I picked up a Vonage box this weekend and hooked up a cordless phone for my new home office connection. So far I am very pleased with how the call quality is as well as how slick the interface is to adjust your account as you like. I love getting emails about voicemails and really enjoy being able to seee all my call details, which makes it quite handy for returning calls or just keeping track of your time. Time will tell on this as a service, but I could definitley see switching our home phone number over as well. We have more than enough bandwidth to handle more than one line…
Mac vs. Windows
Coming up on a week of cross-platform usage and a few thoughts circling about regarding the differences…
I use a PC because I have to. I use a Mac because I want to.
I bring home the work laptop and as soon as my wife sees it she says – “That new work computer sure is ugly!” Pretty amazing considering when we met I had a PC, which was later sold (with resistance by her I might add) for the iMac she uses today.
The look and feel of a system is much more than I have probably ever realized. The PC has some nice things, though mainly details with how Outlook interacts with Exchange… I’m infinitely more comfortable using MS Office for Mac, reading on the screen is a pleasure as the LCD is so much easier on the eyes. The thinkpad does have a nice keyboard, but I am so totally accustomed to my Powerbook, which I still prefer.
My Mac just works… I had no idea (literally no idea) that you had to use a silly hexadecimal password to connect to some wireless networks. On my Mac, I just type in the password and it connects, for the PC, I had to look up what the translation to hexadecimal was and then key that in — twice! Apparently Apple took care of this when they wrote the Airport software…I wonder why no one else thought it was a good idea as well.
There are way too many annoying alerts down in the taskbar about various activities… I get it. I understand the icon changes… I don’t need little helper pop-ups getting in my way.
Guess that’s about it. I don’t hate or dislike working in windows as much as I really just love working on my Mac.
.Blogs Domain? I don’t think so…
Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion feels that there should be a .blogs domain to help push blogs beyond the small level of awareness and enable a mass level of recognition and understanding.
Despite the huge buzz, however, the vast majority of Americans still probably do not know what blogs are. The Pew Internet and American Life Project says that 11% of Internet users read weblogs. My theory is that this number is actually far higher because many news consumers can’t differentiate blogs from professional sites because of their high-quality design and content.
…There is a solution, however, to this problem – a “.blogs” top-level domain name. This will immediately make it easy for everyone right off the bat to differentiate a weblog from a professional news site. Alternately, there also could be a special graphical identifier – perhaps an icon that says “This is a Blog†– that bloggers can integrate into their site template to make this distinction even more clear.
While I don’t disagree that a top-level domain would assist in recognition, I think there are a few issues…and actually don’t think it’s a good idea.
First, I don’t think many people look too carefully at a URI if it’s been clicked on and only would recognize it as a link from an email (assuming it’s not hidden in HTML) or if someone told you what it was.
Second, while the idea of .blogs is interesting and would work for certain types of sites, I believe it would actually limit the potential of a great number of sites. A special domain would allow for easy filtering of search results, which I would be upset to see as often a great deal of solid information can be found on blogs and is always good to see within the context of more commercial endeavors. Commercially viable (not just see my cat type sites) might get filtered through this domain listing as well and this would take away from their inclusion with a corporate site. While there are certainly no rules at this point – there’s no domain either – it’s hard to imagine how it might work which brings me to my last point…
How would it even be enforced… We can’t even get a .sex domain going so a red-light district can be established and maintained away from unsuspecting searchers and children. The initial top-level domains .com, .net and .org all had specific meaning before 1995, but when a larger group of people started to get interested in things the purpose was quickly lost in the pursuit of name opportunity. Even today as more TLD’s have been added, they unfortunately hold little meaning other than what the actual name is and how that might be referenced.
Speed Demon!
I’ve been watching some serious speed increases with my RoadRunner connection and loving it!!
2004-08-01 09:37:33 EST: 5489 / 391
Your download speed : 5621673 bps, or 5489 kbps.
A 686.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 400733 bps, or 391 kbps.
Over 5MB down !!
Ron Reagan in Esquire
Politicians will stretch the truth. They’ll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken “normal” mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on. [Esquire]
Feel the speed
2004-07-31 10:36:54 EST: 1133 / 450
Your download speed : 1160888 bps, or 1133 kbps.
A 141.7 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 460839 bps, or 450 kbps.
2004-07-31 16:04:41 EST: 3705 / 479
Your download speed : 3794318 bps, or 3705 kbps.
A 463.1 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 490575 bps, or 479 kbps.
2004-07-31 23:16:49 EST: 4128 / 478
Your download speed : 4227174 bps, or 4128 kbps.
A 516 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 490208 bps, or 478 kbps.
Go Roadrunner, Go!
Working from the Network
This week has been interesting for me on a variety of levels not the least of which is my switch to using Windows for work as I previously mentioned. As a result, I’ve been thinking about how to manage my digital bits across worlds and try to make things not only easy on myself but as seemless as possible.
For browsing I am using Firefox on Windows though on Mac I’ll stick it out with Camino instead as I like many of the Mac features embedded there. Email will be interesting to see… for now on Windows, I am running Thunderbird which can easily be run on Mac as well. I’ve been pretty partial to the Apple Mail program which I could easily continue to use thanks to IMAP, and will certainly use it for permanent local storage. This weekend I’ll probably spend my time in Thunderbird on Mac to see if I like it there as well. I could have certainly used Outlook as I am for my new work address, but figure I’ll keep the camps separate for now even though a small amount of personal connectivity is taking place.
RSS… This was a tough one at first. For the past few days though I’ve been living through bloglines and think it’s a total winner. While I really like NetNewsWire and have been actively working through the beta for the next round (exciting stuff coming!), the ability to seemlessly manage my subscriptions and what’s been read on any machine is very cool. There’s even a mobile version that works on the Palm which is even cooler allowing for total connectivity as well as total detail management with my pretty vast subscription file. Tonight I even discovered a nice feature which lets you use a random bloglines email address for newsletter (or anything really) subscriptions and pulls them through the UI as well. This rocks!! In an ideal world there would be a sync standard like IMAP for RSS but we’ve got a ways to go.
My Palm syncs to both well which is a nice bonus so I can maintain a sync to outlook as well as my mac on which I maintain a much more complex set of conduits. All good.
We are not very good drivers…
It’s been quite a few years since I drove to work, but I certainly recall the frustration of unexexpected and seemingly cause-less jams… seems we just suck at driving and that our cars will eventually handle the load for us through an adaptive cruise control.
A little more than a decade ago, scientists realized that vehicles behave like molecules in a gas. In the most notorious similarity, cars ahead of you that stop or merely slow down can cause a compression wave — a patch where the cars are jam-packed — to propagate backward until it reaches you. The wave can persist for hours after the initial bunch of cars hit their brakes, with the result that drivers who never saw that deceleration are totally clueless about why they aren’t moving. An estimated 75% of traffic jams are like this, having no visible cause. [WSJ.com (sub required)]
Hot Spot NYC
The cloud is coming…
City lampposts soon will light up cellphones and laptops as well as street corners.
Six telecommunications companies plan to fit about 18,000 lampposts around the city with cellular and high-speed Internet antennas as part of a franchise agreement worth up to $25 million a year to the city. [New York Post]
Missing Sync v4 Now Available
I won’t have a chance to mess with this until I get back from SF as I am using me issued Thinkpad at the moment, but I am excited at the future of Mac sync for Palm. The old way has worked, but is pretty tired. This week I’ve been syncing on Windows and the speed alone is a shocking difference…
Mark/Space today began shipping version 4.0 of The Missing Sync for Palm OS, their highly-anticipated successor to PalmSource’s HotSync Manager for Mac OS X, with support for PDAs and smartphones from companies including AlphaSmart, Garmin, palmOne, Samsung, Sony and Tapwave.
The Missing Sync for Palm OS v4 goes far beyond providing the basic functionality of HotSync Manager –the software component that allows data to be exchanged between a Palm OS device and a Mac — by introducing a host of new capabilities that Mac users have been asking for, such as network sync over Wi-Fi/AirPort, SyncMinder, which reminds the user when it’s time to synchronize, and wireless internet connection sharing over Bluetooth.
[Missing Sync for Palm OS v4] Other new features include Conduit Profiles that allow the user to easily turn on and off groups of conduits, drag-and-drop install targets that send files directly to the internal memory or expansion card and a standalone MemoPad application that allows Address Book and iCal users to synchronize handheld memos. Longtime Missing Sync favorites, such as desktop mounting and iPhoto/iTunes integration, are also included. [PalmInfocenter.com]
Apple Investigates RealNetworks
This is hardly a surprising move after Apple stiffed Real with the lack of unity on support for AAC, but amazing as well…
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple Computer Inc. said the company is “stunned” at a move by RealNetworks Inc. to distribute software that lets customers play music from Real’s song download store on Apple’s iPod.
Apple said it is investigating the implications of RealNetworks’ actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws.
The company said it was “stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod.”
Apple said it is highly likely that Real’s Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods when the company updates the music player’s software. [The New York Times]
Road Runner to 6mbps
This is most excellent news!! If truly available next month, it will mark a 3x (down) speed boost…
Time Warner Cable said on Monday that it will begin offering broadband connections at higher speeds–up to 6 megabits per second for downloads, and 512kbps upstream. Called Road Runner Premium, the cable Internet service will become available on Time Warner Cable’s 31 systems across the United States beginning next month. [CNET News.com]
Nintendo DS — It’s Official Now
Nintendo has officially released the final images of the DS and it looks good – like something the big kids will want.
Nintendo DS, originally chosen as the code name, has been selected as the official product name. The Nintendo DS name evokes the idea of a portable system with “dual screens,” providing the rationale for the final name. The hardware also has been redesigned to sport a slimmer, sharper look. The retooled Nintendo DS features a thinner, black base and an angular platinum flip-top cover. The face buttons and shoulder buttons are larger, and some have been reconfigured for optimum use. The unit includes a new storage slot for the touch screens stylus, and the speakers now broadcast in stereo sound, with or without headphones. [Nintendo]
Getting re-acquainted with the other 97%
Today I officially started my new contract (aka Freelance) position and was issued an IBM T41 laptop… It’s been quite a few years since I switched to Mac and needless to say it’s taking some getting used to in order to adjust to some of the differences. The damn second mouse button keeps getting tapped and the trackpad automatically being activated as a clicker are two things which have busted me continuously today. All in all, it’s not that big a deal to switch though many of my core apps are no longer around or are quite different.
Office is similar enough, but now I am in Outlook and not Apple’s Mail or even Entourage. One thing, when you are on an exchange server, you’ve got to hand it to MS, the damn thing works pretty well. I was able to defeat the IT lack of support for Palm, by using T-Mobile as my remote mail proxy for wireless access which rocks. It’s only POP3 rather than full outlook, but it works and I can easily receive mail when away from the VPN. This company only supports blackberry officially… Palm is on your own and yet it took about 10 minutes for me to rememeber tha TMO was capable of this trick. I last did it with Lotus Notes… nice.
My main organizational stuff is what I am immediately missing. OneNote looks good… have to check the demo to see if it will do what I need for meeting minutes and project organization. I’m used to Notetaker as a mainstay and will definitely miss it’s capabilities. I will also miss NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds… I’ve been messing with FeedDemon which is close in how it works, though it feels more liek Shrook to me… I may end up going over to Bloglines so I can view everything through Firefox.
One thing I like a great deal about this Thinkpad is the keyboard… it’s got excellent feedback. the battery also seems to be better than my PowerBook (not too surprising there)… have to see how it handles an extensive day of being unplugged through some meetings and using wireless.
So far so good here on the left coast…tired tough. Time for some reading and sleep.
What would you do?
I just watched a (seemingly) homeless guy steal about 5 pounds of coffee from Starbucks. It was casually done and did not appear to be the guy’s first time. Perhaps the store even knows? They restocked the missing inventory within a few minutes…
I did not say anything… just observered quietly. I definitely have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
The Empire Blogs Back
Nice piece on maintaining the dialogue… Six Apart and Microsoft are highlighted.
Companies are finding that small-scale Web publishing — blogging — reaps big benefits when it comes to customer feedback. Just ask Microsoft. [Wired News]
Cellphones, Say Hello to iTunes
I imagine this is only the beginning…
Starting next year, users of Apple Computer’s iTunes music service will be able to play songs on some Motorola cellphones. The new cellphones will ship with new Apple software, called iTunes Mobile Music.
For Apple, the deal could help it keep the lead in the online music market, which promises to get even more competitive later this year with the arrival of Microsoft.
Customers of iTunes will be able to transfer possibly a dozen to a few dozen songs from their PC or Mac to their phone over a cable or wireless connection, said Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive. [The New York Times]
iChatAV bring you home
Gotta love how technology can help close the distance of travel…
As I’ve mentioned I am in San Francisco, and for the first time I am away from my family since Hannah was born. Through iChat with our cameras though we can still talk and see each other which is really a great thing! Hannah can see me and I get my daily fix of my daughter…(and wife of course) 😉
I, Robot
Just got back from I, Robot at the Sony Metreon here in San Francisco…
While there seems to be some controversy in how closely the movie follows the philosophy of Asimov, I really enjoyed it. As I recently mentioned I had just read the book (eBook actually) and thought it was very cool. The movie takes clear influence and inspiration, but adapts from the stories to (of course) create something more akin to a Hollywood blockbuster popcorn movie.
The visual effects are seriously cool, though a bit too much of the matrix bullet-time is used for my taste. That withstanding, it was a fun ad action packed film. Will Smith’s character, Spooner, grew on me as the movie progressed. Initially he was actually too intensely anti-robot and anti-tech, but all is revealed in time…
The best part as the special matinee price – $7.95. I can’t recall the last time a movie was only 8 bucks.
P.S. Thank you annoying guy behind me for not speaking once the movie started… while I was not thrilled with your narrative of the previews I was quite happy you shut up when the feature started to roll.
San Fran
Just arrived in San Francisco…
Have a kick-off for a contract job I’ve accepted and will be working in the Bay Area this week. Feeling excited, tired (early, long and crowded flight) but pumped to start something new.
Been a while since I’ve been out here, feeling good about being back. I can see the bay from my window at the moment and will be checking into local time after a quick refresh. Blogging may be lighter this week… we’ll see. I’ll probably pop a few shots into the sidebar via Buzznet and Flickr.