Rafe's Blog

Gadgets of the day: Two computers

I've written before about using two computers (my big desktop at home and a laptop from work). From time to time this two-PC setup needs a remote control program. I've been using GoToMyPC until now, but there's a free remote control program, LogMeIn, that competes well against it.  There's a paid version of LogMeIn that offers remote printing and file transfer, but if remote control is all you need, you don't need to pay for it and you certainly don't need to shell out for GoToMyPC. Logmein is also the only remote control program I've used that can actually access multiple monitors on a remote PC. (There's a third remote option: MyWebEx PC, which I tried but didn’t like.)

However, none of these remote control programs offer real-time folder sync, which is another key component of a two-PC life. For that, I use FolderShare.  There's another sync program called BeInSync. I haven't used the latest version but the previous one required special directories, which made me steer clear.

It might be time to write another column about this topic.

Bonus Gadget: TaskSwitchXP. It beats the stuffing out of Microsoft's built-in Alt-Tab function. Free, too.

Gadget of the day: Fizzy water

We go through a lot of fizzy water in the Needleman household. My wife likes plain sparkling water; I prefer seltzer with a bit of fruit juice (much better, and better for you, than ordinary flavored sodapop).  Bottled seltzer is not expensive, but it is total drag to keep enough on hand. So the idea of an elegant dispenser that can make sparkling water, like this model from Waterlogic International (thanks, Gizmag of Australia) has me bubbling with interest.  Unfortunately, there's no U.S. distribution for the product, as far as I can tell.  The closest thing I've seen that's available here is the Soda-Club system, which looks like an updated version of the old-timey seltzer bottle.

A mix of crap

"Consumers are always going to have a mix of crap," Tim Dowling, CEO of Pure Networks said to me during a lunch meeting a few weeks ago. His company is making a product called Network Magic. It's network management software for the home. It's supposed to make it easy for a consumer to manage a home router and all the "crap" attached to it -- computers, printers, shared storage, and so on.  It should make sharing files among computers easier, for one thing.

I'm thinking about covering this company's prospects in an upcoming column. But while this is one of those products that I think I could really use myself, I've talked to several people about it and I just can't get them interested in it. I fear the product is either too geeky for consumers who are afraid of networking; or too simple for geeks who already have their networks under control.

Rise up against overpriced Wi-Fi!

In my "Works for Me" column on CNET I rant about having to pay for Wi-Fi at posh hotels. Oddly, many lower-priced hotels I've stayed at offer it free as an amenity. And really, what would you rather have in your next hotel, a fancy bedspread or a free and fast network?

I've gotten a few tips pointing out that there are some good directories of Wi-Fi access providers worth checking out, including JiWire, started by former CNET exec Kevin McKenzie, WiFinder, and Wi-FiHotSpotList.  These sites primarily focus on paid access, however. Maybe it's time to bring back warchalking.

Another CNET dude,  Drew Ulricksen, the technical producer for my part of CNET.com, is behind two Wi-Fi labors of love: Wireless Anarchy, a directory of resources for people who believe that Wi-Fi should be open and are willing to do something about it; and Alameda Wireless, a "user owned, community run, wireless network," in Drew's town of Alameda, California. There are similar uprisings underway everywhere. See, for example, NYCwireless.

When I'm 64 (bit)

Are you ready for 64-bit Windows?  It's here (news story; product review; slide show), and your hardware may be more ready than you think -- people have been buying AMD systems with 64-bit processors since 2003, and 64-bit Intel machines hit the market in February. On the other hand, few applications are 64-bit ready, and there's a good chance you have hardware in your system for which there are no 64-bit drivers. Fortunately, the new 64-bit Windows supports old-style 32-bit applications.

Eventually, 64-bit Windows will offer applications a faster and more stable platform. People who run servers and run processor-intensive application (like CAD and mathematical simulations) will adopt this platform first.  But we just tested the new 64-bit version of Windows at CNET and discovered that there's no compelling reason for most people to consider the operating system upgrade now.

Still, hardware buyers should be sure new purchases are 64-bit compatible from this point forward.

The cure is worse than the disease

The two women in my life (my wife and my mother) started to complain to me this weekend that their computers were acting funny. My wife couldn't get her email. My mother couldn't do anything at all; her system became totally nonresponsive as soon as it booted into Windows. Both machines were showing 100% CPU utilization. In both cases, I found that the problem was a bad (very bad) Trend Micro virus pattern update (all my machines use Trend). I found instructions on Trend's site to fix the problem and all is copacetic again.

This is an especially bad problem, though. Because of the way this bug affects computers, there's no easy way to implement the fix. I had to startup both PCs in safe mode, delete the bad file, and then reboot. I fear this update might be causing very serious problems out there in the real world, where people don't have access to geeks willing to run down bugs like this.

Boy, am I mad at Trend.

BusinessWeek says: It's official, blogs matter

I have to blog this because it's meta. BusinessWeek just did a story on blogs. It's the next big thing in business, they say. They also launched a blog attached to the story. That's actually a nice bridge between traditional media and traditional blogging.

A sidebar also points out that in the era of blogs, it's worth re-thinking secrecy. I can relate to that; as I wrote two days ago, I'm opening up the research I'm doing on my columns before I run them. I used to keep the topics of upcoming writings secret since I didn't want somebody to scoop me. But now I find that I'd really rather have the conversations about what I'm thinking before I commit it to a column. 

Who's the chump?

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of a U.C. Berkeley biology prof's dire warning to the person who stole his laptop. Professor Jasper Rine claims that due to sensitive data on the machine, several scary law enforcement agencies are actively tracking the thief, whose future looks grim -- unless, of course, the laptop is returned immediately.  The threat hinges on the claim that the laptop can be tracked using its wireless card and the machine's "transponder." 

It's probably a bluff.  Products do exist that can track errant PCs, and Wi-Fi nets can be configured to geo-locate machines. But if Rine was smart enough to enable these crime-busting technologies in the first place, one might also assume he was savvy enough to encrypt the data on his laptop, or better yet, not leave it out where somebody could easily boost it.  I'd say he's in hotter water than the thief is.

Also, for irony's sake, note that a U.C. Berkeley admission office recently had a laptop stolen that had personal data on more than 98,000 people on it. And that the campus is leading a $19 million research project on protecting the nation's cybersecurity.

From the "Business Buzz" on CNET.com - work.cnet.com.

Gadget of the Day: FeedBurner

I read blogs and online news through RSS, and I love it. But as a blogger myself, I find publishing to RSS problematical, since it's very hard to tell if anybody is actually hitting my content through my RSS feed. For example, Typepad, where my blog is hosted, has a solid RSS feed but offers zero tracking or stats on it.  So I am experimenting with Feedburner, which aims to solve this problem.  Here's the Feedburner version of my feed:  Rafeneedleman.com via

Feedburner also makes it easy to add the feed to accounts on popular RSS readers.
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Everybody talks about the traffic, but...

Speaking of tipsters, an email response to my post about CircumNav pointed me to Inrix, another startup taking on traffic. Inrix is also incredibly cool, and very different. So look for a Release 1.0 Rafe's Radar column on CircumNav and Inrix shortly.

To be honest, when I first started posting blog entries on topics I was writing full columns on, I was a bit afraid that the blog would steal my column's mojo. But I'm finding the reality is just the reverse -- I'm getting great feedback on projects I'm working on before they are due to my editors, leading to better columns (I think). It totally rocks. Dan Gillmor, you were right!