Proactive Networking Blog

I got an advanced copy of a CD that one of our clients has written and recorded.  I wasn’t overly excited to get it, as it is a children’s music CD.  I figured I would throw it into the car CD player to entertain my 3-year old while we were driving.  It is called “Wee-phabet Songs” and features remakes of children’s classics with a twist to help learn the ABC’s.  I was pleasantly surprised that I found them to be catchy myself, as opposed to what I expected.

The amazing thing is that my son LOVES them.  With all the choices he has, his constant request is to hear “Weeteachit”, which is the name of the company that produces the CD.  To my amazement “Wee-phabet Songs”  has supplanted “The Wiggles” in our house.

We had the opportunity to test out a Google G1 phone for a couple of weeks.  I had really hoped that it would live up to the hype and I would end up keeping it.  It was not to be.  The form factor of the phone is nice.  It feels good in the hand, although not as good as the iPhone.  The G1 fixes what I thought was a major iPhone problem - annoying keyboard.  The G1 has a snap out keyboard that is pretty large and allows for very rapid thumb typing.  When you snap the keyboard out, the screen automatically changs from portrait to landscape.

Problem number one is no support for Exchange Active Sync, which is a must for the business user.  Hopefully, this will be fixed in the next version.  I think it was a mistake even to release the phone without this functionality.  Apple released the first iPhone without Exchange Active Sync and it hurt the iPhones adoption with business users.  Although, Apple had the built in killer app of the iPhone being an iPod.  I couldn’t find the “killer app” on the G1.

Problem number two, or maybe this is even more glaring than problem one, is Google’s choice of T-Mobile as the only provider.  T-Mobile’s network is generally useless in my experience, unless you are in a large city.  Even in suburbs of Indianapolis, coverage was spotty.  Or, even if I was in coverage, I would often not get what I would consider to be 3G speeds.

I hope that Google will add Active Sync and allow other carriers to sell the next version.  For now, I will continue to use a Windows Mobile based phone.

The economy is in the tank.  The recession is “real”.  Guess what, small business keeps on trucking.   Why is small business is the least effected by the downturn?  Because small business owners are practical.  They are cautious.  Are you taking advantage of the competitive advantages that technology can bring to your business?  Now is the time to seize market share.  Is your glass half empty or half full?

Here are a few links to some open source or free products available for small business.

Genbook - Free online scheduling for small businesses. Accept online appointments on the web.

GotoDaily - Find and share coupons, coupon codes, hot deals, promotional codes, and discounts for thousands of online stores.

CollectiveX - Create a Groupsite for Anything!

MindMeister - Collaborative Online Mind Mapping

Give me a call if you need help setting any of this up

I thought it might be cool to track how Vista has been running for me.  I recently upgraded to a new desktop computer (Intel Quad 4, 250 HD, 4 gigs RAM), and installed Vista on 3/29/08.  I installed MS Office 07, Adobe Web Premium, Mozilla, Skype, Itunes, Quicktime, and some other minor programs on it.  I don’t game on it, but do spend lots of time doing web work on it.  Vista has been running without a hitch on it and I don’t have any complaints.  Initially it was a little tricky “getting around” in Vista, but now it is starting to become second nature and I really like it.  I have all of the updates and I do admit I don’t do a lot to “stress” out my computer.  I do like having lots of programs open and flipping between them constantly.  I like having two monitors where one has Dreamweaver on it and the other has Flash.  I’ve had NO blue screens and my last boot was 9/14/08.  That boot, I think, was either for an update or I went on a vacation.  Did I mention I leave my computer on all the time.  I know that isn’t good for conserving energy, but I love coming over to my computer and having it ready to go. 

If you are really geeky and want to find your computer’s system information open up the cmd prompt and type in systeminfo. 

Unfortunately, I decided to return my iPhone 3G.  I had hoped it might replace my Sprint Treo 700wx.  I found out that ATT would let me return the iPhone within two weeks no questions asked if I didn’t like it.  I took the Treo and the iPhone out to California with me when I went hiking with my father.  The iPhone was nice, easy to watch Youtube videos (actually more fun for my son than for me), Exchange Active Sync email was very easy to set up.  The screen is just amazing.  Don’t know why Palm or HTC can’t come up with something to match this.  My father has the Sprint Instinct which is supposed to compete with the iPhone, based on screen alone, it comes up short.

The main problem for me was coverage.  ATT claims to have the best coverage, but I didn’t see it.  Driving into Death Valley from Vegas, I lost ATT signal 15 minutes before losing the Sprint signal.  Coming out of Death Valley, had Sprint signal 20 minutes before ATT picked up.  Neither phone had a signal on top of Telescope Peak, which didn’t surprise me, as this mountain is very remote.

Driving up 395 from Lone Pine, CA to Mammoth Lakes, CA, I was constantly losing signal on the iPhone, while the Sprint signal was solid.  On Mammoth Mountain again no signal on the iPhone, and although the Sprint signal wasn’t good.  I could find a few spots where both my phone and even my Sprint laptop card would work (we rode the gondola up Mammoth, why hike when you can ride!  It was our rest day anyway and I conducted some profitable business sitting in the cafe up at 11,100 feet.)

On Boundary Peak, no signal from either phone at the top (although I was darn near too tired to care), but got Sprint signal numerous times on the way up. Again Boundary is very remote, so no surprise.

No signal from either phone at Cottonwood Lakes, basecamp for Mt. Langley.  We decided to go light and fast, so I didn’t take either phone up, but last time I I climbed it had a great signal for the Treo on top of Langley.  I assume the iPhone would have worked too, as you can see Lone Pine, CA from the top and the iPhone works in Lone Pine.

We rock climbed in the Owens River Gorge, and amazingly the Sprint had signal, I can’t imagine where it was coming from.  The Gorge is pretty deep.  Again, iPhone was a useless brick.

Since for me it is important to be able to keep in contact easily,  I decided to stick with the Treo.  Plus the mess with trying to get six business phones out of our Sprint contract.

Maybe someday I’ll buy that Satelite phone and then I can go for the iPhone.

I haven’t had a home phone in about 6 years, since I went completely to using my Moble phone as my one and only phone.  I don’t miss having a home phone, but now that I have started to really use Skype (www.skype.com) I have really gotten into having a “home” phone again. 

 I know that there are other programs out there that do about the same thing, but the video quality is excellent and you can conference call (without the video) on Skype too.  It is all for free if you and the person you are “calling” have skype accounts.  I am really trying to make everyone I call get a Skype account so that when I’m home I can call them on Skype and see them too if they have a webcam. 

 It isn’t like the old days where you only got one frame every 20 seconds or so.  Now it is full motion video and the quality is very good (for video calling).  The only problem I have is that you can’t video conference.  If you have at least a microphone and speakers you should really check it out!

I really hate the new Microsoft commercials.  I don’t know if you have seen any of them, but PLEASE!!  I’m not sure if Microsoft is ever going to get a clue.  They continue to try to beat a dead horse, saying that you must know that I’m definitely not a Mac lover, I’m a PC through and through. 

Microsoft really needs to drop their ad agency and admit that they made a mistake with Vista.  It isn’t any better than XP and the product thing with multiple products is confusing.  The average consumer doesn’t understand enough about the differences between Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate to determine a reason to purchase anything other than the cheapest.  Nor do they even understand why they need to upgrade to Vista from XP.  The commercial with the “New” operating system (which is actually Vista) is SO DUMB!  Add to that the “I’m a PC” commercial that makes me think that I don’t want to be a PC anymore.  And don’t get me started on the Bill Gates and Sienfeld thing.

Please Microsoft open up just a little and start letting others contribute to your platform, or at least find some real innovative things to put into a new OS.  Keep that new OS to one or two products.  Finally get a new ad agency that will market your product so that we can talk about how funny and exciting your commercial is about your new OS. 

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron.  I usually work from my desktop, but wanted a little flexibility when I wasn’t at home.  The base model came with a few good things, but I definitely wanted to upgrade some things like the Digital screen, integrated webcam, and of course integrated bluetooth and travel mouse.  Three months out I can’t be more please with my purchase.  Of course saying this you have to realize that this model isn’t your rough and rugged type laptop.  I use it for around home and when traveling.  It is not my primary computer so I haven’t loaded a ton of programs on it either.  I have the basics.  Office 2007, ftp program, Microsoft WebExpression and Skype.  So far so good.  Even running Vista doesn’t slow me down.  It has 3 gigs of RAM and a 250 hard drive.  For a portable backup PC I’m very happy.

I have found it interesting that Dell has an “Acquisition Department”.  Their job is to find new business for Dell.  We used to buy components from Supermicro and then build the servers that we supply to our clients.  At one point we quoted a client a Supermicro server and they shared with us the price they got from Dell for a similar server and we were stunned.  His cost was about 10% less than what our cost was to build a Supermicro.  Our client gave us the name of his Dell rep, who I then called. 

The rep interrogated me on whether we were already selling Dell, as he wouldn’t compete against another rep.  He then set me up with an account and we started getting prices for all of our new server business.  The pricing was always very aggressive and we sold about thirty units over a six month period, which I am sure is small potatoes for Dell.

After six months we were unceremoniously informed that we were being moved to a different group, one that would be “better able to cater to our needs.”  The bottom line ended up being that pricing was no longer competitive and service was non-existent.  When we had worked with the “Acquisition Department”, quotes were returned to us in minutes, and pricing was always at least 5% below what our parts cost was for Supermicro, and at least 10 – 15% less than the unit priced on Dells website. 

Pricing with the new sales group was just a few percent less than what you could get at Dell’s website and service was lackluster.  Quotes took days to get, orders were ignored, and four phone calls still wouldn’t get a rep to call back.

I called my initial rep back to complain and he stated that we could continue to work with him but only if the units were shipped directly to our customer and Dell would have to charge sales tax.  He could not sell to us for resale.  His department is only there to acquire new customers with great pricing and great service and then move them on to Dell’s standard reps.

Been running off and on for a couple of years with an iPod.  Never have been impressed.  I always have experienced a rhythmic loss of treble as I run.  It sounds similar to when I used to run with a cheap Walkman playing cassette tapes.

Yesterday, I finally broke with what seemed like an unbreakable protocol and stuck the right earbud in my left ear and left ear bud in my right.  Unbelievably, the sound is now perfect.  I guess the fit of the buds was pressing against my ears and cutting of the sound as I ran.  I’m astounded that it took me this long to figure this out.  I would think that I would have at least put them in the wrong ears by accident once.

When I see R & L, I figure there must be a reason and I never questioned it.  I guess I need to see what other inviolable rules I need to break.