Author: Francisco

Remember DOS?

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What I find really strange about younger people and computers is that they often have no idea how to use the DOS command line. When Windows95 was the new OS on the shelf, I remember vividly being able to pick out a person’s computer skills based on whether they knew what CD-backslash was. Eventually Windows95 took over and I had to teach people what Right-click Properties was. Now I hardly ever run into a Netware server or even an old Windows98 station, but computer users in general still do not know DOS commands and hardly even know anything about the computer’s boot process. I guess what I really found interesting about learning DOS was that it taught you something about how the computer worked. Today, all the complexity is abstracted to the point that power users have to spend hours changing WindowsXP back to a Windows2000 like appearance. In a way it had to happen. Plug and Play and other technologies were a good thing, but some other things I just have to wonder why they suck so bad.

My favorite rant about WindowsXP is Windows Update. Reinstalling Windows usually means about six to seven restarts! In between setup’s actual restarts, which I think are two or three, you have Windows Update which requires individual installation for some Optional Software listings. By the time you finished installing everything, you’ve restarted so many times you wonder what is so automated about Windows to begin with. It would not be so bad if it was just Windows, but it seems like every major application on Windows wants you reboot after installation. After a while you get a bit tired of watching the Windows Logo come up so many times.

For DOS all you really needed to know was how to edit config.sys and autoexec.bat, and where you copied your drivers to. Most of the time you either got things to work or you didn’t. In Windows, there are literally thousands of files and you never know what you have. The irony of it all is that EDIT is still faster than Windows WordPad; that DOS still boots faster on a 130MHz machine than WindowsXP does on a 2GHz machine!

Phone Number Authentication

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Over the last few years I have come to dread one piece of technology more than any other. The phone in my house is just plain evil. It interrupts my dinner, my evening entertainment, and even on days when I sleep in, the phone still rings and rings. Eight times out of ten, it ends up being a telemarketer wanting to sell me something or have me upgrade my debt ratio on my Visa. In my online time, I run into more and more spam and after a while, I have now become immune to most advertisements, except of course those tempting junk food commercials that they pass constantly on television. I don’t want a hamburger with extra cheese, but for some reason I have the urge to buy one. Anyway, the one idea that I ran across had to do with email authentication. It is based on the receiver giving permission to receive emails from you first before you can really send anything to that email address. What a great idea for the phone system. Why should I have to pay for CallerID, when 80% of the time I don’t really want those phone calls anyway?

The perfect phone system would require you to either approve the phone number or user id of the person calling you in order for your phone to accept the phone call. This would work out well because I could allow parents to call me based on their phone number, and friends who want to call me can just let me know what their user ID would be. Everyone has some sort of online ID nowadays, many people even use their online ID in person. Lastly if I wanted to I could still accept the call regardless of the phone number or ID. Government agencies would be exempt, so their calls would still come through. As for credit card companies, when you activate their card, it would add that credit card’s ID to your phone, so that the credit card company could still call you in case they needed to for non-telemarketing purposes.

This would effectively kill all telemarketing and would change the industry overnight. The business community would of course object and never let this happen, but think about it, the phone is outdated and like it or not, as everyone begins to embrace IP phone service and other communication mediums, it is just a matter of time. Someone will invent an authentication system and private networks will spring up and it may become popular for people to only communicate on private networks that have authentication. A system is only as popular as its users. If people abondon the phone system in favor of their own private telephone system, they can define their own authentication and not even have to pay extra for it.

NBA First Round 2006

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The Playoffs are here and the first round is now over, but before we move on to the second round matchups, lets talk about what happened.

The East

Most of the excitement in the East was with The Chicago Bulls battling The Heat. Shaq seemed to slow down in this series and this caused some doubt as to whether the big man is still all that dominating. The short answer is no. But he is still big and his performance in the last game of the series was back up to his usual Shaqness. More interesting than all the technicals and suspensions The Heat suffered during the series, is how amazingly well Antoine Walker played! He was a solid offensive threat and he gave The Heat the energy they needed. Wade was still the main star next to Shaq, but Wade still has a lot to prove. The Bulls on the other hand showed they have a good team, although they are still missing someone in the center position. Chandler was disappointing and Chicago needs to think about getting someone bigger and better at that position. The Noch was incredible, and single handedly kept the Bulls in the game.

I guess I have to mention Lebron, but other than saying that the Cavs have gotten better and Lebron is amazing, there really is not anything new to say about the Cavs winning over the Wizards.

Detroit still looked bored even after the Bucks managed to beat them once. It really has been said before, but I’ll say it again, the game is too easy for Detroit.

The West

Even without Yao and McGrady, the West was more entertaining in their first round. You had the old Spurs battling a hungry Sacramento team, a Laker team poised to beat the number two Suns, and even the Clippers going at Denver. Dallas and Memphis was disappointing, because Dallas won too easily over Memphis. You could almost say the same thing of the Clippers and Denver, if it were not for that controversial foul from Reggie Evans that was just too strange not to talk about.

In the end though, The Lakers took center stage and their battles with Nash and his Suns were amazing. Nash even got upset for a couple of games! Bell called Kobe a pompous player! Kobe actually believed he could make it to the second round without Shaq! Yes, all of it was incredible and when it all came crashing down in game seven, you knew the Suns had run away with it. The media would all blame Kobe, but after all he is the star, and when you are the star they blame you or love you depending on the game’s outcome.