Friendly Technology.........

My Back to School Tech Thoughts..

I am not a parent. But, I figure its got to be difficult to decipher all the offers coming from computer and technology stores this time of year.

I am not student entering one important academic year or the other. But, I figure it must be a challenge to keep up to date with the the technology that will truly help get the best marks.

I don't teach at a school, college, or university. But, I figure there must be at least some apprehension about students plagiarizing from the Internet, using inappropriate technology in class, or simply causing internal feelings of extreme inadequacy.

Parents, here are a couple of suggestions. First, decide what your children need in terms of tech for school. Second, figure how much you want to spend and stick to it. Third, consider what you are buying is not really the technology, but a relationship with a good salesperson.

Good computer salespeople don't talk in complicated tech terms.

Good computer salespeople take pains to ask you what you are looking for, and then steer you only to products that will match your needs.

Good computer salespeople will be patient with you when you make one of those panicked support phone calls.

Students, the 2005/2006 school year should be the year of multimedia. Not only can you find now search video clips more easily with the new video search features at Yahoo, Google, and Blinkx.tv – you can also more easily create your own videos and put them on the Internet on sites like ourmedia.org.

Students, as you are learning and creating, please also consider contributing on the world's largest entirely user created encyclopedia – wikipedia.org.

Last but not least, my friends the teachers. If your school has the funds to subscribe to a service like turnitin.com, this could help detect plagiarism. Otherwise, if you suspect  essay passages are plagiarized, copy and paste them -within quotes- into your favourite search engine.

Are cellphones going off in class? The best policy is to have a clear policy - like "please turn off your cell phones during class". Cellphone signal jammers are still too expensive.

And as for internal feelings of inadequacy,  my father was a neurosurgeon, my mother a bridge master, and my sister well on her way to a PHD. Sorry, join the club!

The Most Friendly Hotel Room Alarm Clock

Sometimes the most critical technology is the most simple. According to this USA Today article, hotels are re evaluating how easy their room alarm clocks are to operate. A short snippet:

The new models introduced by Hilton, Accor and Omni display two sets of time simultaneously, one for the alarm. They use specific words — on, off, AM and PM — instead of dots. Written instructions are inscribed prominently.

Lets not let hotels entirely off the simple is better hook though. If you read the article, a parallel push is to outfit alarm clocks with jacks from mp3 players so that guests can presumably get better sound quality. Sorry, I think that confuses the situation again, especially for the business traveller. And the noise might bother others.

The Email Revolution...

Playing with words and trying to find the right combination to introduce the chapter of my upcoming book on email.

Email has become so commonplace to those who use it. We no longer stop to consider how drastically our global communication system has changed for the better.

A few short months before writing this book, I attended the annual convention of Rotary International, the well known worldwide service organization. I met people from many different countries at the convention. As I collected business cards, I has no real worry about keeping in touch with these people.

Through email, I could avoid long distance telephone fees and long delays in sending letters. I could retain a record of my communications with my new friends. And I could easily communicate with the whole groups or people from certain areas of the world.

Don't get me wrong. There are occasions when I would rather pick up the phone or post a letter than send an email. But, I often choose email because of its many benefits.

In 1996, I started using email because of love. I was dating a woman who lived in South Africa. I lived in South Africa for a while as well but, after two years of globetrotting, I moved back to Canada. My lonely heart soon became the mortal enemy of my phone bill  - my monthly long distance charges were running into the hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. I decided that if I were to save my phone line from disconnection, I needed a computer, email access, and an email account. It is hard to believe but this, at the time,  was the cheaper option.

Email does have its downsides. Namely, those awful junk email spam messages that appear in many people's inboxes. 

I will make you a promise. As well as showing you the many great things email programs can do, I will also give you  detailed instructions on how to minimize the downsides.

More soon..

Arjun's Laptop Buying Guide

As a so called computer expert, I sure put my  foot in my mouth when I wrote a newspaper column in June with an offer to share with my readers some research I was soon to do on the best laptops for different purposes. I got a lot of response to that column from people who wanted the information.

I started to think about how I was going to conduct the research. And the I got very scared. Preliminary checking around convinced me that I had bitten of a heck of a lot.

Okay, but I am still going to try.

There is a huge variety of different laptop models out there. And obviously different laptops would work better for different purposes.

Laptops can be divided into 3 very general categories (there are a lot of sub categories within these categories).

• Desktop Replacements - laptops you can move around, but most of the time don't. Have a lot of the similar features as desktop PCs. Approximately 7 to 10 pounds.
• Mainstream - made for mobility, but has many features - lighter than desktop replacement, better battery life. May not have all the features of desktop replacement. Approximately 4 to 7 pounds.
• Ultra Portable - made for frequent mobility - often don't have internal CD or floppy drive. Should have better battery life. Usually under 4 pounds.

When buying a laptop, you should decide which of these 3 categories appeal to you and also decide your budget. Budget is a pretty important consideration because it will determine how much extra you can spend on the things that you would like to have, but are not totally necessary.

Here are my minimum recommendations for a laptop computer:

• 512 mbs of RAM
  recommended specs for Windows XP
• 40 mbs of HD space
  more than enough space typically, except for repeated video storage and editing.
• wireless inbuilt
  increasingly useful when "on the road"
• DVD / CDRW Combo
  I would personally even skip the DVD, if you don't watch a lot of movies, but almost every laptop comes with a DVD player now. The CDRW burner is great for back ups.
• Back up solution
  Not really part of the laptop but critical, critical and often overlooked. Do you have a way of backing up your computer files or doing things like moving your digital pictures onto another storage medium or device. Options include CD burning, an external harddrive, or one of those USB flash drives.

You notice I didn't mention processor speed (eg. the pentium number) because all new computers today, unless you doing high end things like video editing or gaming, are fast enough to perform any task.

There are things that, when I see them, make me feel that the laptop manufacturer was really thinking about the benefit of the user:

• Various jacks and ports on front and side rather than on the back:
  I hate reaching aroung any computer to have to plug stuff in. I love it when I see USB ports on the side ledge of the laptop keyboard and headphones and microphone jacks on the front ledge. Full marks!
• Long Battery life:
  A laptop is not a laptop unless it offers at least 3 hours of battery power. Anything less is a mockery of the name.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for and the hardest part, recommendations on specific laptops. I took a tour one day through one or two computer stores I trust and found 2 I want to recommend. These 2 computers are in the mainstream category, so here are some other tips.

1. Find a trustworthy computer store and talk to a salesman about the options:
   I have given you a baseline of recommended specifications. You need to find a good computer store that will back up it's products. Ask about their warranty - how long? do they have an in house repair department? can you have a tour?
2. Read the recommendations at PC World and from Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal. These are American centred but provide good pointers for everybody.

Okay here are the two laptops I looked at and liked a lot:

• The Acer Aspire 5000
• The HP Pavilion dv1330ca

Evaluating the Quality of Information Found Online...

One of the greatest things about the Internet is also one of the most challenging -  anybody can put something on the Internet. This low barrier to entry makes for a wonderful place to express oneself, but causes some interesting issues for people looking for information. How does one find good quality information online?

The best tips:

1. Good design is no indication of good quality: A site that looks well designed can give people false confidence in the site's information. Good web design is easily copied, so to assess quality, explore further.
2. Assess Reputation by prior knowledge, using contact information, and "nerd clues":
   
   • Is the information on a web site you have used before and know to be good?
   • Have you read, seen  or heard a good review of the site from a reputable source?
   • Is there contact information available on the web site? When you use it, are you satisfied with the reply?
   • Does the site web address end in .gov or .edu? These web suffixes usually denote a web site from a government body or university.
   • How many other sites link to the site. Go to the Google "Who Links to You" feature, copy in the site or page address. The more good sites that link to another site, the better indication of good quality.
3. Is the Site Information Balanced?: Does the web site try to fairly portray different sides of an issue? Beware of web sites that seems bent on convincing the world of one point or another.
4. Can you find confirmation from at least three reputable web sites?: If the same information keeps on popping up on sites you have establishes as reliable, it is a good indication of quality.

Of course, even if you all use all these techniques, sometimes you may be duped. But, this would be a very rare case.

Be Aware of Search Engines' Paid Placement

Given that search engines offer their results completely for free, you may wonder how they make money. Indeed, some search engines make a whole lot of money. Google and Yahoo, for example, are on track to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit in 2005.

Search engines mainly make money by selling advertising. The type of advertising they offer is quite attractive to potential advertisers because the search engines try to match ads to what individual people are searching for. Thus, if you are searching for information on a certain model digital camera, you may also see "sponsor results" from various businesses offering the same camera. This practice is often called paid placement.

The Controversy over Paid Placement
I think its great that some search engine companies are so profitable. Their method of placing ads - showing me ads that relate to my search results -  makes it more likely the ads that appear might even be of interest to me.

However, it is important that search engines clearly mark which results are ads and which results come 'organically' - from a non biased determination of what are the best sites for your particular search keywords.

Consumer Reports Web Watch (www.consumerwebwatch.org), a consumer advocacy group, recently released a report called "Still in Search of Disclosure" which highlights concerns that search engines don't go far enough in disclosing which results are ads.

How to discern Paid Placement Results
These are real concerns I believe. Search engines do make it more difficult that it should be to discern paid results. So, here are screen shots of the search results pages at Google, Yahoo, MSN, and ASK  - with the paid placement areas clearly marked.

Right now, just showing Yahoo Screen shot. More to come...

 

(click for better view with larger image)

* also need to include overview of paid inclusion practices