FeedMe

Knol

New from Google is the "Knol." Interesting idea. They've made it extremely easy for anyone to write an article on anything. For instance, I posted an article on how to make lemon sorbet (the same article appears here, in the FeedMe blog).

Google's company mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." They have noted that the entire Internet contains a fraction of a percent of the world's knowledge. The vast majority is in people's heads. (Yahoo has talked about the same idea.) This is a way to soak up some of what's in our brains.

A lot of press on Knol is calling it a Wikipedia competitor but frankly, I think they are missing the point. Unlike Wikipedia, Knol is not collaborative: only the author controls the content. They have very few rules or editorial controls. There are no rules requiring a neutral point of view or restricting conflict of interest. Multiple articles on the same topic can be posted. They are trusting that their search product will properly prioritize all this, along with the rest of the web.

This seems like a significant marketing opportunity. Is there a "first-in" advantage? Should we rush in to write about technical topics that benefit our companies, with links to our company websites?

Not sure, but for now, I am sharing my sorbet recipe.

(You can see all my articles -- just three so far -- by starting at my own knol page.)

(P.S. The knol system is a bit buggy. It sometimes won't load and with Firefox, it is currently not letting me sign in, though it works with Safari. Earlier today, it worked with Firefox. Its search is presently not finding any of my articles, even though they are in the system. I expect it will settle down over the next few days. Google has a motto: "Release early and often." Good think Boeing doesn't follow that philosophy.)

Walk, Drive, Bus...

Google Maps has added walking directions. They already had public transit in some areas. They include a lot of helpful information, in addition to the router.

 For instance, I can drive the 3.5 miles from work to home in 8 minutes. On foot, the route is quite different but the distance is that same. Google thinks it would take 1 hour, 11 minutes (obviously, they don't take into account any ice cream stores en route).

By bus, they tell me it will take 58 minutes — and cost $1.75. They also tell me it would be $2.05 to drive. Again, no ice cream is factored in.

Nicely done. Though it's in beta, the walking route matches what I would choose.

I love the fact that Google keeps improving their systems. By the way, if you didn't know — one of the coolest features of Google maps is that you can click and drag to change a route. If their directions send you up 101 but you prefer to take 280, drag the route line over to 280 and a new route will be drawn, using the points you request.

Firefox 3

I usually let new software soak a while but for some insane reason, I jumped in.

It's awesome. Nice features, much faster. A few of my add-ins are not compatible but the only one that mattered (Google's bookmark sync) has a substitute (Foxmark).

Me like.

Google Health Joins Microsoft HealthVault

With the release of Google Health will come, I expect, another round of privacy paranoia. I wrote about this before, when Microsoft's HealthVault appeared. Both services are voluntary but it doesn't take much insight to recognize that before long, you won't have a choice. Your medical records will be consolidated and networked and if you want health care, you will be in the databases — just as you are if you drive a car, use a credit card, or have a job.

It is perhaps unnerving that the institutions that are rushing forward to fill the need are companies committed to cataloging and sharing information. But I think that's a good thing: These companies have a lot to lose if any of the information escapes.

Regardless of who does it, there is an urgent need. Health care makes poor use of information technology now, way behind other industries. There are great benefits in economy, efficiency, quality of medical service — and privacy. Consolidated records are safer. Most of us now have dozens of records, all different, under poor control, in each doctor's office, hospital, diagnostic lab, or pharmacy. Few of us even know where all our records are. I think this is a boon and it's been a long time coming. 

Stupidest Password Restriction

One of my pet peeves is stupid login or password restrictions. What it means is that for this login only, I have to use a different password. Some require you include numbers, some require numbers be between letters...

The stupidest one ever came up today. Blue Cross / Blue Shield requires:

Your password cannot contain the first three letters of a month (for example: Jan, Feb, Mar). Please try again. Thank you.                             

WHAT?

So if your password is Janet32puppy or imamartian, you're hosed?

Morons.

End rant.

Maker Faire, May 3-4

For those in the Bay Area, I would encourage you to attend Maker Faire. May 3-4 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds -- and not to be missed!

I went last year and vowed next time to go both days. It's huge and full of really, really fascinatng exhibits and brilliant ideas. Lots of free stuff.

What is it? It's the heart and soul of do-it-yourself. Hundreds of people who make stuff and love what they do so much that they stand for 12-hour days waiting for people to come by and gawk at their magic. Organizations and museums that have created hands-on demos you can play with.

If you like metal and fire, gears and gadgets, Legos and things that move, honk, squirt, squeak, spark, and belch, you have to go.

See: http://makerfaire.com/

Comic Compressed

This is very cool. Alt comic artist Meredith Gran posted a timelapse video of the creation of her comic, Octopus Pie. Hypnotic and revealing of the artist's process, this shows four hours of drawing in a few minutes. Way cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeKWsf1UzEg

Electronic Translation

I think we have a ways to go before machines can translate text. We received this at work.

Note the last sentence, in the P.S.

The customer is asking about samples that did not arrive:

The top of the morning to you. Ex rubs weeks not get to my house samples disposal ( 499923; 499390; 498997; 498983; 498218; 497302; 497294; 497285; 497181; 497179) Whether item what yourselves history ex commissioned sample? Warm-heartedly thank you too those whom received. Readies produces panel LED built of disposal your part. Very I am set on it disposal part whose plannings shopping are not to level pcs/ yer. If you please of correspondent on that deal. If you please quote nr touch to can pay in dollar too ordered disposal. Good day.

P.S.Pardon me too my english. Beneficiary ex translating program.

Backup Rules

Is your computer backed up? Are you 100% confident your backups are complete and up to date?

I didn't think so.

Here are rules for a secure backup.

1. Like exercise, the best backup is one you will actually do. Automation is essential, unless you are very disciplined.

2. You need two! You never know a backup is bad (corrupted, missing, has been failing without your knowing it) until you need it.

3. Best is to have two using completely different mechanisms. For instance, one might be a copy that runs via a nightly script and another could be a backup program, and each goes to separate media.

4. One should be a total backup (so you can recover everything on your disks and be up and running quickly); the other can be just essential files. The total backup should be hard-drive based.

5. You should have something offsite. You may neglect this, thinking it's for fire, which is not so likely. But you should also think of theft. If a thief takes your computer, they will probably take your USB drive and may scoop up any CDs or DVDs they see.

This can be a much smaller set (e.g. your e-mail, docs folders, important preferences). To do this, use an online backup service or use DVDs with two sets, one of which is offsite (e.g. at the office). Swap the DVD sets weekly.

6. You can use a USB or FireWire external drive, or a separate drive mounted in another computer on your local network.

Tools

I use EMC Retrospect as my primary. It backs up all the Macs and Windows on my network to multiple sets and supports DVD. I have two DVD sets, one of which is in the office.

My secondary is DejaVu (for Mac) which mirrors the whole drive to a separate disk (you can use the similar SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner).

I will probably use Apple's Time Machine soon.

If you have suggestions for backup programs or services, please add a comment.

Health Records Online: A Matter of Trust

A new online service, HealthVault.com, provides a single, web-accessible repository for all your health records. There is much here to like, but — there are a lot of buts.

It has always bothered me that every new doctor or medical service asks the same questions, and each with a separate form. Dentist, specialists, emergency clinics, labs, pharmacies — same questions, again and again. What drugs are you taking? Which of these diseases have you had? Family medical history. It's inconvenient but more important, it compromises one's health care: I'll bet I have answered these 100 times and there are certainly differences, either because things have changed or I don't remember every detail.

This can be important information: A doctor's diagnosis and treatment depend on what the doctor knows about you. And in an urgent situation, or when the patient is not lucid, having accessible medical records can be life and death. I really want better online medical records.

As a technologist, it makes me especially crazy. Everyone else, from the DMV to the grocery store, has an online record system that is better than the medical community's. There are legitimate issues but nothing that can't be solved — and that have already been solved. Every medical office can readily access my credit information already. Clearly we can solve the privacy and networking and access issues.

Some worry about the security issue: Having all your medical data in some centralized database worries people. But do you really think your privacy is more guarded when there are 25 uncontrolled, unencrypted copies of your records, in 25 medical offices all over the county, immediately readable by 100 office staff?

Along comes HealthVault. It's a good start. It keeps all the information for you and your family under what looks like tight security. It holds contact and profile information, medical records, etc. You can upload image files and documents. The sharing facilities seem robust — you can invite someone to view the information and choose what they may see.

Two issues are access and trust. In terms of access, will my doctors accept a HealthVault login as a substitute for their form? Not yet, but they have a few partners who are using the date.

The bigger issue is trust. Note that I did not say "security" — that's a technical issue. It's the human issue of trust that will make or break this, and other, medical automation solutions.

HealthVault is owned by Microsoft. Do you trust Microsoft? I don't share the common distrust of of their corporate intent — I think they mean well and their corporate ethos is that technology is powerful medicine to help people. They also believe that profit and benefit go hand in hand. So I trust their intent.

I am not sure if I trust their technology. They're competent technologists. They certainly are capable of making an accessible, trustworthy, secure system. But will they?

Every Microsoft product is full of defects. Even after years of refinement, glitches remain — sometimes the same issues for year after year.

I worry about bloat. Huge applications mean more opportunity for bugs and functional flaws and Microsoft often seems to not know how to say no to a feature. Worse, they keep adding rather than fixing — a palette, an assistant, a wizard, a "ribbon" — layer upon layer of new things to repair incomprehensible interfaces only a programmer could have designed.

This all affects usability. I am always in awe of what they spend on usability testing and redesign. They seem incapable of simplicity. The continuous repair tells me they know there is a problem but don't know how they are causing it.

Then there are the bugs. I registered and in the process discovered four bugs. Some were cosmetic or minor functional issues, such as a spray of Javascript across the top of one page. There were many user interface oddities. Right now, it logged me out and won't let me log in. Most people at this point would give up. I went in through the top of the application and found a screen that let me sign in.

I tried to edit my contact information. There is no link to let me do that. I think I know why. I haven't confirmed my identity by replying to the e-mail, but guess what: It's not telling me that. There is no Edit link and they give the user no clue. It's programmer-think: If a capability is not available, don't show it. Would Apple or Amazon or Yahoo have done this?

So, will I use this? Even without my doctors' buy-in, there is enough functionality for me to get started. But that's mostly because I am a tech geek. Others would not likely try this, yet.

And then there is the trust issue.

I expect that the underlying security is fine. But it's like the president of United Airlines once said, "If the tray tables are dirty, the customer has to be wondering about the condition of the engines." As much as I may want this service, I am not going to be uploading my data, given how dirty their tray tables are.