Scot’s Newsletter Blog

My essay a few weeks back called A View of Our Automotive Future stirred up a lot of controversy and generated a lot of reader email. It’s easy to forget that as wound up as people get about Microsoft, Apple, and Linux, nothing compares to what happens when you poke people where they really live: their automobiles.

I also managed to anger a whole ton of people with my comments about climate change being — to my mind — man-made. Almost no one wrote me to disagree that we’re experiencing climate change; but many SFNL readers wrote to tell me that global warming is not caused by the significantly increased CO2 levels generated in part by humanity. OK, well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. My concern is that the polar ice cap is melting, and we’re standing around debating whose fault it is. My tendency is to focus on solving the problem.

I’m happy to report that another huge batch of readers wrote to tell me that they, too, have purchased a hybrid gas/electric vehicle of some sort. Interestingly, though, a lot of people also wrote to tell me hybrids aren’t really the answer. Of course they’re not the last word. They still burn nonrenewable resources, don’t they? The point many were trying to make is that the complexity and weight involved with internal combustion/electric hybrid vehicles makes them imperfect — especially as replacements for larger vehicles. They also make small vehicles heavier with their battery packs. This is all true. It’s the engineering trade-off for a vehicle that has two means of propelling itself. But that doesn’t change the fact that even my wife’s relatively heavy Toyota Highlander Hybrid gets better gas mileage than its lighter nonhybrid Highlander brandmates. It also gets nearly two times the miles per gallon delivered by the SUV it replaces in the Finnie household. And it generates fewer harmful emissions.

(more…)

This Link of the Month delivers probably more than you ever wanted to know about 1080p, the current high water mark for quality of digital media presentation on flat-panel HDTVs and Blu-ray and HD DVD players. But a number of Scot’s Newsletter readers have written to ask me why I felt it was important to pay extra for 1080p with 1,920-by-1,024-pixel resolution when I made My Panasonic Plasma Purchase back in June.

This article, High Definition 1080p TV: Why You Should Be Concerned, authored by Brian Florian and Colin Miller from the March 2007 edition of the Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, explains and shows why 1080p is better than 1080i and lesser-resolution HDTV formats. If you’re buying a large flat-panel HDTV that’s 50 inches or larger in size and you’re into watching movies, the 1080p format delivers noticeably better quality with a Blu-ray or HD DVD player.

While I’m revisiting this subject, it’s probably worth pointing out that Consumer Reports just picked the Panasonic’s 50-inch 1080p HDTV model TH-50PZ700U as it’s best rated plasma. That’s the model I purchased. The same Consumer Reports article (in the November 2007 issue) provides some insights into the advantages of 1080p. CR makes the point that there are 720p sets that provide at least as good picture quality as some 1080p sets. That’s especially the case with HDTVs that are smaller than 50 inches, where the quality improvement is harder to discern. If you’re not a movie lover or if you’re buying a second widescreen TV, 720p is probably just fine for, say, a 42-inch set.

Earlier this month I wrote a review of Corsair’s 2GB Flash Padlock USB stick. The USB drive is unique to my knowledge in that it has push-buttons that create a padlock, so the casual data protection it offers comes with a very fast and convenient way to lock and unlock the drive. In fact, it locks automatically whenever it is removed from your computer.

I still like the thinking behind the Flash Padlock, but there are a couple of issues with it. Thanks to SNB (Scot’s Newsletter Blog) reader Jonathan March for writing with his concerns about it, which prompted me to go back to Corsair for more answers.

(more…)

It’s the unofficial motto of the lottery industry: You’ve got to play to win. A couple of decades ago, the vast majority of microcomputer companies realized that the jackpot was in sales of computers to businesses. Apple opted not to play, and as a result, it had a troubled history throughout most of the 1990s.

Now, for the first time since the Mac was introduced in 1984, Apple has a real opportunity to play to win by focusing some of its resources on selling computers to the enterprise. Apple isn’t a large company, however, and it’s headed in an entirely different direction, transforming itself from a consumer computer company to a consumer electronics company. But is that truly the right move for Apple? It might be, but it’s not without risk. And it may mean passing up a golden opportunity.

Small Window
Don’t believe the siren song emanating from Redmond about how well Vista is doing. It’s not doing all that well. That doesn’t mean Microsoft is in trouble long term, because as things stand now, Vista (and its mildly improved derivatives) will eventually take over the Windows marketplace and wind up being the largest-selling version of Windows ever.

(more…)

Editor’s Note: In a later review of Lexar’s JumpDrive Lightning USB stick, I updated my USB stick recommendation in favor of that product. I also ran into some issues with the Corsair Flash Padlock that caused me to rethink it entirely. From a pure hardware-security standpoint, I now recommend the IronKey Secure Flash Drive.

I’ve been searching for a USB stick with large storage that I can use as my everyday portable storage. I require this device to have security protection. USB sticks are too easy to lose, and I might have sensitive personal or corporate data on it from time to time. I don’t want to worry about prying eyes should the darn thing fall out of my pocket.

For the past few years I’ve been using a highly portable 5GB Seagate USB 2.0 Pocket Hard Drive, which contains a 1-inch mini-drive.

It works with Macs and PCs, but unfortunately the built-in security is software-based, and it requires Windows to run. While almost every USB storage device works on the Mac, most of them are using Windows-based software — not hardware — to encrypt or lock up your data.

(more…)

Over the past few issues of the newsletter, I’ve discussed the pluses and minuses of Verizon’s FiOS TV service. I’ve had Verizon’s FiOS Internet service since January of 2006, but I recently decided to skip Verizon’s FiOS TV digital entertainment package. I decided to upgrade my existing Comcast digital cable TV service to support my flat-panel HDTV. To get caught up, check these articles:

• Good News About FiOS TV
• FiOS TV Has Drawbacks

Last time, I offered something of an apology for my earlier surmise that there might be some impingement of broadband Internet throughput because Verizon also uses that pipe to send video-on-demand programming, such as movies and shows. In my household, I have five televisions and set-top boxes connecting them to digital programming. My kids are addicted to on-demand children’s programming, and my oldest loves to order free on-demand movies. Personally, I’m more into Netflix. But there’s a lot of on-demand programming going on in the Finnie household. So I got to thinking: Would multiple on-demand TV programming coming down the pipe diminish the bandwidth available to my Internet connection?

It turns out that my concern actually does have some merit, although only in the worst-case scenarios.

(more…)

For about a year now I’ve been researching software firewalls for Windows. There are at least five previous installments in this series, and several early contenders have been dropped from my prospect list, which has been winnowed down to one or two products in beta. (For links to previous installments in this series, see the end of this article.)

I stopped short of naming Comodo Free Firewall 2.4 the Best Software Firewall of 2007 in the last issue of the newsletter because several SFNL readers reported issues they’re having with Comodo. I asked readers last time to send me their experiences with Comodo, and thank you, many of you did just that.

The results of that little exercise were interesting. Many people are having no issues with Comodo’s 2.4 firewall. That included me at my last writing on this subject. Since then, I have had some of the problems others describe on one of the now five Comodo installations I’ve been testing. Not the worst of the problems, mind you. But at least I’m no longer totally in the dark. And I’ve also worked with two or three SFNL readers to the point that I’m satisfied that their reconfiguration of the product isn’t causing the symptoms they’re having.

(more…)

Those of you who have been reading this missive for a long time can probably recall that every two or three years, I try to come up with a new plan that will save me time on producing the newsletter. My life has become more complex over the past three years. I now have three children. I no longer work out of my home. And I have a challenging management job with a lot of responsibility that eats up my time. It’s no longer possible for me to describe my work at Computerworld as just a “day job.”

When I started the newsletter in 2001, it was a weekly. A few years later I had to cut back to every other week. A few years ago, I was forced to cut back to monthly frequency. This year I’ve only been able to publish six issues counting this one.

Other issues make the newsletter business very tough. In my Let’s Fight Sp@m series, 2002-2004, I more than once articulated my concern that spam — and the way ISPs, the government, anti-spam solutions, and corporations are attempting to fight it — will eventually kill the viability of email-based newsletters. I was clearly right about that. On the Internet, email is guilty until proven innocent. And most people don’t care enough to ferret out the truth. Four years ago, many people believed that RSS would replace email newsletters. And in a way, that’s partially true. What has actually replaced newsletters is blogs (most of which have RSS feeds).

So, let’s cut to the chase: I am once again considering relaunching Scot’s Newsletter as a blog, using the Scot’s Newsletter HTML and Text lists as announce-only notification of major blog entries. The last time I suggested something along those lines, I got bags of mail about it that split into two extreme camps. Many of you preferred that kind of approach; but many of you really hated the idea when I asked a similar question about two and a half years ago. I’d like to check the point again, so please send me your vote.

Should Scot’s Newsletter become primarily a blog?

Vote Yes (click to email your vote).

Vote No (click to email your vote).

The subject line of your email will tell me your vote, but inside the message, I have a question for you to answer:

If You Vote Yes: Do you like the idea of being notified via an email when a significant new blog entry or entries have been posted? Or would you prefer to stop receiving email entirely?

If You Vote No: Would you be willing to switch to the HTML format?

(more…)

Almost two years ago, in the wake of hurricane Katrina and the subsequent rise in gas and oil prices, I made the GasBuddy.com peer-based gasoline filling station price site Link of the Month. Then I took the opportunity to write Gratuitous Rant About the Auto Industry, which focused on the government’s toothless CAFE standards and the auto industry’s lack of initiative in aggressively exploring alternative-fuel-based systems.

What followed the opinion piece was an intriguing bevy of email from Scot’s Newsletter readers both agreeing and disagreeing with my viewpoint. Many of the messages I received were from people who work as engineers and scientists in the power and automobile industries.

One of the more common refrains was that hydrogen/oxygen-based fuel-cell-powered automobiles just aren’t a realistic alternative. I disagreed, and still disagree — but I recognize that hydrogen has several hurdles to leap. We’re certainly a long way from being able to just switch to hydrogen-based fuel-cell vehicles.

(more…)

There’s no question about it. Last month’s Mac vs. PC Cost Analysis article struck a chord. I was praised and lambasted around the Internet for it. It was also republished by Computerworld, where it pulled in a lot of traffic. If you didn’t catch it, I recommend the Computerworld version of the story, which was lightly updated because of Apple’s release of its new MacBook Pro model line on June 5.

• Mac vs. PC cost analysis: How does it all add up? (Computerworld)

It seemed to me that people who criticized this story missed the key points I was trying to get across:

1. This was a pure, hardware-based, speeds-and-feeds kind of comparison. I was comparing the hardware goods only, including CPU, chipset, RAM, video, display, hard-drive capacity and specs, ports and upgradeability, dimensions and weight, and so on. In other words, I was attempting to make an objective comparison that did not inject any evaluation about the hardware, anything at all about the software, or my personal experience with the operating systems and hardware involved. It was an on-paper comparison.

(more…)