Would news of the erupting “swine” flu outbreak have spread so quickly without the Internet? I doubt it. In the pre-Internet era, news of the problems in Mexico might not have emerged quite so quickly and certainly would not have been delivered to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in such a timely manner.

Sure, you can argue that the telephone and other media services would have delivered the news almost as quickly. And that’s probably true. Thing is, the CDC and other agencies knew about the problem at least a few days before it hit the news. One of the handy things about today’s always-connected world is that more hospitals and health agencies share epidemiological data on a real-time, or near real-time basis. In a situation like this, days or even hours can be critical.

Hospital IT systems upload data to various agencies, where it’s aggregated in the same way that Google aggregates search-term statistics. If a cluster of “interesting” or otherwise relevant symptoms appear in rapid succession, this sends up a statistical flag. Think of it as an early detection and warning system for diseases, just like those that exist for tornadoes and earthquakes.

Once the anomaly or cluster of symptoms is noted, it can be traced and evaluated. CDC and other agencies then get together to track down exactly that the outbreak might mean, long before it’s hit the news or the pattern has become apparent even to local physicians. And, as we’ve already seen, the Internet can then be used to provide ongoing information about the situation. Accurate, timely information on the Internet? What a great concept.

Did we just watch the ‘Net help avoid a pandemic? Maybe. The situation is still fluid, and it could either get worse or vanish nearly overnight. But timely notification certainly helped various health agencies respond to the outbreak much more quickly than would have been possible even a decade ago. We may not have avoided the problem altogether, but I suspect the outbreak would have been far, far worse already had it not been for this early-warning system. And such systems will only improve over time.

Say what you will. Sometimes technology is extremely useful.

“Cable is faster than DSL.” How many times have you heard that from some big cable company? Thing is, it might be…or it might not. It all depends on a number of factors. It’s pretty much guaranteed that neither cable nor phone companies are telling the whole story in their ads, so let’s sort some fact from fiction.

Try this one on for size: “the phone company’s broadband offering uses copper. Ours is fiber and therefore faster.” In some cases that’s true. But if you have something like Verizon’s FIOS, you have fiber all the way to your house (they install a shiny new fiber connection when you sign up). If you use DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), then the “copper” accusation is correct.

The other thing to remember is that fiber can be faster because it can carry more data. However, whether it is faster depends completely on the service level and the network behind it. I remember the days of 2MBps (that’s Megabyte, not Megabit) fiber connections. Having fiber gives you the potential for a very fast connection, just like a V8 engine in a car provides the potential for fast driving. Whether it achieves that potential depends on connection quality and many other factors.

One of the things I hate about cable advertising is the claim that the phone lines are “shared,” and therefore slower. Yes, the phone lines are shared…just like the cable connection on your street. Again, it’s a half truth. It’s like some old Wesson Oil commercials, where they say their oil “doesn’t soak through food.” That’s correct…but neither does any other oil if it’s used at the proper temperature.

So take all those cable and other network ads with a huge grain of salt. They’re filled with lies, hyperbole, and half-baked “facts” that don’t stand up to technical scrutiny. All they want is your business: once they get you hooked up, the price will jump or the service won’t be what you expected. Or maybe you’ll get lucky. Do some research, ask around (especially if your neighbors are broadband users), and check consumer magazines.

For years, Microsoft has taken a lot of heat about its browser. Internet Explorer passed dear old Netscape way back around the turn of the millennium in terms of browser market share, largely because Netscape became a bloated mess and IE was shipping on every copy of Windows. Basically, IE took over the market for several years.

However, there were problems. IE, in true Microsoft style, totally failed to conform to accepted and emerging W3 standards. Redmond insisted on tweaking things (as usual) in order to force developers and users down the path of a Microsoft-only solution. The result: developers who had to create slick Javascript browser testing scripts, then route their users down one code path for IE and another for every other browser on the market.

Many (very bad) sites were created that worked only with IE. Use any other browser, and half the controls wouldn’t work. It was classic, “we’re the big boys and can do what we want” thinking.

A few years ago, that started to change. Firefox started taking market share, and leaped ahead of the pack with lots of new features. Developers and standards groups began demanding that Microsoft comply with accepted practice. Users started becoming annoyed that IE6 (the de facto leader at that time) was clunky and outdated. IE7 improved things somewhat, but was still far behind the curve and never really took off. I know many sites and individuals who simply never upgraded.

Now, however, IE8 is out. With this release, Microsoft is back in the browser game with what seems to be a really good release. It has better security, is faster, is less tightly coupled with Windows, and (hallelujah) conforms much more closely with W3 standards than any previous IE release.

According to one review, “IE8 now passes the Acid 2 test completely, although it still fails Acid 3 miserably. Microsoft is brushing that aside for now though, touting that out of the 7,200 CSS 2.1 tests that are on the w3.org, IE8 passes more of them than any other browser.”

I’m in the process of downloading IE8 now. I know it’ll never replace Firefox as my primary browser, largely because I like Open Source and adore all the handy add-ons available for Firefox. But if IE8 means the end of clunky browser-detection requirements for developers, I’m all for it.

Most people remember the music industry’s violent (and nonsensical) opposition to the idea of ripping music into MP3 and other formats. Almost as soon as the idea caught on, studios began complaining about copyright violation and alleging it was causing them massive profit losses. Despite all opposition, however, online music flourished and is now a major component of music sales.

The same situation can be found regarding the release of digital books, or “e-books.” While Amazon’s Kindle device and others have made serious inroads in the publishing world, it turns out many authors’ estates, or the authors themselves, refuse to release their works in electronic format even today. I find this interesting, since Project Gutenberg and other online initiatives have been putting books into electronic formats for years.

In many cases, it appears the resistance is largely based on a distrust of technology. Apparently “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling “has expressed a preference for books on paper and a wariness of technology,” while it apparently took years before publishers were “able to convince the Tolkien estate that the e-book is a legitimate, widespread format.”

There are, of course, other reasons. Some books just aren’t well suited to the digital format. In other cases it’s simply a money issue — some publishers probably believe the e-books will be copied and distributed freely. Wow. It’s not as if people don’t read a paper book and give it away to others when they’re done. But I digress.

The good news is that publishers are “getting less resistance every day” from various authors, and this trend will probably continue as more writers are born into a predominantly electronic environment. Changes in attitude can take generations to complete, and the process of acceptance is generally far faster today. I once read that the transition from stone to copper tools took something like 10,000 years to complete. Now we change technologies wholesale in less than a generation. Maybe there’s hope for the future after all.

I’m not a Gmail user, but recently on another discussion list it was brought to my attention that Google serves ads (of course) via that service. I had no idea, but it’s not at all surprising. Another contact told me that Google earns 97% of its revenue based on online advertising. That’s a lot of money.

One of the points that Google makes is that this is how it “pays” for the service. “Gmail users can’t opt out of receiving ads because these sponsored links help Google support the cost of providing Gmail for free to our users. Instead of serving pop-ups and untargeted banner ads, Gmail displays text ads using our contextual advertising technology. These ads should be relevant to the content of your messages and we hope you’ll find them useful.” Italics mine.

The bad thing about this is that sometimes there are unintended consequences. According to one colleague, “a large proportion of my email is from people with questions about abusive teen boot camps: I get ads for them alongside the emails detailing horrible abuse at the places.” The whole thing is handled via Google’s ‘AdSense’ program, which is the same engine that generates all those context-sensitive ads on other web pages.

Now, you can remove these ads if you want. There is, for example, a Firefox Add-in called CustomizeGoogle that will remove the ads from view (or most of them). However, this just means you’re not seeing the ads. Google is still, for all intents and purposes, “reading your mail.” This doesn’t mean real, live humans are parsing your messages and clucking disapprovingly about your taste in friends or clothing. It means Google’s systems are scanning your emails in order to decide which ads are “relevant” to your experience.

Exactly how much of this information is stored and retained by Google is unknown. The company is very tight-lipped about its data retention policies. Maybe they know that John Smith of 123 Main St. in Wakita Oklahoma regularly exchanges mail about drug addiction clinics or gambling services. Or maybe it’s all just aggregated together, de-identified (i.e. all personally identifying data removed), and used to improve ad statistics.

Who knows. But be careful what you send over email. It’s likely someone is able to see it.

Recently a friend mentioned having to send a FAX (that’s short for “facsimile” if you didn’t know it) only to find his machine was dead. He hadn’t sent anything in so long that he simply hadn’t thought about the machine. Now the question arose: was buying a new one worthwhile?

Many people don’t know it, but technology like the FAX has been around for ages. The British had a system that sent copies via telephone or radio back in World War II, in fact. Systems really hit their stride in the late 1970s and became the de-facto standard for document transmission soon afterward. “Send me a FAX” was the businessperson’s battle cry.

Today these systems have largely become an anachronism, but seem to be holding on in one major area: legal documents. While even faxed copies of documents are not technically legal since the signature isn’t truly “original”, they’re a lot more acceptable than, say, a Word document with a pasted-in image of someone’s signature attached. So many businesspeople are stuck printing, signing, and faxing documents on a fairly regular basis.

I have another method: I sign a printed copy of all required pages, scan them in, and make them into a PDF file that I can email to whoever needs a copy. I only print pages requiring signatures, so that cuts down paper volume somewhat. Digital signatures are a long-awaited alternative and have been available for some time, but I’m not aware of many businesses actually using them…yet.

The biggest problem with them is that they’re based on PKI (public key) and therefore require either direct key exchange with verification, or the use of a trusted third party like RSA to verify the signature. Neither is a problem for large corporations that do business frequently, but it’s not generally an option for small businesses or individuals.

So, the FAX will be with us a while longer. Mine is integrated into an office multifunction printer, which at least cuts down on used desk space. Does yours still work? Is it an ancient and venerable unit that uses special thermal paper? Your local museum may be interested.

Everyone knows the Internet isn’t secure, and that a significant amount of traffic consists of (a) malware of some type embedded in spam or (b) hacking attempts from non-email sources. The former is fairly obvious. The latter consists of probe attacks against potentially unguarded ports, password-cracking attempts, and other hacking.

One of the big problems is finding a way to capture and eliminate that traffic before it actually reaches vulnerable systems. It’s like any other security effort — stopping thieves before they get through your door is far more efficient than laying traps around the house or locking everything you own inside a safe. Hence, the US government is deploying the “Einstein” system, which is an IDS (Intrusion Detection System) that’s designed to monitor and provide early warnings about suspicious traffic flowing into or out of Federal computers.

IDS systems are nothing new, and have been around for some time now. They’re in regular use throughout government, university, and corporate sites and are basically designed to inform personnel of suspicious activity (e.g. “there were 300 failed login attempts on system X in the last 5 minutes”). They look for patterns, known attack styles, and generally suspicious activity. The issue here is that these boxes are also being deployed on commercial ISP systems — AT&T, Qwest and Sprint to name a few. That’s raised some eyebrows.

The effort is part of the US government’s “Trusted Internet Connections Initiative, which aims to reduce the number of Internet access points operated by federal agencies and to protect the remaining Internet access points with a standard suite of managed security services.” This makes sense, since the current infrastructure certainly involves everything from home-grown IDS software to various commercial applications. Having a unified set of tools in place means each access point is secured identically by software with known characteristics.

Of course, that’s a potential problem as well. If a hacker cracks one site secured by this software, it means they’re all vulnerable to the same hack. That’s not good.

Privacy analysts are also concerned that Einstein will be used to monitor non-Federal traffic. There’s no indication that’s happening, but it’s definitely a concern. There’s enough horsepower out there to dissect and analyze every packet that traverses the Internet. The question is whether the Feds are interested, and whether they’ll follow the law. Given warrant-less wiretaps and other legally debatable actions under the Bush administration, it’s one that needs asking.

We’ve talked about energy efficiency in several past articles, but it’s become even more of an issue over the last year or so. In fact, there are instruments on the market nowadays (basically they’re just watt meters with some extra tricks, like time-based tracking and averaging) that will tell you how much power a given device uses. These can be pretty handy for finding “watt hogs” in your house. Some items, like an electric dryer or range, use huge amounts of energy. That’s a given, because they contain resistance heating elements.

In terms of PCs and other electronics, more and more devices are sporting “Green” logos these days. However, consumers need to beware. Many companies are simply “greenwashing” their advertising, without actually providing products that save appreciable energy. “Green” is a big issue these days and companies want to jump on the bandwagon. I knew things had gotten out of hand when I saw an advertisement last year touting coal as “clean, green energy.” That’s just an outright lie.

In any case, you can also read some pretty handy reviews of various devices in order to find out how Green they might be. What’s interesting is that at least one HDTV today is using LEDs to provide backlighting, which actually results in significant energy savings. I also suspect it translates to improved product life as well, since LED units last 100,000 or more hours without requiring replacement. They also generate less heat, which can be a factor as well.

If you’re wondering about your PC’s overall “Greenness,” take a look at the power supply’s rating. If it’s a newer device, it’ll probably sport an EnergyStar rating and a “Green” logo of some type.

My laptop (a Lenovo T61p) has a supply that’s rated at 90W. One of my desktop systems is rated at 300W. However, that doesn’t mean they’re actually using that much power–hence those handy consumption-measurement devices I mentioned. Those ratings represent maximum usage you’d see if you had the machine loaded down with lots of peripherals and disks. In reality, my laptop uses about 60W (roughly the same as a standard incandescent lamp) while the desktop uses 120-130.

Some newer machines and peripherals come with better designed supplies. In fact, I changed the supply on my desktop system last year and consumption dropped from 140 to 125W. That may not seem like much, but it adds up over time.

So, it certainly can’t hurt to investigate Green options while buying new hardware. Just be aware of “greenwashing” practices in the marketplace; you may not save as much money as you might expect. And, of course, the easiest way to save cash is by shutting off devices you’re not using.

How much “should” a PC cost, and how much should you expect to get for your money? That’s a critical question in these days of tight budgets and lost jobs. Way back in the Dark Ages of PCs and workstations (say, 1990-2000 or so), the industry metric was that $2000 bought a decent mid-grade system with monitor and keyboard/mouse. That figure was so constant that I wrote it into my employer’s IT budget every year. Usually we bought 20-50 systems at a time, so the math was easy.

Then the price started falling. First it seemed to hit around $1500 or so, and it just kept dropping. Various small manufacturers vanished from the face of the Earth as margins were cut to the bone. Only the big guys (IBM, Dell, HP, Apple, etc.) survived. And now a garden-variety system can be had for $500-750.

But what do you get for that money? Well, for about $620 you can get a brand new HP midrange system, complete with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB disk. Plus, the machine has a fast Q45 chipset in its video card; that gives you dual monitor capability. That said, this is a no-monitor price. If you need a new screen, add $100-200 to the bottom line — depending on the amount of screen real estate you need. Double that if you want two matching monitors.

Now, one thing to watch out for when buying a new machine is the number and type of available slots on the bus. There’s a good reason for this, too: you may need them if you ever want to upgrade components without buying a new machine. Or, you may want to add extra ports of some type later on. In “the old days” the motherboard had no built-in ports aside from the mouse and keyboard adapter, and sometimes not even that. Nowadays, cheaper machines have everything on the board. That’s fine, as long as you can (for example) plug in a higher end video card without a lot of hand-waving.

Also pay attention to the system’s maximum memory and whether there are spare slots available for upgrades. In some cases, cheaper systems have 2 slots and they’re both filled at delivery. In others, spare slots are available. This is one area where spending a few extra bucks is a good idea. It’s usually more cost effective to buy more memory than you need than to upgrade later on. Disks can be added later on (usually internally) for a decent price.

Right now, you can get a fairly good system with monitor and standard accessories for $750-1000. That’s probably the lowest overall price I’ve seen since I’ve been in computing, and it may be far more capacity than you’ll ever need. Shop around, and have fun.

In the past, I’ve expressed some cynicism regarding buzzwords like “cloud computing” and so-called Grid applications. To my mind, most processing should happen locally whenever possible. Why? Reliability, that’s what. As soon as you start relying on a network for delivering not only data, but the application that generates it, you’re asking for trouble.

It seems I’m not the only writer who thinks so. Another guy who’s been thinking about this problem recently expressed his own skepticism, saying that a fully distributed, on-demand software environment is “viable only if consumers have a wired or wireless connection to these services working all the time (or should I say, when they really need it?)” This was expressed most recently by the vandal-perpetrated fiber-optic cable cut on the West coast that took hundreds of thousands of customers off the air for the better part of a day. And this event didn’t just affect Internet services — cell lines were also taken down (guess what? they run on the same infrastructure!) during the same period.

We depend on the Internet for many of our daily services. What’s worse is that the power grid, national defense infrastructure, seismic sensors, tsunami detection systems, and other critical functions are also largely Internet-based these days. It wouldn’t take a terrorist event to knock all these services offline, either. A major fire, earthquake, asteroid impact, or flood could take many services off the air — just when they’re most needed.

As the article states, “we’re already dependent on the Internet for information, communications, and commerce, and we’re starting to rely on it for real-time delivery of applications. And now we’re putting all of our digital bits in one Internet basket and becoming more reliant on the cloud without even realizing it.” I’m not sure about others, but I really think this is a bad idea. Decentralization is the key to survivability. The current model of buying and installing software locally may be annoying to some. The lure of easily accessible, “cloud” applications is strong for a number of reasons. But it’s brittle. The swipe of a backhoe or a major natural disaster could take far too many critical services offline, very very suddenly.