In a piece he referenced that blames instant messaging and so forth for creating a work environment that kills personal productivity, Alec nails a point that is worth reading a few times:
Our industry’s business model — the metering of minutes of usage — exacerbates the problem. In an environment where the model is to charge the customer for usage, there is no incentive to help the customer curb usage.
Yeah, the Tigers lost to the Cards in game 5. PUH-thetic. I propose a toast to Jeff Pulver in honor of his team (and mine) getting stuffed in the championship race.
Guys, I haven’t been blogging much the last week or so. I have a good reason that I can’t tell you. As Forrest would say, that’s all I have to say about that. On to the roundup:
Russ and Andy both noted the appearance of an article in the New York Times which talks about many of the mobile VoIP devices out there (but misses the best ones!). Andy generally agrees with the Times author that the process of setting up and using these devices isn’t practical yet. Bah.
As if the world really needed a $1200 cell phone, B&O has introduced one. Keating thinks Apple is taking notes. If Apple introduces a $1200 cell phone, nobody will buy it. Take that note, Apple.
While I was in a haze, Trixbox 2.0 came out. W00t, Fonality. Go get em.
Oh, back to Russ. He’s paranoid about politicians keeping their hands off of the network (which is what they ought to do). He thinks Bush favors the anti-Neut lobby, this despite posting a quote from the president in which he is very partial to Google. So I’m not sure what Russ is trying to say here.
That said, when the phone company runs their flap about Google sucking bandwidth, they’re getting it all wrong: Every month, when I send in Internet access bill, I pay for the bandwidth I use, Google or otherwise. Stuff doesn’t have to be so complicated, grrr..
Yeah, yeah. I’ve been reduced to poaching WiFi for the cost of a large decaf. Don’t ask why. Regardless, it works and works well.
Anyway, why not take a quick spin around the blogosphere? Brandon LeBlanc, a self-declared Microsoft Technology Enthusiast (argh, that’s like being a Browns fan!), says that Vonage has severe quality issues. Well, duh. But does he go into the why and wherefor?
Vonage has huge issues with its service. In our small office where I work, we use Vonage as our main telephone service, just as many others are doing today. We’ve had nothing but continuous problems with the service. The biggest issue has been the fact we can’t call specific (and at random) telephone numbers.
I’ve had similar problems with Packet8, albeit not nearly as frequently as Mr. LeBlanc. It’s kind of funny what happened to him when he called Vonage for an explanation:
We ended up getting their support line from one of our cell phones and got a customer service agent who barely spoke English and talked way to close to the phone, distorting everything he was trying to tell us.
Interesting that a Microsoft MVP would be complaining about non-Enlglish-speaking support folks. That last time I called Microsoft support, a few months ago, I got a (ostensibly) Indian dude who claimed his name was Pete. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many Indian dudes named Pete.
Unfortunately, Mr. Microsoft has ruled out the quality of his Internet connection–or any other causality–as the source of his woes. Surprise, surprise.
In other news, Phoneboy has returned from Helsinki and has a whopper case of Jet Lag. Hey Phoneboy perhaps you should ask Nokia about Jet Lag Reimbursement. He is seeking your advice. Welcome home PB.
And this week’s “worst use of WW2 terminology” award goes to TechDirt, who claims the web is filled with “copy protected music ghettos.” Dude, ghetto music, if you must call it that, isn’t the stuff that’s getting pirated. Nor is it the stuff that topping the overall sales charts. But I digress. Of course, the ghettos referred to by TechDirt aren’t based in their musical attitude, but rather in the mire of DRM.
Check it:
Today, Skype, the global Internet communications company, made it even easier to make free video calls to friends and colleagues. With the introduction of Skype for Mac 2.0 Gold, Skype users across the globe can easily use the power of the Internet to keep in touch! Additionally, IPEVO has introduced its Xing speaker phone, a new Mac-compatible device that will soon be Skype Certifiedâ„¢ and allow for hands-free calling.
Mac Goes Gold!
Skype today released the gold version of its popular communications software, Skype for Mac 2.0. With Skype for Mac 2.0 users enjoy completely free voice and video calls to other Skype users, no matter where they are. Calls to traditional and mobile phones can be made at extremely low rates. Skype for Mac was designed specifically for Mac users with a sleek interface and intuitive functionality.Skype has already taken off with the Mac community. One member of the Skype community, Daniel, uses Skype to keep in touch with his family and business partners. Daniel works in ship repair and often finds himself traveling for business. Skype for Mac has allowed Daniel to laugh and connect with friends and family on business trips when he misses them most. Additionally, he is able to use Skype to conduct business without the overhead cost of traditional phones.
Skype for Mac 2.0 gold can be downloaded at http://www.skype.com/download/skype/macosx/.
It appears that a train derailment in western PA, which resulted in an explosion of inflammable liquid, was to blame for yesterday’s (and today’s) MASSIVE widespread downtime incident on Comcast, Adelphia, and Time-Warner digital network systems. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of cable Internet subscribers were without services for about 36 hours, beginning early in the evening on Friday. Sure sucks to be a Comcast Digital Voice subscriber right about now, or a Packet8 subscriber using Comcast, as is the case in my household.
Hey Comcast, ever heard of Border Gateway Protocol?
Comcast just got off the phone with my mother-in-law. Due to recent service problems, her eMac running Mac OS X 10.4 is no long able to get online. Though Comcast had previously sent a technician to her place to set up everything on her Mac, a support rep tonight told her:
PEOPLE, this is the biggest piece of bullcrap I’ve ever heard YET from Comcast. I mean, seriously, how do you fight this crap? The only other service in her area is Windstream DSL and that’s just more of the same. *sigh*
In a very timely piece from eWeek, you can see that the mainstream rags are beginning to finally “get” the 2.0 concepts that have been incubating in the Unified Communications community over the last year or two. Check it:
The resulting changes will be a shift in technology ownership from businesses to consumers, as business processes run on powerful consumer platforms.
“We are soon at that trigger point,” said Sondergaard, predicting that financial services companies will lead the charge because 36 percent of consumers already use online banking. “Banks are at the forefront of the change where power shifts to the consumer,” he said.
I am particularly delighted that the big rags finally understand the 2.0 concept of consumer-empowerment. The above quote eWeek’s way of acknowledging that networking is about people. In technology, consumer matters most, and technology has advanced to the point where consumers and engineers are the same people. This means innovation is now occuring at the “consumer edge”, for and by the people who use personal technology. So when businesses empower the people on the edge, they empower themselves.
But wait, there’s more:
By 2012, person-centric computing will take hold, said Austin. “There will be a federated intersect of meshes—the user’s mesh and the enterprise’s mesh,” he said, adding, “technology is becoming part of the fabric of everyday life and will become effectively invisible by 2020.”
In the meantime, corporate IT has no choice but to embrace Generation Y as new employees join businesses. “They’re the future of your work force and the future of your customer base,” said Prentice.
Well, the idea of moving between meshes seems to be postulated without regard to the challenges of network neutrality and ubiquity, which the article doesn’t mention. Of course, I’m very much in agreement with this Austin guy’s vision. The network must disappear.
Coincidentally, I don’t think GenY folks are any smarter or more visionary that GenX folks. It’s just that the network became less visible as the generations progressed. So GenY shows up just in time to labeled as forward-thinking or intolerant of old-school I.T. somehow. Maybe they just don’t remember what it was like prior to all-IP ubiquity, NetWare, Banyan Vines, and LanManager. Maybe they’ve never experienced the lovely intricacies of sub-realtime offline computing. Think about it. Who under the age of 24 or so can even remember computing without massive global interconnectivity?
And can we please stop calling it computing? Argh, that sounds so 1983.
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