Did you see the FAA computer crash story on CNN? Did you go to CNN.com? If you did you saw an interesting link at the bottom that said "Are you stuck at the airport?" I couldn't help but check it out and it takes you to a service called iReport, this allows you to upload photos and video to the iReport site and add your comments to the piece. CNN then picks the best pieces while the story is hot and some of them do make it to air. So there were a lot of folks with there travel woes on the site of course.
iReport allows you to create your own stories on any topic. This is just another example of video journalism in our always connected world. Im not sure if I like everyone with a cell phone being the "man on the street" but it is still good for CNN to show that they are listening to the regular folks and using some cool technology as well.
Peace.
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I have been a Verizon customer for a couple years now. I will say the network coverage absolutely rocks. I think Verizon knows this because they do everything in their power to aggravate their customers and force them to switch. There are a couple of reasons that keep rearing their ugly heads for us gadget freaks.
1.Devices
Verizon passed on the opportunity to be the exclusive vendor of the iPhone a couple years ago. Apples demands to make the deal were a bit crazy but still it makes Verizon look bad since the iPhone has been such a buzz since its release. Not to limit this type of stuff to the iPhone, Verizon will also not carry the Blackberry Bold when it is released in a couple weeks. See the pattern? Verizon loves throwing the fact that they have the best network in your face and not carry the best devices that it can. They are always the last to get a phone or they wont get it at all.
2. Charging for services others give away.
Got a GPS in your phone? Sorry, you have to pay Verizon 10 bucks a month to use their proprietary application and you cant use anything else. If the same device is on another network you could fire up Google maps and bam, free GPS. They intentionally cripple the devices they do sell to squeeze more money out of the customer where AT&T leaves the devices open so you can use the features with no extra charge. The next wave of this is called social GPS, this is a service that allows, for instance, your friends on facebook to see where you are based on your phones GPS. There are several FREE services that do this, like Loopt for instance, but NONE of them will work on Verizon for free. Loopt is a pay service on Verizon (4 bucks a month) even though it is free everywhere else.
I wouldn't have such a big problem with this if I had the option to use other programs to access features inherent on the device. The issue for me is I cant use the feature at all unless I pay and then I'm forced to use whatever software Verizon deems is best for me. I know I will get comments from people like "If the calls don't drop then why do you need all this other stuff?"
Because as the cellphone evolves into so much more than a device to talk on I need the providers that control the data running in and out of the device to embrace the technology and nurture it to its potential. I know that sounds sappy but if they don't do that, what we will end up with is half-baked apps and devices that could do much more than the providers are allowing it to.
Can you hear me now Verizon?
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I confess- I have used Microsoft products almost exclusively for the majority of my career in Tech. The past couple of years I have played with open source alternatives to Windows (Linux) with moderate success, but instead of replacing the whole OS I have looked lately at the applications I used most often. The office suite. I have moved my domain over to
Google Apps for domains so my domain name now has the following services tied to it, all for free:
1. GMail- The bestest email system ever!
2. Google Docs- Spreadsheets, Documents, Presentations
3. Google Sites- Sites for collaboration similar to MS Sharepoint
4.Calendar
5. Google Talk
There are some other small things that go with Google Apps like Google gears, which allow sync with all your docs so you can use them online or offline.
Things I like about this environment:
1. It's free
2. You can share docs with others and collaborate on them in real time
3. Everything is online so you can work where ever you are.
4. Alerting features for Calendar, and document updates
5. Exporting of documents to different formats (Doc to PDF Etc.)
6. You can work offline with Google Gears
So for an office of 5-10 people the Google office suite could save you several hundred dollars or more on software. It's not as pretty an interface as Microsoft Office but it is functional.
With the Google Sites portion you can drag and drop your way to building your company intranet.
The other thing to wrap your head around is that I havent had to install anything on my local machine (unless I want the offline sync cabability) this is the definition of cloud computing in case you were wondering.
There are other internet based operating systems and office suites out there but since this has the Google brand attached to it, it will have the most eyeballs on it. I think that this concept will be the norm as we move forward towards our always connected world, as well as the work anywhere and anytime world.
I will keep you posted as I dig into this suite further.
Peace.
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Comment by Daryl Goard
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Cheers.