AG's Blog

Getting ready for postseason

Yes, I know we've not yet clinched we clinched today. Taking 2 of 3 in New England this weekend was not necessary to secure the AL East and 98th consecutive divisional title. It will also likely end the fantasy that Bosox have experienced over the last 300+ days. The sputtering Indians kept Bosox in the hunt for post season play. It's very likely that Boston will again knock on the door in Bx to decide who will win the AL Pennant.

The only change I'd make to the lineup would be to move Mussina down in the pitching rotation. I'm not sure how healthy he really is now. It also is a shame that Mendoza hasn't had the opportunity to pitch more. Not sure why Torre hasn't run him out there to get more innings. I suspect that he isn't quite healthy. Our PH capability isn't very much to write home about, much like our long relief. Unfortunately, we can't hand the ball to Aaron Small for long relief each day. Our starters will be expected to give 6-7 innings each game during the post season. YanksBlog.com » The Chosen 25

Stifling copyright

I'm not sure if anyone will really understand the ramifications of overly aggressive copyright. Methinks, 20yrs is far too long to prevent works from going into the public domain. In most cases, books older than 20yrs are so obscure, it would to the author good to have them digitized and indexed by Google's powerful Linux servers. Hell, it will boost the sales of some of these supposed lost titles, as most people are more likely to read the printed text. E-books really haven't captured the imagination of the masses yet.

90% Crud: Google vs. Book Monopolists

From the reuse department

Have you ever wondered happened to the 5.25" floppy that has become depricated? Did they end up in land fills? Some of them probably did, but the article below illustrates are very clever method to make use of those old guys. Now if I could just get my hands on a stack...

Boing Boing: 5.25" floppies make great CD sleeves

Feedburner

I've decided to use Feedburner to manage my feeds. Please note the changes on right side navigation menu.. Please update your newsreaders accordingly.

Treo ecstasy

Lately, I have begun to really appreciate having purchased the Treo 600. Granted I'm using a somewhat dated model, as the Treo 650 is already on the street, but I just wanted to share my delight. Besides, I paid roughly a third of the cost for the unlocked phone, so I got huge savings. You've got to realize that prior to getting this powerful smartphone, I limped along with a Samsung N400. The features on my old phone pale in comparison to the Treo. Before I get into the features, I want to share this little story... I went into Rat Shack err, I mean Radio Shack to pick up an CD adapter (2.5mm to 3.5mm female), so that I can listen to mp3, ogg, files stored on the Treo (more on this later). I was expounding on some of the coolness of the Treo with one of my buddies (he's saddled with a Pocket PC), we go back on forth about which device is better. We're always challenging each other.. It's like can yours do this? You get the idea.

Just then cashier shoots me a look and utters, "I'm not a fan of the Treo." I asked, "Why not ?" She then pulled out her 'clamshell' style cell phone, opened and then closed it. She sneered, "Can yours do this ?" I smiled at her purchased my stuff and left. I thought to myself, "She is pathetic."

Obviously, the Treo doesn't fold. However, I believe that is probably the only feature, (if you choose to call it that) I don't possess.

Anyway, back to the feature comparison:

SMS
On my old N400, I really hated when anyone would send me a SMS msg, as I would have to fuddle around to enable the web browser, connect with the Sprint 3G network. What a royal PITA. Hell, by the time I actually got to the message, the urgency of the moment was long gone.

The Treo handles SMS as regular phone call. It simply chimes or vibrates depending on your alert strategy. You then have the option to reply and begin a discussion or simply ignore it. Basically, you don't have to navigate the 3G network for a simple msg.

Data Storage
Secure Digital card storage slot (I have a 1GB San Disk) is really slick. Yeah, I know there are phones that contain memory sticks which allow you to store numbers and a few files, but most of them are proprietary and thus are only useful on phones of the same model. Now, I store audio files to go, so it's great for listening to some of my favorite podcasts. Pocket Tunes and others are great audio players.

I can also backup all of my software apps, contacts, etc. Additionally, you can also play movies on the Treo. Yes, I said movies. Although, I've not tried it, I imagine that all you need is the appropriate decoder or player. Any .mp4 or divx file should play just fine.

Instant Messaging
There are also a fair number of IM clients for the Treo. I use the Agile Messenger, and it works quite well. it supports a plethora of IM clients (AIM, Jabber, Yahoo, etc). So, there is no reason to ever miss an IM.

Email
Yes, Treo does email too. Snapper mail is a fairly good email client. I've not yet had the need to get to my private web-based email, but it also supports Hotmail, G-Mail etc. If you're concerned about syncing with your office email account, Treo also supports this with Goodlink.

Podcasting
If you're super nerd like me. You'll love the fact that you can actually podcast with the Treo. Repeat after me, Ipod what? Who needs em. I grabbed the free SoundRec app which can be used to record audio for podcasting. Future versions will include .mp3 encoding of .wav files.

Palm OS
Treo is equipped with palm 5.0. As most of you know, I'm a fervent advocate of Open platforms. According to the founders of Palm, Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, the platform was always intended to be open, so that developers would be to extend the use of the OS. This would explain why there are a plethora of apps for Palm and a dearth of apps for Pocket PC and Blackberry.

Web browsing
The Sprint 3G network is always available simply by selecting the browse button on the Treo. You can also use the Treo as a wireless modem. I have found this particularly useful when you're in an airport and I've needed 3G network a

Some negatives:

• The phone does not support bluetooth natively, so you'll need to find a kludge solution. At one time I used the Jabra Freespeak BT200, but it was totally unreliable.

• It does not have native Wi-Fi support, so you'll need to purchase an adapter that will work with the device. I've been pretty happy using the Sprint 3G network tho.

• Tiny thumb keys are a problem for a guy who was long fat fingers. However, I use the graffiti everywhere utility to circumvent this annoyance.
  

Last word:

Perhaps one of the most useful apps is the Call Filter
Despite what some might think, I'm actually a fairly private guy. I don't do a whole lot of talking on the phone, as I'm very busy with school etc. Hence, filtering incoming calls are paramount to my productivity. So, I was amazed to learn the I could actually manage calls before they hit my inbox. This cool app allows you to manage banks of phone numbers and provide default actions for each.

So there you have it.. Treo is a productivity tool for anyone that enjoys swiss army knife approach to wireless communications. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I do not own a land line, so it's important for me to have a very extensible and robust home cellular solution. Eventually, I'll upgrade to the Treo 650, but I'm not really in a rush. The native bluetooth capability is a feature that I would really love.

If you think the Treo would be a good solution for you, make sure you visit Treonauts. The site is chock full of apps and niceness for your smartphones.

All of you Sidekick, BlackBerry and PocketPC users, can your device do any of this???

Church musings

I have never been a church attendee, the reasons are numerous. I'll get into them later in this post. I do recall being a child/teenager, and being forced to attend. Well, I should not say forced, I was expected to behave as my Southern relatives. That is, all of them went to church each Sunday. So, if they graciously permitted me to stay with them during the Summer, as I escaped from the streets of NY, I had better conform to their rituals. As I grew older, I began to respectfully question the routine. Later I would travel the world and experience different cultures, and really understand some of the problems caused by religion or its mininterpretation. These days I only enter a church or chapel when a wedding is underway(I've never attended a funeral).

Anyway, I had been invited twice by a co-worker. The first invitiation was politely declined, and I explained my stance. Nonetheless, another such request was extended and I figured I would accept, so that I would be left alone..
(Aside: I caught a snippet of Bernie Mac's sitcom- the one where he was forced to attend the 'prototypical black church very funny.)

Well, I get to the church @ 7.30a for morning service. I was immediately, consumed with sensory overload. There was a woman yelling what seemed to be high-pitch gibberish. Reminded me of the old Albee Square mall. I was later told that it was prayer over the mic. The sheer size of the church was something to behold. It was absolutely immense. There were three huge monitors, reminiscent of a sports arena. After about 25min of the high pitch yelling, we treated to the series of songs and finally the choir made an entrance and did a couple of hymns. What I found interesting was that all of the words to the hymns were also available while singing and music was going on. Pretty intense.

At this point I ask when we're going to be able to sit down as it was now about 8.40a. The pastor made an entrance and ran through some announcements which were also displayed up on the monitors. Lost children or rather kids who got separated from parents while at this massive facility were also listed on the monitors too.

Before we were allowed to sit, all of the visitors were requested to stay standing. All the church goers in the their respective rows then began singing the 'welcoming' song to the newcomer.. I was serenaded by several people. Very different indeed. They also made it a point to provide a contact/registration card. Quite thorough. By this time I was very relieved to finally be seated. A collection was taken up, I dropped my buck in the bucket.

The speaker was introduced, a pastor from NO, I was pretty interested in what he had to say considering the recent events in that city. His talk was prefaced by host pastor stating that the NO pastor would tell the everyone about what was really going on in NOLA. You know, stuff that you didn't get from the news. Hmm. I wondered if he'd somehow tapped into the blogosphere.

Anyway, the NO pastor insisted that his church and home was untouched because of prayer. He went onto say many other things that were a bit more interesting to me. He began to mix politics with religion. I really don't think religion has any place in politics or vice versa. So in my mind, he made a cardinal sin (pun intended). What the idea of separation of church and state? He attacked the NO mayor and governor and stated that Bush shared no blame in relief debacle. Whether you agree or disagree, I again state that this conversation has no place in a church. Lot's of amens abound.. He insisted that racism was not at the core of the events in NO, but he consistently referred to people in his story as blacks or them people. Oh yeah, he also talked about his Hummer too and took a jab at those other religions (ie Islam, Judaism).

The only value I got out of his talk was the concept of being gracious and giving. Everything else was of no use to me. In fact, he hadn't said very much that had not already been repeated in the mainstream press (raping, pillaging, looting).

As the service came to a close (approx 9.55a), a request was made for all people who wish to be 'born again' to come to the front. I thought to myself, "Why be born again to die again?" I digress. An old man in the row in front of me, invited me to go to the front and be 'saved'. He said he'd go up with me. I said, "Nah, I'm good." and smiled. Lots of people went up tho. After those people proceeded to go out with cheers and promise of free information. They allowed us to leave. I made a path to the exit with haste. I looked back to find my co-worker, I wanted to 'express' myself, but thought better of it. Instead, I graciously offered thanks for the invitation. I'll wait a few days to collect my thoughts and then share with her.

For balance, let me add some positives. I was told the church raised $200K for the Katrina victims. Very good. Judging from the size of the congregation, and immense size of the building, they could raise significantly more.

Aiiight.. These are the reasons I typically don't attend church(short list):

• Too many churches are grandiose and pretentious
  
• Most fall short in the area of economic development
  
• Many are bloodsuckers of the poor
  
• Typically there aren't many messages that talk about self-mastery
  
• Too much time is spent postering over who's religion is best
  

Is prayer the answer to everything? IMHO, methinks not. Self-esteem can be had by knowledge of self, persistence and love by those of like mind and spirit. I'm not at all clear that you can get all of that from reading a Bible or going to a building each Sunday. I dunno, I suppose I'm deaf, dumb and blind (triple darkness). I disagree, my vision is quite clear, 3rd eye is always open. It's just that my belief system is quite different. To each his own.

No said date

Don't look now but the Bombers are in the heat of a pennant race. I was very pessemistic due to their slow start, but I'm sure that team in New England can hear footsteps, and their record shows it. The emergence of Giambi, Big Unit, A-Rod, and Cano (pictured above) is enough to scare anyone. Enough can't be said about the former castaways Chacon and Small.
These guys have done a yeoman's effort shoring up a pitching rotation beset with injuries. Between them they have at least ten quality starts which has thrusted the Bx Bombers into playoff contention. Of course the very steady closer duo of Gordon and Rivera have made it impossible for opponents to score in the eighth and ninth innings.

I'm very confident that the last three games against the Bosox will determine the AL East winner. I can't determine exactly when we will claim first place, but the victory will be sweet and the revenge exacting.

VOIP galore

Is it just me or has there suddenly been an outbreak of interest in VOIP clients for the mainstream?
You've got Skype, Google-Talk, Gizmo Project, and for the GNU headz, you have the super cool Gnomemeeting.

I suppose that before you can begin to have an appreciation of the technology, one must understand the origins of the simple IM clients. Yes, I was an early adopter of this stuff. Heck, before people fell in love with the GUI, people used text based IRC which was essentially one of the earliest real-time chat software pkgs(circa 1992). If you want to take it a step further, you could argue that the talk utility that is ubiquitous to most UNIX and Unix-like operating systems predated IRC. It gave people the ability to have unimpeded 1-on-1 conversations. Yep, it was pretty cool to be able to connect immediately to your buddy and have a short conversation.

Then something pretty interesting happened that would forever change IP communcation. Let's quickly zoom ahead in time to say 1998, people wanted to communicate from the comfort of their homes. The problem was that the majority were running M$ on their desktop PC. Gates and company had finally discovered the power of the internet somewhere around 1995, and there was a proliferation of windows boxen on the net. Unfortunately, wherever there are M$ boxes, viruses, spam, and trojans are soon to follow. So the various ISPs (AOL, Earthlink, etc), developed a huge FUD campaign which basically told all their customers to get a firewall because they did not want an infested network. So people bit on the hype and began to buy hardware and software firewalls.

Another ill side-effect of having a huge growth spurt of computers was the imminent shortage of IP addresses. So NAT was implemented to address the latter problem.

Soon, many of the more simplistic IP based communication programs no longer worked because they knew nothing about NAT or any other IP spoofing tactics. Straight IP-to-IP conversation ended and ushered in a new method of IP communication. So, now everyone is behind NAT'd firewalls. Many people use a router from their preferred vendor (ie. Linksys, Belkan, etc). As an exercise, I used Smoothwall, and haven't looked back since. Perhaps the only people who aren't using NAT would be the diehard dial-up modem users. Not everyone is very happy with the aftermath of the NAT revolution.
Take a look at John Walker's take on the affects of NAT.

Now that you've had your history lesson, it's time to discuss some of the GUI based P2P chat packages and their successors VOIP client.

Actually, I started with ICQ, I've forgotten my ICQ number, but you can get by visiting my old site. Later, I tried the now defunct firetalk because I wanted to have voice, not just a text chat. It became immediately clear that talking to people via the PC was really cool. I just didn't know very many people that had a clue about making phone calls via the computer. Eventually, people caught on due to the rising costs of telephone long distance. Understand that this was _well_ before the cell phones littered the US.

I especially liked firetalk because it allowed me to use whiteboard, while I conferenced. I talked with my brother in Haiti and people in Jamaica. It was a pretty cool program(albeit for M$ platform).

So, are people ready for VOIP? Not really sure. Some vendors are staking their future on the success of VOIP. Ebay has acquired Skype with hopes of increasing its revenue and stealing the technology. Dunno about you but I don't want to chat with any of the customers who buy my stuff on Ebay. I just want the money. No complaints about seller ratings either.
Not really sure what benefit Skype will provide to EBay customers. Then again, it really never is about customer satisfaction.

Vonage and Comcast offer VOIP service. If you want rid yourself of having to pay a service provider, you could build your own PBX, by using Asterisk. Yeah, Open source saves the day again...

Digital Fallacy?

So, what has happened to the promise of the ubiquitous digital home? It appears that the hype has not been realized in most households. As the article below suggests, the average user is unaware of the vision of the new digital arena.
While vendors like M$, Apple, and others struggle for dominance over this space, smart consumers are wondering how to avoid the dreaded vendor lock-in.

The author fails to mention how Open source can level the playing and give the consumer choice over how their dollars are spent. Heck TIVO (which is powered by Linux) has become the killer-app that has the cable providers giants (ie Time Warner) scrambling to find other means to reclaim the lost advertising revenue.

I suppose it remains to be seen whether or not the digital experience will be widespread through the average household.

The digital home | Science fiction? | Economist.com

CVS to the rescue

Although, I don't typically frequent CVS stores; however, they are as common as dandelion in most major cities. These are the types of stories that the mainstream press should share with everyone.

I'm sure that they lost a great deal of revenue, but it will certainly galvanize themselves as a terrific corporate citizen. Public perception is extremely powerful and should bode well for this growing pharmacy/convenience chain.

A stark contrast to Wal-Mart, huh..

CVS decides to stay put, help recovery - The Boston Globe

Handheld Server

Innovation of Open Source vendors never ceases to amaze. I find it very interesting that 20 yrs ago people asked, "How do you make money from free (as in beer) software?"

Now it appears that there a literally thousands of ways to make money from Linux and other Open Source projects.

Granted that anyone who has been working w/Linux for any substantial length of time could build their own server, I do think the product is pretty slick anyway.

RED HERRING | Linux Server Fits in Pocket

Disparity of wealth spells certain doom

While there is probably enough blame to go around, and far too much finger pointing. The sad truth is that if we learn nothing else about the Katrina tradegy and subsequent Home Land Security debacle, America still has a very big socio-economic divide. I would argue that it is perhaps more evident in the South. Our economy is in dire straits and it seems that the gap between the 'haves and have-nots' is clearly widening. While our government officials enjoy a lavish vacations and shoppingsprees, I often wonder who will solve the problem. The working poor are in serious trouble.

On a brighter note, I just returned from a local evacuee center. Although my offerings of laundry detergent were quite meager, considering the hundreds of families which are being hosted in Detroit, I mention it here to perhaps make the point that any contribution is much needed.

Bonus: If anyone is interested, take a look at the new NO satellite image. Pre and post Katrina. Quite sobering

Ejovi Nuwere » What we want to think

Infotainment innovation

Finally, there is actually something innovative in the auto infotainment market.

I'd love to think that Ford had something to do about this, but I'm sure that this is absolutely not the case.

Mazda Ditches Cylinder Locks in Favor of USB Key

Flag Party

As I stated in an earlier post, I spent a couple of weeks at home. During the time I was in the BK , I read a powerful book, watched Yankee baseball, and even got a chance to eat a pretty good Haitian restaurant (thx Edwige).

Additionally, I also got a chance to see my pops off on his first trip overseas in nearly 15yrs. He'll be visiting Amsterdam and Israel. If I weren't suffering through grad school, I would've joined him.

Perhaps the highlight of my stay (secretly the real reason I went home), was Eastern P'kwy jaunt, or West Indian Carnival. Leading up to the parade, there are many night parties. I got a chance to hit Club Tobago in Qns. Nuff calypso and reggae for the whole night. I'd forgotten about the wining skills of the yard girls dem. Anyway, about the parade..

I've been to several parades on the p'kwy, and each year there are many more Jamaican floats loaded with choice dancehall celebs (ie Beenie Man, Shinehead, Mr. Vegas, Capleton, Sizzla, etc.), but this year was different. There must have been four or five Haitian floats, which had a fairly large contingency. In fact, the Trini floats did not seem to have very much fanfare this year.

The float shown in the caption above vowed to donate any winnings to the Katrina disaster relief effort in La.

Google - The empire

I'm sure most of you are already familiar with the power of Google. I consider the search engine a ubiquitous tool, that I could scarcely imagine doing without. However, Google has many other very cool tools which most people have not yet discovered(ie. Gmail, Google-Talk, Google Maps, Froogle, etc). The article below attempts to compare Google's growth with that Redmond company that I love to hate.

For the record, I do not worry about the rapid growth of Google, because their success is based upon Open Source technologies, which do not lend themselves to vendor lock-in.

PBS | I, Cringely . August 25, 2005 - Has Google Peaked?

Block Parties

Street festivals are part of the many attractions that make NYC quite different than other cities. As a young child and teenager, I always looked forward to the Atlantic Antic or the Labor Day parade(more on this in a future post).

I always enjoyed crush of the people and the delicious food and unique sights and sounds.
People would always have their sound 'equipment' on the street with police barracades. The private block parties dwindled in the early to mid-90's due police permits and a bit of gun play.

So, whenever I do get a glimpse of private block party, I get hit with a bit of nostalgia.
Good vibes..

Block Parties, Street Fairs, Street Festivals (Gotham Gazette. August, 2005)

Katrina - Disdain for mainstream media

Actually, I had other material to share with you, but as I have been home enjoying myself. I have also taken a walk down memory lane too. More on this later. However, I am compelled to comment on the devastation, and what I classify as poor and despicable media coverage of the events in New Orleans. As most of you have already witnessed, there is a great deal of poverty in the rural sections of NO. What I find disturbing is the constant images of the looting and pillaging. Naturally, they paint the image of poor blacks on a rampage. What is NOT told is the story of destitude and hopelessness of a people with no way out. Personally, I would do whatever is necessary to feed my family. If I thought I could make money of a flat screen TV, it would be under my arm with a quickness. The reality here is that no calvary was on the way to help anyone in the rural communities or the inner-city.

Some people have decided to draw parallels between the Tsunami that struck SE Asia and parts of Africa. I have no idea of the death toll in NO, suffice to say that it will be quite substantial. Additionally, I would also suspect that looting took place in SE Asia too. The difference is that the US media constantly denigrates black people. What is not shared with the masses is the goodwill that is going on, and the cooperation of the residence in the area.

I have had it with mainstream media, this is one of the reasons why the blogosphere is so important, as I believe people need to see and understand the counterpoint. Here are some images that I gleened from the flickrati community. No, you won't see these images on your local news because there isn't enough high drama. Not good enough for false TV ratings and bullshit.

I've also included the relevant technorati metadata for your review. If you really want sensible information on the regarding the relief efforts and citizens of the NO, you really aren't going to get it from FOX or the other blood sucking networks. If you don't find any of the information that I've shared compelling, then continue to watch channel zero and keep your third-eye closed.

Update:Audio of WWL-AM interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. Must listen.

I recently spoke to a group of NYPD plainclothes, and I was told that a volunteer police force will be sent to NO, to help support the security detail.