Monthly Archives: May 2010

Tests, Preparedness and the Boy Scouts

"Be prepared" is the motto of the Boy Scouts and I agree. So I tested how my network of messaging works. I have a mobile phone that can send mms, sms and connect to the internet. It can send email. SMS and voice calls are pretty much one on one. What you have to check here is the ubiquity and security of your contact list. Is the addressbook backed up? You may want to check if you can access this contact file in multiple locations. To accomplish this you can save it in your cloud service. I have been using Dropbox and Ubuntu One for that.

The previous post is a test sent from my mobile phone to my blogs. I first sent an MMS. I have Smart as my mobile service provider. After several minutes later, I sent an email post with attachment to the blogs using my mobile phone. These latter action delivered first and appeared on my blogs right away. My blogs are using dlvr.it which is a service that dellivers new posts to destinations like Twitter and Facebook.

And so well within the 15 minute threshold, my Twitter account received the tweet of the new posts. My facebook account received the updates also within the 15 minutes promised by the service.

What about the MMS I sent before the emails?

They too posted although several minutes later than the ones done through the emails. The explanation is that Smart, my mobile service, actually puts MMS sent to a service que if you like. They charge 10 pesos for the email connection and 2.50 pesos each MMS sent in my mobile phone. So because MMS service is "shared" it is cheaper.

Hey Do Blogs

Blogging now has never been easier and mobile. With Facebook you are dependent on other people keeping your personal data away from bad people. There is even an assertion that privacy has never been Facebook’s responsibility. If you think you can’t live in the digital world without Facebook then I offer you blogs.

Blogs give you complete control over your website. Delete abusive comments, you can. Block comments you can. Keep the website private, check. You can go the other way and automatically announce new posts in Twitter and ironically, Facebook.

You can use Bloggers or you can use WordPress. I have both. Blogger is older and WordPress is open source. You can create two blogs. One is public and the other private. Both Bloggers and WordPress have free accounts and premium services.

You can use your mobile phone to send posts. I love sending photos taken by the cell camera as posts with the subject appearing as title in the blog post. It’s very spontaneous.

This is the production side of it, what about the end user side of this?

Isn’t is a pain to open a browser for each of your friends’ blog when all you will read is a one-line update to your friends’ status?

Use Google Reader or use a desktop feed reader application like me. A feed reader polls each feed from your friends blogs and checks for updates automatically when the application is open.

One more thing, blogs do not limit your posts to a set number of words or characters. You want to do a Stephen King go ahead. Go write your novel now.

Attack Profile: How Big Is The Vulnerability

It’s important to also pay attention to the attack profile or how much is this vulnerability exposing user to attacks. Central to the issue is how much time the user is being exposed to the attacks. If you reduce the attack profile then you’ll be safer. No, I don’t think disconnecting from the internet is an option anymore.

In this regard, the browser is a big blip in the horizon. Every time the computer is turned on nowadays, the user is also opening a browser (or several tabs). Any small vulnerability in the browser translates to a huge attack profile. Adding to the discussion is the security problems of browser plugins like flash and java but that is an entire post in itself.

The less you use the browser the smaller the attack profile is.

Use desktop clients instead.

The Blog Lives Again

How do I do publishing? Sometimes I feel like Dorothy after the twister thing but here goes. I usually type my draft using my email client (Evolution) and save it as drafts (duh?). It sits there for a while or I decide to just feed it to the trash which is most of the time. I send the email post to my blogger’s account. They have this email posting feature where you can send images as attachments to email and the blog formats the images automatically. You can set image properties in your account administration tab.

For people like me who find the 160 character cap of Twitter and the 240 characters update feed of Facebook too limiting, I recommend we try blogging once again.

There is this beta called dlvr.it which offers to deliver your content to destinations in the internet. My posts are automatically trumpeted in Facebook and Twitter within minutes.

Becoming Twitter, Becoming Facebook

Some people are using their facebook news feed like twitter. They are posting short one liners 50 times a day. Purists are saying that the two services are different modes of the social network. They should be used differently.

How are you going to enforce that? If it looks and feels like a hammer I’m going to hit the nail with it. People will use their facebook account the way they see fit and easy.

Originally facebook does not have their news feed. Twitter is just telling somebody what your doing. Now they’re big and heavy. They even confuse old timers.

M. mycoides, Oil spills, iPad and Lady Gaga

Last May 20, 2010 american scientists led by Craig Venter announced the creation of a self-replicating synthetic life in the form of a bacteria, M. mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. That’s Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. This is the first time that man designed something than can self-replicate, a genome sequence made in a computer, complete with watermarks and codes to identify IT as truly unmistakeably man-made. When it was implanted into a Mycoplasma capricolum, a natural bacteria, the sythetic began producing enzymes that destroyed the M. capricolum’s original genome very much like the Borg assimilating humans.

So what we have here is a synthetic cell able to reproduce, has a unique genome sequence, and is able to defend its own existence.

I think when we look back to the first half of 2010, we will agree that it is a watershed moment. Apple just came out with iPad, selling a million in just a month, eclipsing its iPhone and iPod products. The United States is still suffering from the economic recession that began in September 2008. The world economic giant is relinquishing its role to China, Germany and South Korea. The biggest environmental disaster since Chernobyl is growing in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is yet to cap that bleeding pipe. NASA is doing the last of its shuttle missions. They plan to outsouce their manned missions in the future to private companies.

And based on her Youtube views, Lady Gaga’s popularity is soaring. Her gender might be questionable but not her impact on the pop culture.

Too Much Connectivity

People are already up in arms regarding Facebook’s new privacy policies. (Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg promises to roll back some of these changes, but we shall see.) These new policies doesn’t scare the average Facebook user because its implications are too distant to most people.

I connected my blog to my facebook account and my twitter account today. I found this beta service that promises to deliver my posts from the blog url to facebook and twitter. I just want to see exactly how dlvr.it is going to accomplish that.

I also have my tweets (the most recent ones) appear in widgets at the sides of my blogs. This completes the circle I guess.

Google Wave: Goes Public

I think it’s wonderful that Google just opened the doors for the public into their Google Wave service. I’m still trying wrap my head around it though. I know it’s like an IM tool on stereoids but I really don’t know what to tell friends. But the UI is really nice.