Joe asks 'Is it me or what?'

A Not So Distant Echo

Being a man I had to order Amazon's Echo as soon as it became available in the UK, it arrived this week. The Echo has been available in the USA for about a year now, it's a standalone device that connects to your wi-fi and hooks into your Amazon account working best if you have Amazon Prime, although that's not essential. Best of all though, it's voice controlled. You initiate a command by saying "Alexa", although this can be changed (sadly only to Amazon or Echo rather than HAL - this will probably change though).

Given I only set it up yesterday (it took twenty minutes and needs you to install a mobile app) I'm no expert but my experience so far is encouraging. So what can it do? Well firstly it has high quality speakers and can play music you have bought on Amazon or any of the free Prime stuff (assuming you are a member). It can also link to a Spotify Premium account. You can ask it to play specific artists, select some mood music or a predefined playlist. You can alter the volume by voice commands - "Alexa - volume five" - or by rotating the top of the turret. You can maintain shopping and to-do lists and a few other things out of the box. The best part is its inter-connectivity with other systems although we are some way behind the USA on this so many features are coming soon. First a list of what's possible today:

• Control lighting and heating e.g. via Philips Hue Lighting, Nest, Hive or similar
• Order food deliveries from Just Eat
• Set alarms and timers
• General search - think Wikipedia style questions as well as recipes, cocktails etc.
• Read audio books
• News updates, traffic and weather reports
• Call for an Uber
• Check your calendar

Here are some things that are coming soon:

• Shopping via Amazon
• Shopping via other stores
• Combine with IFTTT to enable multiple services to interact (e.g. email you your shopping list - although you can also see it in the mobile app)

The last ability will really open up what can be done. If you haven't seen IFTTT (if this, then that) before then it's worth following the link above and signing up. I have quite a few recipes that make life easier such as recording all text messages in a spreadsheet (for easier searching) and converting PDFs to an eBook and sending to my Kindle just by dropping into a specific folder.

All in all we are having a lot of fun with it and it's certainly getting used for music and random internet searches, especially when you are playing games such as Trivial Pursuit and someone questions an answer.

Now the Echo is quite expensive, about £150, and once you have one it seems a bit much to buy more for other rooms. But you can't shout to it from everywhere in the house... So for that there's the Echo Dot. It doesn't have the high quality speaker but other than that it's much the same. It can be paired with other speakers though so if you want you can feed the audio through your stereo system. The devices are both connected and separate. You can play different music in different parts of the house but you only have only shopping list, which is sensible. The Dot arrives shortly at Casa Fawcett and costs about £50.

So, so far so good. More news once I've found out more - although the phrase second wife has already been bandied about.

Chrome browser: a cautionary tale

As my many readers know I don't often do techie posts but I felt this story deserved wider readership as a cautionary tale.

 

A friend of mine, let's call her Alice had a problem with her laptop and borrowed one from another friend, Bob. The laptop was running Windows 7 and Bob, who should have really known better as they were a professional IT guy, didn't bother to create a new profile for Alice but just handed over their password.

Alice was used to using Chrome as she used Gmail, Google Apps etc., and promptly installed it. They used the laptop for a few weeks until their new one arrived and often took advantage of Chrome's offer to save form data such as passwords. Again, probably a bad idea but she had a plan. When the time came to return the laptop she uninstalled Chrome and expected that her form data would disappear with it.

However, Bob now decided that he wanted Chrome and installed it, as he began to use it he noticed how many sites had saved passwords and discovered that all of Alice's data had been restored. This gave him access to email and many other sites although a few, such as banks, were protected by two-factor authentication (this is where you need to provide a second credential such as a password created on your mobile or from a dedicated device the bank has given you).

 

Nothing earth-shattering and all easily avoidable but just goes to show how you can be caught out even though you thought you were doing the right thing, in this case uninstalling a program.

 

Errors made along the way with my scale of insecurity out of ten, ten being very insecure:

• Not creating a new profile and giving someone your password (Bob 10)
• Not creating a new profile on a borrowed machine (Alice 8)
• Letting Chrome remember stuff on someone else's machine, rather than use a proper password manager such as LastPass (Alice 9)
• Not checking that data had been removed after the install (Alice 5)

 

Recommendations:

• Set up two-factor authentication for email (and other key sites), it's easy to use and well worth the thirty minutes it takes to set up and the slight inconvenience
• Do not hand out your account password, even to friends (and do have a password protecting your machine!)

Do You Know Who I Am?

I have been a customer of Vodafone for over 25 years, their phone and data service in Exeter is lamentable, 3G is rare and until recently 4G unheard of, it has now appeared in various parts but sporadically. As for traditional phone calls they are impossible inside my house without a signal booster and difficult outside, despite living in the centre of the city. Compare this with their service in a number of European cities I visited last year including Marseille, Cadiz, Vigo and Florence, all had a good 4G service, and that was on roaming.

That aside I believe they offer reasonable value for money on my monthly contract and are particularly good when travelling, especially in Europe and as I don't use my phone much in Exeter (I rarely make calls on it and am on wifi at home and down the pub) I put up with the slight inconvenience. However they do have one major failing, their user-facing and support systems are terrible. The web site is painfully slow and their customer support, which is actually good from a personal point of view with their staff always being friendly, is let down by their help desk system.

I use their site each month as I need a bill summary for my work expenses report and for a long time I have been annoyed at the fact that my first name has been Anonymous. So emails are addressed to Dear Anonymous and bills show as being for Anonymous Fawcett. I eventually decided to do something about it, you can't just email in a request, oh no, you have to phone or use live chat (where a chat box appears on the web site) but I dislike the latter as the operators seem to disappear between sentences for minutes at a time. The option to change my name on the web site was not available for reasons best known to a faceless manager at Vodafone. So I phoned up...

1. The first time I entered my phone number and was told all operators were exceptionally busy (as always) and it would be best to try later or use the web site [gnashing of teeth by me]
2. The second time I entered my phone number and was told all operators were exceptionally busy (again) but was offered a call back within a few minutes so I took that option
3. I was called back and then had to go through the usual twenty questions to verify my identity, despite the fact I had set up a password on my account years ago to avoid this
4. I then explained the problem and was told I would need a new account set up and the old one deleted. This seemed like an overkill but I was told it would take 24 hours and I would be notified by email
5. Some time later I received an email but when I tried to login to my new account I was refused access
6. The next day I tried again, same result, I then tried using my old credentials, this worked but I was still Anonymous and it still showed on my next bill
7. I rang again, entered my phone number, and was put through. I was immediately asked for my number, apparently it doesn't pass it on to the operator so why ask for it?
8. I mentioned using my password instead of all the questions but, in spite of having the same one for over ten years was told that the first and last characters that I had been asked for didn't match, so back to address, post code, favourite Dicken's character...
9. My request to change password is refused as the system doesn't allow it
10. I go through the whole reason for call again, for some reason no one ever makes a note of customer's previous requests, have they heard of CRM?
11. I am told it's very easy (!!!). He will delete the anonymous, it will show up after 24 hours
12. I wait
13. I log in to my account, Anonymous is no longer my first name! - but I no longer have a first name. Emails are now addressed as Dear ,
14. I lose the will to live

I am now summoning up the strength for another call.

Happy New Year

The Joys of Support

I don't work in IT support, except unofficially for family and friends, but I still get asked questions at work especially regarding mobile phones as people know I'm a bit of an Android geek.

However, there are always some problems that are just too difficult to solve or that one can't quite believe, as was this one posed recently in the office kitchen at lunchtime:

Do you know why my camera won't work when I use the company wi-fi?

My first reaction was incredulity, why on earth would the camera on a phone, in this case a Galaxy Note, need wi-fi at all, nevermind not work on a particular network?

But I decided to ask a few questions, did she mean photo sharing, perhaps that was blocked (although though our company wi-fi has restrictions such as specific web sites that would be an odd thing to stop)?

No, she said, and vowed to go and retrieve her phone to demonstrate after I further expressed doubts about this claim.

Can you guess the what the problem was? She returned with her phone and promptly showed me - of course her definition of a camera and mine differed somewhat, she showed me an app that gave her a live feed of the security cameras in and around her house!

Of course the whole thing made sense now and I explained that there were a number of reasons why the app wouldn't work* and offered a few suggestions to remedy this.

So there you are, IT support is difficult but as in other areas off life it helps if you are both talking about the same thing :) 

* For the curious it could be that the site that offers the feed was on a blacklist for some reason, or that the specific port the site needed was blocked (most web sites use port 80 by default but other ports are used for services like Skype etc. and these are sometimes barred).

Modern Technology

I lost my phone this week. My constant companion (well, excluding upgrades) of many a year left me in a spectacular fashion. I was hurrying to catch the Tube and negotiated the stairs at Westbourne Park with said phone in hand but there was a bit of jostling and it slipped from my hand, bounced on the platform and slid over the edge landing on the gravel by the tracks.

My first thought, after appropriate cursing of my stupidity was it’s no big deal. I could easily get a new one and a new SIM within days and it doesn’t have any data on it that is not backed up in the cloud. It can also be wiped remotely so those naked pics won’t be appearing all over the gossip sites any moment (just joking…).

So, given that I’ve had a mobile for over 27 years, see photo from about 1986 for proof, what was the one feature of my high-end smart phone that I couldn’t do without? I could live without calls, hardly ever make or take them anyway, email – good riddance, texts would be annoying but no big deal. My calendar is available on line so I could just look at that. The only thing I could not live with was the alarm clock, I had to try and borrow one from a friend who also confessed he didn’t have a proper one as he and his wife just used their phones too. Have the people who make travelling alarm clocks all gone bankrupt?

Anyway the station had no staff on duty but I asked at Moorgate when I alighted and they rang the station master at Westbourne Park. He said to call back later as he would try to get it when he had sufficient staff on duty. He was as good as his word, I rang back in the afternoon and he’d retrieved it. My apologies to all those on the train that was stopped just outside the station whilst someone climbed onto the tracks…

Apart from a few scratches around the edge it was fine and I didn’t have to go through the hassle of setting up a new phone, I’m very fussy (read OCD) so this takes a day or two.

And the other thing I really missed, as I was travelling to pick the phone, that would be my sudoku app, how did I live all those years without it?

Shoot the Messenger

I’m not Google’s biggest fan, yes I use their services and I was one of the first to use their search engine when it started back in the 90s. But they are now an effective monopoly in many areas and have become less transparent in general.

That being said I’m disturbed by the recent ruling by the European Court that users can request Google to remove links in their search results that show them in a bad light. There are a few reasons for my concern:

• At the end of the day Google is only reporting on the web content, the actual articles the people object to are still there, this means that they can be found by other engines, presumably even by using a different country’s Google such as google.com instead of google.co.uk
• There is no clear ruling on why someone can ask for removal, is it because the the articles are defamatory, inaccurate, out of date or just annoying? - it also leaves it up to Google to decide it the request is legitimate
• It’s censorship, not that I think that anything goes, but if you are a businessman who has been made bankrupt why should you be able to hide this fact when I am deciding whether to back your new venture? (This is an actual example of a request for removal)
• Google are also punishing what may be an entirely legitimate site by removing them from the results. I can imagine that Private Eye, a satirical yet serious UK political commentator, will see their rankings drop substantially

I was hoping Google would tell them to take a running jump and threaten to remove services from the EU, unfortunately they seem to be acquiescing.

All in all, if people want stuff removing that’s untrue let’s make the process easier than it is currently, but target the publisher not the search engine.

Isn’t Technology Wonderful II

Following from my previous post regarding how technology was helping, and people weren’t, I feel the need to relate how it’s still amazing that on a plane one is asked to turn off devices such as a Kindle eBook reader during take-off and landing.

I know that in the USA these rules have been shown to be needless and are being somewhat relaxed but on my last flight my mind started wandering as I sat staring out of the plane’s window as my Kindle sat, turned off, on the seat beside me.

Scene: a cave somewhere in Pakistan

The leader of Al Qaeda: “So, my trusty lieutenant, what plans do you have to spread the word of Allah?”

Trusty Lieutenant : “I have a cunning plan, my Lord, with which we shall bring down many flying devices of the Great Satan.”

Leader: “Well I hope it’s better than you last few you have suggested. The binary liquid bomb now just means I have to pay an extortionate price for bottled water in the airport, the shoe bomb mean the airport stinks of smelly feet as people remove footwear and my eyes still water when I think of what happened to the underwear bomber. No matter how many virgins he meets he won’t be producing any sons…”

TL: “This is different Guider of the Faithful, we have the perfect way to bring down these winged monsters on the infidels. As we are about to land I am going to turn on my mobile phone!”

Leader: “What a wonderful plan!”

TL: “Thank you , O Great Bearded Wonder.”

Leader: “I was being sardonic you ox, do you really think that a mobile signal can bring down a plane? The only reason they don’t allow them to be used is they can sting you on the price of using the built-in phones.”

TL 1: “Sorry Munificent One, we had a back-up plan in place too.”

Leader: “And what, pray, was that?”

TL 1: “We were going to turn on our Kindles!”

Leader: “I give up…”

Isn't Technology Wonderful?

I was just thinking that thought the other day after a number of successful applications of it, then, of course, disaster struck. Okay, it wasn't disaster, more of mild inconvenience, but first the good stuff.

Firstly I wanted to attend a Microsoft organised developer conference entitled Build which this year is to be held in San Francisco in early April. The problem was that it sells out quickly, not as fast as Glastonbury, but I needed to be quick and the web site opened for registration just after my flight from Dublin was due to land at Heathrow. I probably had a couple of hours grace but in that time I was due to be on public transport, namely the Piccadilly Line on my way to a bridge match. That's how a technology came to my rescue. Due to a combination of a very good internet connection (4G which was giving about 20Mb/s for those who care) and a web site that was relatively mobile-friendly (I could have done without the mandatory user survey half-way through but I digress) I managed to register and pay for the conference whilst still on the Tube.

The next success story was similar, I checked in for a flight to Dublin and also bought my Heathrow Express ticket from my mobile phone whilst on the Underground, this time using the wi-fi service now on offer at many stations. It was at this point that I started to get blasé, what could go wrong?

Things were fine initially, I passed through security using the boarding pass QR code on my phone and arrived at the departure gate. I then spotted a WH Smith's and decided to buy a bottle of water. It was a small shop just a few square yards and only sold a few magazines, newspapers and bottled water. There was a large sign in front of the water stand, Free Bottle of Water with the Daily Telegraph, and although it's not my newspaper of choice I'm naturally thrifty and the crossword would occupy me on the flight so I decided to check out this offer. The lady manning the till was on the phone, business or pleasure I don't know, but she was in no hurry to serve me. Eventually she told the person that she had customers and turned to serve me. I asked how much the water was, I had noticed the Telegraph was £1.45 and wanted to see how much of a deal the free water was. Of course she didn't know, this is despite the fact that water was the only drink they sold so unless she had just started work that week it would seem impossible not to know the price, she'd have to scan the bottle. The price was £1.40 and I thought the Telegraph was worth 5p so I said I'd take her up on the offer. She now broke the news that the offer was no longer running, despite at least three signs were proclaiming it. When I opined that the signs should be removed she gave me a look that suggested I had made a low cash offer for her grandmother to be my personal concubine. Anyway I offered her the money for the water, a £2 coin, and the till promptly refused to acknowledge that I wanted to buy it, it kept returning to a somnolent state and refusing to open the drawer. After half a dozen attempts she said she was sorry, she couldn't sell it to me. I offered to give her the exact money but to no avail, compu'er says no, as the Little Britain phrase goes.

I walked back to my chair empty-handed, thinking that perhaps technology wasn't the bee's knees after all – this wouldn't have happened at Arkwright's. And the worst of it - what do you think she did as I sat down – did she pick up the phone and make a call to head office that the the till wasn't working? Of course not, she just stood there, waiting for the next customer who would no doubt be equally frustrated.

If only they could replace shop assistants with technology – oh they have – in places such as Tesco, they're known as self-service checkouts, the most frustrating invention known to humanity, but that's another story for another post.

False Positive

Everyone who uses email gets spam and most use spam filters, either their own or from the company that provides their account.

But what would you rather have, an email marked as spam that wasn't, maybe causing you to miss an urgent message, or some spam allowed through? In my experience most people go for the latter.

How about anti-virus engines? Would you rather one prevented you installing a legitimate piece of software or occasionally let through something rogue? Again most people put up with the former, you can usually tell the anti-virus system that it made a mistake and override it when needed.

Both these instances show that, as the old saying goes, better safe than sorry. A slight inconvenience, seeing the odd spam email or having to re-enter credentials to allow an install, is preferable to missing an important meeting or letting some Moscow miscreant have all your bank details.

Why am I bringing this up? Because recently there was an outcry in the media that Prince Andrew had been challenged to identify himself by the security services as he was walking through the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Questions were asked such as surely they should have recognised him? Well who knows. At twilight from a distance you see a figure in the grounds, you are tasked to protect the royal family and recently someone has been arrested after climbing the palace walls. You can't quite make them out do you think I'll let them carry on, he looks a bit like Prince Andrew or I'd better just check?

What do you think is better, an occasional palace resident being asked to identify themselves or an assassin allowed to continue unchecked (republicans need not answer)? And if any guard is disciplined for challenging His Royal Highness then that increases the chances that next time a malefactor will proceed unhindered.  So as to the force apologising to Andrew, forget it, he should be grateful that they are there.

Thank You Muchly

What's the current thinking on 'thank you' emails? Imagine the following common scenario, I email a work colleague asking them to do a small task, such as send someone else a document that I don't have easy access to. They email me back later stating it's done. Do I now send a 'thank you' email? The courtesy side of me says yes but on the other hand I myself sometimes get mildly annoyed by receiving an email that simply says 'thanks'. So do I show my appreciation and waste their time, albeit only a few seconds, or not?

 

Any views?