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I was once again shocked by the complexity of life today. Having added another 3 no. logins, for various services - be it anti virus, for one of several computer systems - be it wifi access accounts - or be it some new form of online banking, or money management facilities. Every single time I do this, it is the same deal. Another username and password to recall. More security details! Sometimes with only subtle differences. Is is minimum six characters, or is it 8-20 characters including a number. I am doing this since I set some 'security' on a windows 98 box, about 10 years ago. (And I thought, when I set that password on a w98 box 10 years ago, that would be the last of login details)
One thing I do notice more and more - and I am not sure, how I feel about this. No one could understand the business model of the internet a couple of years ago. It wasn't a big part of anyones' life, the way it seems to have become. Giving away things for free. Take webmail as a fairly basic example. (Remember as students we all thought webmail was so cool and new and hip?) In many ways, that free 1OOMB or 1GB of online webmail storage space, was like the 'starter pack' you get with a student bank account. What I notice in my own experience, is that webmail is now kind of a central 'clearing house' for a lot of things I am doing. A central account, and point of 'security' to which all other things eventually lead. So there is an important point there, for those of you thinking about design of your software from a longer term perspective.
In spite of my best efforts, a lot of my daily bits and bobs, business, or entertainment is online based. I also notice with some surprise, I have a lot less software licenses sitting on my machine, than I used to. But then I have more 'machines' than I used to. Which is another thing, I don't like, but what can I do. Some systems I share with others. My Dads system is handy at his house. But he has a second system too. One final note: I am certainly keeping less data on my machines than I used to. Data has almost become something to be suspicious off. If you observe other peoples' attitudes. It is like 'dust' in a house, it should be swept away, and not left about. With multiple systems, the data management overhead goes away up. Synchronisation of data becomes near impossible, no matter how hard you try.
These things are all counter-intuitive to me. Webmail is becoming important as a clearing house. I own less software licenses than I used to. I store less personal critical digital data than I used to. Does anyone elses' experience differ from mine? I don't know if I am seeing it the right way either. It just 'seems' like I have less of some things, and more of others. But the truth is, my digital 'ecosystem' for want of a better word, or my digital footprint is so messy, and complex now, I trully have no way to measure, monitor and manage these trends like I used to.
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:29 am Posts: 126 Location: Los Angeles, CA
I run my own domain / mailserver/ webserver, and I download all email to my laptop. I have low-value passwords (forum IDs/passwords) recorded by my browser, and high-value stuff (bank, credit card) in my head. I write free software and use it exclusively, so software licensing hasn't been much of an issue.
My usage pattern hasn't changed in 12+ years. Just another data point...
Thankyou for that excellent contribution. It is exactly the kind of response, that might give us all a better picture, of the 'state of play' out there at the present time. You should check out an excellent recording of Bruce Perens here:
"You have just previewed several of the key collaboration features of the EPM solution. A built-in ability to share and track documents, issues, and risks can make collaboration much more efficient, saving time and reducing the need for status update meetings. So, whatever your role--executive, resource manager, project manager, or team member--the EPM solution empowers you to excel."
A quote from the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management 'Tour', i am taking over the next free 7 day trial. It is a kind of virtual tour of an organisation, you login and play the part of several different members in an organisation, who are all connected via Microsoft's web based project management software. It is sort of like reading a Shakespeare play, where you have to play all the characters.
(You have to install some active X cebit or cebix or something, to access it. Funny, it wouldn't work properly in Windows Internet Explorer, and worked fine with Mozilla. Go figure. It is backed up by Java or something)
It is a bit of laugh, if you have time. It is like a combination of email, excel, MS project, discussion boards... a whole raft of stuff, kind of wrapped up together into some 'enterprise project management' solution. A fairly large beast indeed.
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:29 am Posts: 126 Location: Los Angeles, CA
Looking back further, to 24 years ago or so, I was mainly getting email on our university's mainframe (running MTS) and was just beginning to transition to mainly using a Vax at the Computing Center (running 4.3BSD). Back then when there were relatively few computers around, it was fun for me to accumulate accounts on as many systems as I could. And back then, we accessed the larger computer systems using the MERIT network, which essentially gave you a serial terminal link to any systems you wanted. (It was all packet-switched of course.)
The transition from VT100-style interaction to graphical workstation console took a couple years, but ever since then, I've been managing data locally and only using shared resources/servers as a rendezvous point. E.g., the mainframe provided the Confer program, which supported discussion boards for all kinds of groups across the campus. Along the way I also adopted Usenet News, which I still miss from time to time. It used to be that you only needed to know about your favorite hierarchy of newsgroups, and all the relevant people and topics could be found there. Now you have to join forum after forum to keep on top of topics that interest you; things have gotten heavily balkanized and I'm not sure that's such a good thing.
I miss aceshardware old style forum to be honest. But if you wish to find something that is like the old aceshardware, and might prove an interesting way for it to develop into the future, check out joelonsoftware discussion forum.
Like the way topics 'moved off the board' so fast, on a daily basis. It meant that if you returned to Aceshardware after being 'gone' for a while, the topics and discussion had completely changed, as opposed it just seeing the same 'very popular' ones up at the top.
The ideas of ranking and stuff, doesn't apply in the old aceshardware format. I like the recklessness of that myself.
I think that Joelonsoftware has a very clear way to organize the archived material. Before, in the old aceshardware, if you didn't save the link it was gone effectively. I know that Brian and Chris 'switched on' the search functionality at one stage.
But in fairness, the old aces was so reckless, maybe you wouldn't want to search it too much.
But I have to do a proper blog soon, about the old aceshardware. Alas.
We had a discussion at aces about the Matrix movie, I recall. And it was probably one of the most intelligent and well rounded discussions about that movie I have ever partaken in. I think I might have started the actual thread, something about machines taking over the planet of something.
Those are the kinds of things, I wish there was an archive of.
Of course the killer function of the old aces system, was the 'cut-in' functionality, so it was easy to spawn subthreads at any particular point along a discussion thread. I haven't seen that too often elsewhere.
Was it on Use Net or any older system?
All in all, i think the old aces format wasn't a bad group project management tool, when you compare it to the complexity of microsoft's sharing and collaboration products.
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