http://www.marcstober.com/blog Information, Design & Society // Marc Stober's blog Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:01:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Why is it that someone else talking on a cell phone in public is impolite, and when you're the one talking on a cell phone, it's an important call? I find it curious that people will pass judgment on someone without knowing the caller's situation. Recently I went to an urgent ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/07/03/cell-phones-and-the-doctors-office/ We are living in historic times, those of us here in 2008. Up until now our society has, basically, been in the shadow of World War II. Increasing globalization, advances in electronic communications and medicine, highways and aviation, improvements in human rights, literacy and nearly universal college education, modern national ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/06/25/historic-times/ Today is Fathers’ Day. With two young children now, fatherhood is in full swing. I figure I at least can take the time to write a blog entry. I finished my Paternity Leave post a few weeks ago with a vague mention of a “great challenge out there for me” and ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/06/15/finding-time/ If you've been following this blog, you know I like my my new Windows Vista computer and my new Windows Mobile phone. Alas, they don't like each other. The phone came with a USB cable and software for syncing files, etc. between it and a PC. This is one of the reasons ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/05/25/problem-syncing-samsung-sch-i760-with-mobile-device-center-on-windows-vista/ Today is my last day of paternity leave. Thanks to a great employer who paid 60% of my salary while I was out, I was able to spend eight weeks away from the office, taking care of Max and being a stay-at-home dad. I'm supposed to say what I liked best ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/05/16/last-day-of-paternity-leave/ Windows Vista has gotten a lot of bad press. Maybe some people were expecting Microsoft to pull a Linux-and-Mac-killing rabbit out of its hat, which Vista is not, but it's an improvement to Windows in its own right. A few weeks ago I got my first Vista-equipped PC and here ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/04/28/why-i-like-windows-vista/ There are a few stereotypical use cases for mobile phones and similar wireless devices. The younger generation needs to text their friends. The older generation needs a phone only for emergencies. And, of course, the professional needs their "crackberry" to check office e-mail. I think a lot of people have ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/03/24/review-of-my-new-samsung-sch-i760/ A while back I added the tagline “information, design, & society” to this blog. I wanted to explain what it means. This is an aspiration. It doesn’t mean I won’t ever write about my kids. It does mean that I see this blog as my small contribution to the compendium of ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/03/04/information-design-society/ I found this paper interesting as it presents an academic view of something I’ve been noticing from a grassroots perspective: the database as we know it is losing relevance, and new technologies will emerge that will make business applications faster to run and faster to develop. Because of the graduate program ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/02/26/the-end-of-the-database-as-we-know-it/ I haven't blogged in over two months, and there's only one person I can blame it on: Max. Well, I can't really blame him for anything. He's just a baby. He is just over one month old and finally starting to be aware of things. He can't say anything, of course, but ... http://www.marcstober.com/blog/2008/02/07/max/