A Craftsman Should Choose His Tools

I have long said that a craftsman should choose his tools.  Indeed, I have long practiced it, to the extent that corporate IT departments have allowed it.

For many years, my primary computer was a tablet PC. (Compaq Concerto 1992(? when did it come out?) to 1998; a Toshiba Portege 3500 at AMD in 2002-4.  Intel IT stopped this.)

I have often used my own Biomorph computer desk at work.  (Intel, AMD, and now at IV.  But Intel IT stopped this 2004-2009.)

I nearly always provide my own keyboard, separate numeric pad, and trackball.

At work today I have provided all of my own displays:  3 1920x1200 24" displays, with USB display adapters.  I think this makes me much more productive than using the company standard 1680x1050 monitor.

At the end of the day, my productivity is my own responsibility.  If better tools help me be more productive, good on me.

Mobile Docking Mobile

I wish that I could "dock" my iPod shuffle with my smartphone.

Actually, I wish that my iPod shuffle could download new podcasts for me to listen to over the air (OTA).  But I can understand how that might be difficult for a device as small as the iPod shuffle.

But I wish that I could control my iPod shuff;e from my smartphone.  I don't want to mess with no stinking PC no longer!

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Another possibility: make it possible to ssh or https *into* an iPod shuffle. Give it USB bridged to Ethernet, so that it can charge, and be controlled, from the web.  Or tether it to a USB phone.  Or wireless (battery, again).

Nvidia Secret Sauce for ECC?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx-480-and-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/4

See http://semipublic.comp-arch.net/wiki/Poor_Man%27s_ECC

In particular
US patent 7,117,421, Transparent error correction code memory system and method,
Danilak,
assigned to Nvidia,
2002.

http://semipublic.comp-arch.net/wiki/Poor_Man%27s_ECC#Optimizing_Poor_Man.27s_ECC

I should blog about that, but...

At happy hour with MH this afternoon [*] MH and I talked about something that I thought would make a good blog topic (at which MH groaned).

But, I forgot what it was.

Times like this I wished I had a lifestream camera sitting on my shoulder, recording everything.

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[*]: going to "Happy Hour" is a new thing for me, only happening on days when (1) I am in town, (2) not busy doing other stuff, and (3) want to catch up with friends from Portland who I do not see the rest of the week when I am in Bellevue.

Turbotax 2009 requires admin

Taxes.  TurboTax DVD requires admin to read.  Worse, fails to install, and the recommended fix is to "Run As" admin with prejudice.  TurboTax blames .NET, but I think it is a TurboTax bug.

This is a security risk.  If security problems occur as a result of it, TurboTax should be liable.

Microsoft Security Essentials (Virus Scan)

While I am happy that Microsoft is making Microsoft Security Essentials virus scanning available freely, so that we can imagine that such security is a standard part of the operating system...  While I am happy to see this, I must admit that I wonder whether Microsoft will be as conscientious scanning for errors in non Microsoft software such as FireFox or Adobe as it is in scanning Microsoft software.  This could become a powerful force for lock-in: Microsoft software is scanned for security flaws better than other software.  Plus, of course, in Windows 7 non Microsoft virus scanners are deprecated.

Speech recognition and gmail

Can you hear me now?:

I have long been annoyed that have not been able to process my Google mail using voice recognition, in either FireFox nor Internet Explorer.

I am quite happy to report that voice recognition (windows vista) works pretty well with the thunderbird IMAP interface to google mail.

This has allowed me to process my backlog of 300 personal google mail messages fairly painlessly, without aggravating my RSI.  Mainly saying "delete".

As you can see, it also works not so badly for blogging.