168 posts tagged “computers”
This article alludes to some companies offering employees choice in their gear. It would be a very interesting model. It has been argued that Windows PCs have a lead because that's what people are issued at work (a "fleet sales" versus "family sales" argument). It would be interesting to see what this would do to market share.
I do know I would have a very different machine at work!
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I received an invitation to the beta of Google Wave. I discovered something rather interesting. While the Big Three alternative browsers are represented (Firefox, Safari, and Chrome), it does not include Microsoft Internet Explore on its lists of browsers supported without question. A rather curious state of affairs.
In 1952, he was, in effect, tried for being gay--unreliable in the face of espionage. This set off a chain of events that culminated in his suicide.
The Gordon Brown, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, has apologized for this, and has honored him as the hero he is.
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I have a task, but not the right tools.
A large data set was presented to me, full of network addresses. Network addresses look like this:
192.168.125.211
10.1.23.8
They are always four sets of numbers, typically separated by a period. Part of this refers to the network the computer is on; the other part, the specific device. Think of it as the street and house number of your address. In the first example, 192.168.125 would be the network; .211 would be the specific device*
I need to relate each line to which network it is on, by cross-referencing another spreadsheet. The thing I need to do is split out the network of each host. Excel has several text formulas, but for them to work well, the data set has to be of fixed length. As you can see from the two examples, this could range from seven to fifteen characters. I needed to pull everything up to the last period. There is a search function. So, if I assume my data is in A1, I put in:
LEFT(A1,FIND(".",A1,5))
This would search for a period after the fifth character. It would work for the second example, but not the first. So, I had to put a bit more logic into it:
IF(LEN(A1)>11,LEFT(A1,FIND(".",A1,10)),LEFT(A1,FIND(".",A1,5)))
This variation first looks at the overall length of the address, and begins the search at different points. This got me closer, though there was still a fair bit of manual clean-up (cases where my 11-character line doesn't quite work right).
Several computer languages, such as Perl, support regular expressions. Thick books have been written about them. If you master them, they can be quite powerful. It's like mastering the Force. My dilemma was much simpler. I could do something like this:
A1=~ /(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)\.\d+/
The "\d" says to match a digit. Followed by the plus, it will match one or more digit. The "\." says to match a period (a period has another meaning in regular expressions). As the first three sets of digits are encased in parenthesis, meaning to treat that as a group. I could then refer to that chunk. A Perl script for this would look like this:
open(INFILE,"dataset.txt");
while($line=<INFILE>) {
$line=~ /(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)\.\d+/;
print $1;
}
close(INFILE)
My Perl is a bit rusty, but you get the gist. It will print my addresses. Note that was done in about a minute off the top of my head.
A quick Google, and there is some VB code you can use to execute this, but I don't know it. Most people who would have my exact task probably wouldn't. So, round-about ways are required. Anyone have better ideas?
*This is a very simplistic explanation of subnetting, intended for those who do not get into the bowels of networks too often. I know there are a lot more nuances than this. However, please bare in mind I my audience has a substantial non-technical component, and, given the task and data set I'm working with, not completely relevant.
At the same time, perspective must be taken. While there are absolutely systems that require it (I would want at least five nines for an ICU), other things are simply annoyances.
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What computer accessories and peripherals can't you live without?
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At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, out of the box, my MacBook as pretty much everything I need. In contrast. I find the trackpad quite useful. In contrast, for the work-issued BlinkPad, an external mouse is pretty much a must. By definition, it gives my WiFi, a camera, etc.
That said, I pretty much take having a secondary monitor for a given. At work, I have once connected all the time, keeping data on both screens. At home, if I am doing work at my desk, I often have one running. This is handy when trying to refer to data on a web page while working with another program, dedicating a monitor to an e-mail client, or other task.
I find I'm quite fond of USB in general, and hard drives in particular. It's quite handy to be able to pop on a hard drive to do a back up prior to an OS upgrade, archive off some data, or otherwise grab extra space. I wish we had those back when I was doing desktop support for a living.
Many of you know I'm a fan of Chipotle. Not only do they make the most excellent burritos, they sponsor a bike team. So, I was quite excited when they released an ordering application for the iPhone. I don't do take-out from there too often, but, with the addition of one to Fountain Square, it happens a bit more. Plus, it shows where you can find their restaurants while on the road.
I was nosing around preferences for something else, I noticed there was a section for Chipotle. The application was fairly straight-forward, so I was curious what options could be set.
A Best Practice for Information Technology is to fix bugs and create functionality on development ("dev") servers. The changes are migrated to a staging environment, which should be the exact same configuration as its final resting place, production. The end users (consumers in the case of eCommerce) would usually only interact with "Prod."
Why is there an option to "Use dev. server?" The default is set to yes--why are we doing that? Also, why would my orders go to a lab? Are they going to turn me into a mutant.
My guess is that they were developer options that were left in by mistake. Or, they are planning for the next release. At the end of the day, so long as I get burrito goodness, I'm happy.
This morning's XKCD describes what I find frustrating about open source operating systems. There is a tendency to hit some particular interest (which may expand the ability of computers), but to the detriment of broader usability.
From the design to the features, what should the perfect kid-friendly laptop include? What would you leave out?
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This is a hard one. "Kid-friendly" could mean friendly to a toddler, or to a pre-teen. It's going to be something they will play on, communicate with the world on, and do school work. I suppose some common features to both would be:
- Intel-based, so it can run either Windows, UNIX, or a UNIX-based operating system.
- I would rather it be UNIX (specifically OS X), as it is generally less prone to malware, viruses, etc. Right now, however, compatibility with Windows is probably needed for a lot of things (from school work to games that come with Chick-Fil-A). An acceptable compromise, for me, would be dual-booting or virtualization. It should be a mostly-mainstream operating system, rather than something limited (i.e. LINUX rather than Plan 9). The fact is, while they will be using the computer to learn "reading and writing," they will become familiar with the practical application of a tool they will use when they get out into the real world.
- A fair degree of toughness. I would anticipate this beast to be dropped once or twice, or have something spilled on it, etc.
- Either a very low cost, or enough capacity to be viable for at least four years.
- To that end, components such as batteries, hard drives, and RAM that can be upgraded painlessly. Other components (such as screens) should be able to be replaced (for repairs) with relative ease and minimal unavailability.
- Plenty of USB ports (at least three)
- In an ideal world, all of these devices---regardless of manufacture--would have a common AC adapter. Odds are, someone is going to leave it at home.
- A good keyboard. The one on the ThinkPad I was just issued at work is aweful.
- Some degree of parental controls. While I would not want to be totally draconian*, I would want the ability to exercise controls as required. This can include ensuring the child is not playing when there is homework to be done, to keeping the kid safe online.
- Relative to the "last four years" notion, I could see multiple sizes, at least for things like keyboards. I bought my daughter a kid-specific keyboard. The spacing of the keys is smaller--I can't touch-type on it easily, but it is perfect for her.
- Make it look fun (cool colors!) but not branded (i.e. I would not buy a Disney Princess or Transformers laptop). I want this to last four years, so I don't want someone to object because they've fallen in love with a new character. Stickers can bridge the gap between a pink laptop and a pink Hello Kitty laptop.
- I want to pick it, and ideally determine some of the core software (operating system most notably). If it is going to be on my network at some point, I don't want the school district putting the network I communicate with the office at risk.
- There would need to be some way to hard-set some settings. For instance, I would want the ability to set some sort of volume limitation on the headphone jack.
- The original iBook had a handle. This seems like a good idea.
- Perhaps I'm a bit of a retro-grouch, but I think it would need an optical drive.
- While I don't see it being a full-on tablet, the ability to flip the screen around (like the OLPC) strikes me as a good idea. Put a couple of buttons on the front, and it can be an eBook reader (think textbooks).
- Stupid little thing: my prior laptop for work had a slot on the bottom where I could slip a business card. This pleased me, as I could just flip over the laptop to see which one was mine. I would like to see this.
- Thoughtful arrangement of ports. I would rather the laptop not be prescriptive as to how I arrange my desk.
- Minimal use of dongles and pigtails (little cables that convert one port type to another (think the Mini-DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter I had to get for my MacBook). Most of the time, it should be good-to-go with only the laptop and the AC adapter in the bag. In other words, minimize the amount of things that can be lost.
Truth be told, most of this would be on my personal wish-list (or at least appreciated). Truth be told, I'd rather get a good laptop than a less-good-but-kid-optimized one. I'm a bit of a Mac zealot right now, and I would rather get that. In fact, of the things on my list that are truly important, a MacBook would fit quite nicely (fitting about half of what I list, and about 80% of what I would regard as key requirements).
*My personal approach would be to block sites on an very limited and selective basis, and with good reason. I also would not trust some of the services that create a blocking list, but don't share the blocking list.
I was issued a new laptop at work today. It is a Lenovo ThinkPad, which has immediately been nicknamed the BlinkPad. Like the handlebar tape earlier this week, it will clearly need some getting used to.
The keyboard is different than the old WorkTop, but that's typical of laptops in general. You get used to one layout, and it's hard when there is something new. It sounds different...louder. As I typed this, coworkers asked if I was angry.
The ports are in an odd place. The cables aren't quite long enough. It fits on my desk funny.
Don't get me wrong. The old WorkTop needed something--at the very least, a fresh OS load. My theory is that for truly personal systems, such as laptops (especially those running Windows), a fresh load every year or two is a must. So much junk gets added and removed, things get shut down improperly, etc, that a clean start is required.
The catch is that as of a few months ago, I would wind up getting Windows Vista.
The BlinkPad has Vista.
It is every bit as bad as they say. Every time I do something, such as install something, create a folder, or join a network, it asks me if I'm sure. If it was a quick dialog on critical things (like on OS X), it'd be OK. However, it is quite frequent (creating a folder?!?), and invasive. Instead of a quick dialog, the whole screen flashes like it is changing resolution, then, it greys out everything except a dialog. I click "OK" (yes, I want to create this folder), and the process reverses. Annoying.
The look is too cute, and you can't turn it off. OS X is cute, but subtly so. This is like "see, we can be fun too."
In any case, I'm stuck with this beast for a few years or I find a new job. So, let's welcome the BlinkPad.
