Do you mark all of your emails with a High importance flag?
It makes the flag useless and makes kittens cry.
Please stop. Think of the kittens.
Much love;
Scott
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Current Events
Results tagged “Communications” from ScottandMargo.net
I added my coComment feed to the right sidebar today. I've been meaning to do it for a while but didn't get around to it for a bunch of different reasons.
I tend to comment out there in the world more often than I write here. coComment is a good way for me to keep track of those discussions...when I remember to tag them. Maybe making them more public will serve to make me remember more.
There's still some work I want to do with the design of the site (it's too narrow, for example). I'm not a developer though so that's going to happen really slowly.
I've said before that all I want is a phone that's a phone.
Maybe it makes me a hypocrite but I want an iPhone. I can't help it. It's small, slick and smart. I think that the voicemail inbox idea is almost worth the price by itself. It would give me an iPod that has a better interface than my iPod. A phone that's better than my phone. It'd sync with iCal enough for me to be able to actually use it effectively. I'm still not really into the camera or photo functionality but I could see how some people might.
I do have some concerns though:
- Sometimes Apple screws up 1.0 devices. The first Nano, the first Intel systems, the cube for example.
- How hardy is the touchscreen? Better than the face of the first Nano's I hope.
- Movies, TV shows, music videos and music, your contacts and calendar in 8GB?
- A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has EDGE but not 3G?
- A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has 802.11g but not 802.11n?
- It's running OSX but there's no indication of how much of OSX and what the hardware's capable of. What kind of games can I play? What other software can I run? NewsFire? Ecto? Lotus Notes?? Depending on the capabilities of the hardware and how much of OSX is on it, this could be huge to me
- I don't understand the pricing when you consider it with the fact that they're putting it out with Cingular and it's going to be sold at Apple stores and at Cingular. Does that mean the price is $499 or $599 with or without a contract with Cingular, or are they going to be signing you to a contract with Cingular in the Apple stores (which seems odd to me)?
I'm looking forward to the June release of this device. I want to see what happens when this thing gets out into the world. Barring any horrible problems, I would expect to try to pick one of these up as a Christmas present to myself. I just hope my Ebay'd t610 lasts.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Marketing, Technology
Maybe I missed something but, did Apple just release a new Airport Extreme base station that does 802.11n but not release an Airport Extreme Card to match it at 802.11n?
I read somewhere that the newer Macbooks are shipping with an 802.11n capable network card, but those of us with older Macs are stuck, it seems.
I get a lot of interference with my 802.11g network from nearby cordless phones so I'd bump up to 802.11n just to fix that issue. On top of that, the new N access points seem to have some more features than what was more available with the G routers....like built-in print servers and USB file servers.
Technorati Tags: Technology, Gadgets, Apple
It's been a couple years now since I got my XM Roadie2. It had a lot of use over 2004 and 2005. I really enjoyed the service...no commercials on the music stations, lots of different music stations to enjoy, and I didn't have to worry about finding new radio stations to listen to on long road trips.
During 2006, it seems like something happened to XM. Commercial music stations came up. I didn't listen to those stations anyway, but Margo did. Then it seemed that the playlists at drive time for my mainstay channels (Squizz, Boneyard, Fred, Ethel, Lucy) started getting really short and repetitive. Then the DJs started coming out to jabber more. This is the kind of stuff that got me to stop listening to FM radio.
In response, I started listening to my iPod a lot more. There's a bunch of podcasts that I listen to now, and with some playing around with my playlists, my music rotation is a lot more interesting. Around summertime, I noticed that I hardly ever even turned my XM unit on anymore. That continued through Saturday when I called XM to cancel and I removed the Roady from my car. Margo hates what has happened to XM too but I don't think she wants to mess with hooking her iPod up to the car yet so XM still has one customer in this house yet.
The funny thing is that when I got the Roady, I was trying to decide between getting it and an iPod. I figured that XM had better access to more music than I do, so I went with the XM. Eventually, when I finally got an iPod it took over my music listening in the car and at work. I could have probably saved myself a lot of time and money ($10 a month?) if I would have just gone with the iPod in the beginning. Oh well.
Update: Just to be clear, in the car, I have the iPod plugged into my car's stereo system...I don't drive with the earbuds in like I see some people do around here. I'll describe my at-work setup in a future post.
Technorati Tags: Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Technology, Travel
I've mentioned in the past how much I hate the idea that some people have about cell phones that they're just a conduit to push marketing material to a person wherever they are. I don't want content from a communications provider. I want connectivity to the network. That holds true for voice and data.
So Verizon decides that they're going to push banner ads in addition to the web content that their customers are downloading with their cell phones next year according to a NY Times article (Verizon to Allow Ads on Its Mobile Phones). Nice. I wonder if the bits that those ads take up count with the limited data plans.
Have I mentioned that that I'm in the market for a new phone and carrier? (number portability is a wonderful thing).
I was kinda considering Verizon even with their bad selection of phones because of their recent Consumer Reports ratings. Not anymore. The article mentions Sprint is already doing this...Margo's been on Sprint for many years and hates it, so I never really considered them.
Yesterday, Seth Godin posts a message on his blog for John Harrobin, VP of marketing and digital media for Verizon because apparently you can't just contact the guy directly. Seth asks a couple of questions that everyone in marketing should ask themselves before they decide to add more advertising to something out here in the digital world:
Here are the two questions I hope you'll ask yourself:
a. what does the money we make from this effort do to the long-term profitability of our relationship with customers and
b. is this something consumers want? How many calls a day does Verizon get asking for more spam/advertising on their cell phones?
Now, the only relationship I'm interested in with my cell carrier is that they give me connectivity and stay out of my way if I keep paying the bill. Dumping more advertising down that connection isn't a good way to maintain even those minimal requirements for a relationship.
Anyone over at Verizon listening?
Technorati Tags: Cellular, Marketing, Technology
Apple's .Mac Mail webmail updated overnight to the new interface.
Looks a lot like the Mail.app interface.
There's some small differences like the "Checking" spinner being moved from the Inbox in Mail.app to the top of the interface (below Apple.com's header). There isn't much there that's going to take any time getting used to though.
It feels faster...speed was my main complaint about the old version of .Mac webmail. The preview pane seems to work well. It's been a slow mail day so I don't know yet if it's "web 2.0" enough to automatically show new mail instead of making me click "Get Mail" like I had to in the old .Mac Webmail. Time will tell on that one.
Nice improvement at least, if less than innovative.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Technology
This blog runs on Movable Type. In its history, it's also been run on Xoops and Post Nuke. Before it was anything like a blog, it was just a hand coded (DreamWeaver and Notepad mostly) web page with information about our wedding (directions, etc for guests that could make it, pictures for those that couldn't). I made the switch to Movable Type sometime in 2003, I think and haven't really spent any time thinking about moving it again since.
I am a Lotus Domino professional (certified and some would say certifiable), so some people find it odd that I'm not using the Dominoblog template or the newly released IBM Blog template. I was asked that a few times from people at Lotusphere 2006 about that as well. At the time, I hadn't really considered a move and hadn't played around with the Dominoblog template.
I've been thinking about it more recently, and below I'm listing the barriers that I currently have for making the move. I only have a couple hours worth of time invested in messing with the Dominoblog template so far and none with the 7.0.2 template. There's a lot that I like about the template, and I'll drop that in another post after I have more time to play.
Cheap Hosting:
At the time that I was shopping around for a a host for my site (2001 sometime), I was considering Domino-based hosting providers. Most of the ones that I found had free options that were insufficient. I'm currently using about 80MB of space for my site between the content directories and the database. I don't get enough traffic to worry about hitting the limit in most hosting arrangements.
Importing of content from MovaleType:
In the past, I hadn't really worried about losing content on the site when moving platforms. The amount of actual content was pretty light. In the past year or so, it's picked up a lot, and I kinda care about the old stuff now. Anything I move to in the future must be able to import the Movable Type data that I already have. Probably doesn't really have to be Movable Type specific, if I can point it at an RSS/ATOM feed that has everything on the site, then import that.
Trackbacks
I've been fiddling around with the Dominoblog 3.0.2 template, and I don't see how/if trackbacks actually work. I haven't seen any Dominoblog based blogs that accept trackbacks. I'm wondering if that's a trackback spam thing or not. A robust anti-spam configuration is a must. I've been plugged into Akismet for my blog for a while and it's a beautiful thing.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Domino, Lotus, Technology
I have a hard time believing that their menu has changed when every time I call any automated phone system over the last couple of years.
I'm sure it's some focus-group-tested technique to get people to pay more attention to the prompts. Problem is that as far as I'm concerned, it doens't help and makes things take longer. When I'm calling, I only want one thing...to talk to a human that can help. If I was doing something that I wanted to deal with a computer for, I'd do it over the web.
Technorati Tags: Customer service, Marketing
