Bruce Schneier writes today about a pernicious loss of privacy and our complacency about that:
Fewer conversations are ephemeral, and we’re losing control over the data. We trust our ISPs, employers and cellphone companies with our privacy, but again and again they’ve proven they can’t be trusted. Identity thieves routinely gain access to these repositories of our information. Paris Hilton and other celebrities have been the victims of hackers breaking into their cellphone providers’ networks. Google reads our Gmail and inserts context-dependent ads.
Last one from Meramec:
(By the way, most of the photos on the site are displayed at one-quarter size; you can open them in a new browser window, or save them to disk, to see them at larger sizes.)
CNet raises an interesting problem: what happens if you die without telling anyone your passwords? It could be a real problem for your heirs:
"He did not keep a hard copy address book. I think everything was online," said [San Francisco poet William] Talcott's daughter, Julie Talcott-Fuller. "There were people he knew that I haven't been able to contact. It's been very hard."
"Yahoo (his e-mail provider) said it wouldn't give out the information due to privacy laws, but my dad is dead so I don't understand that," she said.
One solution is to use a secure password storage facility, like Bruce Schneier's Password Safe, and then put the master password in trusted escrow like a safe-deposit box or your attorney's office. Of course, you'll have to keep up with this, because you'll change your master password at least every three months, right?
Anne found this really cool link to a live webcam pointed at an African watering hole. Or maybe it's CSPAN, given the number of baboons on display.
Last week, my puppy Parker chewed through a laptop power cord. The fortunate part of this was that he munched on the DC lead, causing the laptop to shut down immediately when it detected the short. Had he gotten through the AC lead it might have been a lot worse.
In due course I ordered a new adapter from Dell. In my haste I ordered the wrong adapter, which I didn't realize until I opened the package. So I got in touch with Dell by email to request an RMA and shipping instructions.
Here's the great customer service part. Even though it was my fault that I got the wrong adapter, they're sending me a pre-paid UPS shipping label and eating the shipping costs. When I wrote back to customer service to say, no, really, my fault, I'm happy to pay for the shipping, I got this reply:
Dear Mr. Braverman:
Thank you for your reply.
I understand that you have placed the order for the wrong item erroneously however, please be informed that the pick is already scheduled with ups carrier and the tracking number is also generated.
I request you to wait until the carrier comes and picks up the package. I am elated to serve an esteemed customer like you and customer satisfaction is our main priority and I assure you it is our hope that you have a positive experience with our company in future also.
Mr. Braverman, I hope this takes care of your concern, please feel free to contact me for any additional support.
Thank you for choosing Dell.
Respectfully,
Shemochi_K
Customer Care Specialist
ABU Customer eCare
Dell Inc.
I am so happy to have such an elated customer-service rep. That just doesn't happen every day. It does, however, show why I buy from Dell.
The Daily Parker is now, officially, http://www.thedailyparker.com/. The old address (http://www.thedailyparker.com/) will continue to work indefinitely, but the new address is cooler.
Not content with being a contributor on The Daily Parker, Anne has created Parker a Dogster page.
Competition for TDP? Woof.
Both of my blogs are now up: the Inner Drive Software blog, in which I will write about matters of professional interest (i.e., software, computers, security, and business); and The Daily Parker, in which I talk about nearly everything else.
All of this required upgrading dasBlog on my servers, figuring out which theme to use, customizing the themes, and configuring the blogs. Despite my initial experience with dasBlog when I first started using it, I think the current version (1.9) is really quite slick and usable. Good work, Newtelligence AG.
I shall now do something completely different, like play with the dog.
I'm David Braverman, and this is my blog.
This blog has actually been around for nearly a year, giving me time to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Initially, I called it "The WASP Blog," the acronym meaning "Weather, Anne, Software, and Politics." It turns out that I have more than four interests, and I post to the blog a lot, so those four categories got kind of large.
I also got kind of tired of the old colors.
And, today, I finally had the time to upgrade to das Blog 1.9, which came out just a few days ago.
I may add categories as time goes on, and I'm going to start using sub-cagetories. But at this point, here are the main topics on the Daily Parker:
- Anne. For reasons that passeth understanding, she married me, and now she's the most important part of my life. And now that I've dropped the clever acronym, she can be Topic #1.
- Biking. I ride my bikes a lot. This year I prepared for two Century rides but, alas, my gallbladder decided to explode earlier this month. I might not have a lot to say for the next few months, but next year, I have big plans.
- Jokes. All right, I admit: when I'm strapped for ideas, sometimes I just post a dumb joke.
- Parker, our dog, whom we adopted on September 1st.
- Politics. I'm a moderate-leftie by International standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's United States. More than 848 days and 22 hours remain in the worst presidential administration in history, so I have plenty to write about.
- Software. I own a small software company in Evanston, Illinois, and I have some experience writing software. I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code. Posts in this blog about software will likely be cross-posted from the blog I'm about to start, Inner Drive Software.
- The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than seven years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. Many weather posts also touch politics, given the political implications of addressing climate change under a President who's beholden to the oil industry.
This is public writing, too, so I hope to continue a standard of literacy (i.e., spelling, grammar, and diction) and fluidity of prose that makes you want to keep reading.
So thanks for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy the blog.