April 2008 Archives

Another year, another Interop. I am off once again across the country to Vegas where I will likely spend more time standing in line than I will sleeping. How amazing is the fact that you can build a city in the middle of nowhere and after fifty years get people from all over the world to come visit your city and spend their precious time waiting. Waiting to gamble; waiting to eat; waiting for a hotel room; waiting, waiting, waiting.

Thankfully I will have all my gadgets and gizmos and will continue to blog and email away while I wait, wait for everything.

Having said all that, although I do despise the cab line that comes with the Vegas airport I do like the fact that the airport is not too far from the strip and moreover, at least Vegas is closer to Connecticut than California is.

How is that for turning my lemons into lemonade? It's all about perspective I guess

I have some really great meetings planned and I can't be more excited about this year for TMC. We expect 2008 to be an even better year than 2007 and at this rate this year will be one of the top 2 or 3 years in our company's 36 year-old history.

The incredible TMC team has grown tremendously and it is amazing to see this well-oiled machine continue to delight customers and exceed expectations.

Thanks once again to our readers, conference attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and advertisers for making this all possible.

I don't mean to sound alarmist but half a million hacked websites? is that how many there are? In other words if users hit any of 500,000 sites using IE they will likely be infected? Talk about an electronic pandemic. This is a major problem and very scary.

I know we at TMC have been hit with an SQL injection attack in the past that was not successful. These sorts of attacks seem to constantly propagate and it has to be very scary for companies who have websites but don't have the technical staff to deal with these issues.

Brian Krebs over at the Washington Post has a very good article with details and thoughts on using FireFox to protect yourself from such websites.

I have met with many security experts over the years and in the last 12 months many have become quite alarmed at the rate of of security breaches and this article encapsulates some of these concerns.

There are still many other vulnerabilities out there and it seems to me that companies in the security consulting business have a bright future

Whether the rumors are true regarding Apple working with Immersion to add haptic feedback to Apple's touchscreen devices is true or not it seems obvious to me that every touchscreen device needs to embrace this tactile feedback mechanism. The way it works is when you press a button the device emits a vibration which is more like the feedback you would get from touching a real key.

I for one have never been a fan of the onscreen keyboard that Apple provides on it's cellular phone. Haptic feedback would help and I am sure Apple is exploring adding the technology to its devices as to do otherwise would put the company at a disadvantage in a competitive market.

[engadget]

Jamie Siminoff beams with enthusiasm as he explains to me in this podcast about his excitement regarding his company's name change from SimulScribe to PhoneTag. According to Siminoff, sales have increased dramatically since the announcement of the new name and moreover, his customers feel more comfortable recommending the service to others as the name is now easy to remember.

Why else is Jamie so happy, what new features does the service now offer and where is his laptop located? Well for answers to these and other pressing questions, be sure to check out the podcast.
 

I really had some great meetings today with Fortune class companies who are in various stages of deploying VoIP. It is always great to get to spend time with these companies and learn about their challenges and success stories. I plan to cover this more thoroughly soon.

I have an immense amount of notes I need to digest it all and post in a way that helps my readers the most. I expect to do some of this in the flight back.

I head back from Paetec World today and I have had a number of very good meetings so far. I have a busy morning planned but before I head off to the day's festivities it is worth pointing out that yesterday I met with a large university in the Midwest who will soon be deploying VoIP.

One of the directors at the university wanted to deploy Cisco because he liked the the phones. Once the test network was up they learned that the Cisco phone system didn't do many of the things they need.

So now they are looking to other vendors.

I could see that the people I met with wanted to have a Cisco solution because much of their network equipment was made by Cisco and they figured it made sense to use the same vendor for everything.

In my subsequent discussions I did learn that there are many times that universities pick a vendor without a formal RFP process. Especially private institutions. For example if the founder of a particular company makes a donation to a college, you can bet that this will in many cases ensure there is not a fair and open RFP process. (I won't give a specific example to protect the innocent)

What is worth mentioning is that universities are now looking to upgrade their networks as a competitive differentiator. In other words a state of the art communications system ensures you can compete effectively for incoming students.

Apparently this wasn't the case when I went to the University of Connecticut in 1985 and they made me use a computer punch card to change one of my courses. It was almost enough to get me to leave the engineering school.

This discussion shows just how important technology has become to attracting the best students. I suspect this will only continue as time goes on.

Somehow PAETEC reserved Union Square for their party this evening in San Francisco. More to report soon.

Blogged Live and Wirelessly from PAETEC World 2008 in San Francisco

TellMe just launched a new application which allows people to use their Blackberry for voice search. utilizing the TellMe speech recognition engine and Microsoft Live Search, you can have search results automatically localized if you happen to have a GPS-enabled Blackberry.

This is a pretty big deal as it brings voice and local search together and shows where the search business is headed. It also shines light on what the real reason was for Microsoft to purchase Tellme. Not that any of us are surpised of course.

What might be worth discussion however is the fact that Microsoft would support RIM with an application which makes the Blackberry more attractive. This shows in the competition with Google there are no sacred cows -- not even Windows Mobile.

Tom Keating has the details.

You just missed a major PAETEC group hug. This may be the first group hug I have ever been involved with at a telecom show. So far this event is informative, educational and fun.

More to come.

Blogged Live and Wirelessly from PAETEC World 2008 in San Francisco

Many companies register domain names for new businesses they may launch and to protect them from others who may launch sites with their brand followed by the word "sucks," etc.

So you shouldn't be surprised that Google is like many other companies in this respect. What may surprise you however is just how many domain names the company has registered.

Royal Pingdom has had a chance to investigate the .com domain names Google owns. Keep in mind this list is just some of the names the company owns:

• 30dayfitness.com
• bayareaburritos.com
• donationcard.com
• essentialmommy.com
• greengardengifts.com
• mariolovespasta.com
• thesecretofburritos.com
• bayareaburritos.com
• donationcard.com
• essentialmommy.com
• greengardengifts.com
• mariolovespasta.com
• thesecretofburritos.com
• 1p0g0og1e.com
• az-on-url-je.com
• goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com
• google4kids.com
• googlebackups.com
• googleauction.com
• googlebroadband.com

The second day is about to start. Here are shots of the packed room which is still filling up.

Blogged Live and Wirelessly from PEAT World 2008 in San Francisco

You've definitely heard me go on about voicemail transcription and just how amazing it is to have your voicemails transcribed and e-mailed to you so you never have to dial into your mailbox again.

One of the companies leading the charge in voicemail to text or voicemail transcription is SimulScribe and they have just changed their name to PhoneTag.

As company founder Jamie Siminoff describes, the new name is much easier to remember.

Will this new name change the company's fortunes? It is unclear but the name certainly is easier to equate to what the company does. Personally I liked the old name -- but then again I also like to blog before the sun rises. Obviously I am not the average target customer.

Blogged Live and Wirelessly from PAETEC World 2008 in San Francisco

Shots from the reception of night one.

Blogged Live and Wirelessly from PAETEC World 2008 in San Francisco

As a bonus to my thoughts, opinion and analysis of the communications and technology sectors, today I bring you something a little bit different. After all, who wants to write about these subjects when your laptop is crammed like an Oreo between you and the reclined seat 12 inches in front of your face?

So what is a Virgin America flight like anyway? If you are like me, you hear great things about this new airline… And what’s not to like - new planes, stylish designs and a leading-edge entertainment center that’s yours - all yours.

The first thing that strikes you when you enter the cabin is the purple neon-like lights and the shiny white plastic mixed with that of the purple translucent variety enveloping the first class and rear areas of the plane.

There is a state of the art entertainment center located in the seat backs which handles your TV, radio and food ordering needs. Want a sandwich and a Coke? You simply order it and swipe your credit card (non-alcoholic beverages are free).

The system is full-featured although I did have trouble getting all the services to work. There is a chat feature you can use to speak with others on the plane but my in-seat controller was broken. Also, for the first few hours of my flight the music skipped excessively making it difficult to listen to the system at all. I also noticed the volume changed abruptly - to the loudest setting in my case. This happened twice to me. This particular feature was not compatible with the nap I tried to take but it did prove the vibrations from the human heart can rival those emanating from a jet engine.

This volume problem could be the result of my elbow inadvertently pressing against the controller which lives peacefully (most of the time) in the arm rest. While focusing on the design - I am wondering if the controller is best housed in the armrest as the hole which is placed above the controller puts great pressure on resting elbows. In addition, the plug for the headphones is on the side of the armrest and would be better positioned on the end where it doesn’t dig into your leg.

In an effort to write a complete review, I scanned the menu of options thoroughly and found there are a number of video games you can play but as they require access to the controller I couldn’t test them.

Some of the features not yet available include shopping, e-mail and reading - which I take to mean an e-book option. The seats are cramped - equivalent to American Airlines and if you happen to sit in the row in front of the exit row your seat does not recline.

Unfortunately this punishment is not shared by the occupants in the row in front of you. I learned this as I closed my eyes for a moment and suddenly realized the seat in front of me reclined and my laptop screen was in my mouth.

Offsetting these minor quibbles were flight attendants who were friendly on my way out to San Francisco. On a separate and unrelated note and I must admit the pearly-white material used in the seat backs reminds me of some sort of space-age toilet.

Strangely, the toilets were not space aged at all.

Something I haven’t seen in coach in a long while is pillows. Yes… The flight had a bunch of these onboard and I snagged one mid-way through the flight.

I cuddled mine for a while. I just can’t believe how much I missed pillows on flights. (I am sure some other airlines still have pillows on their flights as well - no need to send me a pillow-correction nastygram)

I ordered a turkey sandwich and it was of great quality and came within a few minutes after ordering. As a bonus there were a few Ghiradelli chocolates which I reluctantly consumed in the interest of writing the best review possible.

Room for improvement has to be having more legroom but with the price of jet fuel hitting new highs it is tough to imagine this happening soon. In addition, I would suggest having more radio stations - currently there are four and I got none of them to work.

Aside from the music skipping problem I would also suggest someone toy with the user interface of the entertainment system a bit to make it easier to use. For example when listening to music you sometimes get into a mode where you can’t figure out how to get easily get back to the artist/album you were listening to.

Other than that, it is really great to be on a new airplane after my usual flights on airplanes which were built when I was in diapers.

If you don’t require a large laptop you will be quite happy on Virgin America.

It will be interesting to see how Richard Branson’s new baby does over time. This particular flight had few empty seats so it seems, so far so good.