What We Need is an Ellis Island for the American Southwest

One of the big issues in this year's mid-term election is immigration. As usual there is a lot of bluster on both sides of the issue. But one thing that I haven't seen is a lot of ideas for actually controlling immigration in an orderly manner. Conservatives, when not jumping up and down screaming "What part of illegal don't you understand!" tend to focus on enforcement, calling for border fences and putative action against employers who hire illegal aliens. Liberals tend to focus on legalizing illegal aliens, talking about "a path to citizenship" and using the word "comprehensive" a lot. And Libertarians call for open borders.

The problem with enforcement is that it doesn't work. While it is not a particularly well known fact, president Obama has actually increased the rate of deportation of illegal aliens and auditing of businesses which hire illegals. And yet the screams of the opponents of illegal immigration have never been louder. The truth is that we'll never be able to deport 12 million illegal immigrants and until we as a nation admit that, we'll never solve our problems with immigration.

That's where the liberal "path to citizenship" comes in; whether you call it an amnesty, a pardon or whatever; an illegal would come forward, pay a large fine, and "go to the back of the line" where after a period of time they would be eligible for citizenship. While it seems like a fairly good idea to liberal ears, the major problem with it is that the average Democratic politician doesn't have the guts to actually go through with it. For example the DREAM Act which was a relatively modest version of this idea (applying only to young people with no criminal records who agreed to join the military or attend college) was proposed but will not be voted on until the Senate's lame duck session largely because Democrats were afraid of blow back in the election. With large Republican gains and possibly an outright Republican takeover of one or both houses of Congress expected in tomorrow's election, it seems unlikely that the lemmings in Congress are likely to approve any kind of comprehensive immigration reform.

In the very unlikely case that our government does grow a spine however what's wrong with the open borders policy advocated by Libertarians? Nothing really except that it removes a lot of control from the government. And Americans would fear increased competition for low-paying jobs from cheap, illegal immigrant labor. And of course it makes it easier for terrorists, drug dealers, and other assorted nogoodnicks to get into the country. The truth is that no country has truly open borders and the United States will not be the first.

So here's my idea. Politicians love to idealize the past and pander to voters who long for the "good old days." So why not reach into the past and create another Ellis Island, this time for the American Southwest.

Basically, the United States would create one or more processing centers on its border with Mexico. They would be places where potential immigrants could go, get some papers and maybe a lead on a job. They could also be searched, vaccinated, and be subject to background checks. The upside would be that the United States would know who is entering the country and would be able to track them more easily if it needed to do so. It would also eliminate the dangerous crossings of the border which have led to the death of many illegal aliens. With thousands of illegal immigrants removed from the other parts of the border, drug runners and terrorists trying to cross the border would be more likely to stand out and border enforcement would be more likely to work.

This would be a small part or of a truly comprehensive reform of our immigration system. A single processing center on our southern border would not resolve the problem of immigrants overstaying their visas. And it certainly wouldn't do a thing about the 12 million illegals who are already here. But it could resolve the emotionally charged issue of people crossing our border illegally.

Of course this is all just spitting in the wind if our politicians continue to be either gutless talkers or mendacious panderers on this issue. And the current election cycle doesn't give me much hope. But if America's politicians do ever grow up and actually fix this problem, it would help if they'd look the story of Ellis Island for inspiration.

Community's Episode Within an Episode

One of my favorite things about NBC's Community is the little jokes that it puts into the background. Last night they seem to have managed to squeeze an entire second episode into the background. Ostensibly about how the death of Pierce's mother brings all of Jeff's anxieties about his own mortality to the surface with a subplot about Britta and Annie's mutual competition and jealousy (as well as Shirley feeling left out by the two younger girls), it also includes at least six little ten to thirty second vignettes about a subplot with Abed helping a pregnant girl who goes into labor and catching a lot of grief from her hotheaded boyfriend.

1. Abed is seen in the background talking to a very agitated pregnant girl outside the study room. He touches her belly and places his head on it to listen to the baby.
   
   


2. Pregnant Girl follows Abed and grabs his arm as she looks around nervously while Britta in the foreground explains that the current Gulf oil spill is worse than 15 Exxon Valdez spills. When they are joined by a redheaded dude, the pregnant girl places herself in between Abed and the dude as some students laugh at Britta when one of them points out that "Nobody is on the other side of this issue."
   
   


3. Redheaded Dude takes issue with something that Abed says. He shoves Pregnant Girl out of the way, knocks a Slurpee out of Abed's hands and pushes him. Pregnant Girl grabs her belly and doesn't look well. Redheaded Dude tries to start a fight but Abed runs off. Pregnant Girl throws up a hand in disgust. All of this is going on behind Annie while she's talking about Pelicans.
   


4. Abed is sitting in the cafeteria talking to Pregnant Girl and Redheaded Dude as Ian joins Jeff for lunch in for foreground. Redheaded Dude shows some pretty angry body language. He gets up and tries to storm off but Pregnant Girl begins to have contractions. Abed and Redheaded Dude (the baby's father?) both help her limp away. She's clearly in labor at this point.
   
   


5. Pregnant Girl is seen behind an angry Shirley giving birth in a van. Abed has his back turned but it's clearly him assisting in the birth. Redheaded Dude is holding Pregnant Girl's hand.
   
   


6. Girl and Redheaded Dude are seen behind Shirley holding a new-born baby as Shirley asks Abed about his day.
   
   

The End of XMarks

Today Marks announced that they will be closing their doors soon. They had a great bookmark syncing service for Firefox which made it possible to share bookmarks across multiple computers and access them on the web. It was great for people who had more than one computer (at and at work for example) or who simply wanted an easy way to import their browsers when they upgraded their computers. You could even access your bookmarks on your cellphone through XMarks' web interface.

It was a great, innovative service—real cloud computing at a time when most people had not even heard of the term. But their support page for the shutdown shows quite dramatically, why XMarks will cease operations soon. Simply put, the functionality of XMarks has been taken over by web browsers. Beginning with Chrome, all of the major web browsers today have added a syncing solution for bookmarks in recent months. While XMarks could also sync bookmarks between different web browsers, most people tend to pick a browser they like and stick with it.

That's certainly what I do. While I occasionally run different browsers just to compare and keep on top of what's out there, I've mostly stuck with Chrome over the last couple of years after having been a loyal Firefox user for many more years. And before that, I had stuck with Netscape for the better part of a decade. In fact, even though I have fond memories of XMarks, the truth is that I haven't used it in years. And even if I was a big browser slut, I could always use a social bookmarking service like Delicious without installing XMarks. So while the closing of XMarks seems surprising to me at first, perhaps it shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

But the end of XMarks causes more than just nostalgia; it also raises concerns. While it came into existence before "cloud computing" caught on, XMarks is essentially a cloud service. It stores your bookmarks on a remote server and allows you to download them on whatever computer you are using. XMarks is not the first cloud computing service to be shutdown after going out of business or being bought out but it will not be the last. And that is the issue that we all must grapple with as more and more of our data migrates from our computers and our control and onto remote servers which companies which may or may not be financially stable control.

This is going to keep happening. Cloud computing services will come and go and users will be forced to scramble to save their data when those services go. Ultimately, the only solution is that age old solution that we always seem to be too lazy to do; set up a backup plan and stick with it....

Will the New iPod Nano Be the New Wristwatch?

The new iPod Nano hasn't been received as well as its predecessors by some people. But for others, it has been something of a revelation. The idea that you can actually replace your wristwatch with an MP3 is very appealing to a lot of nerds, myself included. In a way it represents the arrival of the legendary Dick Tracey watch. While a few companies have actually tried to create a high tech watch, most of them have been wildly impractical. They always too big, ugly, expensive, and lacked the battery life that people expect from a watch.

But perhaps the time has come for the iPod watch. I haven't worn a watch on a regular basis in over five years, because I always carry a phone or a PDA or an iPod around with me anyway and they all display the time. Moreover I have been "trained" to recharge modern gadgets on a regular basis, so battery life is less important to me. And the iPod Nano is small, looks great, and fulfills multiple needs: it can be a watch, an MP3 player, and it even has a pedometer and FM radio. More importantly it is something that I would use every day, I'm always listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks and this device is as good as any other for that purpose.

In fact the new iPod Nano has everything it needs to be an "invisible" piece of technology. Everything except Bluetooth. Why does it need Bluetooth? Because with Bluetooth, you can use wireless headphones with the iPod Nano. Without Bluetooth, you need to attach a set of head phones attach to long wires. And these wires would attach to your wrist which seems very awkward if you are going to be walking around with one of these things. You could also use a Bluetooth dongle, like the Nike+ sensor but that would make the pretty little Nano bulky and probably ugly, defeating the purpose of a Nano watch.

So close. Maybe a Nano pocket watch? Of course you could always switch it from a watch band to a key chain or even use it as a tie clip whenever the mood struck and that's pretty cool too.

Portable Apps—Now With Updates!

Once upon a time, it was possible to just drop a program on to your hard drive and just run it. At worst you might have to unzip a group of files into a folder and just run your program. But these days software is so complicated that it insinuates on putting pieces of itself on every corner of your computer. This often makes our computers slow, buggy, and hard to upgrade.

A few years ago, some people began taking advantage of the growing sizes of USB flash drives to create a new generation of software which has been helping fight this trend. Portable Apps can be installed on a flash drive and allow you to work with your own files and your own applications on any computer without making any changes to the computer which you are using. It's perfect for people who need to borrow someone else's computer or for people who often find themselves having to schlep files from one computer to another. For that matter, it suddenly occurs to me that users of files synchronization services like Dropbox would do well to keep a few frequently used portable apps in their Dropbox and cut the flash drive out of the equation.

I always keep a flash drive with a Portable Apps installation on my key chain just in case I ever find myself needing to do something on a computer but don't have one with me. But my biggest problem with this—indeed with the very concept of Portable Apps—is that software gets updated from time to time and it's very hard to keep up with software updates, especially when you have dozens of portable apps which are constantly being updated.

Enter PortableApps.com Platform 2.0. The latest version of the Portable Apps software brings several interesting changes, like themes for customizing the look of the Portable Apps menu. But more importantly, you can now check for updates to your apps and Portable Apps will download and install them automatically. PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 is currently in Beta so caution is advised. In my own personal testing, PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 was able to update all but one (PNotes) of the thirty-nine applications on my my SD Card and another app (Notepad++) needed to update some of its plug-ins the first time it ran. Everything else ran perfectly. While it wasn't perfect (hence the "Beta" tag) this was certainly preferable to downloading and installing thirty-nine programs.

Overall, PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 is a welcome update to a very useful application platform which itself was already a welcome addition to any large flash drive.

PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 (Leo) Beta 5 Testing

The Fountain at Daley Plaza

Facing City Hall

Facing the Picasso Sculpture

Rainy Day Flowers

It's amazing what can get your attention sometimes. Last week it was this the water in these flowers following some morning rain.

Zooming out....

As Homebrew Reaches New Heights, webOS Needs to Grow to Accommodate It

My Palm Pre is fourteen months old and I still can't find a phone that can replace it. While I have had plenty of opportunities to play with Sprint's Evo 4G and am eligible to upgrade to it; every time I handle it my reaction is the same. I love the hardware but can't help wishing that its Android operating system were half as elegant and as usable as the webOS.

One of the things that has kept me so enamored with webOS is the Homebrew developer community that sprang up around it shortly after the Pre was released. Is your phone too slow? You can overclock it. Need an easy way to block unwanted phone calls? There's a patch for that. Not happy with your Calendar? There's a patch for that too. Ever wish you could use your phone's flash LED as a flashlight? There are actually several patches for that. Not happy with the Pre's messaging app? There are fifty patches for that.

One recent example of the power of webOS Homebrew patches is Advanced Configuration for App Launcher. This patch is a mouthful and so is the list of improvements that it adds to webOS's spartan App Launcher. It also exposes how bad most modern phones are at the seemingly trivial task of launching apps.

Back in the days of PalmOS PDAs and phones like the Treo, the app launcher was a relatively simple application but in comparison to the webOS launcher it is far more powerful and sophisticated. It allowed users to easily organize their apps with categories that could be added, deleted, and renamed. And there were numerous third-party launchers available for PalmOS which provided users with a wealth of customization options.

The webOS launcher by contrast comes with a measly three unnamed screens with no visible way to create more. (I'm oversimplifying things for the sake of the argument since webOS's Universal Search feature does make it easy to drill down to your apps by typing out the first letter or two of their names but do keep in mind that in the case of the Palm Pre, the keyboard is often hidden beneath its slider which adds one more step to your searches.)

And the situation on other platforms, the situation is not much better. Android borrows a page from desktop computers by shoving all of its apps into its launcher but allowing you to clutter your phone's home screens with shortcut icons. And it further complicates things for users by allowing each handset maker and cell phone carrier to customize the Android user interface, tweaking things just enough so users can't always just jump to a new Android phone without relearning how to navigate through its UI. Apple's IOS4 is the most mature of the modern smartphone platforms and has the most advanced launcher. With multiple home screens, folders, and multi-tasking; IOS4 approaches the power and ease of use that PalmOS had almost a decade ago.

The situation with application launchers is indicative of the atmosphere in which the webOS Homebrew community is operating. Modern smartphone OSes are powerful but they have also thrown away a lot of little things that made older smartphones like the Treo so easy to use and powerful in their own right. In the year since the Pre came out, numerous webOS patches have been created just to improve the launcher: patches for creating, naming, and organizing launcher screens; for hiding and unhiding apps; and for making it easier to navigate through app screens. Advanced Configuration for App Launcher brings all of these tweaks under one roof. It allows you add and delete named pages to the launcher, creates tabs for easier navigation between screens, the list of features goes on and on—but more importantly; this patch makes it easy to turn features on and off; so your launcher can be as simple, or as complex as you wish.

While Advanced Configuration for App Launcher is a potent example of how a handful of hackers working in their spare time can build powerful software for webOS, it also points to the limitations of what Homebrew can accomplish. This patch has been a huge pain in the ass to install in recent days. And since it is being updated frequently, it has to be reinstalled a lot. And the author of the patch even warns you that it conflicts with a lot of other patches. In order to get Advanced Configuration for App Launcher to install, I had to use the Emergency Patch Recovery utility to uninstall all of my patches and reinstall them one by one, beginning with the problem patch.

While in the past I haven't minded wiping out all my patches—I even appreciated the opportunity to rethink how I use my phone and which patches I want to install. But I don't want to have to do this every time one of my patches is updated.

And this problem is becoming more common. As the number of webOS patches grows, the number of potential conflicts between individual patches grows. While webOS Internals and other Homebrew developers have worked hard to create tools to make the patching process as painless as possible, there is only so much that they can do. Sooner or later, it will become necessary for Palm or perhaps HP to get involved with the Homebrew community beyond just offering gentle encouragement.

Many webOS patches are simple hacks which should have been in webOS from day one. Palm should be looking at the Homebrew patches that are out there and adding some of them to webOS. They should also create some sort of framework which will make it easier to add little tweaks (maybe HP-Palm can call them "extensions") to webOS without restarting the UI. As HP prepares to build a wide variety of devices based on webOS, such a system might even make it easier to customize webOS for use on a variety of form factors.

As a Robot Begins to Slowly Die, Its Human Masters Mourn

NASA's Spirit rover appears to be near the end of its career and I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness at the news. And it's not the first time. A few years ago, I felt the same twinge of sadness when NASA's Phoenix lander "died." It's a curious thing, our capacity to empathize, and it's an ability that we don't think about very often. NBC's sitcom, "Community" probably captures this sentiment best:

“You know what makes humans different from other animals? We’re the only species on Earth that observes Shark Week. Sharks don’t even observe Shark Week, but we do. For the same reason that I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve, and go like this [snaps pencil in half] and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves.…

The same sentiment that is applied to Sharks, Pencils, and Ben Affleck also applies to space probes. The same NASA story which explains Spirit's predicament also links to a tribute video which describes the plucky little rover's exploits. It's a very human thing and it's worth noting.

Spirit May Never Phone Home Again - NASA Science

KeyBoss - PreCentral Forums

One of my favorite apps on my old Treo phones was KeyCaps a utility which allowed me to capitalize letters and enter function symbols without using the phone's shift or alt keys. KeyCaps greatly speeded up my input and was one of the apps which I really missed when I moved to my Palm Pre. Now KeyBoss is recreating that functionality on webOS. While KeyBoss is currently in Beta and should only be installed by advanced users, I have tried it and it works well. This should be a must have utility for webOS homebrew users once it becomes available the main Preware feeds. KeyBoss - PreCentral Forums