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It's news to me
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
 
Good news on the horizon
Although I don't know enough at the moment to be more specific (perhaps I will by the end of the day), it appears that good news is on the horizon with respect to my job situation. Watch for "details at 11."

Thursday, August 26, 2004
 
More Blogger enhancements
Blogger has just begun a new feature (that I've enabled on this blog) whereby you can email a link to a particular post I've made to one of your friends. It appears as a small envelope just to the right of comments below each post. If you happen to want to direct a friend to something that is posted here, now you have a means to do so.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004
 
It's an anniversary
Forty-two years ago today, Carole Jean Oglesbee and I were married.

I can't let the day pass without recalling that day and the 18 plus years of marriage we enjoyed. I'm delighted that after all these years and after having been divorced for as long as we have, we still have an extraordinarily good relationship.

Happy Anniversary, Carole.

Sunday, August 22, 2004
 
Passwords
If you are a home computer user that doesn't have to deal with a number of corporate applications continuously, then you may be tempted to use the same, simple password at a number of sites when prompted by them to create a password. It's not that you can't think up a clever different password for each site, but that if you do, you may never remember your cleverness from one visit to the site to the next. At work however, most of us have to have a variety of passwords for a number of different applications, and the corporate rules dictate that you change your password every 30 to 90 days. That makes passwords a major issue and a frequent headache.

With all the talk about the release of Windows XP SP2 and its emphasis on improving the security of the Windows OS, many of us have become more security conscious, and that's a good thing. However, just giving some informed thought to the security issues that you control, such as passwords, could go a long way toward improving the security of your home system too.

This morning I read this blog entry by Robert Hensing (who is an incident response specialist for Microsoft) titled, "Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks ..." I hope that attention-grabbing title is sufficient to get you to read the article and the subsequent discussion in the comments that follow from his readers. I'm sure it will get you to thinking, and if you give some thought to this issue, that may lead you to adopt some practices that will make your computing life a bit more secure.

Security depends upon your own attention to doing the simple things. Relying on Microsoft or any other software company to build an impregnable operating system is relinquishing your security to someone else and that, in my opinion, is not a very safe or wise move.

 
Passwords
If you are a home computer user that doesn't have to deal with a number of corporate applications continuously, then you may be tempted to use the same, simple password at a number of sites when prompted by them to create a password. It's not that you can't think up a clever different password for each site, but that if you do, you may never remember your cleverness from one visit to the site to the next. At work however, most of us have to have a variety of passwords for a number of different applications, and the corporate rules dictate that you change your password every 30 to 90 days. That makes passwords a major issue and a frequent headache.

With all the talk about the release of Windows XP SP2 and its emphasis on improving the security of the Windows OS, many of us have become more security conscious, and that's a good thing. However, just giving some informed thought to the security issues that you control, such as passwords, could go a long way toward improving the security of your home system too.

This morning I read this blog entry by Robert Hensing (who is an incident response specialist for Microsoft) titled, "Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks ..." I hope that attention-grabbing title is sufficient to get you to read the article and the subsequent discussion in the comments that follow from his readers. I'm sure it will get you to thinking, and if you give some thought to this issue, that may lead you to adopt some practices that will make your computing life a bit more secure.

Security depends upon your own attention to doing the simple things. Relying on Microsoft or any other software company to build an impregnable operating system is relinquishing your security to someone else and that, in my opinion, is not a very safe or wise move.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004
 
Neighbors
I am experiencing a strange new kind of neighborliness here in The Colonies lately.

I came home from work the other day and discovered a notice on my doorstep announcing the creation of a new Yahoo Group called "The Colonies" that was started by one of my neighbors. The notice was an invitation from him (Kurt Gross) to visit the site and become a member. Since I'm already a member of a number of other Yahoo Groups, I took him up on the invitation, because I think it is a nice use of technology to build connections within our community.

I couldn't help reflecting though on how much times have changed since my early years, growing up. Back then neighbors were a part of your daily life. People didn't seem to move around very much, so there was a certain stability in the group of people you thought of as your neighbors. And in those days folks didn't spend as much time indoors, glued to the television or the computer in air-conditioned comfort as they do today. The television was in its infancy, the computer hadn't yet been invented, and air-conditioning was something only the rich folks had.

Back then, a favorite nightly activity was sitting on the front porch trying to get some relief from the heat. As we children played to exhaustion in the front yard, the adults would sit on the porch and talk with each other late into the night, until it was time to go in and go to bed. People knew about all about each other, sometimes maybe even more than you might like, so it was difficult to do anything that was scandalous because you knew if you did it would be all over town before night fell the next day. And in what would be unthinkable today, people didn't even lock their doors at night. Stone Mountain, Georgia, where I grew up, was a sleepy little town, and its residents' lives were bound up with each other almost as if it were one big family.

Today, of course, the condominium complex in which I live is the size of a small town. There are 325 families who live in The Colonies, and I'd bet I know fewer than a dozen of them by name. People come and go to and from work without disturbing their neighbors, and in the evenings they go inside their homes and seldom spend much time out of doors. We have to struggle to get a quorum at our annual Homeowners' Association meeting, where we elect the Board of Directors for the coming year. Few of us think much about this collective isolation, because it seems to occur by choice and without much regret. In fact, I think many of us would be shocked if one of our neighbors came up and knocked on the door just to say hello without some specific reason for "invading" the other's space.

So I welcome this new effort on my neighbor's part to create a community through this Yahoo Group. Maybe we'll regain some of that "home town" feeling in the community we all belong to.

 
Windows XP SP2 update from CNET News.com
According to this CNET article: "People running Windows XP Home Edition will get SP2 via Automatic Update beginning on Wednesday. "

So as they say in Australia, "brace yourself, Mildred."

Monday, August 09, 2004
 
Kaitlin's Baptism
Kaitlin, who is 7 years old, was baptised yesterday at the First Baptist Church of Concord with all of her family, including her grandmother, Carole Green, in attendance. Here is one of the more angelic pictures of the event.



Kaitlin's Baptism Posted by Hello
A few additional pictures can be found here at my Pbase Photo Gallery.


Thursday, August 05, 2004
 
Meet Patrick Ahern
I've just noticed that my friend, Patrick Ahern, from La Jolla, CA, has begun a blog.

Patrick and I met through Stan Herman when the three of us were collaborating with some other folks in the production of a book, Rewiring Organizations for the Networked Economy, published by Jossey-Bass/Pfieffer back in 2002. I was pleased to be able to meet Patrick and his girlfriend, Shannon, in person in May of 2002 when Stan and his gracious wife, Georgia, invited me for a brief stay in their home in San Diego.

I look forward to following your progress Patrick as you experiment with finding your voice in blogging. Best wishes for a long run.



Wednesday, August 04, 2004
 
Dia-Blog
Blogs, when they work as they are supposed to, are dialogs between the author and his or her readers.

For a long time, my blog has been largely a one way street with me publishing a note and you, dear reader, checking it out when you happen to think you'd like to see what ole Perry has been up to. There have been a couple of notable exceptions, of course, like my cousin Bowen who has been diligent in encouraging me (thank you, Bowen) with regular emails in which he comments on what I've written or nudging me gently to remind me that I haven't posted anything here in a while. Also my friend, David Steele, often drops me an email about something I've posted here.

I'm pleased to see, however, that we've recently gotten over the hurdle of posting comments successfully as this series of comments to my post on July 30th illustrates. This success, though, creates the need for a new reading style when reviewing this, or any other, blog. The real action is now likely to be taking place in the comments section, and you won't see that unless you click on the Comments link below each post, even if you may not be intending to leave a comment when you do so. Also I should point out that, if you post anonymously and I don't already have your email address, the only way I'll have to respond to your comment is by leaving a comment myself in that section. So when you do leave a comment, don't forget to check back in that section to see whether there is a response to your comment. For your information, Blogger sends me an email when someone leaves a comment, so I will know it if you leave one.

A good example of a blog with a rich and active comment section is PressThink, Jay Rosen's excellent blog about journalism. This post there illustrates what I am talking about. In his introduction to his blog, he explains what he tries to do with his blog and what his goals are. Now, Jay Rosen is a somebody, a known and important voice in what has come to be called the blogosphere, and his blog is read by far more people than read mine, but his work does illustrate the concept of what I've dubbed the "dia-blog."

I realize that the blogs that generate the most comments are those that espouse some controversial point of view as many of the political blogs do. I've chosen to write a blog that is mostly applehood and mother pie where I share my views about life on the Internet and to a degree about the events in my personal life and my thoughts about them, so I recognize that such posts don't create as great a need to comment as a blog with a different goal might. Still I would expect that those discovery posts about something on the Internet might raise a question or two for you, and I would invite you to raise those questions in comments to such posts. I'll try to clarify the significance as I see it about those discoveries for you, and together we'll both understand better some of the things that the Internet makes possible.

I'll close this by saying "thanks" to those of you who have stuck with me and continued to experiment with learning to post comments through the time when we were having trouble doing that. I'm glad we have this channel to carry on a conversation. And I look forward to our future conversations through this dia-blog.

Sunday, August 01, 2004
 
Can't go home again
Yesterday I began receiving the error message I've captured below each time I try to reach my home page at www.ceoexpress.com using Firefox. I've checked and cookies ARE permitted for that site. Strangely, I don't get the message with any other site or when trying to access this site using Internet Explorer, so I'm not dead in the water altogether, but I am puzzled.

I'd appreciate any help any of you might be able to provide. If you have a URL that explains what to do to resolve the issue, just leave a comment (anonymously if you wish) and supply either an explanation or directions to where I can find one on the 'Net.

Thanks.



Error message from Firefox. Posted by Hello



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