March 30, 2007
In a move that will make potential iPhone customers happy, Yahoo Inc. announced that they will be providing unlimited storage on their free e-mail service. This is good news for existing customers, who will see their limit go from 1GB, past limits set by Google and Microsoft to an unlimited mailbox. In other words, you’ll never need to delete another e-mail if you use Yahoo.
Despite the FoxNews.com’s hilarious claim that floppy diskettes can hold 144 megabytes (they really meant 1.44 megabytes) of data, the article is an interesting read. It appears that online storage is finally getting cheap enough for this to be a good business model for Yahoo Inc.
For iPhone customers, this is great news because they can have unlimited, push e-mail synchronization on their Yahoo Mail account.
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.
Another Windows vulnerability has been found and this time, it’s scary.
Important points on this:
(1) This is an ACTIVE exploit
(2) The solution is to avoid browsing “untrusted sites”, i.e. the INTERNET
(3) It affects Vista on down–virtually every Windows OS
(4) It exploits the animated cursor functionality and can result in arbitrary code execution on the victim’s machine
This is a serious problem. Let’s hope Microsoft has out a fix soon.
The U.S. is number one in broadband connections, despite its geographical problems. In terms of percentages, we continue to lag far behind the rest of the developed world. Point Topic reports that as of 4Q 2006 there were 57.3 million broadband connections in the U.S. That gets a huge chunk of our population. Now if only we could make that REAL broadband and not these 256k-1.5mb connections that the FCC calls broadband….
Perhaps 3G is the answer for those in suburban and rural areas currently not covered by existing terrestrial broadband networks.
Firefox has been David if Microsoft was Goliath for two years. Despite Microsoft’s money, developers, marketing and market share (both OS and browser) Firefox was making huge gains - eroding 12% of the market from Microsoft. After the release of IE 7, things seem to be changing.
Though the data is disputed, or rather the interpretation of that data is, some say Microsoft is once again slowing down Firefox’s growth. Eventually, it could slow to a trickle of users or nothing at all. Only time will tell. Whatever the case, less competition in the market would be bad for consumers.
The Apple iPhone will be released on June 11.
Good news, if you’ve been (im)patiently waiting.
March 29, 2007
AT&T announced that it will be speeding up its upstream speed over its BroadbandConnect wireless Internet service. For tech evangelists who travel like those of us at TechBlog, this is welcome news.
Pesky posters over at DSLR point out that AT&T is on track to offer faster speeds via its wireless service than through their land-based products. Let’s hope they fix that problem–quickly.
In terms of 3G AirCards, this one is our favorite. Using Sierra Wireless 3G Watcher we connected quickly and downloaded large files quickly. While connected via 3G, we downloaded files at about 1 megabit per second and uploaded at about 256k. In rural areas, EDGE was very acceptable (and actually better than the CDMA equivalent, 1xRTT) at about 150-170kbps downstream. Coverage using the AirCard 875 was absolutely better than anything we could do with the other cards we’ve tried from Cingular/AT&T.
Using 3G Watcher, we even have it working in Windows Vista! Now why we’re running Windows Vista, that is the question of the day….
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.