Alex Barnett blog : :-/

How to contradict yourself in two easy steps

alexbarnett — Thu, 24 May 2007 02:22:00 GMT

How to contradict yourself in two easy steps:

Step 1. Dare Obasajno (a PM at Microsoft) argues that anyone comparing Adobe's Apollo and Microsoft's Silverlight by mentioning them in "the same sentence as if they are similar products" is proof that ["popular technology blog pundits"] don't "do much research and in many cases aren't technical enough to do the research anyway."

Step 2. In the same post, Dare (remember- a PM at Microsoft) provides his own comparison of Adobe's Apollo and Microsoft's Silverlight by mentioning them in the same sentence as if they were similar products, arguably validating comparisons by the aforementioned, apparently unresearched, popular technology blog pundits that in his view are not technical enough to do the research anyway:

"Apollo is Adobe's Flash based ~~knock off~~ competitor to the .NET Framework while Silverlight is Microsoft's .NET Framework based ~~knock off~~ competitor to the Flash platform."

In this response to Dare's ~~nonsense~~ post, Harry Pierson (an architect at Microsoft) deftly avoids being labelled as an unresearched-popular-technology-blog-pundit-that-isn't-technical-enough-to-do-the-research-anyway by not comparing the products in the same sentence, but by instead comparing the companies Adobe and Microsoft:

"The upshot is that both companies are trying to deliver a unified "client" platform that spans desktop, devices and browser. That sounds like "platform competition" to me."

2 in 3 government IT projects fail. Solution? Start a government IT project.

alexbarnett — Sun, 20 May 2007 20:38:00 GMT

You might have noticed I have little confidence in the ability of governments to successfully execute IT projects. My skepticism is well founded I think, and the latest numbers provided by the UK government itself give me no reason the think otherwise - the CIO of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) speaking at the Government IT Summit this week said:

"Today, only 30 per cent of government IT projects and programmes are successful. We want 90 per cent by 2010/11. We want to achieve a 20 per cent overall reduction on IT spend in government, including reducing the total cost of a government laptop by 40 per cent [in the same timescale]."

So ~~the CIO of the failed IT projects department~~ Joe Harley has set out plans for another government IT project as the solution to failed IT projects: to reduce the number of project failures to just 1 in 10. Unfortunately, as much as this project gets my support in principle, the 2 in 3 chance that this government IT project will add to the heap of failed government IT projects gives me little to get excited about.

A frame nested in a frame nested in a frame nested in a web page

alexbarnett — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:21:00 GMT

Nice...

"A frame nested in a frame nested in a frame nested in a web page. SEVEN SCROLLBARS! Someone redesign this, for god’s sake."

Sadly, this is referring to an MSDN page.

ID Cards - Get Less For More

alexbarnett — Sat, 12 May 2007 14:02:00 GMT

When the UK ID Card scheme was first announced in 2002 the cost was estimated at between £1.3 billion and £3.1 billion over a period of 13 years.

The Home Office's most recent estimate has revised it upwards, again, to be £5.31 billion over a period of 10 years (2006 to 2016).

I haven't seen the maths reported elsewhere as follows, but it occurs to me this latest estimate from the government works out to be an increase of 122% per annum over the high-end of their original estimates (five years ago). And that is after a recent scoping down and delay of the project.

Yet another wonderful example of the UK government's track record in IT project management: "get less for more".

DRM: If no one likes it, then give it a new name!

alexbarnett — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:04:00 GMT

Brilliant!

"Since repeating the claim that DRM enables things for consumers isn't making it true, an HBO has a new idea: scrap the term DRM in favor of DCE. DCE, of course, standing for Digital Consumer Enablement. He says he doesn't want to use the term DRM any longer, not since consumers have come to understand that all it does it limit how they can playback and enjoy legally purchased media, but because it doesn't apparently express clearly just how wonderful the technology is."

Step one: Blame the user. Step two: See step one.

alexbarnett — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:22:00 GMT

Last week Chris shared his not-so-great customer experience with Gateway.

My own two recent palavers with Cingular and Utah's DMV (you can have more than one palaver can't you?), have also reminded me of abysmal bureaucracy.

Is Anil crackers?

alexbarnett — Mon, 07 May 2007 03:35:00 GMT

Is Anil crackers?

"More people know how to crack the encryption on HD-DVD disks than own HD-DVD players."

Given last week's broohaha, I think this is probably true.

Are you doing OK in your pants?

alexbarnett — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 20:22:00 GMT

Weird spam via email today:

"Are you doing OK in your pants?"

How OpenDNS solved my really annoying DNS problem

alexbarnett — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:58:00 GMT

About 3 weeks ago I started getting the "Page Cannot be Displayed" error message on my machine when using my home network. It would happen occasionally at first, maybe 1 in 20 sites. When the error occurred, I'd hit refresh - that would solve it in 1 in 5. If that didn't work, I'd try the site with Firefox where the error repeated in around 1 in 2. In an hour or so, a site that didn't work previously would and a site that did work previously wouldn't. Annoying.

I couldn't replicate this behaviour on my company network, so I was sure it was either my local machine or my router. I tried the usual things to try and clear up the problem (ipconfig /release, /renew, /flushdns), enable/disable network adapters, remove temp files in browser, reboot the router, reset the router, etcetera, etcetera. I had some hope as the ipconfig /flushdns would solve the problem in maybe 1 in 3, but then the site would get funky again in a few minutes. Annoying.

Then my wife complained that she was getting the same problem on her machine, for the past few days or so. So I boiled it down to either my router going weird on me or my ISPs dns server doing something funky. I called the ISP and they hadn't heard of any similar issue reported by other customers. I tried to replicate the problem while on the phone with the ISP (I did, eventually, after everything began working perfectly the instant I had a support engineer on the line...) but they didn't have an answer - as far as they were concerned everything was cool at their end. Annoying.

I contacted my router's manufacturer (D-LINQ). They suggested changing the dns settings on the adapters manually to 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2. This worked a little better for an evening (e.g. 1 in 20 would fail instead of 1 in 10 by this point), but it didn't solve the issue, not even close. In fact, things started getting worse the next day. I was convinced it was a router issue so I popped to Fry's and bought another (DLINQ again - I'm loving their routers btw). I got home, set up the new router and yet the issue was still there. Annoying.

Believing it wasn't a problem with the machines, and believing it wasn't a problem with the ISP's dns server (well, that's what they told me), and believing it wasn't a problem with (either of) my router(s) or its settings, I believed I was at a loss and, yes, quite annoyed.

While going mad looking for other solutions online ('cause I wasn't connecting to the sites, at this time around 1 in 2...), I stumbled across OpenDNS.com. I read the FAQ (especially the privacy related stuff), read about the various other benefits and gave it a go. I followed the instructions to set my router to use the OpenDNS service and, magically, everything worked. I've been using the service (free) for a week now and I've not had the slightest problem on any machines on my network. Instantly un-annoyed.

So I did find a work-around...but I didn't find the root cause...and I'm curious. I should get back to the ISP and let them know how I fixed it - presumably the fact that the OpenDNS solution worked for me points to a problem with their dns server? We'll see.

The Top 10 Databases in the World (not including the ones we missed)

alexbarnett — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:13:00 GMT

Via Josh Porter's del.icio.us links, I saw this post on Business Intelligence Lowdown, claiming to 'cover the top 10 largest databases in the world'.

Great idea, shame about the execution, as just reading from the comments shows they've missed some huge DBs. Some commenters have also been good enough to suggest alternative titles for the post:

"you may want to call this the top 10 databases "that we could find.""

Or,

"This article should have been entitled "An uneducated guess at the top 10 American databases".

Harsh, but fair.

Chase.com - is this your idea of transparent marketing?

alexbarnett — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:20:00 GMT

This ad popped up on the Chase.com site this morning. Overlayed is what looks like internal codes from their customer segmention model. Either this is shown in error, or, Chase is taking the notion of transparent marketing a little too literally.

I'm confused.

alexbarnett — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:20:00 GMT

I've not heard someone say "I'm confused" for a while now.

I find it to be a confrontational phrase and I dislike it. I intepret it as someone trying to make a point along the lines of "I'm smarter than you, and what you just said doesn't make any sense to me". Aware of the way it makes me feel when someone does say it, I try to make sure these words don't pass through my lips in conversation.

The next time someone tells me they are confused, I'll consider using one of the following responses:

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "I know."

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "I see. What part of the word "x" didn't you understand?"

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "Not for the first time..."

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "I've heard that about you"

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "So am I"

X: "I'm confused"
Me: "You know, I'm not sure this is the appropriate time to discuss personal issues."

Feel free to add your own...

The Joker gets an ID Card

alexbarnett — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:05:00 GMT

Ever since I heard of the UK government's plans for an ID card system, I've felt for a number of reasons that it wouldn't work and that there would be 'unintended consequences', including making it easier for cybercriminals to commit large-scale fraud.

My primary concern has been the ability for the government to execute on their plans - let's face it, the UK government's track record in large scale IT projects is comparable to Eddie the Eagle's efforts in the Olympics (a British ski jumper who managed 56th position out of 57 competitors. The 57th was disqualified).

Since the original proposals, it seems that the UK government itself is realising the scale of this project is too ambitious and likely to fail - hence the recent scoping down. This is one of a number of 'risk management' tactics we'll read about as reality hits <the> home <office>. By the time they do eventually roll it out, it will look nothing like the original plan, will cost a load more than 'guessed' and will arrive years later than expected. And then they'll scrap it. And then they'll re-try it. Of course, I won't say I told you so.

One line of argument made by the pro-ID cards faction (er, the UK government) is to point out how well the ID programs are working overseas and how they are ~~reducing benefit fraud~~ increasing the security for all. Hmmm...I wonder what they might make of this Dutch joker:

"A man from Hellevoetsluis has managed to get an official ID card with a photo of himself made up to look like the Joker, from the Batman films. The man managed to get round strict new rules governing photos for ID cards and passports by saying the make-up and hat were part of his religious beliefs. The council gave the go ahead."

Starbucks everywhere

alexbarnett — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:14:00 GMT

Frank has convinced me...Starbucks is everywhere.

The other day I drove up to one of the drive-thu Starbucks, ordered my usual grande latte, paid for it, left a tip and drove off.

About a mile later I turned around to actually get the coffee.

DVD region encoding insanity

alexbarnett — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 01:28:00 GMT

On my recent trip to London I got snagged by the 'intergrated' region encoding 'feature' on my laptop DVD drive. Let me explain:

I bought 2 DVDs in the UK which the DVD drive barfed at. No error message, warning or anything, it just didn't work. So I looked up the Matshita DVD driver (UJ-840S ATA Device) in 'Device Manager' and the general status tab told me 'This device is working properly.' Really, I thought to myself.

So clicked on the DVD Regions tab of the Properties dialogue box. It said:

"Most DVDs are encoded for play in specific regions. To play a regionalized DVD on your computer, you must set your DVD drive to play discs from that region by selecting a geographic area from the following list.
CAUTION You can change the region a limited number of times. After Changes remaining reaches zero, you cannot change the region even if you reinstall Windows or move your DVD drive to a different computer.
Changes remaining: 4
To change the current region, select a geographic area, and then click OK.

You what?? No, it's not OK. I want to watch 'genuine' DVDs that I acquired legitimately. I bought them, in a shop!

I live in the US, and I travel. I don't know about you, or the millions of other people who travel each year, but I buy stuff when I'm traveling and want to 'consume' these things wherever I happen to be - that includes food, clothes, music and yes, movies. Is that so wrong??

I don't see regional encoding warnings on the back of a t-shirt. Imagine: "You may only wear this t-shirt within the country you bought it".

I don't expect to see a message on the back of my sandwich cautioning me that "You may not eat this product outside of the UK, although the mustard came from the US, so if you are thinking of eating the sandwich there you can eat the mustard, but nothing else. Especially the lettuce. Oh, and you can only eat the mustard 4 times if you are so inclined".

I can listen to CDs anywhere, no matter where I bought them. So what's up with this DVD thing?

I admit, it didn't totally surprise me as I've previously (and knowingly) bought multi-region DVD players to play region encoded movies bought on my travels. However, I was surprised to find that PC DVD drives were subject to the same insanity. I didn't realise this.

A history of DVD copy protection' outlines the DVD Consortium's role in this debacle:

"DVDs have had the option of embedding a region code in the DVD disc. Different regions of the world were assigned different codes, and every DVD player manufacturer had to sign an agreement with the DVD Consortium stating that they would only play DVD discs of a certain region. And the manufacturers had to play by the Consortium’s rules, because the Consortium was the only one who could give out the decryption keys that would allow the player to decrypt the CSS encryption used on commercial DVDs."

What I really don't understand is the sense of the policy. I understand what the DVD Consortium is trying to do, but does this policy make sense to the law-abiding 'consumer'?

The policy leaves me with the following options as a 'consumer' who wants to watch DVDs on my laptop AND abide by the DVD Consortium's policy:

Change to region encoding only four times during the lifespan of the DVD drive (eh, right)
Buy DVDs from other countries but don't watch them (eh, right)
Don't buy DVDs from other countries (eh, right)
Buy multiple DVD drives (to cover every region). Carry these drives around with me while I travel and swap in and out of my laptop (eh, we've truly landed in Willie Wonka's fantasy chocolate factory)

Over the years, the encryption tech has gone through multiple updates due to the (successful) efforts to work around the limitations, including region encoding. So, does one become a 'naughty' consumer? What alternatives to the above are there for the sane? How about:

Get some DVD ripping software and buy DVDs from which ever country I happen to be at and watch them whenever and wherever I want
Er, that's all.

Gee, let me think...which should I go for?