Email and Forum Questions Profiles in IT: Ward Cunningham Egypt's Internet shutdown Page and Zuckerberg Face Off On the Web Facebook to support Secure Socket Layer Groupon Challenged by Google and Facebook Text Messaging King in India Computer Electronics Show
Email from a Loyal Listener: Dr. Shurtz, When it comes to reading my email and saving stuff into folders, I’ve been using Outlook Express for 5+ years. Outlook express 6 has developed some kind of issue where now I am getting duplicate and triplicate emails copies of received emails into Outlook Exp. Because it seemed OE was no longer supported, a friend recommended Windows Live Mail.
I have downloaded and installed Win Live Mail. It imported my Outlook Express mail, but not my Sent messages. Is there a way to copy them into Win Live Mail from Outlook Exp? Now all my accounts are in different Inboxes. I want them all in one InboxIs there a way to do this in Win Live Mail? Also, I see no SEND/RECEIVE button in Win Live Mail so how do I check if a new message is coming in? I still am feeling I may not be using the best email appl. What do you recommend? Thanks, Loyal Listener
Tech Talk Responds: First of all. Windows Live Mail will create a separate Inbox for each email account. That is the one thing that many users don’t like. You can’t change that feature. The Send/Receive button is on the menu bar. If you can’t see the menu bar, in the upper-right corner of the screen, click the Menus button, and then click Show menu bar. Windows Live Mail automatically imports your Express Mail account when installed. It should have imported the Sent Mail folder too. You can re-import that account and select all folders to wish to import. On the menu bar, click the File menu, then point to Import. Select the program you want import follow instructions.
Email from Mary: Dr. Richard Shurtz, I send emails from my laptop that need to have content from WORD 2003 pasted into them. I have been doing this for years with my current Dell laptop/XP operation system without any issue. Today something strange has developed…
Let’s say I have copied the first piece of text. It works perfectly. When I copy and paste the second piece of text using Control C and Control V, it pastes the first piece again. This always worked before. I have no idea why this is now a problem. Can you please help. Thanks, Mary
Tech Talk Responds: I don’t have a clear answer. I would begin by opening the Office ClipBoard within Word and seeing whether the information you want to paste is there. You are doing the correct step. The words must not be stored in the Office ClipBoard. Access the office clipboard. Scroll to “Edit” and left-click on Office Clipboard.
Email from Jim: Dr. Richard Shurtz, Since Mr. Byrd occasionally pops in which liven things up, like the early days on another station, maybe you can get him this phone. (Picture of flip phone with rotary dial). Enjoy the show and its updates on space. Hope you’ve seen that one photo that Hubble telescope took of an object that seems to be making stars out on the edge of space. A long time listener, Jim Alexandra, Va.
Tech Talk Responds: David is an iPhone man. That is just cruel. Thanks for listening.
Profiles in IT: Ward Cunningham
Howard G. “Ward” Cunningham is a programmer who developed the first wiki.
Ward Cunningham was born May 26, 1949 and grew up in Indiana.
Cunningham received his BS in electrical engineering and computer science and his MS in computer science from Purdue University.
After getting his Masters in the late 1970s, he moved to Oregon to work in the research lab at Tektronix as Principal Engineer.
He was introduced to object-oriented programming there through collaboration with the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
He then joined Wyatt Software as Director of R&D, convinced that he knew how to organize large software projects as objects.
He then founded Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc, a software consultancy specializing in object oriented programming.
He started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994
On March 25, 1995, he installed it his website (http://c2.com) and called it Portland Pattern Repository’s Wiki.
He wanted to create a unique online site for people involved in technical aspects of object-oriented programming.
Cunningham said that it took a while for this to catch on because it sounded so unusual
But by 2007, the site had over 25,000 pages about programming up on that site. But Cunningham himself wrote only about 100 or 200 of those pages.
The rest were contributed and shaped by. That shows the unique power of a wiki as a repository of human knowledge and ideas.
The wiki derives its name from wiki wiki, the Hawaiian phrase meaning quick — reflecting the pace at which wiki pages can be created and updated.
The wiki concept has become "a study in what’s now called social software — anything where the real behavior is not possible if there’s only one person using it,"
Cunningham’s original wiki remains the largest devoted to a single subject.
The largest wiki on multiple subjects is Wikipedia, founded in 2001.
From December 2003 until October 2005, he worked for Microsoft Corporation in the "patterns & practices" group.
From October 2005 to May 2007, he held the position of Director of Committer Community Development at the Eclipse Foundation.
In May 2007, he joined AboutUs as its chief technology officer.
He has co-authored a book about wikis, titled The Wiki Way.
He never patented Wiki. Cunningham has said: I thought about patenting it. I figured if I got a patent, I’d have sell people on the idea that anyone could edit. That sounded like something that no one would pay for. The simplest ideas are probably the least technical. I don’t think that my best ideas will ever be patented.
He is founder of the Hillside Group and has served as program chair of the Pattern Languages of Programming conference which it sponsors.
He is also a significant contributor to the Extreme Programming software development methodology, a method for software management.
He currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon.
Egypt’s Internet shutdown
The Egyptian government’s shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday is unprecedented.
The government’s move came in the face of widespread civil unrest.
The shutdown illustrated how ingrained the Internet has become for everyday global communications.
Moreover, the unrest in Egypt, and that in Tunisia the week before, have once again highlighted how vital online social networks like Twitte and Facebook and YouTube have become in exporting ideals such as freedom of speech.
Protesters, for example, used a Facebook page to list their demands and rally support.
Both Facebook and Twitter reported diminishing traffic to and from Egypt as the protests escalated this week.
The precise "surgical" targeting of Facebook and Twitter wasn’t surprising, though it failed to quell the uprising.
Vodafone Egypt also said that all mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will be clarifying the situation in due course.
The nonprofit Internet Society of Reston, Va., said that shutdown was an inappropriate response to a political crisis" and "a serious intrusion into its citizens’ basic rights to communicate.
In an article published by the Huffington Post, Timothy Karr, campaign director of the Washington media reform group Free Press, singled out Narus Inc., a Sunnyvale computer security firm, for selling the Egyptian government tools for monitoring Internet and mobile phone traffic.
According to their website: Narus is the leader in real-time traffic intelligence for the protection and management of large IP networks. Real-time Traffic Intelligence is the ability to protect and manage large IP networks by understanding in detail the behavior of the traffic.
A spokeswoman for Narus did not return voice and e-mail messages requesting comment.
Page and Zuckerberg Face Off On the Web
Google Cofounder Larry Page will become the company’s CEO.
Now it’s Page versus Zuckerberg at Facebook.
38-year old Page has spent nearly a decade being tutors by Eric Schmidt, a veteran tech exec.
26-year-old Zuckerberg continues to run Facebook without seeking help from more experienced industry leaders.
In starting Facebook and Google, Zuckerberg and Page proved that they understood the Web’s potential for changing the world. Which one can do the best at harnessing the Web for future products and growth?
The initial products from both companies embodied the vision that drove Tim Berners-Lee to create the Web, which was to develop a platform that would first reflect the way we work, play and socialize.
Google certainly improved our ability to find information with its first product.
More than 600 million Facebook users undoubtedly would argue that Facebook has improved the way they socialize.
Both companies differ from Apple and Microsoft which promote solitary activities.
Google is an extremely profitable company. It also has $30 billion is cash.
Goldman Sachs having recently invested close to $1.5 billion dollars in Facebook, and surely wanting to see a sizeable return on that investment.
Facebook to support Secure Socket Layer
Finally Facebook support https:// for all of this traffic.
Hacking will be more difficult from unencrypted wi-fi.
Google already supports this action.
This announcement came just hours after it was revealed that Mark Zuckerberg’s had been hacked.
Earlier this month, Google revealed that it was set to go head-to-head with Groupon, the most successful firm in the sector.
Groupon has recently turned down an offer for a reported $6B by Google.
Groupon is only two years. I will be doing a Profile in IT about the founders soon.
Social buying is all about linking people with similar tastes and then getting them to buy into a special offer with a local company
Forbes recently reported that Deb Liu, Facebook’s head of commerce product marketing, had revealed that half of test users chose to share news of a purchase with friends via their news feeds.
The“Buy With Friends” feature won’t start life as a direct competitor to Groupon.
Facebook could be a serious contender in the social buying market, but unless it goes about things carefully the company could end up losing an awful lot of friends.
Text Messaging King in India
Incoming texts and phone calls are free.
Most prefer texting.
Text messaging marketing is exploding.
Cell phone sales are outpacing laptop sales by 100:1.
Smart phones and newly installed 3G networks define the landscape.
Stratford seminars in New Delhi were advertised with text messaging very effectively.
Motorola and LG, among others, used the show to introduce tablet devices based on an upcoming "Honeycomb" version of Google’s Android operating system – a 3.0 release that, unlike the current 2.3 version, was designed with tablets in mind.
Research in Motion is displaying the PlayBook tablet it announced in September.
Both of these include features absent from the iPad, such as cameras for videoconferencing.
Apple is continuing its traditional practice of skipping CES.
Smartphones
Dozens of new Android phones were announced. These came vendors such as LG, Samsung, Motorola and HTC.
Many connect to the fast, emerging 4G networks of Verizon and Sprint – or the upgraded "HSPA+" 3G networks of AT&T and T-Mobile, each of which have switched to using the 4G term for those services, too.
Samsung also introduced a mobile device that’s been missing from the Android ecosystem: an iPod Touch-style media device, the Galaxy Player. It’s essentially one of its Galaxy S Android phones but without the phone and only WiFi instead.
Internet TV
Last year’s high-end HDTVs featured a gallery of applications, all pre-loaded by the vendor, many of this year’s feature app stores of their own with a wider selection of sources.
Most TV vendors devoted space to 3-D television. But with slow sales, the need to wear special, expensive glasses to see 3-D effects and a limited selection of 3-D content to watch, the technology hasn’t had the fastest debut.
Cars
The most surprising change is be the debut of cars at the show.
Ford chose to use the show, only days before the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, to announce it will ship an all-electric version of its Focus compact.
The Focus Electric, offers better mileage than the Chevy Volt and charges twice as fast as the Nissan Leaf.
Automakers see the car as a living room on wheels.
Home Appliances
Ovens, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators and other products were displayed for the "connected" home.
South Korea’s LG Electronics is displaying its "Thinq" home appliances which are connected to a home Wi-Fi network and can be controlled by a smartphone or a computer.
They include washing machines that can be instructed from the office to run at the most cost-effective times and a camera-equipped robot vacuum cleaner, the Hom-Bot, which can be instructed remotely to clean the floor.
The camera embedded in the robot can also be used to keep an eye on the house while the owner is away.
Also from LG Electronics are refrigerators with touchscreen LCD displays that let users keep tabs on where items are located in the refrigerator and when they expire.
An owner can access the information while shopping via a smartphone and check whether they have enough milk or orange juice, for example.
General Electric made its first appearance at CES to show its home energy management solutions including "Nucleus," which gives consumers information about electricity consumption.
Nucleus, which is expected to be available later this year, works with smart meters, smart appliances, programmable thermostats and software applications to help homeowners monitor their usage and reduce their electricity bills.
Withings, a French start-up showed off a baby monitor, a blood pressure monitor and other products.
The Withings baby monitor features a camera equipped with night vision that can send pictures and audio to an iPhone or any other device with a connected screen.
A microphone allows parents to talk to the child from another room and they can set alarms to be awoken if a baby’s sleep is disrupted.