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Relocation Complete

It doesn't seem like ten months since I last posted anything, how time flies. In the meantime we have moved continents and settled in San Diego, California. Cooper is acclimating and learning to be a beech aficionado. Personally being back in the middle of the wireless industry, Qualcomm is located here, is a nice change after the two year sojourn to the fringe of the European Economic Community. More to come soon....
CIMG0077

Icemail - another credit crunch victim

I have used Iceweb’s hosted Exchange service, Icemail, for over a year with no apparent mishaps. Since about Sunday access to the Exchange server has failed. Both Outlook Web Access and IMAP services are down. A quick review of the support page provides the following details.
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Apparently in October another user reported a similar outage. Perhaps these are simple technical mishaps that unusually are taking days to fix. There is also the possibility that Iceweb is having financial problems. Either way an outage for over 48 hours is extreme. It appears that I need to make contingency plans.

UPDATE: After calling the service desk during business hours and receiving a recording that the service desk was closed I sent an email asking if the lights were on and anyone was home. Several hours later I received a call from a gentleman claiming to be the acting CTO. He explained that employee problems had exposed many of their automated systems to be either failing or have failed. I.e. the auto attendant at the toll free number, the online chat status, the network status page and apparently the status of my account. All of the previously mentioned systems, except my account which was restored, are still reporting out of service as of 0923 GMT. It’s possible my account restoration may be short lived if Iceweb is plagued with this many problems.

Presidential Election

The economy continues to be stranger than fiction. The DOW rose over 1000 points on October 13th including after hours trading. Last week we saw the highly heralded end of Web 2.0 and the Cyprus video as documented by TechCrunch. In three weeks the presidential election will be decided. Read More...

Prepaid data services in South Africa

The search for prepaid data services in South Africa could not have been more different than in London. Immediately on clearing baggage claim at the Cape Town international airport I was greeted by a Vodacom and MTN kiosks that were no more than twenty meters away from each other. Read More...

Airport frustration gripe...suddenly made ok

This is the preface to a series of posts documenting international data roaming alternatives on two continents.

It was time to head out on a nineteen day, two continent and three country tour. Most people I know prepare for a travel by packing early, double checking that they have sunblock, enough shoes, shirts, underwear and the like. I on the other hand started about twelve hours prior to the seven AM flight by making sure the batteries to my laptop, iPhone, and Samsung i780 were all charged. A second check confirmed that the credit cards and passport were in their usual spot and I was ready to go. Any missing clothing articles could certainly be purchased along the way. My thoughts were on my internet connectivity which I like to have anytime, anywhere and on any device without paying a fortune. Read More...

Searching for prepaid data services in London

This is the preface to a series of posts documenting international data roaming alternatives on two continents.

It was time to head out on a nineteen day, two continent and three country tour. Most people I know prepare for a travel by packing early, double checking that they have sunblock, enough shoes, shirts, underwear and the like. I on the other hand started about twelve hours prior to the seven AM flight by making sure the batteries to my laptop, iPhone, and Samsung i780 were all charged. A second check confirmed that the credit cards and passport were in their usual spot and I was ready to go. Any missing clothing articles could certainly be purchased along the way. My thoughts were on my internet connectivity which I like to have anytime, anywhere and on any device without paying a fortune. Read More...

Data roaming on two continents - July 2008 - Preface

This is the preface to a series of posts documenting international data roaming alternatives on two continents.

It was time to head out on a nineteen day, two continent and three country tour. Most people I know prepare for a travel by packing early, double checking that they have sunblock, enough shoes, shirts, underwear and the like. I on the other hand started about twelve hours prior to the seven AM flight by making sure the batteries to my laptop, iPhone, and Samsung i780 were all charged. A second check confirmed that the credit cards and passport were in their usual spot and I was ready to go. Any missing clothing articles could certainly be purchased along the way. My thoughts were on my internet connectivity which I like to have anytime, anywhere and on any device without paying a fortune. Read More...

Sweden's Lex Orwell Spy Law and Denmark

In the United States some people have been closely watching the debated changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. See article from the Wall Street Journal. Across the Atlantic in Sweden a sweeping surveillance program was approved in June. Here are link to Times Online and The Register.

The Swedish law calls for the recording and documentation of every communication, email, voice call or SMS, that crosses Sweden’s international border. Civil rights and personal privacy issues aside two very practical issues for the wireless industry and Danish citizens are brought to the forefront. Read More...

Mobile Data Roaming Hassles with OS X 10.5.3 and Novatel MC950D

International mobile data roaming has been and is still expensive. Even with T-Mobile's (UK) drop in data roaming to approximately $2.98/Mb (1.5 GBP/Mb) casual email and web access is prohibitively expensive. Even more frustrating is when you must connect and you can't. This has been my experience lately with OS 10.5.3 and several different HSPA USB modems from Sierra Wireless and Novatel Wireless while abroad.

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Memo on Mobile Device Management

I thought I would share this memo since it addresses two distinctly different views of mobile device management. The text is unedited which may cause some reader confusion since assumptions were originally made based on the intended audience. Even though this document solely references a GSM/WCDMA network the core concepts are the same for a CDMA network.


Assumption: Mobile Device Management (MDM) has different meanings and definitions depending on the audience. MDM has two broad categories that are distinctly different but do ultimately converge. This memo assumes the empirical truth that MDM is inevitable.

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