A look back to 1998 - Geek from 10 years ago.

Posted on: March 7, 2008


Ten years ago. What were we doing? Where were we going? I know I was working in a Call center on a popular accounting package that is now owned by Microsoft. I was living on the East Side of Madison, WI and I had just switched over from my 56k modem to a broadband connection (768 kbps, I believe) on my Pentium 75mHz machine. I also got my first Cell Phone. Let’s take a look back on where we were 10 years ago and see how that has changed….

First, let’s ponder at 1998 in a whole to get a sense of reminisce - My favorite football team (Packers) got beat by the Broncos. Bill Clinton was in office and falling under all sorts of scandals. El Nino creates a humungous winter storm. California bans smoking in Bars and Restaurants. Larry Flynt was in legal battles with Jarry Falwell. Viagra was given the OK by the FDA. Phil Hartman commits suicide, Charlton Heston becomes president of the NRA, Geri Hallwell left the Spice Girls and George Michael was arrested for lude conduct.

Michael Jordan played his last game as a Bull. The Detroit Redwings take the Stanley Cup. The Yankees defeated the Padres in the World Series. Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed. Pro Wrestler Jesse Ventura becomes Governor of Minnesota. Exxon buys Mobil, creating Exxon-Mobil. America takes action on Iraq. Finally, we experienced a “Leap Second” on Dec 31st.

OK, wayback machine lubed up? Let’s talk about Geek in 1998.

Apple iMac - Apple computer announced the iMac: a G3 processor in a Egg shaped case with a CRT monitor. The iMac introduced the USB port. iMac brought along “Case clones” with emachines.

We saw the first XML documents - I remember going to class and learning XML tagging. It was in its infancy, and I remember hearing many people say how XML was not going to be adopted. Silly bunnies.

Google - Google is Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They fast become the biggest search engine and long time rival of Yahoo.

The Digital Revolution - Sky Digital launched in the UK. 2 Satellites sending signal to the Sky Digibox.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Also known as DRM, it states that Digital versions fall under the same copyright standards as their counterparts.

US vs. Microsoft: Antitrust - 20 States file and antitrust case against Bill Gates and Microsoft. The process ended on Nov. 5th, 1999 and it found that Microsoft was indeed committed monopolization.  

Windows 98 - The next OS after the successful Windows 95, it came out to a lot of upset consumers. Later, Windows98, Second Edition, stabilized the OS and people were somewhat happy again.

Hate Crime - The first Cyberspace Hate Crime is tried. A college dropout was convicted of the crime.

Dreamcast - Sega launches what would be it’s last console in the Dreamcast in Japan. The system didn’t do so well even though some thought it was better than the Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation. It did start a underground Dreamcast following after it was discontinued.

Other Game Systems - Neo Geo Pocket and Game Boy Color.

Acquisitions & Mergers - American Online purchases Netscape Communications for $4.2 Billion. Compaq buys DEC. MCI and Worldcom join forces to be MCI WorldCom.

Space - The Galileo probe sent back data indicating Jupiters’ moon Europa has a liquid ocean covered by ice.  The Clemintine probe found enough water to support a human colony.  John Glenn went back into space with the Space Shuttle Discovery. He was 77.

Electronic Ticketing - American Airlines offers Electronic Ticketing for the first time. They implemented it in all 44 countries that they flew to.

No Pagers for a day - The Galaxy IV communications satellite breaks down. This brought down almost 90% of the worlds pagers without service. At that time, only

Cell Phones and such - Nokia 5120, Motorola MicroTAC 650, Ericsson GF 788e, Blackberry 850, AT&T introduced a flat-rate plan for local and long distance. The Patent for a Hands Free set was issued. Ericsson creates the first Snap on Wireless Data/Fax Modem. Opera started developing a Mobile device platform.

Video Games - Apocalypse, Area 51, Army Men, A Bug’s Life, ChessMaster, Clue, Forsaken, GuitarFreaks (early versions of Guitar Hero?), Half-Life, Heretic II, Marvel vs. Capcom, Morpheus, Off Road Challenge, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Resident Evil 2, Riven and Wario Land II - Just to name a few.

Next Week we’ll dive into Tech from 5 years ago.

*Every Monday, the 5 minute show at 5min.geekazine.com outlines “This Week in Tech History”. Check out the podcast.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 and is filed under The Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Comcast is Watching You. Good or Bad?

Comcast is Watching You. Good or Bad?

The New York Times reports of a Blogger who gets an email after complaining about a service that is not there. Other people have complained about their bills and Comcast comes back with a “Can I Help”? Even others find themselves with internet connection issues for trying to use the service. This begs the question: are we seeing a new trend and is this a good or bad thing?

First of all, most likely they are not looking at your blog or twitter directly. They are most likely running searches from Google, Summize (remember - Twitter bought that company) and a bunch of other engines. They look at keywords that - in turn - give them information to turn around and say “What can we do?”

Last year while working at a job, we decided to implement a helpdesk system. I looked over a few systems, gave a recommendation and we implemented. The one I’m going to talk about wasn’t the one we went with simply because there were good features they lacked, but this is one feature that really made me think about the way we can see customers.

The service let you put a piece of code on each users’ desktop. When they logged into the network, that code would send a log to the helpdesk software. If any keywords showed up, the software would alert the helpdesk so action could be taken before the customer could call in.

Think about it: Google a specific topic. Let’s take Comcast for example. Go to Google, then “Advanced Search”. Type in “Comcast”, and filter to the last 24 hours. Not only will you get blogs, but you will also get twitters, plurks and a host of other items.

Now  if you organize that with specific keywords like “Comcast” and maybe a hot word like “sucks”, you can see all the blogs and posts that follow. If someone wrote an API that could constantly search for these words, then they can report on a system and get back to the author.

Of course, if you are on Comcast’s’ network and sending plain text (like most blogs are), then it’s ten times easier for Comcast to filter and respond. If it was encrypted, that would be a different story. However it’s only plain old text passing through the internet for all to read - including Comcast.

What is the good? Well, you may not want them to watch what you are sending, but if you put it out on Twitter or in a blog, you want people to see it anyway. So why not Comcast? Why not AT&T? Why not Steve Ballmer or Steve Jobs? I suppose if Ballmer or Jobs were to call you tomorrow over a blog or Twitter, you might see that as an honor that they are noticing your posts.

It can also alert people of any questionable activity. In this post 9-11 era, concern over communication is a hot issue. With so many ways to communicate over the internet, it might be nice to stop another epic event before it takes place.

What is the Bad? Well, it’s just another form of Big brother watching. One more step closer for RIAAs and MPAAs to surface. It is wrong to duplicate and distribute copyrighted material, but for those who don’t do that it’s not fair if we are being watched.

Dave Winer reported that right before an Obama speech, he was disconnected from Comcast for “Security” issues. Dave instantly closed his Comcast account. If I was in the same position, I think I would have either done the same thing or strongly worded the incident and made sure enough people heard it. I would most likely do the latter if I didn’t have another avenue of connection.

Is there a “Happy Medium”? Not really. That is why history is riddled with events like witch hunts and the Spanish Inquisition (Yeah, I know. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition). But with pressure to have a safe lifestyle, you have to have someone watching over it, right?

Well, someone or something might be watching you now. Whether it’s the ISP seeing what you are posting on your Blog or twitter, a security camera watching your actions in and out of a retail store, an ATM watching you take your money or one person just peering out the window to see what you’re up to. It’s all the same, right?

Some may call this move by Comcast as creepy. Others may call it brilliant because they are preventing issues. Even others may call it questionable practice because they are watching you. But the old saying “Danged if you do, danged if you don’t” can come into play here. We want to be safe but we don’t want to be watched or held accountable. What goes on behind closed doors….


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