Entries by Chris Hill

If you haven't read about the newest iPhone 3G (meaning you live in a remote location without access to a phone, television, or computer with internet), it launched this morning at 8:00 AM, in the U.S. I've been very excited about this launch for quite some time, following the blogosphere about every leak, real or not, in regards to this highly anticipated and probably overblown release. I mean, it is one of the most beautifully designed devices I've ever seen and I'm an iPhone 2G lover, err...owner, and severely addicted to technology in general.

At first, I was gung-ho about purchasing this new little jewel and passing off my iPhone 2G to my wife (she was equally excited about this). But, now I'm not so sure. Why you ask?

Upon arriving to work this morning, sitting in my Inbox was the following email from a one Dennis R. Mortensen, COO at IndexTools:

Hi there,

I hope this email finds you well.

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that IndexTools has positively agreed to be acquired by Yahoo! today. We firmly believe that our technology platform combined with Yahoo!’s extensive offering of on-line marketing services will provide our partners and clients with an unsurpassed marketing tool set.

So how does this affect you?

We would ask you to give us the opportunity to present this in more detail on Tuesday 15th April 2008. In the meantime, it is very much business as usual! Please be assured that, for the time being, our services will continue as normal and there will be no disruptions to your account.

We appreciate that you’ll have many questions and we look forward to providing you with answers to these early next week.

Until then, have a good week and look forward to speaking to you soon.

Kind regards

Dennis R. Mortensen, COO at IndexTools

What is SMF? According to simplemachines.org, Simple Machines Forum, or SMF, is a free, professional-grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes -- aka, it's forum software.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP (Andy may disagree) and uses a MySQL database.

This is an extremely powerful and easy-to-use forum, probably one of the more robust systems I've come across. Considering the price -- FREE -- you can't beat it.

Here's a list of some general features:

• Advanced permission and user management


• Supports multiple languages at once


• Open and well-documented source code


• Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit


• Designed for optimal performance and scalability


• Multi-media output (XHTML, XML, RSS, WAP)


• Multi-language support from a large community


• Package manager that automatically installs or uninstalls mods (also known as hacks) as well as product updates

For an exhaustive list of features, visit the SMF features list here.

The minimum system requirements are as follows (most hosts will easily meet these requirements. If not, reconsider who you're hosting with) :

• Any webserver that properly supports PHP, such as Apache or Internet Information Services (IIS).


• PHP 4.1.0 or higher. The following directives are required to be set correctly in php.ini:
  
  
  
  • the engine directive must be ON
  
  
  • the magic_quotes_sybase directive must be set to OFF
  
  
  • the session.save_path directive must be set to a valid directory
  
  
  • the file_uploads directive must be On
  
  
  • the upload_tmp_dir must be set to a valid directory
  
  
  
  


• MySQL 3.23.4 or higher


• At least 512 kilobytes of storage space in the database, although more is highly recommended


• About two and a half megabytes of storage space on the web server, although more is recommended

Our forum, located here, currently has over 100 members, and more than 300 posts and continues to run as smoothly as the day we launched. Granted, I'll come back to you when we get into the tens of thousands, as that will be the true test of scalability. The update/package manager works like a charm and I'm surprised at how compatible my heavily modified theme has been with each update. An update has yet to break my theme. knock on wood The system notifies you when an update is available for SMF itself and any mods that you might have installed. Click the link for the update, and via FTP, SMF automagically downloads the update. Then visit the Package Manager, click the "Apply Mod" link and you're set.

Free themes are available to customize the look and feel of the forum and install with ease. Modifying a theme is also a breeze if you have any working knowledge of HTML and CSS. Knowledge of PHP is also a great benefit, but not required.

The Simple Machines website offers a ton of mods to make the forum fit your needs. They offer mods for New Features, Feature Enhancements, Themes, Buttons and Avatars, Administrative Functions, BBC, Attachments, Permissions, Postings, and Profiles. They one area that SMF currently seems to lack is the ability to monitor posts easily. As an admin you can subscribe to a board, but that will only notify you of "new" posts, not comments to existing posts. Apparently this is an issue that is to be addressed in the 2.0 version. The first beta release of 2.0 was delivered last August. According to the forums over at Simple Machines, the following is a summary of some of the new features:

• Database abstraction - with support for PostgreSQL and SQLite planned alongside that of MySQL


• Automatic installation of packages into themes other than just the default


• Email templates to simplify customization of forum emails


• Moderation center including post, topic and attachment moderation - to allow approving of user content before it is made public *WOOHOO*


• User warning system


• Additional group functionally including group moderators and requestable/free assignable groups


• WYSIWYG editor to provide an intuitive user interface to those users not familiar with BBC


• Permission improvements such as group inheritance and permission profiles to further reduce the complexity of the permissions system


• File based caching for a performance increase on all forums regardless of whether an accelerator is installed


• Mail queuing system to stagger the sending of emails to improve performance on large forums


• Advanced signature settings to allow the administrator of a forum to more tightly control the contents of users signatures


• Personal messaging improvements including ability to automatically sort incoming messages and a variety of display options


• Improved upgrade script with better timeout protection and simpler user interface


• Custom profile fields to enable administrators to add additional member fields from the administration center


• User configurable posts and topics per page; an improved calendar interface


• Option to allow guests to vote in polls

Apparently, version 2.0 has been in the works for quite some time. As you can tell, the team is very committed to the success of this open source project and their goal is to provide the next generation of forum software. They are well on their way.

Our forum is currently running on a shared host -- iPower. I did need the assistance of the host to get the application installed as it's not one of the standard apps they natively support. And, as you may well know, shared hosts typically grant very little access to the system. They are apparently upgrading to a new server platform, which will hopefully include Fantastico, giving the user a little more freedom to install software. After the system was installed we did run into an issue where, on certain systems/networks, accessing the forum would result in the index.php not being recognized as a web page, but rather a file -- a download dialog would be presented instead of the file being rendered in the browser window. In the end it was a server configuration error of "unknown" somewhere in the PHP installation. Sorry I couldn't pry more information out of the lovely techs at iPower. However, other individuals experienced this issue and it's fairly well documented throughout the forums over at simplemachines.org.

Since the forum launched, we have had very few cases of users experiencing usability problems with the forum -- partly due to the wonderful theme, maybe? It works like any other forum available on the market. This is my first undertaking in administering a forum, and SMF has made life easy for me. As new requirements arise, the mods have been more than helpful in addressing those new requirements. The admin section of the forum provides an abundance of features to organize, monitor, and optimize your forum.

One other bit of functionality worth noting is that of the integration of SMF into various CMS systems. They've developed four bridges to help integrate SMF into e107 CMS, Mambo, Xoops, and iGamingCMS. To further entice you to make the switch from your current CMS/forum software, they've answered the question, "What about my current content?" They've also been nice enough to develop converters, to convert your other forum software into SMF. They offer 35+ different converters.

If you're looking for an easy-to-use, powerful forum application, consider SMF.

It's Simple, Effective, Powerful, and Free!

It's been six months since my purchase of a 17" Toshiba Satellite P100. Before purchasing this laptop I spent many months researching the different manufacturers and quizzing the guys in our QA lab. They get to see lots of hardware, as well as complete systems, and are a great resource for info when purchasing a new system and/or hardware. I looked at all the major players (in no particular order); Lenovo, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Sony, and Compaq. I even looked at a few of the smaller manufacturers like Acer and Alienware.

This is the second part of a series analyzing the leading candidates' use of technology in their bid for the White House in 2008. In the first part of this series we examined Rudy Giuliani. This second part will focus on Hillary Clinton.

The 2008 Candidates - in order of recent rankings within each party by RealClearPolitics (data collected on September 21, 2007)

Republicans

1. Rudy Giuliani - 28.2%


2. Fred Thompson - 22.9%


3. John McCain - 15.2%


4. Mitt Romney - 9.1%

Democrats

1. Hillary Clinton - 41.8%


2. Barack Obama - 23.0%


3. John Edwards - 141.3%


4. Al Gore - < 3%

Hillary Clinton - Democrat



Hillary Clinton's website is not so different from that of other presidential candidate websites that I've seen, particularly when considering color scheme and basic layout. They all naturally trend towards patriotic red/white/blue color schemes. The layout is eerily similar to Rudy Giuliani's website; navigation links in boxes across the top, a large YouTube style video on the left side of the page, and the "action" items are listed down the right side. My initial impression to the site was that it was a bit cartoony using older XP-style icons throughout. It didn't have the same "presidential" feel to it as I got when viewing the Giuliani site.

I was pleasantly surprised when I was introduced with two features that I could not find on the Giuliani site, a blog and cell phone updates! Great, a candidate using the available technology and something us younger generations can relate with. But -- yes there's alway a but -- I find myself once again disappointed. Upon visiting the blog I found that it's not Hillary's blog, but a blog of multiple, pre-approved authors, much like the blog you're reading now. Not exactly the voice of Hillary. Nevertheless, I'm still excited about the use of the cell phone updates form located directly on the home page. Enter your cell number, hit Join, and you're off and running receiving those breaking campaign moments right on your cell phone. I'm not sure how many people actually use this, or if I would use a feature like this for the candidate that I support (to remain unknown at this time, sorry no breaking news here ), but it's a cool feature nonetheless.

There are a few other observations to be made. First, the site is informative, more than that of the Giuliani counterpart. Second, there is no use of social bookmarking links other than on the blog page and more shockingly, no Live Feed is available.

Another advantage for Hillary is that she has an accessible MySpace page. Her MySpace page's design is nothing fancy, but has been modified from the default MySpace look which is a huge plus when compared to Giuliani's MySpace page. Located on the page are two cut and paste HTML snippets for adding Hillary banners on your site.

Other sites Hillary takes advantage of are Facebook, YouTube, and Eons. All advantages over Giuliani.

I also cannot help but notice the use of the term "Hillraiser" on the Hillary campaign website. The first thing that comes to mind are the movies directed by Clive Barker, "Hellraiser". It is intended to be a program that allows users to sign up and raise money on behalf of Hillary. This system will track how much money is raised by your efforts and talks about giving "credit" for those efforts. This is a very novel idea and really personalizes the individual effort. Hillraising is a great example of melding technology with grass-roots efforts and could prove to be an effective fundraising mechanism, assuming we can all remove the images of Pinhead himself from our mind.

The Good:

1. A blog


2. Cell phone updates


3. Informative


4. Accessible, custom MySpace page


5. HTML snippets for support banners


6. Facebook site


7. YouTube site


8. Eons site


9. Hillraiser program

The Bad:

1. Site has cartoony feel


2. The blog (it's not personal)


3. Lack of social bookmarking links


4. No live feed


5. Hillraiser (negative connotations are heavy)


6. Lack of participation in other blogs


7. No AJAX

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This series will discuss the use (or lack thereof) of technology by the leading candidates for the 2008 race for the White House. I'll spend time on each of the leading candidates and analyze what technologies they're using and their implementation of each. The final part in this series will be an attempt to grade each candidate, ranking them one against the other.

The 2008 Candidates - in order of recent rankings within each party by RealClearPolitics (data collected on September 7, 2007)

Republicans

1. Rudy Giuliani - 28.0%


2. Fred Thompson - 17.0%


3. Mitt Romney - 13.8%


4. John McCain - 10.4%

Democrats

1. Hillary Clinton - 38.3%


2. Barack Obama - 21.5%


3. Al Gore - 13.3%


4. John Edwards - 10.3%

Let's get started, shall we?

Rudy Giuliani - Republican



The first, and most obvious segment of any modern campaign is the candidate's official website. Giuliani's website design is clean and all things important are available from the home page and easily found. There is a live feed accessible from the home page and appears to be updated regularly each day. The site also offers blog widgets that integrate Giuliani content into your blog. The widgets include a Contribution Form, Live Feed, and Badgets (support banners & images). The site effectively integrates videos in a YouTube style focusing on the latest Giuliani speeches and also incorporates Podcasts directly into the home page called the Rudy Media Center.

After browsing the site for some time I expected to find an "official" blog link. Much to my disappointment I did not find one. I did stumble upon a talk radio show locater which is a novel idea. You choose a state, city, and then a local radio show and it presents you with the contact number for the show. Since conservatives tend to dominate talk radio, this is probably a useful function for Giuliani's site users.

The site also provides The Buzz which appears to be a feed of news stories related to Rudy and the campaign including a badge that displays the number of views for the particular article showing popularity. There are many other typical functions that you'd expect to find including a Donate Now button, Get Involved, and the Rudy Store. Most pages present the common social bookmarking buttons for Digg, Del.icio.us, RSS, Facebook, etc. near the bottom.

From what I can tell, the official Giuliani MySpace page is located here: http://www.myspace.com/joinrudy2008. Strangely, the MySpace page is set to private. I've added Giuliani to my Friends list but have yet to hear a response. The design of this page is also the default MySpace design. It is questionable whether this is the official MySpace page for the Giuliani campaign. If it is, it's a huge disappointment. If it isn't, where the heck is it? Does one exist?

The Good:

1. Social bookmarking links available


2. YouTube style videos


3. Podcasts


4. Live Feeds


5. Radio talk show locator


6. Nifty blog widgets


7. Effective use of AJAX


8. The Buzz feed


9. Clean site

The Bad:

1. No official blog


2. Lack of participation in other blogs


3. Questionable MySpace presence at best


4. No text messaging updates

Rudy Giuliani's website is effective and has some pretty novel functionality, but is lacking in a few areas. There are two glaring issues with his campaign's web presence, the lack of an official blog and the oddly private MySpace page. Let's see how he stacks up against the other candidates.

Stay tuned...

Update

Since writing this article it appears that Rudy has addressed the MySpace issues. His MySpace page is no longer private, has a custom design and provides a few videos. We'll see how his MySpace page stacks up against the competition, as next week we'll review Hillary Clinton.

A few months ago Chris Hansen of NBC's Dateline decided to "Catch an ID Thief". It was amazing at how complex the network of identity thieves became as they dug deeper into this black market. This particular show was a year in the making. They created a fake ecommerce website to sell goods to track the use of credit card fraud and get face to face with the people purchasing the goods. They were introduced to an online black market of selling and buying credit information through IRC-like mediums. Entire credit files could be purchased within minutes for less than $100, including credit card numbers along with expiration date and the 3-digit CVV number. This network was found to span the globe, using numerous middlemen and even unsuspecting innocent people. These middlemen would receive the packages and re-ship the items overseas. One unsuspecting man believed himself to be working for a South American supermodel whom he was in love with.

With a network of fraud as advanced and widespread as this, how can you prevent identity theft? Much of it is common sense practices and being aware of your surroundings. I've compiled a comprehensive list of ways to help you protect yourself from identity theft.

1. ALWAYS burn/shred/blow up/destroy anything that goes into the trash with your personal info on it!


2. Use initials on your checks instead of your full name, banks know how you sign and the thieves do not.


3. Identity thieves love those "pre-approved" credit offers you receive in the mail. To op-out from receiving these in the mail call 1-888-5OPTOUT.


4. This doesn't always help, but it might: don't sign the back of your cards and put SEE ID instead.


5. If you ever receive convenience checks from your credit card company, tell them to stop sending them.


6. Did you know you're entitled to one free credit report each year, USE IT! Visit www.annualcreditreport.com to get yours.


7. There are numerous credit monitoring services out there, find one and use it! I use Bank of America's Privacy Assist Premiere service. It's only $12.99/month and well worth the piece of mind.


8. Use card companies that allow you to create temporary card numbers with preset expiration dates and limited amounts that can be charged on them. Bank of America offers this service free with online banking. It creates a temporary card number that is only good for a user-specified time and can only be charged up to the amount the user specifies. This is great for shopping online.


9. If planning on big-ticket credit purchases, always check your credit report a month or two in advance. This will prevent embarrassment and allow time to resolve inconsistencies in your report.


10. When paying credit card payments with checks, use only the last four digits of your account number. The card issuing company knows the rest.


11. Keep all of your 1-800 numbers for you credit cards in a safe, accessible place. If the cards are lost or stolen, you need to quickly cancel them before the damage is inflicted.


12. File police reports immediately if your cards are stolen. This proves to your card companies that you're serious.


13. Watch for phishing emails and websites! Read Anti-Phishing Working Group's Consumer Advice: How to Avoid Phishing Scams for more information. Be sure to read Zhiro's blog, Phishing: Catch them before they catch you.


14. Use the government's Do Not Call Registry, it works most of the time.


15. If the Do Not Call Registry fails, hang up on every telemarketing call you receive and do not give out ANY information, not even your birth date.


16. Limit the number of open accounts you hold and always go over you statements with a fine-toothed comb.


17. If your information is compromised, immediately freeze your accounts with ALL 3 reporting agencies.
    
    
    
    1. Equifax: 1-800-525-6285
    
    
    2. Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
    
    
    3. Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289
    
    
    
    

Remember, be cautious and always aware of your surroundings even when in your favorite restaurants. Thieves are everywhere, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. It's not a matter of if, but when. Will you be ready?

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Microsoft Auto + Ford Sync = Sweet Innovation OR Highway Blue Screens of Death?

According to Microsoft.com, Microsoft Windows Automotive 5.0 is an automotive-grade open software platform that provides OEMs, suppliers, and developers with the building blocks they need to quickly and reliably create a broad range of advanced in-vehicle solutions that meet the growing needs of automotive consumers.

Ford Sync is Ford's exclusive new fully integrated, voice-activated, in-car communications and entertainment system for mobile phones and digital music players. This system is said to be one of the most advanced systems available today. Ford's banking on the notion that others will feel the same as it will initially be available in 12 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles this year. The great thing about the system is that it can be operated using voice alone, controlling cell phones, iPods, Zunes, USB storage devices, and more. Alternatively, devices can be controlled using the vehicle's steering wheel mounted controls.

The system is flash memory-based and provides two methods of connectivity, Bluetooth and USB 2.0. Supported media formats include MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, and PCM. It's comprised of an ARM 11 processor, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB of flash memory. An informational display is provided on a small screen on the face of the stereo console or embedded in the instrument cluster.

Ford Sync will first be seen on these vehicles: 2008 Ford Focus, Fusion, Five Hundred, Edge, Freestyle, Explorer and Sport Trac; Mercury Milan, Montego and Mountaineer; and Lincoln MKX and MKZ. It will be included in all Ford vehicles in the near future.

Listed below are the initial features according to Ford's press release. Since the system is entirely software based, it's easily upgradeable via it's USB port -- Ford Sync Service Pack 1, Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3 -- you get the picture.

• Voice-activated, hands-free calling: Simply press the âÂ?Â?Push to TalkâÂ?Â? button on the steering wheel, and then say the name of the person you wish to call. Sync will automatically connect with the names in the mobile phoneâÂ?Â?s contact list.


• Uninterrupted connections: No need to hang up in the middle of a cell phone call as you enter your vehicle. Simply touch the Telephone button on the steering wheel, and Sync will instantly connect to a Bluetooth phone.


• Audible text messages: Sync will convert text messages from your phone to audio and read them out loud. The system is even smart enough to translate such commonly used text messaging expressions as âÂ?Â?LOLâÂ?Â? and J. You can choose to reply from any of 20 predefined responses.


• Advanced calling features: Sync includes the same features offered on mobile phones, including caller ID, call waiting, conference calling, a caller log, a list of contacts, a signal strength icon, and a phone battery charge icon âÂ?Â? all conveniently located on the radioâÂ?Â?s display screen.


• Voice-activated music: Browse the music collection on your digital media player, mobile phone or USB drive by genre, album, artist and song title using simple voice commands, such as âÂ?Â?Play genre Rock,âÂ?Â? âÂ?Â?Play ,âÂ?Â? or âÂ?Â?Play Track .âÂ?Â?


• Instant voice recognition: SyncâÂ?Â?s advanced voice recognition technology means when youâÂ?Â?re ready to use your phone or digital music player, just speak simple voice commands.


• Ring tone support: For supported phones, Sync will play personal ring tones. If youâÂ?Â?ve configured unique ring tones to identify specific callers, Sync will automatically play those, too.


• Automatic phonebook transfer: Sync will automatically and wirelessly transfer all the names and numbers in a mobile phonebook.


• Multilingual intelligence: Sync is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

Wow! If this system performs as promised, Ford might have a winner on their hands. Sync, in conjunction with their new vehicle lineup, is exactly what Ford needs to stay on track with their restructuring plan. The voice recognition software, provide by Microsoft, is a similar system to those provided in numerous Honda and Acura vehicles, all of which received high marks for intelligence. Obviously within the next few years all vehicles will offer similar systems as drivers demand they stay connected with their expensive hand held devices. I also think this is great for those people (you know who you are) that like to dodge and weave through rush hour traffic, all while carrying on that important conversation on their cellphone. Now you can dodge and weave with two hands on the wheel instead of one!

I am surprised that Ford didn't offer a large hard drive for storage. Hopefully, Ford was smart enough to separate the vehicle systems. If Microsoft Auto decides to blue screen am I going to lose my entire entertainment/audio system? Will the stereo/CD player continue to work? More importantly, will the vehicle continue to operate? This may give a whole new meaning to the infamous Windows blue screen of death. We'll have to wait and see.

It might be a while for me, I'm looking at the new F-150 for my next vehicle and it most likely won't be available until 2009 .

Wristband access linking families with their children, wired trash cans, Wi-Fi on the sand, radio-frequency identification chips (RFID), parking spot monitors and reporting, all coming to a beach in Ocean City, New Jersey at the cost of $3 million.

The beach will require ALL visitors to wear a wristband, costing $5/day, $10/week, or $20/summer. These wristbands can be linked with each other which might prove popular for parents. If the wristbands leave the beach without the parent wristband a text message is sent to the parent's cell phone. This is the type of scenario where I can agree with tracking your children. Read my previous post, "Keeping them safe or making them vulnerable."It's temporary and in a crowded, relatively dangerous, public place. It would also be nice if a text message was sent when children got near the water. This might help prevent accidental drownings.

The wristbands will also automatically debi