Techization

I was browsing my Facebook photo albums yesterday and was stunned!  I had over 30 photo albums and nearly all the photos in them I had not saved the original digital photos.  This blog is a bridge to a another recent blog of mine entitled ‘Is Media Becoming Too Disposable?’.  I knew I needed to act to back-up all these memories from the last four years.  You could go one-by-one and save each photo individually.  That would take forever!  I found a great Firefox plug-in that saves entire Facebook photo albums to your hard drive in one easy click.

The plug-in is called FacePad.  FacePad is a simple Firefox plug-in that allows you to right-click a Facebook photo album and download all photos inside very quickly.  An album of 60 photos takes about five seconds to download on a 10 meg connection and places the photos where you specify within Firefox preferences.

What could be a ‘Facebook creeper’ use of this plug-in?  You could begin archiving Facebook photo albums from friends and random people on Facebook, then place them into software that is now available with face recognition technology.  Tag people for the software to recognize then cross-check to see if their face appears in any photos you have archived.  Your talking about cross-referencing possibly thousands and thousands of photographs.  There’s a new way to keep tabs on someone!

Get It now!  Click below!

Remember those scattered newspaper clippings in your mothers shoe box and those old photo albums of you in the bath tub as an infant?  Those are rapidly declining.  I write this blog this evening because I’m guilty as charged.  I have taken thousands, if not tens of thousands of digital photographs but hardly have any of them to show for it.  Sure I keep the most important shots by printing them as 8×10’s or saving them on an external drive, but out of 5000 I have less than 50 saved.  I can’t get back those memories I captured; camping trips to Iowa and long Saturday nights with friends on the town, all lost.

In the ‘old days’ it was easy to order two sets of 5×7 prints, stash them in a photo album and stick them in the closet.  Now many people opt to share photos online in a digital format and never print out their photographs; the files are scattered all over their hard drive.  This generations memories are being lost forever because of digital carelessness!

There are things everyone can  do so they can secure their data for long-term storage.  The key word you must remember is redundancy.  Having one external hard drive in your home is not a back-up.  While it is better than nothing at all, what happens if you have a house fire?  Both your PC and your hard drive are toast and your stuck with nothing.  Single back-ups to external drives mostly thwart data loss if your hard drive has a sudden crash or you were infected with a nasty virus.

After you have taken a set of photos you’ll want to transfer them to  your computer as soon as possible.  Over long periods of time photos stored on an SD or CF cards can become corrupt and will be unreadable.  I’m not saying run to a computer after every shutter snap, just don’t plan on leaving precious photos on your SD/CF card for weeks at a time.   Once you get them on your computer try and keep them organized.  Name the photo set appropriately and name the folder logically.  Software like Adobe Photoshop Elements is great for importing photos with its intuitive photo tagging and organizational system.

Once imported you’ll have a copy on your computers hard drive, now you’ll want to back-up on another external storage device.  I personally recommend a Networked Storage Device (NSD).   A NSD is a little different from a regular USB 2.0 external hard drive because it connects to your home router rather than your PC directly.  The hard drive is visible on any computer on your network and any user can save files to it just like a normal drive.  These are great for easy long-term storage.

Now you have two copies of your data, one on your hard drive and another on a back-up external drive.  That’s enough?  I don’t think so!  You’ll also want to invest in an online back-up service.  There are many companies offering off-site storage but my personal recommendation is Carbonite.  Carbonite will automatically back-up your files while your computer is idle so it wont slow you down while your using your PC.  You can also force it to back-up.  Carbonite will encrypt your files before transferring them off-site to maintain your security.

Some people suggest storing CD’s at bank deposit boxes, I think that is a real pain unless you have very sensitive files you know you won’t need to access for many many years.

Redundancy is again the keyword to this whole thing.  I think one external and one off-site back-up is quite suitable for most home PC users.  Those with a home-business might require more options in terms of storage.  Don’t let your data go away forever, BACK IT UP!

Google Inc. is one of those companies that makes you wish you would have listened to Uncle Jeff when he told you he knew of a sure fire hot start-up.  Ever wonder how it all came to be?   Here is a short and painless history lesson.

1995

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. (Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around.) According to some accounts, they disagree about most everything during this first meeting.

1996

• Larry and Sergey, now Stanford computer science grad students, begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub.
• BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year — eventually taking up too much bandwidth to suit the university.

1997

• Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

1998

August

• Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim writes a check for $100,000 to an entity that doesn’t exist yet: a company called Google Inc.

September

• Google sets up workspace in Susan Wojcicki’s garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.
• Google files for incorporation in California on September 4. Shortly thereafter, Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly-established company’s name and deposit Andy Bechtolsheim’s check.
• Larry and Sergey hire Craig Silverstein as their first employee; he’s a fellow computer science grad student at Stanford.

December

• “PC Magazine” reports that Google “has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results” and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for 1998.

2003

September

• Google News launches with 4000 news sources.

2005

February

• We hit a milestone in Image Search: 1.1 billion images indexed.
• Google Maps goes live

Source:  Google Inc.

Google is the dominant force on the Internet, especially when it comes to search engines.   They now have nearly 60% of the market share when it comes to search engines, that is a commanding stance.  Here you will find a graphic showing their stock price from the time they went public in 2004.

It may have all of your e-mail (Gmail), your appointments (Google Calendar) and even your last known location (Google Latitude). It may know what you’re watching (YouTube) and whom you are calling. It may have transcripts of your telephone messages (Google Voice).

It may hold your photos in Picasa Web Albums, which includes face-recognition technology that can automatically identify you and your friends in new photos. And through Google Books, it may know what books you’ve read, what you annotated and how long you spent reading. (Computer World)

Literally, if you used many of the popular Google owned web tools, Google could provide one amazingly accurate and scary profile on you.  How Google uses personal information is guided by three “bedrock principles,” says Peter Fleischer, the company’s global privacy counsel. “We don’t sell it. We don’t collect it without permission. We don’t use it to serve ads without permission.” But what constitutes “personal information” has not been universally agreed upon.  So what you may see as private information, Google may not.

Does this mean you should shut off your Gmail, cancel your Orkut and flush your G1 cell phone down the toilet?  Hardly.  Google continues operations on the basis of trust, similar to another data giant like Facebook.  People know their data is being archived and stored on Googles servers but they trust the corporation will make the correct ethical decision.  However, not all are so trusting.  Google received a lot of criticism over its toolbar that integrates in your web browser.  It’s not just a convenient way to search the web, it reports your surfing habits which Google shares to third party companies and clients.  However, none of the data is linked to personally identifiable information about the user.

Bob Cringely of PBS says this about what Google is up to, “The answer is pretty simple. Google intends to take over most of the functions of existing fixed networks in our lives, notably telephone and cable television.”

I think Mr. Cringely is a little far fetched and paranoid.  Google’s entire business model flows around packets, bits and bytes being shot from A to B.  Their life blood, their very foundation of success is their computing power and server capacity.  Investments in such technology in crucial areas that provide the best chance at un-interruptible power seems quite logical.

Is Google preparing a global take over?  Not likely.  But it will be very interesting to watch them grow and progress in the next few years.

14% of Google’s user base experienced extremely slow services or none at all for about 90 minutes this week.  Google cited a server error began routing traffic through their servers and Russia consequently overloading it causing slow traffic or unavailable error messages.

Can you imagine trying to 50% of all of Googles packets through one server farm? No wonder my Gmail slowed down!

The outage occurred at 9:45am to about 11:20pm Central time in the United States.  The outage quickly made ripples on twitter and became known as #googlefail.

Google prides itself on reliability.  Imagine if an important business document was saved on Google Docs and you could not access it any other way, or your entire calendar for work is on Google and not synced with Outlook.  This little hiccup likely caused lost productivity, profits and lots of headaches around the world.

Really makes me re-analyze how much stock I put into online web tools and applications, though I have the utmost faith in Google.  (Bows down on knees in submission to ‘The Google’)

On the heels of the Kindle 2, Amazon announced pre-order sales on another version of their popular e-reader.  This new piece of hardware will be known as the Kindle DX.

The Kindle DX display screen is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle 2, 9.7″ diagonally to be exact.  The reason for the larger screen is to accommodate full pages of text. (10.5″ x 7″)  The Kindle DX boasts a screen resolution of 1,200 x 824 pixels which rivals some smaller laptop displays

As a current college student, I know the high costs and trouble academic textbooks can bring.  Friends of mine often have as many as eight different academic texts.  I just picked up some of my roommates textbooks here in our room, many are 800-1200 pages long and weigh anywhere from 4.2 lbs to 6.5 lbs.  Now stick three or four large textbooks plus a laptop and you have some serious weight on your back!   I’m sure many health care professionals would love to see an e-reader replace textbooks, especially if they filter to younger school children.

What is really interesting and promising for Amazon is the heightened interest from universities across the country.  Amazon already has a test pilot program setup at Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, the University of Virginia and Pace university.  Students and faculty will be issued a new Kindle DX next fall with no increase in tuition or other fees.

The positive impact for academic institutions is clear.  Obvious benefits for the student, less costs in production and transporting of texts and a much greener impact on our environment

“Our interest in the pilot is to provide Amazon and other vendors with information on what our students and faculty need in such devices to make them successful,” said Serge Goldstein, associate CIO and director of academic services at Princeton. “The ability to deliver textbooks in a format that doesn’t require paper is probably inevitable.”

These universities are early adopters who will get to see first hand how e-readers could work in an academic environment.  I feel the Kindle DX could work quite well.  However, it is not perfect.

E-readers may not fit well with science courses like biology or chemistry.  Science texts are often filled with vivid graphics that are crucial supplements to the text.  A black and white e-reader like the Kindle DX would not do well in that situation.  We are just on the tip of the iceberg.  These e-readers will continue to get smaller, lighter and even more impressive with their capabilities.  High resolutions color display readers are able to be produced, but the cost to produce them is unrealistic to roll out in large quantities.  Costs will come down and improvements will be suggested as these pilot programs are completed around the country.

It is my belief e-readers like the Kindle DX will become standard on college campuses nationwide in the future.  It will take some time for profitable models to be developed and buy-in from universities and students alike.  However, this shift is inevitable in my strong opinion.

Google isn’t just for doing your Boolean queries.  There are many things Google search can do that you probably never realized.  Here are some tricks for you to try with Google:

• What Time Is It…

Use the term ‘what time is it’ to query the time in major cities from around the world.  I.e. (what time is it Tokyo)

• Track Flights

You can enter the airline whom runs the flight and the flight number to see departure and arrival times for that particular flight.  It even shows whether it is on time or delayed.  I.e. (United flight 6695)

• Track Packages (UPS, FedEx etc.)

No need to go through the hoops on FedEx.com to track your new ab master.  Simply enter your tracking number into Google and it will display the tracking information for you.  I.e. (1ZGH5594S952FF9991)

• Get The Weather Forecast

Need the weather forecast for the next few days?  Google makes it easier than ever.  Just type in ‘weather’ and the city you want.  Google will spit out a four day forecast and current conditions for you.  I.e. (weather Burlington  —  This query would then display weather for Burlington, VT)

• Find Alternatives To Your Search Keywords

Use the strings ‘better than’, ‘reminds me of’, ’similar to’ to find alternatives to search queries.  An example would be ‘Reminds me of Eminem’.  Google would show you musical acts that are similar to the rap artist Eminem.  Ever wonder who Google will tell you is better than Metallica?  Go find out!  I.e. (better than metallica)

• Convert Currency and More

Google has a powerful conversion algorithm built in that allows you to convert many different things.  Currencies, metrics and a whole lot more.  Just enter in what you need to convert.  I.e. (5 US dollars in European money)

Other Google tricks and hints from Wolf-Howl:

Check out these search queries, they can come in quite handy!

[gdp malta] Gross Domestic Product of Malta

[population malta] Population of Malta.

[capital malta] The capital of Malta.

[location malta] Rough idea of where Malta is located.

[currency malta] What is the currency of Malta.

[flag france] The flag of France. Note there was no flag shown for Malta.

[anthem france] What is the national anthem of France.

[state bird hawaii] What is the state bird of Hawaii.

[state flower hawaii] State flower of Hawaii.

[motto hawaii] what is the state motto of Hawaii.

[size hawaii]

[governor hawaii] The governor of Hawaii.

[birthplace of walt disney] Where Walt Disney was born.

Math and Number Searches

[100+37+92+641-7] Works like a calculator to perform math operations.

[1HD1BEK11BY123456]
Provides a link to VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) information.

[073333531084]Provides a link to UPC information for that product.

[212] Provides a link to information about the area code 212.

[202-456-1111]Provides a link to more information about the residence, business, or organization for that phone number.

[patent 5123128]Provides a link to more information about patent number 5123128.

[n199ud] Provides a link for more information about the FAA registration for the airplane with that registration number.

[fcc IHDT5ZG1]Provides a link to information about the product with that FCC id number.

Bottom line is that Google is an amazing platform.  In terms of search engines, Google is light years ahead of their competition.  I don’t think all of Google’s products are perfect or the best.  A perfect example is Google Maps.   While they are doing some innovative things, Microsoft Live Maps has better coverage, resolution and it’s ‘Bird’s Eye View’ puts it ahead of Google Maps in my opinion.

Can anyone catch Google?  Not likely.

CNET news is reporting that for the first time in company history, computing giant Google unveiled their server design this past week at a data center efficiency conference.  Google has literally hundreds of thousands of servers worldwide and they are all custom built, not outsourced to popular companies like Dell or Sun Microsystems.

The servers are your run of the mill Intel/AMD 2U servers with a few modifications.  One of which is an emergency battery back-up.  Each machine has its own dedicated 12-volt battery to provide power in emergency situations.  Why batteries you may ask?  Large UPSs (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) only have efficiencies levels in the low 90’s, while batteries allow Google to obtain more than 99.9% efficiency.

Google stores these servers inside of shipping containers, known as modular data centers.   What you get is one enormously powerful data center which holds about 1,160 severs inside.  You thought keeping your office cool with three machines running was bad, huh?

What makes modular data centers so great is they cost considerably less than your bricks and mortar facility, and can be shipped like any other container to places in the world where building a traditional data center just isn’t feasible.  The design of the actual data center within the container also makes it very scaleable.

My reaction after reading this article was, “oh, so that’s how Google runs the world, I get it”.

I feel it is very important to talk about data archiving.  The process of archiving data is a hot topic because digital files are being created at staggering rates like no other time in history.  The trend will continue upward as barriers are broken down to various technologies.  

Remember when shooting three roles of film would cost you a pretty penny in film and development? Now anyone with a $100 digital camera can shoot gigabytes of photos in a single night.  How will these precious pieces of data be easily stored in formats that will not go obsolete overnight?  

Many have turned to burning data to blank compact discs.  Burners are now common options on personal computers and discs can be had very cheap.  However, that is where many people make their mistake.  Just because you burn your data to a disc doesn’t mean it will last forever for your grand kids to watch in the future.  There are two reasons behind this:

• Technology progresses extremely fast and CD’s will become old technology and progress downward and ‘fade’.
• Blank CD’s can break down over time and become unreadable