Tuesday, February 20, 2007
We have questions and hopefully some answers
Will Daylight savings time be another Y2K?
What does it mean to your privacy now that RFID tags can be the size of a grain of dust?
What is the latest on broadband wireless on the shore?
How can you easily find out what the house down the street recently sold for?
Will I ever stop asking questions and start answering them?
Yes.
But first, people who attended the Mid-Shore Computer Users Group meeting, Feb. 15 got an overview of Google and some of the software available from the site during a presentation by Mike Regimenti of the Chesapeake PC Users Group out of Annapolis.
Mike explained Google mail, Google docs and Google maps. Google mail, a web-based mail solution provided the advantages of an email service offered by an internet service provider without tying you to that provider. If you decide to change your service provider, it can be cumbersome to change your email address. Using the Google service removes that need.
Google docs gives you a web-based word-processor program with much of the power of costly programs like Microsoft Office. Being web-based, it also allows you to share your efforts with others online for editing for review.
In March the subject at the users group meeting is scheduled to be broadband wireless on the Eastern Shore. Jim McCormick of the Department of Information & Technology in Caroline County is slated to give the presentation.
My daughter Sarah lives over across the bridge in Arnold. In her neighborhood she found about half a dozen hot-spots around her house. Several of them were restricted but several were also open to share. I can’t say the same for where I live near Greensboro. That will change as more people get wireless routers. More on that after the meeting.
When the sold sign goes up on the house down the street, are you at all courteous about how much it went for? I am. Rather than go down there and ask, there is a Website you can use to get the information. If you want, you can check what homes are going for in any community in the country. The Website is www.zillow.com. Check it out.
Warning, use of the Website can be depressing. I was a navy dependent growing up. My dad would get transferred about every three years. We sometimes had to sell our house rapidly to have funds for the house at the next duty station. In the late 60s we lived in Sunnyvale, CA and had to sell our ranch-style home on a postage-stamp-sized lot in the mid-40s. I checked on Zillow and recently the house next door sold for $895,000.
Some time back I noted the RFID tags used to track packages and even license plates. England was experimenting with having a RFID tag imbedded in a plate to help track cars. Farmers are concerned about a proposed National Animal Identification System that would used RFID tags to keep track of flocks or herd animals. This would help officials to track the outbreak of infected and exposed animals in a disease outbreak.
These tags have been the size of grains of rice. That is small but still a nuisance if you want to implant a tag in an animal. Hitachi has come out with a new RFID tag. It is so small. It is called a RFID powder. The tag is the size of a grain of sand. This miniaturization opens the door to much easier use of the tagging device.
But I also wonder what other uses this miniaturization will bring to the RFID? What do you think?
Daylight saving time will not start on the first Sunday in April this year. It will start on March 11. Congress decreed in 2005 that March 11, 2007 will see the start of daylight saving time this year. This could cause software that had internal clocks set for the old time change to be an hour off if the software was produced before the law was passed.
If you have programs that are automatically set to shift the time one hour forward on the first Sunday in April, they will be off by an hour for three weeks. What’s the problem? Just set your time ahead one hour yourself? Sure. Then on the first Sunday in April, you computer will shift ahead another hour. You’ll have to be aware and set it back to the proper time.
The best bet would be to disable the automatic time-shift feature and do it manually for the time-sensitive software on your computer. Microsoft is making “patches” available for download. They may not affect all your software. The calendar in Outlook Express requires special attention. If you are a dedicated user of the calendar feature in Outlook, each entry would have to be reviewed.
Still doesn’t sound like a big deal. There are some programs that involve automatic triggers like software set to automatically buy or sell stock when trading opens. The trigger might be off an hour and cost the stockholder money. Software that automatically opens or closes locks on a pre-set time could cause delays as workers wait for them to open.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it could be a minor Y2K. We’ll just have to see.
As always you can reach me by email at rpolk@chespub.com or through my blog accessible from the homepage of our Website.
What does it mean to your privacy now that RFID tags can be the size of a grain of dust?
What is the latest on broadband wireless on the shore?
How can you easily find out what the house down the street recently sold for?
Will I ever stop asking questions and start answering them?
Yes.
But first, people who attended the Mid-Shore Computer Users Group meeting, Feb. 15 got an overview of Google and some of the software available from the site during a presentation by Mike Regimenti of the Chesapeake PC Users Group out of Annapolis.
Mike explained Google mail, Google docs and Google maps. Google mail, a web-based mail solution provided the advantages of an email service offered by an internet service provider without tying you to that provider. If you decide to change your service provider, it can be cumbersome to change your email address. Using the Google service removes that need.
Google docs gives you a web-based word-processor program with much of the power of costly programs like Microsoft Office. Being web-based, it also allows you to share your efforts with others online for editing for review.
In March the subject at the users group meeting is scheduled to be broadband wireless on the Eastern Shore. Jim McCormick of the Department of Information & Technology in Caroline County is slated to give the presentation.
My daughter Sarah lives over across the bridge in Arnold. In her neighborhood she found about half a dozen hot-spots around her house. Several of them were restricted but several were also open to share. I can’t say the same for where I live near Greensboro. That will change as more people get wireless routers. More on that after the meeting.
When the sold sign goes up on the house down the street, are you at all courteous about how much it went for? I am. Rather than go down there and ask, there is a Website you can use to get the information. If you want, you can check what homes are going for in any community in the country. The Website is www.zillow.com. Check it out.
Warning, use of the Website can be depressing. I was a navy dependent growing up. My dad would get transferred about every three years. We sometimes had to sell our house rapidly to have funds for the house at the next duty station. In the late 60s we lived in Sunnyvale, CA and had to sell our ranch-style home on a postage-stamp-sized lot in the mid-40s. I checked on Zillow and recently the house next door sold for $895,000.
Some time back I noted the RFID tags used to track packages and even license plates. England was experimenting with having a RFID tag imbedded in a plate to help track cars. Farmers are concerned about a proposed National Animal Identification System that would used RFID tags to keep track of flocks or herd animals. This would help officials to track the outbreak of infected and exposed animals in a disease outbreak.
These tags have been the size of grains of rice. That is small but still a nuisance if you want to implant a tag in an animal. Hitachi has come out with a new RFID tag. It is so small. It is called a RFID powder. The tag is the size of a grain of sand. This miniaturization opens the door to much easier use of the tagging device.
But I also wonder what other uses this miniaturization will bring to the RFID? What do you think?
Daylight saving time will not start on the first Sunday in April this year. It will start on March 11. Congress decreed in 2005 that March 11, 2007 will see the start of daylight saving time this year. This could cause software that had internal clocks set for the old time change to be an hour off if the software was produced before the law was passed.
If you have programs that are automatically set to shift the time one hour forward on the first Sunday in April, they will be off by an hour for three weeks. What’s the problem? Just set your time ahead one hour yourself? Sure. Then on the first Sunday in April, you computer will shift ahead another hour. You’ll have to be aware and set it back to the proper time.
The best bet would be to disable the automatic time-shift feature and do it manually for the time-sensitive software on your computer. Microsoft is making “patches” available for download. They may not affect all your software. The calendar in Outlook Express requires special attention. If you are a dedicated user of the calendar feature in Outlook, each entry would have to be reviewed.
Still doesn’t sound like a big deal. There are some programs that involve automatic triggers like software set to automatically buy or sell stock when trading opens. The trigger might be off an hour and cost the stockholder money. Software that automatically opens or closes locks on a pre-set time could cause delays as workers wait for them to open.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it could be a minor Y2K. We’ll just have to see.
As always you can reach me by email at rpolk@chespub.com or through my blog accessible from the homepage of our Website.
# posted by Richard Polk @ 8:38 AM 
