TechBlog.TheVanguard.Org

Every time a company like Microsoft releases a new version of restrictive (probably illegal) DRM, a small army of so-called experts start crying about how impossible it will be to crack.  They say that though virtually every form of DRM ever conceived has been cracked, this one will be different.  Yeah, right.  It’s not about protecting your intellectual property–it’s about not understanding nature of man and the nature of business.  DRM, in general, is a bad business decision.  When will they ever learn?

Since the announcement of the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco, a lot of people have been asking me why Apple went with Cingular (now known as AT&T) instead of T-Mobile, Verizon or Sprint.  These people are angry.  In a market with very little brand loyalty, a few customers are actually quite loyal to brands like T-Mobile and Verizon.  The answer to this question is two-part: first, why they didn’t go with Verizon or Sprint.  Secondly, why they didn’t go with T-Mobile and finally the benefits to going with AT&T over all the others.

The problem with Verizon and Sprint (besides the fact that they provide less coverage than AT&T in flyover country) is that they operate on CDMA technology.  I happen to believe that in many ways, CDMA is superior to GSM as a technology.  That doesn’t matter, though.  The only country outside of the U.S. that has a decent CDMA network is South Korea.  Even Iraq has a GSM network.  Europe is covered in GSM.  Asia is blanketed with GSM, especially in big cities.  If Apple sold a high-end phone like the iPhone that couldn’t even work outside of the U.S., its biggest potential pool of customers, international travelers, would abandon it as an option and instead stick with Windows Mobile, Palm or Blackberry OS.  I’ve had some nightmarish experiences trying to use Sprint while traveling abroad, despite excellent overall satisfaction and good coverage at home.

T-Mobile is a GSM carrier with excellent customer satisfaction.  However, T-Mobile has virtually no coverage outside of cities.  Between the two GSM operators, AT&T has the most customers.  In fact, AT&T has the most customers of any provider in the U.S.  Not even Verizon has as many customers (VZW is #2).

Finally, AT&T was willing to play ball with Cingular (now AT&T) to develop Visual Voicemail.  In other words, the cell provider made changes to their own network for Apple’s iPhone.  It’s not that VZW or Sprint wouldn’t have done this, but now that they have, it’s a good indication that both Apple and AT&T consider their business relationship a long-term one.  Apple made a sound business decision in deciding to go with AT&T.  The criticisms here (and pronouncements of Apple’s doom as a result) are overreaching and not based on fact.  There is almost zero brand loyalty in the wireless business because customers are often treated so badly.  Apple and AT&T will both see increased revenues from this product.

GSM World, the website of the GSM Association, publishes maps and other information for GSM customers with regards to coverage and roaming contracts.  It’s a pretty cool resource if you are an international traveler but it’s also cool if you’re kind of geeky.  Check it out!  It may come in handy if you travel the world with your new iPhone from Cingular (AT&T).

Which reminds me…. check out this YouTube video from Stephen Colbert’s show regarding his take on the AT&T/BellSouth merger.  Hilarious!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1Mtv9cD0I[/youtube]

Jerry Corsi, who co-authored Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry is now aboard at TheVanguard.Org.  Rod Martin blogs about it here.  A press release is also available on TheVanguard.Org website.

According to Nielson Media Research, broadband users are smarter, richer and younger than the rest of the population.

This is good news for TheVanguard.Org readers, many of whom read their blogs over broadband connections.  One of the best statistics for the future of the web is that nearly 35% of Americans with broadband have a college degree–compared to 24% of the national populace.  This is one of the many reasons TheVanguard.Org is becoming so successful, despite the fact that it is still in Beta!  The Internet is full of young, bright conservatives ready to make the world better.

With the Apple iPhone coming out this summer, many wonder why we’d need a blog post with this title.  That said, there are a lot of Windows Mobile users out there who love the features of WM5 but are faithful to the Mac on the desktop.  Even if you want an iPhone, you’ll have to wait until June.  If you’re stuck in the Windows Mobile 5 world until then (or indefinitely, if you’re like me and need total integration with Microsoft Exchange) I have a hint or two that might help you.

The Samsung Blackjack, Palm Treo, Motorola Q, all those hideous Dell PDAs and many other devices normally require Microsoft Windows with ActiveSync installed.  However, a company called Mark/Space, Inc. has a product called “The Missing Sync” which allows you to sync your Mac with your Windows Mobile device.  For Microsoft Exchange users, in the Mac world, this can be a GREAT piece of software.

By the way, it is also now possible to tether your Samsung BlackJack on the Cingular network to your Mac to enjoy wireless 3G Internet, where available.  The Windows world may not be friendly to Mac users, but Mac users are innovative and clever!

America’s most respected conservative journal, Human Events, has dubbed TheVanguard.Org “the next MoveOn.org”.  Rod Martin has a short blog post about it here.  If you’re reading this blog or any of the others hosted here, you should congratulate yourself on being part of a new conservative revolution online!

With all this talk recently about Windows Vista, I thought it was time that someone finally came out with an article truly comparing the two operating systems.  Microsoft took longer than expected, delivered less than expected, and now has the most annoying OS on the planet.

This article explains some of the differenes and why, as they put it, Mac OS X still “shines”.

I’ve been testing Windows Vista for the last few months, and soon I will have my own review.

A new year is upon us.  In the world of IT, that might as well be a new decade.  Industries that grow and change as quickly as tech are hard to predict.  Here are a few of my predictions on important focuses and buzz-words for 2007.

• Virtualization (both server and desktop)
• Convergence
• Business-savvy IT professionals
• Outsourcing
• DRM
• ROI/TCO

If there’s one thing Hurricane Katrina taught us, it’s that you absolutely cannot predict when a natural disaster is going to make your day really bad.  IT departments across the Gulf Coast scrambled to rebuild their businesses and recover their data after the hurricane.  If 2006 was the year of disaster recovery and emergency failover, 2007 is the year of virtualization.  After all, data can be replicated from New Orleans to Dallas and brought right back online with virtual servers.  You can’t replicate a hardware dependent enterprise, however.  At the same time, convergence (which was also a big buzz word in 2006) will move from the large enterprise to medium sized businesses.  Relational databases allow us to take advantage of internal information hooks and IT departments are discovering the cost benefit of merging systems and data.

There’s a joke around the IT world that goes something like this: “How can you tell if an IT guy has good people skills?”  … “If he looks at your shoes when he speaks to you instead of his own!”  Funny, and true.  IT types are traditionally not well-adjusted and therefore have trouble in the business world.  IT professionals who understand business concerns, operational details and ROI/TCO are becoming increasingly important to companies.  In 2007, those who land the big jobs/contracts will be the IT professionals who are businesses men first and foremost.  We will see continued changes to the way people outsource, and I don’t expect this to settle in 2007.  The lesson is clear: those who adapt will win.

Microsoft has gone out on a limb with its ridiculous DRM.  Now that it is making life difficult on corporate IT departments, we might finally begin to see a shift away from Microsoft and towards a more distributed market share.  I expect that Apple will be the main beneficiary of this, depending on how well the cards are played in Cupertino.

Finally, CIOs and IT Managers will be squeezed by boards due to shareholder resentment of stagnating corporate profits.  Costs have continued to go up, but the strong economy kept naysayers at bay.  Now, however, is the time for those in charge of technology to begin the process of cost-justification and return on investment planning.  For entirely too long, IT has been the unwanted child of organizations because its leaders rarely bothered to provide an exact, concise discription of the real value of IT assets and services.  IT is worth big money and provides invaluable services. It’s time to prove it.

I’ve been a Mac user at home for years, but professionally I’ve maintained some close ties to Microsoft.  Windows Vista may very well break me of that habit.  Though Windows XP’s activation scheme was ridiculous compared to Mac OS X (which does not require activation) I put up with the problems, understanding fully that Microsoft had a business interest in protecting its intellectual property.  Windows Vista promises some cool new things for network administrators, IT Managers and users alike.  However, the positives do not outweigh the negatives.

Microsoft is now obsessed with product activation/protection.  Though I’ve always been against the techniques MS employs, I was shielded from a lot of these problems as my clients/employer used Microsoft Volume Licensing.  Traditionally, MS trusted its big business IT partners enough to let us avoid all these issues.  I still had to enter in a key, but after that I was done. 

A blogger named Mark Wilson explains for us the complications of activating Vista.  It’s maddening.  It is no longer a prudent business decision, from a management and support/TCO standpoint, to operate Windows within a network.  Whereas a case could be made previously in favor of Microsoft, their integration and their development partners, the thousands of hours required for an enterprise IT department to manage a licensing system this complicated far outweighs any possible benefits.