All Shows

Show of 9-29-2012

Best of Tech Talk Edition

  • Segments taken from previous shows.

Email and Forum Questions

  • Email from Bob in MD: I never send fan mail to radio shows, but I have to tell you that Tech Talk is the best radio show about technology on the air. I love it and tell my friends to listen too! Bob in MD
  • Tech Talk Responds: Thanks Bob for the feedback.
  • Email from MD Listener: Dr. Richard Shurtz, I use Windows Live Mail and have have a Verizon FiOS account with seven subaccounts. I went to add a new subaccount recently and things got screwed up. I have tried to troubleshoot this and found a warning on the Broadband reports website that says there is an issue with IE8 and Verizon subaccounts.
  • Evidently, when trying to make any changes to a Verizon email account with IE8 causes one to loose data and even the entire email account. Verizon can’t reinstate the email account. I hope you can help with this. I’d also like to learn the Windows Live Mail account activation steps (or teach me how to figure this out for myself) please since No One at Verizon knows them! MD Listener.
  • Tech Talk Responds: I have checked and don’t see a solution with the lost subaccount yet. I did find the one reference to IE8. Have you tried looking for your subaccount with another browser?
  • As for Windows Live Mail, it is not actually another email account. It consolidates many email accounts into one client, allow you to organize conversations, and easily share photos. You can consolidate accounts from different companies like: Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail accounts. Microsoft has a great tutorial online at the following web address: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mail.
  • Email from Jim: Dear Tech Talk, I was on a dating site and I someone I had met. She never answered. Now that she knows my email address, can anything bad happen? Like a virus or having my account cleaned out? I am using Gmail. Thanks, Jim.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Next time use a throw away account. Before sharing your real email address, create a new one at one of the free email services and give that email address to the person that you’re contacting but don’t quite trust. Once you trust them, you can give them your actual email account.
  • What is the danger of using your real email account? You could have given your email to a spammer. Worse yet, they could use your email address to look up more data if it is searchable on Google. Malware is less risk unless you open attachments.
  • Until you can build a sufficient level of objective trust, it’s best to avoid sharing your “real” email address and view everything with a healthy dose of skepticism.
  • Email from Robert: Dear Tech Talk, I am interested in technology and computers. I hope to start my career soon. Where I be focused on? Love the show. Robert.
  • Tech Talk Responds: First of all find what you love to do like Steve Jobs. Then go where the future will be. That means you have look at technology trends and be prepared for what will be in 5 to 10 years. Hardware is becoming invisible. Everything is being virtualized. Software is a service. We are moving toward data as a product. Hardware as a commodity. Data mining, information assurance, security, business process improvement. Check the standards. Read industry rags. Join user groups. Ask questions.

Profiles in IT: Steven Paul Jobs

  • Steven Paul Jobs was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.
  • Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, CA.
  • He was adopted by Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, CA. Even though they had not attended college, they promised to send Steve to college.
  • Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High and Homestead High School in Cupertino, CA.
  • He frequented after-school lectures at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA, and was later hired there, working with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee.
  • Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland,
  • Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes.
  • Jobs later said, “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”
  • In 1974, Jobs joined the Homebrew Computer Club with Wozniak in CA.
  • He took a job as a technician at Atari to save money for a trip to India.
  • Jobs traveled to India with a Reed College friend in search of spiritual enlightenment.
  • He came back a Buddhist with head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing.
  • In 1976, Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple, when Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a computer and selling it.
  • In 1983, Jobs hired John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO.
  • The following year, Apple aired a Super Bowl television commercial titled “1984”.
  • On January 24, 1984, Jobs introduced the Mac, based on Alto (Xerox PARC in 1973).
  • Sculley fired Jobs in 1985, with board support, amid falling computer sales.
  • Jobs founded NeXT Computer in 1985 with $7 million. Ross Perot invested more.
  • NeXT workstations were first released in 1990, priced at $9,999.
  • He then released the NeXTCube. NeXT ultimately sold only 50,000 computers
  • In 1993, NeXT transitioned to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP.
  • In 1996, NeXT. released WebObjects, for web application development.
  • In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to Apple. Jobs became interim CEO.
  •  He immediately ended the Mac cloning program and focused on innovation.
  • Sales increased with the introduction of the iMac and other new products.
  • With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company entered music distribution.
  • WebObjects was used to build and run the Apple Store, MobileMe services, and the iTunes Store. NeXTSTEP morphed in Mac OS X.
  • In 2007, Apple entered the cell phone business with the introduction of the iPhone.
  • In 1986, he The Graphics Group (renamed Pixar) from Lucas Films for $10M.
  • After years of unprofitability hardware, Pixar contracted with Disney to produce computer-animated features starting with Toy Story (1995).
  • On January 24, 2006, Disney purchased Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4B.
  • In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple and died October 5, 2011.
  • Jobs is listed on 338 US patents or patent applications.
  • Forbes estimated his net wealth at $8.3 billion in 2010. Wikipedia list $7B in today.

Impact of Steve Jobs

  • He made technology accessible allowing us to see its potential.
    • The artist, the communicator, the student all became better.
    • The computer was not the focus….the user was always.
  • He lobbied for the little guy against the establishment
    • Music lovers against record companies
    • Cell phone users against telcos
  • He was a creator, an artist, who used technology as his palette.
  • He was a perfectionist in design, in function, in manufacturing.
  • His vision was a personification of the 60s counter-culture.
  • He cared deeply about his customers, their experience.
  • He pursuer what he loved, following his passions, hoping that someday all of the dots would connect.
  • He lived every day as though it was his last.
  • We will miss Steve Jobs and hope that his creation Apple computer will continue to innovate and thrive.

Steve Jobs: Godfather of Fonts

  • Jobs attended and dropped out of Reed College.
  • The calligraphy classes Jobs took (and later audited after un-enrolling from the school) were largely responsible for the shift in computing typeface that the Mac has been responsible for.
  • “Calligraphy was about the most over-enrolled in class at Reed.
  • He was a freshman when he took the class, and that was most unusual, usually only juniors and seniors got in,” says former Reed calligraphy instructor Robert Palladino.
  • Palladino says Jobs didn’t necessarily stand out in class, that he was a “rather quiet type of person.
  •  “For a freshman drop out to be so well-regarded, they must have sensed he had an awful lot of talent. He was a dynamic person even when he was young.”
  • Jobs wanted Palladino’s insight on Greek letters, telling his former instructor he was working on computers in his parents’ garage.
  • “He introduced me to the mouse. I had never seen one before,” Palladino says.
  • Jobs brought font menus to the masses, introducing not just experts but average consumers to individually designed lettering.
  • The idea that the average person on the street might have a favorite font was a radical thing.

Profiles in IT: Jonathan Paul Ive

  • Jonathan Paul Ive is the principal designer of the iMac, aluminum PowerBook G4 (and MacBook Pro), iPod and iPhone.
  • Jonathan Ive, casually called Jony Ive, was born in February 1967 in London and grew up in Chingford, Essex
  • In interviews Jonathan has spoken about always being interested in the construction of objects as a child, and a fascination with taking those objects apart.
  • After attending school in the south of England he moved North to study art and design at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) in 1985.
  • He graduated with first class honors having created a pebble-shaped concept for a product to replace cash and credit cards as his final year project.
  • In 1990 Jonathan moved to London and co-founded his own design studio, Tangerine, with Martin Darbyshire.
  • He created products ranging from hair combs and power tools to televisions and ceramics. Jonathan designed toilets Ideal Standard after seeking inspiration from marine biology books.
  • Apple was a client of Tangerine and in 1992 Jonathan joined the Apple team.
  • When Jonathan joined Apple the company was at a low point. Steve Jobs had just been ousted in a boardroom coup orchestrated by John Sculley. Much of the design work was outsourced. Apple was losing ground to Windows by the day.
  • In 1997, Steve Jobs returned and began to revive Apple’s fortunes and return it to the industry leader that it is today. Jonathan Ive was instrumental to this turnaround.
  • Under the new Jobs-led Apple Ive was promoted to Senior Vice President of Industrial Design. The launch of visually stunning iMac G3 is regarded as the birth of the ?new Apple’ and brought Jonathan Ive to the attention of the world.
  • From the iBook to the PowerBook all Apple’s products were met with universal acclaim and became instant masterpieces of product design.
  • Jonathan brought simplicity, elegance and innovation to everything he touched.
  • The minimalist styling of the iPhone with only one button on its front is the signature of Jonathan Ive.
  • Jonathan’s work has influenced by many things.
    • The original candy-colored iMac had its roots in gumdrops.
    • The transparent Apple mouse came from thinking about drops of water.
    • The see-through outer casing of recent iBooks came from the look that food has when wrapped in plastic wrap.
    • The iPod is like a cigarette pack for those addicted to music instead of tobacco
    • The sunflower-inspired iMac G4
  • Jonathan is a modest and shy person, who often seems uncomfortable with the attention. When he won the D&AD award, it was Steve Jobs that received the award and made the acceptance speech although Jonathan attended the event.
  • He lives modestly, inhabiting a two bedroom house in Twin Peaks, San Francisco with his wife Heather (a historian) and their twin sons.

All Gmail Users Are Given Two Separate Email Addresses

  • You probably know how to create multiple email aliases in Gmail by adding the plus symbol and dots to your Gmail username but there’s something more interesting.
  • When you create a Gmail account, you actually get two email addresses – one is the regular @gmail.com while the second email address has @googlemail.com in the domain.
  • That means if your email address in Gmail is something like billgates@gmail.com, all email messages that are sent to billgates@googlemail.com will also be delivered to your own Gmail account.
  • Like the Gmail plus trick, you can take advantage of these two domains so that less spam reaches your Gmail Inbox.
  • Give the @googlemail.com address to your close contacts (put that in the visiting card) while keep the @gmail.com address for public (put it on your blog).
  • Then set a Gmail filter such that all email messages with @googlemail.com in the header go a special folder so you will never miss important email from close friends.

No More Drunk Emailing on Friday Nights

  • Email won’t leave your Gmail outbox unless you solve that Maths problem.
  • Gmail Labs today released an interesting feature to prevent you from sending mails that may you may regret later. It does so by asking you to confirm whether you really want to send that email.
  • So if you’re writing a mail late on a Friday night, when you may not be as sober as you would like yourself to be, you can get GMail to ask you a few math problems before the message leave your Gmail outbox.
  • You can enable this via the “Labs” tab on the Gmail “Settings” page. By default, the Mail Goggles feature of Gmail become active late night on the weekend, but you can set it to other times as well from Settings/General.

Food Science: Cooking with Alcohol

  • How much alcohol remains after cooking?
    • Alcohol added to boiling liquid & removed from heat – 85% remains
    • Alcohol flamed – 75% remains
    • No heat, stored overnight – 70% remains
    • Baked, 25 minutes, alcohol not stirred into mixture – 45% remains
    • Baked/simmered, alcohol stirred into mixture for:
      • 15 minutes – 40% remains
      • 30 minutes – 35% remains
      • 1 hour – 25% remains
      • 1.5 hours – 20% remains
      • 2 hours – 10% remains
      • 2.5 hours – 5% remains
    • Source: US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data Laboratory
  • Why cook with Vodka if it is flavorless?
    • In some recipes, vodka is used to achieve a chemical reaction in a dish.
    • Vodka added to marinades, for example, can help break down tough fibers and tenderize meats.
    • Vodka added to cheese and cream sauces lowers the boiling point to help prevent curdling.
    • It is also very effectively used to deglaze pans during the cooking process in order to dissolve and impart alcohol-soluble flavor compounds to foods or sauces.
    • And sometimes vodka may be added to provide a last minute burst of flavor, to complete the cooking process, or to enhance presentation as in a flambé.