Tag Archives: Technology

Apple iPhone Next Point Ooooh

I’ll admit, and let’s be honest, I’m not going to buy a new cellphone (any cellphone), and not because I don’t like what the Apple’s cooked, but because I don’t really want to spend money on gadgety nonsense.  I’ll be saving my drinking money for other things, like drinking and cab rides.  Get a grip, my man.

But while we’re here, let’s take a second to point out at least two of the new features on the next Apple iPhone that might actually make it a viable option for someone other than ane iTards.  (ooops.  just kidding.)  Those two features, of course, being support for 3G and GPS.  Now neither of these features is absolutely necessary for our corporate users, but what does come in handy is that AT&T is charging a higher price for the business plan.  I think that’s awesome.  (Man, you’re all over the place. I  know, better tag this one wandering.)

Like I was saying, the press releases say something about working with business email.  I’m not really sure what that means, and perhaps by the time we get around to reading this post there will be some clarifying information released on the matter.  In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to use my silly-ass blackberry with all its beautiful google plug-ins.  (Again, I don’t really need any of these features.  But the camera is great for collecting dust on a lens if you don’t have anywhere else to store your pocket dust…or lint.)

I think Mr. Steve Jobs did a great thing here trying to help the economy.  The product is reasonably priced and widely followed.  If only it’d been released before everyone blew through their stimulus checks.  But, fret not!  People will still spend.  I’d spend, if I were into the damn thing.  It’s neat, to say the least.  But I after what Thompology has said to me about the 3G network, I can’t fully support it.  I’m still waiting strong for the 700Mhz spectrum to have a thing done to it.

Enough.

My Life, On The Line — Plurk

It’s just like Twitter, but it’s the new kid on the block.  Oh my.  Here we go again, and it’s called Plurk.com.  Now you can write everything you’re doing every minute and, if you have friends, they can comment back.  Sweet.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of time-wasting social communities like this.  It just cracks me up that there’s always something newer.  But is it better?  Maybe.

The real problem is getting all your friends and followers from twitter to follow you to Plurk.  Otherwise you’re just writing to yourself.  (I guess that’s not so bad.)  Once you have some friends and such, then you can get to plurking, whatever that means exactly.  I do enjoy having  another place to collect tiny faces.  I get a kick out of that.

The layout is more appealing, and you can earn karma, which is like pretend money used for buying enhancements to your profile page.  (Collecting things is great way to hook people with an addictive personality.)  So far there doesn’t seem to be a stand alone client (like twhirl for twitter,) so you have to keep a browser page open.  And they’ve yet to implement support for my mobile browser.

Anyhow, I don’t know the load to their system, but maybe the service will have a better uptime and fewer hassles than that other service.  In the meanwhile, we’ll probably continue to use plurk as intermittently as the others.

Content Battle Copy Copy Right Battle Content

I’ll admit, and you should be honest, who isn’t excited now that they’re understanding why it was important for google to buy youtube?  I’m excited, that’s for sure.  This whole Viacom vs Youtube thing could never have ended well in the old days, which isn’t to say that it will now, but it couldn’t be any worse than youtube going at it alone.  They just didn’t have the resources to fight such an important battle.  Now that google is involved with all its internet pressence and deep pockets, we can watch this thing unfold for years to come.  What we ought to hope for, or at least what I hope for, is that by the time any sort of final decision is made, it won’t matter.  But loads and loads of money will still have been burned.  Woohoo!  That’s great for someone.  Not sure who, though.
To be fair, I’m not a huge fan of Youtube.  Not to imply that I’ve never made use of the service to host a home video, but I haven’t been able to get into the countless hours of wandering through pointless videos.  It’s not the same as wandering through countless hours of pointless web pages.  (Countable hours are much preferred.)
Again, to be fair, I’m not entirely against Viacom.  I understand their want for protecting their copyrighted content.  The stuff that brings in the money.  (That other stuff.)
So let’s revisit this in a few years and see if there’s been any progress.  I think for now we should focus on how and where all this content is distributed, rather than what the content actually is.  Heck, there will always be content.  Whether or not it’s worthwhile, that’s a million other opinions.  Let’s all say, “billions of handhelds, millions of users, thusands of data centers.”  Think about that cloud and smoke it up.

GTC West – Governor Schwarzenegger Speaks

After being introduced by the CEO of GTC, and then again by California CIO, Teri Takai, the honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed a room bursting at the seams with IT folks eager to snap photos and record video with their latest and greatest hand held devices. He cracked some jokes, warned us to keep an eye on elderly neighbors while the heatwave is passing through, and said a little about our great State and its current state. Pointing out that the State lacks the necessary infrastructure to adequately support its residents.

That’s it. There wasn’t a whole lot going on. Most of the folks left when Arnold left. I guess not everyone was interested in hearing Scott McNealy speak about…well, I’m not sure, because I left. Doh!

All in all, the conference is a good use of a few hours of your time if you have it to spare. It’s free to attend, so you can’t beat the price, and you’ll meet a bunch of new folks eager to sell you things for your business. They’re going to have to spring for some drinks at the bar, though, if they expect to get anything done.

GTC West – Wednesday Highlights

GTC stands for Government Technology Conference.  It’s a time for a large group of people working in the IT field to gather in one place with all their favorite vendors, as well as enjoy lectures from a few keynote speakers.  The most notable at this year’s confrence being California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (speaking tomorrow morning.)

OpenDNS.com — Perhaps the most useful thing I took away from visiting with a variety of vendors.  There are two server IPs they use, and after configuring my network to utilize these addresses, managing where my office network traffic goes becomes much much easier.  Management is a breeze once the online account is set up for tracking stats and configuring access.  I can easily block entire categories (adult themes, social networking, nudity, etc.) from being accessed by anyone using one of my networks.

YouTube — Offers up 10 hours of content every minute.  I don’t know if this is true, but I could believe it.  It came up in conversation while I was talking with a software developer from IBM who is currently working on a video-mining project.  (He writes code to search video.)  I had never given much thought to it, I just assumed there was a lot of data moving around, but 10 hours every minute is an insane amount.

Not the Jott Network Again

I’m usually forgetting that I have a Jott account, so when I do actually think to remember to use it, I can’t recall how any of it works.  I tried again (and failed horribly) to leave myself a message.  I don’t know what it is about me, or the sytem, or maybe the two of us together, but we can’t seem to make this deal agreeable for the both of us.  I think I eventually ended up writing something down on a napkin, which, while my handwriting is often unreadable, was much easier and much quicker than trying to figure out what this Jott thing wants me to do.  It shouldn’t be this difficult.  Don’t worry, I have yet to give up on the service.  I want it to work at least once before I completely walk away from it.  That’s assuming I don’t just up and forget about the whole thing.

How Twittering Sent Me Beer Drinking

All of a sudden, this week only, every blogger seems to be writing about Twitter, the cool new service for updating all your nearest followers as to what you’re doing right now by answering the simple question, “what are you doing?” What am I doing, that’s a reasonable question, but why would you, or anyone else want to know if you don’t already know me? Seems like a better question, but I’m not sure what the answer is. I suppose it has something to do with adding value to your world. Well not your world, but the worlds of anyone who decides to follow my Twitter feed.

Nevertheless, or needless to say, I started my twittering in late January of this year, and I couldn’t figure it out. I wasn’t really talking to anyone, and my account just kind of sat there looking back at me wondering when I would begin to understand what this service was for. Early March rolls around, and I’m still looking blankly at the space for 140 characters, not knowing what to do. I start twittering a bit more, and I begin to add the authors of blogs I follow. And here we have it, the space between blogging and emailing — Twitter.

Do you hear me?  The space between blogging and emailing.  Twitter.

Then the SXSW conference hit, and there was all sorts of Twitter activity taking place, from updates about the panels to flash mobs at the pubs. This was my biggest draw to making an active effort toward Twittering. The idea that you and your followers could meet up in real life and have a beer. And between meeting up and having beers, you stay in touch and spread ideas. Or nonsense. Whatever, whenever, just keep it to 140 characters.

it finally ended…on Tuesday

I’ve been meaning to write about this all week, but for this or that reason, I’ve forgotten to address it. And that’s the ending of FCC auction 73, the bid for the beloved 700mhz spectrum. Apparently the only unsold portion is the D-block, which was the portion to be shared with the government for emergency broadcasting. Yesterday slashdot was running a forum about why this portion went unsold. But I say, "who cares." We care about the real winners, the winners who collectively bid some nineteen plus billion to forever change the way we use our mobile communicative technologies. Where the heck is my google android phone?

The top bidders have yet to be released. At least not as of the time of my writing this.