Dave’s Guide to the Best of the Web

Apple’s iPhone is a pretty sweet device from all reports, but by no means perfect. While many consumers enjoy the device for its own qualities, many open source advocates and other strange geeks (I’m talking about myself, so I feel qualified to make fun of myself) look upon the iPhone not so much as a gigantic step forward as an actual device, but rather as what it represents - a push for more innovation and a challenge to the incumbent cell phone carriers to offer more.

But what if everything Apple is offering and will offer will in the long-term be considered only a footnote in history? I think that there is a grand possibility that this will happen. Why? Because of a small company called OpenMoko which is building upon the revolutionary concepts of open source.

Open Source rebels against the traditional concepts of capitalism in some senses. I have talked to many who embrace that traditional concept and when explaining to them the options they have from open source I often find them responding with befuddled expressions indicating their confusion as to how anything that is really free can also be really profitable. If you aren’t a geek (yeah, with big glasses and never having met a girl in your life) you might not be aware of open source - but its real and revolutionary. You would probably recognize some of its successes such as Linux (an operating system and the grand-daddy of successful open source software), Mozilla Firefox (the web browser), or OpenOffice.Org (the office suite).

Open source is spreading itself throughout society. While initially operating mainly within the confines of computer software it has spread to the furthest reaches of the imagination - including cell phones. OpenMoko has recently released to the public (though asking that only developers purchase them) the Neo1973. This phone is expected to become widely available according to The Economist in November 2007. OpenMoko is an open source phone. It provides most of the features hardware wise you could hope for in a phone and then leaves the phone open for innovation by developers and users. Developers can write applications for it, users can connect to it on any of a variety of carriers. No longer is one locked into a mandatory (and unnecessary) set of applications or to a certain carrier - rather the phone is designed to allow anyone to design applications for it and to be utilized by any carrier that will allow it.

So, take a look at the OpenMoko sites. They are attractive, the phone is attractive, and the concept is attractive. While OpenMoko’s Neo1973 isn’t the phone to buy just yet, I expect it to begin chopping up market share like crazy in the near future. OpenMoko has two sites - the first is for the public consumption of the phone, the second is for developers (or those interested in weird things) to view and assist in the creation/editing/maintenance of the code base/featureset for OpenMoko’s cell phones.

Bookmark OpenMoko. They aren’t anybody just yet - but they will be.

Note: I am aware that Ubuntu is not “Linux” in its most technical and basic conception, but it is one of the best distributions of Linux available and I chose it as a representative of the whole.

The question is never if your hard drive will fail, but when. Every hard drive will eventually fail. Are you prepared? Oftentimes, creating a backup copy of our files is a smart thing to do - but something that we put off. It takes so much work to back them up onto a CD, floppy disks, or an external drive. Thankfully, technology has been rapidly simplifying this task using online backup. Online backup has two distinct advantages over traditional methodologies: (a) it is simple and automatic and (b) it is off-site, meaning even in the case of theft, fire, or flood your data will still be safe.

One of the best companies currently offering online backup is Berkeley Data Systems. They offer two services - Mozy and Mozy Pro. While the services are very similar, the one is aimed at consumers and at the other at commercial uses (e.g. businesses). We won’t spend time focusing on the commercial version (Mozy Pro) other than to note that it includes advanced management capabilities that allow you to oversee a large number of computers being backed up at the same time.

Mozy is a small software application. You download the application onto your computer and tell it the files you want to backup. It is also fairly intelligent and allows you to just tell it what types of files you want to backup (e.g. text documents, spreadsheets, photos, or music). Once it knows what you want to backup it will create an initial backup of all your selected files. Then, as your files change it will upload those changes to their servers. This has results in two nice features. First, they only upload the changes in your files - not the whole file each time. This means after the initial upload following uploads are much quicker. Secondly, they keep multiple versions of your file and you can select not just the latest revision of your file but also revisions from earlier dates.

Mozy is generally a set it and forget it type of application. For those who need 2 GB or less of space (most consumers who are storing just documents and not music or pictures) its free. For those who have greater storage needs, unlimited storage is available for $4.95/mo. Not bad.

The American Automative Association (AAA) is one of those select organizations actually worth subscribing to. Sort of like Consumer Reports. Yes, you might spend $250 a year on all these different subscriptions I recommend - but the end results are invaluable as far as peace of mind and quality of service.

AAA is the best-known automotive membership. Starting at $59.50 for a single individual at the basic level or $97.00 at the plus level (with additional members $31.00 and $51.00 respectively). The basic features include free tire changes (yes, I actually used this around a month ago), free tows (I’ve used this two or three times over the last two or three years - even though I now have a 2005 Chevrolet Aveo), free battery charges (you left the lights on again!), fuel delivery (no more walking for miles), and lockout services (if only you had forgotten the keys to your office instead!). There are many other auto related features - perhaps one of the most attractive ones is the $1,000 (or $2,000 with the pro account) cash reward to someone who gives information leading to the arrest and conviction of someone who either vandalizes or steals your car.

Beyond automobile features, the membership power of AAA allows for them to offer many other exclusive offers. For example, showing a AAA card at many retailers can add up to significant discounts (e.g. Hertz, Barnes & Noble, Six Flags, and Best Buy). AAA also offers extremely competitive options on a multitude of services - for example, credit cards, home insurance, and auto insurance. I’m one of those persons who shops around for auto insurance. I started with UnitrinDirect, moved to Progressive, and am now with AllState, but the rates AAA has offered me are significantly below AllState’s, so I intend to move again soon. Somewhat amazing since at each move I’ve saved not $50 or $100 but several hundred dollars - and yet AAA can still offer significantly lower prices.

I’ve only begun to touch upon all the benefits of having a AAA membership, so forget about all those other services (whether for prescription benefits, automotive, or discounts) and get a AAA account. You will feel safer driving on long trips knowing that a tire change, extra gas, or a tow is only a phone call away and a single utilization of the AAA services in a year will likely save you as much as you paid for your annual membership. Still, the real question is, “How much is your peace of mind worth?” I don’t know about you - but many is worth much more than $100 a year!

Note: This is not a sponsored post. This is my unadulterated view of AAA without any financial compensation behind it. I truly believe that AAA is more than worth the money.

The internet was designed with a limited number of IP addresses. These addresses are essentially phone numbers by which computers can locate and communicate with each other. Because of this limited number of IP addresses most home users, and many business users, have what are known as dynamic IP addresses. This means that there IP address changes over time, as opposed to a static IP address which always stays the same. How does this help the problem? In the old days when everyone was using dial-up no one was connected to the internet 24/7 so it made a lot of sense - whenever you weren’t online your IP address was given to someone else and you would acquire the IP address of someone else who wasn’t online the next time you connected. These days the benefits have become significantly less - consumers are beginning to use broadband as their mainstay, and this means they are constantly connected. Still, most companies don’t give out static IP’s - they charge extra.

So, we have all these people with dynamic IP addresses - including you and me. Now imagine trying to call your friend (John Doe) but every day his phone number changes. How frustrating would that be? It’d be nearly impossible to get a hold of him. On the internet we are mainly establishing communications (e.g. we reach out to yahoo, aol, google) but in this case someone is trying to contact us. Oftentimes we wouldn’t want them to contact us, but what when we do? How can we get remote assistance when we need it?

Add to this the fact that there are many unethical individuals who enjoy or for monetary reasons hack computers. This means that even if you have a static IP address you probably have protection (such as a firewall) to protect you from hackers. But the firewall isn’t very intelligent - it can’t tell that Jane Doe is your computer whiz sister and not a hacker. We could go on to talk about other technologies like NAT (Network Address Translation) and PAT (Port Address Translation) that make it extremely difficult to give remote assistance but the point is - there are a lot of hurdles to jump to remotely assist or receive assistance from someone else for our computer, and just talking over the phone about an issue is a slow and inefficient way to communicate about computers.

So what is the solution? What solution is a new application called CrossLoop. Its free (woohoo!) and built on an old open source application called TightVNC. TightVNC allows one to remotely access computers. So why do you need CrossLoop? Well, TightVNC was written for geeks, CrossLoop was written for everyone. It allows all of us to remotely assist or receive assistance.

How does it work? Well, first you go to crossloop.com. There you and the person you want to assist download a very small program. You install and run the program. You then click the host tab. The person who needs assistance then tells the person they are receiving assistance from the access code they have on their screen and click connect. Meanwhile the person who is assisting types in the access code on the join tab and clicks connect as well. After a moment the assisting person will be able to see the individual in need of assistance’s screen and take control of the computer, just as if they were sitting in front of the computer. They can then perform any troubleshooting or diagnosis that needs to be performed. Close out of the program and they can no longer access your computer. Its an easy, free, and safe (as far as anything can be safe - e.g. even banks can be robbed) method of giving and receiving remote assistance.

Let’s talk a minute about how this magic works. Essentially when you click Connect you are sending a message out to the CrossLoop servers uniquely identifying yourself with the access code and whether you are the host or the assister. CrossLoop then acts as an intermediary who can point both of you into communication with each other and can keep track of where you. All of this occurs transparently to you, which is the beauty of CrossLoop.

If any of this seems confusing or scary, don’t worry - just pass it off to the person who is assisting you. They may just not be aware this application exists.

I sit back to relax and watch another movie. He pushes his children behind him, willing for the Janjaweed to depart. I stop by a fast food restaurant to buy some food. She screams as they strip her naked. Publicly raping her. I sit impatiently in traffic - frustrated I have to commute to work every day. A little boy gasps for breath, dehydrated, ill, malnourished - he will join the many that have died before him.

As a tween (yes, I am that young) I remember hearing about the Rwanda Genocide. I wonder how those who were in positions of power - the adults of my time - had allowed this to happen. Inside, I swore to not allow it to happen when I had anything to say about it. Yet now, Darfur still exists and people still die.

What is this Darfur I speak of? Darfur is a region in western Sudan. Traditionally Sudan has been divided between north and south. In the north was the official government, mainly Islamic in belief. In the south were rebels - mainly Christian and Animist. This conflict ended after decades of warfare, but another conflict began. This conflict is between the official government in Sudan, mainly consisting of Arab Muslims and the rebels in Darfur, mainly consisting of African Muslims. The rebels had been soundly beating the Sudanese government in regular warfare so the Sudanese government partnered up with the Janjaweed - local militia. These militia, with the military backing of the Sudanese government, have rained death and destruction not only upon enemy combatants - but upon innocent civilians.

How many? The counts are extremely rough, but the number of dead is somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000. Don’t let those numbers become abstractions. Focus on their reality. Consider your entire family dead, your extended family dead and you have not even begun to put a drop in the bucket of these deaths. Consider your entire town decimated and you have not begun to count the deaths. Furthermore, the deaths are only the beginning of the suffering. Around 2,500,000 Darfurians have been displaced from their homes, many of them have been displaced for several years. Their lives have stopped, now they can only wait. Many women have been raped - it is a systematic form of warfare against the innocents.

The Sudanese government refuses to allow a robust United Nations peacekeeping force into the region, despite the continued insistence of many governments around the world. More pressure is needed. SaveDarfur.Org is a catalyst for this action. This organization is “an alliance of over 170 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations” (e.g. American Jewish World Service, American Society for Muslim Advancement, National Association of Evangelicals, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).

The site includes a variety of methods for becoming involved in advocacy for the people of Darfur. To mention just a few methods:

• Join the email newsletter. You will be regularly updated on individuals to email or otherwise contact in order to pressure for intervention.
• You can donate financially to the campaign in order to support awareness and advocacy efforts.
• You can become aware of the situation yourself by reading their news and blog articles.
• You can purchase clothing and similar items that promote awareness of the Darfur crisis.
• You can join a local group that seeks to raise awareness.

To learn more about the history of this situation, Wikipedia has an excellent summary article. I also highly recommend watching the film Hotel Rwanda, it is an eye-opening and heart-breaking experience.