ForbesOnTech

Strangling the Twitter Bird, Yet Again!

I’m ready to strangle the Twitter bird with my bare hands. Again!

It takes a lot for me to walk away from an application, but eventually when I reach the point where outages or system unavailability becomes more than I’m willing to put up with, I just say “To hell With it!” and walk away.

I discarded Twitter several months back but came back to it six weeks or so ago, when I wanted to see if I could drive traffic to my blog. I picked up about 40 hit’s a day initially. Enough to temporarily satisfy my justification to go back to Twitter.

But what’s behind my growing disliked of Twitter is the growing use of this short messaging social media network by peeps who find it necessary to post their every move throughout the day. Frankly, I don’t care much that someone is taking a walk through their upscale neighborhood and saw a poison oak plant in the middle of the city.

I used twitter three or four times this week; twice to describe what I think is the most outrageous yellowtail run I’ve seen since I was a young teenager in Southern California

(author’s note--a yellowtail is a very tasty and somewhat feisty member of the tuna family that hangs out around kelp beds). I also used it Friday to briefly note a rattlesnake infestation in my rose and vegetable garden).

I eventually removed seven young diamond backs from my gardens, gently taking them over to the huge field that adjoins my place here in Escondido where I released them to go on about their young rattlesnake lives-- killing and eating gophers, voles, rats and mice.

But what I really don’t like about Twitter is very simple: it’ not reliable enough to be used for serious tasks like monitoring customer satisfaction and related issues. And without reliability, depending on twitter to monitor anything is a lost cause and a waste of precious time.

Furthermore, Twitter seems to bring out the worse in high visibility social media celebs ( so-called “A-list bloggers”). Restated, if I really wanted to know what you had for dinner, and what the traffic was like driving from Tedium to Apathy in Silicon Valley, I would have picked up my phone and called you or sent you a text message. But hell, maybe I’m just a curmudgeonly old dinosaur--Jim Forbes 06/21/2008.

Why We Need to Teach young Adults Not to Rely on Internet Job Sites Fo that First Gig

Watching how my two children use the Internet is like reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

            For my kids, it’s the best of times, the worst of times, but they’re having a dickens of a time in their adult lives.

            My daughter, Amanda, relies on the Internet for a substantial part of her education. Yet, she’s quite adamant that the Internet causes many individuals to isolate rather than mingle with peers.

            My son, Sean, is a teacher and while in college had been led to believe that Internet sites listing teaching jobs here in California would make job searching an easy task.

            The reality was far different than what my son was told. He spent hours looking at and responding to job listings and after one year had not found a gig. As a parent watching the process I became very alarmed.  It didn’t take me too long to figure out that school districts were using the Internet to build large files of resumes.

            My daughter also used the Internet to find jobs.  But she used a much different strategy and as a result, she’s achieved many of her goals. What my daughter did differently was  focus in on a job she wanted, provide the basic requested information  and then show up in person with a copies of the same data and sell herself to get an in-person interview.

            Talking to some soon-to-graduate college students earlier this month, I was dismayed to find out how many s relied on the Internet as their primary source of job leads.  Looking at this group I was struck by my daughter’s belief that the Internet often depersonalizes things that over the years have worked best in one-to-one settings. And as I listened closely to the students I soon realized that they were unable to connect with a potential employer as anything more than a web page. At the close of one class, I asked a group of bout seven students to find out the name of the person who would hire them in an individual organization and then tell me how they planned to get an interview with that person. As I did this I was vividly reminded of how depressed my son had become when he wasn’t able to make contact beyond a web page.

            I am very concerned that the Internet has created an entire generation of young people coming into the workforce that may not understand that hiring decisions are made by people, not web sites. The best way to get the job you want is to by personal contact, not resume mass mailings to so-called job sites. It’s dismaying to me that in this day and age, the idea of one-to-one contact is going the way of the high-buttoned shoe.

           And to bing this full circle, I'm' happy to report that my son is now teaching, after getting an in-person interview with a school district he had originally applied  to on the Internet more than one year ago.

            Why back in the “old days” after graduation, some of us got in our cars anx (in my case) drove 400 miles overnight for that first opportunity to press the flesh and meet a potential employer in person. And guess what? That strategy worked.—Jim Forbes—04/29/2008

Q&A with Kleiner Perkins' Matt Murphy on the iFund

I've spent several days now thinking about Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' and Apple Inc's attempts to bolster the iPhone with a $100
million venture fund.
    First, I believe iFund could legitimize the iPhone in virtually all segments of the market, taking it far beyond the realm of the so-called "Apple Faithful" who wait in line for every new Apple product.
    Second, the overall effect of the iFund will extend far beyond iPhone
platform and help make the mobile Internet a reality not only for
Apple iPhone users s, but for all mobile phone users.
    Finally, the iFund is a much different proposition than KPCB's
previous platform-based venture effort. The Java Fund.  Although both
the iFund and the Java Fund initially have the same value, $100
million, the first fund was subject to the forces of several large
corporate entities, including  IBM and Sun Microsystems. The iFund was
raised solely by Kleiner Perkins and is only concerned with one large
corporate partner, Apple Inc.

If you want to get to the core of the iFund, there's only one person
to as questions of; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Matt Murphy, an
eight-year veteran of the firm and a member of KPCB's Information
Technology investment team. The following are some of the questions I
asked Matt Murphy and his replies:
ForbesonTech: What are some of the differences between the iFund and
the Java Fund?
Matt Murphy: The Java Fund had many different strategic partners. The
iFund is focused on one partner and it's all KPCB's money.
ForbesonTech: Does Apple have to "approve" iFund investments?
Matt Murphy: Apple doesn't have to approve anyone, except when the
investment is strategically aligned with its goals/
ForbesonTech: Will Apple help iFund companies with cooperative
marketing programs and funds?
Matt Murphy: Apple will control internal editorial and marketing, at
Apple stores and on its website, but I haven’t heard anything yet on
whether or not Apple will establish cooperative marketing programs
for iFund companies.
ForbesonTech: Have there been any surprises since Klein Perkins
announced the iFund?
Matt Murphy: The response to the fund has been great. We’ve heard from startups, establiushed companies and other VC firms.

The biggest surprise has been the volume. Internally we had a bet about what the response would be in the first 30 days. The high end number was exceeded in 36 hours and now the number of companies we’ve heard from is 3x that number.

ForbesonTech: What was the number?

Matt Murphy:  (silence)

ForbesonTech: any other surprises?

Matt Murphy: the number of healthcare and healthcare applications people would like to develop for the iPhone was more than we imagined.

ForbesonTech: Are there are other types of applications you hope to see:

Matt Murphy:            Location-based shopping –which includes delivering local coupons—and Mcommerce are things we’ve heard about., GPS Shopping (and related services) are things we’ve been pitched with.

            We’re looking for businesses that will be stand-alone applications, not small widgets.

            The iFund is about funding high tier mobile Internet applications.

ForbesonTech: Do you think current pricing models for wireless Internet connectivity will be a significant problem gating the success of wireless Internet-based applications?

Matt Murphy: Mobile Internet pricing is an issue, as is consumer awareness of the mobile Internet.

            Cell network operators are moving to adjust the pricing of mobile Internet connectivity and some are looking to offer free over-the-weekend trials of Mobile Internet (connections).When they do they report 10X spikes in wireless Internet usage.

            Iphone (internet) connectivity is high, 95 percent of all iPhone users use Internet connectivity, compared to only 20 percent with other (brands) of cell phones.

ForbesonTech: What’s your take on Google’s Android mobile phone operating system?

Matt Murphy: there’s a great spot in the (smart phone) ecosystem for Android and JavaBrew operating systems.

Stay tuned, the iPhone applications are coming and when they begin trickling in I think we’ll see it’s a tide that raises all boats and which drives mobile internet connectivity, creating an ocean of where persistent connectivity is expected and is the flood tide that fuels a new economic force.—Jim Forbes 03/20/2008.

News.com's M. Reardon Blog on the Wireless Networks Future -- A Must Read

A blog entry By News.com’s Marguerite Reardon that appeared this morning here begs reading by anyone who’s interested in the future of cellular networks. Ms Reardon uses a filing by Verizon signaling its intent to open its network to unlocked devices as the basis for a well thought out riff on open wireless networks. I like it that she took the time to put two and two together in this entry to get to an important, but very obvious conclusion; open networks will foster creativity and the development of next generation devices and services. MsReardon’s blogs are one of a small handful of reporter social media essays I try to read. If you’re interested in the present and future status of wireless, I recommend her posts.

Demo 2008--More Favorites: Aternity, FlyPaper and SpeakLike

Some of the technologies at Demo 2008 made an impression on me when  they were on stage but their real impact hit home when I spent five or ten minutes with them in the demonstrator pavilion.  One such product was Aternity Inc.’s Frontline Performance Intelligence Platform.

            What I really liked about this IT tool is its interface and the fact that it’s a tool that lets corporate IT professionals quickly see what programs users are running and how they’re using enterprise information and how individual or groups of users are consuming IT resources. I like that this set of IT resource monitoring tools combine to give IT decision makers a birds eye view correlating both current and historical data; proving management with emerging user trends as it relates to mission critical tasks and corporate goals.

            When I looked at Aternity I was impressed by the fact that the company has already received two rounds of financing which includes money from Genesis Capital, Intel Capital, and Vertex Ventures. With the current trend in corporate IT having to justify expenditures against return on investment projections, I think Aternity is a great example of the right company with the right technology at the right place and time.

            Flypaper Studio was another Demo 08 company whose technology caused me to visit their Pavilion station not once, but twice. What captivated me about Flypaper are tools that let its users create quality rich media, web-based, presentations without having to take the time or effort to learn a graphics design program.

            Flypaper is the sort of program and technology that stands out Demo. It simplifies what until now has been a complex process and provides its users with new capabilities. Funded under the name Interactive Alchemy two years ago, Flypaper has enormous potential and is the type of product that fits nicely in the emerging cloud computing model—which I think makes this company and its technology a strong candidate for acquisition by any of the titans now committed to web-based applications.

            English may be the lingua franca of the international aviation community, but it still has a way to go when it comes to the business world. And SpeakLike, at Demo 08 pioneered a new category, web-based translation services, that fills an important need. SpeakLike has an instant message like front end. It’s users type in an English phrase or question and recipients see the text in their native languages. The new service combines automated and human translation and is less costly than existing translation services.  SpeakLike archives translations in case the information can be used for subsequent sessions involving the same languages.  At the end of the session, SpeakLike users are provided with transcriptions of the conversations.

            The service can support simultaneous translations into multiple languages.

            I like SpeakLike’s translation speed and it’s use of an instant message format, something that’s familiar to most business computer users. Furthermore, SpeakLike should be appealing and useful  to the thousands pf global companies who do business everyday in countries where languages other than English are spoken.

            I made a quick stop at this company’s booth and experimented with its English to Spanish translation capabilities.  I intentionally used an example that the company was very unlikely to have a canned version of and which could cause the translator at the other end of the IM session to think hard about.  I was surprised at how the translator avoided using a Spanish word that if spoken in the presence of my mamacita, would have guaranteed my mouth being washed out with Lava Soap. Instead the translator came back with a completely sanitized phrase that left me laughing. He ended the session however by messaging me back ”pleas tell me there’s no one behind you watching this?”

            I chuckled and typed, “Just your CEO, but he’s not a gabacho like I am.”

            SpeakLike can redefine Internet translation services. It’s relatively inexpensive ($US.10) for each translated message and its fast and accurate.

            I probably will have one more post on some other companies at Demo 08 but I want to think some more about that category before I post anything. Jim Forbes, 02/03/2008.

            

Biometric Security; It's Not Limited to Finger Print Readers on Corporate Notebooks

I try to be honest about technology that I use intentionally, or which I am forced to accept because of its integration in hardware.

            So let’s talk about biometric security devices.  Some years ago I was involved in a series of twice-a-year discussions about whether so-called “corporate notebooks” would have to include biometric security to qualify for adoption by volume buyers. The atmosphere for those discussions was better than any graduate class I’ve ever taken. Members of the discussion group were free to explore, take and defend positions.

            At that time, I had ambivalent feelings about biometrics:

1                    I did not like anything that increased the amount of time it takes me to get going on a portable computer and biometrics then added about 15 to 30 seconds to the startup time.

2                    I could clearly see that some large organizations, federal agencies or large sales organizations were correct in doing everything they could to safe guard tactically and strategically critical information stored on something as easily pilfered as a portable computer.

3                    Biometrics security devices would increase the bill-of-materials costs of portable computers.

4                    At the time, the market for portable computers was beginning to become cost sensitive.

5                    I was unconvinced that biometrics of the then day couldn’t be defeated. I wasn’t alone in this either. At a Mobile Council Meeting in 2000, I had to stop laughing when the only analyst I regard as a legitimate “futurist” (MR) then at Dataquest pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out what at first I thought was a medical finger cot. The analyst snapped the cot on his finger, said “watch this” and defeated the biometric device in a single swipe of his sheathed finger.

My feelings about biometric security have changed radically over the last five years. Today, I can’t imagine not using a portable computer that doesn’t include this feature. My reason isn’t that I’m toting super secret information on my laptop. It’s that I rely on my notebook too much to risk losing the data files I use as the basis of my taxes and investing decisions, or the data associated with an all-consuming remodel/addition project that’s underway here at my house.

            And looking back in time, I think I should have been a stronger advocate for this technology in the late Nineties and into this century.

            I still don’t like it that biometrics add to my boot time. However, I suspect that hard disk technology is about to make that argument moot. Like a lot of people who watch portable computing, it’s become very hard for me not to imagine new notebooks rolling out with hybrid disk drives that use flash memory to support rapid boot up.

            And more than any other technology, hybrid drives will reduce start up and come-on from Hibernation boot times, as well as help tame Vista; all of which are good things.

            But biometrics security hardware isn’t limited to finger printed readers.  A couple of far thinking notebook designers have realized that the integrated cameras mounted on display bezels can be used just as effectively as finger print readers.  And in the immediate future you’ll begin to see biometric facial recognition become a standard feature, not just on corporate notebooks, but on consumer portables sold by the thousands to home office and academic computer users.

            Like I said earlier, sometimes a really important technology slips into my life because it’s a minor part of a technology that I rely on. Biometrics falls into this category and I’ve changed from a doubting Thomas to a True Believer. Now I just wish someone would come up with a one-click solution that lets me use my notebook’s integrated camera to create video greeting cards.

            But that’s something I’ll write about later this week. Jim Forbes. 11/25/2007.

Looking For Solultions to Caring for Aging Parents-- Go to Caring.com Now

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9819996-7.html?tag=nefd.only

Another tool has emerged for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers faced with caring for an aging parent or grandparent.

Caring.com, which debuted Monday, offers how-to information on caring for elderly family members, whether they live in their own home, with a family member, or in a facility. The topics include providing in-person and long-distance support, financial and legal advice, and end-of-life issues.

Caring.com features a community area for people to share care-giving tips, as well as a section where questions can be posed to various experts, such as a communication supervisor with the American Medical Response ambulance company.

Tools on the site include a risk calculator to determine the chances an elderly family member will fall and tips on how to prevent falls, said Andy Cohen, co-founder and chief executive, who started the company in January.

"There are a lot of sites that address specific diseases, but no other site is as comprehensive," said Cohen.

            Over the years I’ve seen plans for several thousand web-based businesses run by entrepreneurs searching for just the right “niche.” Until I came across a news piece on www.Caring.com, I’d never seen any site that chimed my bells as loudly.

            While it’s easy to write off baby boomers as “the spoiled generation” we’re also among the first generations to assume we’ll get to retire while our parents are still alive. And for many of us, this means we’re facing the prospect of caring for aging parents in their Eighties and Nineties.

            I’m in this situation and in the process of the significant lifestyle changes needed to take care of MaForbes, a fiercely independent 89-year old who has lived in same town for all but six months of her life.

            About six months ago, I realized that my mom really couldn’t live safely by herself anymore and that I would need to do something proactively to provide care for her. Like a lot of baby boomers I’ve watched my mother’s world shrink appreciably every year.  She’s no longer spry and the number of friends who would gather several times a month at her house for card games and lunch has grown steadily smaller.

            I initially approached the problem of providing for my aging mother as if I were the only person in this world who had faced this problem. Over time, I have found some materials that helped guide my thinking, but until Caring.com appeared there was no single Internet site that offered the variety and depth of information and resources I felt I needed to work through a solution to providing shelter and care for my mother while maintaining her sense of independence.

            About five months ago, I realized the solution to caring for MaForbes was right “at hand.”  My house sits on a large lot on top of a small mountaintop, so I started exploring the idea of building housing that’s classified by cities as either an “inlaw” or a “ granny flat.” After finding out how difficult it would be to build a detached small dwelling for my mother on my lot, I talked to a couple of contractors and discovered it would be almost as easy (but more expensive) to add a large bedroom suite to my house with its own bath and porch.

            Healthcare is another big issue children who need to help their parents face.  Fortunately for me, since MaForbes and I are both Kaiser patients and there’s a clinic nearby, this was easily resolved.

            The recent conflagration in San Diego County rolled back my construction dates slightly but I’m getting my place ready for Ma’s big move in about 90 days.

            Everything is well underway and I’m already searching for the move-in gift she’s requested—an unweaned kid goat. Hey, Ma and I share a lot of the same interests and if she wants a pet goat to nurture, that’s OK with me. Besides, I have this nephew in Prineville, Oregon who has a couple of expectant does that will deliver around Christmas. Just in time for a move-in gift.

            Caring.com doesn’t get this deep into the myriad issues of providing care for aging parents, but it does offer the tools you need to make a decision that’s as right for you as it is your parents.

            I just wish that at least one dozen of the several thousand s web-based efforts I evaluated while I was producing Demo events and writing for DemoLetter, were as relevant as Caring.com.

            This site won’t give you a one-click solution to caring for an aging parent, but it’s the one Internet location I believe you should turn to as you work through the complex decisions you need to make about caring for an elder parent or grandparent.

            This start-up, funded with about $7 million in first round money, is reserving about half of its initial budget to acquire unique content; a strategy I think could help to insure its success.

            If you have an elderly parent, Caring.com should have a permanent place in the bookmarks you keep close at hand. My initial experience with it helped to make me feel much more confident about my decisions on how to care and provide for my elderly mother.

            I may be selfish, but by bringing MaForbes into my home, I’m guaranteed of at least two more lip-smacking perfect turkey dinners. And in this decision MaForbes literally “gets the goat.”—Jim Forbes, 11/19/1007.

Ma Forbes at 88 on my ATV

Verizon Pops My Dream of Persistent Connectivity-- How to Turn a Good Customer Experience Into a Nightmare

In the world of personal computing there have been moments when I’ve wanted to take a large maul to what only days before had been a perfectly functioning personal computer and turn it into a small pile of smasked plastic, silicon chips and flat pieces of wire. And nothing brings this rage on faster than to have something I relied on and crowed about for months on end to stop working or become very difficult to use.

Congratulations Verizon, you turned one of the most important features of my go everywhere sub compact into crap. And Verizon managed to do this at a time when I was waiting for a loved one to come out of an oncological surgery suit and when I needed persistent connectivity most desparately.

Over the years, I’ve forgiven technology companies for a lot of errors and misdeeds. It’s always come down to my belief: In the end, well run companies "get it right."

But my view started changing three weeks ago when I tried to get a day pass from Verizon for its National Broadband wireless network. Until then – as San Diego County was aflame from its wildlands almost to the edge of the Pacific Ocean—accessing Verizon’s broadband network on an ad hoc basis (paying $15 for a day pass) was so simple that I had to take it for granted.

But I suddenly found that it was n o longer easy . Furthermore, I very quickly came to believe that one department at Verizon wasn’t talking to other departments. Over three days, I made a total of 15 phone calls to Verizon trying buy a day pass. A quick count of the numbers I wrote down and circled on my notepad shows seven different phone numbers. I lucked out on one call and got connected to a tech support specialist who finally got me connected. After I hunted down and found the ESN number for my X60’s internal Sierra WWAN modem. But the other numbers I called generated some of the most unsatisfactory customer experiences of my life.

It didn’t take m very long to figure out that not many people at Verizon are aware that the company offers several ways to connect to its wireless broadband network; PCMCIA cards and computers that include built in WWAN modems. Or that network access is available for a monthly fee on one- and two-year contracts, or on an ad hoc "day pass" basis. I patiently explained that I wanted a day pass to more Verizon phone reps than I want to count. Eventually I discovered that some departments at Verizon regard this feature as a "prepaid phone."

On top of this, Verizon expects anyone who calls for help with prepaid phones to know their phone number. But, as an occasion network user that’s something I have to get from deep within the help or Options menus in Verizon Access Manager application. But wait there’s more, on one computer the number is plainly recognizable, on another it’s not. Moreover, I’m handicapped and can’t write legibly with my dominant hand.

I’m probably the worse case scenario for a positive customer service experience: my wireless network provider had laid a path to a painless signup experience that I had used successfully many times; the service I purchased from my provider was so good I had to think very critically about things they could do better; Relatively few people have my handicap and are still as active with their computers as I am; Finally, I believe I have the right to a good customer and consumer experiences.

What’s most amazing to me about my damaged relationship with Verizon is this large communications company had the foresight to use a web page for day-pass signup. My experience using this signup service was so good, it was a big factor in my decision to tout Verizon’s national broadband wireless network in this blog.

For whatever reason, I can no longer access and use the signup web site and Verizon seems unable or unwilling to help me.

How important is persistent connectivity to me? You can bet that any cellular network that offers me an acceptable data rate (which I believe to be .76 MBps or faster) and an affordable national rate plan will get all of my household’s business and get my personal recommendation.

In Verizon’s defense I have to add that its National Broadband network fit my needs so well that my only complaint was it’s monthly price. And, in my travels up and down the west coast I’ve only found a couple of places where I couldn’t grab and hold a connection. Verizon was my first great experience with persistent connectivity. I hope it’s not my last.

After four failed attempts to get a day pass this week on this cell network’s national broadband service, I’m about ready to give it up. Sadly this also comes at a time when I have to renew my wireless plans.

Like a lot of technology buffs I thought that Intel’s WiMax technology would revolutionize persistent connectivity. However with the recent dissolution of the Clear Wire/Sprint alliance, my dream may have been shattered.

Persistent connectivity is as transformational as it is disruptive. If you experience it, come to rely on it and then lose it, you miss it a lot.

I hope Verizon makes a big commitment to broadband access. For the moment, it has acceptable network bandwidth and above average network penetration. I just hope that they return to a web-based signup procedure. That way I don’t get frustrated as I dial a long list of 800 numbers and speak to a legion of call center employees who get as frustrated as I do when they can’t match my needs with the offering their company provides.—Jim Forbes, now jumping from one free WiFi hotspot to the next, on 11/14/2007.

WiFi Phones For Skype--A Peripheral That Adds Value

Applications that have had the greatest impact on my life all share a single trait: they have gradually become an everyday part of my computing routine.

I moved to Powerpoint from  Living Videotext’s More Outliner. I started using it occasionally, grew to dislike it immeasurably, and then changed my mind. Today, PowerPoint is an intrinsic part of how I use a personal computer, and its performance is part of how I judge an underlying hardware platform. I moved to Microsoft Word the same way.  I used other programs and gradually moved to Word.

This helps to explain why I’m a Skype loyalist. I started using it to save money and because I didn’t want to tie up my house landline. Today, I can’t imagine not using Skype for domestic or international business and personal phone calls. And Skype has just kept getting better as more people switch to computer-based VOIP for whatever reason.

I’ve reached the point with Skype that I judge a computer or peripheral partly by it’s Skype experience. This applies to notebooks, web cams, headsets and more recently WiFi Skype phones. And that brings me to a new piece of hardware—Belkin’s WiFi phone for Skype. I like this peripheral so much, I honestly wish I had access to it before I retired.

This diminutive WiFi phone automatically connects to the Skype network as soon as it detects an open 802.11 network, downloading your phone numbers to make Skype network and off network calls whether or not you’re in front of, or even in the general vicinity of your primary computer.  I’ve used the Belkin WiFi phone for Skype about three months and it’s so reliable that I’ve come to use it almost as much my Verizon cell phone.

I like this phone’s usefulness, it’s rock solid reliability and the fact that it’s battery lets me go  two days or more between charges. My one and only complaint with this, and phones from other companies built to the same reference specification, has to do with the phone’s charger cable receptacle. It took me three tries before I learned to mate the phone with its charger cable successfully. But, once it’s hooked up, it stays connected and charges rapidly. I do recommend that you make sure you have adequate lighting the first couple of times you connect the phone to its charger cable.

The keys are easy on your fingers and you navigate through your phone number lists using a track stick.  It uses keys to place and end calls, just like most cell phones. And just like many cell phones, you power the phone on and off by holding down the red “end” key.

I really like the audio quality of my Belkin WiFi Skype phone. It’s on a par with and often better than the audio of my Verizon cell phone.  Volume is easily adjusted by its user, a feature I think is critical to its usability.

This purpose built peripheral is something I use nearly everyday. When I’m working outside around my house it rests comfortably in my shirt pocket.  When I leave for a trip, it’s one of two pieces of equipment I make sure is loaded in my back pack, along with it’s charger.

It’s value to me was reinforced late in October when I was forced to evacuate my house in Escondido, CA, because of the approaching Witch Creek Fire, which burned six houses on my block but didn’t touch my home. At the evacuation center legions of people sat in their cars talking on their cell phones. Predictably, the outgoing traffic nearly subsumed the cell networks and many mobile phone users ran out of battery power or simply were unable to make calls.

But not me.  I was parked next to the school/evacuation center’s computer room where I stayed connected to Skype and kept in touch with my relatives up in  Los Angeles County.

Priced around $180.00 and available at numerous online and brick and mortar retailers, portable WiFi phones designed specifically for Skype or other networks make what already is a very good experience even better.

Belkin’s WiFi phone for Skype makes an excellent stocking stuffer, and is an incredibly useful peripheral for Skype’s VOIP network.  The fact that I was able to rely on it at a time when local cell networks were at peak demand because 250,000 of my fellow San Diego County residents were streaming to evacuation centers reinforces my belief that this WiFi phone is nearly as important as my cell phone.

In addition to Belkin, Phillips and Logitech market phones built to a similar reference specification

--Jim Forbes, 11/08/2007

Twitter Suicide Note.

http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/?p=1427

Twitter Suicide Thoughts.

Twitter Suicide note?  Puhlease! So some dude is using twitter to keep people abreast of his activities. He's in his car, then he's buying some chicken wings.. then he's parked near a bridge, then he asks his twitter audience if he should jump? posts a thank you note t o the people who had shown him kindness. and is then found asleep in his car in a bridge parking lot by police.... Oh if the guy only had Vin Sculley's language and delivery.

Thanks , dcc.