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 The next iPod, or Lisa? CmdrTaco hated the iPod. Waiting for his review of the iPad. My colleague at Penn, John Mulhern, sent out a “just the facts” email concerning the iPad. I feel compelled to share it here, as it is the most hyperbole free description of the device I have seen so far. John’s great at that, although there is some Penn-specific information included. Without further ado:
Today (January 27) Apple announced the iPad, an iPhone OS-based product in a considerably larger form factor than the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPad will begin shipping in late March, with the 3G/WWAN version shipping in late April. Continue reading Just the Facts, Ma’am: the iPad
 Nom nom nom. I recently wrote about switching away from Internet Explorer as a recommendation to users who aren’t technically inclined. As a follow up, here’s an interesting article with some real world examples. The article brings up some good points: not only is it important to keep your browser up to date, but also your plugins. More and more, out of date versions of plugins like Sun’s Java, Adobe’s Acrobat Reader and Adobe’s Flash Player are being exploited.
The two highest rated exploits were “pdf_pack”, which was just patched this month by Adobe, so your reader is likely out of date, and “javad0″, which was just recently patched by Sun… so yes, your Java plugin is likely out of date too. Keeping these up to date is absolutely crucial to your security. Want to see how easy it is for the bad guys to get this kind of stuff? Just Google “javad0″ and you’ll find links to sites offering these exploit packs.
The article uses an actual browser exploit kit, Eleonore. This is the same thing a lot of the bad guys use to hack you. Interesting real world stats on Internet Explorer versus Firefox are included below; these charts contain the version of the browser, then the number of times that browser version has accessed, the number the version was found to be vulnerable, and the percentage. Take a look at Firefox versus Internet Explorer, and the numbers speak for themselves, below the fold. Continue reading Follow Up: Keep Your Browser and Plug-Ins Patched!
 My Favorite Viewer From the Past, the OnRez Viewer; Notice the Browser Bar! In my previous post, I commented that I thought the new “Viewer 2.0″ (now called “Viewer 2″) would be the defining moment of Second Life’s year, and whether or not Linden Lab’s virtual world could break out of the plateau they have hit. Some interesting information has been released with the announcement of the public beta:
- Over 50% of Second Life first time users never log in again.
- Viewer 2 is being combined with the new web site, and a new Orientation Island (the first destination you reach as a new user) to try to make the first hour experience – and learning curve – much less intimidating and confusing.
- As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the first major overhaul to the user interface of the viewer since late 2003.
- Linden Lab has realized that by open sourcing the viewer, users will have the ability to create “power user” interfaces.
- This will allow Linden Lab to focus on the 90% of users, rather than the 10%.
I’m curious to give it a try. I’m betting I’ll absolutely hate it at first – as a traditional user going through change – but will grow to like it.
 Echo Omega: One of the Original Second Life Marketing Campaigns, circa 2004. It has been almost a year since I wrote a post asking the question, What’s With the Second Life Death Watch? Recently in the comments, I was asked to provide on update. With the release of Second Life’s 2009 Economy Wrap Up, now seemed like a good time to take a look. I’ve been less involved with Second Life in the past year than in previous years, as I’ve been very involved with the local technology scene and busy with my first life, but I am still very intrigued by the possibilities virtual worlds offer going forward.
A few highlights:
- The total SL economy grew to $567 million in 2009, a growth of 65% over 2008.
- Gross resident earnings were $55 million in 2009, a grown of 11% over 2008.
- The total amount of L$ in circulation is L$6.95 billion, or US$26.5 million.
- Residents spent 481 million hours in world in 2009, 21% growth over 2008.
- Total owned land reached 1.85 billion square meters, up 7% of 2008.
A lot of Second Life’s figures have certainly gone a bit flat. User concurrency has been stuck around 80,000 for some time now after peaking around 88,000 in March of 2009, and while repeat monthly log ins have increased, it hasn’t been substantial. However, over the past year, the team has been focusing on a new version of the Second Life client software (Viewer 2.0). The new user experience and interface have long held Second Life back. When the current client was developed in late 2003, as part of the version 1.2 release, I’d wager that 95% of the population were content creators. The viewer was geared towards the needs of scripters, builders, and early adopters, and hasn’t seen a major revamp since. Now, I’d wager that less than 1% of the population are content creators, yet the interface persists.
The release of “Viewer 2.0″ is going to have a lot to do with whether Second Life continues to plateau and fall off into decline, or provide the shot in the arm the virtual world really needs to take it to the next level, and make it more accepted in the mainstream. 2010 is the year we will see this play out… and I’m excited to watch it happen. More than that, I’m excited to be excited about Second Life again, and I am hoping that “Viewer 2.0″ will provide that opportunity.
Nom nom nom. We have all heard about China’s attacks on Google. More recently, these attacks have been expanded against Adobe, Yahoo, Symantec, and many others. These are very advanced attacks, coordinated by a hostile foreign government, and should be taken very seriously. The target is intellectual property and account information. The Gmail account of people hostile to the Chinese government were hacked into and accessed. One can only imagine their motivations.
So what does this have to do with Internet Explorer? Many of these attacks were only successful due to an exploit in Internet Explorer that affects versions 6, 7, and 8. That means this vulnerability has existed since at least 2001.
This exploit is now available freely for the bad guys on the Internet. Microsoft is now “working on a patch”, but there has been no reports of when this will be available, so you are currently exposed if using IE. Other browsers, such as Mozilla’s Firefox, provide protection from these sorts of exploits through several ways. First, they are not as intimately tied to the operating system as Internet Explorer is to Windows. Secondly, most provide a much better security infrastructure and reporting system to avoid known phishing / malware web sites. Third, extensions such as Flashblock and AdBlock allow you to block ads and Flash content, often used as vehicles to exploit unsuspecting users’ credentials.
The German government has now recommended that no one uses Internet Explorer.
The French government has now recommended that no one uses Internet Explorer.
This is no longer about tech geeks like something new and shiny. It is about protecting the west’s intellectual property from a country that doesn’t play by the rules.
I don’t understand how so many people can be “loyal” to Internet Explorer after a decade of reports about security concerns. Now it has become a national security issue. Please consider the switch if you haven’t already. Please stop fearing a small change when all your tech savvy friends keep warning you. You’ll be used to a new browser within several days, and you’ll probably find you like it better after the transition!
 Normalization is GOOD... most of the time. Anyone who has known me for long enough knows while I love many things I.T. related, database design and efficiency is at the top of the list. I haven’t posted in far too long, but Becky Sweger, a fellow DB enthusiast and colleague at Wharton Computing, recently made a few posts that reminded me to update my own blog as well.
We recently had a blast collaborating on a presentation on database design. You can download our fun, but informative slides here:
Database Design Slides
Becky also has an excellent post here discussing some of the pitfalls of using SQL Server’s auto-generated code. This is very true for any flavor of database: you learn the true quirks of every database by hand scripting changes, and it is much safer as well.
Thanks Becky!
Here is Sunday’s keynote from SLCC by Tom Hale, outlining a bunch of new features coming to Second Life. Some cool new stuff: new viewer with simplified user interface that actually works like most other applications, closer integration with the web site (OpenSim is far ahead on this with their Elgg integration), and mesh import, which realXtend has also already integrated. It will be interesting to see how the implementations differ!
I’m still really bummed I could attend this year. SLCC is always quite the party! Bring is back east next year… or, at the least, do it in Vegas like everyone wanted!
Second Life has had the buzz, both positive and negative, among virtual worlds for the better part of the past five years. More and more options are starting to present themselves as viable alternatives, especially open source options. Many local academic and business entities have tried Second Life to varying degrees of success, and are now looking for ways to take it to the next level.
Featured panelists for the event are Rachel Harper Joseph and Paul Vigo of Rezzable, one of the most creative and well known virtual worlds development agencies, who have created some of the most famous virtual world regions, including Greenies, Black Swan, and Heritage Key’s Discover King Tut Virtual Experience.
Rezzable has recently been moving all of their content from Second Life to a private grid of virtual regions, hosted on OpenSimulator. OpenSimulator allows you to host your grid compatible with the Second Life viewer (and other viewers), offering a rich 3-D experience that is becoming comparable to Second Life. This offers several advantages: you can host the virtual world on your own servers, thereby saving the $295 per month per region cost, and additionally, you become the gatekeeper and control all the user names and passwords. It makes it possible, for example, for a University to have a private grid open to only their students and faculty, or a company to restrict access to their employees.
Rezzable will talk about the experience of the move, and share some of the “gotcha” moments they’ve had to overcome along the way. I will be moderating the discussion, and Frank Taney will provide some brief legal analysis, focusing on intellectual property issues that having multiple grids raises.
The event will be held in Jon M. Huntsman Hall at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in room G65: from the Locust Street entrance, walk through the lobby, past the check in desk, and turn left. G65 is at the end of the hallway. Please pre-register at the PANMA Registration Site to guarantee admission to the event.
 The Panelists I’m excited to attend HigherEdCamp Philly this Saturday, from 8:30am until 5pm. I will be hosting a session from 12pm – 1pm, joined by Frank Taney of Buchanan, Ingersoll, & Rooney, and Neil Kleinman, Dean of the College of Media & Communication at the University of the Arts. We will be leading an interactive discussion on legal issues in the new media era. Topics we will discuss, among others, include:
What constitutes fair use of new media in academia?
What changes in perception of fair use have occurred with the modern technology available?
How does one properly cite new media such as blogs, wikis, and social networks?
How do you protect your content and intellectual property in the era of easy plagiarism?
What mechanisms are there for sharing your content?
We encourage audience participation and would love to see you there. We hope you’ll join us in posing the questions that we all face in the new era of modern academia. And after all, how often do you get a chance to ask questions to an attorney… for free?
 OpenSim: Getting it Right, Again Adam Frisby has just announced on his blog that OpenSim is being integrated with the Facebook-like open-source social networking web app, elgg. I’ve been asking for a similar feature like this from Linden Lab for years: I’ve always hated the fixed-size search window for finding things like groups, profiles, and more. See Adam’s blog entry for some screen shots to get a better idea.
This has so many benefits. I outlined to Linden Lab years ago that one of their problems are the proprietary GUI widgets they use within the viewer. Getting rid of interfaces like the profile window and the search and replacing them with a web browser driven equivalent would make new users feel much more comfortable with the interface right off the bat, especially if it look similar to popular social networking applications and search tools. Additionally, people could choose whether they prefer to use the internal Mozilla browser in the viewer, or choose to launch their default browser externally. Imagine that: having the viewer on one monitor, with multiple windows for search, groups, friends online, and more on another monitor (or two). For those of us who use multiple monitors, we’re well aware of the increase in productivity which occurs when you use more than one.
It also has the benefit of productivity by being able to access your data and communicate with people from computers with a web browser, that may not have a viewer (Second Life or other) installed. A great move by the OpenSim team, and I can’t wait to see it in action.
 Wharton Computing and the Philadelphia Future Salon are proud to present an event, in conjunction with the Wharton Learning Lab’s Evolution of Learning Symposium: Virtual Worlds in Academia: Beyond the Hyperbole. The panel is free for anyone to attend, and we encourage people attending the symposium in the morning to join us after lunch. A hands-on demonstration will follow, in which people are encouraged to give some projects a test drive!
Location: Jon M. Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. ROOM: 340
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 13th, 2pm – 4pm
More details after the jump.
Continue reading Virtual Worlds in Academia: Beyond the Hyperbole
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