Gnomie Ben Wright writes:

Hello, Chris!

I have noticed on many of your YouTube videos that you love to bash your own teaching skills, often referring to how you have been kicked out of your family’s will over arguments about Outlook Express, etc. I come to you today with some tips on how I teach people. The main trend I see that annoys and baffles both students and teachers is superiority. Whenever I am teaching someone I act as their equal and not their superior. I listen to the problem, and wait for them to completely finish before I even begin to answer the question. A short pause after the question has been asked no matter how simplistic it may seem shows the student that you are really taking their query into consideration. After this, start out with a simple overview. Tell them of the things you are going to use to solve the problem and follow KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid). For instance, I don’t bother telling “non-techies” about Launchy or even Windows+Run, instead I would recommend something that fits the needs of the individual and not a wider generalization as I find you often address to the community (e.g. ObjectDock freeware — check it out!). With your videos it is obviously the purpose to generalize as you are addressing a wide audience, but on an individual level it is best to try and address the need of the person you are trying to help.

Be calm and relaxed. You’re teaching the person because you want to; don’t act like it’s a chore or that you are a 1337 hackzor. Be enthusiastic and humble at the same time. Once you have told them how you think (try to phrase the answer as a personal opinion, don’t act as if you know exactly what they want) you can solve the problem, ask them if that’s okay, or if they have any problems. You will be surprised how much you can glean from facial expressions at this point and you will be able to tell if they are confused, or at least they will have the opportunity to tell you. (Of course on the other hand they may think it’s way over the top). Then simply guide them through it as you install the software so they can see from beginning to end. Okay, you don’t have to wait around while the progress bars go by, but if they say they will be back in a second simply get off the computer and stretch your legs or something, so you don’t go ahead without them.

If they look bored, start talking about something other than the task at hand, and slowly ease them back into the issue. This little trick works really well with people who are not that enthusiastic about computers in general. Don’t look at the screen for too long after each couple of steps — look at them (in the eyes). Make sure they understand. Once the program is all up and running, don’t run off. Ask them to try it out; if they don’t have time, don’t pressure them (but it’s always a good way to prevent questions later on).

And that is how you teach people from a social viewpoint. I think this is what you are missing from your teaching ability; that’s why you’re such a good teacher through a camera and not, as you say, in a social scenario. Take this into account when teaching ya paps, ya mum, or Ponzi!

Oh while you’re reading, whats the link to the forums for Lockergnome? (It’s here!)

Gnomie Mike Reda (Lessaj in our chat room) writes:

Dear Chris,

While on YouTube recently, I stumbled across some videos that I thought were really interesting, and figured I would share them. The reason I want to share them is because they express two of my loves — music and technology — and fusing them together to create one. I hope that you and your community can enjoy these videos as much as I have. I’ve been watching you for about a month now, and I want to give you a thumbs up on what you do. It’s my dream.

• The first one is created using sounds from Windows XP and 98.
• The second one uses sounds from Apple OS X.
• The third is created using a Nintendo DS, an iPod Touch and an iPhone.
• The fourth is created using sounds from Windows XP and Windows Vista.
• The last one uses sounds from Windows XP to create a song pertaining to a style of music known as “dark.”

Enjoy!

Gnomie Intrepid writes:

Chris,

I did a search on your blog and noticed you haven’t blogged about this yet. I’ve been using a widget-creating Web app from Widgetbox.com to link to my blog on blogspot.com (to see my “blidget” in action, visit my MySpace page [the profile is NOT set to private], and to view the blog, go here). The site calls widgets for blogs “blidgets,” which is the app I will be describing here. There are other type of widgets you can create there, but I’m only using the “blidget.”

The “blidget,” in summary, allows you to post a widget on a site that lists the recently blogged posts on your blog in a wonderfully looking, easy to read widget. The widget has clickable links back to your blog, so this helps network your blog out to more readers. If they like your blog enough, they can click the “Get Widget” icon at the bottom of the “blidget,” and they can throw it up on other sites, or even their own, and they all link back to your blog.

The shining glory of this Web app is its convenience. The widget automatically knows when you post to your blog and updates the widget automatically, which makes the upkeep of the widget very minimal. If your blog is supported, and most major blogging sites like Blogspot, LiveJournal, and WordPress are, then you just fill your blog link in and start creating (I believe the code is RSS-based). Also, there are several great looking soft gradient colors to choose from, and options varying from showing titles only, or titles with a preview of the blog post. You can also throw a custom icon into the corner of the “blidget” instead of the few selections they have for you via direct URL link to the image. I haven’t made a symbol for my blog yet, so I’m using the default Blogspot “B” icon.

They also allow you to select from a variety of code types, including but not limited to making the “blidget” flash, and a special MySpace code to get around the problem with links in Flash on MySpace. When you click “Get Widget,” a window appears with the several different Web site-specific code types, and the HTML code. It is automatically copied to your clipboard so that it is only a matter of pasting the code where you would like the widget.

There are two incredibly useful tools you can use after you create your “blidget.” After you create a widget, click on the “My Widgetbox” tab from the homepage and then select your widget. Scroll down a little, and this is where you see the first bit of information in an easily readable format. They have a graph that shows how many hits your widget has and on what days the hits occurred. This helps to see how many people have been reading your blog and actually using your widget! The other nice tool they have is the pie chart that shows where people have been clicking on your “blidget.” This shows on what domains your “blidget” has been recieving the most traffic! This helps you see where most of your traffic is being directed from. To get to the pie chart, click on the “View more details” button to the bottom right of the graph.

As far as I know, there’s no limit to how many times you can hotlink the widget or a bandwidth limit, so you can toss it up on several sites without worry. Best of all, its free!

Enjoy your blidget!

Gnomie Robert Frederick writes:

Hello, Chris! I thoroughly enjoyed your chat with Earl Thibert; it is nice to know that his disability hasn’t prevented him from being who he wants to be. I applaud him heavily for what he’s doing, though I would love to ask him how he got into computers. I feel bad because I am not as open about having cerebral palsy as he is, but since mine isn’t severe, I just prefer to stand aside and let those who have it worse than I do take center stage. The odd thing is that I was reading this article at CNN.com when you started your chat with Earl.

It’s kind of a sad article, but an example of what can happen when CP is as bad as it gets (not that the parents helped matters, either). The doctors said that I would also be totally dependent on my mother — pretty much a vegetable. Fortunately it didn’t turn out that way, and I had some good teachers that helped me along the way. It was one of these teachers who had a little extra class that involved activities with Apple IIes. I had a lot of fun with these machines. There were five set up along a wall in the library, three of which had ImageWriter printers. I always tried to get one that the printer hooked up to, as I thoroughly enjoyed making it print banners and other things, just to watch the thing work. Lots of fun times.

I have been trying to get an Apple IIe since, though I actually have an ImagreWriter printer now. As computers go, it was utter simplicity in its operation. You turned the thing on and put the appropriate disk in the floppy drive, typed in a command, and away it went. No activation key, no UAC, no blue screens. Just a simple task of waiting for the program to load. Those were the days.

Oddly enough, the desire to build systems didn’t strike me until I met another librarian in about 1991. He had (at the time) a top-of-the-line, IBM 486-based system with Prodigy Internet, an external 14.4 modem, and a Pioneer 12-disk CD-ROM changer. (I have not seen anything like it since.) It outclassed my mother’s Tandy 1000 TL/2 by a country mile (she’s ashamed to admit that she had that system, by the way. Please do not mention it to her). This librarian was an older guy, but knew quite a bit about the system he had. I credit him with pushing me to get more interested in computers.

At this point I was getting pretty good at being able to completely dismantle a handheld game and reassemble it again. Oddly enough, the most logical thing to do in order to learn to build a system was to take one apart. And guess which system I took apart? The Tandy. It also subsequently became the first system I would clean. Successfully putting it back together again was slow, but it resulted in a machine that was much cleaner than it was before. Mother never knew I had done it, either, and the machine worked perfectly for seven more years (before a dead keyboard BIOS finished it off)! It was fun, but it was only one machine and I was starting to want more.

It took a while, but in 1995 I got a pile of 8088 parts and a dead 8088 system to tinker with from my Uncle Joe, who at this point had picked up on the same thing that the librarian had picked up on four years earlier. One day I spread all of the parts out in front of me, and started working. That was pretty much the way it started. I fixed that dead 8088, and built another. Things went faster after that. 8088 parts became 286, 386, and then 486 parts within a year and a half. The same with the operating systems I used. Direct Access 5.1 became Windows 3.11, and Windows 95 just as fast.

My brother-in-law came into the picture about ‘96-’97, and from his job came my first DX2 66 processor with more RAM, 98 SE, and later, the first real influx of Pentium class parts. At the time I had replaced my 386 DX 40 system (bought at a yard sale for $20 — my first self-bought system) with a 486 DX 2 66 system with 16 MB of RAM and my first 200+ MB drive running Windows 98 SE. this was the system I first got on the Internet with — using a Sportster 14.4 modem!

It wasn’t long after I started using the Internet regularly that my brother-in-law cued me into an e-mail newsletter that he was a big fan of (can you guess who it was by? He hailed from Des Moines, Iowa). It was my first newsletter subscription. I remember him making that Lockergnome Winamp skin that is now lost to time. For the life of us both, we could never find it — or any copy of it for that matter. I got my first taste of Windows 2000 in 2000, of course! After mother helped me build an AMD 400 MHz system with 64 MB of PC 100 RAM and a whopping 6 GB hard drive. I housed the whole mess in an 11-bay, $35 beige tower that had included a 350w PS.

It’s pretty much a blur after that. Windows 2000 gave way to a much anticipated OS called Windows XP, and the systems I worked on flew by as well Dells, HPs, Compaqs, DECs, eMachines, generics (41 systems [mostly gutted] that someone gave me from an auction), and eventually Macs. They were in all types of conditions from near-mint to an HP that I got a couple of months ago that was probably the worst system that I have ever had to clean. I actually had to take this machine outside to work on it. Roaches are the bane of our existence down here in the Florida Panhandle — not the big kind, but the kind that are apparently small enough to turn a neglected 2 GHz Celeron HP into a massive colony. The person had taken one of my Dell 500 MHz systems in exchange for this thing, which she said was no longer reading CDs. Understatement of the year! If I had known what I was going to be dealing with I would have simply tossed it. I guess if your CD-ROM drive were full of roaches and bugs, it wouldn’t read discs either.

“Brown powder” is apt to describe what came out of this system. I tossed the case, power supply, CD-ROM drive, and floppy drive, and scrubbed the board down with isopropyl alchohol. The original 20 MB hard drive was also salvageable, as it actually was one of the cleanest parts of the machine. I was able to mount the thing in a generic case and basically provide my brother with a 2 GHz Celeron system with 512 MB of RAM and a 20 GB hard drive. All for only the cost of the case and power supply. Not bad, but I wouldn’t do it again!

Anyway I’m sorry for the long email (again), but I figured I would let you know a little more about how I have come to view computers as a lifestyle and as a hobby. My disability has prevented me from doing a lot of sports and sometimes I do wish I could do more than I do, but computers are my outlet, and I pretty much go crazy unless I’m working on one (even when I stay up until 5 in the morning, much to my mother’s dismay). So I shouldn’t complain. Some people say it’s a gift having learned what I have without setting foot in a computer literacy classroom, but I just take it in stride. I build and fix systems, just to do it, be it as a favor, or just to donate the system once I’m through cleaning it. After all, I’d rather someone get a chance to have a system rather than see it go into the trash. It’s been a long road from my first experiences with that Apple IIe all those years ago, but I hope that I have a ways to go yet.

Gnomie Ray Wilmoth of Memphis, Tennessee writes:

Didn’t know where to start with this; tried Wikipedia, but couldn’t find any way to post a link to the main story.

The Puppy Grows And Knows Your Name Poodle, on the surface, appears to be a great toy for kids. But only about 3,000 names are programmable, and if your child’s/grandchild’s name isn’t listed, you are out of luck. Then there’s the matter of the puppy’s name — if it’s not on the list, you’re also S.O.O.L.

If that isn’t enough of a surprise, what you don’t find out till you buy the darn thing and open it is that unless you have an A to B USB patch cord, you can’t even find out if you have a puppy that you can download. That little item will run from about an extra $8.00 to $20.00 depending on the quality of cord you get, and try finding one at 7:00 a.m. on Christmas morning!

We love it when the tech news we watch sparks healthy debate! In this case, Robert Alvarez, author of the report cited here, responds to yesterday’s feedback:

I appreciated the comments of Hal Pawloksi’s daughter, who works at the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. However, I’m not sure she has read my actual report, versus the news release about it. Here is the URL for the report (PDF).

With respect to her claims about rapid deployment of nuclear spent fuel recycling and actinide transmutation, I draw your attention to a 1996 report by the National Research Council (NRC) done at the request of the DOE regarding major elements, which now make up the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (reprocessing, transmutation, waste management/disposal etc). The NRC concluded that if full-scale reprocessing and transmutation were successful it would cost $500 billion and take 150 years to accomplish. Perhaps she might want to share the technical and cost basis for her commentary that appears to contradict the National Academy of Sciences.

The United States walked away from reprocessing and breeder reactors by the early 1980s because of proliferation, cost, and technological concerns. France has continued to reprocess and its breeder program effectively halted a few years ago for cost and technological reasons. Of the world-wide plutonium stocks resulting from reprocessing of power reactor fuel, about one third has been used for reactor fuel. The remaining 200 metric tons sits at the reprocessing sites and is enough to fuel some 30,000 nuclear weapons.

Regardless of our disagreement about the significance of radioactive wastes in public debate, DOE’s troubled experience with radiochemical treatment of past reprocessing wastes should serve as a cautionary warning. With a liability in excess of $100 billion, and after 25 years, DOE has treated less than one percent of the radioactivity in defense high-level wastes for geological disposal.

Even though magnitude of radioactivity in wastes generated by the GNEP program would be unprecedented, DOE has yet to provide a credible plan for the safe management and disposal of these wastes. This plan should address waste volumes, disposition paths, site-specific impacts, regulatory requirements and life-cycle costs. Given past failures to address significant waste problems before they were created (Los Alamos is no exception), DOE’s rush to invest major public funds for deployment should be suspended.

Before we spend taxpayer dollars, doesn’t the public deserve to know whether or not GNEP is a downpayment on yet another large radioactive waste “balloon mortgage?”

Tags: gnep, nuclear power, nuclear energy, nuke

In response to yesterday’s Why GNEP Can’t Jump To The Future, Hal Pawlowski writes:

Forwarded the article by Robert Alvarez to my daughter who holds a post doc position at Los Alamos Nuclear Labs for comment. FYI she is exploring a career in the nuclear energy field as she feels (as I do) it is the only logical answer to our growing energy needs. Let me copy her comments here as I think them particularly on the mark:

Dad,

Honestly, I think some of his points have value; however, he is a highly suspect source. His organization is a leftist “think tank,” which, like more leftist groups, will fight against nuclear energy no matter how well-conceived the research and development is. Unfortunately, I feel that GNEP has not been carefully thought out. Nuclear energy has enormous potential but, even three years after its conception, GNEP remains somewhat ill-defined in its implementation. I like the ideas behind it, but the necessary scientific research doesn’t seem to have much structure.

He is wrong about recycling being unproven. France is doing it right now. He is wrong about the breeder reactor technology being unproven. They existed before the U.S. nuclear energy program took a major dive after Chernobyl, and they still exist elsewhere in the world. I think GNEP has a lot of potential, but I believe scientists are fighting for GNEP money to fund their pet projects as opposed to selecting a very narrow cross-section of the best ideas and funding only those. I am hoping to get involved enough to help narrow the focus of the scientific research involving the development of Gen. IV reactors and the advanced fuel cycle in the U.S. before the currently substantiated criticisms of the program kill it.

Nuclear energy has enormous potential, and the advanced fuel cycle has the ability to practically eliminate high-level radioactive waste concerns. And this technology could be brought on line within a decade to utilize the used fuel we already have before Yucca even opens. The designs for such advanced burn reactors exist and, with concentrated effort, such reactors could be constructed and become operational relatively quickly. Again, though, GNEP is not very focused. It has the potential to become a financial black hole. Alvarez’s focus on the wastes, however, destroys much of his credibility for me. He is exploiting a “hot button” to frighten people with a concern that isn’t nearly as bad as people fear it is. ALL nuclear wastes are still being stored on site at the plants. Therefore, the volume is not beyond reckoning as he wants people to believe. And 90% or more of the currently existing waste can be recycled once the technology exists. But he just wants to scare people away from GNEP by pounding his fist on the hot button. That is annoying to me.

My hope is that GNEP will focus on the waste problem by developing and implementing the advanced fuel cycle and advanced burner reactor. Once that is done, which, again, could be done relatively quickly if the focus was there, the hot button waste issues would mostly go away. Then nuclear energy becoming a bigger player in electricity generation (beyond its current 20% or so) in the U.S. would be feasible.

Those are some of my thoughts.

Tags: gnep, nuclear power, nuclear energy, nuke

Sometimes, the email surprises me. This is especially the case with some of the email about the Julie Amero case that has been discussed on these pages and links given on FlyingHamster. A number of the correspondences have centered on the theme that I (and people who are drawing attention to the Amero matter) are “bleeding hearts.” We are supplying to those people using child pornography with what is, in essence, a Twinkie Defense. This is a defense that avoids personal responsibility and blames the actions on an external factor. For example, the sugar in the pastry caused diminished capacity and therefore the defendant is not responsible for the criminal action.

From my perspective, the Amero matter has a valid defense in that the computer was compromised by malware. Can this defense be used by others who are charged with having child pornography? Certainly, it can. However, good professional forensic review of the hard drive is telling. In the Amero case, this was not done.

In fact, a valid and reliable forensic review can strengthen a case. It is possible to specify how the computer was used. The Amero case is not an example of a ‘free pass’ for those involved in the use of child pornography. Instead, it is a matter of the courts and law enforcement being aware of the intricacies of the evidence before them. The Amero case is important because all the factors were not considered - and, moreover, it may be Julie Amero on trial (and waiting on sentencing), but it easily could be you or I.

[Catherine Forsythe, Director of Operations, FlyingHamster]

Tags: twinkie defense, julie amero, malware, child porn, flyinghamster, catherine forsythe

There has been a deluge of misinformation on Net Neutrality (NN) published in the last few months. With a crucial vote scheduled for this week in the House, We hope you will look at the attached materials with an open mind and present both sides of this complex issue in your blog. The following are what we believe to be the Top 5 Myths surrounding NN:
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In response to news that Nissan is developing a gas pedal safety feature, Gnomie Ben Oddo writes:

What a waste of time, effort, and technology. If a driver is too stupid to recognize that a head-on collision is imminent, then that person should not be allowed behind the wheel. Second, if this so called safety system works as designed, then in a crowded highway situation, as a driver to either my left or right side suddenly cuts me off and my car suddenly decelerates, the car that was tailgating me is now in my backseat. Some safety feature.

No, cars will never be even 50% safe as long as the human factor is involved in their operation. Won’t carmakers and governments realize that you cannot substitute gray matter with technology?

Perhaps carmakers are afraid that higher standards for drivers licenses may cut into their sales. Well, with higher standards, there may be more drivers around who will live long enough to buy replacement cars as they age.

The NHTSA claims motor vehicle traffic crashes were the number one cause of death for every age from 3 through 33. Imagine how many more cars would have been sold to the people in that age group had they lived to old age.

“Welcome to the Gripe Wiki. We’ve set this up as a place where readers of Ed Foster’s GripeLog can organize and share their experiences and opinions in the way they think best. Right now we’re still in experimental mode, so we’re going to leave the wiki basically open and unstructured to see how readers think it should work. But the basic goal is to allow you to describe the good and the bad points of the computer products and online services you use.

Featured Article: Anti-Virus Software Overview

As explained in the August 8th GripeLog column, the Gripe Wiki’s first project focuses on the anti-virus software category. Follow the links at the bottom of the overview story to the stories on the various products and make sure your favorite is described accurately. And, since this is part of the GripeLog, you might also want to point out the weak points of products you’ve learned to dislike through bitter experience.”

[Continue reading The Gripe Wiki]

A recent ZDNet article, “Firefox: When is a flaw not a flaw?” presented an interesting point:

One reader even took issue with the claim that Firefox is inherently more secure than [Internet Explorer]. “Firefox may offer some ’security through obscurity,’ but once it gets to any sort of critical mass, then it will be targeted. Since the hackers have the source code, their lives will be that much easier, and when a patched version is released, it will be easy for them to see where the vulnerability is and target older versions.” said one London-based IT worker.

I disagree.
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After posting an article yesterday about the Web Hosting Toy Drive, today I noticed they had received over $1,000 in donations. Proof that there are many giving people, not only in the Web hosting community but in the community of the Internet itself. Once the group had hit $500, the generous folks at iNet Interactive have offered to match the first $500 donated.
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