Checking out from Technology

I always gently remind my clients that they need to blog regularly in order to create a following and to keep things interesting and fresh. So here I am, months after my last post, not following my own good advice.

Does the excuse being really busy count for anything? I truly understand the expression about the "cobbler's children go without shoes". After a day staring at a computer screen keeping my clients happy, it is a hard job to stay on for even longer to update my own website and blog on a consistent basis.

The title of my post today is about being overwhelmed by technology. I did a sculpture a few years ago called "Escaping technology" (shown above) which is pretty ironic, considering that is how I make my living. But sometimes I resent the lack of time I have to myself. So there are two sides to the coin. Loving it, and hating it.

Loving Technology

In April I went to Scotland and England for a ten day visit. It was a very schedule intensive trip meaning that I didn't really have time for any delays of any kind. I flew to Glasgow and spent four leisurely days with my husband's family, flew down to Heathrow and started a marathon of driving and visiting. The great thing about technology was that I was able to buy a very inexpensive "throw away phone" in Scotland and use it very cheaply for the ten days I was meant to be there. Point 1 to technology. Before I left, I bought and installed a Europe and UK map for my GPS which made driving from one end of the country to the other a lot less frazzled and allowed me to concentrate on my driving rather than worrying about where I was going. Point 2 to technology.

As you know, Mother Nature made herself heard and the unpronounceable volcano erupted on the Thursday before I was meant to go home. I figured it would be over by the time I was to come home on the Sunday, but it messed up the air traffic until the Wednesday that i was finally allowed to leave. Luckily with my cell phone that I bought at the beginning of my trip, the airline was able to contact me with my alternative flights, and I took my iPodTouch with me on the trip with all my contacts and diary and was able to use the free wifi in the bed and breakfast to connect with any clients or friends at home that wondered why I wasn't back at work! Point 3 to technology.

A client that I visited at the beginning of my trip gave me a little gadget called a Power Monkey (he sells them in his shop at design-led.co.uk). I haven't seen them at all in Canada, but I love this little gadget and it was a lifesaver. When I had the rental car, I could plug in my GPS or ipod and charge them, but when I took back the car on the Saturday before my original departure I had no way to charge my iPod or GPS at all. This little gadget plugged into the wall and powered up either your cell, iPod, GPS directly or you could just charge the PM itself and then charge your gadget later. The charge in the housing lasts a year without draining, and will recharge up to four hours in whatever you plug it into. And it comes with seven or so adapters, like usb, phone and iPod, and three different plugs for different countries. When I got home it works just as well in North America! Definite Point 4 for technology.

I suppose I could have gotten along without those gadgets, but it would have been a lot more stressful and complicated.

Hating Technology

On the other hand, it is annoying when you buy some gadget or another and it is so complicated to get it to work that it wastes hours of your time.
I have used a hand held device of one sort or another for about fifteen years. I first bought a bulky little machine by Casio called the Cassiopeia. It used a mobile pc operating system and it held my contacts, diary and even Word and Excel Documents. I used it up until about two years ago when it was still working, but Casio didn't offer updates or support for it any longer and it just couldn't work with the newer operating systems. I traded a dining room table with my brother for his HP handheld, but I found I wasn't using it as much and it just didn't hold it's charge. So when I bought my husband a iPod Touch for his birthday as a way for him to avoid the hundreds of cds he burns to listen to audiobooks in his truck (he's a long distance trucker) and the time he spent while home doing this and loading music on to his usb's, he loved it. Then I had to justify having one too. It had a way to sync your diary and your contacts too, so I was sold. Both of us are pretty good with technology, but it took us about three hours one night to get the thing to recognise the software on my computer it was supposed to use. We tried the next morning and inexplicably it worked. Against technology for time wasting - 1 point.

Yesterday was QuitFacebookDay. It was really in protest to Facebook's privacy policies, but it struck me as a good idea to help people get their real lives back. I have a facebook account. I rarely sign in, I won't download any apps or participate in virtual farming, because i just don't have the time. And sad as it may be, I don't have many friends on it and once they are on there, we don't say anything to each other. I have long distance friends, and we email each other or Skype and that's a more real way for me to keep in touch with them. I have a relative that is on it constantly. And I have heard of many people that have ruined their marriages over revisiting the childhood sweethearts or just the time they spend on it. While I'm not addicted to Facebook at all, if you want to remove your profile from Facebook, here is a link on the ten reasons why you may want to, and here is a link on how to do it effectively. I used to log in to a couple of forums and got quite caught up in them but found I was wasting far too much time being offended by people who ignored my post or formed cliques (where they didn't even know each other!) so one day I deleted all the posts I had made to one online blog connected to one and stopped posting and deleted all the links to the forums so I would have to actively look for them. I now feel so free of that time waster. Facebook is like that for a lot of people. Against technology - point 2

A fellow called James Sturm, who is a cartoonist and Graphic Novelist has stopped using any form of email or technology for four months. He says he was getting so addicted to it and it was a compulsion to keep checking it constantly. I joke to people sometimes that the noise my computer makes when an email comes in is like Pavlov's Dog. I don't salivate, but it takes everything to keep me from rushing to my computer to check out what the email is. So another addictive point against technology. Point 3.

I really have to go and do some work now, but my final for now reason against technology has to be the planned obsolescence of it. Basically, this is that corporations now build your fridges, stoves, computer gadgets to either have a limited physical life or a technological life so it can't be fixed or is out of date in no time. Here is an article about this particularly. A great little short film on this is The Story of Stuff. It's about how much the things we buy really cost. I think that the fridge and stove my parents had lasted my whole childhood (well the fridge had an untimely demise due to us kids trying to defrost it faster and poking a hole in it and releasing the freon) but now you are lucky if you get an appliance to last ten years! And I was thinking of usb's recently. I bought my first usb in 2002 for $80 and it was a 32mb. It seemed a huge size then. Now I see in the local electronics store that they have 32gb for sale for less than that. And I bet that they could have had those size usb's available all along, but have eked them out slowly so we buy the ever bigger and fancier one. Point 4.

I think I've had even points today, but I could think of many more for and against. We can't go back, but we can think about trying not to covet the next new thing (think iPad) and try to remember where our old stuff is going to go.

Selling items online

I've had a bit of experience lately with selling things online. I've had to clear out my Mother's house after her sudden death a few months ago, and I can now give my own first hand experience with various ways to sell.

I had a dining room suite to sell and was advised to sell it on eBay, as more people would see it and with an auction, may have a few people competing for it. It was a lovely suite and I would have kept it but for the fact that I only bought a table myself last year. I put a reserve on it, as I didn't want to sell it for a song, and the total cost for selling with eBay was almost $10. I didn't get one bid on it. There were so many layers of categories I'm sure a lot of people didn't even see the set. My brother had to get me to give him the auction number so he could refer people to it, and he knew what he was looking for. Now perhaps something more desirable and in a less complicated area would have been more successful. But my experience wasn't satisfying.

Other things I had were less expensive and so I decided to put them all on Kijiji.ca. I listed them in my own area as well as a few larger cities (in my case Oshawa that isn't that far a drive for a bargain) so more people would see them. Every item got seen immediately and within a couple of days I could see that I had over 100 views for each item. And the emails started to come in. I sold everything except an ornate mirror, (but it is still up there ) within a couple of weeks of them listing. Even the dining room suite that had no interest at all on eBay, finally sold for my full asking price.

I also used Freecycle to offer some old encyclopedias to anyone who may want them. This was by far my worst experience (not selling on eBay was at least easy!). First of all, to join Freecycle, you must have a Yahoo account which means yet another email address. I already have a hotmail and gmail account so didn't appreciate having to sign up for yet another one. Then I had to wait for confirmation that this was approved. Then I could sign up and wait for approval from Freecycle in my nearest area (in my case, Peterborough). This took so long that by the time I had emailed them as asked how long it took, I had forgotten my Yahoo account name (I wrote it down somewhere) and had to start again. Finally, I listed the encyclopedias free to anyone who asked. Two people said they were interested, so for the sake of fairness I offered one set to one, and another set to another person. The one person showed up when she said, took the lot of books and said she'd take the others if the second person decided not to take them. The second person sent me no fewer than ten emails with a litany of excuses as to why she couldn't come (kid's cold, her cold, then some surgery, then recovery) all the while saying she still wanted them. Finally she said to give them to someone else. I contacted the first person to tell her that she could have them as well, and even met her at the local post office, where she said she'd contact me, but never heard from her again!

I also used CraigsList, and listed a couple of items and got not one response.

All in all my experience with the four sites overall was that Kijiji was the clear winner. I got rid of the one set of books through Freecycle, but it was a hassle to join, and I offered other free things on Kijiji and ended up doing just as well without the hassle.

My experience with people buying is also worth mentioning. In my case, the items for sale weren't at my home, they were at my Mom's. So when making an appointment with someone, I had to be at her house a bit ahead to meet them. And people are often a pain in the butt. I'd say 70% didn't show up when they said, were late and didn't bother to call the cell number I supplied them with. One woman was half an hour late, walked in, said "oh, that will be far too big for the space" when she was supplied with the measurements, and then left with no apologies for wasting my time. Another treated my Mom's house like a giant flea market even making an offer on my Mother's urn (it is a lovely sculptural piece, but still) and trying to negotiate on prices she'd already agreed on. Another fellow said he'd come at 5 pm, had agreed to a firm price and then sent his employee at 12:30 to pick up items (I just happened to be there to wait for someone else) because he decided it would be more convenient for him. And his employee asked if I'd accept almost half of the agreed price! I said no.

All in all my impression is that Kijiji is the best place to sell items overall. If you know the price you want for something, then list it. Keep an eye on what page it is listed on, and re-list it if you don't want to pay for the top listing. List it in more than one area if you think it is worth people traveling to see it. People will look in other communities' listings if they are looking for something, but if you don't mind the extra work, it makes it easy for those who only look in their own area.

Kijiji's website was the easiest to use and by far, the most graphically pleasant to look at. And like eBay when it first started, I was selling my items to people just like me, not some corporation.

I've heard a lot about Craig's List, but was surprised at how basic it is (i.e. not pretty) and also that I didn't get any responses.

I used to use eBay in the UK and liked it there, but my overall experience here in Canada is not great. Too many big sellers, and the nice homey feeling of selling to another person like yourself isn't there any more.

Freecycle is an excellent idea, but it would be nice to see it not associated with Yahoo for ease of use. It is about helping the planet and not throwing things in the dump. And what they say is true, one person's junk is another person's treasure. I know someone who collects LPs and he has gotten all of his collection for free through either Freecycle or kijiji.

Finally, be careful who you reply to and realise that not everything will sell immediately, but even things I was having trouble selling (a really nice couch) eventually was sold. Also, don't arrange to meet people late at night and don't accept anything but cash once they've agreed to purchase it (in other words, get the cash, then let them start moving stuff!) I didn't have any trouble, but a few people's email addresses (scary names or just numbers) did make me hesitate to even reply to their query. Potential buyers don't know my email address until I reply. You can report scammers to all of the companies, even if it stops them from doing the same to someone else.

Have a couple of decent photos and measurements of all items. Be honest about the condition an item is in. No one likes their time wasted with items not described properly. And a good photo (you can have three for free in Kijiji) will help sell the item and save time having to describe it to people inquiring.

Even though I've complained that people were late, most of the people were really nice, happy to be getting a good bargain and knew that they had to pay cash and be ready to move the items in question. The couple that bought my Mother's dining room suite were thrilled with it, he carefully unscrewed the table top to move it and I felt really happy that someone knew they were getting a bargain, and would look after it the way my Mom did. May seem silly to care, but I did.

Don't forget also, you use Kijiji to promote your business. It brings more people to your site and a couple of my clients notice more calls and sales when they put in an ad!

Happy selling!

Phishing Scams

There used to be a time where businesses would get a letter in the mail from some part of Africa claiming to be a Dignitary or lawyer that needed the firm's help. It would go on to ask permission and for bank account numbers so this person could deposit great sums of money to the firm's account. For their trouble, they would give the firm a commission (a wonderfully high sum too)to keep. Of course it was a way to get access to a bank account and clear it out.

Technology has enabled this same scam and so many more to evolve to greater heights.

Beware of any scams that come under the following type:

Generic greetings - If you get an email from Paypal for instance telling you that your account has been compromised and you should sign in, they will use a greeting like Dear Paypal user, or just Dear user. Companies such as paypal know your first and last name and will always use it. Your bank will never send you emails like this. They will call you.

False sense of urgency - These are the emails that say that your account will be closed or blocked if you don't click on their link right away. Don't be fooled

Fake links - These are the most important. A phishing email will have a link that looks legitimate, but it still may send you to a fraudulent website. If a company or bank that you deal with is the subject of an email, go to the regular website address you normally go to, don't use the link in the email. Often it looks very similar and the web address is similar, but the differences mean that you could be typing your user name and password (which is what they are after) into a site that is collecting them for fraudulent purposes.

If I get an email from Paypal or Ebay about a security problem, I never ever sign into my Paypal account from the link on the email I've received. According to experienced Paypal users, this is how 90% of PayPal accounts are hacked into.

The term https:// should always precede the domain address as well. The "s" stands for secure. If you don't see the https then the site is not secure and you should not enter any information.

If you do receive a phishing email for Paypal, you can forward it to spoof@paypal.com. They are happy to have a list of these scams that hurt their business.

The best rule of thumb has always been the same.

"If it seems too good to be true, it probably is"

And for any unsolicited emails you get in your inbox, be very careful of who you reply to and clicking on any links.

AVG

Just to mention that AVG has released AVG version 9. You can download it here at Downloads.com. That is faster than the numerous windows you have to go through to find the free version at their own site. Just go to that site and another download window should open. Save it to your computer (desktop is best so you can easily find it) and then double click to install. You can install it without un-installing your previous version of AVG, but if you have any other type of virus program installed on your computer, pleased un-install it and restart your computer before you install AVG.

A client gave me her computer to find out why it was running so slowly. She hadn't loaded the most up to date version of AVG, but some viruses are easier to delete if you run your virus program while your computer is in "safe mode". Make sure your virus program has the latest update and then restart your computer. When it is restarting, press the F8 key at one second intervals until a black screen appears. Use your arrow keys to choose "Start in Safe Mode". What this does is only load on the essential files that Windows needs to operate. This is good as a virus will often masquerade itself as a legitimate program while it is running. Or be able to jump elsewhere as the virus program deletes it. In safe mode, the virus program is easier able to delete it as it isn't running.

That solved a major problem as trojans and other viruses generally use your computer in some way when they are active. So they are using it's resources while you are trying to as well! That will definitely slow it down! Another aspect to her slow PC was that a lot of programs that she had installed, were set up to load on start up. This meant that it was taking her PC longer to finish the initial start up as well as using resources on her computer. We went to the options of the various programs and stopped them from loading as soon as she turned on her computer as well as taking many programs off her start up menu.

And if you use Skype (which I do and really like) it is good to know that it takes up quite a bit of bandwidth (on your internet connection) even when you aren't using it. You can always arrange with friends to email you if they want to Skype you and you can turn it on again. I generally keep it on all the time, as I don't notice the difference, but if you are on dial up and have Skype installed, it may be making a slow situation even slower!

I found this website as well called My Slow PC and they have this really handy tool that you can download that analyses your computer and gives a report (within a few minutes) of your operating system, what versions you have of IE, whether you have a firewall working. Then it gives advice on what to do about any areas that need work.

To clean up temporary files on your computer in Windows 98 or higher:

1) Click Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup
2) Choose the correct drive usually C:\
3) Check the boxes in the list and delete the files

Here's to a cleaner and more efficient computer!

Green internet?

I've been reading a lot lately about how the internet is going green. "Green"? I say. They'll put that green spin on anything to sell something. I remember when computers started being used in offices and people were starting to be able to afford them, and the promises that it would save paper and time. Well, frankly, that didn't pan out. As much as I try, I think there is more paper printed than ever before.

So I couldn't really understand how the internet wasn't green already, apart from the pile of paper that we waste trying to print something out.

Well, apparently when you think about it, our computers use quite a bit of energy. We are all switching to flat screen monitors that are meant to be energy efficient, and turn them off completely when we aren't using them, right? What about the servers that we connect to in order to see those gazillions of websites? Now that is where the energy is really being consumed.

How are they consuming so much energy? All of our banking, google searches are done through Data Centres. these are generally a facility used to house computer systems. A moderate sized data centre will consume about 1 megawatt of electricity, but many of the larger facilities like Google can require more than 20 megawatts to keep it running. That's enough to power 15,000 homes. These larger data centres have computer servers that are packed into warehouses. The servers heat up so need a large amount of electricity first of all just to cool them using air conditioning. Lighting will also use up electricity. And the busier these servers get, the more electricity that is needed as more heat is generated.

So a lot of these companies are trying to reduce their costs as well as trying to reduce their footprint. A company called Peer 1 is starting work on a new data centre in Scarborough that they say will be their largest facility and it's most efficient. And the way it will do it won't add much to their building costs. They'll pump in cold air from outside (this is Canada, after all) for most of the year to cool their servers. At the same time the heat from those servers will by recycled and vented to offices in the building that need heating, eliminating the need to pay for heating. They will construct barriers to keep the areas that need to be cool from those that need to be warm. They will also have a "cool roof", which is a roof made of light coloured material that will reflect the sun, rather than absorb it. They are also considering a rainwater collection system as a way to irrigate their surrounding property.

These sound like sensible ideas without a solar panel or wind turbine to be seen. It would be nice to see in the next decade or so, these ideas becoming the norm for regular properties, not just energy gobbling companies.

New Search er Decision Engine

There is a new "decision" engine out called Bing that is apparently a replacement for Live Search. It looks a lot like Google, only with a pretty picture in the background. I'm not sure if that changes every day, as I only found it. I did a quick search and it came up with what I wanted. So that's something. Robert X Cringely (I'm not sure if that is his real name, but he's pretty humorous)writes a pretty funny review of it.

He mentions another "decision engine" called Hunch that asks you a lot of questions in order to help you make a decision about something. Doesn't sound like the time it would take, and it could help them with selling your answers somewhere down the line.

Just ask your Mother, she's likely keen to tell you what to do anyway.

Canada falling behind

The OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) released a report that revealed that Canada has one of the slowest and most expensive consumer broadband networks in the developed world. Canada was compared with 29 other countries on a range of metrics. These included broadband availability, pricing, speed and bandwidth caps. At first our numbers don't seem so bad with Canada ranking 9th out of 30 countries for broadband penetration.

"Yet, the situation becomes far more troubling once the OECD delves deeper into Canadian pricing and speed.
Canada is relatively expensive by OECD standards, ranking 14th for monthly subscription costs at $45.54 (US) compared to $30.46 (Japan) and $30.63 (UK). This high price may explain why many Canadians with access to broadband are choosing not to subscribe." Michael Geist

Mixhael Geist has gone before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to discuss the state of telecommunications in Canada. And his speech is posted here. As he says, "Canada was once a global leader, yet today the marketplace suffers from high prices, slow speeds, and throttled services that have led to a decline in comparison with peer countries."

When price and speed are compared, that is when Canada slides to the bottom of the list, ranking 28th out of 30 countries, only ahead of Mexico and Poland.

To read the OECD press release (but not necessarily understand it the first time round) click here.

More interesting websites

Finding out information on the internet is sometimes like looking for a needle in a haystack. You have to be very good at searching, using the right keywords, very persistent, trying different combinations of words or phrases, and sometimes just lucky. It's nice to hear about sites from time to time that are handy, should you ever need them.

Under the category of "I wouldn't have even have thought of that" is a site dreamed up by a guy who saw an obscure comment on a site about secrets. From this he created a blog called I Found your Camera What a novel idea. If you find a SD card or an entire camera, and don't know who it belongs to, you can send a couple of photos from the camera to the blog and the designer will post the images and a little message about where you found it.

Gas Buddy is a site that you can go to if you want to find out what the prices are and whether or not they are going up soon. You can look for the cheapest gas in your area.

The last site is a new one with an awkward name. It's called Wolframalpha.com. It's a site where you can put in mathematical formulas and get the answer, put in your birthdate and find out what was happening on that day or how many days you've been around. It's no real competition for Google, but the maker of it claims to cut the haystack a bit and get to the information you want a bit faster. This site is interesting if you are into math and science, but the jury is out on whether the rest of us would find it useful.

Virus programs

I just wanted to mention that AVG and Adaware both have new FREE versions available. I've been to a few client's homes to find that they still have two versions back because they were directed to a page that wanted them to pay for a new version.

AVG is created by a company called Grisoft. But if you go to free.grisoft.com you will always be directed (within about four clicks, they don't make it easy!) to the download.com site where the free up to date version is located. Similarly, Adaware, a program for Malware, is created by lavasoft, and I go to lavasoftusa.com to be directed to their download.com page to download. AVG's current version is 8.5 and Ad-Aware currently is supporting their anniversary edition.

Don't be fooled though, once you get to the final download page, you have to read carefully where the download you want is. Sometimes a flashier, more colourful button will beckon you to download, and it isn't usually the program you thought you were downloading!

Don't forget please, to install any current versions of virus software before installing a new version. And restart your computer between the uninstall process and the new installation.

Be afraid, be very afraid

I have noticed that there is a lot of interest in the sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and it grows even bigger. I find it funny that even though I am computer savvy and enjoy my work, I can't drum up any interest it these social networking sites. It's hard to get excited with the idea that people you left behind in high school can now look you up and revisit your past. I have friends that are addicted to their Facebook pages to the detriment of the relationships in the here and now.

But the other thing I worry about is privacy. Especially since I appear to have a stalker. It's a bit sad, but this person seems to search the web looking for items about me. I'm not particularly interesting, nor am I famous, but it is scary to know that someone can find out information about you that you have thought was fairly private and safe.

And I am glad that I don't subscribe to Facebook, or Twitter to people about the boring details of my day. And if I want to find out what my friends are doing, I call them up and ask them!

That doesn't mean I don't like the technology that we have to keep in touch. Far from it. We are able to talk often to our relatives in Scotland and London easily and it is just like the cartoon family the Jetsons portrayed that we can view them smiling at the same time!

Just remember that everything you write on Facebook and sites that are similar are read by more people than you think. Students going for jobs have their sites looked at by more than their friends; a young man who was about to be sentenced and was portrayed as full of remorse for his drunk driving was pictured on his page, drunk and partying with his friends just prior to being sentenced! No remorse shown there, but who would have thought that a prosecuter would have been looking at that page!

Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunk driving case, the college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner, with the words 'jail bird' on his costume. Not surprisingly, his prosecutor was able to obtain photos of him at the party that were posted on Facebook, and claimed he was an 'unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital.' The photos were presented in a slideshow, with one of them showing Lipton holding a can of Red Bull in one hand, and an arm draped around a girl bearing sorority letters. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and changed Lipton's sentence to two years in prison. The article also cites other instances of people getting harsher sentences from pictures of them posted online.

So apart from behaving yourself, which is always a good idea, it is best not to leave a trail of things you would rather people not know about you. It takes a long time for that information to disappear even after you have deleted it.

It is also likely a good idea to change your passwords on accounts you have such as email, banking etc. as well as being careful what you write in blogs such as this, and the social networking pages. You never know who is reading or looking over your shoulder.