Bill Ryan's Other Blog

Ok, I’m being a little dramatic, after all the only thing that happened was that Time Magazine moved the Droid to the top of it’s gadget list.  That’s a good sign.  I had an iPhone and I liked it a lot.  And I hate to say it, but it was much better across the board than my comparable Windows Mobile 6.0 Phone.  When my airheadedness took the life of my iPhone, I hopped on the opportunity to get an Android.  I know I’m a Microsoft MVP and Google is the arch enemy but well, I don’t think anyone can blame me.

I like my G1 a lot.  I see way more iPhones out there but I think the Droid is going to take it soon.  As everyone and his brother gets an iPhone, the coolness factor is wearing off – it’s like what happens when the superdorks start listening to the same underground band you were listening to 3 years ago.  Apple fanboys are among the most obnoxious fanboys on Earth. It’s not that they have no right to talk smack, the iPhone set a new standard and forced other competitors to step up to the plate. It’s just that they’ve overplayed their hand. 

Since AT&T was kind enough to give me a Tilt 2 as the prize for the Windows Mobile Race, I’ll be using it for a while.  But I have to admit, it hurts to pass up the Motorola Cliq. We’re counting the days until Windows Mobile 7 comes out – at which point every family member will immediately have the coolest WinMo 7 phone out.  But we’re (I’m) conflicted as to whether or not we need a new Android in the family between now and then.

I want to see Windows Mobile be the force it originally was. I want Microsoft to win.  Yah,I know, “Mr Microsoft” yada yada yada.  But the truth is, I spent a long time learning the Compact Framework and it’s rough thinking about letting it go  (which I won’t do).  A really killer Windows Mobile 7 will be awesome and if it’s half as cool as I’ve heard, the competition between the 3 platforms is going to lead to some seriously awesome sh*z.  Firefox bitch slapped IE across the face and forced it to get a lot better.  iPhone and Android have slapped windows mobile even harder.  Competition, especially fierce competition between 3 powerful, innovative and rich companies with plenty of smart people can only be good for the marketplace.

I’m hoping Android slaps around iPhone for a while… until Windows Mobile 7 comes out and takes it from Android.  Then I’d like to see steady back and forth competition between Andriod and Windows Mobile 7 until the mobile market is so awesome that the singularity is reached, or whatever.  Not sure it’s going to happen like this, but that’s what I’m hoping for.  It’s a small step, but at least the market is recognizing that the iPhone isn’t any cooler than the Android – before long people will realize it’s actually less cool.  But I digress.

[tags]iPhone, Windows Mobile 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Andriod, Motorola Cliq, Android G2, HTC Tilt 2[/tags]

Bruce Schneier covers a Wired story detailing Sprint’s alleged complicity in something that should make your skin crawl.  It’s nothing new, Luna was warning of this stuff since the first draft of How To Be Invisible and several times thereafter.  It may seem that I’m being a tad hypocritical when I say this is a bad thing, after all I find cell phone based snoopware not only cool, but very useful for many folks. Cell phone snoopware is extremely powerful, effective and easily available (and yes, in some cases, legally questionable) so to some extent, it’s silly getting all upset about stuff like this. On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about civillians abusing their power to try to settle  a score with me or make my life miserable.  Without breaking the law, there’s nothing a civillian could do with this sort of stuff to really hurt me [and for the record, I'm using 'me' in the abstract sense here].  Depending on how you spend your free time, someone could ostensibly cause you some embarassment, but there’s plenty of remedies for that sort of thing.

Employees of the various government agencies however, could cause all sorts of problems for people.  For me to effectively make use of snoopware, I’d need to access the phone in most cases and owners would be fully in their power to check for and remove any such snoopware added to their phones.  The same isn’t the case in situations such as the one alleged with Sprint.  If someone bugged my phone and I caught it, I’m entitled to pursue several different legal remedies depending on the circumstances.  If the Sprint story is accurate, the targets weren’t aware of being tracked, couldn’t do anything to detect it and couldn’t do anything to prevent or stop it.

The response from law enforcement types of course is that this is all paranoid nonsense.  If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about they’ll typically argue.  And if they never abused their positions and were perfectly honest, that’d be a plausible defense.  Personally, I think most govt agents are decent enough folks and not prone to abusing their positions, but there’s no disputing there are bad apples.  And just one of those bad apples could cause you a bunch of problems.  Whatever you think of the guy otherwise, look at the example of Joe the Plumber. He got on the bad side of some people with access to his personal information and look what happened.  Had those same people been employees of a private corporation, he’d be sitting on quite a lucrative law suit. (And yes, I know Judicial Watch either offered to or actually filed a suit on his behalf – but had it been a private company, he wouldn’t need a high powered advocacy firm to help him out).

Quoting Chris Soghoian, I can’t imagine how this situation will get addressed without government action and well, it’s probably wise to be the under on that one:

Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers’ (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. This massive disclosure of sensitive customer information was made possible due to the roll-out by Sprint of a new, special web portal for law enforcement officers.The evidence documenting this surveillance program comes in the form of an audio recording of Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance, who described it during a panel discussion at a wiretapping and interception industry conference, held in Washington DC in October of 2009.

It is unclear if Federal law enforcement agencies’ extensive collection of geolocation data should have been disclosed to Congress pursuant to a 1999 law that requires the publication of certain surveillance statistics — since the Department of Justice simply ignores the law, and has not provided the legally mandated reports to Congress since 2004.

One thing is for sure, if a private citizen was caught pulling this exact same thing on members of law enforcement or Congress, Congress’ attitude would be just a weee bit less apathetic about responding. 

The other argument I typically hear is a reference to Evan Ratliff.  If you’re unfamiliar with him, here’s the rest of the story in a nutshell. He’s a free-lance writer and blogger.  He took a gig for Wired magazine that entailed disapparing for a month.  He was to try to hide out and anyone that found him would simply need to say the magic word, and they’d be privvy to a $5,000.00 prize. Ratliff gave it a great go, but before long he was caught. 

Following the story, there’s little doubt that people used inside connections in an attept to follow him.  The extent of that is hard to know for sure, but there’s little doubt that people used friends and contacts at various companies to locate him. Those friends almost certainly did things that, well, were out of the bounds of the companies’ rules.  Does anyone really think that you magically become some ethical angel just b/c you work for the government?  Private sector folks bend the rules so you can rest assured govt folks do it too.

Law Enforcement claims this sort of stuff is necessary.  Law and Order types will claim it’s necessary to fight terrorism and similar bad guys.  Seems to me then, that the solution would be kind of simple.  An evidence rule that gave people immunity from anything not specifically relevant to the prosecution of terrorism in the form of throwing out the evidence, would go a long way to mitigate the damage that could be done by rule benders.  Providing EASY to retrieve records for anyone not currently the target of a terrorism investigation would be another.  Creating a ‘paper trail’ of anyone that looked at a person’s information is not hard and not difficult. Granted that doing anything with govt software is infinitely more difficult than it needs to be, implementing such tracking wouldn’t be cheap.  But that line of argument is essentially advocating the rewarding of incompetence.  And even considering the additional expense, there’s certainly at least one or two unnecessary govt programs we could cut to pay for it. (Defunding NPR for instance would work for me). 

If this sort of stuff is really needed for a specific case to prevent some huge atrocity, fair enough. But some fed using this stuff to hassle some guy banging his ex-girlfriend should never be allowed to happen.  I don’t see how anyone can say such a scenario is unlikely.  So if it did happen, the victim should be able to know about it and sue the hell (and have the person fired, not put on some BS administrative leave) out of the person.  

Another possible remedy would be to allow cell phone proivders to offer “opt out” service. (One might argue that this would be extortion, but I don’t see it any different than paying extra for an unlisted telephone #). I missed the official memo when all cell phones became tracking beacons, but it’s something that could be done without.  So say, for $10.00.00 extra a month, T-Mobile (the best cell phone company on Earth) could offer “Secure” service that meant you couldn’t be tracked.  I know all sorts of people, concerned for my safety should I ever find myself stranded a ditch , would have a fit over such a service, but I’m an adult and I’m willing to live with that risk.  After all, I’ve yet to lose a family member or friend (or even know of someone who has) b/c they weren’t able to be tracked by their cell phone.  But I have come across people who’ve gotten on the bad side of a cop (for matters completely unrelated to the law) and been seriously harassed as a result of it.

We’re not able to stop technology from eroding our privacy and even if we were, we wouldn’t want to.  Moreover, this trend isn’t going anywhere but up.  So the solution seems to be minimizing the incentives for abuses.    To Quote Mr Luna – “Governments hide secrets from their citizens, why shouldn’t citizens be able to hide secrets from governments?”

[tags]Digital Privacy, Sprint, Invasion of Privacy, Snooping[/tags]

The new Cuckoo 1 was delivered last night and Kim and I headed over to pick it up.  The Cuckooette was very enthused by this particular model but didn’t accompany us b/c she was at a sleep over with one of her very cool friends.  (So tonight, she and I will be driving around minus Kim, doing what people do in cars that like to go really fast).  The process was quick and painless and within an hour – we were off:

I wanted a sports car and so did the Cuckooette. Kim wanted anything but a sports car.  My mother seldom inserts herself into family decisions but when she saw the 370z I was originally looking at, she said the following:

Do me a favor would you?  On your way to pick it up, can you stop by the store and buy a really big butcher knife, then stop by and plunge it into my heart.  B/c that’s what buying that stupid car will do to me anyway, but at least it’ll be quick and painless

Mom isn’t above throwing out a bitchin guilt trip here and there when it comes to something she views as life-death. And she was pretty convinced that the 370z would be a continuation of the last Cuckoo 1, and that I’d inevitably get myself killed. Kim’s sentiment was pretty much the same, although she was a little more clever about hiding it

You’re a few years away from being 40, you’re married, with a wife and daughter that need you.  2 Seat cars are for non-married men, or inconsiderate men, and you’re neither.  So you can get whatever car you want, as long as it’s not a 2 seater and as long as it’s not some ridiculous sports car. And yes, a RX-8 is off the list of acceptable vehicles

Then one day, my wife called and said she found the perfect car for me, it was an Infinit G something or other.  I thought, God not only answers prayers, he’s quick to hook a brotha like me up.  My swagga already included:

• Da Dough
• Da Paypah
• Da Hoes (Kim, dear, if you’re reading this and I hope you’re not, I only pluralized Hoes for grammatical consistency, and don’t believe what all those people tell you, Ho is an abbreviated form of ‘Honey’, honest)
• Da Gats (Da feds ain’t the only ones that can Pimp Sigs and Glocks, I pimp a Sig P250 and a Glock 23 and trying to figure out how the hell I can mack around a H&K MP5 like evil movie villains do)
• Da threads (who other than OJ has more Bruno Magli’s then me. Who other than has more Ferragamo’s then me? If Imelda Marcos was a silly fuzzy teddy bear with a touch of gangsta swagga, her name would be Bill)

So now I can add

• Da Whips – as of November 24.  You simply can’t pimp in a Malibu. Period.

You see, for all of her objecting, Kim called one day and had the ‘Perfect’ car for me.  She was pulling up next to it and would let me know what it was.  ‘Oh, it’s a Porsche Cayman, never mind’.  What a bummer that was. So I was bumming, thinking I was about to head straight into dorkville for a while (at least they weren’t demanding a Minivan. So no matter how lame it was, I could at least still have my manhood.  Yes, there’s no such thing as a man that drives a minivan – that’s right.  In fact, if you’ve ever even thought about driving a minivan, then you get kicked out of the club)

A few days later I got the same call, but this time she said “It’s an Infiniti something or other”

Me:  “You mean, the G35 or G37? “

Kim:  “I think so but I’m not sure, its really cool though, I know you’d like it”

Me:  “2 doors?”

Kim:  “Yes, its sporty but looked mature and professional not like something some teenaged hotrodder would drive around. HINT HINT HINT”

Me: “So I can get one?”

Kim: “If you like it and want one, yes, I think that’d be ok.”

Me: “Will you tell my mom that you approve so I can get her off my back?”
Kim: “Well, yes.  Like I said, it looks refined, it’s not a hotrod but it’s still sport”

Me: [Thinking to myself – Will I burn in hell for not pointing out to her that this is the same damned car she and my mom hate, but with 4 seats?  Maybe I should tell her. No, that would be patronizing. She’s a big girl and a hell of a lot smarter than me. She knows what she approves of or not. I don’t need to say a damned word about it mwuahahahahahahahahaha. Behold my Patrick Duffy Leg dammit!”

Me: “Can we go look at them tonight”

Kim: “Well I look for some online but yes, we need to get this taken care of”

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Three days later I was driving home in it.  I wanted to hurry up and buy the thing before she realized it was just a  4 seated version of the 370 because I was renting a car and the period that the insurance company covered it had just run out. So I didn’t check it out very much.  I knew I’d like it so if she was cool with it, I’d be cool with it too.  Upon getting it though – I realized how unbelievably high tech it is.  And I was fully intent on adding to the list.  There’s a little more cabin space and a ton more dashboard space than the previous Cuckoo1 so my dreams could be realized. The following is being as we speak or tonight:

1. Kyocera KR1 – Mobile Travel Router
2. T-Mobile webConnect ™ usb 3G Travel Router
3. Vehicular AC Power Supply
4. Gateway Netbook (and yes little Cuckooette, unless you change your mind and want to go on another super trip to Hollister, I’m sure CuckooClaus will have one of these for you)
5. U2500 Vehicle Laptop Stand

So when Kim and I drive to Fripp Island tomorrow to see Mom and the family, Kim will be able to surf the net in 3G, on a Netbook instead of her Android. Since the Netbook has Windows 7 instead of Vista, it’ll actually be a good experience for her).

But the picture is bigger than this.  We’ve got a few extra notebooks at the house and some tablets too.  The back seats are really small and fitted specifically for function as opposed to space.  The router and webConnect™ enables the car to be a Wi-Fi hotspot and if I understood correctly a full T-Mobile hotspot as well.  Between now and Christmas, the Cuckooette and Kim along with anyone else we may be taking with us can surf the net in relative comfort while driving around town or on trips.  Sure, longer trips may have some down spots but on the whole, the trips we usually take have solid connectivity for most of it.  The Cuckooette's finally coming of age and I’m sure would jump on an opportunity to shed her DS in favor of browsing YouTube with her cumpys.

Two more Zune HD’s have been requested for the remaining members of the household (in the interim, they’ll have to suffer through using their current Zune’s, or borrowing my Zune HD) which can be used to surf the net while driving as well.

At the end of the day, watching YouTube clips is no more value added than watching Hannah Montana or whatever else but I feel  a lot cooler/better about having computer access for the wife and daughter than DVD or movie access. Maybe that’s just my mind trying to rationalize buying more computers and more gadgets but since I’m not the one who’ll be using the stuff primarily (not the computers anyway), I think I can still try to pass off the altruism routine, right?

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If you’re interested in vehicle computer systems, the best place to start is probably Geek My Ride. The book provides several links to a companion site and enthusiast sites as well as vendors who sell the various components.  There is also a lot of other coolness you’ll find in the book (I mean, what’s cooler than a computer geek who drives a RX-8, and a black one no less. Not sure but I know that a computer geek that drives a techhed out G35 has to be right up there). And if you want to check the book out before buying it, It’s available on Google Books.

There are several computers specifically made for cars, most of which are just the case and stuff inside.  Depending on your car and what you’re trying to accomplish, this may or may not be desirable.  Netbooks are so cheap now though – that I highly recommend them for such projects(just make sure you install Windows 7 instead of Vista). You can get Netbooks in all shapes and sizes so from small to large, you’re covered.  What’s more, you don’t have to deal with having a monitor and a computer (although you’ll probably have to work out some sort of fastener for the Netbook including a seatbelt equivalent – unless of course you don’t mind leaving heavy projectiles sitting around your car).  There’s a lot of simplicity here and consider this – I’m about as unskilled when it comes to drilling and installing stuff as a man can be yet I pulled it off without a glitch – I promise you, you can too. Think about this too – what are Netbooks targeted to do?  Browse the web, check email and light editing of office documents (You don’t want to write multiple best selling computer books on a Netbook unless you get yourself a much better keyboard).  That’s exactly the sorts of things you’d primarily due as a passenger in a car – or need in a pinch when you’re driving.  So b/c of price, weight, battery life etc, a Netbook is probably a great choice.

If you’re on a low budget, you can do away with some of this stuff too.

You can do away with the Notebook mount for one thing.  You could build your own or get a small lap based laptop desk. You can also do away with the router. If you don’t have two lovely ladies driving around with you that you want to keep entertained, then you can just Roll Fo Dolo and skip the router.  Save roughly $150.00 on the project

If you don’t need/want to power multiple machines you can do away with the power supply (although you still want a surge protector) as well.  I always have devices that need powered (and now that my wife turned into an Android junkie, she does too) so I got a power supply that could charge multiple items at once. My thinking is that with multiple people actively surfing, I was pretty sure battery life would die more quickly. Save roughly $100.00 on the project

Or you could be completely lame and just skip the internet connection, but I can’t think of much fun in that case. Save roughly $50.00 on the project up front, and then monthly costs of the plan

I’m going to ask Kim to post a review of the experience after we get home this weekend.  The Cuckooette will likely want to provide a review of her experience as well – with a little luck I may be able to provide that this evening. Sure, I’m going to write about how cool the stuff is, b/c I’m a gadget geek and I went through all the trouble of setting it up (which honestly, wasn’t much trouble at all – I was shocked at how easy it was). However the end users (Kim and the Cuckooette and maybe some of her friends once they’ve had a chance to see it in action) are going to be less tolerant of things that don’t go well and will have a different perspective altogether.  I think their reviews will be particularly insightful.

[tags] Geek my ride, Car Computing, Mobile Computing, Android, T-Mobile Hot Spot, Netbook, Kyocera KR1, Mobile Router, Gateway Netbook, Netbook, Bill Ryan, Kim Ryan, Cuckooette, Windows 7, Windows 7 vs Vista, Infiniti G37 [/tags]

You’ll find the definition says "Chris Tacke and everyone else at OpenNetCF”.  I consider myself a pretty creative guy and am more than willing to step out of the traditional bounds of doing things when they don’t fit my needs.  If a tool doesn’t work, I’m more than willing to toss it out and either build my own or find something else that does work… Most of the time anyway.

Unit tests are an interesting issue.  People are often complete dumbasses really passionate about it one way or the other.  There are many (typically developers who hate writing code and love the thought of having Manager on their business cards) who completely disavow the utility of unit testing. Advocates on the other hand usually evolve into zealots and can’t imagine coding without unit tests.  Personally, I had a little trouble getting my head around unit testing at first (well, using mocks specifically) but quickly became a true believer (although I don’t get all butthurt get bothered if I see someone else writing code without having written the test for it first).  At first I pretty much stuck to only unit testing stuff I got paid for.  Then little by little, I started doing it in personal projects.  The CuckooBot, StripperBot and the bot who’s name can not be used in public would never have been the successes they were had I not made such liberal use of unit testing.  Actually that’s not totally true – I should say I started doing it for most of my personal projects.  Because when I’m doing Smart Device Programming – I avoid it like the plague.

Why?  I’ll let someone a lot smarter and much more eloquent than myself answer that.

And while your reading up on things, I encourage you to take a look at Project Resistance and the IoC Framework as well. 

Chris links to it in his post but I’d like to draw attention to it as well.  This is the official solution to the problem according to Microsoft.  I realize everyone is very busy with important stuff like Silverlight and Windows Mobile 7, but if you’re going to publish a solution that inadequate, it’s probably better to just publish nothing at all. To me, this would be like a car company finding out Model X had a problem that kept it from starting up when it got below X degrees or above Y degrees and offering the following solution:

1. Wake up 20 minutes earlier than you normally do on work days.
2. Get dressed and eat breakfast 20 minutes earlier as well
3. Put on some comfortable shoes and walk to work

I understand it’s very easy to be a critic and no one on the Windows Mobile team is dumb, lazy, apathetic or uncaring (they are all exactly the opposite), especially when it comes to things that inconvenience end users.  But the proposed solution is so bad you have to wonder if it wasn’t just ‘thrown out there” so someone could check it off of a TODO list or something

I recently posted a link about an invite I got regarding Jim Stein’s new book, The Right Decision.  There was a contest regarding one of the topics covered in the book and it looks like I won.

I haven’t read the book yet but I already know I’ll love it.  I can’t wait for it to get here.  I’ll be doing a LOT of travelling the next few weeks and that’s when I get a lot of power reading done.  If you have any other suggestions for cool books – i’m game (non-fiction.  Unless the fiction stuff is just that awesome).

The Windows Mobile Race folks got back to me last night and I’m definitely in.  So I’ll be heading to Seattle on Friday and I’ll be back in Greenville Monday. I hope we’re as lucky at this contest as I was with The Right Decision – wish me luck!

I haven’t used it personally although I’m going to see if I can get a copy of it.  Apparently there’s a Terrorism Survival Program available for Windows Mobile.  Personally, I don’t think a mobile phone is the best venue to manage a terrorist event from as a primary vehicle.  I can certainly see how you might want to update records from the field though and that could be huge. Especially if you can snap pictures and upload them real-time.  This became really evident this last week as I first heard of the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks on XM Radio.  They sounded bad but once I started to see the pictures of it, the magnitude of the situation really started to sink in.  I can imagine if you’re working on one of the response teams, seeing what you’re walking into would be very helpful and if you’re in the command center, it would be very helpful for decision making.  Many such scenarios aren’t going to be very friendly to data transmissions but in such cases, I doubt anyone would be looking any gift horse in the mouth.

 Without actually using it it’s hard to make much relevant commentary but I am definitely pleased to see such creative implementations being built.  Devices are quickly becoming first class members of the computer scene and just about every day I find some new application that’s not only original but useful. For so long applications other than games or utlities seemed to be solutions in search of problems rather than the other way around. Now that’s starting to change.

Although I can’t claim credit for the following idea, it’s one worth remembering. Devices are starting to take off b/c more and more useful applications are being built (allowed by more reliable and performant devices). Yet there’s still no ‘compelling application’ built for devices. When one is, devices will probably be the primary computer we use, or at least they’ll be used as much as we use our ‘big’ computer.  A compelling application is one that, is so useful you’ll buy the hardware just to have.

For desktop computers, Office Products (an Email client, a Word processor, a Spreadsheet and/or Presentation software) comprise the compelling application. Microsoft’s Office became the defacto standard but what made everyone want to have a computer was the ability to easily send and recieve email and/or the ability to create electronic documents and/or the ability to do impressive calculations and present them accordingly.  This drove demand for computer hardware which in turn put tremendous competitive pressure on hardware manufacturers.  This drove down prices and next thing you know everyone has a computer, or two or three or four.

The next compelling application was the internet browser.  People would gladly buy a computer simply to have an ability to surf the internet.

One could argue that Wifi really became the compelling application (albiet more hardware in nature than software) that drove notebook sales.

Blackberry’s push technology became the compelling application that really made mobile devices ubiquitous. But that’s merely an extension of what we’ve already had. 

At some point, there will be a compelling applicaiton made for devices that really drives it home. At that point, everyone will have a full featured ‘smart phone’.  It will simply be too costly and too inconvenient to be one of those “I like my phones simple, i don’t need all that ‘crap’ on it, I just need something to make calls with” people.

Terrorism Survival software isn’t going to be the compelling application for mobile devices, but it’s darned cool to see that devices are being extended and are having such items built for them.  There’s no doubt more powerful devices and a larger user base are allowing developers to build cooler and more useful stuff. [tags] Terrorism, Terrorism Survival, Windows Mobile, Mobile Devices, Microsoft [/tags]