Windows Defender (Beta 2)

Post ImageMicrosoft released Windows Defender (formerly Microsoft Antispyware, hence the Beta 2) yesterday, making it available as a free download and I just installed it. Apparently existing Antispyware users will be notified about the update, but I hadn’t received anything before I installed Defender. Fortunately it appears to have upgraded or removed Antispyware for me. Here’s Microsoft’s description of the software:

Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Some of the main changes/features include a redesigned interface, improved detection and removal, support for 64 bit platforms, and the most important one of all: Windows Defender can be run by all users on a computer, with or without administrative privileges.

Some other things I noticed:

  • Checking for updates seemed to take a long time, and the UI for it is ugly compared to Antispyware.
  • The red and yellow target icon has been replaced by a grey, plain looking brick wall. The icon doesn’t appear to stay in the status bar anymore.
  • The logo is using the new Vista graphic for Windows (this makes it the first application I have installed that uses the graphic).
  • There’s a lot of wasted whitespace on the “Home” screen.
  • Software Explorer is a new feature that lets you manage software permissions. Also shows you a bunch of information about each program.
  • I need to test it out a little more, but so far it seems to use more memory than Antispyware.

If you want to give it a try, you can download it from Microsoft.

Read: Windows Defender

TextPayMe

Post ImageCame across an article at Wired talking about TextPayMe, a service that lets you send money to someone simply by using your cell phone! I like the way reporter Rachel Metz sets it up:

When a group of people dine out together, someone always lacks cash. They forgot to go to the ATM, but they’ll pay you back ASAP. Right.

Funny, though, how people rarely forget their cell phones. Philip Yuen put these two observations together and came up with TextPayMe to let people send money using text messaging.

Ain’t that the truth!

Seems like a pretty good idea, though I don’t expect the company to last very long. As the article points out, PayPal is rumored to be working on something similar. There are already millions upon millions of people using PayPal, and I already have established accounts there – why would I or anyone else use TextPayMe instead? That’s what the company needs to be focusing on. I guess one reason is that the service is currently free, but certainly that can’t last forever.

I don’t think the service is available to us Canadians yet either (sign up form only has states and zip code, no country option).

Read: Wired

St. Valentine's Day

Post ImageToday is Valentine’s Day, where everything you see and everywhere you go is red, pink, white, or some shade in between. I remember giving cards to classmates when I was in primary school, and I remember candygrams in high school, but that’s about when my mass valentine sending stopped. As you get older, you send less and less valentines I guess! From Wikipedia:

The day is now most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “valentines.” Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, the practice of hand writing notes has largely given way to the exchange of mass-produced greeting cards. The Greeting Card Association estimates that, world-wide, approximately one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association also estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

I wonder how long it will be until this text is updated to say that the practice of sending greeting cards has largely given way to the exchange of email or IMs or blog posts or something! And on that note, Happy Valentine’s Day – I’m back to mass valentines!

Sunday Recap & Notes for 2/13/2006

On Sunday we spent the entire day in Vancouver hanging out. We went for brunch at Red Robin’s where we had an interesting discussion about whether or not figure skating should be an Olympic sport and then headed towards Stanley Park. We spent the afternoon at the Vancouver Aquarium which was awesome! We even got to see a Beluga Whale show. After the show we walked all the way back to Canada Place to the IMAX theatre where we watched “Roving Mars” – all about the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. It was a really fascinating video, if you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. After walking back to the hotel to get our bags we headed for the airport.

I got back to Edmonton last night around 10:15 PM along with Dickson and we went directly to Denny’s from the airport! I had to drop off some stuff at the office, so we came here (yep still at the office tonight), but didn’t stay long.

This week is looking pretty damn busy, so here’s some notes:

  • I think Northern Voice went very well this year! There’s lots of great information out there, just look for posts and pictures and podcasts tagged “northernvoice”.
  • Did a bunch of shopping today, mostly for furniture-related stuff for the office. We’re revamping our server room as we prepare to launch our podcast stuff. Just waiting on a few more items now!
  • Two midterms on Thursday does not make me happy. I have a lot of studying to do 😦
  • Have you been watching the Olympics? I haven’t. Highlights and recaps are the only things I’m going to watch besides the hockey games.

Northern Voice 2006 Finished!

Post ImageThe conference ended almost six hours ago now, but we just got back from dinner. We went to Moxies with Robert Scoble, Maryam, Rob Greenlee, Eric Rice, Alex Williams, and a bunch of other really cool people. Dinners are always interesting, because things are a little more casual than at the conference, so you get a better chance to chat. Eric told us all about Second Life, so I am going to have to check that out. Robert commented that everyone is playing either World of Warcraft or Second Life!

I think the conference itself went very well. It had the same feel as last year’s, which is much less tech oriented and more social-impact oriented. Still lots of great people, with great ideas and some very interesting presentations, which is what makes Northern Voice great. There was a similar mix of males and females as last year, though I get the feeling that there were far more Americans this year.

I wasn’t surprised to see so many Apple laptops in the crowd (there usually are at tech events) but I was surprised to see so many people using Microsoft Word for taking notes. That just demonstrates to me that not enough people know about OneNote. And of course, there were still lots of pen and paper people.

I’m not sure I learned anything really new at the conference, but I definitely gathered a good list of things to think about and consider, and that’s probably more important anyway. I’m already looking forward to next year’s! If you’d like to check out my pictures from the conference, I’ve created a photoset at Flickr.

Thanks to Darren, Boris, Roland and all the other organizers and volunteers for a great conference!

Notes on how your blog can change the world!

Post ImageWe’re into the last session of the day now, this one on the five ways your blog can change the world. Here are some notes:

  • Sounds like we’ve gone from four presenters down to one due to some family issues that have come up. I didn’t catch his name though.
  • Yes! He asked what kind of change we want to see in the world, so I stuck up my hand and proclaimed my well-worn mantra, wireless everywhere! Seems as though people agree.
  • There are lots of ways you can take part in some effort to change the world, using things like badges (graphics) or common tags.
  • Seems if you really want something spread quickly, get it on Boing Boing! That’s not the point of the example he is currently sharing, but it is remarkable how that blog can spread information.
  • This is kind of funny, he’s got one of the other presenters on the cell phone with the device held up to the microphone! This is because she didn’t have a microphone to use Skype. Sounds like a telephone interview or something you might see on CNN, kinda neat, and yet pretty low tech!

Lot’s of examples of different projects, like that We Are Sorry campaign after Bush was re-elected, etc. I haven’t been paying that much attention, so I am sure I missed a few things here and there – be sure to check out some other posts on the aggregation servies. I think the links mentioned will be posted on Northern Voice too.

Notes from the Geek Out panel

Post ImageHere are some notes from the Geek Out session administered by Robert Scoble, Will Pate and Kevin Marks:

  • Sounds like they have some topics to discuss at first, followed by some good questions at the end.
  • Kevin is talking about microformats, specifically tagging. We’re also getting a demo of the Blog Finder and Explore features on Technorati. Microformats can be used for tags, events, names, addresses, etc.
  • Kevin just entered “canada” into the Explore feature, and every post on the page was from my blog. Something cool about seeing your blog appear on the big screen in a presentation 🙂
  • Scoble is talking now, about sharing information through del.icio.us and using other Firefox extensions.
  • We’re going around the room sharing favorite Firefox extensions, some of which include: Session Saver, Fangs, PDF Download, Download Status, Signatures, Fasterfox, Web Developer, Firebug, etc.
  • Will Pate is talking now about his blog, and how he uses Drupal for customization. Specifically he is focusing on the aggregation of content capabilities.
  • Kevin just showed an awesome animated graph of the long tail of posts in response to a question about the A list and how to break in. Basically if you get a single inbound link, you’re above average!
  • Scoble reiterates that he’s interested in mapping, and thinks that within a year someone will have “put this room up on a map”. He’s talking about taking the basic mapping capabilities and making them extremely relevant and useful.
  • Will wants better tools for “normal” people, things like posting from within Microsoft Word, etc. He also says user interface is very important!
  • Scoble is interested in the photo sites like Riya and Bubbleshare.
  • Someone asked about Web 2.0 and all of the new products we’re seeing, and both Scoble and Will seem to think we won’t really see a slowdown of new ideas, even though the big three pick up companies along the way.
  • Scoble says the new advertising based business model will allow a lot of new companies to grow. Sounds a lot like the idea behind Live.com if you ask me!

Notes on Everything Casting

Post ImageBack from lunch (we went to Quizno’s in a nearby mall) and I am in Eric Rice’s session titled Everything Casting. Here are some notes:

  • “everything”casting: doing whatever you want, for whatever reason, in whatever medium.
  • your thing, your product, your “it”, your epsilon
  • Four primary elements or categories: content/concept/purpose, medium/materials, audience/behavior, sustain/making money.
  • Content: personal/intimate, art, informational, performance/rock star. You need to have at least one, sometimes you can do all four!
  • Medium: text, audio, video, photos. For all the religious opinions on the medium, it doesn’t matter. Some are better than others, depending on the context, sometimes you can mix them together!
  • Audience: passive, active passive, participatory, active participatory. You can be in any of these moods, and it depends on where you are, the type of medium available, etc.
  • Sustain: zero, fame, barter, cash. It’s perfectly okay to not make money, and in fact, it’s usually hard to make money from things you love doing – think of sports, or playing video games, etc.

More good discussion! Eric will be posting the audio of this session, as well as the slides. Everything is licensed under Creative Commons, so you’re encouraged to use it!

Notes on The Changing Face of Journalism

Post ImageStaying in the same room, where Mike Tippet, Mark Schneider, and Robert Ouimet are talking about the changing face of journalism. This probably going to be similar to what was talked about yesterday during Moosecamp. Here are some notes:

  • We are experiencing an existential moment in the news.
  • Readers can now make their own news, and they are going online to consume news.
  • Michael Tippet essentially gave an overview of NowPublic and the circumstances that allowed it to exist.
  • Robert Ouimet is from CBC, and is talking about how news is changing.
  • He asked how many people in the room watch the 6 oclock news – very few hands went up!
  • Mark Schneider is now sharing his journalistic background. He says the truth of the matter is, the news is really sick. There’s a toxic quality about what we are consuming. The news organizations themselves have been tainted.
  • Now we’re on to discussion. Not many notes on this session – it was very interesting, but much harder to write stuff down. I am getting hungry for lunch too, maybe that has something to do with it!
  • Mark says there is something called NewsML (markup language) in the works.
  • Robert: focus is important, and is taught to journalism students and employees, but is an exercise in rejecting everything else.

Really great discussion in this session!

Notes on The 7 Competencies of Online Interaction

Post ImageI decided to switch rooms to check out Nancy White’s session on Snow White and the Seven Competencies of Online Interaction. Some notes:

  • I’m also chatting live in the NV Back Channel. You can join if you want! Dickson just commented that he hates IRC…I guess he’s run into too many viruses!
  • Our world is far more unbounded – we’re creating our own reality.
  • Nancy is kind of telling a story like Julie, using images on the screen as she goes.
  • We have the ability to let this magic happen by changing our organizations.
  • Communications Skills – scan, see patterns, write, image-inate, vocalize, intuit; write blog daily, test, draw, record, summarize, listen
  • Learning with others – learning as a practice, gift economy, collaborate, open hand…
  • Ramlinger – 6 Network Functions: filters, amplifyers, convenors, facilitators, investors, community builders
  • Nancy: note, make a competency about tools!
  • Facilitation for: relationship, identity/reputation, presence, flow
  • Shouting creates quite a different environment online than in meatspace. Learn about improvisation and creatively abrasive!
  • Convening Conversations – invite, name the question, initiate, design for local choice, nurture
  • Intercultural antennae: broadly defined, heart variations, “default” culture – look, read, live/work/play, bridge!
  • Tolerance for Ambiguity – OK with not in control, not knowing, move forward without certainty
  • Ability to switch contexts – connectors, networkers, multiple perspectives, outsiderness
  • Self-Awareness!
  • So what? Undeterred by failure, care for the whole, willing to be vulnerable, value the human system first
  • The struggle is the solution. Grieve for the cost of what exists now. Treat the conversation as action. See the reality in the current situation.
  • Edith Wharton – There are two ways of spreading the light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.