Submitted by acohill on Wed, 03/30/2016 - 08:49
This Washington Post article talks about the desirability of walking and biking trails in communities. The trails can reduce traffic on roads, improve livability, and attract Millenials. But over and over I again, we see communities making multi-million dollar investments in these trails without thinking about putting in conduit and fiber.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 02/18/2016 - 15:30
We are working with a medium-sized city to design a new open access Gigabit fiber network, and the local telephone company is claiming that the connection from the street to the office building (in the downtown area) is "the most expensive part of reaching the customer."
So they are pushing for "meet-me" boxes outside of the downtown buildings, which would terminate fiber from the buildings into a fiber patch panel, and calling this open access.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 08:54
Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent are touting improvements in G.Fast, claiming 11 Gig speeds on copper. But when you read the fine print, that's on pristine brand new copper cable in the lab.....and....wait for it....over a distance of 150 feet.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 12/03/2015 - 16:40
Here is an interesting variant on the ubiquitous battery pack many of us carry around for a quick recharge of our smartphone or tablet. The MyCharge HubPlus combines three functions in one nicely designed package.
It has a built-in lithium ion battery, fold out prongs so you can plug it directly in the wall and use it as a charger for your phone or tablet, and it has built in Lightning (Apple) and mini-USB cables. If you travel a lot, this could reduce the number of things you have to lug around.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 11/27/2015 - 10:51
As "TV," which from here on out I will always put in quotes, since "TV" now really just means "sitting on the couch and watching video from any one of hundreds (thousands?) of sources," continues its death spiral, NBC is a perfect example of stupidity perfected.
NBC refuses to put some of its most popular shows on services like Hulu. Instead, they want to force viewers onto the NBC Web site and watch those shows using NBC's own streaming video. What is so bad about that? Well, two things.
Submitted by acohill on Sun, 11/08/2015 - 09:14
Forty-four Colorado communities passed referendums that give those the communities the right to build their own broadband infrastructure.
Colorado is one of those states that had a legislature pass a law forbidding local community investment in broadband unless a public referendum was voted on. At the time (ten years ago) the incumbents probably figured that was a bar too high for those towns and counties to jump over.
Community news and projects:
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 10/22/2015 - 16:48
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/19/2015 - 15:12
All wireless "unlimited data" plans come with an expiration date. Once a cellular company's sales targets for new customer has been met, they change the "unlimited data" plan.
In this example, it is Sprint which has announced that once you use your monthly "unlimited" allotment of 23 Gig of data, you get throttled.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 10/16/2015 - 10:55
I would say that now, about half my LinkedIn invitations are coming from marketing trolls who obviously want to sell me something. I deleted three invitations this morning, from an insurance rep, a CPA, and a car repair shop. I don't know of any of these people.
LinkedIn seemed like a reasonably modest "good idea" when it started, but I can't say I have ever used it for its supposed intended use--networking.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 10/07/2015 - 11:13
LinkedIn can't seem to decide what it wants to be. A while back, it added Facebook-like features that everyone (including me) used for a while, but it takes time to sit on LinkedIn and read everyone's posts. Over time, the traffic on the groups has declined to the point where it is nearly non-existent. I know that some very large LinkedIn groups have a lot more postings, but my view is that if you have lots of time to write and respond to stuff on LinkedIn, you are probably not doing your job.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 10/06/2015 - 09:11
Carmaker Porsche has chosen to go with Apple's CarPlay and will not support Android in its 2017 car models.
Google apparently wanted a complete and constant data dump from every car, all the time. Apple was not making that kind of requirement in its CarPlay licensing.
As Internet-based technology matures, I am glad to see that some companies are recognizing that privacy is still more important than technology. Kudos to Apple and Porsche for respecting their customers.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 11:52
So certain portions of the InnerTubes are all abuzz over this supposed new app and service called Peeple.
It is hard to know where to start, as there are layers of fear, loathing, intrigue, and suspicion swirling around this new service. The fact that it already has a page on Snopes.com should tell you something.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 10/02/2015 - 09:06
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/23/2015 - 13:34
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 09/22/2015 - 08:41
Skype was a great piece of software until Microsoft bought the company. We have been using Skype chat and video for years; it is a very effective and efficient way of managing a company with employees located all over the country.
But once Microsoft started "fixing" it, it slowly became less reliable, with file transfers now so unreliable that we rarely use that feature anymore.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 17:03
Pundits all over the InnerTubes are predicting that Apple's support of ad blockers is the death of ad-supported Web sites. Maybe so, maybe not. But I have not heard anyone discuss the inverse: the proliferation of ads was killing ad-supported Web sites.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 09/21/2015 - 11:52
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/09/2015 - 11:05
I had a call recently from a vendor trying to sell us "user controlled network shaping." I asked him who would want to do that, and he really could not answer the question. He just kept repeating how great it would be when users could configure the network to meet their needs.
I have seen a number of articles recently about "network shaping," and many of them make the pitch that this will be great for customers. I've never thought, "My copper-based phone service would be so much better if I could shape and control the bandwidth allocated for dial tone to my premises."
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 09/08/2015 - 08:35
As sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (and many many others) try to create shareholder value, the pressure on users of those sites continues to increase. But as always, it is as much about time as it is about utility.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 07/27/2015 - 09:58
As I continue to read "A Great and Shining Road" about the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, I continue to be amazed at the number of parallels between that project and the effort to get fiber to homes and businesses today.
While the scale of the two projects is different (the railroad was going to span the continent, while fiber needs to be built within towns and cities), the *resistance* to the project is the same.
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