tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52118082011-07-07T19:05:46.705-04:00Flaunt your technophobia!Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-30276786074388716562009-03-31T15:56:00.003-04:002009-03-31T16:03:08.555-04:00

Following is a post I wrote a few years ago when I was working for TMCnet. Since then, this piece has disappeared, so I wanted to make sure it was preserved somewhere.Transferred over 31 March 2009 from Al Bredenberg's VOIP and CRM Blog (linking here to the Wayback Machine archived version):The 'Nudge' Button -- Somebody Please Invent It!I love the "Undo" function. It doesn't always work the way

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-31071667478350953502009-01-15T14:31:00.004-05:002010-05-06T17:22:34.531-04:00

[Updated 6 May 2010]I've been using Windows Vista on a new Dell Dimension desktop machine now for about a week, and I thought it would be useful to start keeping track of the really stupid things that Microsoft did not fix in its Windows operating system and Office applications1. MIA text in text selectionOften when you select a block of text, one or more words will somehow disappear from the

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-53694274939127447232008-12-13T16:17:00.001-05:002008-12-13T16:25:55.453-05:00

Just wanted to pin down a couple of resources on the topic of peak oil -- the idea that world demand for oil will bump up against the limit of what can be extracted, refined and distributed, resulting in catastrophic shortages. Most advocates I have encountered think this will happen soon.This is an item that aired on NPR today on Weekend Edition:'Peak Oil Theory' Demands Energy AlternativesHere

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1161283959608358852006-10-19T14:38:00.000-04:002006-10-19T14:52:39.620-04:00

YASATDOOT = Yet Another Software Application That Does Only One ThingThis thought came to me when I received today's email from PC World Daily Downloads spotlighting Duplicates.NET, a program that can identify duplicate files with the same contents but different names. Sounds like a really useful little program somebody wrote because he has a very specific need for it. And sure, he might as well

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1151084346950622152006-06-23T13:30:00.000-04:002007-04-12T10:30:48.946-04:00

I think we have packaging engineers to thank for the customer-proof plastic packaging that has penetrated the market over about the past 20 years. Thanks to this innovation, every consumer now needs to keep a Jaws of Life in his kitchen drawer and faces the daily possibility of acquiring a life-threatening laceration during the process of extracting a new ballpoint pen or a set of headphones.AB -

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1139239568591270862006-02-06T10:18:00.000-05:002006-02-06T10:31:23.473-05:00

Ben Shneiderman of of the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science sent out an announcement today about the release of an important report on creativity support tools. This is an emerging class of tools that supports knowledge and creative workers by helping them generate and work with ideas, collaborate and share knowledge in new ways.The complete report is available at this web

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1138396171655093512006-01-27T15:56:00.000-05:002006-01-27T17:02:02.526-05:00

Recently I've been noodling around with an idea not even half-formed about the possible future development of technology platforms. It seems to me that convergence could make it possible for the same kinds of services to be delivered over a growing number of competing platforms that are becoming increasingly flexible, powerful and capable of carrying growing numbers of services.Some of the

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1128980587708422742005-10-10T17:45:00.000-04:002005-10-10T17:45:54.693-04:00

by Al BredenbergI love the "Undo" function. It doesn't always work the way you expect it to, and it doesn't always work the same from one application to another, but it's a great idea that helps the user in many circumstances in many applications.I wish somebody would invent a similar function called "Nudge."Does your computer ever get stuck? You know what I mean. The hourglass just keeps

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1113074581302087792005-04-09T15:09:00.000-04:002005-04-09T15:41:24.043-04:00

Time Magazine this past week ran a good profile of Intel CEO Paul Otellini and a sidebar interview with Texas Instruments CEO Tom Engibous, both of which included interesting comments about the need for humanization of technology."A New Brain for Intel," gives some insight into the thinking of Otellini, the first non-engineer CEO of Intel. He's the one credited for the success of the Centrino

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1105625035795052792005-01-13T08:50:00.000-05:002005-01-13T09:05:06.436-05:00

The search engine arena is of intense interest to us here at TMC, both as users of online search and as marketers of our own products and brands. So I was interested to see this news release today: Yahoo! Search and MSN Search Close the Gap with Google, Says Keynote This story comes from Keynote Systems, a research company working in the field of customer experience and attitudes. The study

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1105236673199030932005-01-08T20:54:00.000-05:002005-01-08T23:02:20.126-05:00

I receive about 300-400 spam messages a day at my personal email address, but I hardly ever see any of them, because of the anti-spam system SafetyBar (formerly SpamNet), which I've been using for a few years now. A news release from a few days ago brings it to mind. This is from Cloudmark, the developers of SafetyBar: Cloudmark Closes 2004 on a Winning Note The news they're touting is that

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1105131429813790202005-01-07T15:55:00.000-05:002005-01-07T15:57:09.813-05:00

Since scientist and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke lives in Sri Lanka, I had been wondering whether he was all right and whether he had any comments about the tsunami disaster. So I was pleased to find a message from him on the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation Web site: http://www.clarkefoundation.org I have a particular interest in Clarke, as I enjoyed his writings as a teenager and also

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1103846667835266682004-12-23T18:54:00.000-05:002004-12-23T19:07:28.086-05:00

Laptop Giving You Hot Pants? As a guy who uses a laptop a lot, I was a little worried about the report that came out of SUNY Stony Brook claiming that the heat from a laptop can reduce fertility in men. I first learned about the study in an article from Time Magazine, "Too Darn Hot!" We don't expect to have any more children, but I still hate to think that I might be simmering the stew for too

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1103552934654205442004-12-20T09:23:00.000-05:002004-12-20T16:56:14.586-05:00

Will We Need the Cone of Silence on Airplanes? For a minute last week, media attention focused on the FCC's proposal to allow in-air cell phone calling on airplanes. Here's a press release from the FCC on the plan: FCC to Examine Ban on Using Cellular Telephones on Airborne Aircraft FCC Chairman Michael Powell rightly gave assurances that any FCC decisions would be made in cooperation with the

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1103131419289039022004-12-15T13:15:00.000-05:002004-12-15T12:23:39.290-05:00

Phishing Attacks Increase Saw the following scary report today: Anti-Phishing Working Group Announces Phishing Attack Sites Increased by 29% In November; Report Shows Smart Malcode Is Augmenting Social Engineering Phishing Attacks This report mentions the involvement of organized crime in phishing scams, which somehow I had not heard about, although it doesn't surprise me. Until recently, I

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1103127013248906192004-12-15T10:40:00.000-05:002004-12-15T11:24:05.396-05:00

Who's Gonna Get Fiber to My Home? Yesterday my colleague at TMCnet, Johanne Torres, wrote about Verizon's plans over the next five to six years to switch over its network nationwide from PSTN to IP: First Town in Verizon Nationwide VoIP Conversion Also yesterday, TMC President Rich Tehrani called my attention to an article by Jim Duffy with some higher-level analysis and explanation of

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1102956982503252582004-12-13T11:49:00.000-05:002004-12-13T11:56:22.503-05:00

Managing Your Snippets This seems like an important piece of the Ubiquitous Content Management puzzle: Net Snippets Puts Web Information Management at Everyone's Fingertips for Free Excerpt: "Free Edition provides web surfers with a simple and effective way to save and manage text, images, links and entire web pages. While some search engines let users save results from their site, Net

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1102949068489593402004-12-13T09:41:00.000-05:002004-12-13T09:44:28.490-05:00

Dumping Your Old Computer? Better Think Twice! Al Bredenberg Besides environmental concerns, here's another reason to be cautious when tossing out a retired computer: New FTC Rule to Guard against Identity Theft Comes as Companies Get Set to Dump Millions of Computers Al B. -- 12/13/04

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1102347438084253072004-12-06T10:29:00.000-05:002004-12-06T10:37:18.083-05:00

'Lifetime Service for One Low Fee' -- Yeah, Right! Announcements like this one always baffle me: RNKVoIP Launches Lifetime Phone Service Plans for One-Time Fee How in the world can anyone offer a lifetime service of any kind in good conscience -- unless you know that your customer has a malignant brain tumor or is being pursued by a mafia hit man? I would love to be proved wrong, but I find

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1101767032393946072004-11-29T17:13:00.000-05:002004-11-29T17:23:52.393-05:00

I reviewed these two news items today, which have a common theme: Global Crossing's Unparalleled IP Network Performance Enables New Guarantees on Converged IP Services Excerpt: Global Crossing's upgraded SLAs offer customers industry-leading guarantees for its converged IP services provisioned over the premium Class of Service (CoS), including: End-to-end availability of 99.999 percent,

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1101747496189615742004-11-29T11:47:00.000-05:002004-11-29T11:59:35.026-05:00

I've been concerned for a long time about the problem of click fraud in the pay-per-click search engine advertising game. I've been advertising on a PPC basis in search engines for a few years now and have tried several media. So far, the search engines that seem to bring in real qualified traffic are Google and Overture. Even so, I have never felt that a Web visitor brought in from a PPC ad was

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1101141413393902462004-11-22T11:33:00.000-05:002004-11-22T11:36:53.393-05:00

Saw a report today on Law.com's blog network: Law.com Launches Blog Network with Leading Independent Legal Experts http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Nov/1096151.htm I like this concept as a way to bring together various related blogs under a common interface and theme. AB - 11/22/04

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1101140682804355452004-11-22T11:18:00.000-05:002004-11-22T11:24:42.803-05:00

Just saw in the news that the newest version of the Kazaa file-sharing software will come bundled with the Skype free VoIP calling application: Kazaa Offers Unlimited Free Internet Calls With Latest Software Release This comes as no surprise, as Kazaa and Skype were developed by the same folks. What worries many of us (or at least the Reluctant Geek) is whether this will move Skype any closer

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1100877647270164992004-11-19T22:21:00.000-05:002004-11-19T10:29:54.303-05:00

Yesterday, TMC Company President Rich Tehrani alerted us to a new Google search tool that indexes scholarly research, Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/ Google Scholar does appear to index very different materials from conventional Google. For example, a search on "Natalie Curtis Burlin," one of my research subjects, in regular Google brings up my Web site about her as the first listing

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1100871776064167642004-11-19T08:43:00.000-05:002004-11-19T10:31:33.220-05:00

Just saw an announcement today about the launch of a search tool called Mooter: http://www.mooter.com/ Provides intriguing results arranged in radiant clusters reminiscent of Mind Mapping. AB 11-19-04

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1081345952216818862004-04-07T09:52:00.000-04:002004-04-07T10:04:25.310-04:00

Restart Your Computer A Computer Survival Tip From the Reluctant Geek If your computer is misbehaving in some mysterious way, try simply shutting it down and starting it up again. Maybe you're having trouble connecting to the Internet or your network, or you might not be able to print a document or send an email, or your mouse might be acting erratically. Sometimes computer problems occur

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1079136724373277472004-03-12T19:12:00.000-05:002004-03-12T20:14:52.856-05:00

Today an interesting topic came up on the CHI-WEB mailing list, a discussion list on human-computer interaction as it relates to the web. One member asked about the pros and cons of using different web designs and organizational schemes for different websites owned by the same organization. Here is my response to her post: ----- Pat M wrote: > Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 10:36 AM > To:

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1078422053624035942004-03-04T12:40:00.000-05:002004-03-12T19:05:53.640-05:00

Beware of Yourself The trap of self-referential design Those of us working in web development (or possibly in any area of technology design) run the risk of designing self-referentially. When I speak of being self-referential, I'm talking about the wrong-headed assumptions we make about what the user needs, about what works and what doesn't, about what's good and what's bad. One of the most

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1077645368164541562004-02-24T12:56:00.000-05:002004-03-04T12:36:23.936-05:00

A Bag of Rocks Every technology carries a burden. Keep in mind that if you implement a great new technology, it has a bagful of rocks hanging off of it. Some of the rocks are: + Initial monetary cost (Obviously. But also:) + Integration efforts + Support burden + Training + Learning curve resulting in delayed productivity + User stress from the human-computer interaction issues inherent in

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1077645170688244932004-02-24T12:52:00.000-05:002004-02-24T12:55:36.436-05:00

Sometimes I take myself too seriously. I need to recognize that my brilliant ideas are not more important than the people who have to listen to them. AB, 2/24/04

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-1060190644557362272003-08-06T13:24:00.000-04:002003-08-06T13:25:00.596-04:00

Renee F. writes: >>I am looking for a PC laptop and I thought you might be able to lend some expertise. I've always been more of a Mac girl, increasingly so over the past few years, and feel out of touch with what I should be looking for in a PC—especially in terms of processor speed. I need something that will (1) be functional for years to come and (2) run the basic software, with several (or

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-939973862003-05-08T12:14:00.000-04:002003-05-08T12:14:28.863-04:00

Computers make people feel stupid Unfortunately, computers themselves present one of the greatest obstacles to the use of the Internet for many people. They can be useful tools, but overall, computers are frustrating, rude, and poorly designed. I get in trouble for saying this kind of thing. Some people think I'm out of my mind, as I'm supposed to be a heavy-duty computer guy. The fact is, I

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-934687172003-04-29T11:02:00.000-04:002003-05-08T11:48:44.000-04:00

At Antioch New England Graduate School, where I'm working on Web issues, someone posted a comment today on the public online conference about Pew's recently published study about Internet usage. Thought I would republish my response here: ----- David Forbes writes: >>I think we can safely say that the people who are the subjects of the Pew Research Center's (http://people-press.org/) most

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-932388942003-04-25T09:45:00.000-04:002003-04-25T09:45:57.000-04:00

Not that I don't recognize the usefulness of computing technology. I just think that computers are frustrating and rude -- poorly designed. When you become a computer user, you're setting yourself up for feeling stupid. But I think this can and should change. AB Trumbull, Conn., USA 4/25/03

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211808.post-914838122003-03-27T10:27:00.000-05:002003-03-27T10:27:15.890-05:00

When my friends talk about me behind my back -- which they do all the time -- the question inevitably comes up: "What does Al do for a living, anyway?" The usual answer: "Something with computers." The big problem: I really hate computers.

Al Bredenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589186413734622273noreply@blogger.com0