Misc topics
Finally WiFi On My Southwest Flight
20/05/11 16:16
Several months ago I wrote about Southwest Airlines and in-flight WiFi and the progress of deployment. During the intervening months of travel WiFi has been available on my Delta flights and none of the Southwest flights. Yesterday I received the email notification from Southwest that one of the two legs between Minneapolis and Los Angeles would be serviced with a WiFi enabled Boeing 737-700.
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Print Media And Consumer Electronics Limbo
16/05/11 10:38
Air travel comes with many inconveniences that begin with airport traffic, continue through long TSA lines, include clueless travelers, improperly stowed baggage, and the dreaded ascent and to and decent from ten thousand feet. The closing of the cabin door is analogous to a huge laptop, iPhone, Kindle, iPad, PSP, etc. power switch being flipped. From that moment on all passengers enter the Consumer Electronics Limbo zone. Some will attempt to resist and continue pecking away at or reading their devices of choice until the persistent and nagging drone of the flight attendants convince them to power off or the threat of never seeing their consumer electronic safety blankets again sets in. Now the fidgeting starts and those Boeing or Airbus safety pamphlets become fascinating reading and the SkyMall is more exciting than the first time you visited Mall of America.
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Read More...GoDaddy Exodus
06/04/11 13:12
With determination and resolve I committed on Saturday to transitioning WiBu Ventures’ and its related domains from GoDaddy to a new registrar and hosting provider. Like many hastily put together plans this one had a false start and now hopefully is on track. Experienced web hosting and domain registrar administrators can skip this article even though others may find it interesting. Read More...
GoDaddy: The Cost of Mixing Work and "Pleasure"
02/04/11 15:04
Wired Magazine reported on April 2, 2011, about The Go Daddy Group’s CEO Bob Parsons’ elephant hunt in Zimbabwe and the subsequent posting of video documentation at the company’s Video.Me site. The comments both at Wired’s site and Video.Me range from including vitriol to the approving from those taking the time to comment on Parsons’ extracurricular activities. Wired points out that The Humane Society took action to move their business away from GoDaddy based on Parsons’ actions and additional customer defections may come. Read More...
Southwest Airlines In-flight WiFi Progress
21/03/11 12:45
With WiFi rapidly becoming a required feature for business travel I am increasingly booking flights based on not only ticketing flexibility, service, and age of the fleet but more and more on whether WiFi is available. It doesn’t matter whether Aircell’s GoGo or Row44’s HughesNet service powers the in-flight WiFi service just as long as there is WiFi available. Aircell leads in the United State’s market with 1081 aircraft installations as of March 21, 2011 according to their site. While impressive the total combined Southwest and Delta fleets equal 1363 aircraft (548 and 815 respectively) which arguably leaves most flights as airborne cold spots and than hot spots With the exceptions of Airtran and Virgin America’s fleet-wide WiFi capabilities it can not be assumed a flight will offer WiFi unless each flight is checked with the particular airline to determine availability. Read More...
Icemail - another credit crunch victim
11/11/08 04:54
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.
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.
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
14/10/08 04:37
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...
Airport frustration gripe...suddenly made ok
09/09/08 16:16
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...
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
08/07/08 04:39
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...
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...
CES 2008
09/01/08 19:12
I finally arrived at CES on Tuesday after a delay due to my plane needing a new windshield. Makes me wonder what type of bird the plane hit prior to my flight.
From a wireless perspective one has to hunt around CES to find the gems. Most new handsets were launched for the holidays or were already introduced at CTIA Wireless Entertainment & IT in November. None the less here are some of the observations from the day.
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Updated: The new Palm Foleo?
25/11/07 09:06
+
= hybrid Palm Foleo?The first Palm Foleo was a disaster if you believe the ranting and ravings of many writers. Engadget's open letter to Palm nicely summed up the opinions of many of the dedicated Palm followers. My intrigue with the Foleo quickly faded as reality set in within hours of the press release. Succeeding in obtaining ICT approval and support for most devices let alone a laptop/mobile/pda hybrid is always a strenuous task than can drag on against irrational resistance from within the corporation. One Fortune 100 company even commissioned a report prior to the iPhone launch to justify why they would not support the iPhone when it became available. It was no surprise when Palm announced that the Foleo had been put on hold. The Foleo concept, albeit not the same concept that Palm envisioned, has gained a second life from two unlikely industry players, Nokia and Access. Read More...
It makes one wonder....
24/11/07 06:50
Over the years I have largely found FierceWireless's editors to have balanced commentary even when they are being sarcastic. The recently launched FierceWireless Europe may challenge my traditional opinion and rethink my approach to their editorials.
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OS X Leopard
05/11/07 17:20
The inimical part of seizing the initiative with an early operating system release is that you have to brace yourself for the unknown. Obviously this makes sense to everyone sitting on the sidelines waiting for the inevitable service pack or software update.... Read More...
US Airways customer experience
28/07/07 06:25
The airline industry has had their share of turbulence since 9/11 including dissatisfied customers and bankruptcy for some. I have far more examples of poor customer service at every level than I do positive ones. I do not have the time nor inclination to write about those poor experiences as they tend to make me frustrated with the airlines in general and a certain few specifically.
In late March 2007 US Airways and many carriers were hammered with flight delays, cancellations and unhappy customers when a series of late winter storms swept across the north east United States. The US Airways hub in Philadelphia was not spared it's share of challenges. I had a flight from San Juan to Philadelphia and then on to Boston which did not go smoothly. I can not and do not expect customer service to be put aside just because of a difficult a couple of days. It would be nice in every industry if soon as things got tough we could all set aside normal expectations and act anyway we want. The airlines were faced with either stepping up to the plate and showing they could deliver customer service when it was needed most or prove once again that the industry as a whole deserves some of the apathy it gets.
While sitting on the tarmac in Philadelphia I took the time to write an email to US Airways explaining my thoughts and frustration with a number of individuals I had had the displeasure in experiencing thus far in my travels. I gave it no more thought for months as such letters I am sure go flying into their own special customer complaint spam quarantine area and are never actually read or given a moments notice by anyone....ok maybe an intern looks at them but how much truly does an unpaid/underpaid intern really care?
I was quite surprised when I received an apology letter this week from US Airways with a $50 travel voucher. I was impressed that US Airways took the time, and money, to make a gesture of apology and reconciliation. I do not expect any individual or organization to be perfect. We all have bad days, granted some more than others, which is just part of life. How corporations and individuals respond to their failures and mistakes is the crucial point. Will US Airways learn from their storm experience in March and implement procedures along with training to improve customer service in general? I do not know but I do know that US Airways has earned another chance with me. Some people may by cynical and say I am being bribed by the $50 voucher but in reality the gesture was worth far more to me as a consumer than the $50 I will save on my next US Airways flight.