Google Maps in Dead Zones

My wife and I just completed a lengthy road trip to Glacier National Park. I knew we would put a couple thousand miles on the car so we rented one instead of taking a vehicle of our own. Besides neither my wife nor I have cars that get very good gas mileage. We purchase cars more for snow driving than summer and that makes them less than ideal for long drives.

As long as you stay on an interstate road, you are pretty much guaranteed to have mobile service the whole trip. What happens when you venture off into less-traveled paths? Well I can assure you that we had hours of travel in Montana with absolutely no mobile coverage whatsoever. I wondered what would happen in Google Maps and now I know.

I often complain that some software applications were written by people that never got full credit on their homework assignments in college. There are two companies where that is not the case: Apple and Google. Generally those guys know their stuff and this road trip proved that. Most of the time we would lose service and the app kept plugging along seamlessly. This became impressive when we could still see our car on the map. My guess is that the Google Maps app caches a number of map tiles in the surrounding area before you drive into coverage-less areas.

No it was not perfect. There were several instances in Glacier where the car appeared to be driving significantly to the right of the road. We seemed close enough I didn't worry about it. We also drove into some areas where the map showed nothing. For the most part it worked pretty well.

Google Maps turned into a lifesaver when we drove into Canada. The Toyota Corolla did not have a dual-unit speedometer. It only showed the current speed in miles per hour. That doesn't do much good when the speed limit is posted in kilometers per hour. Fortunately the moment we hit Canada, the units in Google Maps switched to metric and showed us our speed as captured in the GPS. I could see that 80 kph actually works out to 51 mph. I also kept track of the appropriate speeds for 60 kph and 40 kph. Those are the speed limits we encountered on the curvy mountain roads in in Waterton National Park.

The one letdown of trying to use Google Maps in dead zones is having it inaccurately provide your estimated arrival time over a lengthy drive. We started the drive with phone service and it had us arriving at home around 6pm. We drove into a dead zone and that time shot up to 6:30pm. We got back in service range and it came back down to 6pm. That happened a few times on the drive and so the second time, it didn't surprise me as much.

Overall Google Maps is a great application. We used it constantly to get around and keep from missing the turn on the small road to our cabin we rented. Without it we would have made quite a few U-turns. Furthermore it impressed us with how it worked even without mobile phone coverage. 

Happy Halloween 2025!

Tonight I am sitting by our front door answering it for all of the trick-or-treat kids in our neighborhood. Right now it is still the young kids and we always hand out glow-in-the-dark bracelets. The chemical kind that you get at night in amusement parks. My logic is that the lights will help the kids be more easily seen. As the night goes on, we will switch from young kids to older ones and they are more interested in candy and we have a giant bowl of that.

While handing out treats, I am also fixing a couple of technical problems. Tonight is probably the worst night to do that as I finally get a problem figured out and the doorbell rings. Fortunately I have solved two cumbersome issues and feel like I have accomplished something while still answering the door every couple of minutes.

While waiting for kids to come by this evening I noticed that our Amazon Show device had a really dim screen. I looked for an adjustment knob or button but there isn't one. As the device is supposed to understand verbal commands, I asked, "Alexa, how can I brighten the screen?" The device quickly replied, "Go into settings-appearance and adjust the brightness there." What a useless response, I thought as there are multiple setting menus on the stupid thing. Did I need to go into the settings on my wife's phone which controls the device? There is also a settings on the screen when you touch it. I started with the one on the screen. That only seemed to control where the pictures are coming from for the constant slide show we get to see.

I asked my wife for her phone. I went into the Alexa app and looked for settings to control the device. I couldn't find anything and so I headed back to the device. This time when I touched the screen on the Amazon Show, I noticed an icon that looked like a "V" at the top of the screen. That usually means to swipe down and so I did. It brought up yet a 3rd setup screen which had the appropriate controls for device brightness. I cranked it up a bit and now I can see the pictures clearly on the screen.

With the Amazon Show visible I thought I would sit down and crank out one more blog entry for the month. I had the option of going upstairs and getting my personal laptop, going downstairs and getting my work laptop, or using the Chromebook I keep on the desk next to the kitchen. Following the path of least resistance, I reached for the Chromebook. This turned out to be the most lengthy choice.

I opened the Chromebook and didn't see anything on the screen. Sometimes it can be a bit slow to respond but it needed to be turned on. I pressed the "On" button and saw that it had unexpectedly quit. I logged into my account on the device and it needed to do 2-factor authentication. Chrome being a product of Google likes to try to authenticate on our Android phone. I thought it would be simple as the desk by the kitchen is where we keep that phone. Unfortunately the first attempt didn't work and I got instructions similar to the ones from the Amazon Show. I ran through them without any luck only to have the doorbell ring from candy goblins. By the time I got back to the Chromebook and my phone, both had gone dark. I had to turn on the screens and discovered my Chromebook started the login process all over.

Fortunately when I entered my login information the Chromebook sent the MFA signal to my phone and I just had to confirm it was me logging in. I didn't need to follow any of the convoluted instructions that didn't match what I saw on the screen. As you can tell by this post, I solved the problem and used my Chromebook to write this post. Now it is time to go back to answering the door for the children in the neighborhood.

Using Google Calendar

I spend a fair amount of time working as an executive secretary for a volunteer organization. This is not something I aspired to do. Instead someone asked me to do it and I said I would. As an executive secretary I basically set appointments for people to meet with the leadership of the organization. Sometimes people ask to meet with the leaders and other times leaders ask to meet with specific people. Google's calendar, which can be found at https://calendar.google.com, does an amazing job and makes things very easy.

Before networked computers became commonplace, someone in my position had to keep paper calendars and have a lot of coordination meetings to make sure not to double-schedule someone. Now it is as simple as providing a scheduler like me with access to your calendar. Most of the leaders of the volunteer organization I associate with have e-mail addresses separate from their regular work or personal e-mail. Then they just log into Google Calendar with it and make sure to give me access to their calendar so I can set appointments for them.

The organization leadership changed significantly last week as nobody is expected to be a volunteer forever. We met as a new group on Wednesday evening and I deleted my access to the old leadership's calendars. The new leadership then shared their newly created e-mail addresses and gave me proper access. The next evening I then went through and created calendar entries for all of the regular meetings. We also had a number of requests for people to meet with the new leadership and I entered those. Fortunately I had lots of experience using Google Calendar in the past and did not have much of a learning curve.

I keep my personal calendar on my iPhone. I can access it from my Mac computer. It is great as I keep all sorts of appointment information up-to-date using both devices without having to worry about which one has the most correct information. They both do as an update on one pushes the change to the other. This would also be a great solution for the volunteer association I work with. The only downside is that everyone is required to use Apple products. Google Calendar doesn't care what phone you use. While you can access it with your phone's browser, there is also an application you can put on your phone. I just always use a web interface and it works great.

Are there problems with Google Calendar? Of course but they are minor. It has all of the features I need it for and appreciate the free price tag. If you are looking for a calendaring tool that makes it easy to share people's schedules, you might want to give it a look. It may also work for you.

If It Is Not Broke

There are several ways to finish the title of today's post that begins with, "If it is not broke . . ." Some will respond with, "Then don't fix it," while others will say, "Then break it." Both are valid continuations of the phrase. Use the first if you are trying to avoid creating more work for yourself and the second if you are looking to improve something. The trick is knowing which philosophy to subscribe to for a given situation.

When it comes to computers, you may often feel you don't need to create more work for yourself. You know how to use your specific program and how to get it to do what you want. Then the only time you need to fix something is when it actually breaks. The only downside is that there may be a better way and you just don't know it.

As you spend time on your phone, tablet, video game console, or computer, think about how long it takes you to do a specific task. Things like responding to an e-mail or looking something up on the Internet should not take more than a single step. If you go to look something up on the Internet and first go to Google, you are adding an extra step. Simply start typing keywords into the URL bar and your browser will perform the search for you. If you are working in a specific program and find yourself spending a large amount of time on a single task, do an Internet search and see if it can be streamlined.

Unfortunately there are a number of cases where the designers of software want you to jump through hoops and there is no way to speed up the process. Recently my wife was working through a State of Utah application to get help for her aging mother. First she had to fill out a 25-page application online. Then she had to print out said application and initial or sign each page. Then she had to scan each page and attach it to the original application. Talk about a hassle. How many 82 year-old women do you know that have the technical skill to do that? Fortunately my wife filled out the application and submitted it successfully. Now I just wish the State of Utah would figure out they have a problem and fix it. Right now, it is definitely broke.

Why So Many Apps?

Lately it feels like there is an app for anything you want to do. I am not a fan of loading up my mobile phone with a ton of applications (or apps) that I rarely use. After all, isn't that the reason we have the web? You can create the same thing you would use an app for with a general HTML page.

Right now I have about a dozen apps I should install on my phone. Instead I prefer to use my browser and have not loaded them up. Whenever I try to use IMDB on my phone to look up an actor, it suggests I load the app. Naturally I decline and just use the web interface. It does what I need. I also use the Google page instead of loading the special Google app. The web works just fine.

This evening I used the website for Virgin Pulse to input my healthy habits for the day. Sure I could load up another app on my smartphone but don't want to. There are many more examples I come across weekly and wonder what I can do to let vendors know I don't want another app. Why? For the simple reason apps take up space on my phone and I prefer to save that space for important stuff like cool pictures or videos. Perhaps you feel the same way.

Finding Stuff with Supply Chain Shortages

Yesterday I posted about not being able to find 1-inch chlorine tablets for my wife's new hot tub. Today I took a more scientific approach and was able to locate them. Naturally I promptly went down and purchased a 2-pound pack of them. How did I do it? I resorted to old-school technology and was reminded about how we did things before the ubiquity of the Internet.

We have a pool-supply store close to our house and it is across the street from where my wife works. Before going into the office she stopped by the store to see if they had what we needed. Nope, they did not. She sent me a message about being unsuccessful and I went to work trying to locate the tablets. In the old days when dirt was new and dinosaurs still roamed the earth, we had these nifty little books known as the Yellow Pages. If you needed anything, like chlorine tablets, you would look up all of the pool supply stores in the area and call them one-by-one.

The Internet-era method of doing the same thing is to open maps.google.com and set the size of the window to be how far you are willing to drive. Next enter what you are looking for in the search field. When I pulled it up today, I zoomed out a bit as I was willing to drive rather far and then put "Pool Supplies" in the search field. It brought up a bunch of different companies. Hovering over the red pins with my mouse provided more information about them. I didn't worry about calling any of the pool contractors or builders and only focused on supply companies. Fortunately all of the listings had phone numbers and so I started calling them.

The first place I called knew exactly what I was looking for and explained that they only had powdered chlorine, not tablets. The next place didn't have them either. My 3rd call was to a wholesale distributor and they didn't sell to the public. I politely asked if they knew someone that might have what I was looking for and he gave me a lead. Unfortunately they were not listed in my Google search and so I had to look them up by name. I found their phone number and gave them a call. They had the 1-inch chlorine tablets in stock and so I jumped in the car and drove down to the store.

Interestingly I was the only customer in the store. I told the salesperson that I had just called him and he immediately went to the shelves and pulled a container from the shelf. He had plenty of supply if I needed more but I want to start with one. Besides, now I know where to go to get more.

Online retailers like Amazon are great for bargain hunting, especially if you don't mind waiting a few days for your order to arrive. Unfortunately I would have had to wait until the end of January because of supply-chain issues. Making a few calls got me what I needed today for exactly the same price as listed on Amazon. No, I didn't get free shipping as I had to take my time, drive to the store, and use about $3 in gasoline. After searching for several days, that is a bargain. While it may be tempting to use Amazon for all of your shopping needs, sometimes it really is better to buy local. Now to go set up that hot tub.

Problems with the Cloud

Microsoft used to run an ad where a woman at home had a problem to solve. She then says, "To the cloud," like it is a miracle solution that will solve all problems. I remember thinking how stupid the response seemed to me. She just needed to know how to use some of the software she probably already had on her computer. Since the ad first appeared, we have seen a number of software and services transition to Internet servers and I some of it doesn't make sense.

Last night I turned on the nightly news and saw a story about how 911 services went down around the state. The disruption caused the FCC to get involved as emergency calls are rather important. It turns out that Microsoft had an issue with their cloud authentication for several hours making it so people couldn't log into e-mail, Azure, Sharepoint, One-Drive, and a number of other services. I have to admit that I am a bit concerned when I see that Microsoft's cloud is running such important things as 911 services. I have never trusted Microsoft products for critical systems as I have had too many crashes and lost a significant amount of work throughout the years. That is one of the reasons I am writing this on a Mac and have my blog hosted by Google.

The Microsoft crash effected two of my tasks yesterday as Sony uses a number of Microsoft cloud products such as Sharepoint and Exchange (e-mail). Fortunately I had other things I could do and so I just moved onto those tasks until this morning. Now everything seems to be running smoothly.

So what went wrong? I did a quick Internet search this morning as I assumed there would be plenty of information about the outage. I was not wrong as a number of news sources felt the outage worth reporting. Ultimately they all use Microsoft as the source for the problem. Some speculated that this might be caused by some sort of Distributed Denial of Surface (DDoS) attack. Microsoft came and said that it wasn't. Their explanation revealed a "code issue" that kept their servers from processing login information appropriately. Does that concern anyone as much as it does me?

There are a number of services that benefit from moving from people's local computers up into the Internet cloud. Then there are some others that are best left to local hardware. Hopefully we are not all blinded by the promises of the cloud to be stupid about it.

New Year's Resolutions

This morning I headed into work on my bike and then to the company gym where I usually start my day. Keeping with my early-rising habit I developed over the Christmas break I found myself there earlier than usual. I expected the gym to be packed with those seeking to lose a bit of weight gained over the Holidays. Nope, it felt really empty. Perhaps the idea of making and then breaking resolutions has gotten to the point where the new trend is to not make them in the first place. I hope I am wrong about that as the new year is always a great time to reflect on how we can improve ourselves.

On Sunday my wife asked if I had set any goals or resolutions and I had to confess that I have not made the effort yet. I sort of have a few ideas that carry forward from previous years like skiing more and dropping a bit of weight. So far I have started the year off right as I am down a few pounds which is a freaking miracle considering all of the feasting most people do during the holidays. I have also come back to work with a sore body from skiing so much over the break.

In this vein of looking at ways of improving myself over the next 12 months, I think I would like to learn a new technical skill or two. I have a very strong understanding of relational database systems and have even dabbled with other database technologies. Therefore those are not good areas to expand. Instead I should look at where my weaknesses are and set some goals to improve those parts of my professional skill set. I have used both Amazon's (AWS) and Google's (GCP) cloud platforms but could definitely improve there. Our company has a learning portal and should probably leverage it first and then fill in any shortcomings with a local conference.

Another area I would like to focus some effort is improving my artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge. Last year I ran through a Reinforcement Learning book and learned a lot. The book wasn't all that great but I did enjoy the code segments and doing the examples. There are a number of new AI tools emerging and I will try to find one that catches my interest and do something with it.

Finally I want to do more with gaming technology. I have dabbled with the Unity game engine but think I could learn a lot by learning Unreal as well. There are so many samples and tutorials that it would be good to spend an extra hour on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings hanging out at the office and building something interesting.

While it is nice to create a list of improvements, be sure to write them down. Someone once said that a goal not written is just a wish. If you want the wish to come true, start by writing it down and then coming up with a plan. I have the starting part down, now I should follow through and make a proper plan for each of these resolutions. Good luck on your own New Year's Resolutions.

The Internet Does Not Work the Same Internationally

Once again I find myself in Japan this week. When I travel internationally I try to keep my body as close to Mountain Standard Time (MST) as possible. That makes it easier to readjust when I get back to the States. It also means I go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 4am every morning.

This morning I started doing early-morning e-mail and got several from my son. He knows I am looking to replace my 20-year-old car and sent me listings for a few potential candidates. What he doesn't realize is that the Internet does not work the same internationally and I cannot see the listings. Some sites look at the IP address you are using and if you are not located in the United States, block traffic. This is a good way to keep malicious events from happening. Fortunately there is an easy fix. I cannot get my company e-mail without using a virtual private network (VPN). To external websites I now look like my computer is physically located in California even though I am on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Another thing that doesn't work as well is the Pandora streaming music service. I have written about this in the past and have to switch to Spotify when I am outside the US. It is not a big deal as I have my Pandora and Spotify accounts set up with similar playlists but it is something to be aware of.

Finally, there is a big difference with Google. Google and all of its consumer services such as the search engine and YouTube are giant advertising places. That means they need to know where you are physically located to serve you the correct ads. They also use your location information to do things like set the language and character set. When I am in London, that isn't a problem because I speak the language. In Japan it does become a problem because the character set is different.

This blog site is maintained by Google and so when I log in from Japan to create an entry, all of the instructions and buttons are in Japanese. Fortunately the placement is the same for all of the buttons in both English and Japanese so that I know what buttons mean even if I can't read the language. Google also allows you to set your language. To do so, just go to https://google.com. If you have a Google account, you will see your avatar in the upper-right corner of the webpage. Click on it and you will be able to manage your account settings. Simply click on "Manage Your Google Account" and you will find the language setting under "Data & Personalization." Now it doesn't matter what country you are in, Google won't try to translate everything into the language of the country you are visiting.

Most of the time, the differences you will experience with the Internet while traveling internationally are easily surmountable given a bit of preparation. Hopefully this little post helps.

YouTube Traffic vs. Blogger Traffic

My little experiment with sharing a blog article on LinkedIn has spurred a number of questions. I talked with a couple of my buddies about it at lunch today and they provided some interesting insight. I thought you might find it interesting as well.

I wondered aloud with them as to why people would click from LinkedIn to my blog but not continue on to see any of my YouTube videos. One of them suggested that people will often keep up-to-date on their social media feeds via smartphones. Smartphones lend themselves to viewing blogs much more easily than to videos. You can read a blog on the train or quietly at your desk. Watching videos usually requires some sort of sound output and that can cut down on people's willingness to watch.

Both blogspot.com and YouTube are owned by Google and come with extensive analytics. I thought I would go through and see if my buddy's hypothesis is true. To do that I looked at the platform people use to view the content I have created. Sure enough, the overwhelming platform that people use to view my YouTube videos is the computer. My blog entry I promoted on LinkedIn is most often viewed on smartphones.

This has me rethinking my video content. There are a number of spectacular videos that don't need narration. My favorite ski videos don't have someone talking over breathtaking powder montages. They may have some pumped-up music synchronized with the movements of the skier. Perhaps I need to cut down on the amount of narration I have in my videos.

Playing with the analytics definitely gives me something to think about and ideas to try in my next videos. I have two that I am working on now and make adjustments accordingly. If you have any ideas or comments, please let me know. I am trying to get better at what I do and help from the outside is always welcome. 

Winter Driving Revisited

My daughter just got home after spending the day teaching skiing at Alta. It is 9:30pm and the drive took her over 5 hours. Normally it takes 20 minutes. Why so long? People don't know how to drive in the snow. My wife and I spent the morning skiing and had the same drive. It took us an hour and we came down at 1:00pm. During our drive, we saw a number of idiots trying to drive in the snow with 2-wheeled-drive vehicles and summer tires.

One of my most popular blog posts is from 2013 on Winter Driving. Unfortunately the video I reference is no longer available but there are some secrets of driving in the snow:

1. Make sure you have winter tires
2. Go slow

If you don't have item #1, then don't drive in the snow. Pull off to the side of the road and wait for the snow to melt. If that sounds harsh, sorry but that is reality.

While waiting for my daughter to make it safely down the canyon, I utilized several online tools. My favorite is maps.google.com. You can have it show traffic and see where the slowdowns are located. My kids all prefer Waze. This evening Waze had the better information. While I could see where traffic is slow, that doesn't help get home any quicker when there is only one way down the canyon. Interestingly, my daughter could have skied home quicker than it took to drive. Too bad they won't let you leave a car at the ski resorts overnight. After all, I will be back up there tomorrow and could have helped bring it home.

Buy, Rent, or Borrow Computing Power for Machine Learning

I am going through an interesting exercise at work. There are a number of us going through a Reinforcement Learning book and we all want to play with the code described in the various chapters. While I have the luxury of having a Linux machine sitting under my desk, others are not so fortunate. One of my coworkers has a rather large Linux box with a lot of computing power and so several people are running the exercises there. Unfortunately it can only handle about 3 really large jobs concurrently and so we are looking at other options for getting compute power for our Machine Learning exercises.

We tried the first solution by buying a large computer but there are a number of problems associated with that. I explained the first being that we are limited to about 3 people using it at the same time. the resources are fixed and don't scale well. The second problem is we have to maintain that computer. During one particularly large job, the computer stopped running at 4am and we have no idea why. We believe it might have been a hardware failure because the logs just suddenly stopped recording anything. It would be nice to have someone monitoring the computer 24 hours a day but that is not possible. Especially for a simple learning exercise.

The next option is to rent space on a cloud service such as Amazon (AWS), Google (GCE), or Microsoft (Azure). We do not require graphics processing units (GPUs) and so we can get enough computing power for all our experiments for around $650/month. We will take 2 to 3 months to read the book and would require about $2,000. That is significantly less than the price we paid for buying the computer mentioned previously. Furthermore the hardware will scale nicely. If we want to run more experiments, we increase the number of servers we rent. When we don't need them any more, we shut them down and don't pay to keep them running.

Finally there is the option of borrowing computing power. There are a number of other groups within the company that have spare compute cycles we could use for our learning exercises. This is the ideal solution if we only factor in cost. However the reality is that someone could be kicked off the hardware when other higher-priority tasks need to run instead or the problem of spreading out experiments evenly across the company.

We will probably end up renting servers from one of the public cloud companies as it seems to strike the balance between being cost effective and least troublesome. Your situation may be different and it is always worth considering all 3 options.

Online Recommendations

This afternoon I am working on a personal project related to a recommendation engine. I don't really want to go into too many details as there are plenty of examples that I can draw from without giving away any secrets. While I don't have a confidentiality agreement in place that prevents me from talking about it, I am working with friends and that bond is stronger than any signed legal document.

This example has nothing to do with the project but is something else I have been working on today as well and illustrates the project. I want to take my family on a vacation next autumn. We enjoy going in the month of October because the usual crowds associated with summer are long gone. However we can't do the usual summer things nor can we do the winter activities either. Shoulder seasons can be tough but I am looking for a good recommendation on where to go. There are some important criteria to take into account:

• Price
• Ease of travel
• Level of fun
• Not needing a vacation after the vacation
• Flexibility to add one or two people

I am taking all of my children along with my wife and their spouses. Right now I only have one child that is married but that number could change in the next 10 months. I also have children in college and that may limit who can go, which is why I need the destination to be somewhat flexible.

Now I travel almost every week of the year and so I have a very good understanding of destinations that are easy to get to vs. ones that are difficult. I also understand that it might be a coin toss for certain destinations because of things like hurricane season in the Caribbean or early snow for places like Alaska.

So how does one distill all of the information into a helpful recommendation engine? If you look at how Amazon does it, they ask you to start with something and then show you what other things people have also looked at, starting with the most popular. In the case of a vacation, I might look at hotels in Hawaii and Amazon would also show me places like Mexico or Tahiti. It would then be up to me to weed out the best choice based on my criteria.

If you look at how online forums handle this issue, I would simply provide a posting with the criteria listed above and then leave it to other actual humans to give recommendations based on their previous experiences. The problem with this approach is that someone may have gone to Alaska at this time of year and had a wonderful time. However a freak snowstorm during my proposed dates could severely impact the "Level of fun" in a negative way.

If you look at other online vendors like Backcountry.com, they employ human experts that you can ask via chat windows to get their opinions. This is better than the online forums because the experts should know enough to filter out the "Alaska" responses. The only problem is that it requires paying people to answer questions and provide recommendations.

The Google search engine has sort of combined all of these methods with some extra smarts to give you the results of your online searches. Theoretically if 100 people all enter the same search criteria, the links near the top of the results are the most popular ones that have been clicked. For the first 10 searchers, the results are not nearly as accurate. However as more and more people click results, the better answers rise to the top.

There are a number of recommendation engine algorithms and some of them work better than others. Unfortunately none of them are perfect and so it is a matter of figuring out how much effort to put into my next project. I have some ideas and will post the results as they come in.

WiFi Hotspot

This weekend I joined my son in Sun Valley for his ski race and we had a very good trip. We stayed with the team at an inexpensive motel and were fairly comfortable. When I checked in, they gave me a piece of paper with the WiFi password so I could get online and check e-mail. Unfortunately the password they gave me didn't work. Sure I could have called the front desk and straightened things out. Instead, I turned my Android phone into a mobile WiFi hotspot and connected to it with my computer.

For the past month or so I have been carrying around an Android phone and my iPhone 5. Both phones use the AT&T service. There are some things I like about my iPhone and others that I like about my Android. One area where the Android phone really shines is in its ability to become a mobile hotspot. For some reason, AT&T doesn't allow your iPhone to perform this functionality but it does for Android phones. I have to say that I am very impressed with this capability. The LTE download speed was nearly as fast as my home Internet connection. I was able to read e-mail quickly and do it on a full-sized computer screen with a full-sized keyboard. Furthermore, my son was able to connect his iTouch at the same time and read his e-mail as well.

Once my son and I were done with the Internet connection, I turned off the WiFi hotspot capability along with my computer. It was only needed for a couple of minutes and was very handy. After that we were both worn out from a busy day of skiing and went to sleep. Technology had served its purpose.

Google in Japan

Visiting a country where you don't speak the language can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. This is especially true in Japan where I don't even understand the characters. When I first got to my hotel here in Tokyo, I wanted to look up some of the sights near to where I am staying. Naturally I went to www.google.com. I was immediately redirected to www.google.co.jp. The user interface is so familiar that it didn't matter. I entered my search criteria and soon I was looking at a bunch of Japanese web sites. I didn't understand a single one and so I revised my search and added the word "English". That made all the difference.

Google owns a lot of web properties (such as this blog site) and so this instant localization occurs whenever I try to visit one of their sites. For instance, trying to log in to post today's blog, I had to figure out which one of the links was "Log in". Once I got in, the system is smart enough to know I prefer English over Japanese. Figuring out how to log in was the tough part.

When I first started working with a team based in Japan, I thought it would be enough to start learning a few basic words in Japanese. I figured that the written language would be too difficult to figure out and so I shouldn't even worry about it. The more I am in Japan, the more I realize that I may want to learn a few characters as well. I've only been here a couple of days, but I think I have "Search" and "Log in" pretty well figured out.

It's About Time

Last night I was watching the news and saw a story about how Google is making it possible to retract e-mails sent erroneously. I was amazed that such a feature was worthy of a prime-time television news coverage. I know a lot of people use Google for e-mail but the ability to retract sent messages has been available in other mail systems for over a decade. All I could think of was how it was about time that Google finally stepped up and added a feature that other programs thought was important enough to add a long time ago.

The story highlighted the infatuation the media has with certain companies. In the 80's, it was Microsoft. Then it was Netscape followed closely by all of the Dot-Coms. There are other companies out there that are truly innovating but can't get the media's attention. That is too bad because it allows companies like Google to get free publicity for substandard products while really cool stuff has to fight for the slightest hint of recognition.

Don't get me wrong. I think Google has done some great things and there is a reason that their search engine is used as much as it is. However now is the time to expect more. Otherwise it won't be long before Google gives us another fiasco like Windows Vista.

Google Docs

Recently I had the chance to use some of Google's applications. The company I now work for keeps all of our spreadsheets and documents in Google Docs. I had heard about Google Docs before, but had never really taken a look. I have always used Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org for such tasks and didn't see the need to switch. It has been almost a month now and I still don't see a reason to switch.

Google is an innovative company that has managed to do one or two things right. They remind me of the Microsoft of a decade ago. Microsoft has never been good at getting the right product out the door the first time. However, they continue to refine it until it is a great product. Look at Windows. There were versions 1.0 and 2.0, but nobody really adopted it until version 3.0. Even then, it was quickly followed by 3.1 which fixed a lot of problems. So it would not surprise me that even though I am not a big fan of Google Docs right now, that may change.

The primary difference between Microsoft Office and and Google Docs is that you need to install the Microsoft product on your computer while you use Google Docs on the web. If you are always connected to the Internet, then it isn't much of an issue to run your word processing or spreadsheet software on the web. However, what happens when you are not connected to the Internet? Perhaps you have hiked to a secluded spot in the forest to work on your version of "The Great American Novel." Google Docs isn't going to work for you.

The advantage of running software on the web is that it is much easier to share documents. You don't have to worry about attaching a spreadsheet to an e-mail so a friend or colleague can go over your numbers. Furthermore, if you update your document, it is updated immediately for everyone you have shared it with.

As for functionality, there is no comparison. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org are much more feature rich than Google Docs. When I was explaining this to someone, he mentioned that it will only take some time before Google Docs catches up. While there may be some truth to this, there is only so much you can do with a web-based application. At least for the foreseeable future.

Digital Breadcrumbs

This morning's paper had an interesting article about how text messages have become today's equivalent of the "lipstick on the collar" as a sign of a cheating spouse. My first thought was how glad I was that I don't have to worry about that. My second thought was about how the general public is less anonymous than they realize.

Something that most people don't realize what information is tracked on the Internet. This BLOG site that I use is owned by Google and requires me to log in before I make a post. I generally don't bother to log out. That means whenever I do an Internet search on Google, they keep track of what I am looking for. I don't have anything to hide and so that doesn't bother me. Whenever I do a search for "Ham," Google could use previous search criteria to know that I am looking for information about "ham radio" and not "ham lunchmeat."

Another thing that most people don't realize is that websites have a fairly good idea of where you are physically located. I use a cable modem to log onto the Internet from home. My service provider assigns my cable modem a unique Internet protocol (IP) address. I don't pay to have a static address which means my IP address can change at any time. However it is rare to have that happen. Even then, the addresses assigned are specific to a local area. That means that websites can determine your location down to a several block area.

Again, I am not worried about a website knowing my IP address or approximately where I live. Once again, Google and other Internet search sites keep track of this information. Suppose I do a search for a seemingly innocent topic but decide to visit a questionable website. Now suppose one of my children does a similar search using a different computer in the house. My cable modem presents only a single IP address to Google. Based on my previous poor choice, there could be more questionable sites presented to my children.

If you take the time to sit down and run through a few other scenarios, it doesn't take much to figure out that it is not hard for law enforcement officials to determine who is downloading illegal copies of music or movies. Your Internet service provider also knows what content you are viewing from the false privacy of your own home. If you are like me and don't have any skeletons in your closet, then this shouldn't concern you. However if you are in the closet about how you like to look at pictures of skeletons in compromising postions, you might want to pick a new hobby. Especially if you are famous or plan on running for public office.

Technical Books

Lately I have been working on a new software project that involves SQL Server Integration Services or SSIS as it is more commonly known. While I have extensive experience using Oracle and PostgreSQL databases, my SQL Server knowledge is somewhat shallow.

Yesterday I decided to make a quick run to the bookstore to see if there was a book or two that I could use to help me with one or two details on SSIS. I drove down and found two books. One was 400 pages and the other was 700. The difference in price was only $5.00 and so I did a quick scan of the index. I'm not sure if the larger book had a more comprehensive index or if it truly contained that much more material, but it seemed to be the better purchase. I was then back home with the entire roundtrip taking less than 30 minutes.

I got home and used the index to find the component of SSIS that I was working with and eagerly read. The book was a disappointment. It had no more information that I could figure out on my own by looking at the computer screen. There were no tips or tricks on how to get the tool to do more than what I was already doing. I was sad.

I used to love going to the bookstore and pick up technical books. In my office, I have three floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with computer-related books. Some I have even chapters chapters or been the technical editor. One I even wrote myself that was published by SAMS.

Yesterday was my first time back at the bookstore in quite a while and my experience with the SSIS book helped me understand why. Now that the Internet and World Wide Web have grown in size, it is generally where I go when I want to learn something new. With a few quick searches at Google or Bing, I can almost always find out what I need to know. When I couldn't find what I was looking for in the SSIS book, I did a quick search and found an example of what I was trying to accomplish.

Books are still a great place to get technical information. They are easy to carry and don't require an Internet connection to read. However, I think it is tough to compete with automated searches and up-to-date web sites. I still have my receipt so I think I will see if I can't get my money back on this SSIS book.

What is Cloud Computing?

Friday I got an e-mail from the Oracle Alumni list of which I am a subscriber. The message had a link to a YouTube video where Larry Ellison and Ed Zander talk about cloud computing as well as a few other topics. The video was interesting to me because I know both gentlemen who are big names in the computer industry. However I think it would be boring for most everyone else and so I won't bother to provide the link.

For those that don't know, Larry Ellison is the CEO of Oracle Corporation. When I first started at Oracle back in January of 1986, it was not uncommon to see Larry walking down the hall dribbling a basketball just after a quick game across the street. He is now one of the richest men in the world and understandable a lot less approachable.

Ed Zander and my Dad used to work together back at Data General in the 80's. I remember going to company softball games and meeting Ed. Every couple of years or so, he goes skiing with my Dad at Deer Valley and I manage to invite myself along for the trip. Ed left Data General and evenutally found himself as President of Sun Microsystems (just purchased by Oracle). Most recently he was CEO of Motorola.

The video was fun to watch as Larry got very animated when the topic of cloud computing was mentioned. Larry pointed out that cloud computing is really the computer industry going in circles. He is right. Twenty or thirty years ago we just called it timesharing, which is different than buying a piece of a condo or luxury apartment.

Five or six years ago there was a big emphasis on how McDonalds was not in the business of selling fast food. Instead they were in the business of real estate. Companies like Google, Salesforce.com, and Amazon have taken a page from the McDonalds playbook and realize that one of their core competencies is in creating bullet-proof data centers. They then provide access to these data centers through the Internet. This is cloud computing. You tell the provider what type of environment you want (i.e., RAM, Operating System, Services like e-mail, database, or web server, etc.) and they set it up for you.

Cloud computing makes it much easier to do things like set up websites. It is also a great way to borrow a computer for testing without having to buy one. So cloud computing makes it easier to create your own BLOG (this one is hosted by Google) but it probably won't directly effect your own home computing environment.

Now if all the cloud computing companies can figure out that McDonalds started loosing marketshare when they forgot they were in the food business, we won't have to watch the decline of our favorite online bookstore.