Higher-Tech Coming To Motorcycles. Honda DN-01

You can say there is technology in just about anything built in the last few decades, but where is the line drawn between basic technology and high technology. I would say, if there is something new, something different, something not so understood, then chances are that suits the high-tech label. Although you might look at Honda's new DN-01 and notice that it's futuristic in design, that in itself does not make for high-tech. What lies beneath may.

I like to write about all things tech, and since I'm a motorcyclist, it falls into place that I would write about this bike. I'll get to the tech in a moment, but I'll preface it by saying that I do know motorcyclists and I have a general idea of how this bike will fare. Many bikers are in cliques. You'll see Harley groups, Cruiser groups (that may include Harleys and others), you'll even see a few groups (like one I belong to) that allow any bike. But even within those mixed groups, there are very specific type riders, and a great majority are pretty set in their style of ride. Sportbikers are the most specific. They might own a Ducati, or VFR or GSXR etc. They know their bikes and have very specific criteria for them. Powerful, good looking, fast in the turns, and perhaps the right exhaust note. Cruiser types like the laid back bike with good looks, likely a chunky V-Twin engine with even more emphasis on the exhaust note. Harley even took steps to patent their exhaust sound several years back.

Hard-core bikers, or "purists" will likely not accept the new Honda DN-01. After all, its not really a motorcycle to many of them. Besides not fitting in any one category, its slightly overweight and slightly underpowered. The 600lb bike being pushed by a 61hp engine will get the added benefit of the CVT (continuously variable transmission) transmission that will keep the engine in the torque band longer than a traditional shift engine.

The new radical designed bike is here on my Tech blog because of what it is, and in my opinion, it will pave the road for whats to come. Lets start with the basics. First of all, yes it looks like a fast futuristic bike right? Look again. There are no foot pegs, but rather a floor board like a big cruiser bike might have. Look at the handlebars. They are pulled way back, so the rider actually sits with his/her feet partially in front of the hands meaning you are on a cruiser bike. What lies beneath is a basic fuel-injected 680cc V-Twin engine, but it's mated to a very new CVT. This means no clutch.

A very high-tech and ingenious design allows hydraulic fluid to adjust the output gear ratio. It's brilliant, compact, eliminates clutch work, and is more reliable and efficient than slipping belts in pulleys as in most scooters.

1. The engine cranks a pump that turns both the drive shaft and a tilted metal disk [A].
2. As the disk spins, it depresses a circular set of pistons [B] around the shaft.
3. The pistons eject high-pressure fluid that travels through a chamber [C] and pushes out a second set of pistons [D].
4. Those pistons press a second tilted disk [E], causing it to spin and transmit extra torque (leverage) to the drive shaft.
5. A motor (on the top) adjusts the angle of the second disk . A lot of tilt provides the high torque found in low gear [F]. Less tilt offers lower torque but more speed, like a high gear.

One potential problem for Honda is overall value. At roughly $15,000, the DN-01 won't sell like Tickle me Elmo dolls, but my point for highlighting this bike is for the technology and what it means for future bikes. It's not the first automatic on a motorcycle, but it just might be the best design, and one that actually becomes desirable. I believe there is a market for such a bike, and although this is a great first effort, I don't expect Honda to make much money on it. They might not even expect it. Consider it part of R&D. They might be thinking: 'Lets see how the people respond, and see how this new CVT holds up.'
As for who will buy the DN-01, that doesn't specifically fall into any category, I think scooter shoppers with decent income that simply want the larger stability of a motorcycle will be one group. Perhaps long time bikers that don't care about cliques, and much less about using a clutch after so many years. Lets not forget the middle-aged men contemplating dumping the Camry for a Porsche, but only have the money for a new Camry.

I love tradition, but I love change. I welcome this bike even if it doesn't last. Honda is a successful company and I think it's because the are willing to take chances.

I'm hoping this Ev0-6 is next.

Cleaning Up Gmail

Not Perfect Is Gmail
**UPDATE GMAIL HAS SINCE INCLUDED AN OPTION IN SETTINGS ENABLING FORCED HTTPS:**
Like most, you might thing Gmail is the best web based email out there, and I would have to agree. Google does things a certain way that just work. Well, for the most part. With the ever-increasing usage of notebook/laptop computers (yes more are sold than desktop systems for consumer use now) the idea of security should be on many minds. Public WiFi can be handy, but its a perfect place for your computer to be compromised. As you enter a public WiFi zone, you are basically joining a local network of few or many.

What I'm getting at is secure internet browsing. If you go to either www.yahoomail.com or www.mail.yahoo.com, you are immediately re-directed to https://mail.yahoo.com. Notice its "https" and not "http".

Https is "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol" with an added dash of "s", or Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol primarily developed for secure and safe Internet connections common in banking or any place where private data is exchanged.

The problem with Gmail is that you are not directed to "https", but rather just "http" which is unsecure. The good news is, you can force the issue by typing it in. If you are in Google and simply hit the gmail link, you will get an unsecure gmail. For that reason my tip is as follows:

Enter a secure page by typing: https//mail.google.com and once in, verify that you are in a https page. Then drag the url to your quick start bar, or desktop for easy access. Luckily, if you have the lastest gmail notifier for Mac you will be directed towards a secure page automatically. Unfortunately, the Windows version does not.

Log Out Before Closing Gmail
The authentication cookies will still be set for the google domain. If you navigate to any other area of Google after logging into secure Gmail, your session information will be spilled for any WiFi sniffer to access. This likely includes sites with adsense.

So, to safely use Gmail:

1. Close all other browser tabs and windows before opening your secure Gmail
2. Don't click email URLs or navigate to other sites while Gmail is still open
3. Sing off before continuing to browse the web
   

Don't be paranoid, in 99.9% of the time, you won't be sniffed, but there is always that .1%. If you frequent Starbucks, or use your computer at a University's WiFi, take these small precautions to keep your private data private!

What to wait for in Digital Cameras

It's always amazing how technology changes from year to year. You find something great, and its obsolete in a matter of a few years. Some improvements are well worth the wait and others, perhaps not. In the world of Digital Cameras, as time goes on, we get more and more resolution in the way of megapixels. Although once you have reached 6mp or more, the amateur or recreational shooter should be satisfied with all but large, enlarged pictures. 6mp is more than we need for 95% of our regular shots, but for those interested in high-detail and/or large print-outs, its best to shop for 10+ megapixels. Much of this is not news and that alone is not worthy of a blog late in 2008. I want to address features you should look out for in your next purchase. Goodies that might make your world of photography just a little better than before.

One great feature is the inclusion of WiFi. WiFi built into a camera will allow a traveler to simply find a hot-spot and upload the data to a web-based picture hosting site such as Flickr or Picasa. One such camera doing just this is the Lumix DMC-TZ50. Panasonic, which makes the Lumix line, has struck a deal with T-Mobile for use of their HotSpots for use with these camera's and it seems this is just one of those features you didn't crave, but will likely not want to be without once you've used it. Of course any WiFi connection will do.

You may also look forward to full frame sensors that actually take advantage of the entire lens and capture the same field as 35mm film, so when you look through, say, a 50mm lens, you get the same as you would on a film camera, not to mention the benefits of a larger area to fit in all those mega-pixels. The Sony camera pictured above is a new Pro level 24.6MP full-frame DSLR.

Another great technology making its way into Digital Cameras is GPS. Imagine shooting pictures anywhere in the world and your camera stores metadata in each picture (Geo-Tagging) including time, date, and exact GPS coordinates for that particular shot. There are already some high-end cameras with this technology and there is even at least one company ( Jobo ) www.jobo.com/web/Photo-GPS.221.0.html that will allow you to add it to an existing camera.

The consumer digital revolution in photography from film, is complete, but digital evolution will always be.

When You Just Want Your Shit To Work!

**Please read end for problem resolution***
I'll admit, I'm lazy, but technology fascinates me to no end. I'll get to the lazy part in a bit, but I simply have to know how everything works, and when I do, I then need a new challenge. I know more than 99% of the human populous about PC's, XP, Vista and, well... even 2000, 3.0, 3.1x and even DOS. Now my latest quest as of this year is all things Apple.

Six months ago, I didn't so much as own an iPod. Yes, I had MP3 players, but just not an Apple product. Today, nearing the end of 2008, I own (in this order) an Ipod Nano, 24" iMac, MacBook, (had an iPhone for 10 days but sent it back because ATT's calls had more drops than Murine and Visine put together) and now my latest acquisition is the iPod Touch. Regessing a moment, if T-Mobile had iPhones, I'd be on that faster than Jerry Yang would say YES to another Microsoft offer.

Getting back to my iPod Touch, I'll tell you why I posted this blog, and why that title. I mentioned I have a Nano, and although its only 8gb, it actually does everything I need, only the screen is too small for my taste. Enter Touch. If you are a loyal Apple user, you know all about things working. Even though Apple's OS X is not perfect, the small shortcomings are not near annoying enough to move back to any PC, for me, and likely for most of you. That being said, my iPod Touch should work at least as well as my Nano no? It does what it does pretty well, but what it doesn't do is play my synced video podcasts. I get audio with a frozen screen where video should be. Same sync to Nano yeilds perfect video, albeit tiny in comparison.

Yes, I'm a tech, and yes there is likey a solution, but the "Genius" at the apple store told me to force the settings on all videos in the individual settings so it sees it as a video. Now, lets get this straight: My 8gb $199 Nano knows how to distinguish everything perfectly, but my $499.00 Touch can't figure it out? As I opened this Blog, I've admitted that I'm lazy. Especially when I need to dedicate a fair amount of time getting Album Art for about 10% of my music library which is a complete time bandit if ever there was one.

I have a strange way about me sometimes. If I can't correct this easily, I might just throw in the towel and return the Touch and go back to my trusty, true, and tiny Nano. Surely there are many other ways I can spend $500.00. What can I say? I just want my shit to work!

***Problem Solved***
Well, lets just chalk this up to slightly bad ergonomics of the unit and lack of logical thinking when I needed it. The unit works, and does so very well, but here is where I went wrong, and where Apple can make a bit of an adjustment.

Going into 'Music' on the iPod Touch, there is a section for Podcasts. Although Podcasts are not music, this is the buttons name. I guess Audio is not sexy enough. This Music button is where I kept going into to find my grand list of Podcasts, audio and video. They are all in there. When I select an audio Podcast, it works fine. When I select a video Podcast, I'd get only the audio portion with the begining image of the video frozen on screen. For this reason, I never looked elsewhere to make it work.

The resolution is, in order to see those video Podcasts, you need to go to Video from the main screen. When I did this, I had a list of my downloaded videos, but when I scroll down, beneith the downloaded videos, there is a section called Podcasts. There, again, are the listings of all the Video Podcasts, only now, from this section, they simply work.

Why apple allows these videos to be indexed in the audio section of 'Podcasts' is beyond me. The Touch is a great and powerful unit, but a bit more thought could be put into the clear seperation of video and audio PodCasts. I say, just have a completely seperate Podcast main button, and seperate Audio and Video folders within. Then even a linear thinking logical person such as myself can operate the entire unit without the hand holding of instructions.

Microsoft Live Want's More Of Google's Pie

As Microsoft aims its sights in directions other than desktop software, it's clear to them that the web is where longevity lies. They are going after Google in the ever important search market with Windows Live, and apparently making a lot strides, technically speaking. The challenges Microsoft have are not only Google's dominance, but also their universal appeal and the fact that Microsoft's reputation will be hard to shake. It's a bit like the school bully that has taken your lunch money since the 2nd grade now want's to sit at your table and trade a cupcake for Twinkies. Microsoft will have to work extra hard and do things much better than Google, in my opinion, to make a dent in that market. Good thing for Microsoft, they have a few dollars in the bank. Even capturing 1/3 of that market means huge cash flow, but like all else Microsoft, they are not striving for just 33%


There are of course some Microsoft hard-core loyalists that bow to Gates and anything he puts forth, but Google has positioned themselves as the Goliath in search and done it in the "awe shucks", "little engine that could" way, and as we all know, the word Google is as much a verb as it is a noun. You may have found this blog by "Googling" it.

Microsoft is a company that still feels like daddy wont let us grow up, they still want to tell us what to do and we are just all trying to be independent now that we're grown. If Microsoft were really smart, they would spin off a new division that was less Microsoft-like. You know, stuffy, tie-wearing big brother looking and just be young and cool, hip, and fun. That approach never hurt Apple, in fact they thrive on it. It's hard to forget, there was a day that to do any type of computing, we all had to toss our coins in the Microsoft toll-booth and that has created a few hard-core rebels that are grown, out of the house, and don't want to talk to daddy anymore.

I suspect most people will go about their online day, doing what they are used to doing, searching the way they usually search, and if Microsoft has something really special, they might give a looksie, but Google is a comfortable shoe for most, and they are no doubt kicking back doing nothing.

The Web 2.0 will march on, with or without Microsoft at the ships helm.

Jim Alden
TechFrog,

Free International Text Messaging **UPDATE AT END**

Ever want to text your best friend across the world but the costs are crazy-stupid? There are a slew of sites claiming free texts, but its never true and who wants to pay mobile companies those crazy fee's for each text. I found a successful and VERY easy way to do this, but the only catch is, you can only select one person at a time to text unless you don't need privacy.

Here is what you do (do the very same for both accounts).

1. Set up a free www.twitter.com account and have your long distance buddy do the same. If you already tweet on twitter, create another account just for this purpose.

2. Set yourself to follow your friend and have them do the same for you.

3. Go in settings and select Protect My Updates, so your messages wont be available to the rest of the world.

4. Select the link Add Device from the home page to add your mobile phone (follow directions on page to get your mobile set up and verified) Make sure Notifications is set to "On"

5. Both of you each click on the link "Following" and where your friend's name is, select "On" for Notifications

6. You can label the code twitter gives you in your phone directory as "Twitter" Now, every time you send any text message to Twitter in your phone, you are actually uploading to twitter that you have set to be a private account, and only your friend will have access. Since your friend has notifications setup as you do, he/she gets the posting as a text message.

Now either of you can send or receive from the Web or your Phone's text messaging.

The end result is, instant free messages from one place in the world to another for free on your phone. Of course, if you don't have a text plan, your personal text messaging rates will apply, but even in that case, its the local rate, not an international rate.

If you are curious, I use it, it's instant, looks like a text, acts like a text, and guess what, its a text! Thanks Twitter!!!
**UPDATE Nov, 2008. The cost of text access for some UK providers has now made this technique no longer work. I, for one, had a good run of it for about a year. We'll see what the future holds**

The Great PC vs. Apple Debate

Welcome to my first ever blog! Although I haven't a single subscriber of yet, I will explain some basic differences between the old common PC and Apple computers for the home or office.

I have been working with computers since I was a kid and took my Atari, then Commodore computers apart, programmed them, experimented and took them to the limits. I was there when the first Apple computer hit the market, then the first 286 Intel PC's with mind-blowing DOS as an operating system. As easy as it is to go down the nostalgic path, talking computer history, my main goal on this blog is to get people up to speed for today's world.

Although it's a PC world, for the most part, let us not forget Apple was the first to pave the way for the Personal Computer to get in the homes of the average person. Just as Ford didn't invent the car, he created the means of making it feasible to have one with the assembly line.

Its amazing how people become brand loyal. Although the PC is not a brand, Microsoft that pretty much owns the PC software market can be considered a "brand" as a whole. You have PC on one side, and Apple's Mac (iMac Macbook etc) on the other. Like a Chevy pickup owner somewhere in Oklahoma proudly driving around never even thinking about being caught in a Ford and vise-versa, there are simply many PC owners that can't ever think of buying a Mac. What goes without saying, Mac owners are probably the most brand-loyal of all. Once Apple has you, you're in a sacred club. They like that some people just don't get them. Afterall, PC's are a better deal right?

Here is where I will draw some comparisons, and explain why in some situations you might consider a Mac over a PC. Many tech's or geeks may agree or disagree, but my point is to share my experience and knowledge with those who are a bit confused by it all.

Although I have my personal opinions on the practices of Microsoft, I think overall, they have done much more good than bad, so I wont get into either praising or bashing any company in this blog, but rather stick to the fundamental point of usage and usability.

Find your needs. If you have specific needs, like, lets say you are a film editor in training. Then you probably know, the majority of good software in that field is written for the Mac, so first thing is identify your needs for a computer. If you are like most people who use a computer for home such as basic web browsing, email, chat, picture organization etc, I would give the Mac the edge. The ease of use to me offsets the problems that can arise in the Windows environment. The fact that Microsoft will stop creating upgrades to XP worries some, as for most people, XP is simply a better OS than Vista. Windows is becoming old, and since they have to support so many manufactures PC's and peripherals, it seems a daunting task to keep up. I personally have a scanner and few pieces of software that is still not supported under Vista, and its enough to keep my XP desktop system as my main system in my home office. There has been a recent cry out to Microsoft to keep XP alive, and everyone withing eye-shot of this blog should help in the cry. Vista has not done what Microsoft envisioned and expected when released, so until there is a resurrection of XP, I don't know that I , and I'm sure many others, will feel as warm and fuzzy about Microsoft since as back in the day when Windows 95 hit the streets (hallelujah Mr. Gates, what a fine product!)

Now its 2008 and as Microsoft is twirling their thumbs saying "what do we do now, what do we do?" We all have to wonder if all they have left is to gobble up companies for the long run (like their bid for Yahoo).

Getting back on track here, there are instances where I would still recommend a PC. That is for most office environments, the PC is overwhelmingly supported by large and small software companies, and introducing MAC's into that environment can prove frustrating. This, of course, excludes Mac ready business types that do not rely on specific PC only software.

To sum it up, at home, I recommend going Mac. For most office environments, I recommend PC.

If you are happy with your PC at home ( as I am ) then stay tuned to my blogs, and I will make sure you know how to keep your system running smoothly and, for the most part, all with free software. If you do decide to move to Mac, transferring your data might be easier than you think. Things like photos, documents, spreadsheets and even Qucken / Quickbooks data can be easily transfered.

In future blogs, I will address: When is the right time to replace your computer(s). Sometimes they are not worth putting money into, other times, a few dollars will go a long way.

See ya next time.... (((UPDATE JULY 4th 2008, I've switched to MAC for home. iMac and MacBook. Happy as a clam)))