Caching Cachet

What do you call game that gets a nerd out of his cave and whacking the bushes with nature-loving technophobes? Iron Nail Nirvana? Yes, but another name for it is Geocaching.

The first attraction of the game is that it gives us all that long-sought excuse to go out and buy a GPS unit. "GPS" stands for Global Positioning System. It's a collection of satellites - currently 27 of them - that orbit about 12,000 miles above the earth transmitting ranging signals, but the acronym is also used for an increasingly inexpensive hand-held device that tells you very precisely where you are, down to 10 or 20 feet, by interpreting the satellites' signals.

Now, what's the fun in that? Well, for the nerds, it's great fun to be able to give their precise longitude and latitude to anyone who should make the mistake of asking their whereabouts. But for all of us, there is Geocaching.

"Cache" is one of those boundary-crossing terms that brings us all together. To computer programmers, a cache is a store of data tucked away in memory where it can be quickly retrieved. But outdoor-types might think, instead, of a hiding place for food and provisions in the wilderness. To both, it is a place where something is kept until you have a need for it.

Geocaching in a nutshell: People hide things in caches all over the world. They publish the precise coordinates of the things on the web. Other people use GPS units to find the caches. A few simple rules make it a bit more interesting:

1. Take something from the cache
2. Leave something in the cache
3. Write about it in the logbook

Hopefully, a) the person placing the cache puts it somewhere interesting in its own right, and b) they leave something in the cache that is at least mildly entertaining. But most of the time this is, primarily, one of those getting-there-is-its-own-reward kinds of things.

If you're like the Iron Nail family (one 10-penny, one 8-penny, and a tack), some Saturday morning after breakfast, you will all sit down in front of the computer, navigate to http://www.geocaching.com, and pick a cache in a place you would like to go. You can start by providing a zip code of the general vicinity, or even a country, if you have a private jet. (Note to self: future column?)

In my experience, not all the caches have logbooks, but I definitely like most the ones that do. The logbook provides a little history of what was originally left, who has been there, what they left, and what they took. (Finding out what has been in the cache in the past sometimes makes you wish you had gotten there sooner.) The logbook may also give you coordinates to other, unpublished caches.

The web site is a great guide for obtaining information about things like:

• Different kinds of GPS devices, how much they cost ($100 - $1,000+), where to get them, and how to use them
• Where the published caches are
• How to prepare your own cache
• What kinds of things you should/shouldn't put in a cache
• Where you should/shouldn't store a cache
• An on-line form for publishing the location of your own cache
• Etc.

There are lots of variations on the game, such as leaving a "hitchhiker" item that has instructions about its ultimate destination. You take the item if you can move it to a cache closer to the destination. Hitchhikers have traveled all over the world this way.

If you're a nerd, get out of the house. If you're a Luddite, get over it. Hey, if you have fun, don't thank me. Just send cache.

T.I.N.

Open, Sesame!

In case you were wondering, The Iron Nail broke his brain trying to provide a clear and concise description of home entertainment center setup, and was checked into a psychiatric rehabilitation facility for several months. He emerges from his psychotropic stupor, however, with renewed energy, and a regained sense of optimism that there are some technologies of great potential benefit to the masses that many people haven't yet grasped.

Which brings us to passwords. Do you have trouble remembering your passwords? Have you resorted to using just one or two passwords for everything, and praying they will never be discovered? Do you laugh hysterically whenever it is suggested that you should change your passwords frequently? Do you write passwords on yellow stickies and stick them to your monitor? What about your P.I.N. numbers? credit card numbers? door entry and alarm codes? Do you wish you could manage all those private bits of information safely and easily?

Never fear, Access Manager is here. Access Manager is one of a class of software applications that might be referred to as "password safes." The general idea is that you open the program with a single, master password that you remember, don't write down, and don't tell anyone. Once inside you have the keys to the kingdom. This is the fundamental strategy that all such programs share, but Access Manager, which comes from a company in the U.K., is free, and it has some distinctive features.

For example, most people wouldn't use a long or complex password, even though its safety is directly related to its length and complexity, because the difficulty of typing it is also directly related to its length and complexity. In Access Manager, you simply click a button next to the password entry and it is copied into your computer's memory, and you may then paste it into the password field of the program or web page requesting it. Access Manager will even generate safe passwords for you, following rules that you set for it -- e.g., length, use of upper/lower case, use of numbers, use of symbols, etc.

Many web sites ask you for a response to a challenge (e.g., your mother's maiden name), so that if you lose your password they can email it back to you if you provide the proper response. The trouble is, you specified "Frisky" as your dog's name, and your dog was hit by a car, and you wanted the whole family to forget Frisky as quickly as possible, so you picked up a Frisky-look-alike from the shelter and named it "Frosty." Frisky was promptly forgotten, along with the Frisky-related password, and now you're stuck. But not if you have Access Manager, which allows you to store up to three challenge-response pairs per password.

The data you store in Access Manager is dual-encrypted. Does that make it safe? Well, if you're charged with keeping the national security secrets of even a small country, perhaps you shouldn't keep them in Access Manager. Otherwise, you can probably sleep in peace.

As is the case with many free programs, you can get more if you're willing to pay for the "professional" model -- a mere $25. With Access Manager Professional Edition, you can store its data in a shared folder on your home network and access it from any computer in the house. You can have multiple users, with each deciding which of their passwords should be shared with others or kept private. You can install the whole application and its data on a USB memory stick and put it on your key ring. You can tell Access Manager to back up its data, along with any other specific files you would like to back up, to two pre-designated locations. You can use special Access Manager utilities to encrypt, decrypt, or securely delete (i.e., completely overwrite with gobbledigook and then delete) any file on your computer.

Personally, I began using the free version a couple of years ago, when there was no professional version. I recently updated it to get some new features and discovered the professional version. I was happy to pay to support the development of this nifty little program, and happy to get the new features. It has a very sporty user interface, which takes up very little room on the screen.

So, now you can throw away those sticky notes, forget your mother-in-law's middle name, get a new cat, and use passwords like F6W5kK7mTY!

Enjoy!

T.I.N.

Input This, Part 2

In Input This, Part 1, I suggested that coming to terms with your home entertainment system is a manageable task. If you don't particularly care about audio quality, you can do just fine without the need to purchase or hook up a component system. If you like the idea of listening to everything -- music, TV, DVD's, and so on -- through the same, high-quality speakers, then the bulk of the complexity is focused on one component, which is the A/V receiver. The receiver is the heart of your system, and everything else hooks up to the receiver in a pretty straight-forward way, if you get the right receiver. A receiver is "right" for you if it is suitably powered, has connections for the components you want to watch and listen to, and fits your budget.

If you don't have a suitable A/V receiver, now, you can purchase any of a number of very capable receivers in the $300 range. Do you know about Froogle? Froogle is one of Google's spin-offs. Go to the web site, type in "A/V Receivers" (or anything else you're shopping for) into the search field, and you can explore a range of products, with product details and comparative pricing information. Once you arrive at a model you're interested in, Google its model number and you will find even more information, and more places to purchase it.

For example, one receiver listed in my Froogle search is the "Pioneer VSX-D912K." If I copy just the "VSX-D912K" part and paste it into the Google search field, there are links shown for reviews, price comparisons, and catalog entries for specific retailers. CNet is a particularly good source for buying guides, reviews, and comparative prices of home electronics. Even if you choose not to purchase on the internet, you can still do your research this way.

So, you bought it, you have it at home, sitting in its cardboard box. You can still take it back! You can still call your nephew to figure it out for you! You could do those things, but let's be brave this time and plunge ahead. You take it out of its box. The back panel can only be understood by an electronics engineer! Not so. Take a deep breath. Here are the keys:

• Sound and video travel from their point of origin through the receiver to your TV and speakers.
• Connect the outputs of devices that play sound and picture to the receiver inputs
• Connect the outputs of the receiver to your speakers and TV
• Devices that both play and record have both outputs and inputs, and the receiver has places to connect both for those specific devices

The good news is that everything is labeled. All the connections for the speakers are in one place that will be clearly labeled "Speakers." There is a section labeled "TV" or "Monitor" with "Video Out" and "Audio Out." If you chose your receiver wisely, there will be labeled sections for each of your components.

Speaker connectors are usually red and black. Audio component connectors are either red and black or red and white. Video connectors come in a variety of types. When combined in one cable with the audio connectors, they are yellow. Connect red to red, white to white, black to black, and yellow to yellow. You might also have surround speakers.

Hook up your speakers and TV first. Hooking these things up is generally straightfoward. Power up the receiver and see if you can hear AM/FM radio through the speakers. Work with one component at a time. Focus on what the receiver's manual says about hooking up that kind of component.

There are often several possibilities for the video connection. For cable TV and and satellite TV, you will have a coaxial cable coming from the wall that looks like this:

You typically use this type of cable and connector from the wall to your set top box, and from there to your VCR.

Other cables are used to connect components to the receiver, and the receiver to the TV. The most common is the "RCA" type, which may be used for video and/or audio:

Red and white are for audio, and yellow is for video. Alternatively, you may connect just the audio with RCA cables/connectors and connect the video with a higher quality "S-Video" cable:

Take it one step at a time. Hook up a component, test it to make sure it works, and move on to the next. To test, turn on the receiver, the TV, and any other component you wish to test. There will be a button on the receiver's front panel corresponding to input sources, e.g., TV, DVD, VCR. Press the button corresponding to what you want to watch and listen to. Save the remote controls for later.

The role for your nephew is to make all those remote controls manageable. As I write this, I look to the coffee table on my left, and I see five remotes. I periodically put most of them in a basket -- all but my favorite two -- but over the next couple of weeks they gradually return to the coffee table. There is one for the receiver, one for the TV, one for the VCR, one for the DVD, and one for the TiVo. Ugh!

The good news is that they now sell remote controls that can be taught about all of your components, so you control everything with one remote. But it gets better. The newest customizable remotes have touch screens, somewhat larger than a cellphone or PDA screen. Once customized, the screen shows buttons appropriate to the selected component. For example, if you select VCR, it has play, stop, fast forward, etc., without the distraction of other buttons for other devices. So, you just have to get your nephew to program the remote.

Ultimate power, after all, rests with nephews. But stick with the dream. Power to the people.

T.I.N.

Input This, Part 1

Did you enlist your nephew to hook up your home entertainment system? Do you live in fear that your VCR or your DVD player might break, and you will be forced to try to figure out how to hook up a new one? Do you buy a new home entertainment component only to have it sit in its box while you get over the setup gumption trap? Is that what's bothering you, cousin?

If it isn't, then skip this and the next T.I.N., because I want to offer advice and comfort to the troubled.

The first thing you should know is that you aren't alone. Otherwise, 12:00 wouldn't have blinked on so many VCR's for so many years, and nephews wouldn?t be so busy. The second thing to know is that if you take it one step at a time, you can do it.

"But I didn't used to need my nephew to hook things up!" you might say. "How is this considered progress?" Indeed, we used to simply connect the antenna wire (video and audio source) to the TV. For music, we listened to a table top radio, or a record player. TV's, table top radios, and record players are all-in-one devices, which makes them simple.

This way of doing things is still possible. Manufacturers have struggled to put more capability into stand-alone devices. For example, they equipped some TV's with video tape players or CD/DVD players. 'Boom boxes' can be purchased that will play almost any conceivable sound source, including MP3 digital audio from your computer.

So... why should anyone take the dive into component technology, with all its complexity?

It's all about the audio. If you don't care about getting a feeling of being in the concert hall or jazz club when you're listening to music, or hearing the low notes of a string bass or the punch of a drum, or hearing the jets fly overhead and feeling the spatial ambiance of the scene when you're watching a movie, then you should just keep it simple, and many people do. If you do care about these things, then you have to consider the limitations of these all-in-one devices:

• They have awful speakers. They are awful because they have to be small to fit in a small space, and because
• the sound amplifier is small, to avoid over-heating the surrounding components tightly packed around it. The low range of the sound spectrum requires more amplifier power and larger speakers to be reproduced.
• Even if such a device claims to be have stereo sound, the speakers are too close together to get a believable stereo effect, let alone the surround sound of a movie theater.

Modern home sound systems and home theater systems use the same amplifier and speakers for all sound sources. Buy a good amplifier and good speakers, and everything you listen to sounds good. That's the source of the appeal. It's also the source of the complexity, because everything has to be hooked together.

Adding to this complexity, we have lots of new audio and video sources to play with. In roughly historical progression, we have audio tape, cable TV, satellite TV, video tape, CD's, DVD's, DVR's (Digital Video Recorders, e.g., TiVo,) and satellite radio. When you decide to upgrade, you need to make a decision about which of these sources you want to be able to watch or listen to. Listen to speakers at the store, and pick the ones that sound good to you playing these sources, and that fit your budget.

The next step is the key to staying on the good side of your nephew: Purchase an A/V receiver that has enough power for your speakers (the manual that came with your speakers should prominently feature this information,) and that provides suitable connections for all of your sources. While you shouldn't rely on a salesperson to tell you which speakers sound the best, how much money you want to spend, or whether you really should purchase that service contract, they can tell you which receivers are suitable for your speakers, for your TV, and for the list of sources you wish to play.

Think of the A/V receiver as the Grand Central Station of your home entertainment system, switching incoming trains to different outgoing tracks. Every audio and video source goes through it, on its way to your speakers or TV screen. The incoming trains are the antennas, CATV or satellite TV cables, and players of tape and disk media. The receiver adds AM/FM radio to the list. The outgoing tracks are the speakers and TV screen. There are also 'side tracks' for these sources to get recorded, so recording devices get hooked up to it, too. With all of your sources hooked to the receiver, you control what you watch and hear by controlling the receiver.

One complication is TV channel selection: Changing channels used to be the sole province of the TV tuner, but a number of different devices can provide this function now. If you have conventional cable TV with premium channels, or digital cable, or satellite TV, you probably have a set-top box with its own remote control for switching channels. Think of this as a decoding or de-scrambling step that happens before the signal reaches the receiver.

We still have to talk about all those wires, and where they go, and we'll do that in the next column. We'll also discuss the problem that arises from the fact that virtually every one of these components -- the audio and video sources, the receiver, the recorders, and the TV -- has its own remote control. Once everything is hooked up, the real power rests with those who master all those remotes, right? Not necessarily!

Power to the people.

T.I.N.

NEXT WEEK: Cables, connections, remote controls, and making best use of your nephew.

Tech-annoyance

I love technology. In literary terms, I phile techno. But it is not an unconditional love.

One condition I have is that to receive my love, technology must not be annoying. I occasionally run across a technology that is annoying, and I want it to be gone from my sight and my consciousness as quickly as its two little techno-legs will carry it.

For instance, cell towers that look like trees. At least their creators think they look like trees, or maybe they think we'll be extremely grateful because they tried so hard to make them look like trees. Driving east from Gardner on Route 2, one cannot avoid looking at a cell tower that, were I forced at gunpoint to find its resemblance to a tree, I would have to compare to a giant sequoia. It is, indeed, in the midst of a lot of other trees, none of which have the vaguest resemblance to giant sequoias, or even little baby sequoias. I say that until scientists, through the magic of genetic engineering, are able to grow forests of trees that look like cell towers, Verizon et al need to find another solution. That is, if we have to have cell phones.

My feelings about cell phones are... ambiguous. They bat their little cellular eyes at me, and, I confess, my heart races a bit. But whenever I see, or worse hear someone using a cell phone, I instantly find that person less attractive. The person who sits close to me at work who has a different ring tone for every person she knows, who knows lots of people, and whose most frequent caller has the honor of announcing his cellular presence with a perfect rendition of a 1950's phone with an actual bell and clanger inside of it, has severely hampered my aural satisfaction with living.

Technology can be just plain silly. Take, for example, those machines at checkout counters that you're supposed to use to sign your name for a credit purchase. The pen is as fat as a cigar, anchored at one end by a stiff wire that has three and a half twists in it, which serves to discourage the pen from pointing at the glass pad where you're supposed to sign. When finally you coax it into approximately the right orientation, you discover that there is no place to rest your hand while you sign. That forces you to sign by using your entire arm, most of which is extremely unaccustomed to being in use during the signing experience. It is then you realize that under no other circumstances have you ever signed a piece of glass. When you finally sign it, and tilt your head so you can see the result without the glare of the overhead fluorescents, you are unsurprised to discover it looks nothing at all like your signature, and that the use of your shoulder muscles rendered it approximately four times its usual size.

The entire signing experience makes you feel silly, but the really silly part comes next. The clerk picks up your credit card, looks at its signature, carefully compares it with your just-completed random scribble, smiles, nods his head, and hands it back to you just as if it were a perfect match. It took lots of training at the Massachusetts Institute of Silly Technology to perfect that performance, and you at least have to respect that.

President Bush's least favorite technology, I'm told, is the teleprompter. Now, I don't agree with George on every little matter, but I admit to resonating with this particular opinion. For George, the durn thing goes too fast, or too slow, or sometimes has words that are hard to pronounce. The strain of trying to stay up with the scrolling text on the teleprompter sometimes makes him go a little cross-eyed. For me, as a witness to the resulting performance, I find it difficult to stay attentive to the message of a cross-eyed person giving a speech, whose eyes when not crossed seem to be looking at my forehead, but maybe that's just me. At least, I don't seem to be in the majority.

Some of the most mundane technologies are the most annoying, particularly those that you encounter on a daily basis. For example, product packaging. You would think they would have cereal boxes down pat, by now. Every time I open a new box of MiniWheats, I work my way through a box that was designed to be easy to open and re-sealable, only to discover a space age material inside that cannot be opened by human hands, and once opened will never again discourage a wayward weevil.

And, if you're able to overcome your resistance to taking out a second mortgage to buy a new razor, which has at least one or two more blades than you actually need, how do you feel about trying to free it from a square foot of packaging made out of Space Age Material #2? I try to keep track of my wife's garden snippers just for these occasions.

Which brings us to my least favorite packaging technology, and may a special place in the HereUnder be reserved for the inventors of CD packaging. You are first required to unwrap the CD box from a material that appears to be cellophane, but is actually Space Age Material #3. When you finally get that off, you are confronted with little sticky strips which cover all the edges, and which are absolutely impossible to remove in one piece. They come off in little 1/8" strips, and as each comes off it sticks to you in a way that only my cat could enjoy. Finally, you have to figure just the right way to hold the box to actually get it open, and just the right way to grab the disc -- only by the edges, of course -- to pry it loose from the box.

And the recording industry wonders why kids are copying music over the internet?

As for those little stickers on fruit... don't even get me started.

Power to the people.

T.I.N.