Music from my Thumb

Thanks to the "Cash for Clunkers" program, I bought a new car a few weeks ago. I'd been planning to buy a used car sometime this year and had some money set aside for the down payment. The current vehicle had been paid off for a decade and would have fetched maybe $1500 if I'd sold it on my own (and if I had found someone gullible enough to pay $1500 for a vehicle that was seriously in need of some expensive work). The CARS program essentially doubled my down payment, so I was able to set up an affordable 4-year payment plan that I hope to pay off in 2 years. What's the technology angle, you might ask. Good question. The new car has a USB port that allows me to plug in an Ipod. But it also allows me to plug in a thumb drive. And I just happened to have 3 2GB thumb drives sitting on my desk. But that's just the start of what you can do with some available thumb drives.

Using a thumb drive as a source of music would seem to be yet another nail in commercial radio's coffin. I listen to NPR on the way to the office in the morning (5:30 to 6) and sometimes to the NPR news and Fresh Air on the way home (3:00 to 3:30). On Fridays, my station of choice (WCBE) covers the news with a lame movie review program and on other days the news is sometimes covered by "Poetry Corner" because back-timing went awry. I'm closer to giving up on NPR in the afternoon and just listening to music.

Thumb drives are faster than CD drives (the car has one of those, too) and I can easily replace the selections on the thumb drive, which is something I can't do with a CD. But this isn't very important because CDs cost about 30 cents each. In other words, I wouldn't go out and buy a thumb drive to use it for music in a USB-equipped car. But if I had some extra thumb drives lying around, I'd use them.

If you want to do this, you'll probably need to stick to MP3-format files or WMA-format files. Unfortunately, most of my music is in Apple's M4A format and audio books are in M4B format. Neither of those will work from a CD or a thumb drive in my Honda Fit. I thought I was being smart by using Apple's format, but that turns out not to be the case.

By the way, you don't have to use the MP3s on your thumb drive in a car. Take the drive to the office and you can play the files with the Windows Media Player. Most office IT managers frown on users trying to play streaming media via the office's Internet connection, but you might be OK if you bring the music in on a thumb drive. Before you try this, though, make sure that management doesn't have any policies that forbid use of a thumb drive on company hardware. This is increasingly becoming the norm for security, privacy, and antivirus reasons.

But thumb drives are good for a lot more than that.

The remaining 4GB drive that I carry in my pocket contains every password I've defined for every system that I use -- at least 100 passwords and probably far more. There's no danger in carrying these passwords around on a thumb drive because the application that they're stored in (KeePass) has its own password and all of the other passwords are encrypted in a way that would take even the CIA quite a while to unravel. In other words, I could hand the thumb drive to someone and not worry about the security of the passwords stored on it.

And you can bet that the password I use to lock KeePass is a strong one, but one that's easy for me to remember.

Speaking of security, you might (but I wouldn't) protect your PC with a thumb drive loaded with "Predator". This is an application that allows the thumb drive to lock your PC. Unless the thumb drive is plugged in to the PC's USB connector, you can't use the PC. Remove the thumb drive and your PC is inaccessible.

If you lose the thumb drive, you might be in trouble. Or maybe not. It's possible to boot the computer in safe mode and eliminate the protections. So really this is more an illusion of security than real security. Anyone who knows the trick can unlock the computer. And you can bet that if you're playing a game that causes you to think of using a device like this, someone on the "other side" knows the trick.

On the other hand, if you use your thumb drive to carry around important documents, you should consider encrypting it. TrueCrypt is probably the best choice for this. Encryption is automatic, occurs in real-time, and is essentially transparent. On-the-fly (real-time) encryption means that data is automatically encrypted or decrypted before it is loaded or saved without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read without the correct password or keyfile. And the application encrypts the entire thumb drive, including file names, folder names, the contents of every file, free space, and meta data. If it's on the drive, it's encrypted.

KeePass is a Windows application that can run from a thumb drive, but you may want to take some applications that don't have this ability with you on a business trip. Take a look at Portable Apps (more about this in a few weeks), a free and open-source application that lets you take the most common applications with you.

PortableApps.com Suite is a collection of portable apps including a Web browser, an e-mail client, an office suite with a calendar, an instant messaging client, an antivirus program, an audio player, a password manager, a PDF reader and more. Install the application to a thumb drive and you'll have just about everything you need.

The suite includes Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition; Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition; Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition; the ClamWin Portable antivirus application; Pidgin Portable for instant messaging; PDF reader Sumatra PDF Portable; KeePass Password Safe Portable; CoolPlayer+ Portable for audio files, and OpenOffice.org Portable for standard office tasks.

You'll need 150 to 350 MB of space on your thumb drive to install PortableApps. And, by the way, everything in the suite will also run under Wine if your computer runs Linux, UNIX, BSD, or the Mac OS X.

Yes, you do want to download this if you ever travel and would like to leave your laptop at home.

Is That an Iphone in Your Pocket or Are Your Pants on Fire?

Apple says they are "isolated incidents" and reports from Europe suggest that when Iphones burst into flame Apple is quick to reach a settlement with the victim in a way that forces the victim to remain silent. The Apple Iphone 3GS apparently has an overheating problem. But the devices may also catch your pants, your purse, or your jacket on fire.

Reuters says that Apple is investigating media reports that some of the company's Iphones have exploded in Europe. Macworld says that Apple is still collecting information about the incidents. The magazine says a French teenager claimed that his girlfriend's Iphone made a hissing sound moments before its glass touch-screen shattered. Another report came from the UK where a man said that his daughter's Iphone hissed and then exploded. From the Netherlands comes a report that an Iphone caused a fire that burned a vehicle's seat.

SlashGear offers an image that it says shows the results of the car fire. Apple, apparently not wanting to alarm Iphone buyers, has been busy trying to settle claims in a way that muzzles those who have seen their Iphones explode.

According to SlashGear, "[Apple] did offer the Liverpool owner a 162 pound ($271) refund" but the agreement the user was forced to sign said that the user will "keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential." What if the aggrieved party blabs? Then Apple says it would be justified in "seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties." What a nice company Apple is!

By the way, SlashGear says the Iphone owner did not accept Apple's terms.

The Way Customer Support Should Work

Several years ago, I criticized Wide Open West (WOW) on WTVN's Technology Corner for poor customer support. In an astonishingly short-sighted move, the advertising manager for the company pulled its ads from WTVN. The ad manager has probably moved on to some other company where she's making equally inept decisions, but Wide Open West's support has improved quite a bit over the intervening years. One thing that support personnel understand (and ad managers generally don't) is that a customer who takes the time to complain is a gift. Listen and you'll find out what's going wrong. Respond and you'll provide a better service.

Here's an example: In mid August on a late Friday afternoon, I suddenly lost all connectivity. The cable modem's cable light was on, so this indicated that I had a connection to WOW. The problem appeared not to be local, but I tried the usual steps:

No change.

No change.

I called WOW and waited on hold for about 8 minutes (the automated attendant said I should expect to wait 5 to 10 minutes). Then a technician named Amy answered.

Me: Hi, Amy. I'm having a connection problem. I've already rebooted the cable modem and the router. I'm seeing a green cable light on the modem, but I can't ping anything. I've also rebooted the cable modem and connected the PC directly to the cable modem and there's no change.

Amy: Are you by chance in the Columbus area?

Me: Yes.

Amy: We're having a problem in the Columbus area and technicians are working on it now.

Me: OK. Thanks. I just wanted to confirm that the problem was on your end, not mine.

Amy: Yes.

Me: I'll stop looking for the problem here then.

The entire call took less than a minute. Amy was forthcoming and honest. I obtained the information that I needed.

And a few minutes later, full connectivity was restored.

This is not to say that Wide Open West is perfect. It's not. The connection drops as I've described several times per week, but it's usually restored within 15 seconds. But it's refreshing to get honest answers from a service provider.

That's why I titled this section "The Way Customer Support Should Work". But if WOW wants to continue not to advertise on WTVN that's OK with me.

Podcasting Year Four

Last week's podcast was number 156 and, assuming 52 programs per year, that means that this week's podcast is the start of year 4. More or less. In the past 3 years, I've taken a few weeks off for holidays, so year 4 probably started somewhere around podcast 150. I continue to be surprised and gratified by the acceptance of the non-broadcast version of what used to be Technology Corner.

Sometimes it's still a bit difficult to attract the attention of the PR department of some companies or that of PR agencies who are still stuck in the 1990s. Apparently they haven't noticed that radio listenership continues to dwindle and that podcast listenership continues to increase. They also sometimes look at raw numbers. Is it better to have 25,000 broadcast listeners or 500 podcast listeners? I don't really know, but I do know this: Website traffic has actually increased over the past 3 years. The amount of mail from listeners has remained about the same.

My theory is that most people have the radio on primarily to provide a baseline of chatter. Some people listen actively, but they have little choice about what to listen to. If you stay with one station, you get whatever the station pushes your way. If you move from one station to another, you still get only what the station pushes your way.

With podcasts, the listener must make an active commitment to obtain the audio and then make a conscious decision to listen to it. That's why I'm so gratified that you've made the decision to listen, or to read the website.

So thanks for being there, and I hope to continue to provide useful information for the next year--and for many more years to come.

Short Circuits

Ohio Midwest Regional APCUG Comes to Newark

From genealogy to Linux, from identity theft to a 3-OS Mac with an identity crisis, from Windows 7 to hard disk destruction. Those are some of the topics at next weekend's Midwest Regional Association of Personal Computer User Groups conference in Newark. On-line registration is now closed, but you can still register on-site starting on Friday, August 28. The programs at the Cherry Valley Lodge are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

For more information, visit the group's website or Cherry Valley Lodge. The lodge is at the west edge of Newark, just off route 16.

How Much E-mail is Spam?

Would you believe 100%? How about 97%? Depending on who's doing the defining, it could be as low at 80% or as high as 97%. In 2004, Bill Gates said that there would be no more spam by 2006. That seems to have been a bit optimistic.

In the past month, I've spent far more time trying to eliminate spam and "scareware" than I've spent with any other task.

Scareware? It's a new term. Fraudsters put forth absurd claims (death squads for seniors, plans by the Fed to eliminate the dollar, claims that Barack Obama cannot legally be President) in hopes that gullible recipients will click the provided link. The will often lead to a website that will attempt to infect your computer with various types of malware.

Must you prove your identity to your bank? Did the "United Parcel Service of America" fail to deliver your package? Should you accept a pop-up offer to scan your computer because it's already infected with spyware?

Sheesh. Gullibility is apparently at an all-time high.

Get Ready for Gwitter

Google is reported to be planning to acquire Twitter, the micro-blogging service that's popular with the older crowd. Twitter's tweets can up no more than 140 characters in length, but the service has caught on with corporations and with people age 35 and above. For younger users, not so much.

If Google has money to burn, the founders of Twitter could discover that they may never have to work another day in their lives. Despite the current recession, Twitter is in a strong position to sell. And this isn't exactly virgin territory for one of Twitter's owners. Evan Williams invented Blogger and then sold that company to Google.