I got an interesting piece of Nigerian 419 spam today. For those of you who don't know what Nigerian 419 spam is, this is the spam that you get asking for assistance to transfer a large sum of money out of some overseas company where you are promised a percentage of the money for helping - aka "Advance Fee Fraud".

This particular message was interesting because of the intro. I paste it verbatim below:

Hello,

I am Mrs. Annette E. Jenkins, I am a US citizen, 48 years Old. I reside in District of Columbia 20534. My residential address is as follows 320 First Street, NW Washington, District of Columbia 20534, United States, am thinking of moving since I am now wealthy.

I wondered what this particular address was. So I ran it through Google. Here's the search link.

Should be pretty obvious from the search what's located there.

You have to believe this is deliberate....

Tags: Humor

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo - in the last year or so, it seems like the use of social networking sites has totally exploded. Being a computer nerd, I've been playing around with these sites in increasing amounts as a way to network with friends, colleagues, and even relatives.

But I've spent the last 24 hours or so re-evaluating my use of social networks. For what it's worth, I'm putting my thoughts down in writing, and then firing off a reference to this blog entry so people will understand why I think you're going to be finding me using these sites and their resources slightly differently. Feel free to disagree -- like in many other cases, people view things differently, and I respect that. That said, I'm changing the way these sites work for me. And maybe, give some of you a different perspective by sharing how someone else views social networks.

Disclaimer: All my specific examples are made up. I'm not trying to send any kind of hidden message to anyone who reads this.
Warning: I do include a few personal experiences where some readers might guess about what started me down that path. Again, I'm not sending you any kind of hidden message. You just made me think.

All social networks seem to have a purpose of allowing you to connect with others. You find friends you've lost touch with. You even find relatives you didn't know you had. You find business connections in industry. It's like a giant game of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", except you replace Kevin Bacon's name with your name. The idea of networking isn't a bad one (unless of course, you find someone you really didn't want to find, but in that case, most social networks allow you to block that person and that is the end of that). I think most folks agree with this part.

The real differences seem to come about with the way people use these social networks. There's folks like the "Twitter Quitters" who try a social network tool like Twitter or Facebook by logging in once, then never ever logging in or doing anything with it again. That seems to be one extreme. The other extreme are the folks who, I will swear, update their status even when they are sitting on the toilet. Ugggh. Too much information. For those people, and probably those who trend to this extreme, http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/index.html is an interesting article to read. A majority of folks I will bet will agree with this.

Some use these sites to upload and share pictures, some play games, some just use it to send notes back and forth. Things that you would do normally with other people around you, in person, if you all happened to be in the same place. To me, social networking seeks to resolve the problems caused by distance and disparate time zones by one means or another. Some sort of moderate use (in between the two extremes) seems appropriate and the way to go. Where one falls in that range seems to be the question.

Given this starting point, what does James think is an appropriate use of a social network? Maybe, more controversially, what does James think is an inappropriate use of a social network? Stop reading if you don't want to know or think you might be offended.

Appropriate (and things James will continue to do):

I think social networks are fantastic for reconnecting with people. There were people that I wondered how they were doing after many years, but whose contact info I had long since lost. Sites like Facebook allowed a great mechanism for searching for and finding these long lost folks.

Catching up, seeing pictures, and sharing interesting events and items. Excellent. I love seeing where some of my friends have travelled. I love hearing funny stories (to a point, and "funny" is a subjective term). I like knowing generally how people are doing and interesting things they've seen. I'll continue sharing things like this.

Light banter back and forth. This seems cool too. I love encouraging other people when momentous events occur.

Games. I admit, I like some of the Facebook games. I'll still play some of the games. (But I gave up on WordChallenge -- took too long to play and was getting boring).

Inappropriate (and things James won't do, and wishes other people wouldn't do or would at least think about more):

There are folks, on the other hand, who feel like sharing every detail of every moment of every thought in their daily life, comment on every little thing, and generally, never seem to be logged off. This makes me think of the Buy-n-Large spaceship in WALL*E where people only talk to each other via their computer screens. Sure, sometimes it's great when you're Twittering about a special event. But do I really need to know you're walking into the grocery store? And finding the hamburger? And complaining it's $.29/lb. more than last week? And you see only 4 packages on the shelf? And about how you don't understand how could the store possibly sell meat that's expiring today at a discount? In 5 separate postings? No thank you. Pardon me for saying this, but get a life, and pay attention to where you are walking. And don't ever drive a car.

Where I think I'm going to potentially trample on nerves is "what is appropriate" to post on something like Facebook or Twitter or even a blog. There's this story that has been posted in a number of forums about a person who was offered a job at Cisco. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29796962/ (it can be found at other places on the internet as well). So you say you will never do that? Do you really know all those people reading your "Tweets" well enough? Do you really know your Facebook friends well enough, especially if you're off trying to be friends with your friend's daughter's boyfriend's father's boss? I've always limited who my "friends" are and not tried to win any contests of "how many friends can I have on Facebook". And I won't ever get into that contest. I've now limited who can see my "tweets" to people who are following me, and I control who does that too.

But to get back to what people consider to be appropriate materials for social networking sites. From what I've seen (and this includes what I've seen reports of as well as what I've experienced), people dump out problems, partying activities, phone numbers, and even suicide threats on to these networking sites (there was the well publicized suicide tweet to Ashton Kutcher for example). Again, do you really know about everybody who's reading your posts? Default privacy settings really should be considered to be default publicity settings. Open by default isn't a good idea in computer security. Neither is it for social network sites, in my opinion. But that's what we have. I've seen the phone numbers and addresses and other "private" information coming by my Facebook account as replies by people whom I've never met, but happen to somehow be related to someone else I know. And did you know when you affiliate yourself with a Network like "New York City", often times, that means everyone in "New York City" can possibly read your information? (Have you checked?) Do you really know everyone in "New York City"? Do you really want "New York City" knowing about how you were so horribly offended when your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you today? Or that you are lounging around in your bathtub with the window open? Or that you think you just forgot to lock your front door? "Everyone! Come and break into my house! Come try to hook up with me! Tell my ex-boyfriend/girlfriend that I'm really messed up by the break up and I'll do anything to get back together!" Good moves? Maybe if you know the folks who are reading your postings well enough. I'll admit, I'm probably guilty as charged to some degree of some of this. You're going to see less posting from me except for fun things like trip pictures, interesting items, and general events. I've decided letting everyone know how I'm feeling today isn't necessary. If you want to know, ask. Just not on a social networking site in front of hundreds of other people. Try email or a private message.

I think social networking status updates are not tuned for long, in-depth issues. They're also not meant to be turned into long running public therapy sessions. They're meant for short updates, which, in 140 characters or less, can sometimes really get mis-interpreted. You certainly can't paint a complete picture of a major issue in a status update. In fact, you're almost certain to leave out important details, even if you write a long summary. Or even if you write about something every day. Or every hour. There's a high likelihood that someone comes in on a discussion mid-stream. Example: You get into a minor car accident. You post about it. You post about how you have left the scene. You find out the person you hit now can't drive to work, so you post about it. You feel horrible. You post about it. You post how you feel so bad, you could just shoot yourself after hitting another person. Now stop. Where did you come into that thread? Are you really getting ready to commit suicide? How embarrassing is it when the police come over and ask to take you in for a psych eval because someone thought you were involved in assault and attempted suicide? Hit and run? Okay, that's a silly example, but you get the idea. How does one know the history behind a series of posts, or what's behind a single post? You're going to find me making fewer "serial story" posts, or I'm writing them in such a way that you don't know the whole story. And you're going to find me making a lot fewer comments about other posts, except when it's something like, "I'm enjoying the baseball game." That's hard to misinterpret. And all forms of electronic communication are inherently imprecise and fraught with misinterpretation opportunities. There are times when you need to pick up the phone, or even go visit the person in person (what a concept) and ask about what's going on. And likewise, to communicate something important. Next time I read something that seems totally out of character with someone, I'm going to ask first, and not via Facebook.

One issue that may not be an issue with social networks in particular, but one which plagues other aspects of life. Who do you ask important questions to? Why does it seem like people think Facebook or Twitter is an appropriate place to post for advice about really personal and important life decisions? I somehow fail to understand why "New York City" and 200 Facebook "friends" are an appropriate audience to ask these questions. First and foremost, life isn't a democracy where you're trying to "Get out the Vote". I agree, advice and opinions don't hurt. But are "New York City" and all 200 friends going to tell you what you should hear? Or what you want to hear? Or even have enough of a clue to give you a good answer? Maybe others have better friends than me. Friends that are in tune with every little aspect of their lives, or friends who know better when you're not really serious. But given that's not the case here (and sorry folks, but not all 130+ of my Facebook friends really know the day-to-day routine in my household, or read my mind that well), you're never going to find me doing this. I wish others would think before posting. And commenting.

I'm tired of writing. I've brain dumped enough. Maybe I'll brain dump more thoughts in the future. But my conclusion:

Social networking is a powerful mechanism for communications. Use it wisely. Use it thoughtfully. And like I'm learning, learn the consequences of using social networking. Who is reading what I'm about to write? Are they reading it the right way? Think about it.

Went to take Zandra's Lexus in for service a week or so ago, and when I went to pick the car up, noticed something new in the lobby of the dealership -- a cash register by the food in the Waiting Area. Previously, it was nice to pick up a free bottle of water and maybe even a small snack when picking up the car. I was a little surprised by the food charge.

I mentioned this casually to the cashier while paying, and she said, "Oh, if you're hungry, just go over and get something on the way out and show them the receipt for the service. In the future, if you come in and want something, just have your service advisor walk over there with you -- it's all still free for customers." When I asked what the cashier was there for, she said, "Oh, believe it or not, we had people walk in off the street because they knew we had free food, and clean the fridge out. By 10am, there was nothing left." Wow. And it's not like the local Lexus dealer is on a main street -- it's quite out of the way and not near walking distance of anything.

Another interesting sign of the times -- on my last work trip, I noted that I had actually gotten what I reserved at Avis 6 times in a row -- a Ford Focus. In the past, you got whatever was on the lot and it was rare you actually got your compact car. The last Ford Focus I got actually had over 31,000 miles on it -- they used to retire rental cars every year or at 30,000 miles I think. At least, this was the oldest rental car I had ever gotten from a major rental company.

My luck did change on the last leg of my trip -- I got a Ford Mustang, breaking the streak at 6.

On the trip to San Diego last week, I was met by a happy surprise - WiFi on my Southwest Airlines flight. Southwest Airlines is currently running trials on WiFi Service on some of its flights. I believe they currently have 3 planes equipped with this service. During the trial period, the service is free. It is satellite based internet service and appears to go through Directway (or Hughes Network's satellite network) with the equipment apparently through Row 44 (per internet searches on this topic).

On a long non-stop flight like Baltimore to San Diego, WiFi was very welcome. It was easy to connect (my MacBook Pro found it quickly) and the performance was pretty good, as long as you remember it's satellite. Your data packet goes up to a satellite in geo-synchronous orbit, back down to the ground, and then out to the internet. Speed of light suggests you'll have at least 300ms of travel time between the plane and a ground-based router (where's the FTL when you need it?). And then the time it takes to make it across the internet to wherever you're going. I saw ping times ranging anywhere from the 700ms range to over 2000ms (yes, that's 2 seconds per packet roundtrip). I wouldn't want to do interactive editing.

Throughput was pretty good too overall. Pushing a 5MB file out to my server was about 30KB/s max - varying between 20KB/s and 38KB/s. Pulling the same file across to my laptop from my server was initially about 30 KB/s, but then it looks like some sort of burst mode kicked in
after 10 second as I got about 300 KB/s after that. VPN worked, and I was even able to acid test the link by firing up our corporate ERP software from the plane. Slow, but usable in a pinch.

Other nice things - the Yahoo! sponsored web page showed flight status while you were connected, so you could see where you were along your flight. VoIP was specifically banned (hooray for privacy!) and there were warnings that large downloads would be restricted. For doing email, IM, Facebook, and even transferring files, this service was quite good.

Bad things - bring a spare battery. No power outlets. Service improved as I think people ran out of battery. And remember, the service is in beta test. Zandra also managed to get a WiFi equipped plane the day before, but on her flight, the WiFi wasn't working.

How much will it cost when it's released? The web survey suggested they were thinking $4.95. Given the popularity and the fact that several people were asking for it on the flight back, I fear the price will be higher in the end. If the service is this good, though, it might very well be worth it!

Good job Southwest! 10 thumbs up for the service!

Tags: Technology, Travel

Great news! Hostage captain rescued; Navy snipers kill 3 pirates. Way to go Navy!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/12/somalia.pirates/index.html

And will give credit where it's due - Obama authorized the action. Gutsy call. Great outcome. Until the nations of the world start taking a stand, this piracy insanity is going to continue unabated.

I have to say, I have never really been interested in any of the talent competition shows. But I'm at least becoming a closet fan of Dancing with the Stars because of one guy - Woz.

Steve Wozniak is better known as one of the co-founders of Apple. After this, he might become better known as the rallying point for geeks around the world for his performance in Dancing with the Stars. Despite physical limitations (not just his size, but injured foot and hamstring), he's survived for week 4. And the judges' comments along with his comments have been just putting me in stitches. From the judges the first week: "It was like a Teletubby going mad in a gay pride parade." Last night's comment from Steve about being declared safe (and in the top 4): "I don't think I've ever been so surprised by anything in my life except for when I got served with divorce papers."

These are great. You can't script these comments!

Even more interesting was an article in CNN yesterday. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/wozniak.dancing.stars/index.html?iref=mpstoryview. Geeks of the world appear to be rallying behind Woz. And it's funny. It'll end probably sooner than later, but until then, it's great entertainment. If not for the dancing.

Geeks of the World! Unite!

Tags: Humor

My birthday present arrived a little early this year - courtesy of FedEx (thanks to their Home delivery service that delivers on weekends). A new (refurbished) 2.66GHz 20" iMac. It's replacing my MacBook Pro as my primary desktop at home so my MacBook Pro can go back to being a laptop and move around the house and stuff without me having to detangle a bazillion cables.

The present is early because of the way I've been buying Macs in the last few years. I used to buy Macs utilizing Apple "friends" and something called Q-Promo, which was a mega-discount to employees and friends of employees on overstocked items. In the last few years, though, Apple has gotten much better at controlling inventory, so Q-Promo is no longer the way to go. So my new strategy is to buy Macs off the refurb page at the online Apple Store. And, in particular, to buy right after they announce new models, so the models on the website become "previous generation" and get a further markdown. Then, buy it after entering the store from the discovercard.com website (for an extra 5% Discover CashBack bonus) and we're really talking discount!

But buying something refurbished means you have to buy what they have. So when you see something you want, you buy it! I saw what I wanted. I bought it. Even if it was a little before my birthday.

The new present also led to this "Now and Then" shot:



"Now" is the new iMac to the left (also connected to a really nice 24" Sun LCD flat panel for a second screen). "Then" is my "Grape" 400MHz iMacDV, circa 1999 (we bought it about the same time Andrew was born). It still boots and I still use it from time-to-time to play MacOS 9 games. But what a difference in technology!

Oh, and I'm sure I paid less dollars for my new iMac than I did for my original iMac.

I can only hope to get almost 10 years out of this iMac!

(This blog entry written on the "New" iMac)

Tags: Technology

This is a nerd post. Anyone who doesn't care about nerdy items should skip this entry.

For months, I've been plagued by issues with my Apple Mail program and my iPhone Mail not getting along. It seemed line every time my iPhone mail program made an update, I'd have to quite my Mail program on my Mac to get it to see all the changes. Then there would be periods where my Apple Mail would just not recognize any new mail, and otherwise just act stupid.

Observing the behavior, I finally came to the conclusion that the imapd I was using on my server wasn't dealing with the multiple connections well. The imapd I was running was the UW imapd. I've felt it was outdated for a while, but hadn't found a good replacement.

I became aware of Dovecot which is another imapd alternative which seemed to have a lot of flexibility, and was apparently reasonably well regarded. Compiling it was easy, but I've been procrastinating the configuration since, well, reading the manual takes time.

I finally got things turned on yesterday and I have to say, I wish I had invested the time a few months ago. My Apple Mail no longer does strange things, imap IDLE now works properly, and it also fixed mail reading on my Nokia E51 as well (which was always hanging reading mail from my server before).

Two thumbs up here. Writing this entry in my blog with the hopes that maybe someone else will come across it and be helped out.

Tags: Technology

It's a snow day out here! Looks like about 7" of snow. First (and probably last) major snow storm of the year. No question that March came in like a lion this year.

Tags: Andrew

A number of folks have asked how dinner went the other night. I posted in my Facebook status that Zandra and I were headed off to a nice restaurant to celebrate our 11th Wedding Anniversary and folks were impressed by the restaurant menu.

So here's the promised review.

Zandra and I went to the Charleston Restaurant (http://www.charlestonrestaurant.com) for dinner on Friday. It came highly recommended from a colleague of my wife's and we had heard about Chef Cindy Wolf and were interested in trying the restaurant of this well acclaimed chef. In short, the dinner was excellent and we had a great time (except we forgot Zandra was on call and she got interrupted twice during dinner and had to step out to take the calls and I left my hearing aids at home so it made hearing the conversation difficult).

Charleston's menu is a "tasting" menu. You pay based on the number of items you select, and the size of each selection is "smaller than average" (I think that was what our waiter said). Three courses is a "light dinner". Five or Six is "pretty substantial". Some reviews of the restaurant which were negative I think didn't understand the "tasting" concept - so people "left hungry". This was not our case and we felt we ordered the right amount, or maybe even a little too much.

Zandra ordered 4 courses - the Butternut Squash Soup, the Wild Rockfish Ceviche, Grilled Ostrich Tenderloin, and Grilled Colorado Lamb Rack Chop. She enjoyed every bit, and the portions were not nearly as small as some reviewers had led me to believe. They weren't huge, but they were substantial. Zandra says next time she goes back, she'll just order 3 courses.

I chose "The Season" which is a menu prepared by Cindy Wolf which is different every evening. I also opted for the additional Wine Pairing which was a glass of wine (on the smaller side) matched with each course. The menu is below:



I deliberately chose this menu because of the wine pairings. I enjoy good wine, but don't find myself very knowledgeable about the specific choosing of wines with dishes, so thought I would let the chef make the recommendation. This was a terrific idea in hindsight and I highly recommend doing this when given the chance. A great example was the Pinot Noir which came with the salmon. When I sampled it before the course, it was not at all what I was expecting. It was pretty bold and complex tasting, and I seriously wondered why this wine was paired with a fish - even a stronger fish like salmon. After eating the salmon and its excellent reduction sauce (the dish reminded me a bit of an Asian Fusion dish), the wine took on a whole different character and all the flavors of the wine blended nicely with the salmon. It was a very "complimentary" wine with that particular dish. Fantastic. I think it demonstrated precisely why you pair certain wines with certain dishes.

The rest of the meal and wine pairings were excellent as well. My only negative comment (and it's barely a negative one) was the salad - I felt the Reggiano kind of overpowered the Vinaigrette. I guess I also prefer a little more texture from my cheese on salads, but it was still a great salad.

The deserts were fantastic. Unfortunately, I was so full, I don't think I was able to enjoy them as fully as I wanted.

Other comments - the food is very rich, extremely flavorful, and the presentation and preparation were excellent (as you would hope). Service was great (a lot of attention to detail) and the restaurant was comfortable, and very quiet. But if you can't appreciate and/or respect a chef's "artistic license" to present and prepare food in the way he/she wants to, don't go here. I can see now where the (very few) negative reviews originated. If you try to treat this as a dinner at a more "traditional" restaurant (where you get salad, appetizer, main course, and dessert, with a big main course being the star), I think you'll be more disappointed. The menu favors all the dishes as "equal" and everything being balanced. This is reinforced by our waiter's comment when choosing dishes that you could choose as many dishes as you wanted from each category - you didn't have to choose just one each from cold, hot, fish, game, and meat.

We thoroughly enjoyed dinner!