Thursday 25 March 2010

Detecting suspicious account activity: not an email from your Bank!


Gmail does (in my opinion) a fairly good job of filtering spam. Almost without fail all emails suggesting that my Bank account at Nat West (which I don’t have) to bzgn(who doesn’t exist) @(the company web domain) go straight into the spam box. They know that I am not interested in Vicodin (would we know of this drug if not for House?) or any form of little blue pills of uncertain provenance (or indeed of certain provenance thank you!). So they go too. Its one of the reasons for using Gmail as our company email interface.

The latest tweak to the Google system is to analyse where email account is being used from. The idea is that if your account has been compromised, it will be logged on to from an “unusual” internet location. At first sight you might say a location you do not use. It is also (probably) a location where other anomalous activity is occurring. Let’s face it, bad guys stealing account details don’t just stop at one person’s account.
A bit like using your credit card, the Bank knows where you are the moment you put in your card and pin number. Now this information is used regularly by (at least) the police as we know from CSI and other stories. So hands up who spots this latest twist on email account usage in a CSI episode?

To read the official line:
Official Gmail Blog: Detecting suspicious account activity

Saturday 20 March 2010

Ceroc, Modern Jive and tunes I like and beats per minute (bpm).


The DJ at Ceroc Reading was asking about tunes we like to dance to. The problem is that: tunes we like are sometimes not easy to dance to. To check the tunes before making a list for him, I thought I’d check that their tempo or beats per minute were in the accepted range for Ceroc.

Question 1: So what is the accepted range? I’d heard that 90 beats per minute was a minimum. Except that I know I like dancing to Fever by Peggy Lee, and Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps by Doris Day. and I know a lot of other Ceroc dances do too. Now on my iTune player there is a column for b.p.m. (beats per minute). Unfortunately when you click the download artwork, you very rarely get a b.p.m., and if you do it can be a arbitrary and wrong. I should explain at this point I have a quite a comprehensive CD collection which took considerable time to transfer to my iPod. Typically I will buy a CD if I like three or four tracks on it. I usually buy from Amazon.  The CD will get loaded on to the iPod, and the ticked tracks synced to my iPhone.
So how to find the bpm for the tunes? A quick Google lead me to a number of links for measuring the beats in tunes and the best seems to be : http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm

So to listen to my ‘danceable tracks’. The problem is that Fever by Peggy Lee is 67bpm, and Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps by Doris Day 68bpm. May be the 90 bpm I'd heard was wrong?

So I thought I’d check the range of tempos by googling “Ceroc beats per minute” Seems the lower limit is 100bmp so even worse for Fever, Perhaps? Well I’ve danced to them both quite few times: even as a vey beginner, and enjoyed them more than many other tracks. So pinch of salt for a lower limit for me. The upper limit is variously quoted as around 160 bpm.  For an intermediate dancer such as myself, 160 seems good.

Back to iTunes: what you may not know is that you can manually update the info by right clicking on the track and selecting ‘get info’ from the pop up list.




It is then a simple matter to click on the second tab ‘info’ and update the bpm text box.


If you are as ‘ocd’ as me (or more...?) you can update the year from Wikipedia for Peggy Lee  

In the process of Googling I came across the following site: notable for a good range of teaching videos, a couple of which are free!

Jive me crazy

The videos you can download comes in avi format, which widows player (by default) turns it nose up at. Worry not, there is a perfectly safe and free avi player at:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
Happy dancing!
Ian

Saturday 13 March 2010

An umbrella, a tin can and a thermometer: what a party that was...


I suppose, in some ways, that is the point. Sunday night we were treated to Prof Brian Cox’s initial view of the Solar system on BBC2. I have to admit I was looking forward to it. His Horizon episode on the Big Bang Machine (LHC) at CERN was a classic Horizon.  That episode of Horizon was leavened with humour taking a good stab at explaining what the CERN Lord of the rings thing was all about. Unfortunately the big bang machine just went bang just over a year ago. It’s taken a year to put the very expensive CERN accelerator back in working order.

For those of you that missed the news items. After the Large Hadron Colider's (LHC) very first few runs it did a poor interpretation of a kettle. The hot under the collar machine boiled off a ton of liquid helium in very short order. Whist this event provided employment for the maintenance and design engineers for a year, it did very little for the Physicists. They were looking forward to results to analyse and play with. Prof Cox is one of the Physicists at CERN and he has taken the opportunity to make a TV series about the solar system during the enforced sabbatical. Apparently he’s is going to get another opportunity next year! Back to the thermometer...

I sat down, figuratively speaking with a box of popcorn in hand for a feast. As time went on, indigestion grew. There seemed to be lots of figures: billions and billions and billions of them in fact. A billion is an overwhelming number, I’m not sure a billion, billion, billion, billion is any more so. The Prof has an engaging and ready smile. He does awe quite well too. I’m sure he speaks highly of me!

The Sun is big, not just big as in 7ft tall, a sky scraper or even Everest, its mind bogglingly big and it’s a big subject. It’s an important one. When the Sun goes in, we either feel a little sadder or get ready to party to cheer ourselves up. Did I mention party? Best we get to the umbrella and thermometer...

This was one of the high spots in the program for me. Apparently the party with the umbrella and thermometer was one of the reasons why the Professor took up Physics. I say party, well more like a cause for celebration.... The story behind the Umbrella? Well back at the turn of the 19th Century a chap called William Herschel  discovered that if you placed a blackened thermometer beyond the red bit of the spectrum seen through a prism, the thermometer temperature went up. A slightly different form of this experiment was to put a blackened water container in direct sunlight. This needed to be done only after it had been allowed to reach the same temperature as the surroundings by keeping it shielded from direct sunlight behind an umbrella. Remove the umbrella and measure the increase in temperature of the water from the Sun’s light which is falling on the tin can. It is possible to judge the total amount of heat energy falling on the container. When this is combined with the size of the container, it’s possible to easily calculate the energy the sun produces per square meter. If we know how far we are from the Sun, then that square meter is just one very small postage stamp on a very large sphere centred on the Sun. A simple calculation of the surface area of that sphere gives us the total energy output from the Sun. So with every day articles such as umbrella, thermometer and blackened tin can we can accurately calculate the unimaginable amount of energy the sun radiates every second. This has to be cool, or hot if you are in the Sun.

Back to the programme: really, overall, for me there were too many of the ‘unimaginable numbers’. Furthermore we were treated to 18th century physics and determinism as if it were received doctrine today. There is a journalistic axiom: never let the truth get in the way of a good story. It was very disappointing to me that principles were stated as current fact, rather than in their historical perspective. There was no way we were blinded by the focus of the programme. Even if the focus was the magnificent Sun. There were however, some lovely touches. One was the Indian children scurrying off with the Professors’ very nice photos of eclipses; Jovian views of an eclipse, Martian views of an eclipse and lunar eclipses. Let’s hope for more of these cute observations in the next episodes. May be I should have just watched the spectacles: there were oh so many. Maybe I should have just gone wow with this wizard of science. Maybe I’m being uncharitable. In many ways it was a good programme. Let’s hope it stimulates some fledgling Brian Coxes to take that flight into the wonders of the known and unknown Universe.

Let’s hope for more humour and illumination when the Prof looks at the other parts of the solar system. Parts which don’t need any dark glasses to view safely.

Wonders of the solar System series on the BBC


Prof Brian Cox tweet

Sunday 7 March 2010

A little bit of what you like does you good...


Well at least it has allowed us to get where we are. Where we are seems less each year. Confused? Ok I challenge you to read to the end of the article and then click on some links. I’m talking about understanding the Universe! Not heavy maths, just getting a feel for current thinking. I have a passing interest in the Universe: we all do, in more ways than one.  When I was but a lad, the Universe was a pretty big place. As I grew older there was more and more of it discovered and it became weirder and weirder. "Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."  and that was back at the turn of the last century.  We can do, see and have thoughts about a lot more since then.

So what’s new about the Universe?

It’s dark, dark and now more dark. It appears that dark is this year’s black. Over the last century we started with something dark matter: it’s there, we can’t see it. We can see that it apparently causes stars to move in ways they would not if it wasn’t there. It also causes light to bend. This is called gravitational lensing.  Then we then got dark energy: to distinguish this from dark matter, dark energy is apparently what is causing the Universe to expand. What is more it appears the Universe is expanding more quickly now than it did in the past. The common or garden stuff we can see, feel and touch directly (matter and light) only forms about a twentieth of the observable Universe. We can’t find this exotic dark stuff. Put it another way scientists have found they have lost the majority of the (exotic) stuff in the universe: which is quite careless when you think about it.

So what’s really new about the Universe?

Now there may be more darkness. Something now called ‘dark motion’ has recently been measured. This like dark matter and energy is a measurable effect of which we can find no directly observable cause.  Basically numbers of Galaxies may be moving in a way they should not. If they are: something must be causing this. If it is: it’s not part of the observable Universe. It’s a bit like seeing the headlights of a car approaching from around a bend at night. You can see the effect of the cars headlights as the bend is illuminated, but the car its self is hidden from view. There is something attracting distant galaxies but we can’t see what.
The real problem is that until now the Universe appeared balanced and surprisingly uniform. If there is something ‘off to one side’ that is measurably pulling part of the Universe one way then it isn’t balanced. Recent accepted theories about how the Universe formed have so far been based on the observation that the Universe appears very uniform. These would all be wrong. Ooops! If you’d like to find out more there is a programme in the Horizon series: Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?   I’m looking forward to it.

For more about dark energy and matter:

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1272
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040712.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/81035932.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211141146.htm

For more on dark motion:

Horizon: Is everything we know about the Universe wrong?
Space com
New Scientist

Quotes:
Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.       Werner Heisenberg
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.       Sir Arthur Eddington

Friday 5 March 2010

Oh food again!


I accept that if I go on a diet, my sensitivity to food commercials increases. For some reason as the diet progresses, not only does the attractiveness of the items increase but, somehow the advertisers know it time to buy more ad space. Quite clearly the actual number of food related ads multiplies in some exponential manner. How do they know I have entered that second week? Why do they put up more posters on the side of the streets? It’s not only posters: Radio and the TV both increase the number of food ads they carry. How have they got this psychic power? I can only believe its either the advertisers increasing their budgets or the broadcasters reducing their rates and so attracting the sale of more spots. Perhaps... what a horrible thought, they are acting together!

Modern technology to the rescue. These days I rarely watch a programme live, even if it’s only delayed by 20 minutes or so.  The ability to skip forward in 20 second jumps or go to 2x or 4x speed where the sound: “these are not just any chocolate fudge cakes, they are syrup laden, double cream topped...”  is mercifully removed and only a flash of something silky brown dripping calories is allowed to momentarily bludgeon its way into my consciousness. Of course in my mind, it still triggers “these are not just any chocolate fudge cakes....”

I think %*$^! those fiendishly clever advertising people.

The only way to avoid these advertising mind control tricks must be: just watch dear old Aunty BBC. But no! The Beeb are in cahoots! There has been a fascinating four part series “The virtual revolution”. No food related topic here I thought. This is safe ground.  Not only is the presenter very easy on the eye, but her thoughts are both balanced, informed and a step away from the simple interpretation of the subject: the ‘interweb’.

Actually the web site for the programme “The virtual revolution” is worth a minute or two.

So what impact has the internet had on my diet? Well there is certainly the unfortunate ability that I now have: that is to order a Pizza on line. Curiously (I learned from the programme) there is now also an ability to measure the value of Face book friends in dietary terms. Apparently the equation is:

1 Face book friend <= 1 deci-burger

(or multiplying by ten)
10 Face book friends are valued less than a burger meal where Face book users = lots.

Last night’s episode reflected on online communities and ‘friends’ on Face book. Apparently some wiz at a burger chain made the offer (on Face book) of a free “whopper” burger meal for anyone who ‘de-friended ‘ 10 Face book friends. Within two weeks they had just under a quarter of a million responses!

In case you wondered about the worth of watching the programme: there is very little that seems like padding, the visual equivalent of boring scrolling web pages. There are provoking contributions from (arranged in descending order of their web site entertainment value) Stephen Fry , Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates , Al Gore  (mercifully short) and many others.

Enjoy clicking on: The virtual revolution

Ian

Wednesday 3 March 2010

So why do I want to eat with an overwhelming passion?


Ok so why do I want to eat with an overwhelming passion?

Or as that great philosopher Dawn French once said: “There are women who like chocolates and on the other hand there are real bitches!”

I have to admit that whilst I often make resolutions: not just new year’s ones! Resolutions to give up biscuits, chocolates and cheeses or cut back on chips, mayonnaise and fatty foods. This is often done after consuming one or several of the afore mentioned foods. It's probably at the time where I am feeling sluggish, definitely feeling full and cetainly feeling guilty. If I go around the supermarket whilst not in this state (hungry or even just not having recently eaten), then the basket or trolley becomes loaded with BOGOF (buy one get one free) biscuits chocolates and cheeses. It’s not as if I don’t like fruit: grapes, clementines, and bananas. In their right places: namely a tropical island along side a Piña colada or brandy sour they are splendid addtions to a diet. They often occupy my basket as well. Of course when I get the basket or trolley home (not literally of course – it would not fit in the car), it would be wasteful to throw ‘good’ food out. Or so I rationalise!
 
Last night I came home, put the feet up and watched Horizon. Non-sequitur you think. Well the subject was “Did cooking make us Human?” Even though the link may seem somewhat tenuous, the programme contained some surprising revelations. One of the nuggets in the programme was that: when we eat fatty substance with over a certain percentage fat, an MRI scan shows our brains light up like Christmas trees. Another was that a group of overweight modern humans fed exclusively on fruit and raw veg for two weeks did not feel full- ever and also lost weight – on average 5 kilos (if I remember correctly).

It seems to me in the past Horizon has veen a very variable quantity. This series, Horizon has reverted to good strong science. Of course it helps that the latest technology is providing many new experiments and results. There were far more pearls of wisdom in this programme than I expected. Overall this series has some good entertaining science rather than some of the sociological dog ends of some previous series.

You can still view this program on the BBC Horizon web site.  The google search for "BBC Horizon" takes you to the old Horizon site which is no longer updated. It the currently second rank link that you want.
 
You may also want the recepie for  Piña colada or Brandy sour

Monday 1 March 2010

Choosing a Laptop


Choosing a Laptop

From time to time I’m asked by friends: what sort of (Windows) laptop do I recommend? They know I’ve been buying laptops for 20 years now. I have changed manufacturers for various reasons. From experience, all laptops seem to have some aspect (however small) which gave rise to a support query of some sort. It is probably best to go with a specific manufacturer as the actual machines change on a six monthly basis.

I used to be a great fan of Dell until I had trouble understanding their support line about 5 years ago. Curiously their sales line personnel always spoke clearly and the sales line was always high quality. The support line personnel were (from my view) highly accented, difficult to understand and the line quality was like I was talking to someone on Mars.

The range of computer manufacturers I’ve purchased from are: Gateway (many years ago), Dell, Toshiba, HP (Hewlett Packard) and Sony. Only one manufacturer (Sony) has driven me to blog negatively about the experience and only one Manufacturer (Sony) has started me down the road of legal action.

I tend to buy a new laptop every couple of years: such is the pace of development. They tend to alternate: medium specification, then high end. The HP and the most recent Toshiba were both medium end machines. They probably represent the best buys. I bought both of them from the John Lewis Partnership. The high end machines were top end processors (for their day) with top memory specs.

The Sony Vaio is the only machine where there was more than one catastrophic problem. One was hard drive failure and in my opinion the other is either bad design or poor manufacture.

The Sony Vaio and Dell both cost in the region of £1K5 at today’s prices. All machines irrespective of age are (apart from the Sony Vaio)  in good working order. The Sony Vaio is less than 6 month old the other machines are at least two years old. Indeed the HP is some five years old and still going strong.  

Let me be clear, I have had hard drives fail. If that was the only major problem with the Sony Vaio, then it was repaired under warrantee. My real issue is the fact that the power connector is failing. I take good care of my machines: they are part of my livelihood. Sony refuses to repair the Vaio laptop under warrantee even though the machine has in no way been misused or mishandled. They have offer to repair it for around £250 pounds which they describe (in my view insultingly) as a low price. You can get a new machine for close to that amount!

I have also to say that their support lines and pages were the most difficult to navigate I have ever encountered! I was abruptly terminated on both the web pages (with a server error message) and the phone line (which cut off to dialing tone). This happened at least four times for each of the services when I was trying to enter requested (15 digit) codes. I ended up calling their sales line to get a call back.

I also have an small issue with the robustness of the case. As standard use, I plug a mouse into the laptop and use the area in front of the keyboard as a mouse pad. The Sony Vaio case has deteriorated badly in three months of using the case to rest the mouse on. The other machines show no signs of wear after years: 4 or more times the use of the Sony. These machine were a half or a third of the cost of the Sony Vaio.  

So what do I currently recommend?   Go to John Lewis and choose a machine there. Choose Toshiba or HP. John Lewis will be competitive both competative on price and normally extend the warrantee to two years or more as part of the standard price (clearly this may change in the future).

Please don’t choose a Sony Vaio!

Ah well, back to writing the Agency software (on the Toshiba not on the Sony!)

Best regards
Ian