In yesterday's New York Times, Jim Dwyer wrote about the huge communications systems problems that beset the New York Fire Department during the World Trade Center disaster. According to the article: "The commanders decided early on that roaring fires on the high floors of the towers could not be subdued. Many worried aloud that the buildings were in danger of at least partial failure. Confusion extended, for some, to which tower was which. Although they feared that the buildings were doomed, they could not bring their troops back in time."

This article is difficult to read, if only because it documents what most people who have followed the story carefully already suspected: that communications among the rescue workers and information about other events occurring nearby was almost totally unavailable. Many people who have worked in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center in the past could not remember which tower was number 1 and which was number 2. It is not surprising that this was a major issue in a situation where both towers were severely damaged, and an evacuation had to take place.

It is hard to imagine how any radio communication system could have stayed up and available in the conditions of September 11. We have always suspected that the changes to U.S. mobile phone base stations to provide emergency personnel with priority access would not have been enough to ensure that police, fire, and rescue workers would have been able to communicate with each other on that day.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have been remiss in not pointing out The Washington Post's series of articles called Ten Days in September. This series, written by Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, has received rave reviews from a number of media pundits. According to the Post's own description of the series:

This series is based on interviews with President Bush, Vice President Cheney and many other key officials inside the administration and out. The interviews were supplemented by notes of National Security Council meetings made available to The Washington Post, along with notes taken by several participants.

Each article represents the activities that the President and his staff undertook in a single day. The first article represents the events that took place on September 11 itself. Subsequent articles reflect the events of September 12, 13, 14, and so on.

• America's Chaotic Road to War
  
• We Will Rally the World
  
• Afghan Campaign's Blueprint Emerges
  
• A Day to Speak of Anger and Grief
  
• At Camp David, Advise and Dissent
  
• Combating Terrorism: 'It Starts Today'
  
• A Presidency Defined in One Speech
  
• Bush Awaits History's Judgement
  

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

use.perl.org reports that PerlMonks is still in the process of changing ISPs and access to the site has been very sporadic for the past few days. Our most recent experience was that the DNS server changes had not yet taken effect. So, a page located at the site's old TCP/IP address is redirecting people to the new location via a temporary URL.

Hopefully, vroom and friends will work out the kinks soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this week Palm introduced a new personal digital assistant called the Palm i705. This is the second device offered by Palm which provides a form of wireless Internet access, and is definitely a vast improvement over the previous model, the Palm VII. However, we do not believe that this PDA will make people forget about the Blackberry line of wireless communication devices from Research in Motion.

Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal agrees with us. In his latest Personal Technology column, Mossberg says that the i705 lacks the convenience of the RIM Blackberry. According to his review, "...the only reason to buy the i705 is for wireless e-mail, and here the unit is flawed. It does, as promised, collect your e-mail automatically. But the device lacks a built-in keyboard, which I regard as crucial to composing e-mail. Most people aren't fast enough or accurate enough at Palm's on-screen handwriting system, called Graffiti, to write a lot of e-mails with it, yet this is the method Palm relies upon. Palm does offer an optional clip-on keyboard, but it costs $60, balloons the size of the i705, and is cumbersome to carry around."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Skipping Dot Net has produced a list of OpenSource database resources that it calls Open Source Databases Linkfest. This document is loaded with links to PostgreSQL and mySQL.

Shane McChesney, the author of this document, evaluated the two databases and chose PostgreSQL for his applications. According to his analysis:

For me, features won out over raw speed, and I recently opted to focus on PostgreSQL, despite it's, er, lame support for Windows deployment. Since a Windows solution isn't really what I'm looking for, I'm letting my desire to use PostgreSQL pull me into arranging for a Linux server earlier than I otherwise might have. I'll only consider MySQL further if I find performance to be unacceptable or hit some other wall with PostgreSQL. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sesh Rengaswamy pointed out a column written by T.V.R. Shenoy that suggests that Wall Street Journal reported Daniel Pearl may have been kidnapped to prevent him from publishing stories about the Pakistani government's continued support for terrorist groups. Shenoy writes:

...I happen to know that Pearl, though based in Mumbai, knew certain people in Delhi (I shall not be more specific than that). Through this person (or persons) Pearl gained access to a report from Indian intelligence. This report gave the lie to claims made by Pakistani authorities about clamping down on military outfits.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier today, CTDATA learned that a Statesboro, Georgia metal foundry called International Agile Manufacturing has purchased scrap metal from the World Trade Center and forged commemorative medallions that it hopes to sell for $29.95 each.

This looks like a very bad business decision by this company. We have not objected to the recycling of the bulk of the scrap metal from the ruins of the World Trade Center because, practically, there is no purpose to retaining all of it, even for a memorial. But, it is another thing entirely for companies to recast the debris into commemorative trinkets and sell them to collectors. This practice looks like profiteering to us.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a somewhat surprising report, eWeek says that Royal Philips Electronics NV has brought the hosting of 350 corporate web sites back in-house. These sites used to be co-located at Exodus Communications in Weehawken, NJ. Now, they have been moved to a Philips facility in South Plainfield, NJ, which has been converted into a web hosting data center.

According to the article, Philips made this move because it was no longer comfortable with the business risk associated with doing business with Exodus, currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It will be interesting to see if other large corporations follow this approach in order to ensure that access to the web sites that support their brands is not interrupted.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Star-Ledger reports that a committee of political leaders from Essex County, NJ is raising funds for a monument at Eagle Rock Reservation commemorating the attack on the World Trade Center and memorializing its victims. Eagle Rock Reservation is located in West Orange at the crest of Watchung's First Mountain. It has a clear line of sight to the World Trade Center site, and was a place where people congregated on September 11 to view the terrorist attack's aftermath.

According to the article, "The monument and park are expected to cost $250,000. So far, the county has secured promises of $100,000 in corporate donations." The monument will be designed by Patrick Morelli who has also designed a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., located in Atlanta.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

KernelTap.com reports that Rob Landey has issued a Request for Comment on adding the role of "Penguin Patch Lieutenant" to the Linux kernel enhancement process. The document suggests that a single person assist Linus Torvalds by organizing patches so that they can be approved in a more expeditious manner.

This idea is similar to the management technique used for Perl language enhancements. In that process, the holder of the "patch pumpkin" works on behalf of Larry Wall to organize patches so that he can approve or reject them. This is a good idea, considering the bandwidth required to exercise due dilligence over all the patches coming in for the Linux kernel. The biggest concern with this RFC is that it is likely to be taken out of context by Microsoft and other companies who have a vested interest in seeing Linux be less successful.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Post reports that heirs of New York agent Stephen Slesinger are suing The Walt Disney Company, asking to terminate the companies right to use Winnie the Pooh and related characters in its sales and marketing activities. If the law suit were totally successful, some analysts estimate that Disney could lose up to 25 percent of its annual licensing revenues. The article reads, in part, "The attorneys quoted a sales and consumer data tracking company's figures showing that in licensed toy sales, Pooh characters have outsold Mickey, Minnie and friends $316 million to $114 million through November 1999."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

InfoWorld reports that a cookie management vulnerability has been found in Netscape Navigator Version 6.0 to 6.2 and Mozilla prior to version 0.97. This vulnerability has been acknowledged by Netscape and The Mozilla Project, and updates are available.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over on Doc Searls Weblog, Doc reports on the problems he and his neighbors are having converting to Cox High Speed Internet service. From the comments he posted last night, it is pretty clear that he is not happy: "I'm going down to Cox's office in the morning to corner a tech and get some kind of explanation, and hopefully some help. Given the number of other people who are also surely as {without service} as I am, the line should be long."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Julie Aiello pointed out this Bucks County Courier Times article about her friend, Bill Barnes. Bill has a reputation in Central New Jersey and Bucks County, PA for achieving his goals with relentless effort. According to the article:

Bill Barnes was born 14 weeks premature, weighing 3 pounds, 8 ounces. The lack of oxygen during the delivery damaged sensitive brain tissues controlling muscle movement and motor areas causing cerebral palsy....At an early age, his parents told Bill that he'd have to work a little harder than some people to do certain things. Some things he'd have to do differently....

{Five} years ago, Bill enrolled at the College of New Jersey to pursue a master's degree in elementary education. He attended college part-time, while working full-time at Dow Jones {on} the graveyard shift. He took a third job in the summer as director of {a camp for handicapped children}....This year is his second as a day-to-day substitute teacher....He is on lists in three school districts, Bristol Township, Council Rock, but mostly he works in Neshaminy, where he lives.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dara Khani pointed out a Reuters story that quotes the wife of Enron ex-CEO Kenneth Lay as saying that her family is broke in the wake of the Enron collapse. Linda Lay also claimed that her husband did "absolutely nothing wrong" while presiding over the company which is the subject of what is considered to be the largest bankruptcy case in history.

The article reads, in part: "Asked what had happened to the reported $300 million in compensation and stocks her husband earned over the past four years, Linda Lay said the couple relied on now-worthless Enron stock and did not have a diverse portfolio."

This article quotes extensively from an interview that Mrs. Lay gave to NBC's Today Show over the weekend. Obviously, she wasn't asked any truly probing questions, other than the inevitable "How does it make you feel...?"

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washtech.com reports that Verizon announced the immediate availability of a high speed wireless data network in most cities on the East Coast between Norfolk, VA and Boston. Verizon's Express Network is the first third generation (3G) wireless network to be deployed in the United States.

According to Verizon, the new service will cost $30 per month for time-limited use, and the subscriber must also participate in a standard mobile phone calling plan costing $35 or more per month. Average download speeds are expected to be 40 to 60 kbps, although Verizon claims that the network is burstable to 144k.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey Transit Rail Operations are failing to collect fares from passengers, resulting in an increased revenue shortfall that is contributing to fare increases. Rail tickets are already fairly expensive in New Jersey, and some regular passengers are shifting from monthly tickets in order to take advantage of lax collection.

Admittedly, this problem has been exacerbated by overcrowding during peak periods as a result of the disruption of PATH service from Newark Penn Station to Lower Manhattan. But, NJT really must staff its trains with sufficient conductors to collect fares due from passengers. Otherwise, revenues will fall as daily commuters attempt to beat the system.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

InfoWorld reports that Hewlett-Packard and Intel have announced their support for the Mono Project. Mono is an attempt to implement an open source version of the Microsoft .NET architecture. Microsoft has been promoting .NET as a framework for Internet-based services which developers can tie applications into, but the backend of these services is intended to stay closed to Microsoft competitors.

A large number of companies are interested in integrating their software with .NET services, but are hesitant to do so if it gives Microsoft leverage over them in dealing with their own customers. Mono may provide companies that have this concern with a level of comfort that will allow them to proceed with experimentation with .NET-like internet services.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Derrick Story wrote a review of iPhoto from a professional photographer's perspective for The O'Reilly Network. This is the second review of iPhoto we've written about this week, and both were extremely favorable. (See also our article about Walt Mossberg's review in The Wall Street Journal.)

What makes Story's review interesting is the fact that he is willing to use a bundled software package for professional purposes. This is a major endorsement, which will give Apple a lot of credibility in the technical professional community.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washtech.com, part of The Washington Post, has published an article on resume spamming. This adverstising technique is most frequently used by some disreputable employment services seeking to place job candidates under the H1B visa program. However, over the last few months, some individual unemployed technology workers and legitimate employment agencies have strayed into this unpopular territory. As the article explains, this has resulted in a backlash:

When Neil Schwartzman, a Canadian anti-spam activist, checked his e-mail account and found two copies of a resume, he retaliated by putting up a Web site denouncing the person who sent them. The site, called Bernard Shifman Is a Moron Spammer, is one of several reachable through Schwartzman's Spam Flames page.

It has been visited more than 1 million times in its first three days alone, Schwartzman said, by people eager to chime in with their own heated opinions.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dan Gillmor steps out of his usual publication to write an article in Computerworld called Eight Ways to Get Ready for Mobile Usage. This article has some good advice, including thinking about WiFi security now, not later, and think about how your Web site's information will look on small screens.

These are things that are worth thinking about today, even if your budget is limited to maintaining the services you already have. When spending picks up again, WiFi is going to be everywhere. Get ready.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave Aiello wrote, "For a few weeks now, I've been quietly wispering the word iMac to friends. The reasons are: applications and operating system."

"Apple is in the process of redefining the choice between PC and non-PC computing devices. I now look at the iMac not so much as a computer that does not run Windows applications, but as a device that makes things I want to do easier."

"It appears that Walt Mossberg agrees with me. In his latest Personal Technology Column that appeared in The Wall Street Journal today, Mossberg called iPhoto 'a strong argument for getting a Mac' if 'digital photos are your passion'. He also says:"

Every Mac comes with a suite of free, elegant digital media programs, which are in most cases simpler and more capable than their Windows counterparts. There's iMovie, the easiest and best video editor I've seen. There's iTunes, a very nice MP3 music jukebox that can also burn audio CDs. There's iDVD, the best and simplest program I've tested for creating home-made DVDs. And now, Apple has rounded out the quartet with iPhoto, a program for organizing, managing and sharing digital photos.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times reports that graduating college seniors and unemployed people are applying to graduate schools in record numbers. This trend may extend the unemployment/underemployment problem beyond the point where the U.S. economy turns around. According to the article:

Students at the University of Pennsylvania here give a simple explanation for the sudden enthusiasm for graduate education: the difficulty of finding jobs. Dave Feygenson, a senior, would have liked to work on Wall Street first and attend graduate school later if he could find a job. But after searching for a job in vain, he has applied to Ph.D. programs in finance at the nation's top schools.... "Why fight the economy?" he said. "Why not get it done now, since I cannot find a job anyway."

You'd be surprised how much you can learn on your own when you really need to find a job.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave Aiello wrote, "Jason Silver pointed out an article which appeared in last weekend's New York Times Magazine which attempts to explain the parental behavior problems which are currently plaguing youth ice hockey. This is an important article, because it provides some accurate statistics about the sport, which is probably the fastest growing organized amateur sport in the United States today."

"CTDATA is an active supporter of youth hockey. We have operated the Atlantic District Officiating Program Web Site since 1995. I, personally, have officiated ice hockey at the youth, high school, and college levels for over 20 years. It is on that basis that I state that Charles McGrath, the author of the New York Times Magazine story, has only told part of the story about spectator behavior problems in the sport."

Read on for some examples of what he left out....

Dave Aiello continued:

Charles McGrath fails to point the number of initiatives undertaken by USA Hockey, the organizing body of amateur hockey in the United States, and its constituent districts, leagues, and local associations, to address spectator behavior problems. Among them:

• The Zero Tolerance Policy regarding verbal and physical abuse of officials and inappropriate spectator behavior. The best document available on USA Hockey's Web Site is this slide presentation in PDF format. It primarily illustrates the penalties and procedures that are to be used when conduct detrimental to a game takes place.

  
  

• The Rediscovering Youth Sportsmanship Program designed by St. Barnabas' Health Care System and the Atlantic Youth Hockey League. Note that the AYHL was critical in the development of this curriculum, but the curriculum was designed for all youth sports.

  
  

At the high school level, the National Federation of High Schools deals with spectator behavior as a component of the larger sportsmanship issue. The NFHS has made this a priority since 1990, as their document The Case for Sportsmanship, Ethics and Integrity in High School Activities indicates. I would say that the National Federation has a better handle on the spectator behavior issues in the sports they govern than USA Hockey does, but that is primarily because there are more full-time, paid administrators involved (a.k.a. athletic directors and principals at high schools) who can be held accountable for the actions of their spectators, players, and coaches. USA Hockey is catching up, but their task is more difficult because it must make its case directly to the individual parents and relatives of its players.

Charles McGrath also points out that the incident which provoked his article-- the killing of Michael Costin by Charles Junta took place after a practice session for a summer youth hockey league. These leagues are typically instructional and not competitive, and they generally rely on the management of the rink where they are based for organization. Because this took place after a practice and not a game, many of the safeguards that are in place to limit spectator aggression did not apply in this case.

There is no question that there are serious spectator behavior issues in ice hockey at the youth and high school levels throughout the United States. But, it is unfair to suggest that those problems are not being addressed by USA Hockey, the National Federation of High Schools, and their constituent state and regional groups. The evidence presented that hockey is the worst sport in terms of spectator aggression is anecdotal, at best.

In my opinion, Charles McGrath makes a sincere effort to call the public's attention to the issue of spectator violence in youth ice hockey and youth sports in general. But, he did not put the problem in its proper perspective because he failed to point out that the organizing bodies are aware of the problem, that they have identified many of the root causes of aggressive spectator behavior, and they are working with local leagues and organizations to ensure that policies are in place to stop spectator misconduct before it gets out-of-hand.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote an excellent editorial today cataloging the many reasons that Arabs quietly root for Osama bin Laden. Among other thoughts Friedman collected in a number of candid talks with Arab journalists, business people, and Muslim community leaders:

• a "serious Arab journalist in Bahrain who said that Arabs could never have pulled off something as complex as Sept. 11",
  
• a European convert to Islam who said that "the bin Laden tape where he boasted of the World Trade Center attack" was clearly doctored by U.S. authorities,
  
• a Pakistani who confided that all of the students in his children's elementary school believe the urban legend that all of the Jews who worked in the World Trade Center were told to stay home on September 11.
  

But most telling is the point he makes near the end of his column: "...{We} have to admit that bin Laden touches something deep in the Arab-Muslim soul, even among those who condemn his murders. They still root for him as the one man who was not intimidated by America's overweening power, as the one man who dared to tell certain Arab rulers that they had no clothes, and as the one man who did something about it."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Slashdot pointed out an article in New Scientist that reports that scientists believe they have discovered an "ultimate" stem cell in adult that can turn into any cell in the body. According to the article:

Until now, only stem cells from early embryos were thought to have such properties.... If so, there would be no need to resort to therapeutic cloning - cloning people to get matching stem cells from the resulting embryos. Nor would you have to genetically engineer embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to create a "one cell fits all" line that does not trigger immune rejection.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times reports that The Port Authority of NY and NJ and The Metropolitan Transit Authority unveiled their proposal for reconstructing the downtown PATH station and connecting it to the Subway system. The plan involves the construction of an underground concourse with moving walkways that runs from The World Financial Center east to the Fulton Street Subway Station.

Included in the New York Times article is a diagram of the proposal, which is very useful in visualizing what it would look like, and how much time it would take to complete.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David Strom writing in his Web Informant newsletter evaluates digital home hubs from Apple and Sony, and also mentions the technologies announced by Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks ago. Strom questions the notion that consumers would accept anything other than a TV-like device as the hub of digital entertainment in their homes:

The reason is simple: most of us already have a digital hub for our homes, and it is called a TV. Well that isn't being totally fair: we have home theater installations that involve TV, DVD, VCR, game console, cable box, receivers, speakers, and CD players. But the TV is the component that has more status and more face time than the others in most homes, let's face it. There isn't enough room in the living room, or home theater surround system, for a PC to poke its ugly head into this mix. And any successful innovation for a digital hub has to start with the TV, not the PC.

We would not be surprised if any of these three companies develop products that look like a combination between TiVo and Xbox in the foreseeable future. It is the inevitable outcome of TiVo's success in captivating early adopters with its personal video recording appliance.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SiliconValley.com reports that Microsoft is restructuring its TV-related units in order to shift more of its resources to Xbox development. These changes will most impact the UltimateTV set-top box which competes with certain personal video recorder models from TiVo and ReplayTV.

It seems to us that one likely outcome of this restructuring is that personal video recording features will appear in the Xbox fairly quickly. Also, Microsoft TV-related offerings may consolidate on Xbox hardware, rather than on traditional PCs.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Due to an unexpected problem on our primary mail server resulting from a configuration change, email service was interrupted between 9:00 and 10:00 am Eastern Time today. All services have now been restored. Customers, please let us know if you are experiencing continuing problems.

The best way to get in touch with us if your email account is not available to you is to call Dave Aiello at 609-844-1200 x 101.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The O'Reilly Network is carrying an article that explains the "Internet Wayback Machine", a web site with 100 terabytes of web archival information. Included in this article is an interview with Brewster Kahle, president of Alexa Internet the designer of the Wayback Machine, and a subsidiary of Amazon.com.

Looking at the Internet Wayback Machine itself, located at http://www.archive.org/, we were able to find content that appeared on CTDATA.com back to December 1996! Similarly, content from RCNJ.org goes back to November 1998.

The Internet Wayback Machine is not just a fun web site, it's a great research resource. We can only imagine the uses people will find for this site.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ONlamp.com has published an article by chromatic explaining the Slashcode plug-in architecture and how to use to build applications on top of recent versions of Slash. This is an excellent article, and it demonstrates the evolution of the Slash engine from a framework that helps web publishers build Slashdot-like web sites to a more general purpose tool for doing web publishing and building web applications.

Some people in the Linux and BSD communities don't evaluate Slash because of the perception that it is only useful for building sites that look like Slashdot. But, the Slash architecture has really been opened-up in the past year, and it compares more favorably to more general web publishing frameworks than ever before. We are really looking forward to the introduction of the O'Reilly book Running Weblogs with Slash, because it will raise the level of understanding that the programming community has in Slash as a platform.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Star Ledger reports that due to the slumping economy and extraordinary expenses from the terrorist attacks, New Jersey will have its largest budget shortfall in history. As a percentage of its total budget, New Jersey's budget shortfall for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2002, will be the largest of any state in the nation.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Doc Searls has some serious doubts about a humorous potential merger between AOL-TimeWarner and RedHat. Regarding the Washington Post's assertion that acquiring RedHat could make AOL a threat to Microsoft, Searls said, "Right. That's like saying we could attract billions of people to Mars if AOL would buy it and supply it with enough oxygen."

We agree. AOL is a content company, not a software company, per se. Can anyone see a strategic fit considering the fact that when AOL acquired Netscape, it divested the server software to Sun Microsystems?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave Aiello wrote, "Earlier this week, I reluctantly concluded that I needed to upgrade my laptop from RedHat Linux 6.2 to 7.2. I say 'reluctantly' because I knew from previous experience how complicated a Linux upgrade can be."

"I ran into a problem almost immediately when the RedHat 7.2 installer failed to upgrade my XFree86, Gnome, KDE, and related packages. It did not do this because it detected that I had upgraded these packages myself with non-RedHat versions of these packages (probably when I installed the original version of Nautilus from the now defunct Eazel). The big issues I had with this were:"

1. the installer provided a cryptic message about third party packages being installed and warned me that there might be some instability if I continued the installation, and
   
2. X Windows was almost totally inaccessible after the upgrade was completed.
   

Dave Aiello continued:

The behavior of X Windows after the upgrade was a real head-scratcher. After successfully displaying the graphical login screen, both the Gnome and KDE desktops could not be rendered at all. In their place was a single graphical UNIX shell window stripped of its title bar. Neither the mouse nor the keyboard seemed to provoke any response from this window.

I spun my wheels for about 2 hours searching Google and reading the printed RedHat 7.2 documentation. This is what you get for beginning the upgrade process at 9:45pm, Eastern Time.

In the morning, I used one of the telephone technical support incidents I got when I purchased the RedHat Linux 7.2 Professional Edition. The support person I spoke with concluded that none of the X Windows, Gnome, or KDE RPMs had been touched during my first upgrade attempt. He told me to perform another upgrade and to select all of the X Windows, Gnome, and KDE packages explicitly. This ended up working.

There are still several annoying problemes with the new RedHat configuration that I am trying to work out:

• the Enlightenment Window Manager configuration is messed up, and
  
• the new Nautilus desktop is not configured properly, so it is only displayed within a portion of the machine's virtual desktop space.
  

Undoubtedly, I will have more to add about this operating system upgrade process in later articles.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Drudge Report says that Rush Limbaugh has regained 80 percent of his hearing in one of his ears. This is the result of the successful activation of a cochlear implant that he received in December.

According to the article, Rush's brother David Limbaugh said, "We talked on cell phones, it was just great!"

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News.com reports that TV networks, film studios, and consumer electronics firms are attempting to create a single standard for copy protecting broadcast television. Among other things, the article says:

The latest effort, a plan to insert digital tags into broadcast TV shows that would prevent them from being put online, is just part of that broader aim. But as more TV content shows up at digital swap meets, copyright owners see it as an increasingly urgent issue. They say they'll have a standard ready by the end of the first quarter of the year.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ISPworld reports that Cox Communications is having difficulty providing good customer service to its broadband customers in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to the article:

There seems to be two layers of technical support, a local ? and clueless ? layer working a local help desk from 8 AM ? 9 PM and the more clueful national Road Runner support desk. The trouble-shooting litany (that I can repeat by heart, thereby making me qualified to work the local help desk) is "Unplug your cable modem, wait two minutes. Plug it back in. What lights do you see? Do you see the cable light come on and stay on?"

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Ashcroft released video tapes and photographs of alleged members of al Qaeda who may be planning further attacks. Reportedly, the video shows the suspects declaring their intent to commit terrorist acts in the future. Ashcroft asked for the public's help in bringing to justice the men depicted in the photos and video tapes.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Landberg in the San Jose Mercury-News is one of the first columnists in a major publication to report that he really dislikes the Handspring Treo 180. He writes, "Handspring's much-touted new Treo 180 'communicator' at $399 -- the latest attempt to merge a personal digital assistant with a mobile phone -- turns out to be yet another kludge that's too much of a PDA to be a good phone and too much of a phone to be a good PDA."

In a way, it's good to see this device get a bad review. Any portable device combining telephony, email, and Internet access is bound to have some design compromises built into it. Most of the other reviews we've seen have had an almost-too-good-to-be-true quality.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Daily News reports that scrap yards in Newark and Jersey City are cutting up structural steel from the World Trade Center and sending it on to manufacturing plants as far away as South Korea. Some relatives of victims of the terrorist are outraged, as expected. According to the article, almost 160,000 tons of steel has been removed from the World Trade Center site so far.

The article points out the difficulty of the issues involved in this aspect of the recovery process:

• How big a portion of the debris from the World Trade Center ought to be saved?
  
• Should the rest of the salvaged material be recycled?
  
• How long should the material bound for recycling be kept for forensic analysis?
  

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News.com reports that Handspring has delayed the U.S. introduction of the Treo 180 until March. Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky cited unspecified parts shortages for the delay, although assembly of the devices has begun at a Solectron plant in Mexico.

Perhaps a better explanation for the delay may be found later in the article: "Handspring said more than 20 wireless carriers worldwide have been testing the Treo on their networks. Dubinsky also told CNET News.com that the company is launching in Europe first because carriers there are moving more quickly to work with the Treo." Yesterday, we speculated that delayed shipment in the United States was the result of a lack of carrier buy-in. Sounds like we were right.

Actually, this development may be a blessing for American gadget freaks. If Handspring really does ship the Treo in Europe first, we will find out whether the product works well without having to buy it and commit to a service contract with a GSM-based carrier.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)