Buy or bye-bye: Let your fingers do the walking.

I’m old enough to remember having to go to a store if I wanted to find out if something I wanted was in stock. That meant getting into a car (or hopping onto a bike or walking) and going to the “business district” (all stores were downtown in those days). Things have changed since then.

Then the telephone company (when it was The Telephone Company) told us to let our fingers do the walking. They suggested we could call ahead and ask if something was in stock. It saved time, gas, and driving at a time when driving was fun, gas was cheap, and I had all the time in the world.

But I’m no fan of the phone. And I detest “shopping”.

Maybe it’s that male vs. female, hunter vs. gatherer thing. Once I know what I want, I’d like that thing to appear instantly on my desk. I don’t want to go to a store, find it on a shelf, schlep it to a cashier, stand in line (or on line), and take it home.

When my antique Sony Clié organizer started showing signs of needing to be replaced, I did a little research on-line. It didn’t take long for me to decide that the right organizer for me would be either a Palm (formerly PalmOne, formerly Palm) Tungsten T5 or a Palm TX. The T5 has more memory and a lot of features I’d be unlikely to use. The TX costs less, has less base memory, but seemed to be the better choice for me. I’ve looked at Pocket PC devices, but I’ve never been able to justify the re-learning that would be required to switch from Palm to PPC. So I knew that I wanted a Palm TX.

My favorite physical/virtual store is CircuitCity because I can place an order on-line, pay for it on-line. When I go to the store, all I have to do is show a photo ID and the credit card I used. The clerk hands me whatever I ordered and on the way home. Even on the day after Christmas, this step took less than 10 minutes.

Compare this to CompUSA, which is equally close to where I live. The on-line part of the process seems to be the same, but no order is actually placed. The device I want is supposedly “reserved” but I’ve never found it at the customer service counter. Sometimes it takes CompUSA clerks 20 or 30 minutes to find what I “ordered” on-line. Sometimes they don’t have what I ordered even though the website says it’s in stock. And I have to pay for it in person. Even though the CompUSA website takes my credit card information, nothing happens. Bah, humbug!

Columbus is MicroCenter’s hometown and two of their stores are about 10 minutes from where I live. Their website doesn’t seem to allow me to order anything on-line for in-store pickup. That’s too bad because I like working with MicroCenter.

When I decided that I wanted a cradle for the Palm TX (remember when these used to be included with the device?) I tried CircuitCity (not stocked), CompUSA (available only at a distant store), MicroCenter (hopeless), and Buy.com.

On December 31, Buy.com told me they had the cradle and the aluminum case I’d been looking at in stock and that they qualified for free shipping. I placed the order and selected the “free shipping” option, which displayed a warning that the order might not ship for 5 to 9 days. That was OK. These are accessories and the Palm TX was working just fine without them. I placed the order.

About 3 hours later, I received an e-mail from Buy.com. It’s the last day of the year and it may be that everything not “in stock” at the end of the day isn’t taxable. “Just wanted to let you know that the item(s) listed below from your order #00000000 have shipped and are on the way to your door.” Maybe tax considerations are why the order was processed so fast or maybe Buy.com is just uncommonly efficient on the final day of the year. No matter, the order is on the way.

And my point is?

My point is that those stores (whether bricks-and-mortar, on-line, or blended) that serve their customers best will succeed.

MicroCenter once employed only people who understood personal computers, but the company had to compete on price when CompUSA came to town, so now many of the employees aren’t subject matter experts. CompUSA has clerks. CircuitCity employs sales people. Buy.com has a “customer service” area on the website, but is careful to point out that “our agents do not have more specific product information than what is listed on our site.”

Most electronic devices today are commodities and buyers are looking for the lowest prices from stores that provide adequate information.

When it came to buying the Palm TX, CircuitCity was the clear winner. The price was competitive, I could order it on-line, it was in stock, and I could have it the same day. I found slightly lower prices, but might have had to pay for shipping and wouldn’t have had it until January.

For the case and the cradle, no local store was able to compete with Buy.com: CircuitCity didn’t carry one of the items and the other was out of stock, CompUSA had both items but only at a distant store, I couldn't figure out whether MicroCenter had either of the items, BestBuy had both but only for prices substantially higher than elsewhere. So that left Buy.com with reasonable prices, free (slow) shipping, and everything I wanted in stock.

It’s a split decision: CircuitCity for the PDA and Buy.com for the accessories.

The shape of things to come*

In 1982, I went to work for a company that ran 5 Digital Equipment Corporation 11/73 systems running the RS/TS (resource sharing/time sharing) operating system, but we still had a Honeywell 200 that was used to run a single application. The DEC 11/73 systems had floor-mounted hard drives that were 40MB devices. The Honeywell had several tape drives and its core memory was really core memory – circular magnets on a matrix of wires. Each 64KB module was about 9 inches wide, a foot tall, and maybe 18 inches deep. Things have changed a bit in the past 25 years.

I started thinking about that when I glanced down at the desk in front of me and noticed a 256MB SanDisk SD card. It probably cost me $50 or so. I have no idea what the 64KB Honeywell memory modules cost, but I’m sure they were at least $1000 and to get 256MB of core memory would require 4000 units. So the memory module (less than an inch wide, about 1.5 inches long, and about 1/8 of an inch thick) sitting on my desk in 1982 would have consumed  more than 4400 cubic feet of space (that would be a room 22 feet by 20 feet with a ceiling 10 feet high) and would have cost at least $4,000,000.

I’m still hoping that somebody perfects time travel so that I can take some of this stuff about 20 years into the past and become extremely wealthy.

In 1984, I bought a Zenith personal computer. The base unit came with a monochrome monitor (no graphics), 256KB of RAM (I paid extra to boost that to an amazing 320KB), and 2 floppy disk drives. The cost was well over $1000. Today there are watches with that much memory.

Later I added an external 16MB hard drive (about $1200) and later expanded to a 40MB hard drive, then an 80MB hard drive, 2 80MB hard drives, and so on.

Today, the computer I started using in 2003 has 2 120GB internal drives, 2 external USB drives (200GB and 160GB), and a 200GB network-attached drive. Depending on which other computers are turned on, I may have access to an 80GB drive and a 180GB drive on my younger daughter’s Mac, a 60GB drive on my notebook computer, and another 60GB drive on an Apple Powerbook.

In the 1980s, this would have been millions of dollars worth of storage space. Today I can buy a 120GB Seagate drive for $100. Or I can buy a pocket-size USB hard drive that requires no external power supply because it receives its power from the USB port – 30GB for $100 – that allows my younger daughter to move important files between her home Mac and the Macs at the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). Only a few years ago, the only portable devices were Zip drives ($10 per 100MB) or solid-state drives ($50 for 16MB).

Yes, there’s a problem

Hard disks are far more reliable than they used to be, even those manufactured by companies with a less than stellar reputation; but they still fail. Backup has become a serious problem. CDs and DVDs are sufficient in some cases, but external hard drives are increasingly becoming the solution of choice for most people.

I keep two external hard drives at the office and bring them home once per week to backup my primary home machine and the computer Kaydee uses for CCAD homework. There’s no substitute for backup. Even if the disk drive in your computer doesn’t fail, you might still delete or modify a critical file. Backup will save the day.

If you’ve ever had to recreate a document that you lost, you probably felt that the replacement was a pale shadow of the original. Recreating documents wastes time. Even worse, it’s extremely frustrating. If you’re not backing up the files on your computer, now is the time to develop a backup strategy. The real value of your computer is not the hardware and the applications on the hard drive; the real value is in the files you have created.

Backup is not an option.

* Max Frost and the Troopers

Free with the Mac you bought last month: Angst

If you bought a Mac Powerbook anytime in the past 6 months, you were probably shocked and dismayed by this week's announcement by Apple. To nobody's great surprise, Apple announced that the first Intel-based machines will be notebook computers. After all, that's where the company needed to build faster machines that wouldn't catch a desk on fire. They'll ship the new machines next month. What caught a lot of people by surprise is how much faster the new machines will be.

Steve Jobs announced that the new Powerbooks will be at least 4 times faster than the machines they're replacing. That's not the entire story, of course. There will be "issues" (also known as "bugs", "unanticipated features", and "glitches") with the new machines and the existing Powerbooks that people dropped $2000 to $3000 on last month will still work just fine, although at one fourth the speed of the new machines.

This might be enough to convince even the die-hard Apple fans -- the ones who suffer from a gag reflex whenever Intel is mentioned -- to consider buying an Intel-based Mac.

By the way, there will be no "Intel Inside" sticker on Macs with Intel chips. Apple isn't accepting Intel's discounts for using the logo on its machines and on its boxes.

Objects are slower than they appear

Apple has released some software that's optimized to run on the new hardware, but everything else will have to run on an emulator that sits on top of the operating system. Companies that write applications for Macs will probably not be able to update their applications to run on the new hardware until late this year.

In other words, the speed difference won't be really obvious for a while -- and not until users spend money to upgrade their applications to those written specifically for Intel-based Macs. Maybe now, if you just recently bought a Mac, you don't feel so bad.

And even when the new applications are available, you might not see much difference unless you're using your Powerbook to produce audio or video, or you're creating large and complex graphics or publications. For e-mail, Web browsers, word processing, and the like, the faster speed won't be obvious.

Nerdly News

The lowest of the low

FBI agents in Pittsburgh are investigating fake messages that ask for charitable donations for the miner who survived the recent explosion and fire in a West Virginia mine.

Spam scams claim to come from the physician for Randal McCloy, Dr. Lawrence Roberts of West Virginia University's Ruby Memorial Hospital.

The fake message says "We needed your generous financial assistance to our beloved citizen, brother and friend Mr. Randal McCloy to enable him undergo all the Surgical Operations and Medical treatments which will cost Several Millions of Dollars in serving his life and bringing him to his normal state of life."

Roberts, of course, did not send the message. Most doctors would know that there is no reason to capitalize "Several Millions of Dollars" or "Surgical Operations and Medical treatments." And one has to wonder why the spam scammer didn't capitalize "treatments", too.

Every time a tragic event occurs -- from tsunamis to flood to mine explosions -- some sick creeps use that event for fraudulent purposes.

Beware.

Big fines and jail time for spammers

An Iowa Internet service provider has been awarded $11.2 billion from a spammer. There's little chance that the ISP owner will ever see even a penny, but maybe this is a wake-up call for spammers.

Robert Kramer, who owns a small ISP in Clinton, Iowa, sued James McCalla of Florida. Kramer says McCalla send more than 280 million illegal spams to his users' accounts. The run-of-the-mill spams advertised mortgages, debt consolidation services, pornographic sites, and Web-based gambling.

The judgment was made by US District Judge Charles R. Wolle. In addition to damages, McCalla is forbidden from using the Internet for 3 years.

If that's enough to make you smile, here's another story to smile about: A Detroit man who ran a system of zombie computers to sending millions of illegal spams is probably going to prison. Daniel Lin is expected to plead guilty next week and is likely to be sentenced to 2 years in prison.

Lin's network of zombied computers included machines owned by Ford, Amoco, Unisys, the US Army Information Center, and others to sell bogus diet aids.

A plea deal with federal prosecutors could send the man to prison for nearly 5 years. The plea bargain apparently looked good to the spammer who was facing 5 years in prison on each of two spam counts and another 10 years on unrelated charges.

Lin's gang sent millions of spams and generated about 100 orders per week. The top-selling product was a $60-per-month "herbal weight loss patch" that did nothing.

Annoying legal disclaimer

My attorney says I really need to say this: The Technology Corner website is for informational purposes only. Neither Joe nor I assume any responsibility for its accuracy, although we do our best. The information is subject to change without notice. Any actions you take based on information from the radio program or from this website are entirely at your own risk. Products and services are mentioned for informational purposes only and their various trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. Technology Corner cannot provide technical support for products or services mentioned on the air or on the website.