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Backblog May 2007
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Spy coins don't really exist. Surprise! May 29, 2007 By Peter Wolchak Categories: General My favourite story of 2007 happened in January, so you know it has to be a heck of a tale. Three American defence contractors believed Canadian coins they acquired while visiting our fair country were actually super-miniature, super-secret tracking devices. (The original blog post is here, "Coins that spy: the day's wierdest story", http://www.backbonemag.com/Backblog/archive/Archive_2007_01_01.asp) The idea was ridiculous from the start, for two reasons. First, RFID chips - with which the coins were presumably impregnated - could not transmit a signal far enough to be of any practical use as tracking devices. Second, as soon as the Yanks spent their money or left change on a dresser, the entire surveillance operation would screech to a halt. Yet, as patently ridiculous as the story was, it took about four months for it to be debunked. Apparently, when the jumpy defence guys got home they filed secret reports stating that our special "poppy" quarters were "filled with something man-made that looked like nanotechnology." That, guys, was a protective finish applied over the flower part of the coin. Why is this my favourite story of the year? First, these folks were defence contractors, who perhaps could be expected to have a passing familiarity with technology. The U.S. Defence Security Service actually issued a warning to its staff: watch out for the Canadians. So it's just funny. Second, though, it highlights a credulity, if not paranoia, about technology. That's not so funny. 0 Comment(s) · del.icio.us · Digg it · Furl · reddit · Email Google improves Analytics and now I’m in on it! May 23, 2007 By Neil McIntyre Categories: General This weekend was the first long weekend of the summer here in Canada. On Fridays before long weekends at my firm we get the afternoons off, so around 1pm everyone clears out and gets an early start on the rest of the cubicle dwellers around the Greater Toronto Area. I took the opportunity to do a little shopping for a new mouse at Future Shop. My old mouse had for whatever reason stopped functioning properly. For the record, Microsoft mice have failed on me twice now, so I went with Logitech this time. I also decided to splurge on a year’s subscription to Flickr, since it was so reasonably priced at about $25 USD. I hit the limit on the free account a while back. It’s useful as a blogger because I use it to host images I want to use in blog posts, such as the one in this post, and it doesn’t use up my bandwidth. But I digress. Point is, when I got home from shopping, unwrapped and plugged in my shiny new mouse and by chance decided to check out my site statistics, I noticed that Google had upgraded my Analytics account to their new beta! The whole package is still freely available to anyone who has a Google account and a website. The graphics have been tweaked, but it’s the functionality improvements where the new Analytics really impresses. For example, the geographical breakdown now allows you to drill down from a map of the globe down to a specific US state or Canadian province. Unsurprisingly, most of my traffic comes from Toronto and the surrounding area. Most of my US traffic originates from the most populous states: California, New York and Texas. It’s also interesting to see the browser and operating system breakdown of my visitors. Most still use Internet Explorer despite its deficiencies, but 31% using Firefox on all operating systems is above average: The title of this post refers to the phasing-in of the new Analytics. Google announced the new version a few weeks ago but has been moving everyone over on a relaxed time frame, assumably to catch any bugs or glitches otherwise missed. So I’ve known for a while what was coming, but didn’t know when! Google has also put together a video tour of the new features. Neil McIntyre Visit Neil's blog 0 Comment(s) · del.icio.us · Digg it · Furl · reddit · Email Insight: An Ideagora for business analysts May 15, 2007 By Anthony D Williams Categories: Social Networking Ideagoras are emerging everywhere these days, from veterans like yet2.com to a recent entrant called Insight — an ideagora for business analysts. Great idea in my view: Insight is a new on-line community dedicated to those of us who want to use our passion for numbers to make a difference. You know about open source, which is tapping into the community to build software, and Wikipedia, the community-built on-line encyclopedia. But is there anybody out there tapping into the collective intelligence of business analysts and other smart people who want to work together to solve some really tough problems? We don’t think so. That’s why we’ve created Insight. So it sounds a little like InnoCentive meets Wikipedia for business geeks. Cool that it’s kicking things off with a partnership with GoZero! Toronto where the Insight community will propose meaningful ways to visualize that data, simulate and model future scenarios to help these cities gauge the impact of changes in the environment. The See the Globe & Mail’s write up. We’ll be watching to see how this turns out. Anthony D. Williams From Wikinomics—The Blog 0 Comment(s) · del.icio.us · Digg it · Furl · reddit · Email Facebook vs. LinkedIn for accounting professionals May 11, 2007 By Neil McIntyre Categories: Social Networking Which nascent social network does it better for work-related connections? Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. LinkedIn is an online network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries. By their own definitions, these two utilities target slightly different types of users. Facebook of course began at Harvard and then expanded to other universities and colleges, and then opened itself up to everyone else. LinkedIn is open to everyone, but is tightly focused on where you work or have worked, not where you live or went to school. Because of LinkedIn’s focus, it’s easy to connect with current and former colleagues. You fill in your details and LinkedIn does the rest, providing a list of people registered on the site who have the same employer(s) listed. On Facebook, where you live, where you went to school, and where you work are called “networks”. I’m in the Toronto and Brock University networks. But the problem with Facebook is that it is limited in terms of workplace networks. Right now, my firm isn’t on Facebook, so I can’t join that particular network since it doesn’t exist. Facebook does provide a way to suggest new networks, but so far the suggestion I’ve made to add my firm has gone ignored. The problem for me (and no doubt others) with LinkedIn is that there just isn’t as many people I know on it as Facebook. I have over a hundred friends on Facebook, and I have 3 “connections” on LinkedIn. Clearly for me Facebook is the better tool. And there are ways to network using Facebook even if your employer isn’t available. Anyone can start a group on Facebook for any reason (no matter how spurious), and there are many related to jobs. For instance: - Ernst & Young Careers - Ernst & Young Toronto - Deloitte. - KPMG As well, there are groups aimed at the profession: - Chartered Accountants of Ontario - Charted Accountants of Canada I think what’s interesting about these groups is they’re started and populated by the young people in those firms. As they progress within their firms and take on more responsibility for things like hiring, Facebook may become even more important for job seekers. Both networks provide value to their users, that much is clear. I wish I had more contacts on LinkedIn, so that the value of the site to me was higher, but that will just take time. As more of my colleagues learn about LinkedIn, it will grow. As far as features go, LinkedIn trumps Facebook. But for pure numbers and flexibility, Facebook wins out. Neil McIntyre Visit Neil's blog 0 Comment(s) · del.icio.us · Digg it · Furl · reddit · Email TV on the Internet is here (almost) May 4, 2007 By Charles Perez Categories: General At long last (well, almost) TV on the Internet is here. Not that I watch TV but it is nice in theory. Go to Joost. it is not yet open to the public but you can sign up for the newsletter that will tell you when it will be open. Now, this is a innovation that shows the true value of the internet and what good licensing can do in the digital world (at least in theory). If only the rights holders in the music world would come up with a useful regime that will make them money and accommodate the the consumers of music. It is possible. Charles Perez Visit Charles's blog 0 Comment(s) · del.icio.us · Digg it · Furl · reddit · Email |
