(re) blog: dialogue with Redemtech

It’s Time for the Consumer Electronics Industry to Face the Music

Recently, I’ve read a few articles about how the Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) is challenging the State of New York over its new e-waste regulations. I couldn’t help but notice that their complaints amount to what I would consider to be defending a deceptive ploy. The main premise of the complaint has to do with costs relating to transparent recycling programs. CEA is alleging that NY’s e-waste regulations impose a crushing financial blow on OEMs as well as add to greenhouse gases.

Here’s Looking at Your E-Waste, Kid

Some publicity that major computer manufacturers have been accumulating recently reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Casablanca, and adds up to a big hill of beans as far as emphasizing the need to extend the lifecycle of all computer equipment.

How the Anniversary of a Moon Landing Reminds Us of Our Remaining Challenges

This week the world is remembering the space program’s crowning achievement, landing men on the Moon and the related technological advances man has achieved. In a recent TV program, I watched an interview with a Mission Control specialist. He was explaining how our common laptops now have a thousand times the processing speed of the state-of-the-art computers of that era.

Missed Opportunities Can Define Our Future

Beloved writer and humorist Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.” Since Twain was known as a risk-taker, it’s clear that his comment about missed opportunities was a jest, and he grabbed at a variety of opportunities throughout his life, not always successfully. The author’s famous words came back to me today when I considered some recent opportunities that are not only being overlooked, but meticulously shattered by various regulatory bodies.

Historic Moon Landing Should Have Us Looking to Extend Computer Life-cycles

During the weekend, it seemed like everybody from Buzz Aldrin to Miley Cyrus was reminiscing about where they were when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon 40 years ago today and that “giant leap for mankind” took place. And the anniversary of the first lunar landing was indeed memorable and worth noting, although I’m not sure the world of technology really needs thousands of blogs and postings from people like me who were kids at the time of the first moonwalk. At least not all of the ones recalling how Pap-paw sat the family down in front of the old Quasar to see that grainy image of Neil Armstrong, since a lot of people from that era share the same experience.

Three New Ponemon Reports Show How Businesses Are At Risk

Three interesting research reports have been published by the Ponemon Institute during the past few days, two of them addressing issues of encryption and another examining the value proposition of corporate data protection efforts within various business segments.

Why Good Intentions Are Not Enough

I was at home in the kitchen the other day, when I noticed something that made me stop and think. On the back of a cake box, I saw an ad inviting people to do their part in feeding the hungry. Simply clip the coupon out, mail it in, and the company would donate ten cents toward this noble cause.

Computers and C02: Bewilderment Amid the Marigolds

Driving through a suburban street one morning last week, I saw two of the most important technological inventions of modern civilization fastened to one another in a way I’d never imagined. There, hunched against a colorful burst of marigolds and a mailbox, a toilet and a desktop computer were stacked together and tied with rope, waiting at the curb for trash collectors to haul them off to our local landfill.

Dance Troupe’s Loss Shows Importance of Keeping On Your Toes

This week’s entry for unusual data security story from an obscure source comes from the Mandurah Mail in Western Australia, and despite the fact that the data theft does not concern a major corporation, educational institution, manufacturer, retailer or government agency, as so many data breach stories these days do, it’s nonetheless devastating to those who are experiencing the pain of lost data. The story also serves as a fine example of why we constantly warn our customers on the vulnerability of off-network data theft.

‘Recycling” Companies and the Dillinger Myth

Notorious criminal John Dillinger was in the headlines again recently, 75 years after he was gunned down in an alley near the Biograph Theater in Chicago. The release of a new movie romanticizing Dillinger and his criminal career brought back a lot of memories for me. No, I wasn’t around when Dillinger originally made headlines, but I had the good fortune to work as a newspaper reporter in one of the small towns whose bank was hit by the Dillinger gang back in 1934.