Human ingenuity. Hackers are a clever lot. Read here.

Please note the incredibly long time it took this person to achieve their goal.

The old look was really getting on my nerves, folks. It looked… well, OLD! Hence the new look.

I don’t know how many of you have done online training before, but I have. The organization I work for offers it — a GOOD thing –, and I’ve taken advantage of it on more than one occasion. They even keep records of the training and give you credit for it — another GOOD thing. Unfortunately, the training itself is a bit… how do I put this..? ..lacking. There are more than a few reasons I find the training lacking, but I’ll just mention a few:

1) The presenters seem to be paid readers reading a script. Now, as someone married to a lady who sometimes does professional voice work when she’s not managing projects, I’m sort of torn. There’s a part of me that says, “More power to you.” But then there’s the IT professional in me that says, “Uh, you have a nice voice and all, and you read very nicely, but you don’t really sound like you know what you’re talking about.” That’s a BAD thing. If you’re going to teach an online course, you’d better at least seem like you know what you’re talking about.

2) The user interface is crumby. The last thing any user wants to contend with is an interface that makes you wish you never sat in front of the computer to begin with. Unfortunately, the last time I took an online course through work, I had this very experience. Signing in wasn’t as simple as it could’ve been, and when I did finally sign in it was using a password that only Kim Peek could remember. Then I wasn’t even allowed to change it to something somewhat memorable. Next, when I got to what I believed was finally the screen that would activate the course, I found I had to take up the pop-up gauntlet from the deep before I could begin. All these were very BAD things as well.

3) The connection’s a bit iffy. THIS is anathema! Now, I have to be fair and say that the organization I work for is one of the largest in the world with geographical challenges that most companies couldn’t imagine. Our e-mail network alone must cause a lot of folks a lot smarter than I am some sleepless nights. Nevertheless, if you’re going to offer something, don’t roll it out until it can do what you claim it can do. Loss of connectivity in the middle of a course is unacceptable. While it hasn’t happened directly to me, I was the Sys Admin who had to explain there was a connectivity problem for one of the users at work. She was very understanding and patient, as Swedes tend to be, but she was also required to finish the course as a prerequisite before flying to take a instructor-led course. And she said that it had happened to her several times before. NOT good.

Unless I MUST take a course (as a prereq) online at work, I don’t. And that’s too bad, because they offer some seemingly good course. It’s just that, in my humble opinion, they still have a ways to go. I don’t like having to wait on chances to learn something new. Like most IT types, I need continuous stimulation and learning. Reading’s good, and I do quite a bit of it, but a GOOD online course now and again would be great!

Then along comes lynda.com.

These folks offer training at $25 or $250 a year. I’m currently signed up for the monthly fee, but I may have to change that. Their list of online courses is extensive to say the least, and they also offer video on CD, books, and bundles.

So why am I raving so much about them? Well, first of all, let me say I’m NOT getting paid to do it. I blog for the love of blogging. It’s just that these folks are so very good at what they do. Specifically:

1) The presenters know what they’re talking about. I’m currently taking an OS X course (surprise, surprise!), and the presenter is flat out knowledgeable. His voice and tone tell you he’s been teaching the material for some time, but you also get to see his cursor moves, hear the mouse clicks, and keys being typed. Any serious computer-user knows when someone isn’t sure about where they’re going on a desktop. They hunt for the right icon, double-clicking where they should’ve knowingly single-clicked, and so on. That’s not what I’ve experienced on lynda.com. Now, if this is all just edited in afterwards then kudos to them for a great production, but it wouldn’t really make much sense.

2) The interface is simple. When you initially log in, you have the option to change the password to one not configured by NSA. This is a GOOD thing. Then you select the product/course you want from a drop-down menu that takes you to a table of contents. Once there, you click on the section you want begin in. If you want to start at the beginning you can. If you’re already familiar with the material, just jump down to what you don’t know. Once you decide and click, a pop-up window, the ONLY pop-up window, opens and you’ll likely see a desktop with icons related to what you’ve decided to learn about.

3) They’ve always been up. Since signing up, they’ve been up each and every time I logged into their site regardless of what time it was. Granted, they’re surely not the size of the organization I work for, but they do what the advertise.

4) The price is reasonable. Say what you want folks, but $25 a month isn’t much for all that’s available. A week long instructor-led course can run you $1000 on up easily for most courses. Having 24/7 access to a plethora of courses is a steal in my opinion.

I could go on and on, but I’d like to get back to my course and find out what else I can do with the OS X dock. If you have time, take a quick tour on lynda.com. If memory serves me correctly, you should be able to click on at least the first chapter of a course for no charge at all to see what they offer. Give it a shot and let me know what you think. In the meantime…

Laterz.

I’ve always been blown away by the folks at Intel; however, they’ve recently taken it way beyond my comprehension. For all of you old-timers out there who remember when 33Mhz was smokin’ fast, you’re gonna love this.

Here’s a scenario for you. Just imagine your a software developer. Your boss has been breathing down your neck all year long for you to try and solve the problem of getting the company’s app to function smoothly using threads that take advantage of a duo-core processors. You blink for just a second and next thing you know, here comes Intel with a quad-core processor. Lo and behold they come out with this. Would you think about taking up gardening then? (lol)

(Here are some more specs for you über geeks out there.)

Non-registered comments are welcomed for the more freedom loving types out there. I’ve made the proper adjustments to the site, so registering is no longer necessary. This was a default setting I wasn’t aware of.

Laterz

I’m sitting on my couch imagining what the future will be like in our world of information. When I was a kid, information was pretty much who you called when you wanted to know something. You picked up your phone and dialed, literally, “411″. A nice lady usually answered your call, “Information. How may I help you?” in a very nasally voice. Truth be told, I used the phone more to call my old friend Marci and talk about who-knows-what kids in second grade talk about; nevertheless, we spent plenty of time on that phone. Being a kid who loved music, I played it when I had the chance, but when I wanted a record of my own, I’d have to save my money and walk all the way to the big record store on 125th street (I really DID grow up in Harlem folks ) that had a much better selection and better prices than the one in my neighborhood. Going to the movies was always an adventure because typically it was going to be either the theater on 103rd street in Spanish Harlem, that had a bit of a rat problem, or a friend and I would head to Times Square. Going to the library, something I didn’t do much of when I was younger, which will surprise a lot of my friends who know me to be one of the folks who made Jeff Bezos as rich as he is.

Times have changed.

When I want information now, it’s literally flying around all around me. All I need is the know-how to get it. At my very finger tips is access to more information than I’ll ever be able to digest in my entire life. I just used Wikipedia to create a link to Amazon.com found Jeff Bezos above. Wikipedia is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”. It’s available in a growing number of languages. I could’ve used Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com (formally Ask Jeeves), Dogpile, and a growing list of others. If I want to talk to my old friend Marci (I’m happy to say we’re still friends after more than 30 years), I can grab either my cordless Siemens home phone or my Nokia E70 mobile and dial away. Because of the leaps in telecommunications made by both the U.S. and Sweden, telephone rates are quite affordable. Calling her using my home phone costs me about five cents a minute. But my options don’t end there. I could simply grab my headsets and use my Skype account which costs me two cents a minute (at today’s exchange rate). If we both have Skype accounts, there’s no charge. Of course, assuming she has an SMS-capable provider in the U.S. (we’re finally starting to come along. Sweden’s only been doing it for ABOUT TEN YEARS!!!!… sorry about that. I get a little sensitive about how far behind the U.S. is in the world of mobile technology. To my U.S. readers, let’s just say we’ve got a ways to go compared to Scandinavia), then I could simply send her an SMS message asking when she’s available for a Skype phone call. If I want to really get fancy, I could access the Internet through my wireless network at home with my Nokia E70, go to WhitePages.com, look up Marci’s mobile number (assuming it’s listed), and send her an SMS asking for a Skype phone call. But that would simply be me acting like an über-geek. My youngest daughter checks her class schedule and grades online. I have a separate account as the parent to check her grades as well (I am SO glad my parents didn’t have this option when I was a kid!). Before she heads out the door to catch the subway to school, she goes to the SL (Stockholm’s subway system) web site to check when the next train leaves. Da Minx and I do the same thing. And if we just happen to forgot our subway passes, we can grab our mobile phones and send an SMS to number 72150 which purchases a ticket (with a time stamp) from SL for the trip.

All that said, I can’t help but wonder what’s ahead. What lies ahead for us all in the IT world? I’m not alone in my wondering. I believe Steve Jobs is wondering as well. His “Thoughts On Music” article has caused quite a stir, and rightfully so. Say what you want about his reasoning, but any honest person has to see that it took quite a bit of chutspa to say anything at all. Why? Because he really didn’t have to. Apple sold 2 billion songs, despite DRM restrictions, at 99 cents a piece. That’s roughly 2 billion dollars. Now he’s speaking out against it. Some would argue he’s made his money and now he can run, but that would simply clash with the earlier criticism of him not saying anything because he wanted to make money, and most of us know that the successful business types aren’t known for suddenly not wanting to make money. As has been stated by more than a few in the know, DRM is quite anti-consumer. Who really wants to buy a song online they can’t play in another music player? We surely wouldn’t stand for CDs we could play in our cars but not our home systems. I can tell you, if I didn’t have the option to make DRM CDs in iTunes, I would not be an iPod owner today. And that’s pretty much the problem with DRM. Why even bother? Yes, I understand songs are digitized and shared at a rate that’s hurting record labels. But you know what? That genie’s been out of the bottle for some time. I don’t care what anyone says, there’s not putting it back in. I myself know enough people with the skills and talent to crack just about anything the Big Four record labels can throw at them DRM wise, and that’s in Sweden alone. Now multiply that globally, add in the sharing of learned hacking skills, combined with free computer science courses on line from prestigious universities such as MIT and you start to understand where I’m at. Combine that know-how with the processing power available on store shelves today. I’m typing on a laptop with 2.16Ghz x 2. That’s WAAAAY more than what we used to send astronauts to the moon.

It’s time folks face the music. People like Steve Jobs got where he is being an innovator. That means he has the gift of seeing things in sharper focus than most. I think this case is no different. I’m willing to bet EMI is thinking the same thing. I see a future with DRM-less music, and I see it soon. My guess is the most successful company of the Big Four will be the one that kills DRM, and undercuts iTunes in price. A price war is something that will benefit the consumer and force the labels to come up with 21st century business models. It won’t be pretty. It will more than likely cost jobs, but if they move quickly they can score big early and retrain (read: invest in) their people in skills that will help them and the label recover and compete again. I have no magical business model to propose (and if I did I probably wouldn’t do it right here ), but there are lots of folks out there much smarter than I am. However, I am smart enough to know when it’s time to adjust. When will the Big Four know?

Now that I think about it, Skype’s causing quite the paradigm shift as well. Hmm…

So here I sit with a cold on our new couch, with the sun shining beautifully outside. It’s probably not going to get any higher than -7C° (19F°) today with a few scattered clouds. A beautiful Swedish day, basically. Not for this kid though. This cold will probably keep me down all day today and tomorrow. But, fear not! I have a cup of Inca Rose tea (with lemon and honey in it, of course), and a copy of “Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solution (Fifth Edition)” handy, so I’ll be juuuust fine. BTW, for all of you folks out there who really enjoy tea, I definitely recommend Inti Zen out of Buenos Aires. When it comes to tea, these folks produce some of the best in the world, and I’m not exaggerating.

I came across a very cool little app yesterday that I’ve been enjoying like crazy sense. It’s called Remote Buddy. A comment I find most fitting regarding Remote Buddy is: “Just works. Out of the box – without any configuration.” That’s the truth. I installed it, and VOILA! it was working. I don’t know how many of you know it, but the Apple remote is a bit… uh… how do I put this..? …lacking in functionality initially. You can use it for a few things out-of-the-box, but not an incredible amount. And that fact that they come with all of the latest Macs kind of makes it even more frustrating. You get it, press “Menu” and then find yourself asking, “Yeah. And what else?!?” Nevertheless, the talented folks at IOSpirit came up with a excellent piece of software that’s super easy to use out-of-the-box, easy to update, and the IOSpirit folks continue to add new functions to it for LOTS of stuff. And for just €9.99, it was no time before my credit card was out!

Hmm… I’m wondering if I’ll ever make it through “Hacking Exposed”. I’m only on page 15 and I’ve already had to stop and try out some of the interesting things pointed out. I mean how could I possibly resist looking up some old sites using the WayBackMachine? I’ve been an Internet junkie since 1991. There’s no way I was NOT going to see how many trails I’ve left. This is also a great way to see the evolution of a web site. Beware though. It can be both sobering and hilarious.

Time to reward myself with an episode of “24″. Now where’s my Apple remote control, now that it’s really being put to use..?