Monthly Archives: November 2006

Got my first hands-on with the Wii

Posted on by
1,075

Well, I took my son up to GameStop to use up the rest of his birthday giftcard and was pleased that the store’s Wii demo system was up and running with a Samsung display. The game that was running was “Excite Truck”, which seems like an odd combination of 4×4 Evolution and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.  It’s not just about racing, but about grabbing bonuses and hitting certain objectives while you race, almost like performing tricks in a skateboarding game.  The more objectives you hit, the faster your truck goes, and so forth.  Very cool.  The graphics were on par with any modern racer, but what I really liked about it was the controls. Instead of steering your truck with a joystick or directional pad, you hold the wand-shaped controller sideways and tilt it left and right, like a steering wheel. This alone made the experience interesting, though my son and I only played for about five minutes each.  Oddly, I was able to come in first place on my first attempt. I say “oddly” because I’m not usually very good at racing games.  But overall, based on this limited experience with the Wii, I think the machine has some real promise, and Excite Truck seems like a lot of fun.  Incidentally, the store was out of Wiis (out of PS3s too).

Macabre Mall Site

Posted on by
30

There’s just something about chronicling failure on the web. Not sure why there’s an obsession with it. I used to log on to ^$&*edcompany.com back when the 1.0 bubble was bursting, just to check in on the latest with pets.com and others like it. Interestingly, there’s now a web site which tracks the unravelling of brick-and-mortar shopping malls. Check it out.

Smith makes a point about implementation difficulties

Posted on by
92

Want my advice? First start with an assessment of you network infrastructure. If you are not qualified to make such an assessment, hire a consultant, or a networking VAR in your area. Ask for references. Check them. From here, sit down with your staff, find out not only what they like, but what they need. Have a solid idea of the “solution” for your business. Finally, build an implementation project plan. Within the plan outline every step, detail, and possible risk to migrating to VoIP. With this complete, make the decision as to who is going to complete this implementation (your company or another company). From this point on, it is time to take a look at hardware, service options, dates, times.

Remember, proper planning prevents piss poor implementations. Don’t believe me? Ask Mr. Badugu.

Go check out the full post.

Andy’s points about quality

Posted on by
931

Andy makes the point that internetwork interfacing is primarily to blame when it comes to voice quality problems: transcoding points, network junctions, and protocol gateways are each a tick in the quality degradation scale, and the more you transcode, hand-off, or hop networks, the worse your call is going to sound.  For the intimate details on WHY, and to learn what you can do to avoid quality bottlenecks, check out my book, Switching to VoIP.

What the Systemax/Packet8 deal means, if anything

Posted on by
63

First, let me get this off my chest: Buying a Systemax PC may be like buying a necktie from the Dollar Tree. OK, done. Now I’ll be less of a cynic.

Now, if Packet8 had done this with HP, well now, then it would’ve been COOL.

Systemax is making “VoIP PCs”, computers with an RJ11 spot to hook up your telephone. OK, kind of neat, i guess. But Packet8 SoftTalk (which is available outside the realm of Packet8 by going directly to its licensor) doesn’t add much to the equation. If I wanted to make PSTN calls on my phone, wouldn’t I just use my phone? Why involve my PC?

Well, the answer lies not in what this arrangement gives you now, but in what it MIGHT give you in the future. For example, a scriptable phone dialer, peer-to-peer calling, hosted PBX via the web, and better remote support for Packet8 ATA functions via something like WebEx.

But on the surface, this  sounds an awful lot like a hairbrained scheme to sell more Packet8 lines rather than innovate something progressive and useful for the consumer.  VoIP doesn’t need to be built-in to the PC. VoIP is a host of networking protocols that enable media applications, not a “feature” on a computer. So calling them VoIP PCs is a bit of a misnomer. I would call them telephone-enabled PCs. VoIP is so much more than what Packet8 brings to the table. I understand the marketing buzz aspect of it though. VoIP is a very hot word.  Fact is, we ALL have VoIP PCs, as long as we have broadband.