Rant 225 12/8/12 Subject: Passwords

Rant number 225

Information is key. Information is king. Information is power. It's a possession that everyone has, no matter whether they are the lowliest peasant, or the wealthiest king in his ivory tower.

And whether or not you believe, understand or concede it, your information is worth something to someone else other than yourself.

This means you must protect what is yours with all the tools at your disposal.

Now, if you wanted to protect something precious, the first thing you would probably do would be to lock it away somewhere safe and secure, behind a complicated lock, then post guards with very big guns in front of it and then put it in a high tower - behind a moat for good measure.

Or at the least - you know, put it in a bank or something.

This is a natural reaction to something precious - but we don't protect our information in the same way.

Which brings me onto passwords.

I have quite a few things to protect by password:
My Hotmail e-mails
Ebay
Facebook
Twitter
Amazon
Play
Paypal
This blog
The website I look after

You get the idea.
This means that I have at least 11 passwords to remember at one time, which is quite a lot you will agree.

As such, for convenience and because of my appalling memory - I have no choice but to reuse some of the passwords more than once - and the thing is, I shouldn't.

It's too easy to get blasé attitude about something so precious and it really is something we should all think about more. Keeping your info safe should be the same as locking your doors and checking the windows before you go out.

As well as identifying our own problems however, maybe it's time that we came up with an alternative to passwords.

Something more full proof would be better. A computer algorithm or an injected chip or something. It just strikes me as a better way of doing things.

And not just a half hearted finger print system like I have seen recently - which merely inputs the same kind of passwords automatically at the touch of a finger.

That just doesn't solve any problems, it just creates more.

Anyway, preaching done.

Rant over.

Rant 207 25/7/12 Subject: Battery life

Rant number 207

So as not to bore you all to death with my vehicular woes, I've decided a change of subject is due for the evening. You never know, I might be sorted out soon and I won't need to complain any more.

Not of course that I rant because I need to. Quite to the contrary, I rant because I enjoy it, I find it cleansing and because you miserable gits are big fans of schadenfreude.

So what's urking me today if not vehicular woes? Battery life.

One part of sorting things out has been a lot of e-mails, text messages and just occasionally phone calls on my phone. Usually my phone gets moderate to low use, mainly Facebook, emails and a text (or 10) or 2 a day to my wife. With that kind of usage, the battery usually lasts me all day, even if I play some games on it or whatever and still has some left at the end of the day.

Today though, I've not used it that much - but I've just had to put it on charge. The only thing that I've done out of the ordinary to be honest is speak to my mum. 

This is the problem with new technology you see. Touchscreen technology, LCD's and particularly mobile phones have come on leaps and bounds in the last ten years or so, but battery technology is still pretty crude.

(I apologise for the next couple of sentences, which are a little bit nerdy..)

Yes we use lithium Ion batteries - which do beat Zinc carbon, Alkaline and Nickel metal hydride (what a catchy name that is, try saying it when you are drunk!) batteries hands down. 

Realistically though, they still have quite a few of the same issues. 

They take a fair amount of time to charge with only a limited amount of milliamp hours. They get a 'charge memory effect' which means that the battery can become conditioned to a shorter life each time you charge it. The modern equipment takes on a great deal of the power quite quickly, meaning that daily charging is a necessity.

You'd think by now, that we could create a battery that could easily take on any equipment. I have to charge my iPhone every day whereas my first mobile (my trusty Nokia 3310) needed charging around once a week!

This just go to prove that as technology goes forward, battery tech gets left further and further behind.

The only  innovation I've seen in years is a 'battery' that is based upon topping up using a very small amount of pure alcohol. This would be able to power a device like an iPhone for around a week on a single application.

The problem is though, that giving people jugs of ethanol to top up their batteries is probably a little bit dangerous...

Scientist peoples - get working on it please! 

Rant over.