All Appropriate Technologies Blog — A blog about efficiency and effectiveness of technology.
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In defense of the humble fax

September 5, 2008 – 6:05 am

This morning, while reading a post in another blog, I saw an off-the-cuff remark saying that fax machines are no longer relevant. I would like to stand in the fax machine’s defense.

Of course, the argument is that e-maul is the better option. To a certain extent, this is true. I would propose, however, the email doesn’t solve every problem.

Suppose, for instance, that you have a paper document that you need top get to someone else quickly. No, you can not get the electronic original, so what do you do?

If you have a scanner, you open up your scanning software, which will bring up the TWAIN or SANE interface. You fidget with a boatload of configuration options. You put your original on the glass and click “scan”. You then wait as your document is very slowly scanned into your machine. You put your next page on the glass and repeat. You save this all as a file. You attach the file to an email and send.

If you have a scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF), then it is a little better, because you don’t have to change the pages. The rest is still a pain in the ass.

If you had a fax machine, on the other hand, you would drop the pages in the feeder, dial a number and hit “start” before walking away and letting the machine do the rest.

Now, mind you, there are some newer printer/scanner models (particularly by Xerox) that can make sending an email attachment really easy … But they are a pain to set up. People whose VCRs blinked “12:00″ all through the 90s wouldn’t stand a chance.

Lastly, there is the matter of spam. Both by email and by fax, spam is illegal. That said, spam by fax can be enforced, because you can always trace it back. You cannot transmit a virus to a fax machine, and so no botnets of faxes.

So as you can see, I don’t agree that the fax machine is done. Endangered, sure, but hardly done.

Glenn Lasher | Telephone, Crap tech, Spam | Comments (0)

Lost translation

August 29, 2008 – 6:02 am

One of our four local grocery store chains has, in the last couple of years, put in place a system of credit/debit card machines which can be used not only in English, but also Spanish and French. I speak all three languages, and so I tried it out.

It has problems. In English, of course, it works perfectly. In French or Spanish, however, the messages are in the selected language, while the buttons on the touch screen are still in English.

Now, I grant that someone in this country, even a visitor, will probably be able to get by in English, so I really find this glitch more amusing than anything else.

Glenn Lasher | Point of Sale | Comments (0)

They don’t make broadband like they used to.

August 25, 2008 – 8:15 pm

SF Gate has a story about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who have started imposing usage caps on what was previously “unlimited” internet service.  I find this trend to be troubling.

In a nutshell, the ISPs are placing limits on how much you can download.  They provide you with this connection tha can deliver potentially 3 terabytes of data per month (that’s 3,072 gigabytes) and hook you up to an Internet full of rich content including streaming audio and video, and then they tell you you have to stop at 5 gigabytes per month.

Now, I understand, they need to maintain their network, and the network couldn’t possibly handle the load of everyone on it downloading at full speed all the time, but if your network hasn’t got the balls to do its job, then don’t sell it like it does.

From my own perspective, I am a user of open-source software, all of which I download (this is 100% legal with open source),  and that can easily add up to more than the 5GB monthly cap imposed in some areas.  As such, I will personally consider it grounds for dismissal for my ISP if I am placed under such ridiculous limits.

On the other hand, options are slim.  While there exist other broadband ISPs, I can choose to go to an inferior technolgy (DSL), or to sign a two-year contract with many other restricitons that Road Runner doesn’t impose, and I am just not up for that.

I think that the only way we will overcome this and prevent the ISP business from going completely to hell is to make sure that the ISPs are aware that this is not acceptable.  Write your ISP today and tell them so.

Incidentally, while I am generally opposed to starting and spreading conspiracy theories, I am going to fuel the fire a little, and point out the obvious:  Road Runner is a Time-Warner brand, and Time-Warner is a movie studio (Warner Brothers), publisher (Time-Life), and cable TV provider.  The Internet potentially competes with all of these interests.  Similarly, Verizon is now in the process of breaking into the cable TV market by way of FiOS TV, and yes, the Internet competes with them there.  Both of these companies also provide telephone service, and so may also have a vested interest in voice over IP (VoIP) services such as Vonage being untenable to use.  Usage caps can make all of these uses difficult, and it doesn’t take a conspiracy, only a conflict of interest.

Glenn Lasher | Internet | Comments (2)

Playing nice together

August 21, 2008 – 4:28 pm

I’ve been finding, as time goes on, places where multiple technologies have been deployed together, with some sort of common function, but without the level of integration to make the all play together nicely.

The local public transit authority’s busses are a prime example. On one bus, we find all of the following: a two-way radio, a fare box, an electronic marqee on the front, an electronic marquee on the side, an electronic marquee on the inside, a recorded announcement outside the bus, a recorded announcement inside the bus, and a GPS.

The two-way radio and fare box could be inmdependent of the rest of the gear, but aren’t. This allows the dispatchers to know where the busses are and whether or not the fare boxes should be emptied. I honestly have no way to know if that part works or not.

The marquee on the front and side of the bus know what route the bus is on, or else they would be unable to display “57X Schenectady/Albany Express” as well as they do. That part of the technology, at least, seems to work well.

Likewise, the marquee inside the bus displays usually accurate info on where the next stop is, indicating that it has both route and GPS data.

The recordings, on the other hand, seem lately not to have a clue. The outdoor announcements have been reduced to simply “eastbound” or the like, rather than a full description of the route.

The indoor announcements have fared even worse, going so far as to announce stops that not only are wrong, but are miles away from the route.

What is needed, I think, is a central brain for all of this gear. It should take the GPS data and route data, drive the marquees and announcements, and talk to HQ via the radio. The reduction in independent systems would not only reduce confusion, but it would also make less work for the bus driver, make any error immediately apparent, and, best of all, by reducing the complexity, it sould reduce the cost.

Glenn Lasher | GPS, Crap tech, Bug, Automation | Comments (0)

Confusion of ideas

August 20, 2008 – 6:40 am

Every now and then, I raed something that just makes me shake my head in disbelief. The problem usually stems from a misunderstanding of time when it is related to energy.

This morning, while reading an article on a green energy project, I saw such a confusion. The article was about a project that could produce $40 wind turbines for the third world.

So how much energy do these $40 turbines produce? Well, accorfing to the article, it is enough to run a home’s lights for a day, or a radio for a couple of days.

HUH?!?

So after running a radio for a couple of days, it just keels over and stops working? It better be cheaper than $40 if that is the case.

I know no more about this turbine’s capabilities now that I have read the article than I knew before.

It’s not the first I have seen such a confusion. On another occasion, I saw a utility-scale wind turbine being described as large enough to power x number of homes “per day.”. That, at least, could be decoded by removing the erroneous “per day” suffix; otherwise, it means you can add x more homes to the grid every day and this one turbine will just take care of them, that simple.

Please, know what your words mean before you commit them to publication.

Glenn Lasher | General | Comments (0)

Fine print

August 9, 2008 – 10:06 pm

Compact Disc (Icon)

Last week, I bought a new DVD burner for my computer to replace my ailing five-year old TDK burner.  Since I am a computer consultant, and have good familiarity with the equipment, and no need to deal with any special drivers or software thanks to being a Linux user, I never bothered to consult the the instructions.

Tonight, I decided to glance at the specifications.  There were no surprises in the specifications, only in the footnots.

This product is designed to playback discs that conform to the Compact Disc (CD) standard.  Recently, various music discs encoded with copyright protection technologies are marketed by some record companies.  Please be aware that among those discs, there are some that do not conform to the CD standard and may not be playable by this product.

How would Sony be aware of this?  Oh yeah, they were one of the culprits.  The worst one, actually.

Glenn Lasher | Copy protection, MafiAA, Computer hardware | Comments (0)

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

August 6, 2008 – 6:04 am

Movie Camera (Icon)

This past weekend, I took my nine-year-old nephew to see The Journey to the Centre of the Earth. I was somewhat intrigued, because some technologies were in play that I had seen before, but in a “not quite there” state.

Specifically, the movie (can I really still call it a “film?”) Was presented digitally, and in 3D.

In times past, I have seen films shown in 3D (the last 3D movie I saw was Stargate) and the cinemas have been using digital projectors to show interstitial programming for some time, but their performance has been less than stellar. Keep Reading »

Glenn Lasher | Movies, Film critique | Comments (0)

Why do all of the crackpots cling to Tesla?

July 28, 2008 – 8:12 am

Nikola Tesla (Icon)

There have been a number of Great Engineers between the 19th century and now.  To name a few, James Watt, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, R. Buckminster Fuller, and, of course, the topic of this post, Nikola Tesla.

Keep Reading »

Glenn Lasher | Energy Storage, Social commentary, Energy Efficiency | Comments (0)

A Little Consistency…

July 1, 2008 – 4:17 pm

I have given a bit of thought to this one and decided that it is time to gripe.

As I have alluded to before, I travel to and from work using our local public transit system (something, incidentally, that I encourage others to do when it is practical to do so).

During the course of the day today, I spoke to two of my co-workers on the subject (supplying both with copies of the schedules, I might add), and have had to warn them about a “gotcha” that caught me when I started using the buses last year, and which I have seen getting other people as well.

The busiest routes in CDTA’s service area are the ones that run along New York State highway 5, which is called State Street in Schenectady and Central Avenue in Albany. It is served by several bus routes, the busiest being route 55.

Well route 55 is a local, and it has a counterpart that is an express. The schedules all call the express “55X.” The bus stop signs in Schenectady also say “55X.” The web site says “55X.” You will be hard-pressed, however, to find a bus that has that number displayed. No, unless you find a really old bus with an ancient rollsign, that is. All of the newer LED signs say “57X.” So do some of the rollsigns. The stops in Albany all say “57X.” To add to the confusion, the recorded announcement says, “Route fifty seven, Schenectady - Albany express.”

… But nothing printed prepares you for this. Therefore, you stand at the bus stop, and you wait, and you wait, while one after another of the bus you want flies by, but you don’t know it, because there is no consistency in the route numbers.

What, then, is the point of even having them?

Glenn Lasher | Transportation | Comments (0)

Interesting people

June 27, 2008 – 4:26 pm

It seems to me that there are people in the world who you are just supposed to meet. Now, I’m not talking about your nearest and dearest friends, significant others or such, just the occasional stranger who strikes up a conversation.

Yesterday, while riding the bus home from work, I encountered such a person. He started the conversation with some topics that, finally, seem to be on everyone’s mind - the economy, energy, government corruption.

During the chat, the conversation turned to the price of electricity, and I mentioned that I understood the electrical market. He was then curious.

Now, before I go further, let me say that curiosity is the coolest thing in the world. You don’t have to be smart to be an intellectual; you only have to be curious. It is my belief that most people are not curious because their curiosity has been destroyed by formal education, but some of us, it seems, survived with our curiosity intact.

(On a side note, I credit my survived curiosity to having attended private school, for which I am eternally grateful to my family)

Anyway, this fellow is not a techie, and not a marketeer, and had little to no basis for understanding the issue. “One sentence,” he said, “why is electricity so expensive?”

Having given my one sentence, he was able to drill down through layer after layer with new questions, each getting a one-sentence answer.

In the end, maybe five questions and less than five minutes later, he got the basic idea.

Those of us who are techies have a tendency to go on at great length and into excruciating detail about the things that light us up. As such, when we have an important point to make (think DRM, net neutrality, etc.) We put our audiences to sleep and bury them in unimportant details. Far better to give the one-sentence answer, and let your listener ask the next question.

Glenn Lasher | General | Comments (0)