Derek Hatchard blogs on

Looks like the Zune is *finally* coming to Canada:

http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2008/05/06/zune-coming-to-canada.aspx

That’s good news considering I already own two of them.    I might just replace my Yahoo Music subscription with a Zune subscription.

A deadly cyclone has swept through Myanmar wiping out entire villages. Thousands of people have been confirmed dead. Many more are missing and the death toll is climbing.

Hundreds of thousands of children and families are affected and in need of food, safe water and shelter. It’s impossible to estimate the full extent of the devastation at this time.

World Vision relief teams are on the scene in the worst hit areas, helping suffering children and families.

World Vision has been working in Myanmar for more than 40 years. Today, liaising with the Myanmar government, our relief teams have begun to distribute emergency supplies such as food, water, shelter, cooking utensils, blankets and more.

http://www.worldvision.ca/give-a-gift/Pages/PowerfulCycloneHitsMyanmar376.aspx

If you are sitting somewhere warm and safe reading this, take a moment to donate something.  We are insanely privileged.

This stings a little:

85% Geek

From last year, a great TED Talk by Jonathan Harris showing ways he is visualizing data from the web that tells our individual and collective stories:

Clay Shirky says, "Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat."

Mass media masks the cognitive surplus afforded us by the industrial revolution.

A nice parody of the MacBook Air commercials starring the Lenovo X300.  From the little bit of exposure I’ve had to the Air, I’m not a big fan of it.  But I’m also not a Lenovo fan.  Although they are very well constructed and the various models have attractive options, I’ve just never liked how they feel.

I definitely spend too much time thinking about laptops…. 

A funny little time waster for your Friday afternoon:

"The experiment found that out of 576 people questioned this year, 21% were quite happy to reveal their passwords in exchange for candy."

The problem with that quote (and the story it comes from) is it characterizes 120 people as complete buffoons with less self-restraint than a 3-year old.

The byline for the story states that a "study finds more than one in five people easily duped into revealing their passwords for a sweet treat."  Now, from my understanding, there is a touch more social engineering going on than this.  Researchers approach commuters in a transit station and ask a number of questions like how many passwords they have to remember and whether they use things like pets, family members, or sports teams for inspiration.

No doubt it is disturbing that 1 in 5 people will so willingly give up their password, but let’s give them a little bit of credit here.  They are away from the office and on their own time.  The perceived risk level is going to be very low.  Perhaps the conversation starts out with the participant being anonymous.  Maybe after getting some answers, the researcher chats casually for a while with the participant.  Then in what might appear as an afterthought, the researcher asks for a business card so he/she can send a follow-up email.

Ask yourself how easy it would be to fall into that trap?

Giving out a password in exchange for a candy bar is idiotic.  Being duped by a smooth-talking "researcher" with a series of carefully planned survey questions (and some candy for your trouble) is not.  These types of vulnerabilities are far more indicative of failures in IT policy and user education than weak-willed workers desperate for a sugar fix.

Oh, the story that set me off is this one:  Sweet-toothed employees willing to exchange passwords for candy.  It’s a sensationalist headline to an article that spins a story intended to shock more than inform.  It makes me feel dirty linking to it, and sorry for the 120 people it mocks and demonizes.

Here’s a video of Canadian MVP and Regional Director Barry Gervin giving his Canadian hockey jersey to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

http://www.objectsharp.com/devlounge/videos/playvideo.aspx?movie=ef789e34-f309-48ab-961e-9397ced8f59e

The best part is when Steve rubs Barry’s head and says "Nice haircut."

That’s my head in the bottom-right corner from 0:10 to 0:20.   

Last week I was in Seattle for the Microsoft MVP Summit 2008.  The Canadian presence was impressive.  Although Canadians only made up about 6% of the attendees, we stood out in our red jerseys and created a bit of a buzz by giving away hockey pucks with Microsoft product logos on them.

Kudos to our fearless leader / mastermind, Sasha K., who heads up the Microsoft MVP program in Canada.  That guy deserves a raise.