a site operator to respond. While you are waiting, please feel free to begin typing your issue in the box below. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Once an operator responds, click SEND to transmit what you have typed.
Tired of Spam? With Earthlink's free spamBlocker you can customize your settings to eliminate all of your unwanted email!

> Please wait for a site operator to respond. While you are waiting, please feel free to begin typing your issue in the box below. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Once an operator responds, click SEND to transmit what you have typed.
Tired of Spam? With Earthlink's free spamBlocker you can customize your settings to eliminate all of your unwanted email!

> 'Paneendar P' says: Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat, how may I help you today?
[customer]: seeking info on mailing lists at our domain: [our-domain.com] which currently are open to any-screwball-or-spammer-in-the-world can post. We want to change to members-only can post email to this list. Is there a config file for mailing lists? Or perhaps some kind of .file that will limit the list to being private?
Paneendar P: Please hold on for a moment while I process your request.
Paneendar P: To access certain features of your web hosting account such as password protection, POP accounts, PERL debug, site stats, etc, you will want to visit the Web Hosting Control Panel. It can be located at http://control.business.mindspring.com/#PFR#/WH/ATL/ControlPanel
[customer]: yes, I'm there (in another window). In fact I'm in the post office manager where our two lists are. However there's no way to change a list configuration.
[customer]: That's why I'm requesting your help
Paneendar P: Please hold on while I work over the issue.
Paneendar P: Are you able to see E-mail list in Post Office manager after logging into Control Panel ?
[customer]: yes, but only the list names, and a "create" or "edit" or delete options. If I select one mailing list and choose edit, it only allows me to add or subtract members.
[customer]: There are no options to change the list behavior or configuration.
[customer]: That's what I need.
Paneendar P: Please let me know if you would like to set the e-mail list to members only right ?
[customer]: yes, that's right.
Paneendar P: You can click on Edit -> Delete all the list that have and just add all the members in the mailing list.
[customer]: I want the list open to members' discussion, but I don't want it open to spammers.
[customer]: what good will it do to delete and re-create the list? That does not change its nature (open to anyone).
Paneendar P: Yes. You need to add just the e-mail addresses of the members and the issue will be resolved. You need to delete any other e-mail address other than the member.
[customer]: I don't understand. Are you suggesting that if I "edit" the current mailing list, delete all the addresses then add them again, that fixes something?
Paneendar P: No. I mean that click on Edit -> Delete all the addresses which you do not have in the list and then add the members in the list.
[customer]: I still don't understand. When you say "delete all the addresses which you do not have in the list," what does that mean? If they are in the list, I have added them. There are no spammers listed as members. What's the meaning of members that I do not have in the list? (If they're not in the list, where would they be?)
Paneendar P: Please let me confirm once again whether you are referring to any guestbook or e-mail mailing list.
[customer]: do you need to confirm with me or someone else?
Paneendar P: Yes. I mean with you only.
[customer]: ok, I'm referring to an email list. This is what it says in the Post Office manager window, where the middle tab, Email List, is selected.
Paneendar P: Yes. If you are referring to a mailing list, if you send the e-mail to a list, only the members in that mailing list will be able to receive the e-mail and not any spammer.
[customer]: The spammers are not receiving email, they are sending email. The members of the list are receiving that spam email. This is what I'm trying to prevent.
Paneendar P: I am sorry for any inconvenience caused or any confusion made. The spam e-mail is not due to mailing list and the spammers usually send the e-mail in some other way thinking that this would be a valid address. Also, unfortunately, there is no spam blocker for the Domain hosted accounts like @[our-domain.com] and is present for the Internet access e-mail addresses like @earthlink.net. If you have a dial up account, you can forward all the e-mail to an Internet access e-mail address and then set the spamblocker on the Internet Access e-mail address.
Paneendar P: Else, you can just forward all the header information of the spam e-mail to abuse@earthlink.net
[customer]: I am not trying to filter my mailing list. I AM trying to close the list so that it can not be used by anyone in the world. Will you please confirm that this can not be done?
Paneendar P: Would you like to delete that mailing list ?
[customer]: NO!
Paneendar P: I am sorry. There is no such option so that you can set like no one else in the world other than the members can e-mail you.
[customer]: Ok, thank you for your time.
Paneendar P: You're welcome and thank you for using EarthLink LiveChat. Should you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us again.
> Chat session has been terminated by the site operator. When you close the chat window a survey window will open. Please take a minute to fill in the survey and let us know how your chat session was.

Do I think there's an answer to this problem? Sure, but not just one. Perhaps that's the real problem: underlying uncertainty, bad attitudes, poor design which causes customers to call for help, departments that don't talk to each other. SprintPCS is high on my list right now for being guilty of the latter: right hand promises that left hand bills for and argues about. An uncomfortable time for all.

Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution

2004-04-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Online dispute resolution is a growing field. The Center has a blog, listserv, and lots of info. (Beware: the "database" of resources is a .doc file. heh.)

The Center exists to support and sustain the development of information technology applications, institutional resources, and theoretical and applied knowledge for better understanding and managing conflict. The Internet is global and thus conflict management resources and expertise can be delivered from anywhere asynchronously. We are only at the beginning of understanding how individuals separated by great physical, cultural, or technological distances can utilize resources and expertise virtually.
The Center views cyberspace is an increasingly significant part of our personal and professional lives. Cyberspace is not a harmonious place, and the Center is dedicated to understanding the nature and origins of online conflict and of appropriate responses to it. In addition, we conceive of the online environment as a "place" where increasingly powerful tools will be available for working to find solutions to many forms of offline/online conflict, whether they are public or private, whether they involve commercial transactions or other social relationships, and whether they are international or domestic.

Also see this Google search for more.

Law for the People

2004-04-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Findlaw is trying to bring law (and lawyers) to the people with their new feature, Findlaw for the Public.

Welcome to FindLaw for the Public! This site is here to help you find solutions to your legal issues by providing you with easy and comprehensive access to lawyers and legal information. To get started, select a topic from the list below or search our directory of lawyers.

Starts out with a nice list of common problems, which takes you to a zip code request to respond with local resources.

I tried to get info on what to do about the neighborhood slackers who don't pick up after their dog makes a pitstop on my lawn. (It's really irritating to find those packages the next day as I'm running to my car.) Pets are in the real property section, but no specific advice was offered.

I may turn to video surveillance.

The Moving Coast

2004-04-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

I occasionally visit the earthquake maps to see how things are shaking here on the west coast. Today I noticed a linked site, http://www.classicalarchives.com/eq/, that shows the last 7 days of earthquakes in animation. Fascinating. I love this kind of information display.

if wishes were laptops...

2003-06-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

I have a wish that's renewed every time I go to a conference, and many times that I'm in class (which is a lot). I wish there was a simplified laptop, very light, any O/S, that had ONLY the following characteristics:

regular-size keyboard
text/RTF editor
basic browser (Safari, Camino, et al)
wifi or ethernet plug
a good day's worth of battery life
a hard drive (of nearly any size > 1G)

That's all. I want to walk into the room, open it up, type some stuff, close and carry, open and type, close...open and use browser to blog, transfer files to desktop (which, being .txt or .rtf, are highly transferrable), close. If any reader knows of such a thing, I'd love to hear about it. Such a laptop would change my world.

WTN day 2, The UN and the WTN

2003-06-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hans Rosling, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden and UN: researcher of hunger and disease in Africa, global development needed in undergrad medical program. Which country in each pair has highest child mortality as the other? Sri Lanka or Turkey (T), Poland or South Korea (P), Malaysia or Russia (R), Pakistan or Vietnam (P), or Thailand or South Africa (SA). Knowledge doesn't go wtih compassion among students. (or chimpanzees or professors). Advancement in Asia: social development included. Spontanious thinking: dichotomized, linear, one dimension + time. Need thinking: diversity, non-linear, at least 2 dimensions + time. See colorful graph, then software that moved over time. World is doubly-logarithmically unjust (plotting GDP with child survival 5 yr). No gap between rich and poor contries, only money difference. 1950: most women in world had 6-7 children & lost 1-2, some countries changed fast over time. Low income countries vs middle income coutries, over time: less kids, more investment in health and education. Trendalyzer (+ built-in data .tlz = interactive visual analysis of moving time series data) (can export animations, export images, import and export local data). Desire to generate standarized data for use in this software environment, easy comparison of varied data. (This presentation was amazing. The software is available.)

Panel discussion:

How the tech world can help the UN achieve the millennium goals:

Calestous Juma, International Development, Harvard: task force under UN for millennium development goals: long time frame, clear targets and benchmarks (thinking unprecedented in UN). Categories: human needs (hunger, health, nutrition), participation of developing countries in global econ, global management (climate change). Tech is just one of the targets: can't achieve any major goal without significant investment in tech AND reforms in policy. , higher ed, enterprise development (mechansim of transforming to goods and services), foresight (confluence btwn info & bio-techs).

Panelists: Hans Rosling, Charles Riemenschneeider, Chris Elias, Ingvar Andersson, Sara McCue, Cestous Juma.

Charles, UN FAO: overall ag development has increased health and welfare, some areas bypassed. Hunger decreased from 37% to 17% since 1970, 840M hungry rose 15M even with better and cheaper food. Goal: cutting poverty in half, ag-based lives. Expect slowdown in population growth but overall increase. By 2030 will need 60% more food than today. Demand will be driven by income growth rather than demand growth: consumption will outpace development in developing countries. Nat resources: arable land and water will decrease, more stats on reduction of usable land/water/resources. Ag sector will need to respond to concerns (water, consumer, etc).

Q to Charles: what specific tech or application of tech would you most like to see? Integrated pest or water management, biotech (can help, won't replace, not a silver bullet, requires appropriate policy). Molecular divide. more stats (hard to keep track of this, or after a few minutes it's hard to make sense of it).

Chris, Appropriate Tech and Health (not part of UN but partner): cross-disciplinary collaboration. Myth: rich vs poor, served by development, so poor that nothing works. Not true: things work. All goals of millennium goals are essential. Three of those goals: 4) reduce child mortality,, 5) improve maternal health, 6) reduce certain diseases (TB, etc). Tremendous lost opportunity, wealth of innovation and improved health indicators in aggregate, but those statistics mask needs. Health of mothers is vital to health of children. Orphans less likely to go to school, have health problems. Maternal anemia increases low birth weight, HIV maternal to child transmission. Maleria and TB in both adults and children. Causes of excess death are largely preventable: pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, malnutrition. Diversity of distribution of problems: disease burden varies in diff parts of world. 30,000 children a day is too long to wait for solutions.

Ingvar, Water policy advisor, UNDP: 3 targets: safe water supply (reduce use), basic sanitation (by 2015), counties to have integrated wanter management resources to coordinate use. 1.1-1.2B people without water resources today. Must rethink how to deal with sanitation and delivery: issues of social change, need to leave learning mindset. Most water carried on head by women, introduce wheel barrow or bicycle to community and men become interested. Community water needs linked energy needs. Intermediate transport options besides pipe or on-head. Need a revolution.

Sara, ITC for development UNDP: how info is organized and found is most important. Who selects, organizes, publishes? Not currently organized in useful way, need transactional portals, inter-industry, Internet-accessible structures. Culture of info sharing is exciting. How to use tech to transform business and gov? What do individuals use it for if individual and economic growth? How to bring tech to all areas of world? how to encourage use of Internet for personal growth and economic development? more stats, questions...

WTN day 2, The Next Big Thing

2003-06-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

Jerry Borrell, moderator

Kamran Elahian: moment of recognition for Les Vadasz. Don't go looking for it. Megatrends: Communications (number of cell phones, Internet users, amount of data, spam, videos keep increasings). Laptops, Blackberries, Internet-enabled computers. Fusion or convergence of biotech, nanotech, and info tech.

John Michaelson, langat's law (?): total of horsepower computing rose 1000x in last ten years, storage capacity too. Something that exploits this trend will be next big thing, but we don't know what it is. We know where devices will be in 10 years, but not (info) tech. Wifi is going to be huge. Will huge funding cuts in VC hurt TNBT? unlikely to impact, can't use more than 10B/yr w/out driving up costs. Partnering w/ entrepreneurs,, but need to find the right ones.

Joanna Rees Gallanter: tech fails because they don't understand their market. No big wave, Internet as revolution not evolution. Digital consumer: music, photos, personal financial info... Convergence devices, SFO (search, find, obtain) is just beginning, especially for new media. Corp: fixed email, defensable assets but no companies doing this.

Nicholas Parker: VC defined: investment banker cross-dressing as entrepreneur. Clean tech: continuum moving toward lighter, cleaner power; market moving faster. Demand-side drivers (dry environments), tech that makes better use of materials. Meetings w/ corps and VCs, seeing some crossover. Thin-film solar & semiconductors, other combinations. Lots of tech looking for problem to be solved. Wall St will recognize quality (not quantity) of life theme.

Les Vadasz: retired from Intel Capital. IT, last 50 years: 2 tsunamis (semiconductor mfg tech and Internet/WWW). Opportunities: mobility, digital home, enterprise, and telecom. Mobility: wifi changes the way we live and work, transformative technology. infrastructure of wifi: roaming, security, maintain and reconnect sessions, etc. Digital home: using same tech as IT in hi-fi environment? Enterprise: interconnectivity is transformative, incremental is significant (not soup to nuts apps). Telecom: selling/buying apps services moves to transport services. Internet tech allows, incumbents resist. Difficult but tremendous opportunities.

Jerry: Q: fabless semiconductor and energy technologies-- train wrecks coming, to what extent do we create wrecks or innovation? Les: streamline into our models, chaos. sometimes sustainable, otherwise temporary. Nicholas: part of key is Amer economic system, fosters risk. some lemmings. Doesn't like solar. Kamran: getting into businesses you know nothing about: been there, done that. Don't confuse ignorance/bliss with facts. Not burdened with legacy, even failures are winners because they created jobs, bought goods, etc. which is better than speculating in stock market. John: Fabless can be built very fast w/ tremendous returns. Exploiting type and design of market that can't last. Successful are long-term and proprietary. Joanna: competition is a good thing at the right time.

WTN day 2, Corporate Innovation: Staying Committed in challenging times

2003-06-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

Jim Trainham, DuPont Textiles and Interiors: return on R&D over last 30 years? (study) Average 27% pre-tax, software industry: 18% (shorter return cycle), chemical industry: 25% return. Slow growth of chem industry: business focus not innovation or growth.

Stephen Bjorgan, France Telecom R&D: is R&D of value? doesn't always occur here. Compelling issues here in SF, part of committment to tap into global innovation, work w/ univ to push UWB, w/ vendors to share risk & development.

Scott Power, Genencor International, focus outside healthcare; primary focus on industrial chem/enzymes. Cyclical nature: waves of development & innovation followed by drying of funding. Applications in industrial synthesis for polymers, etc. Expand reach into short-term finding opps? Waste converted w/ composite enzyme systems to useful stuff.

Theresa Kotanckek, Dow Chemical: existing businesses and new growth areas: critical domains and needs. Strategies: what are domains? Opportunities in different areas? collaboration, not needing to control as much as defining sharing.

Linda Trocki, Bechtel: project management on huge scale, own R&D: tech services for gov (not meeting our business needs, spun off), outsourced to Idaho Nat'l Labs, new refrigeration technique, staying in .com arena, standardizing engineering, partnering w/ customers (e.g., Phillips Nat Gas). Privately held makes it easier to take longer-term view.

Q: differences based on location and approach to R&D? Stephen: don't think there's a big diff in mentality, but US has huge advantage from internal funding/budgets, innovation machine here has global impact. Jim: people coming out of universities know how to do research, or can learn quickly, diversity of minds. Scott: research in Netherlands as well as Palo Alto; industrial partner to gov funding, access to all work generated. Need combined work of people.

Q: Independent intermediaries? Theresa: most successful collaborations don't involve this. Different pathway, methodology. Not competitive, address issues (IP etc) up front. Q: Altruistic? A: not at all. Financial considerations of risk, complementary skills, common interest in speed. Must define boundaries.

Missed Chris Taylor (Time Mag)'s additional questions. Jim: sometimes need to protect scientists from corporate immune system.

Jim: does biz leadership have real understanding or plan for innovation? Marriage of how to view and support innovation is critical, but doesn't always need to be part of culture. R&D took a back seat.

Q: balance battleships vs disruptive skunkworks? Sometimes being big isn't bad from funding angle. Big makes it easier to hide smaller projects.

Q: security and regulation: a big matter, enough to move forward? ethics edges, ag-biotech has political/educational issues. Security: ability to measure things improves but how to measure at a distance or other circumstances. Regulation of security is important as to personal or business data...

WTN conf, day 2, final breakouts

2003-06-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Claudio Jose Marinbo Lucio, Policy & Law: Social implications of exponential technologies. does IT policy matter? (He's from poor area in Brazil.) drivers: infotech, biotech, nanotech. Exponential changes like Moore's law et al. Sci development could be derailed by inadequate legal/social policy. Why Americans need to know more about tech? guiding and supporting IT enterprise, private foundations concerned about oversight, lack of political knowledge and leadership. Business 2.0 article, tech never moves in straight line, interesting for policy. What can policy-makers do? How to cope w/ speed of tech development? can we speed up developing countries? (regional) What do you need to triggering events (Sputnik) to galvalnize a country? Need to work within each contry to help them understand new tech. Watch sci-fi movies, read sci-fi books. Scale finances: Work with small projects in mind, scale-free networks.

Roy Pea, Education: facilitate k-12 ed improvement? higher-ed faculty? using methods that work? IT skills learning thru community centers? how to keep women/minorities in tech pipeline? What are ideas that need to be picked up and used more? Formative assessments, don't disguise instruction. Get all minds working: peer instruction, collective intelligence. Knowledge construction, funds of local communities disconnected from learning. methods: interactive media, video case studies, peer knowledge, simulation and games. computer agents. remote access to expertise. virtual field trips. Workplace learning: JIT learning for e.g., call center staff, virtual labs controlled thru the web. Collaboratories (across Mexico). Partnerships. Competition and grants. "learning expeditions." wifi, one to one computing, digitalization and interactive, online community tools. Blogging for personal learning portfolios. ubiquitous sensors to facilitate learning. nomadic or location-aware devices, grid computing for complex projects.

Michael Anthony, Entertainment: MP3, communications in entertainment, points way to everything else. IP: hard to protect conveyances and packages. Once rendered, can be ripped. Record companies have lost the thread. Gets down to ownership issue--if I buy it, it's mine. Not opinion of record companies who want to restrict use. Ramifications: short window of opportunity on release to make money, window closed by copies introduced on Internet. Record companies need to look at how they make money. (Can't tell what groups thoughts were or what thoughts are Anthony's.) No effective means of control. Future of entertainment: personal.

Mark D Levine, Energy and Environment: what advice to Jim on upcoming world energy tech conference? Guidelines for program: not political, encourages and spurs innovation, what agenda? what would purpose be? Long-term is non-political and have impact. Compendium for reducing greenhouse gases: not a great idea, has been done by others and was enormous. Seeking Apollo-type project? Many similar on many radar screens. Smaller event in Nov to plan larger one. 2020 or 2030, if goals and targets, how might we get there? scenario efforts, roadmaps, targets and work backwards. Speaker for developing countries and greenhouse gases: one thing that clearly retards development in lack of interest by VCs in pursuing innovative solutions. Need to facilitate conversations among disparate parties.

Marko Peljhan, The Arts: conceptual & philosophical, role of arts in society and development of new ideas? Freedom always needs creativity. Cooperation between sciences and the arts isn't happening, cultural problem. Sci & tech as part of general culture may help w/ communication, getting over dogmas. Collabs and inter-disciplinary research: individual is stressed, impedes progress & collab. Edu system is archaic and impedes progress. Universities and IP rights vs Intel: if funded, must become public domain. Linguistic isolation, no distribution, divergence of art and tech from mainstream. Visions and idea productions? Relationship btwn art/design, sciences.