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BellSouth offers VoIP for businesses

The regional phone provider will sell Internet-based telephone services to small and medium-size businesses. [CNET News.com]

Let the games begin… I’m sure they won’t be the last ISP/RBOC to initiate IP telephony for business. Interesting to note that residential service is still in testing modes most places.

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Good Stuff

If you have access to an Exchange Server and are thinking about a Treo 600, you might want to check out this video. It’s clearly a marketing piece, but an amazing demo of the full capabilities of a connected Treo. I just wish they supported Notes…

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Treo Obsessive Compulsive

So I can’t stop thinking about the Treo… This always happens when I find the opportunity to consider a new gadget and time is ticking…for when I will make the leap.

Today I was thinking seriously about what my options are for connecting to Lotus Notes. Seems pretty grim actually… I was previously led to believe that Good would be supporting the Treo and Notes, but after speaking with them today confirmed that in fact only Exchange is supported. We just switched to Notes from Exchange, so no hope there.

Sprint offers a desktop redirector which I guess is similar to Visto (if not actually Visto). You need a PC to run and send messages from the PC to the device. This is less than ideal as I a) don’t have a PC and b) am a (Mac) notebook user anyway. I’ve discussed the potential of having a dedicated redirector box with our CTO and that remains an option, though I am not sure how cost effective that is. I guess that depends on the cell plan you get and with what carrier. So far Sprint is the only one with an option. I spoke to T-Mobile, but they have no idea (officially anyway) as the device is not yet available.

My hope is that as the GSM/GPRS version rolls out, carriers will have some kind of solution. Seems like it will be all based on the desktop redirector model. I guess that is why the RIM units are so solid… They are integrated with the Server and beam out your messages in real time. I could certainly consider a Blackberry, but was thinking I would prefer to stay with Palm if possible.

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MSN splits in two

Microsoft says its MSN business will split into two units–one focused on information and another focused on communications–an effort to streamline the long-struggling Web property. [CNET News.com]

Interesting move…

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Boob Tubes Going Digital By 2007

A U.S. appeals court upholds FCC requirements that TV manufacturers install high-quality digital broadcast signals in new sets starting July 2004. Under the new rules, the lagging transition to digital TV will be completed by July 2007. [Wired News]

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24

Hard to believe that a third season of 24 has begun… in fact it’s hard to believe that they have been able to manage 3 seasons of what seemed like a one season special in year one. This series picks up where the last one left off, though 3 years later… Jack has clearly had a rough go and the President is still recovering from the assassination biological attempt which ended the second season in the final twist! I won’t reveal anything else here if you have it time shifted and are planning to catch it later.

There is generally a high degree of product placement within the show and this first episode was not unique in that regard. The entire hour was presented commercial free thanks to Ford and the F-150 Truck which was a nice bonus for viewers in my opinion. Usually commercial breaks count against you in watching as the show is seen in real time – literally. Dell seems to be a new addition with laptops, security scanners (was that a tablet they touched to ID themselves at the prison?) and work stations. Jack and some Presidential staff seem to be continuing with the Apple tradition. Jack seemed to have a 17″ Powerbook G4 as well as a G5 behind him with what appeared to be a 23″Cinema Display.

Overall a great start to what continues to be an extremely solid show.

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Coke Launches Wireless Campaign in U.S.

Coca-Cola launched the ‘Decibel Central’ campaign that will allow consumers to interact with the brand and win thousands prizes using text messaging. It appears to be a one of those smart ideas that helps both with branding and direct sales, also benefiting from the novelty of the medium. [MarketingWonk]

The coolest part of this program is that Mobliss was able to enable a short code that works across all carriers.

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Assign Shortcut Keys to iTunes AppleScripts

“Panther has a cool feature that allows you to set keyboard shortcuts for pretty much any application, including iTunes. However, one thing I discovered is that you can set keyboard shortcuts to the AppleScripts in your iTunes Scripts Menu. [macscripter.net news]

Something I will certainly have to deal with when my system gets Panther… This would be a great and simple way to initiate my connection with my SliMP3.

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Time for a New Phone…

I learned today that my company was planning to officially cut off my cell plan as I have a carrier they no longer wish to pay for… This led to an immediate panic as the phone I’ve been coveting (the Treo 600) is not yet available beyond Sprint… As much as I like CDMA and think I would appreciate the slightly higher speed available for data services, I would prefer to have the GSM/GPRS version if possible. From what I’ve read you get much more battery life as well as better SMS/MMS capabilities since Sprint does not support a standard SMS system yet.

I was successful in my lobby to get one more month of cell service with my old carrier so I will be able to move my number when I switch at the end of November. Great news for me… but in checking while a bit panicked I realized there is no formal date set for the release of the non-Sprint Treo. Rumors indicate a 3rd week of November release, but they also led people to think that this past Monday was the day.

I’m thinking of T-Mobile as my carrier and will be moving my wife over as well… The rate plans seem to be very strong there. Currently there is a promotion for a three day weekend, anytime minutes and no mention of roaming, for which Sprint has the nerve to charge $.50/min. If you travel as I tend to, this could add up to a great deal of extra charges… I also like the data-friendly nature of T-Mobile. I plan to get the USB cable and possibly the Bluetooth card (whenever it becomes available) for connecting my laptop when out of range of wifi.

Now that my plans have moved a few weeks, I can’t help but keep thinking about getting that damn Sprint phone anyway… Gadget lust I guess. Though I do know that the Sprint phone supports Lotus Notes redirection, which may in fact be the reason I have to pick them. I would really like to use the Treo as my mobile office when possible… I know I can do my personal mail through IMAP or POP, but Lotus has it’s own issues. hmmm…

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Nicecast offers Internet streaming under OS X

Rogue Amoeba Software has announced Nicecast, an new application to broadcast music using Mac OS X: … [MacNN]

This looks outrageous! You can broadcast any audio from your Mac with this and then tune in yourself or tell others – across any platform.

Update – Gave this a shot tonight and was a bit under-whelmed. First the good… it looks REALLY pretty. It’s very simple to configure and get set up to stream. The bad… On my home network, the iMac was my server streaming to my Powerbook through iTunes. You open a URL (icy://ip-goes-here:8000) and you are streaming whatever is playing in iTunes on the server. I had some drop-outs which are not something I thought would happen given the number of times I’ve streamed music to myself at home and at work. I’ve done this using SliMP3 as well as remotely mounting my external drives and streaming as if connected locally to iTunes.

For some reason there is a delay in what you play. I was not aware this was the case until I manually changed tracks… I was unable to initiate a Mic either internal input with the iMac or with my Griffin iMate. I guess I could have tried the iSight, but frankly I did not think to try.

Seems like a lot to pay 40 bucks for this when my FREE slimp3 server software does a better job with no delay. PLUS, you can control what you listen to remotely without forcing the local machine to hear everything… did I forget to mention that part??? Unless you put the Mac on mute, you’ll be listening to the broadcast as well.

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Digital Sports Tiers: 1’s and 0’s, X’s and O’s

On Nov. 19, 1.4 million Time Warner customers in New York and New Jersey will see the latest permutation in sports programming: the digital sports tier.

For $3.95 a month, viewers with digital cable will be able to buy a package containing NBA TV, the Tennis Channel, Fuel (Fox’s new extreme sports network) and Fox Sports Atlantic, Central and Pacific [New York Times: Business]

Interesting… doubt I’ll buy, but will be looking to check out the NBA channel before it goes pay. We’ll get a 3 week window to check it out

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Can Cable Fast-Forward Past TiVo?

TiVo, the best-known maker of digital video recorders, may need to worry about the cable industry, which is nipping at its heels. [New York Times]

We’ll see how far they get aiming to be a premium brand in the DVR space. It’s not about the features as much as it is about the simplicity. Being in the cable box, means a single remote and no installation complexity, since the cable company does it for you.