Fans of Star Trek VII will be well aware that the word “saboteur” arises from the act of flinging a wooden clog (sabot in French) into a steam-driven loom to bugger up the industrial revolution. (If only the Trek movies had contained asides on making money instead of potted history lessons, Sneak would be a happier chap.) Anyway, the shoe thing didn’t help French peasants, clearly, but that won’t stop backward-looking saboteurs from trying to lob a spanner, or possibly a magnetic space boot, into the workings of the next phase of the information revolution. According to the Pew Internet group - essentially a bunch of eggheads with pen-tidies in their pockets - a hardcore group of computer-hating Luddites will emerge over the next sixteen years, hell bent on attacking computers with heavy footwear, spanners and, possibly, their own body odour. Sneak’s advice is pre-emptive action: fire anyone caught wearing Scholl sandals. Preferably out the photon torpedo tube.

September 28, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Sneak called ISP (and David Hasselhoff employer) Pipex, to try to switch broadband contracts from the current arrangement to one that might let Sneak afford food. “You can’t just change contract, you have to pay us a £60 ‘change contract fee’,” claimed the shaven-faced phone monkey after the tenth repetition of the hold music. “Why?” asked Sneak. “I’ve served my year’s contract, why the extortionate fee?” To which the slack-jawed Neanderoperator replied, “Dunno, I don’t have that written down.” Through this laborious exchange of unpleasantries, it was revealed that the best way for Sneak to avoid giving £60 to Hoff via Pipex would be to cancel the entire contract and become a new customer. At which point it might be sensible not to become a new customer. “Yes, you could switch ISPs,” the toad belched. “But you’ll be without internet for a week or so… It’ll take that long for us to send you your MAC code.” So there you have it: Pipex’s business model hinges on fleecing current customers, and retaining their custom through inconvenience. It’s probably not put that way in the annual report, mind.

September 27, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

A spate of discord between the makers of the Debian Linux distro and the mavens behind Mozilla Firefox mean that Debian’s version of Firefox needs a new name, apparently. This has led to heated discussion, ranging from subtle changes (Freefox) through lateral thinking (WaterWolf) to the reanimation of old veiled insults (IceWeasel) to surreal long-windedness (We Could Tell You What This Browser Is Called, But Then They'd Have To Sue Us) and all the way on down to the bottom of the barrel and Sneak’s personal fave. Yes, it should definitely be called FrigidBeaver.

September 26, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak has been riffling through the spambox (formerly known as Sneak’s inbox) and found that some actual people have been sending messages. How 90s.

Very small print

First up is Dave Evans, who has forwarded a note from his Dell account manager, sent in the middle of last month. In a precursor to the current touchy-feely, caring-sharing Dell 2.0 makeover, the email is a friendly warning about a exploding batteries. Less helpfully, it is written in such a microscopic type size that the entire missive could be obscured by an ant’s thumb. Almost. “I was wondering if they wanted me not to read it?” Evans asks.

Powering down

The exploding battery “issue” is such that airlines are now wondering what to do with Dell laptops: let them in the cabin, leave them in the hold, or borrow them to help fly the plane. Mike O'Grady reports that his transatlantic Continental flight was delayed by a “computer error” for 90 minutes (presumably spent on hold waiting for a tech support agent in Hyderabad). Eventually the pilot announced that the computers would have to be rebooted. “This was done by powering down the entire plane for 60 seconds,” O’Grady notes. Which makes one wonder how far the plane might plummet if the big reset button needs to be pushed mid-Atlantic.

Customer always, right?

Lee Hiscott, meanwhile, notes that his broadband ISP “used to be one of the top names for reliability and intelligent tech support”, but is currently not. Calling to complain about three-legged camel download speeds, Hiscott was pleased to receive a letter. And slightly less pleased to find it contained his MAC code, for switching to another supplier. This is an oblique way of saying goodbye. “I won't say which ISP it is, in case they get litigious,” the cautious Hiscott concludes. His eclipse.co.uk address might be a bit of a hint, however.

Insane domain

And finally, Andy Bowd wonders if he has the worst web address in the world. Try dictating this over the phone: www.doubleudoubleudoubleudotbackslashbackslash.dotcomforwardslash.com

September 25, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is nonplussed to learn that best of British broadband provider Bulldog has had its knuckles rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for its "misleading" advert suggesting customers could get up to 8Mbit/s of broadband for only £15.50 per month. Seduced by this advert some customers apparently signed up only to find that unless they happened to live a stone’s throw from an exchange (OK, not even Sneak can quite lob a stone 3km, but you get the idea) degradation of the signal meant that for many eager buyers, an eight-meg connection was about as probable as growing a second head.

But now that’s cleared up, Sneak can’t help thinking the ASA could be opening a lot of wormy cans if it plans to insist on actual accuracy in technology adverts. As far as Sneak can ascertain, iPods have never turned anyone into a silhouette; a BT phone will not swing a house purchase unless the buyer is clinically insane; and magical castles and guard dogs do not appear around your PC every time you turn on Windows unless you buy your mushrooms from a furtive hippy. Moreover, Sneak is sure that deploying Microsoft products will not instantly turn your company into a “people-ready business”. Or at least Sneak would be sure about it if “people-ready” actually meant something outside the addled imaginations of advertising execs.

September 21, 2006 Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations to Les Bessant, who has bravely registered the domain Skcollob.com, after Sneak pointed out that it remained unregistered despite being prime real-estate in the words-spelled-backwards web. Les is the first person ever to take Sneak’s advice on anything, for which he deserves some kind of award. Or, perhaps, some really strong coffee and a chance to sober up.

September 14, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

A re-release of 1960s TV series Star Trek has gone down like a duranium balloon with fans, for featuring updated visual effects. The wobbly, fuzzy starship Enterprise has been replaced with a pin-sharp computer-generated doppelganger, much to the dismay of fans who clearly prefer their nostalgia to look like crap. Never mind that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was reportedly appalled by the original special effects - particularly those used for the opening credits sequence - which were shoddy even at the time.

Apparently it’s only the exterior space shots that have been redone - in the scenes where there are actors, polystyrene rocks and papier-mâché monsters, nothing has been retouched, which seems like a job half done to Sneak. But perhaps the graphics wizards are leaving a more extensive redecorating job for a later date, when the technology has advanced sufficiently to generate the illusion that William Shatner could act.

September 12, 2006 Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amidst the growing furore about HP's attempt to overtake the CIA, KGB and Mosad as the world's least popular spying operation, Sneak has to admit at least a grudging admiration for the stunning chutzpah of Mark Hurd's evil empire.

Plenty has been written about modern multinationals' ability to ultimately overtake nation states in the power stakes but no one ever envisaged conservative old HP would be among the first to develop its own secret services arm.

Sneak is even now expecting a terrifying IT arms race with the superpowers of the technology industry desperate to close HP's early lead. It is only a matter of months before Redmond starts to build its own private militia, IBM begins long-range ballistic missile tests out of Armonk, Google cranks up its enriched uranium programme, and Oracle's Larry Ellison, stroking a white cat, unveils a new laser capable of destroying the moon from a hollowed out volcano in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Sneak wonders if HP has introduced a new standard by which all IT journalists will be forever judged. Forget the Pulitzer Prize, you really know you've made it when a vendor decides it needs to tap your phone. Sneak imagines even now that some morally suspect IT spooks are carefully monitoring how many times a week Sneak calls Dominos.

September 8, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a previous post, Sneak mentioned Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. Rummaging around at the good doctor's home page proved very interesting, dealing as it does with issues such as whether the visible universe is a computer simulation, what we should do when computers become smarter than us, and the likelihood of imminent human extinction. As well as these trifles, Bostrom has also pondered one of life's really important questions and come up with a surprising answer: yes, traffic in the other lane really does go faster.

He starts by considering the counter-argument: that sitting stuck in the slower lane is just an illusion. To date boffins have suggested several mechanisms: that only slow-moving drivers bother to compare speeds; that cars overtaking you are more visible than cars you leave behind; and that our losses count more than gains when we tot-up life's injustices.

Poppycock, says Bostrom, noting simply that slower lanes tend to have a greater density of cars, so by the law of averages you can expect to be sitting in the slower lane. Changing lanes BMW-fashion (ie barging into the first available non-gap) is therefore a sensible strategy for making better progress.

Of course in the future, there will be no traffic jams, as we will all telework and telecommute, and will therefore sit in telejams as the BMW packets breeze by.

September 5, 2006 Science, Travel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

A start-up called Xobni has come up with an intriguing proposition: applying the principles of web site analytics to email use. For firms, this dangles the tantalising prospect of being able to work out that your staff spend X percent of their working hours conversing with chums over the ether, where X will no doubt asymptotically approach 100 percent as the weekend approaches.
The service is one thing, the name is another. As the firm's web site explains in big letters, Xobni is “inbox backwards”. Why this should be a good thing is not elucidated, not even in small letters. To Sneak, Xobni sounds like an affliction of the middle leg-joint.
However, Sneak is certain that Xobni will kick off a craze for naming start-ups after ordinary words spelled backwards. The approach is particularly useful, as much of the right-way-round dictionary has already been registered by domain name speculators, and helpfully it takes less effort than thinking up neologisms like “Mailytics” or “Analyzamail”. It's also less incomprehensible than upside-down writing.
Once you've come up with your ideal backwards name, defensive registration may still be a good idea, however. For example, at the time of writing Xobtuo.com is still available to Xobni naysayers. As is Skcollob.com, for that matter.

September 4, 2006 Top tips, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (4)

Fans of Philip K Dick will be aware that his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (basis for the movie BladeRunner) features an intriguing device called a mood organ. In the story, people can dial a code on the organ to induce a particular frame of mind. Code 888 creates “the desire to watch television, no matter what's on it”. Dialling 3 handily creates the desire to dial. To conclude marital disputes, code 594 engenders “pleased acknowledgment of a husband’s superior wisdom in all matters”. This all sounds very handy but is also clearly pie-in-the-sky. Only it’s not. Science journal Nature recently interviewed Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, who suggests that pharmaceuticals could soon be used to regulate marital bliss. “There are a small number of hormones, such as vasopressin and oxytocin, that might help us form bonds with others,” he notes. “It could be possible to prevent the levels of these chemicals from trailing off, and to infuse romance into fading marriages - like a technological form of counselling.”
Of course, getting Mrs Sneak to swallow a dose of 594 will be the tricky bit...

September 4, 2006 Science | Permalink | Comments (1)