Excellence can be obtained if you ..
CARE more than others think is wise...
RISK more than others think is safe...
DREAM more than others think is practical...
Monday, November 9, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Kindle DX IMHO
Well I broke down and got a Kindle DX even though it the type of device that is against my nature. This is, it is:
I have only been able to use it for about an hour, so I may have missed some of the basics; but here is what I know, or more feel about it at this point in time.
The kindle finally came. (Remember the "instant gratification part"). Now it seems to me, if the desire was to sell more books you would want to almost, anyhow, give away a book reader especially when the only source for books was your store. Also seems like, if you charged nearly $500.00 for the device, you would ship free and next day air. But that's just me.
Cool things
Read some of the book and it all looked pretty good. Easy to read. Changeable type sizes. Portrait and landscape auto-rotation, nice.
Could be a little faster on page-to-page navigation. My wife implies I have a short attention span, so that hesitation could cost me to go off on some other thought path. So far, it is not an issue, other than I noticed it.
Love the way it remembers the last page I was on. (yea the short attention span thing, or is that the shot/short memory?)
What's Missing
Yes I saw all the options for the covers and such, but I guess, I supposed that I either had something or it would come with some sort of cover for the nearly $500.00 device. No, no cover. And I think I will need one as I am rough on my toys.
Read-to-Me
Not good. First, on the Kindle DX page, it states: "Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable".
This was one of the major reasons points in my decision to purchase.
When the Kindle arrived, I could not find it in the help section. Finally found it under "Experimental". Well, the first several attempts, I would rate it more like alpha-functionality at best experimental not working well at all. I just went and checked and on the Kindle DX page, it does show, at the bottom, experimental. Darn. I honestly hate to read and would really like to listen.
Now, when I go read into the fine print on the Kindle DX page, It does mention the "Read-to-Me" under Experimental. It also lists the "Basic Web Browser" and "Listen to Music & Podcasts" as under Experimental also, but these two were not mentioned at the top of the page as the "Read-to-Me" was listed with no mention of Experimental.
Some things I found as issues with text-to-speech". Very difficult, especially since I could seldom hear anything, to determine if the device was reading to me or not. There is a volume control on the side, but no visual feed back on screen for the volume level.
I will look into this more and hopefully provide some feedback.
PDF Documents
So far, this looks good. One of my buying decisions was that I would be able to read some of the many PDF technical documents I need to go through for the work side of my life.
I knew I could email them to my special email address (somename@kindle.com) but also to my delight, after using the USB to my PC, drag and drop them to the Kindle. Cools. Dropped a couple and they were there.
Viewing them appears to be fine. You can set bookmarks within the PDFs and that is a good thing. Sure would be nice to be able to, form the table of contents, jump to the indicated page, like could be done in these particular PDFs when in the Adobe Reader. You can though, jump to any page you type in.
Well, got to go play with the Kindle DX some more. Hopefully I will be able or more so willing, to get back with how me and the Kindle DX are getting along.
-jim
- Proprietary - Only from Amazon and Only books form Amazon. (like not an open standards device)
- Too Expensive - May need to be added to my pile of once cool things that I no longer use.
- Not General Purpose - Why not have a program that will do this on a Touch Pad or Netbook or LapTop?
- Another Electronic Gadget - I have too many devices. A "smart Phone", laptop, more other gadgets than I am will to tell my wife.
I have only been able to use it for about an hour, so I may have missed some of the basics; but here is what I know, or more feel about it at this point in time.
The kindle finally came. (Remember the "instant gratification part"). Now it seems to me, if the desire was to sell more books you would want to almost, anyhow, give away a book reader especially when the only source for books was your store. Also seems like, if you charged nearly $500.00 for the device, you would ship free and next day air. But that's just me.
Cool things
- The Kindle is lite and thin. Keeping in mind I carry a laptop that weighs a ton.
- Stylish, kind of looks like something Apple would make. (The association ends with the style)
- Easy to Read from.
- Charger is a USB 2.0 (micro-B connector) device with a AC adapter and a detachable USB cord.
- Headphone Jack is 3.5mm. Both will work with my new Palm-Pre.
- The book I ordered before I received my Kindle was there like in seconds. (Remember the "instant gratification part").
Read some of the book and it all looked pretty good. Easy to read. Changeable type sizes. Portrait and landscape auto-rotation, nice.
Could be a little faster on page-to-page navigation. My wife implies I have a short attention span, so that hesitation could cost me to go off on some other thought path. So far, it is not an issue, other than I noticed it.
Love the way it remembers the last page I was on. (yea the short attention span thing, or is that the shot/short memory?)
What's Missing
Yes I saw all the options for the covers and such, but I guess, I supposed that I either had something or it would come with some sort of cover for the nearly $500.00 device. No, no cover. And I think I will need one as I am rough on my toys.
Read-to-Me
Not good. First, on the Kindle DX page, it states: "Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable".
This was one of the major reasons points in my decision to purchase.
When the Kindle arrived, I could not find it in the help section. Finally found it under "Experimental". Well, the first several attempts, I would rate it more like alpha-functionality at best experimental not working well at all. I just went and checked and on the Kindle DX page, it does show, at the bottom, experimental. Darn. I honestly hate to read and would really like to listen.
Now, when I go read into the fine print on the Kindle DX page, It does mention the "Read-to-Me" under Experimental. It also lists the "Basic Web Browser" and "Listen to Music & Podcasts" as under Experimental also, but these two were not mentioned at the top of the page as the "Read-to-Me" was listed with no mention of Experimental.
Some things I found as issues with text-to-speech". Very difficult, especially since I could seldom hear anything, to determine if the device was reading to me or not. There is a volume control on the side, but no visual feed back on screen for the volume level.
I will look into this more and hopefully provide some feedback.
PDF Documents
So far, this looks good. One of my buying decisions was that I would be able to read some of the many PDF technical documents I need to go through for the work side of my life.
I knew I could email them to my special email address (somename@kindle.com) but also to my delight, after using the USB to my PC, drag and drop them to the Kindle. Cools. Dropped a couple and they were there.
Viewing them appears to be fine. You can set bookmarks within the PDFs and that is a good thing. Sure would be nice to be able to, form the table of contents, jump to the indicated page, like could be done in these particular PDFs when in the Adobe Reader. You can though, jump to any page you type in.
Well, got to go play with the Kindle DX some more. Hopefully I will be able or more so willing, to get back with how me and the Kindle DX are getting along.
-jim
Saturday, April 11, 2009
To get the problem statement right
When searching for information on security, ran across a document about the "Shrinking Perimeter" . The article contained the statement"
To get a good result the engineer, the financial planner, and the corporate visionary all have the same core focus: To get the problem statement right. The wrong problem statement gets us "solutions in search of a problem" or "we solved the wrong problem" or "these sunk investments did not yield value." In every case, it is getting the problem statement right that makes the difference.
This certainly could be and should be expanded to consultants (and most anyone else). Many times the consultant is brought in to do a project that was determined by someone else. The consultant is essentially being asked to validate problem statement created by someone else. Way too often I see consultant happily take the clients money knowing all along that the problem statement is treating a symptom of or masking the real problem.
The consultant is usually brought in as a subject matter expert and the easy thing to do is to go along with what the client said they wanted and not speak up. Is it not the consultant's purpose and obligation to speak up?
To do the hard thing and talk to the client about the "real" problem?
-jim
To get a good result the engineer, the financial planner, and the corporate visionary all have the same core focus: To get the problem statement right. The wrong problem statement gets us "solutions in search of a problem" or "we solved the wrong problem" or "these sunk investments did not yield value." In every case, it is getting the problem statement right that makes the difference.
This certainly could be and should be expanded to consultants (and most anyone else). Many times the consultant is brought in to do a project that was determined by someone else. The consultant is essentially being asked to validate problem statement created by someone else. Way too often I see consultant happily take the clients money knowing all along that the problem statement is treating a symptom of or masking the real problem.
The consultant is usually brought in as a subject matter expert and the easy thing to do is to go along with what the client said they wanted and not speak up. Is it not the consultant's purpose and obligation to speak up?
To do the hard thing and talk to the client about the "real" problem?
-jim
Friday, April 10, 2009
Automated Walk Away Detection
Does the title make sense to you?
The concept would be to detect when you are not at your computer and lock your computer.
Occupancy sensors that detect people presence within a room are difficult and not always reliable. Sure there are the Ultra-sonic and infrared and those that are hybrids of both. However, it turns out, detecting a motionless person who is reading or relaxing in a hot bath is not reliable with today's generally available technologies.
Presence Identification of people, as in identifying who is in which room, is much more difficult.
RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) does work, for most scenarios (problem with the hot bath), in theory, but does require people to posses RFID tag or badge. Now being in the Secure Identity and access control business we learned a long time ago that if you set up a policy, you better have a policy for exceptions to the policy. When the CEO forgets his RFID badge, the security person will have a hard time stopping him from entering the premises.
Now we want to identify who is sitting in front of a computer.
Possible solutions?
I am sure you can find some issues with each of the above and if we can do that while reading an article. Now, think about how many ways a person that used one of them every day would be irritated or find ways to defeat them.
Viion Systems Inc. says they have a better way. They call it; "Sentinel Sign-Off". An interesting methodology that utilizes their special software and a WEB-CAM to detect the person who is at the computer and to lock it when the person is no longer present. You can read the details at their product page. The white-paper, referenced at the bottom of the page, has even more details.
Basically, the product integrates with the Windows GINA and therefore, AFAIK, is limited to the Windows platform. I assume that their software must do some proprietary algorithm to come up with a value for a persons face or other characteristics. The output of the algorithm must be stored locally or perhaps with the Windows domain credentials. Certainly an interesting concept that some people should consider.
Anyone using the product that can provide feedback?
The concept would be to detect when you are not at your computer and lock your computer.
Occupancy sensors that detect people presence within a room are difficult and not always reliable. Sure there are the Ultra-sonic and infrared and those that are hybrids of both. However, it turns out, detecting a motionless person who is reading or relaxing in a hot bath is not reliable with today's generally available technologies.
Presence Identification of people, as in identifying who is in which room, is much more difficult.
RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) does work, for most scenarios (problem with the hot bath), in theory, but does require people to posses RFID tag or badge. Now being in the Secure Identity and access control business we learned a long time ago that if you set up a policy, you better have a policy for exceptions to the policy. When the CEO forgets his RFID badge, the security person will have a hard time stopping him from entering the premises.
Now we want to identify who is sitting in front of a computer.
Possible solutions?
- RFID Tag or Badge
- Pressure sensitive mat
- Monitor Mounted Sonar
I am sure you can find some issues with each of the above and if we can do that while reading an article. Now, think about how many ways a person that used one of them every day would be irritated or find ways to defeat them.
Viion Systems Inc. says they have a better way. They call it; "Sentinel Sign-Off". An interesting methodology that utilizes their special software and a WEB-CAM to detect the person who is at the computer and to lock it when the person is no longer present. You can read the details at their product page. The white-paper, referenced at the bottom of the page, has even more details.
Basically, the product integrates with the Windows GINA and therefore, AFAIK, is limited to the Windows platform. I assume that their software must do some proprietary algorithm to come up with a value for a persons face or other characteristics. The output of the algorithm must be stored locally or perhaps with the Windows domain credentials. Certainly an interesting concept that some people should consider.
Anyone using the product that can provide feedback?
Friday, March 13, 2009
From cloud computing to Did you know?
I recently found Did you know this on YouTube and it has been a favorite of mine. One of those items Everyone should know.
I was inspired by the a blog entry a few years ago and there are now many renditions and re-mixes of the presentation now available.
The point being most of the world's population has no idea how fast the world is changing. Transformations that used to take generations are now happening in few years.
Today, I got started on this by stumbling on DOT.CLOUD.
The item that struck me the most was:
"When small and midsized businesses learn the potential benefits of cloud computing, they will be able to tap IT platforms and software that only huge enterprises could deploy in the past, making the Cloud the great leveler."
The opportunity is to create the solutions for the SMB so they will be able to "get it'.
The SMB will not realize the benefits until there are solutions for them. They can or will NOT spend the time or $$$ to do the research to determine what the benefits of the cloud is, they will only "get it" if there is a real solution; providing the Cloud will not cause them to budge.
Enough with this change. I need to get a haircut.
-jim
I was inspired by the a blog entry a few years ago and there are now many renditions and re-mixes of the presentation now available.
The point being most of the world's population has no idea how fast the world is changing. Transformations that used to take generations are now happening in few years.
Today, I got started on this by stumbling on DOT.CLOUD.
The item that struck me the most was:
"When small and midsized businesses learn the potential benefits of cloud computing, they will be able to tap IT platforms and software that only huge enterprises could deploy in the past, making the Cloud the great leveler."
The opportunity is to create the solutions for the SMB so they will be able to "get it'.
The SMB will not realize the benefits until there are solutions for them. They can or will NOT spend the time or $$$ to do the research to determine what the benefits of the cloud is, they will only "get it" if there is a real solution; providing the Cloud will not cause them to budge.
Enough with this change. I need to get a haircut.
-jim
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