Why quality matters

Sort of a silly and obvious subject, but here's a real-life example.

On Jan 27, I received a new notebook from a large off-shore manufacturer. It's a generally satisfying computer, with the exception that I noticed one or two pixel failures on the display. Knowing that most manufacturers will state that one or two pixel failures are within acceptable tolerances and since it wasn't that big of a deal, I let it go.

A few weeks later, I noticed more dead pixels had shown up! Hmm, oh well. Not the best quality display, I suppose. I was mildly disturbed that the issue was growing, but hoped the worst was over.

Of course, it wasn't! There have been a few more pixel failures since then and this morning, when I started the laptop, there's a one-pixel wide vertical line on the left side of the display that's there to stay :-(

OK, that's it! This display clearly has a problem and it's getting worse over time. Now, our IT department will have to replace the unit, lots of people (myself included) will invest time and effort, and a lot of needless expense will occur just because of this issue. I sure hope its limited to my unit and not a larger issue, but I have to admit I suspect that mine might be the tip of an iceberg...

So, by now, it should be obvious that quality does matter!

List of Top Innovative Companies

Here's a link to Fast Company's list of top innovative companies. There are some interesting ones on the list!

Amusing physics comment

You can't always get what you want! From Lederman & Hill's book, Quantum Physics for Poets (a wonderful book and a recommended read):

The notion that nature (or God) plays dice with subatomic stuff never sat well with Einstein, Schrodinger, de Broglie, Planck, and others. Einstein cherished the belief that quantum theory was merely a stopgap, which would eventually be replaced by a theory that was deterministic and causal. Over the years, he made many clever attempts to show that uncertainty relations could be circumnavigated, but they were foiled, one by one, with relish, by Bohr.

The OLED future dims

According to this IEEE article, the future for OLEDs is less than bright. That's unfortunate, for those of us who've became enamored of organic technology from numerous Sci Fi stories and Babylon 5 in particular. It's always intriguing to think out of the box and consider contrary technologies that are self-healing like the human body or as vital and tenacious as biological processes. Oh well, CFLs and LCDs are a growing option and the incandescent's days and uses are clearly eroding.

Futil v2.4 available for download

I've posted futil v2.4 on SourceForge for download.

This minor release includes two new scripts:

• mhp - Modify Headers parser (useful for sorting and manipulating the header definitions in the Firefox Modify Headers add-on).
• purl - Parse URL script (parses one or more URLs on the input displaying them in an easy format for human eyeballs to read :-)

Enjoy!

Don't count that you can out-run that robot

Check out this interesting article on onmiwheels, robots will be able to change direction much faster than we can ;-)

Optimal settings for better PDF presentation on a Kobo eReader

Through experimentation, I found a set of MS Word 2007 settings that will allow a PDF to be generated with optimal presentation and pagination experience on the Kobo eReader.

SSL may not be good enough...

Some interesting findings were presented at this year's Black Hat conference. See this AP story to read more. This conference take-away recap is also interesting.

How to install the Ruby gem command

I hunted around for this for a surprising time and decided to post it here, because I couldn't find one place that said, "This is how you do it!"

To install the Ruby gem command on your Linux system:

1. For Ruby 1.8.5 or less, download rubygems-1.3.5.tgz:
      pushd ~/Downloads
      wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz

2. Unpack it in /var/tmp:
      pushd /var/tmp
      tar -zxf ~/Downloads/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz

3. Run setup.rb as root:
      pushd /var/tmp/rubygems-1.3.5
      sudo ruby setup.rb --no-ri --no-rdoc

That will do it! Now you can use gem to get lots of other useful Ruby packages :-)

My eReader Choice

I'd been watching the eReader market for a while with interest. At first, it was only Amazon and Sony, then Barnes & Noble jumped in. I didn't like the complexity of the Kindle, although I had to admit it has awesomely crisp and readable print.The Sony units would handle PDF documents, but they were pricey and were too bulky for my backpack.

One day, I visited a B&N store and handled a Nook live. I was surprised at how thick and heavy it felt. Silly me, I was also expecting a full color display, not realizing that only the small navigation LCD can do color. I liked the combination of features, but Nook and the other candidates were pretty pricey for me. So I passed on it and decided to wait a while longer.

Then, a month ago, I found out that Borders was jumping in to the fray with the Kobo eReader. I was immediately intrigued by the Kobo, as it seemed to offer simplicity, a comfortable feel, and was thin and light as well. Although it lacked wireless connectivity, I didn't care, because I usually have a laptop handy anyway. And the price (at that time) was half the cost of the others! So, I visited my local Borders store and ordered one; and it arrived at my door within ten days. Now, I'm happily eReading books and PDF docs that I wouldn't have been able to truck around in my backpack otherwise! SWEET :-)