With the rise of higher speed wireless networking technologies, from 802.11g high-speed wifi to the pervasiveness of bluetooth and its kin with short-range wireless communications, it’s becoming more and more difficult to determine whether it makes any sense to pay to have Ethernet “cat 5” wire installed in a home or office. There are more considerations than just cost, however, including security and future flexibility. Making this decision yourself? Then read on…
It was about four months ago that my 4GB Apple iPhone showed up and, after an initial scare that it was broken from dropping it – screen down – on a hard tile floor, connected to the network, replacing my Blackberry Pearl. I got the $100 credit for the Apple store after having watched the price drop $200 a month after I bought it, and I’ve gone through a number of cases already (!) and have a stack of different ones from the folks at Marware that I’m using now.
But after months of having it in my pocket, plugged into my car, on lunch tables with colleagues, and in various cities and states throughout the United States, what’s my opinion of the phone now? What do I really love about it, and what drives me batty?
Read on…
Somewhat inadvertantly, I have been thrust into the world of the latest Mac OS X system, Leopard. Some months ago, I bought a top-of-the-line Apple MacBook Pro from my friend and colleague Jeff Walker (thanks Jeff!) and have subsequently had a variety of hardware problems with the unit. The first problem was the power switch, which ended up slightly akilter inside the unit and would stick. Not good. But quickly fixed.
This time, however, the power switch went a bit wonky again and the latch switch also became sticky. To top it off, a few keys on my two month old keyboard were already losing their letters / details, so when I took the unit in this time, I asked them to fix everything. They did. I have a new keyboard, new lower chassis, new power switch assembly and, yes, a new latch switch. Very cool.
Unfortunately the Apple techs went above and beyond and did one more thing while they had my laptop, something that caused me to lose 130GB of data…
It was less than a year ago that I bought a 256MB thumb drive and thought “man, lots of space, that’ll be handy”. In fact, I added my keys and made it my keychain. Then I decided it was too small and upgraded to a Lexar “Jump Drive” with an impressive 512MB of space coupled with some encryption software that would ensure that if I lost the drive, I wouldn’t be out of luck.
Problem is, unless you have incredible personal discipline, it becomes quickly obvious that it’s useful to have more space, not less, and just like modern housebuying, while it’s impossible to have too much space, it certainly is possible to have too little.
When I bought a new television (a splendid Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000 40″ LCD) I decided that it was time to update the sound system hooked up to the TV too, and after much research, I decided not to get a five speaker surround sound and clutter up the room with wires. Instead, I read lots of reviews and opted to buy the Philips Ambisound HTS8100 Home Theater Surround Bar.
The specs are awesome for this all-in-one stereo system, iPod dock, and DVD player that can upscale the movie being played to 1080p, the reference scanrate of high def video (1080 scan lines, progressive). Heck, the sound of the unit is terrific too.
Except for one problem: less than a month after I purchased it I have had to take it in for service, and it’s been there for ten days now, with no resolution in sight…
It’s impossible not to have heard about the many different social networks online nowadays. Seems like a new one pops up every week and indeed the single most popular site on the Internet is a social network (MySpace). I know because I am part of at least a dozen different social networks, ranging from focused professional venues to chaotic amalgamations of various ideas without any rhyme or reason. You can figure out which is which. 🙂
One of my favorites has always remained LinkedIn and since I just this morning needed to track down one of the executives at web hosting company Dreamhost, I thought it would be useful to demonstrate exactly how I used LinkedIn for this task.
I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Leslie Brooks Suzukamo, Telecom, Technology and Energy Reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press earlier this week. Our topic of discussion? Whether the new Apple iPhone is going to be a good business phone or not. He quoted various industry sources and so-called pundits who predicted that it wouldn’t and that it’s designed exclusively for consumers. But he — and they — are so terribly wrong…
In the early days of the Internet, back when we called it a “dirt road” and were delighted when email bounced from UUCP connection to UUCP connection as is slowly wound its way from one end of the topological jungle to the other, email mailing lists were quite the cool thing.
Years have passed and we now have sophisticated web-based discussion boards, blogs and many other venues for interpersonal interaction, but email remains, to me, the killer application, and it’s on my mailing lists that I encounter the freshest thinking and most valuable information.
I can remember when there were two main places to find mailing lists too (other than the List of Lists and other short-lived directories), Topica and Yahoo Groups. Google’s added its own collection — of course — with Google Groups too, but in many ways, Yahoo Groups was always my favorite place to look for people with similar interests.
Which is why it’s so distressing to see that it’s become an absolute safe haven for porn and spammers in ways that were unanticipated when Web-based lists were first envisioned…
