GregFalken.com

Thoughts on humanizing technology

Award Winners of 2009

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The WinnerI got an email yesterday from Dropbox, the file sharing service, asking me to vote for them at the Crunchies. This is a program that I use every day and find very helpful, so I obliged them and while there, I voted in a few other categories. Here then, is a list of the programs that were worth my vote and that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Dropbox

This drop-dead simple service allows for the synchronization of files between multiple computers. It uses software running on each computer to detect when files in the “dropbox” folder have changed and reflects those changes to an online server. Any other computers connected to this account will reflect the server changes in their own dropbox folder.

Favorite use: Designate a “public” folder to store all the PDFs, slideshows, videos, etc. that I want to make available for public consumption. Each is given a public URL that can be used as-is or shortened using a URL shortener like bit.ly.

Find at: https://www.dropbox.com/

Google Chrome

The Chrome browser satisfies my need for speed. Program load time, page load time, online applications, all are noticeably snappier than the other browsers that I have available. Now that extensions are available (provided you are on Windows), it’s a viable alternative to Firefox or IE. Be warned however, that it’s still a very new and somewhat unfinished product. I haven’t yet recommended it to my mother.

Favorite use: Running other Google applications. Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar, etc. feel like they’re running locally, rather than in the cloud. I also really like that the search bar and the address bar are one and the same. Whatever you need, just type.

Find at: http://www.google.com/chrome

Google Docs

Word processor, spreadsheet, presentations; these are the big 3 document production applications. Most people have had them on their computer, in one form or another, since the 80s. Moving them online however, brings them into the 21st century. For anyone who works on more than one computer, the benefit of centrally located and sharable documents far outweighs the (mostly minor) feature limitations of Google Docs.

Favorite use: The shared grocery list that my wife and I update throughout the week and then print out to take to the store.

Find at: http://docs.google.com

Aardvark

Aardvark is a question and answer application that communicates via web, IM, email, Twitter, or iPhone. Ask a question and you’ll begin receiving answers from real people within minutes. Tell them your areas of expertise and from time to time the system will ask you to answer specific questions submitted by others. The IM interface (which is what I use) is especially friendlyand understands responses like “accept”, “busy” or “pass”.

Favorite use: It feels great when you’ve taken a few minutes out of your day to successfully answer someone’s question. They are usually very appreciative.

Find at: http://vark.com

Twitter

Easy but not simple. Broadcast 140 characters at a time to anyone who cares to listen. Twitter is such an elusive thing that I’ll drag out my party analogy: Think of Twitter like a crowded party. The conversations flow around you and you can choose which ones to focus on and where to join in. If you’ve chosen your party (the people you’re following) well, this can be both entertaining and informative. If you’re at a party with a lot of obnoxious drunks…well, that can be less pleasant. Remember, you get to choose who you follow. If someone follows you and you don’t follow them back, it’s like they don’t exist. If you follow someone who you later decide to un-follow, they’ll get over it.

Favorite use: I still get a thrill when I’m retweeted (“you like me…you really like me”).

Find at: http://twitter.com

Photo by Stuart Caie

Making it Easy, Making it Hard

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The finished product

The finished product

So, there I was working happily away when, for no particular reason, the power went out. Feeling very superior for having an uninterruptible power supply, I continued on for a few minutes until it was clear that this wasn’t a momentary blip. I then shut my computer down normally and went to read a book. A little while later the power came back on (good thing too – those chirping UPS’s were driving me crazy) and I began powering everything back up. When I switched the computer on, the first thing I noticed was that the CPU fan was running abnormally fast and loud. Second, none of the front panel lights came on and third, the monitors stayed stubbornly blank. When a computer won’t even start to boot, it’s usually a bad sign.

Long story short (and believe me, I’m leaving out a lot), the motherboard had failed and needed to be replaced. This was confirmed on a Friday and there are no computer shops in our little berg of Sonora that are open on the weekend. Luckily, my friend Steve Finigian, of Sierra Network Services was down in Southern California and agreed to drop by a Fry’s and pick up a new motherboard and CPU (just in case) for me. He delivered these on Sunday afternoon and two days later, I had a working computer again.

Along the way, there were some things that made the job easier and others that left me scratching my head and wondering, what were they thinking? Here are a few of the things that made it easy or hard for me to accomplish the fairly complex task of bringing my computer back to life.

Hard. While I was still diagnosing the problem, I thought I’d contact Acer tech support to ask what my symptoms might indicate. Because my system was about 6 weeks out of warranty (natch), all I received was a polite email informing me that their sagacious advice was available at a rate of $60 per half hour. They also provide no forum, wiki or other community platform for their customer’s to exchange information.

Easy. I posted the question that I would have put to Acer on Aardvark and within five minutes was chatting (on IM) with a fairly knowledgeable person who made some good suggestions. They turned out to be wrong (he thought it was a bad power supply) but he wasn’t alone in thinking along those lines.

Hard. The manual for the Termaltake power supply contains tables with headings written in white type on a light gray background. Yes, I’m old and don’t see as well as I used to but really…

Easy. Thanks to the ATX standard, designed by Intel in the mid-90s, All of the power connectors on motherboards are standardized, so you can’t plug anything in the wrong place or backwards.

Hard. Acer chose to use a power supply that is barely adequate (250w) in what is sold as a business-class computer. Even though it seemed to still work, I chose to replace it with the more robust (450w) Thermaltake.

Hard. The pin connectors inside the Acer case are unlabeled and didn’t appear to match the pin blocks on the motherboard. Rather than struggle with it, I pulled everything out of an old mid-tower case that I had and used that.

Easy. Old mid-tower cases are roomy and well labeled, if ugly.

Hard. MSI motherboard manual pin block diagrams are illustrated from a strange perspective; sort of above and to the right. Hard to read (these old eyes again).

Hard. Mircosoft treats changing motherboards as if you’ve changed computers and so requires that you re-activate Windows.

Easy. The system for re-activating Windows over the phone is actually pretty slick. Voice recognition and clear input screens made the operation painless.

Easy. The answer to nearly every question I had during the entire process was available online. In almost every case, they came from people, not companies. They came in the form of forums, blog posts and instant messages, all tied together by search engines. It’s a pretty amazing time that we live in.

Technology is a complex thing. Replacing a motherboard or building a dynamic web site or producing a videocast requires a lot of thought and prior knowledge. Most people recognize this (to those who say, “it’s not rocket science”, I reply, “you’re right, it’s computer science”). We need to remove the little stumbling blocks, like too-small type, at every possible step. This should be the task of everyone connected to technical endeavors. For those of us who already have a certain level of knowledge, this is hard to remember but I promise to try.