Computers and Information

Since you’re a computer guru, can you give me some free advice?

I certainly can. I even wrote an essay on the subject.

What are your thoughts Windows vs. the Apple Macintosh?

Overall, my advice is don’t get religious about computers, particularly operating systems (“OSs”). Please see my essay on this subject.

What wrong with e-mail packages?

The two most powerful e-mail packages are Microsoft Outlook and Qualcomm’s Eudora. Neither one takes into account how most people process their messages and how they manage their workflow. Both need substantial improvement, as explained in my essay.

How would you improve the Internet?

I wrote an essay on this subject.

What are your thoughts about publicly-funded research being available to the public?

 

[To be added.]

(As of 2004, there is a proposal to remove all copyright protection for publicly-funded research.)

[Universities providing their curriculum on-line, as MIT does]

 

What would you do about spam?

First, we need to ask ourselves, “What is spam?” Spam is simply e-mail that none or almost none of the recipients want to receive. Almost all spam is commercial spam — i.e., e-mail that is trying to sell you a product or service, in exchange for money, either in the e-mail itself or by convincing you to go to a Web site. I wrote one of the most comprehensive essays on spam and what to do about it.

What about pornography on the Internet?

I have no judgments about the morality or immorality of pornography, its legality or illegality of pornography, or whether pornography should be legal or illegal. Rather, I have specific ideas about how to handle pornorgraphy on the Internet.

What do you think of software patents?

Issuing patents for software algorithms is a bad, bad idea. As a former software engineer, I know first hand how every software advance is a small incremental step, based on the work of thousands of others. Large companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle spend tens of millions of dollar a year obtaining software patents solely for defensive reasons — i.e., when someone claims they are violating a software patent, they look closely at the complainer’s source code and point out how the alleger is violating a dozen of THEIR patents. It’s an absurd system. The U.S. Patent Office is clueless in deciding whether to issue a patent, since the patent examiners are rarely software engineers (and if there are, clearly not good software engineers), and thus they often grant patents to ideas that software engineers knew about decades before. If I were running the patent office, I would not issue any software patents and I would retroactively rescind all patents issued for software. Copyright and licenses provide more than enough protection for software publishers.

What would you do about Microsoft?

How to intelligently regulate Microsoft is one of my favorite topics; my analysis is contained in this essay.

Is Bill Gates as brilliant as everyone says he is?

He’s actually smarter. [To be added.]

How involved are you in administering your own computer systems (and the computer systems owned by companies you purchase)?

I break down thinking about computers into six categories:

  1. Understanding the technology — the fundamentals of computer hardware and architect and of software design and programming
  2. Understanding the industry — who is doing what to whom, long-term implications of decisions made by the various players, how various software/platform ecosystems will evolve, the implications of Microsoft’s dominance
  3. Hardware and software package selection — What makes the most sense to purchase, given 1 and 2
  4. Installation of hardware and software systems
  5. Using software systems in a sophisticated way — advanced usage of various software packages, designing and writing Visual Basic for Applications routines, designing and implementing databases using Access
  6. Maintenance of hardware and software systems (such as keeping patches up to date), troubleshooting and housekeeping tasks such as doing backups.

1, 2, 3 and 5 interest me greatly, while I have no interest in 4 and 6. Thus, I spend a lot of time thinking about how the computer industry will evolve, which hardware and software packages to purchase given the evolution that I anticipate, learning how to use Microsoft Office in an advanced way, and designing various databases I maintain. I spend no time installing software systems or maintaining patches, but rather use in-house staff or a consultant.