As population density drops outside of metropolitan areas, it's impossible for telecommunications companies or cable service providers to justify the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile it can cost to bring fiber to every rural community, let alone every home. The result: Today, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service, according to the Government Accountability Office. And a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the U.S. dropped from fourth in the world in broadband penetration in 2001 to 15th place in 2006. Communications infrastructure is widely seen as the biggest driver of economic growth, yet 21% of Americans — the nearly 60 million people who live in rural areas — are often underserved. [More]

Working together with Intel, Motorola and Samsung, Sprint Nextel will develop a nationwide network infrastructure as well as mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices. These efforts are intended to allow Sprint Nextel customers to experience a nationwide mobile data network that is designed to offer faster speeds, lower cost, and greater convenience and enhanced multimedia quality.

The Sprint Nextel 4G mobility network will use the company's extensive 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, which cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets - the most of any wireless carrier in any single spectrum band. To access that network, Sprint Nextel will work with Intel, Motorola and Samsung to incorporate WiMAX technology for advanced wireless communications and help make chipsets widely available for new consumer electronics devices, connecting consumers to the Internet and to each other while providing them with the flexibility to do what they want or need to do regardless of time or place. [More]

Labels: computer, Internet, rural life

Labels: computer, Internet, technology

The ingredients were the basic four of any word-processing system. First was the computer itself, the Processor Technology SOL-20. Its detailed specifications—its 48K of random access memory, its Intel 8080 microprocessing chip—are now of antiquarian interest, since Processor Technology went out of business several months after I bought my computer.

The second element in my system was the monitor, a twelve-inch TV screen. Some monitors are like black-and-white TVs; mine—which, oddly enough, was produced by the same company, Ball Corporation, that makes home-canning supplies, displays light-green letters against a background of dark green and is supposed to be easier on the eyes. Third was the external storage device—the equipment that saves the documents you've written when the computer is turned off. The equipment I chose, two small tape recorders, was such a complete disaster that I must discuss it separately later on. Fourth was the printer, a ponderous machine, built like a battleship, which had been an IBM Selectric typewriter before it was converted to accept printing instructions from a computer.

These four machines, and the yards and yards of multi-strand cable that connected them, were the hardware of my system. The software consisted of a program called The Electric Pencil, with a manual explaining the mysteries of "block move," "home cursor," and "global search and replace."

I skip past the day during which I thought the computer didn't work at all (missing fuse) and the week or two it took me to understand all the moves The Electric Pencil could make. From that point on, I knew there was a heaven. [More]

Labels: computer, technology

For instance, the study compared the first-page searches from major engines and found that on average:

* 69.6% of Google’s [first page results] were unique to Google.
* 79.4% of Yahoo’s were unique to Yahoo.
* 80.1% of Live’s were unique to Live.
* 75.0% Ask’s were unique to Ask.


All in all, according to the survey, only 1% of results appeared on the front page of all four search engines. [More]

Labels: computer, culture, technology

When Microsoft execs made the rounds before Vista arrived, they were full of assurances that moving the software you currently own over to Vista would be a cakewalk.

In theory, you would just give the program icon a right-click and open the Compatibility tab in the pop-up that appears. When you do this and it works, Vista dims, blinks and changes, and then advises you that it is taking away the trademark translucent windows, cascading windows and other new features you just spent hundreds of dollars buying.

Microsoft's geniuses probably think these messages sound helpful. Here's how they sound to me: "You can buy new software, Coates, or you can rot." [More]

Anyone who was still living under the illusion that the arrival of Windows Vista would mean a lessening of security holes for Microsoft to patch would have had rude awakening this month. Microsoft announced no less than 19 newly discovered flaws in its software, of which 15 are classed as critical. [More]

Labels: computer

Dell's plan to reintroduce Windows XP as an option on its consumer and home-office PCs, as reported midday Friday on our site by Paul McDougall, adds a powerful counterbalance to the tale of unimpeded Vista uptake.

It's pretty hard to read all the tea leaves, and it may seem counterintuitive (given that Dell is talking home systems here), but what I believe will happen near term is that Vista will surge on consumer desktops, while Windows XP will remain entrenched on client-side systems in the enterprise. [More]

Labels: computer

Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: "The 'Wow' Starts Now," and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple's Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there's no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out. [More]

Citing concerns over cost and compatibility, the top technology official at the federal Department of Transportation has placed a moratorium on all in-house computer upgrades to Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, according to a memo obtained Friday by InformationWeek. [More]

They were surprising: it seemed Vista was riddled with security precautions that had little to do with enhancing the customer's experience or making a PC perform better, or even making it more secure from external attack. Instead, they were all about preventing movies and music being copied and distributed on home computers.

In an apparent capitulation to the demands of Hollywood studios and music moguls obsessed by piracy, Vista was packed with "digital rights management" (DRM) "features" that could cripple a PC's performance as a media player at the merest whiff of copyright infringement, reducing screen resolution and sound quality or stopping playback altogether. And these hyper-sensitive features seemed to have the potential to over-react, blocking movies or music that had been legitimately purchased or created by the computer owner. [more]

I don't think this story is over yet.

Labels: computer

Labels: computer

Labels: computer

Labels: computer

While Vista is an excellent upgrade to Windows XP, one that is long overdue, in its first week since the launch, it is still suffering from driver-itis… a just-made-up medical term for a lack of drivers. Sadly, this is what happens every time a new version of Windows is released. Unfortunately, Bill Gates didn’t say anything at all about this, nor was he asked. It’s a pity, because it’s the one most annoying thing about a new operating system – where the ecosystem of drivers has not yet caught up with the mothership.

Instead of getting annoyed by Apple’s ads, it’d be much better if Bill Gates could apply as much pressure on software and hardware partners as possible. For me, knowing that the bits of hardware that don’t work properly on my Tablet PC start working because drivers have suddenly become available and have automatically updated themselves through Microsoft’s ‘Windows Update’ service would really have me saying ‘the wow starts now’.

Unfortunately, we’re all still waiting. Yes, it’s only been a week. But when it comes to compatibility with standard hardware that has been available for years, lack of drivers is not good enough. Bill Gates, it’s great to see you on TV spots and interviewed here and there. But what we really all need is our computers working properly. Until the driver issues are solved, for most people, the wow can wait. [More]

Microsoft's per-incident customer support prices were quietly bumped last week as the company rolled out the newest version of its operating system, Windows Vista. Prices for both Windows Vista and XP support were raised, from $39 to $59 per incident while support prices for Office XP and Office 2007 went from $35 to $49 per incident. General support inquiries as well as inquiries for less prominent software, such as Microsoft Money, remain at $35 per incident. [More]

Labels: computer

Labels: computer

• While it may seem a hassle to reset stuff like toolbars the way you are used to, reloading software like MS Office, for example gives you the choice of a clean start. It reminds me of the first week of every quarter of college - when your grade point was unblemished by actual results. Sometimes a clean start is just what you need.
• Because the new monitor is 16 x 9 aspect - like new TV's you have room at the edges for stuff on the desktop. I think we are just beginning to see freebie "Gadgets" to load into those spots. I'm using the clock, calendar, notepad, and calculator on my Sidebar. Pretty handy.
• After the first few start-ups, the UAP (previous post) becomes slightly less annoying. I may still shut it down. I use Live One Care for security - it works well and I can load it on three computers for one price.
• The speakers I chose (Dell 525 30 watt 2.1 with subwoofer) sound good but they are hard-wired into components so I can't fish the wires through a raceway I built behind my desktop to hide clutter. Also the volume control is a thumbwheel (like in the center of newer mice) that is less handy than my old set.
• Wait - I just talked myself into keeping my old speakers. The computer doesn't care what is plugged into the orange jack.
• Be sure and check the websites of your old software to see if there are reports of Vista incompatibility. This is especially true of software that "calls home" for upgrades automatically. You may want to shut that feature off and just do it manually from time to time. (Adobe Acrobat is a prime example)
• The hard drive and vent fan on this computer (Dell XPS 210) are very quiet. In fact, I sometimes think nothing is happening and end up double-loading a program because I can't hear the hard drive working.
• Wired keyboards/mice are sooo yesterday. I just moved my old wireless set to Gilgamesh (my new computer's name) and it picked added them without a hitch.
• My wireless network took zero configuring. I just plugged into the router.
• I'm gradually reducing the number of separate programs I use, so each new installation is a chance to lose something. I am dropping my Palm Pilot and moving everything to Outlook and my phone, for example.
• Having trouble getting my weather station to find the old file I copied across.
  
• The Windows Media Center is, at first glance, totally lame. It's like picking up a first grade book. I use Musicmatch Jukebox to manage all my music, especially all the choir demo tracks I burn for my choir. WMC looks like it was designed to be used on an iPod with no keyboard. Nearly useless, IMHO. MMJ is working fine though, and the tracks transferred OK.
• I haven't tried WMC with my pictures - I will continue with Picasa. It's free, bulletproof and superbly easy to use. In fact, it may be the best piece of software I've ever used.

Labels: computer, Internet

Google intends to scan every book ever published, and to make the full texts searchable, in the same way that Web sites can be searched on the company’s engine at google.com. At the books site, which is up and running in a beta (or testing) version, at books.google.com, you can enter a word or phrase—say, Ahab and whale—and the search returns a list of works in which the terms appear, in this case nearly eight hundred titles, including numerous editions of Herman Melville’s novel. Clicking on “Moby-Dick, or The Whale” calls up Chapter 28, in which Ahab is introduced. You can scroll through the chapter, search for other terms that appear in the book, and compare it with other editions. Google won’t say how many books are in its database, but the site’s value as a research tool is apparent; on it you can find a history of Urdu newspapers, an 1892 edition of Jane Austen’s letters, several guides to writing haiku, and a Harvard alumni directory from 1919.

No one really knows how many books there are. The most volumes listed in any catalogue is thirty-two million, the number in WorldCat, a database of titles from more than twenty-five thousand libraries around the world. Google aims to scan at least that many. “We think that we can do it all inside of ten years,” Marissa Mayer, a vice-president at Google who is in charge of the books project, said recently, at the company’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California. “It’s mind-boggling to me, how close it is. I think of Google Books as our moon shot.”

• A decrease in duplicative work, as well as plagiarism. Like grad students looking for a topic for their research thesis, authors will be challenged come up with something that has not been done to death already.
• Periodic revivals in the popularity of old authors. When long-out-of print volumes are not hard to access, everyone can rediscover great writing from the past.
• More difficulty in public lying. As candidates are now aware, every utterance can be recorded, and researched for the slightest variance from the truth, opening them to vitriolic attacks from opponents.
  
• A new appreciation for true creativity. Innovative thinking will be provable, not just apparent, since a search for the same concept can be done rapidly.

Labels: computer, Internet, literature

• The "Transfer Files and Settings" program included with the startup screen worked (sorta). I used my network to hook up the two machines, and after about 2 hours, the old one showed the transfer worked, the new one was unsure.
• To the best of my knowledge, I haven't lost anything valuable.
• My software seems to be reloading OK.
• The Internet hooked itself up simply by plugging into my router.
• It is somewhat cuter, and the sidebar is interesting.
• The new wide screen monitor is a huge improvement.
  

• MS Outlook does everything it can to make migration impossible. First you have to find the darned .pst file with all your messages, contacts, dates, etc. on it. Not easy. The transfer programs did zip for this data, so I had to do it by brute force. Not pretty.
• QuickBooks 2006 may or may not run OK on it. My re-installation will not download updates. Only QB 2007 is guaranteed to work. Thanks a lot, Intuit! [Kiss $200 good-bye]
  
• The User Account Protection feature is horrible. You are constantly interrupted with warning messages and it takes multiple clicks to get going again.

• The UAP can be disabled, but there is serious discussion about the wisdom of that too.
  
• The file transfer program added some weird driver from my old computer that won't work, so I get a warning messages every time I boot up. I'm working on this one.

Labels: computer

Labels: blog, computer

Labels: blog, computer