Category: Technical

A Question of Balancing Robot Technologies

The question of just how robots will affect us in the future consumes quite a bit of my time because I’m so interested in how they can be used for good. For example, robots are currently used to fight fires and to keep humans out of inhospitable environments. We also rely on robots to build some of the goods we enjoy and as a result, there are fewer assembly line accidents today than there were in the past (the quality of the output is also increasing). In the future, you can count on robot technology to help you remain independent, rather than ending up in a nursing home. There are even cars that rely on robots to drive them today and if things turn out as I expect, everyone will eventually use this sort of vehicle because robots will actually follow the traffic laws and reduce accidents as a result. In fact, it’s not too surprising to think that robots will appear in a lot of different situations that you don’t see them in today.

Humans are afraid of change. So, I’m also not surprised to find reports online that range from robots stealing jobs to terminator type robots killing us all off in order to save us (as in I, Robot). The fact is that robots really are under our control and as long as we exercise even a modicum of judgement, things will remain that way. I’m not saying that we couldn’t create a terminator-style robot. Recent advances in chip technology make it quite possible that we could create such a robot, but it’s important to ask why we’d ever do such a thing. In order for a new robot to become successful, there has to be a commercial reason to develop it and no one is interested in creating a terminator to destroy the human race.

What I think is more likely to happen is that robots will become companions to humans—devices that are both willing and able to take the risk out of human existence. The reduction of risk is an essential element in the robot/human relationship. We’ll continue to increase our use of robots as long as we can see a significant benefit to our personal lives. For example, it would be nice if we could eliminate the use of nursing homes altogether—that people could continue to live in their homes using robotic assistance. And, because those robots would be dedicated to the humans they serve, the standard of caregiving would increase dramatically. Of course, we have to get used to the idea of talking to a mechanical contrivance. Wait, we already do that—just consider how people interact with applications like Apple’s Siri.

Of course, people are asking what humans will do in the future if robots take on all of the tasks we have them slated for. For better or worse, the human condition has been changing at an ever more rapid pace over the last several years. If you look at just one statistic, you’ll miss what I’m trying to say here. For example, humans now live to an average age of 80 in many areas of the world—the average age will only increase barring some major change. People have children later in life now and focus more on career during the early years. Schools focus on getting kids to college and the college courses are becoming more challenging. In short, the environment in which we live today will change significantly in the next 40 or 50 years—to the point that most people won’t recognize the future as being any part of the past.

The change that has grabbed my attention most though is how much technology is now incorporated into humans (and the pace is only increasing). Yes, most of the technology currently does things like help people walk—it meets accessibility requirements. However, it’s only a matter of time before the technology will be used to help extend life and potentially make humans better adapted at excelling at tasks that we can’t even imagine now. So the question isn’t one of robots stealing jobs or killing us off terminator style, it’s one of understanding that humans are changing is a significant way and we’ll actually need robots to excel in the future. Let me know your thoughts about robots and our future at [email protected].

 

Comments and CAPTCHA

In my Using CAPTCHA for Comments post, I described the need to use CAPTCHA to help keep spam under control. Using CAPTCHA has dramatically reduced the amount of spam the blog is receiving and provides a nicer environment everyone. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need CAPTCHA, but the spammers have other ideas. So, this is one of those situations where everyone has to pay for the misdeeds of the few and I truly am sorry I had to implement this solution.

Of course, anti-spam solutions are only good if they actually do the job. This solution does keep the spam under control and many readers have written to tell me that it works better than the CAPTCHA solutions used on other sites. I want things to be easy and workable for everyone. This solution also seems to be doing a better job of keeping the spammers at bay than other solutions I’ve tried, so it’s both easy and effective—a rare combination.

A reader mentioned yesterday that he couldn’t get the CAPTCHA I selected for the site to work. The CAPTCHA solution doesn’t want to accept the input he’s providing. What I’m trying to do at the moment is track down what is happening because I want everyone to be able to post comments as needed. If you’re having problems using the CAPTCHA on this blog, please let me know at [email protected].

Please provide specifics on what you’re seeing to make it easier for me to hunt the problem down. If you could also let me know which OS and browser you’re using, that would be helpful. I need as much information as possible to determine whether I can fix the problem or whether I have to work with the CAPTCHA provider to fix it. I’m hoping the problem is limited to a few people and that there will be an easy fix, but I need good information to make this determination. Thanks, as always, for your help!

 

Working at the Command Line

I maintain statistics about each of my books. Lately, I’ve noticed a trend with my command line reference books. More people are sending me e-mail about Microsoft Windows Command Line Administration Instant Reference and Administering Windows Server 2008 Server Core. However, the questions are becoming more diverse and less technical. Rather than the targeted questions about administration needs, I’m getting what I think are probably power user questions as well. People see my blog posts about commands, such as FindStr, and they naturally want to know more.

Someone recently wrote to ask me about what I thought the trends regarding the command line are. Based on my statistics, I would think that administrators are continuing to use the command line and more power users are rediscovering the command line. However, basing an opinion solely on book-related e-mail isn’t always the best idea and it certainly isn’t very scientific. Statistically, the e-mail is probably skewed to some extent because people aren’t speaking in general about their feelings—they have specific questions.

So, today I come to you with a request. Could you either comment to this blog post or send me e-mail about how you use the command line, or whether you use it at all? Microsoft is doing everything it can to move people to PowerShell. You can do quite a lot with PowerShell, including writing scripts that are more robust than those you can write at the command line. In addition, there are sites, such as PowerShell.com, that cater to the needs of the PowerShell user.

Even though it would seem at first like PowerShell is the future and the command line is passé, the command line has the advantage of simplicity and long term stability. In addition, there are still more resources available for the command line than there are for PowerShell. I generally use the command line for all my needs because I simply haven’t had a need for the additional resources that PowerShell provides. Let me know your thoughts about the command line and whether you generally see PowerShell as the required replacement for it at [email protected].

 

An Issue with Cloud Computing

The world is heading toward cloud computing at a frantic pace. However, the question is whether cloud computing is ready for the world to rely on it. I keep hearing about major outages of line of business applications. This is not good. Businesses need to be able to rely on these applications in order to complete their daily operations. However, when they aren’t functioning properly, it can cause big problems for the business. Of course, some businesses do reach out to IT companies in Melbourne, or somewhere closer to their office, for help with these sorts of problems. That usually helps businesses to continue working with few problems, ensuring that they can get their work done. However, for businesses without IT support, this can cause huge issues. For example, Visual Studio Online recently suffered a major outage. If you’re a developer, the last thing you want to hear is that you can’t access the application you use to create new applications. Just think about the implications about such a scenario for a while and all kinds of negative images come to mind.

What really gets to me is that Microsoft did manage to get Visual Studio Online fixed in about five hours and it identified a potential source for the problem, but it still doesn’t know the cause. Not knowing the cause means that the problem can easily happen again. The loss of income to companies that rely on Visual Studio Online could be huge.

However, the basic problems with cloud computing aren’t just limited to application availability. The biggest problem is saving data to the cloud in the first place. Application development is tricky at best. You absolutely don’t want to give your trade secrets away to other companies and losing data is too terrible to even consider. There is also the connection to consider-whether your users will be slowed down by inefficient communications. Cloud-based applications can also change at a moment’s notice and it’s even possible that a company could simply orphan the product, making it completely unavailable. Losing access to your application in the middle of a development cycle would mean starting from scratch-can your organization really afford it?
Don’t get me wrong. Online computing has a lot of advantages and there are times when using a cloud application works just fine. In fact, I use a cloud application to write my blog each week. However, I also save a copy of the posts to local storage because I simply don’t trust anyone else to make my backups for me. One of my non-business e-mails is also a cloud application. I don’t make a copy of the data in this case because losing it wouldn’t cause any hardship. The point is that I think through the ramifications of using cloud computing carefully and make informed choices-something every organization needs to do.

sd-wan to disconnect from my network. Your business simply has too much riding on the applications you use to have to worry about whether the application will even be available then next time you need it.

I’m sure that some people will write to let me know that their cloud application has never failed tns-serif; font-size: 14px;”>Will cloud computing ever be ready for prime time? I’ve had a number of readers ask that question. I’m sure that cloud computing will continue to improve. There may come a time when you can trust it hem, to which I would add, “yet”. Desktop applications fail too, but with a desktop application, you’re in control. You have a copy of the software locally and you don’t have to worry about the software becoming unavailable or being changed at precisely the wrong time (adding code breaking functionality). Let me know your view of cloud computing at [email protected].

Communication of All Kinds for Fun and Profit

A number of readers have taken pokes at me for my recent Writing Letters post. Interestingly enough, since the time I wrote that post, I’ve picked up another pen pal. The post, in case you haven’t read it yet, makes the point that most forms of communication have a purpose, or are at least a bit fun to employ. As long as I have correspondents, I’ll continue to write them letters. It’s something I look forward to doing now each Thursday night. There is something quite nice about receiving letters in the mail and I don’t relish ever giving it up. Having pen pals can be a lot of fun! As long as you get the address right and the name, you’ll know where it is going and who it’s going to, for example, if you are writing to someone in Argentina you can use https://www.codigopostal.ar/ to find the zip code you need to get it correctly delivered.

It was while I was reading some reader e-mails that I came across another form of communication in the ComputerWorld article entitled, “Telegram not dead STOP Alive, evolving in Japan STOP.” Interestingly enough, in the country where the telegram was first sent, Western Union stopped sending telegrams in 2013. The final telegram was sent on July 14th. Perhaps someone should mention to Western Union that the Japanese have a thriving telegram business and suggest we follow their model. It’s hard to see someone else take over a technology that we created through innovation and hard work.

The point is that there is something to be said for older forms of communication, even those that aren’t particularly practical today. Although I can make a strong case for writing letters, the arguments for continuing to use telegrams, except for the pure pleasure of sending one, are a bit weaker. Even so, it’s interesting that the Japanese have continued to make them work. The difference seems to be one of desire and, of course, innovation.

My one, and only, telegram turned out to be of the singing variety. Fortunately, the fellow who delivered it had a pleasant voice. You can still find places that will deliver a singing telegram for you, complete with the tchotchke of your choice (mine came with balloons and a letter from my wife, telling me she loved me). As a high speed form of communication, the telegram’s days are done. We have all sorts of other ways to accomplish the task now. However, getting a telegram could still be viewed as quite special.

There are many other interesting forms of communication. I’ve never had anyone hire a skywriter for me, but you can still find them online as well. I imagine more than one fellow has relied on skywriting to propose; although, it never occurred to me to try it. Nothing quite attracts your attention though like a message written in a clear blue sky-assuming that the weather is accommodating.

As an author of technical books, I spend a great deal of time looking at communication in all its forms: verbal, aural, visual, and other forms. I once spent a month researching the tactile vocoder-a device that allows its wearer to hear through the skin using vibration. Imagine that you’re deaf and the tactile vocoder makes it possible for you to hear again, even if you don’t have actual ears. So, it’s not too unusual for me to look at communication both old and new to see how it’s being used today and whether it might not be employed in some other manner. So, yes, I still write letters and I’m still rooting for the telegram, but I’ve also looked into odd devices that help people communicate in amazing ways. Communication, in all its amazing forms, is something you do from the day you’re born until the day you die. Let me know about your view of communication at [email protected].

 

Using CAPTCHA for Comments

It’s an unfortunate sort of thing, but the one percent who cause problems often dictate the restrictions on the ninety-nine percent who don’t. I had hoped when I moved to my new blog software that I might be able to get by without using a tool to ensure someone commenting actually is a human. People had complained about the previous version of my Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) software. It was hard to see at times, even harder to work with. The bad news is that you’ll be dealing with CAPTCHA again on this blog whenever you make a comment. Several hundred spam posts every day make it clear that I really can’t avoid it, much as I might like to do so.

Now for the good news. Unlike the old blog software, I have access a whole host of CAPTCHA solutions when working with the new blog software. I’ve come up with what I hope is a less difficult means of keeping the spammers at bay. No, I won’t thwart all of them, but I’m determined to come up with a solution that makes life easier for the majority and a whole lot harder for the minority. Perhaps they’ll get the idea and go bother someone else for a while.

I do want your feedback. Does this new CAPTCHA solution seem to work for you? If so, please leave a comment to this particular post. This is one situation where I’d prefer you not contact me through e-mail. I want people to try the comment system and let me know how they feel about it. Thanks, as always, for your support of my blog.

 

Considering the Future of Processing Power

The vast majority of processors made today perform tasks as procedures. The processor looks at an instruction, performs the task specified by that instruction, and then moves onto the next instruction. It sounds like a simple way of doing things, and it is. Because a processor can perform the instructions incredibly fast—far faster than any human can even imagine—it could appear that the computer is thinking. What you’re seeing is a processor performing one instruction at a time, incredibly fast, and really clever programming. You truly aren’t seeing any sort of thought in the conventional (human) sense of the term. Even when using Artificial Intelligence (AI), the process is still a procedure that only simulates thought.

Most chips today have multiple cores. Some systems have multiple processors. The addition of cores and processors means that the system as a whole can perform more than one task at once—one task for each core or processor. However, the effect is still procedural in nature. An application can divide itself into parts and assign each core or processor a task, which allows the application to reach specific objectives faster, but the result is still a procedure.

The reason the previous two paragraphs are necessary is that even developers have started buying into their own clever programming and feel that application programming environments somehow work like magic. There is no magic involved, just incredibly fast processors guided by even more amazing programming. In order to gain a leap in the ability of processors to perform tasks, the world needs a new kind of processor, which is the topic of this post (finally). The kind of processor that holds the most promise right now is the neural processor. Interestingly enough, science fiction has already beat science fact to the punch by featuring neural processing in shows such as Star Trek and movies such as the Terminator.

Companies such as IBM are working to turn science fiction in to science fact. The first story I read on this topic was several years ago (see IBM creates learning, brain-like, synaptic CPU). This particular story points out three special features of neural processors. The first is that a neural processor relies on massive parallelism. Instead of having just four or eight or even sixteen tasks being performed at once, even a really simple neural processor has in excess of 256 tasks being done. The second is that the electronic equivalent of neurons in such a processor work cooperatively to perform tasks, so that the processing power of the chips is magnified. The third is that the chip actually remembers what it did last and forms patterns based on that memory. This third element is what really sets neural processing apart and makes it the kind of technology that is needed to advance to the next stage of computer technology.

In the three years since the original story was written, IBM (and other companies, such as Intel) have made some great forward progress. When you read IBM Develops a New Chip That Functions Like a Brain, you see that that the technology has indeed moved forward. The latest chip is actually able to react to external stimuli. It can understand, to an extremely limited extent, the changing patterns of light (for example) it receives. An action is no longer just a jumbo of pixels, but is recognized as being initiated by someone or something. The thing that amazes me about this chip is that the power consumption is so low. Most of the efforts so far seem to focus on mobile devices, which makes sense because these processors will eventually end up in devices such as robots.

The eventual goal of all this effort is a learning computer—one that can increase its knowledge based on the inputs it receives. This technology would change the role of a programmer from creating specific instructions to one of providing basic instructions and then providing the input needed for the computer to learn what it needs to know to perform specific tasks. In other words, every computer would have a completely customized set of learning experiences based on specific requirements for that computer. It’s an interesting idea and an amazing technology. Let me know your thoughts about neural processing at [email protected].

 

Bletchley Park Reborn and a Social Issue Revisited

You may not have ever heard about Bletchley Park. In fact, the place was one of the best kept secrets of World War II (WWII) until just recently. Of course, like many secret places, this one fell into disuse after the war and nearly ended up in the scrap heap, but a restoration effort has been under way for quite some time now. As a computer scientist, the entire Bletchley Park project interests me because it was the first time that many computer principles were put into play. The project relied on cutting edge technology to reduce the length of the war and saved thousands of lives. A lot of other people must feel as I do because the park recently had its 100,000 visitor.

This particular historical place is receiving a lot of notice as of late. For example, there is a PBS television show called The Bletchley Circle that talks about what happened to some of the ladies who worked there after the war. The show makes good viewing and the feelings and situations presented are realistic to a point. I doubt very much that any of the people who actually worked there ended up as amateur sleuths, but it’s fun to think about anyway. The show does have the full cooperation of the restoration group and is even filmed there.

The computer systems used at Bletchley Park were immense and even the lowliest smartphone today probably has more processing power. However, WWII was the first war where computer systems played a major role and reading about their history gives insight into the directions that the technology may take in the future. The most important factor for me has been that the group working at Bletchley Park was made up of the finest minds available, regardless of gender, sex orientation, religion, age, or any other factor you can imagine. The only thing that mattered was whether you had a good mind. It’s how things should be today, could be today, but aren’t. It’s not hard to imagine the impact on the problem of global warming if we had such a group now.

All good things must apparently come to an end. At the end of the war, the group that performed so many amazing tasks was broken up, rather than being retained to work on other problems, such as reconstruction. The sheer waste of not keeping these minds working together on other problems staggers me, but it has happened more than a few times throughout history, and all over the world. No country in the world is exempt from such terrible waste. The women in the group ended up going home to be housewives and pretend that nothing ever happened. It’s the reason that The Bletchley Circle strikes such a chord with me. The show presents a kind of “what if” scenario.

If the world is to survive, it’s important that we think about the incredible waste of not using all the resources at hand for solving problems (and there are more than a few problems to solve). If this group serves as nothing else, it’s a reminder of how a few extremely talented people were able to solve a seemingly insurmountable problem. They should serve as an example today for all those who think the world’s problems can’t be solved—they resonate as a beacon of hope. Let me know your thoughts about Bletchley Park and The Bletchley Circle at [email protected].

 

Discovering the Right e-Book Format

As I start to get more involved in planning my first self-published e-book, I’ve been looking into the requirements for putting such a document together. When you write for a living, you get used to having a whole plethora of skilled individuals to help you put a nicely rendered document together. There are a number of editors to help, along with the production staff that takes the document from ethereal bits to actual paper. So, the thought of doing everything myself is a bit daunting because I really want the final product to look great.

There are several considerations and reading about self-publishing online usually fails to break these elements into manageable pieces. The first piece is the document itself. I’ve read a number of sources that suggest using HTML or a direct output format, such as EPUB. However, I’m starting to believe that while they leads will work, they aren’t necessarily optimal if you want to publish your work through a number of online vendors. The advice offered in Clearing Up Confusion About Self-Publishing seems to ring true-using the .doc format will work best. Actually, the article mentions both .doc and .docx formats, but I have good reasons to use .doc:

  • The format is used more often by third party products.
  • It’s easy to scan a file in .doc format using a utility such as FindStr.
  • There seem to be fewer glitches with the .doc format.
  • I have more templates that work well with the .doc format.

Of course, you can just as easily use the .docx format if that format appeals to you. The choice is one of personal taste in this case, but choosing one of the two seems to be best because it’s accepted by three major online vendors.

Another consideration is the actual content and formatting of the document. I have years of experience with the content part of the question and have a good idea about formatting. However, self-publishing and going exclusively after the e-book market puts a few twists into the picture. After reading a lot of documentation online about the issue of formatting, I found a lot of good material in Creating an e-book: Tips on formatting and converting your document. Although all five pages of this article are good, the best formatting information begins on page 4. However, what a lot of these articles fail to mention are the obvious sorts of things that some people fail to do:

  • Create a comprehensive outline for your book.
  • Actually stick to the outline as you write.
  • Format the outline when you put it together so that you can use the same formatting in the book.
  • Ensure you collect the resources needed to make your outline work and note them in the outline.

If you’re seeing a pattern here, it’s that outlines are important. The better you define the outline, the better the book will come out. Part of formatting your e-book is creating a good outline and then sticking with it.

After you decide on a document format, the formatting of the book content, and the content itself, you need to consider one other element-presenting your book to others. Of course, the presentation starts with a great cover. Most of the material I find online for creating covers is negative. For example, avoiding the use of book services. I’m used to thinking about how to market my books because it’s part of what the publisher asks me to provide, but I’m also having to start to think about the cover in more ways than simply the content the cover provides. Actually, it’s a creative process that I plan to enjoy.

I know that e-books aren’t for everyone and as a result you may be limiting your target audience, as many people either don’t have access to a computer/laptop/tablet or wouldn’t enjoy reading a book on one of those devices. However, you could always go online and have your ebook printed out as a physical book which you could then sell/give to those who want it but couldn’t access it as an e-book.

I’ll keep you updated as I work through these first several self-published book projects. However, for now, I’ve been putting some content together and thinking a lot about what I need to do to get the book out there and make it sell. Let me know your thoughts on self-publishing at [email protected].

 

Update on Subscribing to Blog

Blog and other types of online subscriptions depend on something like RSS or Atom to tell an application, usually a browser or e-mail reader, where to find the information. My Blog supports RSS. The RSS feeds are simply a kind of document that describes content. OK, yes, they’re a little more complicated than that, but really, when you click a link for an RSS feed, you’re requesting a special kind of a document. What happens next depends on your browser and how its configured.

It’s the what happens next part that is confusing some people. My browser has a plug-in installed for Outlook. Whenever I click on an RSS link in my browser, the plug-in redirects the request to Outlook. A copy of Outlook opens (even if Outlook is already active) and the blog subscription information appears in Outlook. I actually see a little dialog box like the one shown here:

A dialog box showing how an RSS subscription looks in Outlook.
A Subscription Dialog in Outlook

All you do to create the subscription is click Yes. Of course, you might be using another e-mail application. Whether you can even subscribe to RSS feeds depends on the capabilities of your e-mail reader. However, even if your e-mail reader can handle RSS feeds, your browser needs to know about it before the e-mail reader will be activated in response to an RSS feed click. In some cases, the two applications simply aren’t talking to each other. Unfortunately, because there are so many conditions and so many software packages, there really isn’t any way I can tell you how to create a connection when there isn’t one. You need to talk with someone who can actually look at your machine.

You can still use your browser to review the feeds. Only one of my browsers (I have three installed) has a plug-in for Outlook installed. So, when I click on the Entries RSS link (see Subscribing to My New WordPress Blog (Reposted) for details) in Internet Explorer, I don’t see a copy of Outlook open. Instead, I see the following page describing the feed.

The Internet Explorer window containing the RSS feed for this site.
An RSS feed page in Internet Explorer.

The page contains a listing of all the current posts. Notice the yellow box. At the bottom of this box you see a Subscribe to this feed link. Click this link and you get a subscription to the feed in your browser, not in your e-mail reader. This means that you need to open your browser, rather than your e-mail reader, to see the latest posts, which is admittedly inconvenient. Even so, you can get a quick listing of the posts for all of your favorites sites using this approach.

I wish that there was an easy fix for this problem, but the fact is that if you’re seeing the browser, rather than your e-mail reader, when you try to subscribe to the blog, the problem is one of connectivity. All that I can provide is the document containing the description of the posts and where to find them. Please let me know if you have any additional questions about subscribing at [email protected].