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The Ringle’s DOA, the 787’s late and I want 3-factor authentication.

The past week ended with a jingle of a joke: the “Ringle“. Before I get into the details, let me say that it’s from the RIAA that approved and endorsed the name. So far, only Sony BMG and Universal have signed up for this “new” distribution method. Now for the details: it’s a ringtone and a single in one. Get it? Ring-le. It will retail for about $7 and should hit shelves by the holiday season. It’s a combination of one single, a ringtone, a remix of the single and an old track (usually from the same artist). It comes on a CD that fits in a thin slip-sleeve cover.

Cnet says “the idea is that if consumers in the digital age can download any tracks they want individually, why not let them buy singles in the store as well? It also enables stores to get involved in the ringtone phenomenon.” At this point, you should be asking yourself why the life support for what is obviously a dying format - the CD? In this age of digital everything, the first “commodity” that enjoyed a huge revolution was the audio tracks. Everywhere in Manhattan, I see those ear buds running from someone’s ears to some digital jukebox or their phone. They’re everywhere. Even the peddlers in the New York subways do their quick musical numbers in between stations with an iPod Nano or one of those digital players that look like the old Walkmans.

I understand the “bundling” idea, but why not try a new progressive approach? Offer these “Rungles” via download, or on flash drives that can easily fit in most modern cell phone, handheld game device, mp3 player, PC or laptop and even in your camera. Explore the possibilities. Using such formats, it offers the costumer much more freedom and allows for greater penetration of the media format onto all sorts of digital devices. But the RIAA (and Sony and Universal) missed out on a great opportunity. Who’s gonna pay $7 for a CD that you’ll have to rip to get the music, load on a PC to get the ringtone to then transfer to your phone. Nowadays, we do all this digitally and with so much ease! Let’s see how long this Ringle lasts - “the bastard that nobody wants to really claim”.

On the “Tech Help Desk” tip, I wanted to share this little tip from PC Magazine that comes in handy when dealing with two accounts to the same web service. If you are like me, you probably have two or more Gmail or Hotmail accounts and sometimes, or you want to access a web application’s backend as an admin and the front end as a client to see a transaction from both ends. When using Internet Explorer (that bloat), you can open different tabs and access the same site with completely different sessions.

First, close all Internet Explorer windows and launch Windows Explorer. Go to “Tools”, “Folder Options” from the menu then click the “View” tab. Check the box titled “Launch folder windows in a separate process”, then click OK. That’s it.

What this Microsoft cryptic message doesn’t say is that this choice affects Internet Explorer as well. Now you can open one Yahoo! mail account in one window and open a second account in another window.

I have to admit that i love the ease of the “username/password” system of authentication that is prevalent on the web for everything else except for my online bank transactions. Yes, there is no other time when my senses are more alert when entering a username and password into a browser then when I enter them on my bank’s home page to start my online business. In Europe, most banks have mailed or delivered to their customers some form of third-factor authentication - usually in a small form factor with a secret code that changes often, at regular intervals. RSA (a subsidiary of EMC) is one of the vendors that makes this form of multi-factor authentication possible with its SecurID solution. I actually am one of those customers that would walk to the closest branch of my bank and get my own secure id for online banking and avoid them the mailing fee. That’s how serious I am about protecting my online financials. It’s just way too easy to get duped these days.

I’m a complete civil aviation nut. I can even name the manufacturer and the model class of most civil aviation airplanes in service nowadays by just hearing the noise made by their engines as they cross overhead. That nut! So it should be no surprise that I am deeply engrossed in the saga being waged across the Atlantic between Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and Airbus Industrie’s A380 Airbus. Now comes news that the test flight of Boeing’s 787 will be delayed till December due to “uncompleted work by suppliers, delays in programming the flight control software and a shortage of bolts”, which means an even shorter test flight period. But Boeing says that it will deliver the first plane on time in May 2008 and that it should not impact its financials. Blah, blah, blah. The A380 is doing ego test flights all over the world for final certification! There are even banner ads on the web with flash countdowns till the first flight of the A380 with Singapore Airlines! Come on Boeing, time to tighten those bolts and get the Dream out.

Still on the airplane tip, seems that Delta and Alaska Airlines are pioneering new flight navigation systems using the widely available GPS grid to allow for more efficient departures and landings in crowded airports. The whole thing involved equipping their planes with GPS devices that allow them to know the plane’s exact location with far much greater precision that the old beacon system that is in use today. Instead of mental maps that pilots have to plot in their brains while navigating from marker to marker, with the new system, it’s an LCD display with the plane’s position clearly marked among the surrounding topography. Now instead of 1,000 feet and 2 mile visibly restriction at Anchorage for landings in cloudy conditions, it’s down to less then 600 feet and less then 1 mile, which translates in less planes delayed and less ripples in the system.

With the FAA urging airlines to shrink their schedules in order to reduce delays and increased on-time arrivals, according to Forbes Magazine, “the airline industry’s on-time performance in the first seven months of 2007 was its worst since comparable data began being collected in 1995, according to government data. U.S. carriers reported an on-time arrival rate of 69.8 percent in July, the most recent statistics available, down from 73.7 percent a year ago, according to the Department of Transportation.”

Time to let the technology be put to good use in the consumer realm and start re-invigorating a stalwart aviation industry. With space tourism just around the corner, is that what i have to look forward to by the time travelling to the moon will become as common as travelling to Washington DC?

Read this title recently: “Facebook now ranked 3rd in Page Views; MySpace down nearly 20%”. I’m somewhat giggling inside! If you know me personally, you know that I don’t get the “MySpace” phenomenon. Never signed up. I’ve been brainwashed by friends and business associates to join. No thank you. I oh so so vary rarely use it. I don’t get it. The interface alone allows for people to create those horrible mess of web pages that seem to flow from a bad personal site, circa 1996, template. Ning and other copycats are doing rings around Pad Thai Space, and plenty open-source applications available now let you create your own BybySpace-like social network communities with so much more engaging widgets and more pleasing and readable layouts.

The NASA rovers on Mars are celebrating 4 years of “life” on another planet. Yeah, just in case they’re not in the limelight anymore doesn’t mean that they’ve stopped being special. Four years, with Opportunity having survived the worst dust storm it encountered so far and Spirit, though hobbled and dragging one inoperative wheel, also is back on the job on the other side of the planet. They were supposed to last 3 months. Similar odds for a human colony on the Red Planet would be phenomenal.

On a Google tip, Google Earth now can peer outward into the universe. I have to admit, this is one of the Google products that I have seen and used on other people’s computers but never downloaded or installed on any of my machines. Now that I can look out and planet hop, I am definitely inclined to give Google Earth/Sky a chance.

I wanted to end this by sharing a project that I am planning to implement shortly. I have a couple business partners to whom I outsource work in different parts of the country. For a while now, we’ve been talking about implementing a remote customer support operation where at nighttime when people are at home, they can access an online service and have a technician remotely diagnose and service their computers. Clients would book time and pay for a base service online in advance and then the technician assigned to that job would log on, have the client download a small utility program allowing for a one-time agreed live access to control the client’s computer. While sitting in front of the computer, the client can see every step of the work done and at any time, cancel the remote control.

I figured that starting small with a couple of guys in key markets, mostly computer technicians with free time on their hands in the evening after work, even through the night, would be a good extra source of income for all parties involved. Employees could even schedule the blocks of hours they are available for each day in advance and even log on to see if there are any jobs waiting on a queue that can be addressed immediately.

Any insights into such a venture would be greatly appreciated and anyone interested, please leave me a post here for further contact.

Support.com and LogMeIn Free are templates of what I am shooting for but starting with a locality-based approach to the service. That’s all I’m saying on that for now. More as the venture progresses.