Geek

Connecting.

Social Media is suppose to be the epitome of human connection but it’s not. Mark and Sheryl and Jack and Biz would all like you to believe that we can connect to each other easier and without a care in the world today versus even a few years ago, but the anonymity of it all just lends itself to screaming, carrying on, assorted hissy fits, and just all around crankiness.

I was flipping through old photos this evening and found the screen cap as shown at the top of this blog entry. Back in the days of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, iChatAV and the like, you’d chat away in group chat boards and then if you wanted to see someone face to face (sometimes for racy reasons, sometimes not), you’d fire up your connected webcam and say hello. Group chat was kind of rare but one-to-one chat was medium-well and it generally felt like you could make friends hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Social Media has kind of ruined the human connection element of technology and that’s sad to me. We could have done great things with a focus on quality interaction one-to-one or few-to-few instead of moving into this “make a duck face in front of a gravestone and post it on the inter webs” thing we have going on today.

Perhaps the network cord will swing back in a saner direction.

6 June 2019 by Geek 0

Commitment to Privacy.

A recent Macworld article highlights Apple’s commitment to user privacy in this digital day and age. An interesting read for all, but especially for the geek minded. The article also highlights the importance of “Sign In with Apple”, the new sign-in initiative from Apple I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

But convenience is only part of what makes Sign In with Apple such an excellent feature. Apple has baked privacy and security so deep into Sign In with Apple that it won’t work unless your account is protected with two-factor authentication. It uses Face ID or Touch ID on the iPhone and iPad. The coolest feature of all: you can opt to use a fake email address that forwards to your real one so the service you’re signing into won’t have access to your contact info.

6 June 2019 by Digital Rights Geek 0

Sign In With Apple.

Image courtesy of CNET

So Apple’s Developers Conference, called “WWDC”, which stands for “Worldwide Developers Conference” is underway in San Jose, California. The event is kicked off with their annual WWDC Keynote, which outlines the plans Apple has for their Operating Systems for the foreseeable future. This year Apple announced updates to all of their operating systems, including bringing iPad its own operating system called iPadOS. This will help separate the iPad from the iPhone experience a little bit.

In recent years Apple has doubled down and gone the extra step with their privacy efforts. Their built-in web browser, Safari, has plenty of privacy options. When shared with an application, location information is anonymized by default. Photo processing is done locally on the device and iCloud data is encrypted by default, without scanning for advertising opportunities.

One of the way ad-based Internet companies track you is by having you use your sign-in information with their service across third party apps. Most Internet users are familiar with message boards with “Sign in with Facebook” or third party apps like Dropbox with “Sign in with Google”. These services are convenient for the user; you don’t have to remember multiple passwords. However, it’s a tracking opportunity for the company providing the sign on service, plus it often forms a two-way information sharing opportunity for the sign on service and the third party application. Things like your name, nickname, email address, birthday, etc. could be shared across this connection. Plus, how many times have you received an email with advertising after using these credentials for a service that is at best vaguely related to the third party offering?

“Sign in with Apple” is a new way of signing in on your Apple devices. Tied with FaceID or TouchID (or other authentication methods, depending on the device), Apple will authenticate your identity and that’s it. If the third party service requires an email address, Apple will generate a random email address that forwards to your address. And that random address is used only for that service. Sick of emails from them? Delete the random address. You don’t need to change your real email address.

This is awesome.

One of my biggest pet peeves of today’s Internet is the amount of tracking and advertising. “Sign in with Apple” will be a great way to help combat that issue.

It’s just another reason I call myself a “Crazy One”.

5 June 2019 by Digital Rights Flickr Geek 1

No Privacy.

Image from techcrunch.com

A recent article in The Daily Dot outlined Facebook’s true stance on privacy: there is no privacy on Facebook.

A lawyer for Facebook argued in court Wednesday that the social media site’s users “have no expectation of privacy.”

According to Law360, Facebook attorney Orin Snyder made the comment while defending the company against a class-action lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“There is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,” Snyder said

I look forward to the day when a disrupter can truly disrupt Facebook. Until then, proceed with caution.

4 June 2019 by Digital Rights Geek 0

Portrait.

I know folks like to talk about how Apple is falling behind the innovation curve. I’ve talked about this as well, after all, during the latest round of Google I/O they talked about a lot of things they’re doing to push technology forward, while at their last event Apple talked about TV shows, games, and credit cards.

I’m really hoping that Apple will surprise us in some small way during Monday’s WWDC Keynote. I look forward to see what they have in store for us.

One thing that I do find amazing about Apple’s efforts is the ease of use their baking into the camera app offerings on their iOS devices. I just snapped this photo using my iPad Pro as I’m writing this blog entry. Using the user-facing camera (I get mixed up with front facing and back facing), I just selected portrait mode, adjusted the angle of my iPad slightly and I was able to take this decent photo of me.

Earl is in the process of switching from his old iMac to a brand new 2019 MacBook Pro with touch bar. As we are going through the files on his old iMac we are coming across photos that we haven’t seen in nearly two decades. We are finding things he created back with his first “lampshade iMac” from the early 2000s when we lived in our first house. While they’re wonderful memories and they make us smile, looking at the quality and how we created those photos to where we are today shows us that Apple is indeed innovating, perhaps so where we really need to innovate.

The company that focuses on privacy and data security for all at an affordable price, and brings us what to celebrate life, work, and our human connection, is the company that is truly innovating, at least in my eyes.

As I said, I’m looking forward to what Apple brings to the world at WWDC starting on Monday. Let’s hope I’m not disappointed.

1 June 2019 by Geek 0

Searching.

From time to time I’ll wander around the Internet, fully indulging my geek mode and affinity for “legacy technology”, and search for hints and scraps of technology I remember from my past. These things are the latest and greatest of the era and ultimately inspired me to be the geeky, dorky software developer I am today.

This evening I stumbled upon some photos of a Data Terminal Systems Series 400 cash register. One of these days I’ll actually get my hands on one of these things.

This particular register looks like it was in a department store of some sort and has an extra row of keys along the top of the keyboard, as well as an extra row of keys along the left hand side.

23 May 2019 by Geek 0

Flight Suit.

So I bought myself a new hoodie for those chilly flights in the airplane.

23 May 2019 by Geek 0

Dilemma.

This is my work Mac. It was assigned to me as my work computer in June 2015. I was a bit of an outlier in the company with this Mac; when I was convinced I should join the company I said I wouldn’t do it unless I could work on a Mac and they relented. I wasn’t the only one using a Mac but the number of us was small. It’s the last generation of MacBook Pro before the new keyboard was introduced to frustrate the masses. I have since been assigned a Dell Windows 10 computer that I don’t use as much as I’m suppose to. My workflow works best on a Mac.

My husband’s iMac is older than this Mac and it’s getting a little long in the tooth. I’ve also been looking for a desktop to use in the same space as my work Mac because I really want to get back into video editing again. I have hours and hours and hours of flight video that I’d like to put together in clever ways to share with the masses. I’m not looking to make money with my flight videos, rather I’m more interested in sharing my passion for aviation as widely as possible.

My husband should have a laptop of some sort. We have tried the iPad Pro route and he doesn’t like the limited experience the iPad currently offers. I know Apple insists that tablet computing is the way of the future, and there are many that use their iPad Pro full-time (in fact, I’m typing this blog entry on my iPad Pro), but in reality, iOS is not there for the average computer user to make the switch to a tablet as their full-time computer. The logical choice would be a 13-inch MacBook Pro with the option of plugging into an external monitor.

Apple’s offerings are so expensive!

So I took a gander through Best Buy last night and I was underwhelmed by every computer I looked at. I typed on premium computers made by Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Toshiba, Samsung, and Microsoft. The closest thing that came to the quality I would expect from a computer in 2019 was the Microsoft Surface line, but there was something I just didn’t enjoy. I don’t know if it was the power connector hanging off like it 2005 or the overwhelming interface of Windows 10, but I was not as impressed as I thought I would be.

Perhaps my expectations are too high.

I was encouraged to see that Apple bumped up the MacBook Pro line yesterday and also announced that they’ve modified the new keyboard design (again) to address the stuck key issue users have been dealing with for literally years. After Best Buy I went to the Apple store last night and played around with a MacBook Pro with TouchBar. It was interesting. I was surprised at how loud the keys were with each press and I wondered if the TouchBar was actually ever used by the average consumer. Looking at the specs of each device I went into geek mode and realized the computers at Best Buy, while not built as well as the Apple devices, had higher specs at a lower price. I really want to make sure this next computer for my husband lasts for a number of years, so I try to get as much RAM and hard drive space as fiscally possible.

I didn’t make any purchases last night.

I think I’m going to end up waiting until after WWDC in a couple of weeks to see what Apple announces in the way of iOS and Mac OS upgrades in 2019. But right now, I feel like the general computing experience for the average user in 2019 is at a weird, uninspiring, lack of innovation limbo of sorts. Prices go up with no real benefit.

We really need the next Steve Jobs, whomever he or she may be, to share their vision and get us moving forward again.

22 May 2019 by Fun and Games Dept Geek Ponderings and Musings 0

Ecofriendly.

My morning walk ended up being an abbreviated event this morning due to the rain that was coming down at the time. I thought I could brave it out but alas, with temperatures in the mid 40s and a decent amount of precipitation, I decided that I would try again to catch up on my step count later in the day.

I did notice that neighbors had their sprinklers running during the rain shower. I’m assuming this is an automated affair; folks just set and forget the sprinkler system to assure a beautiful lawn everyday. This is where I wish folks would embrace sensible technology. We have more than enough ways to determine if it’s raining outside, and an electronic gizmo in the neighborhood of $100 would allow the sprinklers to be smart as to when to deploy. If it’s raining, there’s no sense in deploying the sprinklers for that cycle. Perhaps a more expensive gizmo could determine if the lawn even needs water to begin with.

I’m all for beautiful lawns. I’m all for smart technology. Perhaps the two should be married for a more ecologically responsible union more often.

21 May 2019 by Geek Ponderings and Musings 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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