Back to Square One with my Blackberry

I have made a few posts about my Blackberry and all the things that I use it for and what happens when it recycles itself at inopportune times. But this past week, my BB did the unthinkable as it had a major software meltdown.

My Bold started its decent into death with the battery lasting less and less over a period of a couple of days. During this time it also seemed slower to wake up from a locked status.

I figured that perhaps the battery was just going or perhaps all of the apps and data I had put on it were too much for its internal memory.

I called my support guy and asked him to get me a new battery, which he was glad to do. He also mentioned that he had seen some cases where apps were not truly closing out when you think you are exiting them. He suggested pulling the battery was a way to ensure all of the apps were actually closed.

As this was a reasonable request, and one I had a number of times in the past, when my BB locked itself up, I pulled the battery. After a few minutes of temporary "BB death", I popped the battery back in and waited for it complete its start-up process. It went through its normal process and just when it looked like it was ready to be back to full life, it would recycle itself again and again.

After repeating this process a couple of times, I knew my BB was pretty close to a permanent death. I reached back out for help and was told to find a PC with the BB sync software installed and try and sync my BB.

This is much harder then it used to be as Blackberry's can do pretty much everything over the air so why sync it to a PC. Anyway finally found an IT guy with the software and started the sync process.

The good news is the sync process stopped they recycling process, but in the process updated the software on my BB. This update gave me back a functional BB; unfortunately, this functionality was limited to the out of the box BB, leaving me with just BB email, calendaring and contacts.

This allowed me to get my corporate email and all of my contacts from Outlook back, but gone were the other functions and personalization that I had added over time to the BB. Gone were Gvoice, Gmail, Yammer, Facebook, Twitter, Navigation apps, bluetooth settings, sound settings, pictures and all of the other changes I had made to it to make it work for me. Of course I can't say to make it "mine" as it is a corporate BB and thus belongs to my company, but I did the best to make me as effective as possible within the spirit (if not the letter) of my company's policies.

The good news is no data has been lost from a corporate or personal perspective, but it is going to take some time to reinstall all of the apps and redo all of the settings and configurations.

Haven't started this process yet as I want to make sure that whatever was ailing my BB is indeed gone, but next week, I will begin the process, slowly at first, and perhaps not all of what I had will be reinstalled.

Because you can't really backup a BB's image, it will never really be the same as I don't really have an inventory of apps and settings, but I will get it back to something that works for me again.

The lessons of having all of these eggs in my BB basket are not lost on me and hopefully something all of you will think about as well.

Is it time to put your files into the cloud?

In a recent blog post I suggested readers think about moving to applications in the cloud (SaaS). Today, thinking about some of the recent cloud storage announcements, is it time to put your files into the cloud as well?

Here is the background, Google's recent offer let's you store pretty much anything and everything in the cloud. No longer limited to Google Doc's and PDF files, you can store and / or backup your files into Google's cloud using Google's tools or many 3rd party tools.

On top of Google's very nice offer, there are a number of other providers that are also offering cloud bases storage and services as CIO.COM's Jeff Bertolucci points out.

At the end of the day, use the cloud for primary or secondary storage, but use it, as the storage is inexpensive and well managed, and might even be better managed and less expensive then your own local storage.

Please note that this doesn't mean you just throw caution to the wind and move everything to a cloud provider, it just means make it part of your overall storage strategy. You do have a storage strategy, don't you?

From blank paper to "food gun"

I have written many posts reporting about the good and the bad things going on in the technology world allowing the Technology Plumbing readers to take advantage of the good ideas or stay away from the bad ones.

Today, I am going to throw out a an idea on something I would like to see become a reality, but thus far have not seen anyone making any progress towards it.

The are obvious reasons why this concept may not have made it to the market yet, but there are also many reasons why many other things shouldn't have come to market, but did, perhaps because someone asked about them. Asking sparks interest in people who can turn ideas in concepts and potentially products.

As a subject matter expert in synthesizing, morphing and extending (or SME-SME) I enjoy taking other people's ideas to places the idea's creators probably did not think about and making them do things that may not have been contemplated, but in today's posting I need the "blank page" type of folks to help out so the SME-SME's can run with these ideas.

So with out further ado ...

What the world needs is a "nutrition gun", that I will give the working name of "nugun" - There are lots of calorie and nutrition books and websites (Livestrong's Daily Plate is my favorite) out there, but they all rely on identifying and measuring the food you are actually eating. This reliance doesn't work as most people don't want to or can't identify what they eat or how much they eat of it. Ask most people how much a serving of _____ is and watch their jaws drop when they realize that what they thought was 1 serving was more likely 3 or more servings.

What I envision is a device that you can aim at your food plate and it will measure and analyze the various food items on the plate that you plan on eating. Of course it would measure any leftovers you left on your plate so the net nutrition of the food event could be recorded in the manner you required (like on Livestrong's Daily Plate).

Now I know there are all kinds of issues here, from identification, to measuring / weighing, to separating the food from the plate and so on. Of course once you identify and measure the food determining its caloric and nutritional content can be complex since most food does not come with its own bar code :)

So this is a bit of a identification / classification system as well as a measurement challenge. They have laser rulers, so how about a laser scale.

The good news is the inventor of this device would have a huge market to sell to, so get out those blank pieces of papers and start designing or if you can SME it (synthesize, morph, extend) an existing idea, go for it.

I look forward to hearing about your ideas on this challenge as well as other "blank page" ideas you may have been thinking about and want to bounce off the Technology Plumbing readers.

I have discovered what Discover Magazine is thinking and I don't like it

Last month I received an unsolicited DVD from Discover Magazine. The offer worked like this, I could keep the DVD and pay for it and then start receiving more DVDs or I could return it and owe nothing.

There did not seem be an option to do nothing, which should have been the default option.

While recognizing that legally I could probably just do nothing with the DVD, I tried to do the right thing (at least for Discover) and returned the DVD to Discover and asked them to not send me anymore unsolicited mailings.

Well, here we are a month later and I just got another mailing from them, still asking me to respond. While they don't acknowledge that I have returned the DVD, they at least provided a new paragraph, at the end of the letter, that states I am under no obligation to do anything because I didn't order the DVD.

I am all for companies taking advantage of their database (I do subscribe to their magazine, which is quite good) to generate new business, that is one of the benefits of all of the technology behind data mining. But when you cross the line and put the onus on the potential customer to do something to prevent becoming a customer, then put yourself in position to be called out in blogs like this.

Companies need to use technology to build a better mousetrap, but please don't use the mousetrap to trap your customers into buying something they don't want to buy.

There is good and then we have these examples ...

Many times I have posted about good technology products and services so that the Technology Plumbing readers could learn about them and take advantage of them as fits their needs. Today, I am going to turn that around and talk about the not so good things I have seen, experienced and heard about so the Technology Plumbing readers can learn about them and hopefully avoid them.

Now before I start, keep in mind that even products and services I mention may be just fine for you, depending on how you might use them, but there are probably better alternatives to the companies I will mention.

• The Comcast TV user interface is an example of a product from a company that thinks they can ignore user interface best practices just because it is for a TV vs. a website. It doesn't work that way as best practices are best practices no matter what the interface is to. The lack of search, low resolution (very few lines per page) and the absence of links dooms this interface to be replaced by another company or another platform.
  
  
• Websites that make it very easy to sign-up for a service but won't allow you to cancel the same service via the web (or make it too hard to find the cancel link) end up in my dog house. There are actually many sites that fail this test, but let me just name a few: Norton's Backup.com, McAfee's suite of products and Xsport Fitness lead my list, but there are many others. I of course would be glad to hear from vendors listed here if they can provide cancellation links and I will publish them.
  
  
• My last category is for sites that work in non-standard ways, especially if these non-standard ways can result in actions being taken that were not what the user was expecting. The winner in this category is United Airlines United.com for the way it handles dates when booking trips (I know that booking 2 weeks in advance saves you money, but that often business travel is more last minute). Most date functions default to the current date, but United defaults to 2 weeks out for the departure date and another week further out for the return date. This often means that one or both dates could be in the next month, which even if you catch the day to correct you can miss the month and end up booking your trip for the wrong dates. Given United and every other airlines proclivities for accessing fees if you need to change a trip this is not only a pain, but also a potentially costly pain.

Hopefully discussing these challenging products and services will allow my readers to avoid or at least be aware of these issues. I am sure my readers have a product or service that may also cause them some problems and look forward to hearing about them. I also hope the vendors who don't follow the generally accepted practices for user interaction will take this post as a wake-up call.

Check your Engine

My car's "check engine" light recently came on. Now in the "old days" the check engine light coming on was bad news, but in today's cars it can mean anything from your gas cap is loose to something very serious. The question is how to tell how serious the issue is and how soon you need to address the problem.

The good news is that cars today (as they have since the early 1990's) have an interface that you can connect a diagnostic tool to and get the specific code that turned on the "check engine" light (or have your local mechanic run this test).

The bad news is that the interface is not something most computer folks are used to dealing with as special equipment is needed to work with the OBD-II (on-board diagnostics) port in today's car. It should be noted that the OBD-II port is similar to the old RS-232 interfaces that PCs used to have (If your local mechanic performs the test you can expect to pay $60-$90 for the test).

For those who want to do the test themselves, devices such as the Black & Decker (AD925), yes the same folks who make power tools, will do the trick. This device connects to you car's OBD-II port and captures the code(s) that are turning on the "check engine" light.

You then disconnect the AD925 from your car and connect it to your computer via the AD925's USB port. It then connects you to the SmartScan home page where you can get more details about the codes and what you can do to correct the issue.

It also gives you the option of erasing the code from your car to turn off the "check engine" light. Of course this assumes you have corrected the fault and not just turned off the light.

Now if this interface was being defined today (vs. the 1980's), it would have been a pure USB interface (or better yet wireless interface) that would send the codes to your messaging interface of choice (email, text, IM, etc). The Ford / Microsoft Sync product's Vehicle Health Report offers the best current implementation (sample report), but this is more proprietary vs. being an open standard and doesn't provide all of the details available via the OBD-II port.

Now I don't expect most people to go out and buy something like the AD925 but as cars become more and more a technology platform vs. just a mechanical platform, it is important that car designers follow the current technology standards and stay away from things that exist in automobiles only.

As it turns out my check engine light was caused by something in the middle of the severity spectrum, that being a malfunctioning crankcase breather valve. The value has been replaced, the check engine light is off and my car and I are breathing better.

Going Green - Over the top - But still very cool

Now I will admit the Klipsch LightSpeaker is quite expensive and while they suggest it will pay for itself from lower installation costs and energy savings, I am skeptical.

With that said, I have always been a big fan of Klipsch products and products that combine functions (light and music in this case) in a useful manner. Throw in the "green" factor and just maybe Klipsch may have something here.

While my family is even more skeptical (as they normally are about new technologies), this product may be more useful for small retail businesses who need to have music in their store. Combine this with a Pandora capable product such as Livio Radio's and you will have a very nice, easy to install music delivery system.

So until I can convince my family of the value proposition of this product (or the price starts coming down, which it will) I will look for opportunities with my SMB friends and of course look forward to my Technology Plumbing readers. So check out the video and let me know what you think.