February 27, 2008
A Democratic bill in the House of Representatives would force AT&T and Apple to abandon their successful business model, interfering with the markets in order to allow customers to activate the iPhone without a subsidized contract. Rep. Ed Markey, the very liberal Democrat congressman from Massachusetts, wants the FCC to regulate the contracts between AT&T and its customers and force Apple to make the iPhone available without a contract. Though this might be good for the few people who want to use T-Mobile instead of AT&T, the net result would be MUCH higher prices for everyone. This is another example of the Democrats over-regulating the economy and trying to get involved in the tech sector, something about which they know absolutely zilch.
Congress ought to spend more time passing the legislation necessary to protect the American people from terrorists instead of going after enterprising businesses.
Newt Gingrich is setting up shop for his 527, American Solutions, right down the road from Google and Yahoo! in the heart of California’s most liberal region. Gingrich said the group wants to “reach out to every interesting, innovative, entrepreneurial start-up. We want to learn the best ways to communicate, the best ways to socially network, the best ways to use information technology to improve public services.”
Yep. Conservatives are invading the tech sector. CNet news noted that though there are some free-market groups in the area (notably Pacific Research Institute and the Independent Institute) there just aren’t many national political conservative organizations. This makes Gingrich’s entrance even more important.
Groups like Gingrich’s and TheVanguard.Org, the brain child of founder and Chairman Rod D. Martin, are on the cutting edge of both the conservative movement and the tech revolution.
February 25, 2008
For those of us who use OS X in an enterprise environment, it can be difficult to make our Exchange calendars sync with our iPhones. There is an excellent workaround, however. All of the updated versions of Office for Mac include a synchronization service that makes it easy as pie.
In Entourage, go to Entourage > Preferences > Sync Services.
There you have an option to sync your address book, calendar, or both with Apple’s built-in software. This works great for synching the iPhone.
April 2, 2007
According to Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz, Windows Vista sales aren’t helping PC manufacturers a bit. In fact, it’s business-as-usual as a result of Vista’s release, in spite of promise after promise from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Business users are likely concerned with Vista’s incompatibility with existing applications; home users are just happy with the XP beast (set of problems) they know. It appears that virtually no one is running out to buy a Vista PC.
March 30, 2007
Computerworld’s Scot Finnie (a recent Mac convert) writes on the danger to Microsoft presented by Apple’s current “buzz”.
Finnie seems to think the perception that Apple’s product is hot, new and superior will drive new growth. He perceives the threat to Microsoft as being not from a market share point-of-view, but rather in terms of “mind share”. He calls the Apple story one of the “Top Ten” tech stories of the year.
He’s right. He touches on something that a lot of us in the tech industry seem to miss sometimes. It isn’t always the traditional drivers in a market that push a product towards success or extinction, but rather this intangible and not yet measurable sense of buzz. When people begin making a computer the topic of conversation at sports pubs, it’s time for us to listen up. From a business point-of-view we need to find a way to measure this “buzz”. As an IT Professional, I’m listening closely to that buzz, and plan to capitalize on it and move IT forward on newer, better technologies.
March 29, 2007
TechBlog.TheVanguard.Org got its hands on one of the few cross-platform wireless devices that work on the MacBook Pro.
The U720 is a USB AirCard that installs using drivers available from www.sprint.com/downloads (Mac) or the included installation CD (Windows). The only drawback: we needed a Windows XP or Vista PC to “unlock” our device after shipping. After that, though, it worked like a champ on a MacBook Pro. A quick speed test showed 1.2 megabits down and about 170k up. We’ve stayed connected for 3 hours + with no trouble at all. The hardest part, as always, was finding someone at Sprint who could tell us what to do. Providers do not want to be responsible for supporting the Mac.
If you’re on the Mac platform and looking for a mobile broadband solution for your business, the U720 will work. Just bring your own tech support.
Recent events have changed the field in which the iPhone is going to compete. Since it was introduced earlier this year, Microsoft introduced Windows Mobile 6. Far from innovative, WM6 is merely a .x upgrade to WM5 with a few added features (like HTML e-mail) that should have been around to begin with. TechBlog.TheVanguard.Org noticed something else, too: AT&T seems to be making its EDGE data service network faster. In some ways, EDGE data will always be inferior to 3G (HSDPA) technology at AT&T. EDGE cannot be used while in a GSM phone call. With HSDPA, users can have simultaneous data and voice calls. However, we’ve recently seen EDGE coverage not too far from our offices (we’re in a 3G area, so we have to do some traveling to see EDGE) begin to increase in speed from about 100kbps to 170kbps.
As some of you may recall, one of our biggest complaints about the iPhone was its lack of 3G. It’s clear why Apple decided to go with EDGE data, however. Windows Mobile devices that operate on AT&T’s 3G network suffer from terrible battery life. In a device with a screen as vibrant and large as the iPhone (and with as many capabilities) battery life is likely to become an issue.
We think the increased speeds (with more promised in the future) make EDGE viable for light browsing and heavy e-mail. We’re also a lot more excited about the potential for use by business people who are turned off by Windows Mobile’s battery life problems and lack of compatibility with the Mac.
February 28, 2007
NetworkWorld has an interesting article about Apple’s prospects in corporate America. Recent architecture changes, virtualization, clustering, storage networks, interoperability hooks and the price of upgrading hardware for Windows Vista all put Macs under the microscope for careful consideration as replacements to existing Windows and Linux machines.
As has been the case in the past, Apple is not defining a clear course for going after corporate business (the article points this out). Apple’s rebellious, anti-corporate attitude continues in 2007. However, innovative new technologies like Parallels, which allows users to run Microsoft Windows from within Mac OS X on a Macintosh computer are likely to make corporate moves to Mac OS X more likely.
February 22, 2007
Google today announced a new suite of professional office applications that are entirely web-based and hosted by Google. The search giant already had an advertising-based service for non-enterprise users. The office suite competes directly with Microsoft Office. Here’s a rundown of the features included with the “Premier Edition” of Google Apps:
- 10 Gigabytes of storage per user
- $50/year/user
- API Customization
- Guaranteed 99.9% reliability
- Mobile Gmail for Blackberry (versions already exist for Windows Mobile)
- Browser-based collaberation
Google isn’t likely to start stealing away users from Microsoft left and right. What they are likely to do is peel off users who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to afford Microsoft products or are simply served by far fewer features than MS Office provides. University students are bound to jump right on this bandwagon. With the proliferation of bandwidth, we’re likely to finally see the thin-client model really start to take hold, at least for applications (NOT the OS) for the first time.
February 20, 2007
(1) Your IT department is fighting a never ending battle;
(2) Their main goal is to allow every legitimate email to pass through;
(3) And block as many spam messages as possible.
That said, some spam will always come through. Every now and then, a legitimate email will be blocked. The technology that blocks spam isn’t perfect — and the minute companies that fight spam figure it out, spammers find a way around their technology. Spamming is big business and the bad guys are willing to go to great lengths to get their Viagra ads to your mailbox. Be patient with your IT department. They’re fighting a never-ending battle. Oh, … and no amount of money will ever end it. Just because they spend $30,000 this year doesn’t mean they won’t need to spend $50,000 next year just to maintain the status quo.