Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Off Topic - Farewell Allan Rawson
A legend in local media based at Lismore died of complications of a long term illness on Monday Morning. Allan Rawson was a humourous fellow and a good old fashioned journo who will be greatly missed. This article below taken from ABC online. My thoughts are with Allan's family and fellow work mates at this sad time. Peter
ABC local news editor dies, aged 55
Long-time ABC broadcaster Allan Rawson died this morning. He was 55.
Allan Rawson was the ABC's NSW North Coast news editor since 1992.
He died in Lismore base hospital from complications linked to a long-running illness.
Mr Rawson is survived by his wife Beverly and five children.
ABC local news editor dies, aged 55
Long-time ABC broadcaster Allan Rawson died this morning. He was 55.
Allan Rawson was the ABC's NSW North Coast news editor since 1992.
He died in Lismore base hospital from complications linked to a long-running illness.
Mr Rawson is survived by his wife Beverly and five children.
Contacting Telstra - Telephone roulette
I recently had a customer call the helpdesk trying to get his Kyocera CDMA 3245 to dial out using his Windows XP based Compaq Presario Laptop. I have been trying to contact the right place in Telstra to deal with this situation.
I spoke to Telstra service provider faults about the failure and they could not locate the correct number when I asked them who to call as they could not help me. I spoke to the Level 2 carrier support for mobile phones and they were helpful as they were able to determine the fact that the phone was not dialing up correctly. However, no one in Telstra themselves could give me this magic number I needed.
It was until I spoke to someone at Nokia (my mobile phone manufacturer) they pout me through to Telstra fault who were then able to give me a 1300 number for Telstra Wireless Data Support which is 1300 131 816.
Whats wrong with this picture, when an organization this big doesn’t know what departments its has and how to contact them?
I spoke to Telstra service provider faults about the failure and they could not locate the correct number when I asked them who to call as they could not help me. I spoke to the Level 2 carrier support for mobile phones and they were helpful as they were able to determine the fact that the phone was not dialing up correctly. However, no one in Telstra themselves could give me this magic number I needed.
It was until I spoke to someone at Nokia (my mobile phone manufacturer) they pout me through to Telstra fault who were then able to give me a 1300 number for Telstra Wireless Data Support which is 1300 131 816.
Whats wrong with this picture, when an organization this big doesn’t know what departments its has and how to contact them?
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Far north coast
Recently, because of work I had to attend a series of field days held at Casino NSW. I was there to demonstrate internet products for the company I am contracted to work for an gauge the viabilities of broadband services in that area.
What we discovered is that many of the rural towns and even some of the major centres on the North Coast and inland from the coast don’t yet have ADSL broadband and some of the exchanges in these areas are incapable of supporting such services because of the type of equipment used to feed residences and business houses.
Kyogle is a relatively large township in a very large shire and the town itself does not have an exchange capable of supporting broadband services. The exchange does however, support high speed narrowband services like dual channel 64k ISDN which gives a customer 128k. Still this is to some get out and push internet speeds!
Another problem we found was the ADSL register where ISP’s go to register their customers interests with Telstra wholesale was not accurate. Sure it might give you the current level of interest (although we are not sure about that one) it does not on many exchanges even indicate the number of people needed to make and exchange viable. If this information was made available I am sure achievable targets could be met easily, but maybe that is the idea, maybe they are scared if the info becomes available there will be rush on exchange areas meeting target levels of interest or customers and maybe it might mean spending a bit to much capital.
But to be fair, a lot of the technologies install were installed ten years ago before things like 56k v90 modems were even around. This means a customer using the internet would accept a 31200 connection as being good and with out any thought of broadband services in the future. Seems strange that the phone companies let this happened considering ADSL is a 15 year old technology and now we are seeing many of the current installed RIM exchanges and subdivisions cannot support ADSL services. These guys are stuck with high speed narrow band services such as 128k ISDN. It’s a shame they won’t just run fibre directly into the houses.
From what I heard and saw when I was up in the Northern Rivers and Richmond Valley area it looks like some of these towns are going to have to wait a long time before broadband services come their way if they ever do.
What we discovered is that many of the rural towns and even some of the major centres on the North Coast and inland from the coast don’t yet have ADSL broadband and some of the exchanges in these areas are incapable of supporting such services because of the type of equipment used to feed residences and business houses.
Kyogle is a relatively large township in a very large shire and the town itself does not have an exchange capable of supporting broadband services. The exchange does however, support high speed narrowband services like dual channel 64k ISDN which gives a customer 128k. Still this is to some get out and push internet speeds!
Another problem we found was the ADSL register where ISP’s go to register their customers interests with Telstra wholesale was not accurate. Sure it might give you the current level of interest (although we are not sure about that one) it does not on many exchanges even indicate the number of people needed to make and exchange viable. If this information was made available I am sure achievable targets could be met easily, but maybe that is the idea, maybe they are scared if the info becomes available there will be rush on exchange areas meeting target levels of interest or customers and maybe it might mean spending a bit to much capital.
But to be fair, a lot of the technologies install were installed ten years ago before things like 56k v90 modems were even around. This means a customer using the internet would accept a 31200 connection as being good and with out any thought of broadband services in the future. Seems strange that the phone companies let this happened considering ADSL is a 15 year old technology and now we are seeing many of the current installed RIM exchanges and subdivisions cannot support ADSL services. These guys are stuck with high speed narrow band services such as 128k ISDN. It’s a shame they won’t just run fibre directly into the houses.
From what I heard and saw when I was up in the Northern Rivers and Richmond Valley area it looks like some of these towns are going to have to wait a long time before broadband services come their way if they ever do.
Email wars Google v Microsoft
Well it had to happen, Microsoft’s hotmail is fighting back with bigger inbox’s a whopping 250mb of space. Doesn’t go halfway near Google corporations 1000mb of free email but I bet you it probably won’t stay that free for long. But certainly, this has brought Hotmail back to good old days of when it was a fantastic web based email service. Microsoft have done exceedingly well in increasing the size of the mailbox to 250mb. However, now with this increase who is going to buy the premium services? But then again with all the spam that seems to find its way into my hotmail mailbox it won’t take long to fill 250mb!!!
Read about it further in this story taken from www.pcworld.idg.com.au which is the website for a brilliant Australian Information Technology magazine
Hotmail in-box storage goes to 250MB
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
24/06/2004 10:52:39
The domino effect Google started in April when it announced plans for a free e-mail service with 1G-byte of in-box storage continued Wednesday, when Microsoft promised to boost Hotmail in-boxes to 250M bytes from the current 2M bytes.
The storage increase for Hotmail will be rolled out starting in July in the U.S. and other countries, said Lisa Gurry, director of Microsoft's MSN Internet division. "The landscape has changed regarding users' need for extra e-mail storage and we don't want storage to be an issue for any Hotmail user," she said.
Gurry declined to reveal the geographical rollout schedule but said Microsoft plans eventually to extend the bigger in-boxes to all 170 million Hotmail subscribers. Asked if Microsoft was responding to Google's 1G-byte e-mail service, which is still in a test phase, Gurry declined to address that service specifically, saying only that Hotmail is responding to customer feedback.
Yahoo last week announced plans to boost the in-box size for its free Web-based e-mail service, from 4M bytes to 100M bytes.
Other enhancements to the Hotmail service include the ability to send attachments up to 10M bytes in size, up from a previous e-mail maximum size of 1M-byte including attachments, and the cleaning of viruses in infected outgoing or incoming e-mail messages, she said. Previously, Microsoft scanned all outgoing and incoming Hotmail e-mail messages, but didn't clean them, she said. All Hotmail users worldwide will receive this feature in July, she said. Microsoft provides this antivirus service in partnership with Network Associates Inc.'s McAfee unit. As it has done in the past, Microsoft will continue providing antispam features in Hotmail, in partnership with Brightmail Inc., she said.
As providers of Web-based e-mail compete to retain subscribers and win new ones, they should focus on features beyond in-box capacity, said Allen Weiner, a Gartner Inc. analyst.
"We're having a mini-war in the free e-mail area right now, and I think the war has been focused in the wrong direction," he said. "For each of the major free e-mail providers to compete by offering more and more space doesn't seem sensible to me. ... Giving users more storage space doesn't really do much except create more clutter."
All the extra in-box space will be of little use if the users aren't given tools to categorize and retrieve messages, which is why Microsoft is doing the right thing with its plans to develop broad search functionality that covers the Web, e-mail and documents in PCs' local hard drives, he said. Then the e-mail service should be complemented with other Internet services, such as online calendars, he said.
Microsoft also announced a new fee-based e-mail service called MSN Hotmail Plus, which will offer users 2G bytes of in-box storage and the ability to send 20M-byte attachments for US$19.95 per year. Previously, Hotmail users could buy extra storage on top of the standard 2M bytes that the free service features at different price levels, starting at US$19.95 per year for 10M bytes of in-box storage and a maximum attachment size of 3M bytes up to the highest tier, which at US$59.95 per year offered 100M bytes of storage and a maximum attachment size of 20M bytes. Hotmail Plus users also get the benefit of not receiving graphical advertisements.
Yahoo has opted to do a similar thing by eliminating its tiered extra storage offers for its Web-based e-mail service, offering instead one fee-based plan of US$19.99 per year which gives users 2G bytes of in-box storage.
Yahoo increases e-mail storage capacity
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
16/06/2004 09:30:34
To Yahoo, size matters, specifically as it relates to the storage capacity of its e-mail users' in-boxes.
Yahoo plans to announce on Tuesday that it is increasing significantly the storage capacity of its free and fee-based Web-based e-mail services. Those who use the free service will see capacity increase from 4M bytes to 100M bytes, while users of the fee-based service will get 2G bytes, the company said.
In addition, Yahoo is simplifying pricing for its fee-based e-mail service, which is called Yahoo Mail Plus. There will only be one price for the service: US$19.99 per year. This represents a discount for all subscribers to the service.
The increase in storage will be rolled out globally between Tuesday and the end of the year. The new price will be available to subscribers when their current annual agreement ends, Yahoo said.
"We're announcing these improvements to our service, with a refreshed user interface and a storage increase. Our goal is to provide a full-featured service, and now we've taken storage off the table. People don't even have to think twice about it," said Terrell Karlsten, a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Limited storage in Web-based e-mail services has been a headache for many users, who see messages sent to them get bounced back if their in-box is full. This forces users to constantly delete messages from their in-box to make room for incoming ones.
But in April, Google rocked this market when it announced it was developing a free Web-based e-mail service called Gmail with 1G byte of storage capacity, enough room to let users forget about the issue of inbox storage. Gmail still isn't generally available, but Yahoo's move is a clear reaction to the imminent arrival of that competing service, said Marcel Nienhuis, an analyst at The Radicati Group.
By responding to Google's move with this increase in storage, Yahoo will give a good enough reason for most of its current users to stay put and not move over to Gmail, he said. "Anything above 50M bytes is plenty of storage, so providing 100M bytes for free is very generous and pretty attractive. Most users will be very happy with it," Nienhuis said. "The 2G bytes for the fee-based service is pretty much unlimited storage for all practical purposes."
It's hard to get a user to change Web mail accounts, because switching involves the hassle of notifying all contacts about the new e-mail address and getting acquainted with a new service, he said. Plus, users grow roots into Yahoo mail, because it's integrated with a variety of other Yahoo services, such as calendaring, address book, photo album and instant messaging, he said.
Also it remains to be seen how comprehensive and effective Gmail's set of features will be once it becomes generally available, particularly in areas such as spam filtering and virus protection, which are areas in which Yahoo has put much attention, Nienhuis said.
What Google has started with its announcement of Gmail is the removal of storage as a premium feature for Web-based e-mail services, Nienhuis said. Until now, providers of Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo and Microsoft had used storage as a feature for users to upgrade to their fee-based service, Nienhuis said.
"Increasing their storage limit is what people have been paying for premium service for the past few years and you won't see that anymore. That's over, and that's a pretty big change," he said, adding that he expects Microsoft to soon make an announcement similar to Yahoo's.
Yahoo is also announcing other enhancements to its e-mail services on Tuesday, including:
-- a redesigned user interface for both services;
-- for users of the free service, an increase in the maximum size of a single message from 3M bytes to 10M bytes;
-- an improvement in the back-end system powering the search function of the two e-mail services, which should result in faster query results; this search feature is an existing one, and lets users search the full-text and subject lines of the e-mail messages in their in-box by keyword;
-- the availability of 50 million e-mail handles or names that had at some point been claimed by users but that have been dormant for years;
-- the removal of all graphical ads from the fee-based service; these ads will continue to exist in the free service; the only ads that will appear in the fee-based service will be text-based ads promoting Yahoo offerings only
Users in the following markets will receive the redesigned user interface and the increase in free storage to 100M bytes on Tuesday: U.S., U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Read about it further in this story taken from www.pcworld.idg.com.au which is the website for a brilliant Australian Information Technology magazine
Hotmail in-box storage goes to 250MB
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
24/06/2004 10:52:39
The domino effect Google started in April when it announced plans for a free e-mail service with 1G-byte of in-box storage continued Wednesday, when Microsoft promised to boost Hotmail in-boxes to 250M bytes from the current 2M bytes.
The storage increase for Hotmail will be rolled out starting in July in the U.S. and other countries, said Lisa Gurry, director of Microsoft's MSN Internet division. "The landscape has changed regarding users' need for extra e-mail storage and we don't want storage to be an issue for any Hotmail user," she said.
Gurry declined to reveal the geographical rollout schedule but said Microsoft plans eventually to extend the bigger in-boxes to all 170 million Hotmail subscribers. Asked if Microsoft was responding to Google's 1G-byte e-mail service, which is still in a test phase, Gurry declined to address that service specifically, saying only that Hotmail is responding to customer feedback.
Yahoo last week announced plans to boost the in-box size for its free Web-based e-mail service, from 4M bytes to 100M bytes.
Other enhancements to the Hotmail service include the ability to send attachments up to 10M bytes in size, up from a previous e-mail maximum size of 1M-byte including attachments, and the cleaning of viruses in infected outgoing or incoming e-mail messages, she said. Previously, Microsoft scanned all outgoing and incoming Hotmail e-mail messages, but didn't clean them, she said. All Hotmail users worldwide will receive this feature in July, she said. Microsoft provides this antivirus service in partnership with Network Associates Inc.'s McAfee unit. As it has done in the past, Microsoft will continue providing antispam features in Hotmail, in partnership with Brightmail Inc., she said.
As providers of Web-based e-mail compete to retain subscribers and win new ones, they should focus on features beyond in-box capacity, said Allen Weiner, a Gartner Inc. analyst.
"We're having a mini-war in the free e-mail area right now, and I think the war has been focused in the wrong direction," he said. "For each of the major free e-mail providers to compete by offering more and more space doesn't seem sensible to me. ... Giving users more storage space doesn't really do much except create more clutter."
All the extra in-box space will be of little use if the users aren't given tools to categorize and retrieve messages, which is why Microsoft is doing the right thing with its plans to develop broad search functionality that covers the Web, e-mail and documents in PCs' local hard drives, he said. Then the e-mail service should be complemented with other Internet services, such as online calendars, he said.
Microsoft also announced a new fee-based e-mail service called MSN Hotmail Plus, which will offer users 2G bytes of in-box storage and the ability to send 20M-byte attachments for US$19.95 per year. Previously, Hotmail users could buy extra storage on top of the standard 2M bytes that the free service features at different price levels, starting at US$19.95 per year for 10M bytes of in-box storage and a maximum attachment size of 3M bytes up to the highest tier, which at US$59.95 per year offered 100M bytes of storage and a maximum attachment size of 20M bytes. Hotmail Plus users also get the benefit of not receiving graphical advertisements.
Yahoo has opted to do a similar thing by eliminating its tiered extra storage offers for its Web-based e-mail service, offering instead one fee-based plan of US$19.99 per year which gives users 2G bytes of in-box storage.
Yahoo increases e-mail storage capacity
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
16/06/2004 09:30:34
To Yahoo, size matters, specifically as it relates to the storage capacity of its e-mail users' in-boxes.
Yahoo plans to announce on Tuesday that it is increasing significantly the storage capacity of its free and fee-based Web-based e-mail services. Those who use the free service will see capacity increase from 4M bytes to 100M bytes, while users of the fee-based service will get 2G bytes, the company said.
In addition, Yahoo is simplifying pricing for its fee-based e-mail service, which is called Yahoo Mail Plus. There will only be one price for the service: US$19.99 per year. This represents a discount for all subscribers to the service.
The increase in storage will be rolled out globally between Tuesday and the end of the year. The new price will be available to subscribers when their current annual agreement ends, Yahoo said.
"We're announcing these improvements to our service, with a refreshed user interface and a storage increase. Our goal is to provide a full-featured service, and now we've taken storage off the table. People don't even have to think twice about it," said Terrell Karlsten, a Yahoo spokeswoman.
Limited storage in Web-based e-mail services has been a headache for many users, who see messages sent to them get bounced back if their in-box is full. This forces users to constantly delete messages from their in-box to make room for incoming ones.
But in April, Google rocked this market when it announced it was developing a free Web-based e-mail service called Gmail with 1G byte of storage capacity, enough room to let users forget about the issue of inbox storage. Gmail still isn't generally available, but Yahoo's move is a clear reaction to the imminent arrival of that competing service, said Marcel Nienhuis, an analyst at The Radicati Group.
By responding to Google's move with this increase in storage, Yahoo will give a good enough reason for most of its current users to stay put and not move over to Gmail, he said. "Anything above 50M bytes is plenty of storage, so providing 100M bytes for free is very generous and pretty attractive. Most users will be very happy with it," Nienhuis said. "The 2G bytes for the fee-based service is pretty much unlimited storage for all practical purposes."
It's hard to get a user to change Web mail accounts, because switching involves the hassle of notifying all contacts about the new e-mail address and getting acquainted with a new service, he said. Plus, users grow roots into Yahoo mail, because it's integrated with a variety of other Yahoo services, such as calendaring, address book, photo album and instant messaging, he said.
Also it remains to be seen how comprehensive and effective Gmail's set of features will be once it becomes generally available, particularly in areas such as spam filtering and virus protection, which are areas in which Yahoo has put much attention, Nienhuis said.
What Google has started with its announcement of Gmail is the removal of storage as a premium feature for Web-based e-mail services, Nienhuis said. Until now, providers of Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo and Microsoft had used storage as a feature for users to upgrade to their fee-based service, Nienhuis said.
"Increasing their storage limit is what people have been paying for premium service for the past few years and you won't see that anymore. That's over, and that's a pretty big change," he said, adding that he expects Microsoft to soon make an announcement similar to Yahoo's.
Yahoo is also announcing other enhancements to its e-mail services on Tuesday, including:
-- a redesigned user interface for both services;
-- for users of the free service, an increase in the maximum size of a single message from 3M bytes to 10M bytes;
-- an improvement in the back-end system powering the search function of the two e-mail services, which should result in faster query results; this search feature is an existing one, and lets users search the full-text and subject lines of the e-mail messages in their in-box by keyword;
-- the availability of 50 million e-mail handles or names that had at some point been claimed by users but that have been dormant for years;
-- the removal of all graphical ads from the fee-based service; these ads will continue to exist in the free service; the only ads that will appear in the fee-based service will be text-based ads promoting Yahoo offerings only
Users in the following markets will receive the redesigned user interface and the increase in free storage to 100M bytes on Tuesday: U.S., U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Keep a track of what your kids are doing
What concerns me the most sometimes is the way parents use technologies as baby sitters to keep the kids occupied while they do something else. What I mean is parent who also doesn’t care what their kids watch on tv or do on the internet.
When you work on an internet helpdesk you often get calls from customers who have racked up a $1200 dollar bill from surfing no credit card needed porn sites. Of course the customer is mortified to find out this is what has happen and deny such doing. But what usually is the case is the young son aged 13 to 15 who is just discovering girls and a sexual interest in them starts surfing those websites and thinks nothing of the warning of content and the warnings of the cost of these sites and the parents only find out when the phone bill rocks in.
Another thing that annoyed me greatly was when a customer turned up with a computer full of pop up advertisements or spyware that you usually only get from surfing porn sites. I mean this computer was chokers with them as well as having an internet browser cache full of stuff that would not pass Australian censorship laws. Again, it turned out to be the teenage son surfing these sites.
But what also frightens me is parents are not taking an interest in their kids to find out who they are talking to on the internet in chat rooms, on instant private messaging and what websites they are going to. Parents need to talk to their kids about the internet and make them internet savvy and streetwise. Last year 2003 there were a number of cases of older males preying on teenage girls through chat rooms and instant messaging programs and some of these ended in sad circumstances.
Talk to your kids, make them understand the internet is a fun place to be on but you need to make some rules for them to follow.
When you work on an internet helpdesk you often get calls from customers who have racked up a $1200 dollar bill from surfing no credit card needed porn sites. Of course the customer is mortified to find out this is what has happen and deny such doing. But what usually is the case is the young son aged 13 to 15 who is just discovering girls and a sexual interest in them starts surfing those websites and thinks nothing of the warning of content and the warnings of the cost of these sites and the parents only find out when the phone bill rocks in.
Another thing that annoyed me greatly was when a customer turned up with a computer full of pop up advertisements or spyware that you usually only get from surfing porn sites. I mean this computer was chokers with them as well as having an internet browser cache full of stuff that would not pass Australian censorship laws. Again, it turned out to be the teenage son surfing these sites.
But what also frightens me is parents are not taking an interest in their kids to find out who they are talking to on the internet in chat rooms, on instant private messaging and what websites they are going to. Parents need to talk to their kids about the internet and make them internet savvy and streetwise. Last year 2003 there were a number of cases of older males preying on teenage girls through chat rooms and instant messaging programs and some of these ended in sad circumstances.
Talk to your kids, make them understand the internet is a fun place to be on but you need to make some rules for them to follow.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Rural usage of the internet:
Recently, the boss sent to me Primex with on behalf of the ISP work for. It was an interesting task and somewhat of a learning experience as I went in thinking the Casino would be fairly IT savy. I was right, sure there were your 70+ farmers who had never touched a computer but when a cane farmer of 60+ rocked into our stand and started talking to me about the value of the internet and open source software like linux I was very pleased.
Many people who were listening to our conversation pricked up their ears as they could not believe what they were hearing an old cane farmer talking about the latest distribution of linux redhat, debian and solaris. How he had completely gone away from Microsoft based products and was surviving on linux open source based products and was beta testing products developed in linux by a friend of his for the agricultural industry.
The networking night was very interesting held at one of the local pubs, the number of guys in high up positions industry that don’t use computers amazed me, these fellows in their 50’s had decided to go near machines and genuinely expressed a fear of using them. They had secretaries for all that sort of thing according to one local government members but some of the older gentlemen and especially ladies at this event were very quickly to discuss internet related options and products.
At the actual field day the older generation featured prominent in the number of people discussing internet related products. I found people interested in stocks, family history, keeping in contact with the kids, travel and just being on it because its was trendy.
But what interested me was the usage of the internet in a rural setting, the farm was featuring high on the list. The new national live stock identification scheme was making the internet a must on most farming properties. Infact after talking to the guys from the department of agriculture on the night of the Primex networking night we I found many people coming over asking for our internet brochures because they had told them about the company I work for.
But farming is featuring highly, the weather from www.weatherzone.com.au or www.bom.gov.au and details of chemicals, planting advice, finance details and something I was able to grasp an interest in was computer aided livestock management and computer aided live stock trading. The old days of going to the auction according to one farmer are gone. He takes a digital photograph and puts up a breading history of the cow or bull on the livestock auction site and bingo it sells. He admits at the moment only the most internet effieicnt farmers are online in this system but he says it is improving. But he recons you also have to keen if your going to get a bull freighted from Victoria to near the NSW border.
Many people who were listening to our conversation pricked up their ears as they could not believe what they were hearing an old cane farmer talking about the latest distribution of linux redhat, debian and solaris. How he had completely gone away from Microsoft based products and was surviving on linux open source based products and was beta testing products developed in linux by a friend of his for the agricultural industry.
The networking night was very interesting held at one of the local pubs, the number of guys in high up positions industry that don’t use computers amazed me, these fellows in their 50’s had decided to go near machines and genuinely expressed a fear of using them. They had secretaries for all that sort of thing according to one local government members but some of the older gentlemen and especially ladies at this event were very quickly to discuss internet related options and products.
At the actual field day the older generation featured prominent in the number of people discussing internet related products. I found people interested in stocks, family history, keeping in contact with the kids, travel and just being on it because its was trendy.
But what interested me was the usage of the internet in a rural setting, the farm was featuring high on the list. The new national live stock identification scheme was making the internet a must on most farming properties. Infact after talking to the guys from the department of agriculture on the night of the Primex networking night we I found many people coming over asking for our internet brochures because they had told them about the company I work for.
But farming is featuring highly, the weather from www.weatherzone.com.au or www.bom.gov.au and details of chemicals, planting advice, finance details and something I was able to grasp an interest in was computer aided livestock management and computer aided live stock trading. The old days of going to the auction according to one farmer are gone. He takes a digital photograph and puts up a breading history of the cow or bull on the livestock auction site and bingo it sells. He admits at the moment only the most internet effieicnt farmers are online in this system but he says it is improving. But he recons you also have to keen if your going to get a bull freighted from Victoria to near the NSW border.
Friday, June 11, 2004
Sav on ABC 702 Sydney
Today I was on the ABC local radio 702 and central coast with Scott Levi. Discussing, GMAIL which is Google’s new web based email service which will provide users with 1000mb or close to 1gb of data which is 1024mb of web based email.
I was invited to join the service by my boss who had an account and was given the opportunity to share gmail with three others. Gmails services are expanding and new features are appearing daily as the beta testers report back to google what they suggest.
New features that poped up this week were a new address book feature. New bits and other features when requested by the users, like the new spam filters as the old ones did not really trap it as well as it could.
With in a matter of minutes of me going to air I was greeted with the abilities to invite three people to gmail. I invited the announcer I was talking to on air, and a friend who used to work in the ABC and my sister Fiona before I ran out of invites.
I was invited to join the service by my boss who had an account and was given the opportunity to share gmail with three others. Gmails services are expanding and new features are appearing daily as the beta testers report back to google what they suggest.
New features that poped up this week were a new address book feature. New bits and other features when requested by the users, like the new spam filters as the old ones did not really trap it as well as it could.
With in a matter of minutes of me going to air I was greeted with the abilities to invite three people to gmail. I invited the announcer I was talking to on air, and a friend who used to work in the ABC and my sister Fiona before I ran out of invites.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Off topic - Happy Birthday Donald Duck
I know this is off topic, but I could not resist this. Donald Duck has turned 70 years old. During that time he has amused many generations but in 70 years he has not worn any pants!!! I mean 70 years parading around without pants, whats going on there??
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
VOIP - As heard on ABC Coast FM Local Radio
• First - yes or no – can you use your computer as a phone?
At this stage in the development of the technologies its hard to give a a clear cut yes or know answer. But I’ll go as far as you can use your computer to achieve telephone like conferencing, and place computer to fixed line calls.
There are commercial products like Virtual PBX’s based on VoIP network. Basically, all handset are connected as a network device and send and receive packets of data which are then by the pbx transmitted onto the telephone network. You can connect many of these PBX stations together over the internet and network them together via a VPN (virtual private network)
The home user, will probably be quite happy with just a standard messaging client program.
• What’s the quality like?
Depending on the quality of your connection, on dial up it is not as good as a telephone connection but if your one a broadband or highspeed narrowband connection faster than 128k you should get a good quality sound. Some VoIP applications can stream Mp3 thus giving a much more higher quality sound.
Is it reliable?
Depending on the quality of the connection, these days it is quite reliable and useful. However, on dial up and on some high speed narrowband and 256k ADSL connections you may notice a bit of break up or skip at times.
• OK, so how do you do it?
Well, if you want to make calls to a fixed line from your computer you will need a valid credit card, a VOIP provider and their client software. MSN and ICQ have this built in. You will also need to open an account with your proffered voip provider. However, if you just want to talk between computers you’ll need a microphone and a headphone. Some people often use a combination microphone and headset such as one I am talking to you on now in the ABC studio’s. Some VoIP home providers supply you with a handset that can in the event of a call being placed to you ring like a conventional telephone and when the handset is lifted activate the client software on the computer
• How expensive is it to set up?
Calls between computer to computer via a piece of software like msn messenger or icq are free other than your monthly payment to your ISP to have internet access. But VoIP to a fixed phone line then costs money and has to be signed up through a Voip provider. There are obviously savings on overseas calls and STD but it’s a bit of waste time for local calls and not to mention money.
• I’m on the internet, my phone line is engaged can I get VoIP so I can talk the call while I’m on the net.
Not at this time. However, a few years ago Telstra introduced a service called icall waiting which if you downloaded and installed the software and paid a small rental each month via a credit card you could answer your calls whilst you were on your dial up connection and talk to the caller. However, with the introduction of adsl services it has made this service redundant as customers can use broadband internet and PSTN telephone services at the same time. I think Telstra has disconnected the service now as I cannot find any reference to it on there homepage.
At this stage in the development of the technologies its hard to give a a clear cut yes or know answer. But I’ll go as far as you can use your computer to achieve telephone like conferencing, and place computer to fixed line calls.
There are commercial products like Virtual PBX’s based on VoIP network. Basically, all handset are connected as a network device and send and receive packets of data which are then by the pbx transmitted onto the telephone network. You can connect many of these PBX stations together over the internet and network them together via a VPN (virtual private network)
The home user, will probably be quite happy with just a standard messaging client program.
• What’s the quality like?
Depending on the quality of your connection, on dial up it is not as good as a telephone connection but if your one a broadband or highspeed narrowband connection faster than 128k you should get a good quality sound. Some VoIP applications can stream Mp3 thus giving a much more higher quality sound.
Is it reliable?
Depending on the quality of the connection, these days it is quite reliable and useful. However, on dial up and on some high speed narrowband and 256k ADSL connections you may notice a bit of break up or skip at times.
• OK, so how do you do it?
Well, if you want to make calls to a fixed line from your computer you will need a valid credit card, a VOIP provider and their client software. MSN and ICQ have this built in. You will also need to open an account with your proffered voip provider. However, if you just want to talk between computers you’ll need a microphone and a headphone. Some people often use a combination microphone and headset such as one I am talking to you on now in the ABC studio’s. Some VoIP home providers supply you with a handset that can in the event of a call being placed to you ring like a conventional telephone and when the handset is lifted activate the client software on the computer
• How expensive is it to set up?
Calls between computer to computer via a piece of software like msn messenger or icq are free other than your monthly payment to your ISP to have internet access. But VoIP to a fixed phone line then costs money and has to be signed up through a Voip provider. There are obviously savings on overseas calls and STD but it’s a bit of waste time for local calls and not to mention money.
• I’m on the internet, my phone line is engaged can I get VoIP so I can talk the call while I’m on the net.
Not at this time. However, a few years ago Telstra introduced a service called icall waiting which if you downloaded and installed the software and paid a small rental each month via a credit card you could answer your calls whilst you were on your dial up connection and talk to the caller. However, with the introduction of adsl services it has made this service redundant as customers can use broadband internet and PSTN telephone services at the same time. I think Telstra has disconnected the service now as I cannot find any reference to it on there homepage.
All I can say is the boss is an absolutely legend!!!
Today he comes into the office and says “Do you guys want a gmail account” and of course with extreme excitement and a large spring off the ground I said “yes, sure do”.
Apparently, in an attempt to make the beta trial grow a bit more selected members of the gmail trial are being asked to invite their friends (up to 3 of them) and the boss invited us. Pretty dam good if you ask me!
It has some pretty good facilities on it., spam reporting and clearing, search the entire email box and more.
Apparently, in an attempt to make the beta trial grow a bit more selected members of the gmail trial are being asked to invite their friends (up to 3 of them) and the boss invited us. Pretty dam good if you ask me!
It has some pretty good facilities on it., spam reporting and clearing, search the entire email box and more.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Sony Stops PDA Sales
According to an BBC online article, Sony will soon cease selling its PDA products outside of Japan. Is this a good move? With an increasing market for the personal assistants her in Australia is Sony missing out on a chance to make mega bucks.
Well no, Sony have seen the light or heard the phone ring, Whichever, is the case? Despite wireless connectivity and increasing technologies the PDA as a separate unit may well have had its day. Considering, that ten years ago the PDA and the mobile phone were classed as must haves for the then future business man, it’s a fitting end that the two are morphing into the one product.
Sony, through its mobile phone manufacturing company Sony – Erricson are already offering mobile phones with most of the functions available on today’s PDA machines. Sony feels the mobile phone will more prominent in the future and thus have taken this path to make the mobile phone more useful in general day to day living and are looking at a strategy to converge contents like music, movies and games with hardware and converge contents like music, movies and games with hardware.
Well no, Sony have seen the light or heard the phone ring, Whichever, is the case? Despite wireless connectivity and increasing technologies the PDA as a separate unit may well have had its day. Considering, that ten years ago the PDA and the mobile phone were classed as must haves for the then future business man, it’s a fitting end that the two are morphing into the one product.
Sony, through its mobile phone manufacturing company Sony – Erricson are already offering mobile phones with most of the functions available on today’s PDA machines. Sony feels the mobile phone will more prominent in the future and thus have taken this path to make the mobile phone more useful in general day to day living and are looking at a strategy to converge contents like music, movies and games with hardware and converge contents like music, movies and games with hardware.
60gb explosion for the IPOD
IPOD explodes onto market5, the apple Ipod has been making a big splash and catching the attention of other performance consumer electronics manufacturers like Sony, Apple’s Ipod uses a drive manufacturer by Toshiba. But the small version of the Ipod Mini uses a Hitachi 4GB drive.
However, Toshiba are now planning a 60gb drive which Aplle computer company have decided to utilse for the next model Ipod giving it a huge 60gb music storage capacity. The drive is 1.8 inch in size and will be a b ig hit for mobile device manufacturers and laptop manufacturers alike.
However, Toshiba are now planning a 60gb drive which Aplle computer company have decided to utilse for the next model Ipod giving it a huge 60gb music storage capacity. The drive is 1.8 inch in size and will be a b ig hit for mobile device manufacturers and laptop manufacturers alike.
