Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, 2008 as new federal safety rules take effect. The new regulation, designed to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires, will continue to allow lithium batteries in checked baggage if they are installed in electronic devices, or in carry-on baggage if stored in plastic bags.

Common consumer electronics such as travel cameras, cell phones, and most laptop computers are still allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.  However, the rule limits individuals to bringing only two extended-life spare rechargeable lithium batteries, such as laptop and professional audio/video/camera equipment lithium batteries in carry-on baggage

The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

• Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

• You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
• For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
• Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!

Indeed this regulation will first be applicable on US registered aircrafts but as usual we may see this new regulation applicable on all International flights. 

Usually all electrical devices, including batteries, are subject to safety certification so either their are considered to be safe or manufacturer has to review quality and safety of its products. 

I really wonder on which basis these new rules are made from. Did anyone saw any incident statistics, reports etc.. (apart Sony made laptop batteries) or is it just one additional constraints air travel passengers will have to deal with.

After lighters and matches in 06, liquids in 07, 08 will add batteries to the restriction list.

All details are here as well as the complete list of items with air travel restrictions

To take advantage of the potential of Google's Search engine, it's important to know some of its basic tricks

• Keywords: Quality of the responses depends on the quality of the words chosen. For example, "computer" does not give the same results as "PC".
• Typing words in lowercase give you every opportunity not to miss any important reference.
• Quotation marks (" ") make sure that the search engine takes into account all the words.
• Signs "+" and "-" add constraints to your search.
  For example, you can search for documents on George Lucas who only speak of Star Wars (george lucas + star wars) or on the contrary who do not speak of the film (george lucas star wars)
• Wildcards: Google accepts the use of a wildcard (*) for the location of a missing word in a phrase.
• The tilde (~) allows Google to display not only a word but also its synonyms, in a broad sense, that is to say, beyond the true grammatical synonyms, related terms.

More searching options:

• "site: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Returned results will be only from the selected site.
• "author: xxxxx xxxxxx". Identifies latest articles published by the author in question.
• "insubject: xxxxx" Results show the articles on related requested subjet.
• "location: xxxxx" Displays information bearing to the specified eyes.
• "source: xxxxxx" Results extracted from any source.
• "allintitle: xxxxxx" Results show the articles where all searched keywords are available in the title

The search bar includes also a calculator. Type the calculation directly in your search bar and press enter to have the result displayed.

More about Google seach engine: Google Help

People affected by California wildfires get and send firsthand information using micro-blogging service Twitter. Usually during emergencies, all telecommunications networks get overloaded due to huge communication flow increase in all affected areas.

2004 Tsunami taught us that when telephone landlines do not work anymore, mobile network is overloaded, short-messages (SMS) were still going through, but often with up to a hour delivery delay (better than no communication).

One of the most critical problem to solve during emergencies is how to spread information on both directions (from affected people to emergency services and from helpers to victims). In addition, affected people and their relatives are in need to get in touch.

In California, the American Red Cross, among others, have open 2 Twitters threads. One is made to push information out (e.g evacuation routes) and the 2nd one is "Safe and Well" which provides a way for affected people to register as “safe and well.” using a list of standard messages.

Concerned relatives can search the list of those who have registered themselves as “safe and well.” directly on American Red Cross website.

Among many sources: Stephenson Strategies, Wired, KPBS and Occam Razr.

The Gartner Group launched during the IT Security Summit, a book written by Richard Hunter (Gartner vice-president) entitled IT Risk: "Turning Business Threats into Competitive".

The Register published an article highlighting some of Hunter's statement. Extracts:

• IT systems have become so integral to businesses that their failure can have disastrous consequences for an organization.

• IT risk is too important to be left to IT departments
• IT risk is related to IT value. It would be short-sighted not to recognize either value or risk

The complete article in available on The Register site.

More interesting than the article itself are indeed the comments which clearly show how wide is the gap between the theory (or the analysis) and the reality.

Best of :

• So the Bean counters and all the people who have no clue about it should have control? BAD IDEA.
• …This is the reason why an I.T director needs to sit on the board. Not however just some one who did a MBA but barely knows how to turn on their PC.
• …much of the problem can be resolved with a bit of education and common sense – and some money of course
• Ignorance, from middle management to board level, of even simple issues relating to IT risks that can be seriously detrimental to the business as a whole.
• Management, up to board level, simply not listening to IT managers who DO know what they are talking about
• In my experience IT risk auditors are finance types who don't understand IT and thus cannot adequately assess the risk
• Yes, let's take away IT disaster management and network security from the people that have a clue.

All comments are here.

I recognize in most comments highly experienced, realistic and well grounded IT guys. About the, so called, IT Analysts… same consideration than for the Burton Group.

As expressed, common sense would be to have IT director on the board, and the management to wake up and become IT skilled.

What's your opinion ?

One of my first question was about how to send Twitter updates using Skype instead of anything else as I did not want to install an additional application with a single dedicated purpose.

Apparently I'm not alone in that situation and I found today a "how to" to post updates on Twitter using Skype chat tool

Quote

Here’s a little secret which no one seems to know about. There is a Skype robot which will post to your Twitter account.

1. Add twitter4skype as a contact.
2. Type the following as a chat message (be sure to do a FULL return for each line):
   /account
   yourtwitteraccountname
   yourtwitteraccountpassword
3. The system should return: twitter4skype Registration complete!
4. The next time you write a chat message to twitter4skype, the entry will appear as a Tweet on your account.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

Update: Some have reported they have not been successful on their first try to make this work. The issue usually is identified with the returns. On a Mac, make sure you press alt + return after each line. Also make sure there is a return after the last line. Once this is fixed, everything seems to “automagically” work.

Unquote

Source: PacificIT  

In a country where discussions about how to cope with 4 differents national languages are on weekly agenda at the parliament, Swissinfo found a way to avoid such dilemma in a series of 15 seconds funny ads currently broadcasted on TV5 channel.   

p.s this post is the 1st one with embedded video on this site. Thanks to Viper007bond and their great plugin.

The Alliance Francaise in Bangkok organized yesterday night a fashion show to present creations made by the fashion school students as well as the last collection of thai designer Saruda Nimpitakpong. 40 photos available in the gallery. Click here.