Nshima & Curry

iPad -- a name only a man could love

Apple unveiled its long-awaited iPad yesterday, and while it might be a terrific computing device, it has a name that will make millions of women think of one thing only. Period.

Here are some of the funny comments on Twitter, as compiled by the Winnipeg Free Press:

LizB: iPad. was there a woman on this naming team? will there be different sizes? Mini iPad, maxi iPad?

Gelatobaby: And you can use the giant QWERTY keyboard to get your period on the #iPad !

herbadmother: Seriously, 'iPad?' There are too many of us for whom the phrase 'my pad just failed' evokes horror that should never be linked to technology

TwittsMcGee: I haven't heard this many period jokes since I was forced to watch The View last month.

kathycacace: Okay, just one more. The iPad: protecting your data from embarrassing incidents.

Lymed: Does the Period Tracker app come free?

fauxfruit: If I order this, will my boyfriend and I have to worry if it comes late?

andBegorrah: If you and your friends all buy one, will they sync up?

vlvtjones: So will iffy Wifi coverage be called iSpotting?

babyruthless: Mac made an iPad. It's Mac's iPad. Say it with me. Mac's iPad. Seriously? No one said the name out loud?

morninggloria: Can I get a scented iPad for when my data feels not-so-fresh?

How to tweet your job away

Whoever came up with the name "Twitter" must have realized that it would attract a lot of twits.

I'm not suggesting that David Le, who lost his job over some tweets, is a twit. I'm insisting that he is.

The D.C. Department of Employment Services fired a contractor who was working with youths in the city's summer jobs program after officials became aware of messages on his Twitter site that Anacostia is "ghetto" and that he was loafing at work.

David Le, who was working as a participant service specialist, was terminated yesterday, said Mafara Hobson, spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

"He no longer works for DOES," she said. "I can't talk about personnel issues." [Wash.Post]

Does DOES care what an employee does on Twitter? Yes, DOES does.

The firing came a day after The Washington Post showed Hobson a month-long string of tweets from Le's page. "In america's ghetto anacostia... If I get scared i will just yell chinese carry out! They will not shoot me," a message read on June 22.

On June 15, a message read, "thank goodness my boss is making things easy, he told me to pretend to do work so he can mark me down for hours." [Wash.Post]

His boss is probably furious and calling Le a RAT (rascal accessing Twitter).

The moral here: If you're cheating, don't be tweeting or unemployment you'll be greeting.

Seeking help for a missing laptop

If you're wondering why I haven't posted anything in a few days, it's because I've been trying to recover from a big loss. The first step was to make a desperate call to the police. 

Me: "My baby's missing."

Officer: "Your baby? When did this happen, sir?"

Me: "Yesterday. I left it in a shopping cart and someone took it."

Officer: "It? Is it a male or a female?"

Me: "Uh ... I think it's a male. It has lots of keys. And it gets turned on very easily."

Officer: "Have you been drinking, sir?"

Me: "No, not yet."

Officer: "What's your baby's name?"

Me: "Dell."

Officer: "Can you describe him?"

Me: "He's short and very slow. Well, sometimes he's slow; other times, he's very fast. It all depends on what I'm making him do."

Officer: "Is this a prank call, sir? You could get in big trouble for that."

Me: "No, it's not a prank call. I lost my laptop. I was very attached to him."

Officer: "Sir, I'd advise you to see a therapist. You need some help."

A few hours later, I was lying on a couch, telling my story to Dr. Della Laptova.

"The worst part is that it's all my fault. I made a terrible mistake. You see, I went to the grocery store with all my kids and, after loading three of them in my car, I suffered some sort of brain malfunction and left my baby in the shopping cart. I realized my mistake when I returned home, rushed back to the store, but it was too late. Someone had taken my baby. I can't believe there's someone out there touching my baby. I can't believe there's someone out there whispering sweet nothings into his USB port."

"How does that make you feel?"

"I feel so ... violated. How could someone do this to me?"

After a few sessions, Dr. Laptova advised me to join a support group. I found one listed in the newspaper: "Support Group for People Who've Lost a Laptop."

So there I was on a Thursday evening, listening to people who've survived the ordeal of losing a laptop.

Thirty-something man: "I just take it one day at a time. That's all you can do, really. I wish I could forget, but every time I see someone with a laptop, I think of my 'Shiba and how much joy she brought to my life. She had 2 gigabytes of RAM, you know."

Middle-aged woman: "That's the hardest part -- seeing other people with their laptops. People ask me why I don't just replace him, but they don't realize how much of my life was in his hard drive."  

Listening to the people in the support group made me more desperate to find my baby. I contacted a local TV station and asked them if I could appear on the 6 o' clock news. They gave me a minute to make a heartfelt plea: "Dell, if you're watching this, I want you to know how much I love you. Please come back to me. I will never let you out of my sight again. I promise!"

Someone advised me to put a 'lost' ad in the paper. So I did.

Technology helps the train go -- right past the station!

I've always been slow to adopt new technology, partly because I know how quickly I become dependent on it. Just the other day, I needed to switch the channel on TV and spent 10 minutes searching for the remote. Then it finally occurred to me: why not just ask one of my kids to walk up to the TV and push the buttons there?

Technology can make our lives easier, but it can also make them more complicated. Just ask the passengers on a British train:

Passengers on a Southern service from East Croydon were stunned when they were told that their stopping train would skip six stations and go direct to the end of the line in Caterham, Surrey.

When they got there the driver said the reason was that the train had lost its satellite link.

Because some stations have shorter platforms than others it meant that he could not open the right doors at every station on the route. The loss of the satellite link meant that passengers who had wanted stations in between had to wait half an hour for another train.

One passenger said: “It’s absolutely bizarre. We now have trains that can’t let the passengers out because they fail to pick up signals from outer space.”

A spokesman for Southern said: “A lot of our trains have GPS which recognises where the train is and allows it to open the doors at the station, depending on the length of the train and the length of the platform.”

He added: “Doors can be opened manually in an emergency but we would not recommend it at other times.” [Link]

They're a little too dependent on technology, wouldn't you say? But they're not the only ones, of course. Don't be surprised if you ask a Wal-Mart employee to show you where the coffee-makers are kept and he says, "Sorry, I can't help you. My GPS isn't working."

Photo by asplosh

Life's so much easier with the Internet

I woke up this morning and realized that three children’s videos I had borrowed from the library were due today. I didn’t feel like going to the library, so I went online and renewed them. It took barely a minute. My laptop was on the nightstand, so I didn’t even have to get out of bed. My children will grow up to take such conveniences for granted. But I was raised in the pre-internet era and continue to be amazed at what I can do with a few taps and clicks. Here’s just a partial list:

• Banking: I can check my balances, transfer money from one account to another, and celebrate whenever the bank credits me with 11 cents of interest.
• Paying bills: I can pay all my bills online, saving me the trouble of writing checks, sticking stamps and sending my wife to the mail box.
• Buying tickets: I can get almost any ticket online, including airline tickets, train tickets, concert tickets and sports tickets. If my Internet connection weren’t so slow, I'd also be able to get speeding tickets.
• Buying gifts and other items: I can buy all sorts of stuff online, including engrossing books at Amazon.com, enchanting music at iTunes.com, and enduring love at RussianBrides.com (if I were single).
• Reading: There’s so much to read online, including articles, blogs, stories and tattoos.
• Watching videos, looking at photos: I can watch scores of shows and events online, including amazing performances such as Zakir Hussain on the tabla and amazing feats such as a person crossing a road in Hyderabad. I can also look at photo galleries, not just my friends’ vacation photos, but also the wedding pics of Shwetha and Karthik and other people I don't know.
• Getting directions: No longer do I have to listen to my wife (or someone else) tell me to stop my car and ask for directions. “I’m not just going in circles,” I can say to them. “I’m using Google Maps to go in circles.”

Yes, I can do a lot on the Internet, but there’s so much more I’d like to be able to do. For example:

• Shopping for groceries: I can do this on a limited basis, but I’d like to be able to shop at my local grocery store through the Internet. I’d like to “walk” down a virtual aisle with virtual shelves, click on items such as milk, bread and eggs, and have a clerk from the grocery store bring them to my home, put them in my refrigerator, and cook me breakfast. Is that too much to ask?
• Renewing my passport: As I've mentioned before, if there's anything worse than watching your house on fire, it's spending a day at the Indian embassy. Whether I need a passport or a visa, I’d like to do it online, instead of having to face that person behind the counter, the one with the button that says, “A friendly greeting, a warm smile and good service. Get them all at Starbucks.”
• Getting a haircut: This would, of course, require me to use a webcam, as well as a special HairClipper2008 accessory that would be controlled through the Internet by Pallani, my barber in Chennai.

Photo by dro!d

Still available: GoogleLovesBush.com and a few other domain names

A Maryland man recently sold the domain name Pizza.com for $2.6 million. He had bought the name in 1994. Those were the days when almost every one-word domain name was available, if only some of us were not busy drooling over our stock in Yugo. These days, if you want a one-word domain name that won't cost a fortune, you'll have to either pick a name in another language, such as Nshima.com, or choose a different suffix, such as .us and .ca. But even those names are going fast.

Internic.ca, Canada's first .CA registrar, is pleased to be the registrar of choice for the one millionth .CA domain name registration. Brent Krause from Calgary, Alberta, registered the landmark .CA domain name, KrausLaw.ca, to promote his private law practice. [Link]

One million .ca domain names! That means you can forget about registering Afri.ca, Ameri.ca and Eroti.ca. Sorry Bill Clinton, Moni.ca is also taken.

Even the two-word and three-word domain names are being scooped up faster than discounted mangoes at Patel Brothers. Google itself has registered thousands of domain names, including the following: GmailBlows.com, GmailSucks.com, GoogleSucks.com, GoogleFools.com and GooglePoo.com. It's not surprising that the company is trying to keep people from demeaning Google with their domain names. What's surprising is that they haven't yet registered GoogleLovesBush.com, GoogleWearsFur.com and GoogleSmokesPot.com.

What's also surprising -- and a little scary -- is that they've registered GoogleReligion.com and GoogleFaith.com. It's not enough that they're taking over the world -- they want us to worship them too. Somewhere in the world, in the not-so-distant future, a family will kneel in front of their computer, praying to Lord Google, the God of All Search Engines.

In case you're wondering, LordGoogle.com is already taken.

Wear black pajamas, watch the funeral online

You can watch just about anything online these days, especially if you're willing to pay for it. You can even pay your last respects to a loved one.

Mourners unable to attend their loved ones' funerals now have a chance to see the event live on the internet.

The pioneering scheme has been launched because family members are often spread across the globe.

A website allows relatives and friends the opportunity to pay their last respects without travelling to the ceremony.

Services are already being streamed on to the web from the first eight participating crematoriums in the UK, with remote mourners paying £75.

Users are given a password that allows them to see the service live online with just a 20-second delay – or up to seven days after the event.

The funerals are filmed by a discreet camera at the back of the chapel. [Link]

For an extra fee, you can probably get the funeral director to do some commentary. "Great eulogy! Lots of emotion! It's obvious that she really cared for her father. Don't touch that keyboard. The widow is coming up next."

The company behind the scheme – Wesley Music, based in Kettering, Northamptonshire – is also offering DVDs of the funerals for £50, or a sound recording for £25. [Link]

I can already hear the commentary at my funeral: "Nobody wanted to make a DVD of him when he was alive, but now that he's dead, we expect to sell hundreds of them."

Director Alan Jeffrey says online funerals are an extra option for mourners rather than a money-spinning venture and similar schemes are already on offer in Australia and Brazil.

He added: "Families are split geographically more than ever and far-flung members are feeling excluded from such an important gathering. The idea originated out of helping an elderly relative in Australia who could not make it back here for a family funeral. [Link]

People who live too far away will certainly benefit, but so will people who are too busy or too lazy.

Dave: "Sorry to hear about your uncle, Bob. He was such a nice man. Did you go to the funeral?"

Bob: "No, Liverpool was playing. But I did order the DVD."

Dave: "Super! Let me know when you watch it. I'd like to come and pay my respects."

Photo by Simon East

Sorry, we deleted your email account by accident

If there's one thing you don't want to hear from your Internet provider, it's that your email account has been deleted. I can't imagine how many angry phone calls the folks at Charter Communications are getting.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Charter Communications said it had erased thousands of e-mail accounts by mistake.

A Charter spokesman said an accident during routine maintenance deleted 14,000 accounts. Customers lost all of the information in the 14,000 deleted accounts, including e-mails, photographs and bills.

Lisa Flood of Hurst said she couldn't believe her computer screen.

"I had about eight folders over here," she said. "And all I have now is just, I have nothing. I have nothing." [Link]

A couple of times in the last few years, I wasn't able to access my email account and I worried that it had somehow been deleted. Nowadays I make sure I download my email regularly to my computer using Outlook Express, which saves me the trouble of having to go to my Internet provider's office and wringing someone's neck.

The company said there is no way to recover the lost information.

"We're straight out apologizing for this gaffe," Charter spokesman Craig Watson said. "It's never happened to us before... We've put in place an extra fail-safe system so it will never happen again."

But Flood said an apology isn't enough.

"I hadn't really started to think about some kind of compensation, but sorry just doesn't get it," she said. "They say they're going to keep it from happening again? How do I have faith in that?" [Link]

I agree with her: an apology isn't enough. The least they can do is give Flood and other affected customers free Internet access for a year. That might keep them from switching to another company or doing what I'd be inclined to do: accidentally running into the company's telecommunications tower.

The satellite technology that helps you go

If you're shopping in London and desperate to hit the loo, satellite technology may help you pinpoint the nearest one, saving you the trouble of asking someone.

First came SatNav, the satellite system that helps guide even the most hapless drivers home - now the "SatLav" has been unveiled, to guide shoppers to the nearest toilet. [Link]

SatNav is short for satellite navigation and SatLav for satellite lavatory (SatLoo was probably taken). I wonder what's next:

SatKid -- helps you find your child after you're done shopping.

SatMan -- helps you find the bench on which your man has sat.

SatBag -- helps you find the nearest sale on handbags.

SatWinder -- helps you find CDs of your favorite Punjabi singer.

It is one of a growing number of services available to mobile phone users, who can already use their handsets to get directions or find taxis, plumbers or even recycling centres.

The technology used in SatLav is similar to that in modern GPS systems. The user simply sends a text message with the word 'toilet' to 80097, and a satellite pinpoints their location.

The satellite picks up the mobile phone's signal and uses it to find the location of the nearest phone mast.

From that it establishes the post code in which the user is standing, which it sends to a database containing all of the toilets registered with the scheme.

The database then automatically finds a toilet that matches the postcode and sends a text message back to the user with the information. The entire process takes just seconds. [Link]

It had better take just seconds. Otherwise you'll be standing cross-legged for a few minutes, then cursing your cell phone when you see the message: "Nearest toilet is half a mile away. You could have been there already."

Robert Thurner, commercial director of mobile technology company Incentivated, which developed SatLav and maintains the database of toilets, said that the latest mobile technology was "making residents' lives easier". ...

SatLav was developed by the council with Incentivated and is the brainchild of student Gail Knight, who entered the idea into a council competition.

Miss Knight, 26, said: "When I am out with friends we are always ducking into McDonalds or department stores to use their loos but we feel a bit bad about it." [Link]

Almost everyone has sneaked into McDonald's at one time or another, which is why the fast-food chain is able to say, "Billions and billions served."

Westminster councillor Alan Bradley said: "From today onwards nobody should get caught short again, and we understand how important that is, be it for a young mum with children in tow, older people or friends on a shopping trip or a night out."

It is hoped that giving people a service to tell them where their nearest toilet is might also encourage them not to urinate on the street after a night on the town. [Link]

Yeah, because after they've had a night on the town, they're going to have the good sense to use their cell phones to find the nearest toilet. For such people, it would make more sense to offer another service: SatTree.

Photo by iLoveButter

The vending machine that guesses your age

Leo Lewis, Asia Business correspondent of The Times (London), writes about attitudes toward smoking in Japan and "extraordinary phenomena" such as being permitted to smoke indoors but not outdoors. He also introduces us to software designed to prevent underage smoking.

After years of quite astonishingly liberal views on these things, cigarette vending machines are to have achingly high-tech age-recognition software installed in order to prevent the under-20s getting their hands on Japan Tobacco's evil products.  It is actually rather impressive. I went to Kyoto to see Omron's version of this software and it was able, within less than a second and using a standard digital video camera, to guess my age correctly. [Link]

That sounds like great technology, but what happens when the software tells the 24-year-old graduate student that her boyfriend, who claims to be 32, is actually 52?

Some people look older than they actually are. Take 19-year-old basketball star Greg Oden to the machine and it will probably say: "Sale permitted. Age 35."

If you think people kick vending machines a lot now, just wait until this technology becomes more common.

Woman: "Hey, why are you kicking the machine? Did it give you the wrong change?"

Man: "No, even worse: it gave me the wrong age."

I think - even for those of us over the age of 20 - it should become a matter of honour to fool the  machines as often and as hilariously as possible. With masks. Crazy masks.

My anarchic pal Teal'c has suggested carrying around a life-size photograph of the face of Roger Moore, and holding that up to the vending machine to establish one's age.

I like the idea of doing the same with the face of Mother Theresa or perhaps Bob Monkhouse just to see how sophisticated the software really is. Perhaps it sells you particular brands based on what you look like. Mahatma Ghandi disguises might get you a packet of Peace. [Link] 

If the software is sophisticated enough, it will recognize Gandhi's picture and give you some important details about him. "Sale denied. That is a picture of Mahatma Gandhi. A champion of nonviolent resistance, he is considered the father of India. And his name, by the way, is spelled G-A-N-D-H-I."

It's here -- the $199 computer

If you're reading this blog, you probably already own a computer. But if you don't -- perhaps you're using one at the library or looking through your neighbor's window -- you may be excited to know that Wal-Mart is now selling a computer for only $199. It even comes with its own hard drive. It's got everything you need, really, except a monitor, but is a monitor really necessary?

The cheap price reflects Wal-Mart's buying power as the world's largest retailer and is an aggressive gambit by a Taiwanese company that has carved out a niche at the low end of the computer market. To get to $199, First International Computer had to forgo software made by Microsoft Corp. or Apple Inc. and try the little-used open-source computer platform. [Link]

They also had to forgo the motherboard and settle for the more economical fatherboard.

Wal-Mart has sold an open-source computer before. In 2002, it tried to sell a $199 PC that used the Lindows operating system. But the PCs were poorly reviewed, and there were compatibility issues working with peripheral devices, such as printers and digital cameras.[Link]

As Wal-Mart came to realize, Lindows was such a big laste.

To ease some worries, the PC has a 1-year warranty and a 24-hour help line.[Link]

To save money, tech support will be available only in Hindi. More languages will be added in the future, including Punjabi in 2008, Tamil in 2009 and Telugu in 2010.

Photo by cogdogblog

BlackBerry Syndrome, the new health concern

I don't own a BlackBerry, but if I did, I'd be concerned about getting BlackBerry Syndrome.

Many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none, or feeling as if they're wearing a cell phone when they're not.

The first time it happened to Jonathan Zaback, a manager at the public relations company Burson-Marsteller, he was out with friends and showing off his new BlackBerry Curve.

"While they were looking at it, I felt this vibration on my side. I reached down to grab it and realized there was no BlackBerry there." [Link]

Ah, the first stages of BlackBerry Syndrome. It's going to get progressively worse. The phantom vibrations will become more frequent, more jolting, until Zaback and other BlackBerry junkies have no choice but to seek treatment at the BARC (BlackBerry Addiction Recovery Center).

Patient: "Hello! Is anyone there? I feel vibrations! Every second of every minute, there are vibrations!"

Nurse: "Doctor, come quick! We have a serious case of BlackBerry overdose."

Doctor (running): "Have you given him the antidote?"

Nurse: "Yes, but he's not responding."

Patient: "Hello! Is anyone there? I feel vibrations! Every second of every minute, there are vibrations!"

Nurse: "He keeps saying the same thing, over and over."

Doctor: "Looks like delirium has set in. He's in the final stages. You'd better tell his family."

Nurse: "I just spoke to his wife. She went home to get his BlackBerry. She says he might want to hold it one last time."

GPS: Global Parenting Surveillance

When I'm heading down the highway, I get a little nervous every time I pass a cop, wondering if he's going to stop me for DWB (driving while brown). It has happened a couple of times, once in Ohio and the other time in Georgia. Both cops asked me to get out of my car and one made me sit in his car while he checked if there were any arrest warrants on me. (There weren't! Thank goodness I had paid all my library fines.) Neither cop ended up giving me a ticket, but I wouldn't put it past an officer to claim I was speeding. So perhaps I need to get a global positioning system (GPS), just in case I need to beat a speeding ticket, as a teen-ager in Sonoma County, California, is trying to do. Shaun Malone's parents installed the GPS in his car to keep track of him and his speed.

The case represents the first time anyone has contested a speeding ticket in Sonoma County courts using a global positioning system, which pinpoints speed and location using lightning-fast calculations and satellites. ...

All GPS systems installed in vehicles calculate speed and location, but the tracking device in Malone's 2000 Toyota Celica GTS downloads the information to his parent's computer.[Link]

Wow! In the future, all parents will sit in front of their computers at night, monitoring  their children's activities.

Mother: "Call the police, dear. Someone must have stolen Johnny's car."

Father: "How do you know?"

Mother: "Well, he told me he's meeting with the church youth group, but his car is parked in front of the strip club."

Father: "Don't jump to conclusions, dear. Perhaps they're spreading the word over there. That's what they did last week at the tavern."

Mother: "Such a good boy, our Johnny. I don't know why we're checking on him."