Arthur Ochs Sulzberger

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the former publisher and CEO of the New York Times, died following a lengthy illness last week. He was 86.

Mr Sulzberger's tenure as the boss at the Times mirrored -- on a much larger scale, of course -- the experience my family had while operating a couple of small weekly newspapers in rural California. My parents took over their company a couple of years before Mr Sulzberger took over the helm at the Times. During the three-plus decades that followed, the industry changed from raised type -- which had served it for about four centuries -- to offset printing, then to phototypesetting, then to computer-generated pages and finally the Internet.

Mr Sulszberger retired in 1997, the same year we sold our papers, leaving a much more diverse publication and a much stronger company. Technology had brought with it fierce competition, but his Times managed to hold on to its status as the nation's leading daily newspaper. The obituary quotes him: "You're not buying news when you buy The New York Times," Mr. Sulzberger said. "You're buying judgment."

Well done, Punch. You deserve your rest.

Nata's Corner

It doesn't happen very often, but I got a chance to actually show my other half how to do something techy the other day. He was looking all over for something that would take a screen shot on the iPad he uses about once every two months, so I showed him how. Just hold the Home button down, and press the top button (the one that turns it on and off). You'll hear a faint clicking like the sound a camera shutter makes and the screen will flash; then go to your Photos, and your screen shot will be there.

If you're in the US, you're probably getting a little tired of hearing about how this poll or that one says that one candidate is ahead of another; don't worry, because there are only 34 days left. But there was a poll that came out a couple of months ago that said that over three-fourths of car owners think all the new technology in new automobiles is distracting and dangerous. I know when we rented a Ford Focus a couple of weeks ago, it was pretty unnerving to have this female voice say, for no reason, "Say a command" when someone touched the wrong place on the display. We only had the car for about five days, so we never did figure out what all of the buttons were for.

I'm no fan of AT&T, and I never thought I'd be saying this, but I agree with their CEO. He has more and more people supporting him, too.

Facebook is now keeping track of every search you do on the site, but they are allowing you to delete them, and they're only visible to you -- and, of course, Facebook, which will use the data to send you more specific advertising. It's also hooking up with a data consolidation company, using information about what you've purchased using account information, and throwing CRM data, notably the data collected by companies using Salesforce.

One in ten Internet users is a bot, and the Zero Access bot is pushing that number higher, and so are the bots that mimic Stuxnet. And there's always China.

Finally, if you've ever wondered about all those files that have .tmp as the extension or maybe $$ at the beginning, yes, they're normally safe to delete -- but it's probably a good idea to close down your open programs before you do so, because the files might be being used by one of them. But having them there isn't going to hurt either; it's just that they take up space and will slow your system down a bit.

In Brief

Endeavour: We're unabashed fans of NASA and the US space program, so we took a Friday off a couple of weeks ago and went to Sacramento to get a peek of the final voyage of the USS Endeavour as it flew over the city. Still, none of the photographs we shot compares to the one of the shuttle buzzing the Golden Gate (sorry about the source, Jason), and the traffic in and around Sacramento didn't compare to LA. I still have to talk to my better half about a quick trip to the Southland to watch the last 12 miles, though.

The final frontier: Kirk, Picard and Time-Warner Cable. Conspiracy theorists will say it's because Gene Roddenberry signed with Paramount.

This may not be a bad idea: Via SlashDot (thanks, Jason!), a commentary on a company that is requiring all of its employees to learn to write Javascript. That may be a bit extreme, but one of the responses was brilliant:






On the subject of images: xkcd comes through again, as do the folks who love to poke fun at Apple. Someone whose image is fading fast: Mark Zuckerberg, for a number of reasons.

A picture is worth 140 characters: Instagram use has outpaced Twitter. That says something about the culture we live in, but we're not sure exactly what it is. We also know that no tweet lasts forever.

Google Motorola scoreboard: After Apple won in Germany last week, this week it's Microsoft.

Jason's Site of the Week: goodbre.ws. We don't know why it throws "untrusted" messages when it's a secure site, but it's worth visiting.

The sound of Ma waking up: AT&T is finally beginning to get this whole Internet thingy, but don't believe the subhead. The only people AT&T shares data with are from Washington.

Not amused: That would be Apple, which asked for $700 million more than the $1.05 billion it was already awarded in its patent infrinement suit against Samsung, which asked for a new trial in the US, won a case in Germany, and is suing over the iPhone 5. Also annoyed: Apple users who bought the company line that Apple Maps weren't... flawed, and SBB, the railway operator in Switzerland, which says that Apple stole its clock. And then there are the people who get $2 a day to build iPhones.

And then there was one: A couple of weeks after EE dropped support for IE7, Google gave a big nudge to the demise of IE8, primarily because IE10 is only a few weeks away. Germany doesn't care; the government wants everyone to stop using IE altogether, at least until a bug is fixed.

Now you'll see riots: Iran has blocked Google. On the other hand, WalMart is going to stop selling the Kindle.

Pop goes the weasel: Skip this item if you don't know anything about American football. Actually, don't skip it because you probably know more than the guys who were the referees September 24. Not only did Twitter blow up (best hashtag: #touchception, which was till seeing new tweets 24 hours later) but the people who are really annoyed are in Las Vegas. Oh, and by the way, the labor dispute was settled two days later.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Chapter II, Section 4.c.1. No bacon (thanks, Susan!). Donut squatting. $2 a day in wages. It's b-a-a-a-a-c-k, with a video.

Milestones

New Geniuses: rorya has earned his third Genius certificate, in Visual Basic, while imnorie earned his first, in Excel. Very well done!

My First Million: Members who reached the 1,000,000 point level in September were GaryC123, Michael-Best, cpkilekofp, Tiggerito, Joe_Woodhouse and JamesBurger. Congratulations to all!

Milestones:

• CodeCruiser has earned 11,000,000 points since joining Experts Exchange.
• alanhardisty reached the 9,000,000 point level overall.
• RobWill has earned 2,000,000 points in each of three topic areas: SBS, VPN and Miscellaneous Networking.
• ScottPletcher has earned 6,000,000 points since joining EE.