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| Backblog—Ian Harvey |
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| Website |
http://www.pitbullmedia.ca/blog/
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I am a Toronto-based freelance journalist who writes about how technology is changing the way we work, rest and play - which dovetails with Backbone's ideals. As Canada's leading Business, Technology and Lifestyles magazine, Backbone is a must read for anyone who plays or works with technology. And there's no better way to rest than curling up with a great magazine and your favourite drink on the couch for a couple of hours.
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Dirty little secret
Psst…want to know the dirt on ink jet printers?
Click here…
I thought it was pretty amazing. Who knew?
Ian Harvey
pitbullmedia.ca
Net stupidity
Michael Giest is rightly angered by the news Rogers is going to throttle back their Internet users.
In his blog he tears into both Bell and Rogers over packet shaping and particularly Roger’s announcement they will cap users at 60 Gb and charge a penatly for those who go over it.
Ostensibly it’s to go afterthe small minority of users who use up more than their share of bandwidth to download movies, something I wrote about in a the most current issue of Backbone Magazine.
Look deeper and this is not about traffic, it’s about business. Rogers and to some extent Bell are terrified that as we shift to downloading movies (legitimately) we will stop renting DVDs from Rogers stores, or using Pay Per View from Rogers Cable or Bell Expressview. (UPDATE: And, I should have added, drifting from the enforced channels selections offered as bundles, and simply streaming shows directly over the Web - which many folks do now to watch soccer games not available here, such as Scottish Premier League games.)
They’re afraid that as they build capacity on their networks with an eye to their own plans to sell those services that while they tinker around, a so-called over the top player will eat their lunch.
And yes, they’re right since I can’t see Rogers letting me download a movie for less than I would have rented it at their store. So yes I would go to a vendor who offered a better deal.
And as far as the caps go, don’t you think when a Roger’s internet customer downloads a movie from Rogers (if and when they get it going) that those data packets will get A#1 priority on the network and won’t count to the 60Gb cap. Ditto for VoIP though it doesnt use a lot of bandwidth but it’s exactly what Shaw is doing out west. There, if you have non-Shaw VoIP service and you want to ensure quality on your VoIP you must pay a “premium” fee. How long before Rogers and Bell do that here.
This is all about monopoly control, about CYA and screw the customer. Rogers and Bell don’t want to be dumb pipes. They want to get a slice of every kb that zips along their network whether we like it or not.
Unfortunately so few people understand the issue of net neutrality - that the Internet or phone line is a public pipe where all data is equal and controlled by no one - and what it means beyond the spin the big telecomms put on it.
But we should be afraid people, very afraid.
Ian Harvey
Apple taking a bite from Windows
Some thoughts on my story in yesterday’s Globe and Mail about how Macs are making inroads into business user.
I was a little skeptical when I was first pitched on it but the more I got into the research the more interesting it got. And the more you look at the Windows-Apple issue the more you realize it’s about so much hype!
Those I’m a Mac and I’m a PC ads really spell it out but behind that there’s a lot of spin.
Yes, Vista is a joke, as I’ve said and Mac OSX seems to be pretty cool. I haven’t worked on a Mac since I was at the Canadian Film Centre back in 2004 but I used a Mac when I was at the Toronto Sun and I must say I’ve always been a fan.
That said, XP works pretty well for me and I’m happy with it. Despite all the new features on either Vista or even Leopard, I’ve managed to add a lot of them on to my desktop.
The exception of course are the features Leopard has brought in from the iPhone and iTunes like being able to flip through images of your documents, movies and pictures. Some of the other things like Stacker and Back to my Mac are cool. I already use Net Magic on my machines with Net2Go giving me remote access when I’m on the road. I’m also looking forward to buying a Home Server when it comes out so I can automatically and incrementally back up my files centrally and access them all remotely.
So they’re both pretty good and functional…I’ve long ago got past the idea that Apple is “cooler” than Windows. At my age and for what I do, function is everything. That said, Windows could be improved a whole lot.
Active Sync, for instance, which links my smart phone to my PC and PIM is a pain. Why can’t they make it silky smooth like Nokia’s which works better with my Outlook than MS which wrote the program in the first place.
I also think Windows is a process pig. What I like about the Mac and what I’ve heard is that Leopard actually makes apps run faster on the same platform. That I like. I’ve had to strip down my start up and throw out some AV programs because they slowed performance down so much.
What’s more interesting is the cost. Steve Jobs likes to boast OSX upgrades like Leopard which come out every 18 months cost $129 period or $199 for the family pack for up to five users. I like that since with the five users in our household it would cost me an arm and a leg to upgrade to Vista- which based on my experience so far isn’t going to happen.
But we should also point out that while Microsoft upgrades which come out every five years or so, usually late and usually buggy, and cost $250 or more really don;t work out more expensive since during that five year time frame, you would have bought about three Apple upgrades at about $390.
So it’s all relative isn’t it?
Ian Harvey
iPhone shmiphone
So Apple has an iPhone. Wow.
Welcome to the party. It doesn't link with Outlook. Even my ancient Nokia 6820 does that. Oh, it has a touch dial scribe. My HP iPaq does that. My iPaq, running Windows Mobile 5, also opens not just emails but their attachments, like Word, Excel or PowerPoint. So do a lot of phones from a lot of makers.
Many also have memory cards, MP3 over Bluetooth headphones, navigation using GPS with maps for all cities in North America, can pick up e-mail on Wi-Fi to avoid data charges, and allow handwritten notes.
But Apple is now a player so it must be a big deal; just like it was a big deal when RIM launched Pearl.
Time for a reality check.
You know there are a lot of great phones on the market. Some do more than others. Some are smarter than others. The iPhone is a Johnny Appleseed come lately and not a big deal, but still the media gushes.
Get over it. iPod was innovative twice in its life cycle. The iPhone doesn't even crack the envelope.
Because, people, the secret is this: it’s not the hardware, it’s the software. There are 1,800 apps for WinMob5 and a few less for Symbian, the Nokia-LG consortium.
The iPhone is a device for Mac users. And while the Mac is a lovely machine with a great operating system, and while Apple likes to maintain those fat margins by restricting competition and holding prices, it really doesn't have the market penetration to make it a player in the big picture.
So, the iPhone? Cute. But not practical and not necessarily innovative or new.
Ian Harvey
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| Top 300 Issue |
 
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| Gadget of the Week (Canadian) |
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Small. Really small
Creative Zen Stone Plus with Speaker
This MP3 player has a lot of features: 500-song capacity, 20-hour battery, an alarm clock, FM radio, voice recorder, stopwatch and—rare in an MP3 player—a built-in speaker. And it packs all that in a tiny space: check out the paperclip in the photo.
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| Gadget of the Week (Japanese) |
Sounds of Japan
Why record just the visual when you can capture the sounds as well.
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