Parisblog

Google OS

This is really interesting. The NYT covers the tech story du jour, and what Microsoft had long feared, one suspects, is formally happening. It's war!

The Times writes:

"But while Google has deep pockets and a vast reach, it is in for a difficult battle when it comes to challenging Microsoft in the operating system market. Many companies have tried this over the years, with little success."

Hmm. That was then, right? What about now? Didn't the world change?

If you want to really understand how the ecosytem has shape-shifted, then figure out over the past, say, 5 years in absolute and trending terms:

- what percentage of overall OS share does Apple have? 

- what percentage of notebook OS share has Apple gained?

- what is the OS penetration on Smartphones? Where's Windows Mobile in all this? Android?

- what percentage of market share has Firefox gained, and which online brand is Firefox's preferred partner? - what about Chrome itself?

But then ponder this, too:

- what an amazing job Microsoft did in turning around their OS share in Netbooks, against what at first appeared to be a Linux tide.

- the investment that Microsoft is making in brand advertising

- the early word on Windows 7 (that runs great on netbooks) is very positive.

This is going to be quite a fight.

Good summary/plug for a friend

My old school friend Paul Fletcher, now a telecommunications consultant, was recently interviewed on ABC radio in Australia and sums up the whole story well.

You can download here and there's a recent editorial he wrote in the SMH here. Oh, and if that's not quite enough of a deep dive: read his book.

weirdest spam, ever?

I got this today on my old AOL account (which used to be an employee account and therefore used also to be bound to secure ID.) I read it - which is the spammer's first requirement - and was amused to think that someone might act on it. It asks you to send all your confidential information to an IM Bot whose name is, umm, slightly suspicious.

From: xxxxxxxx@aol.com
Date: 30 September 2008 2:47:53 AM
Subject: AOL Associate: You have been accused of SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Dear Associate

It has come to our recent attention that one of your co-workers has recently
submitted a sexual harassment complaint against you.

Needless to say, this is a serious matter and your job is at risk.

We are offering you the opportunity to explain your side of the story. You
may do so by completing the following instructions:

Send an Instant Message to our BOT Screen Name "DigitalGangster" with the
following information:

YOURSCREENNAME:YOURPASSWORD:YOUR6DIGITAOLPASSCODESECURID

This will log you into the system. Be sure to include ":" in between each
entry of data. After this process logs you in, you will then be able to explain
your side of the story.

Failure to cooperate may result in the drastic escalation of this issue.

Thank You,
Human Resources

ATT is a fucking joke ISP - I would say avoid them at all costs

You'll get a sense of my frustration: I just composed the following note to email via the web form to AT+T customer service. I hit the send button, and their customer service web page which receives email via web forms is down and not responding! (I redacted my email addresses from this post as an anti-spam measure.)

Last apartment I had here in SF had Comcast and I'm pretty sure I am going to have the landlord switch me over. ATT is a farce.

________________________________________

I have two email accounts xxx@____.com and xxx@____.com. I wish to use these on Mac mail. I spent 30 minutes yesterday with customer service and we took the following steps:

(1) changed the SMTP servers to ATT config using authentication and correct user name and password
(2) Authorized the accounts on your servers, and checked both via the portal and via your rep that the accounts were authorized and received authorization codes as below.

http://edit.client.yahoo.com/verify_email?code=b634a2&verifyId=xxx@____.com&stage=mc_verify_email_code&partner=sbc&intl=us

For your records, your verification code is: b634a2

http://edit.client.yahoo.com/verify_email?code=fb9dee&verifyId=xxx@____.com&stage=mc_verify_email_code&partner=sbc&intl=us

For your records, your verification code is: fb9dee

(3) Unblocked port 25

(4) Rebooted 2Wire modem, updated network password

All of which worked fine, eventually and I was able to easily send and receive client mail to the above accounts over the ADSL line using your SMTP server this morning.

However, this afternoon once again mails were blocked and I received the following email:

Dear AT&T Internet Services Member,

We have received questions regarding the following error message which is received by customers when they send e-mail using a non-verified e-mail address:

“Unable to send the message. Please verify the e-mail address in your account properties. The server responded: 553 From: address not verified.”

If you have received this error message, you will continue to receive it for emails sent with a non-verified address until you verify your Yahoo! email address or any other non AT&T email addresses (e.g., name@company.com, name@college.com, name@yahoo.com, etc.). Verification instructions are available on the AT&T Help site http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=11646. If you have already verified your non AT&T email address and are no longer receiving the 553 error message, please disregard this email.

Thank you for your attention to this matter as we work to improve your Internet service. Our goal continues to be to make you a very satisfied customer. If you are experiencing any issues and would like to speak to a customer support representative, please contact us at 1-877-722-3755.

Sincerely,
AT&T Internet Services

PLEASE CAN YOU STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING? As you can imagine, this is very frustrating and I need email for my business. If I am unable to send email over an AT+T line I should probably switch to another service provider. Also the URL in your email above (http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=11646) does not resolve, leads to a 404 error.

C'mon folks, this is a joke!

Those clever Japanese

So I bought a neat little point and shoot, the Nikon S600. I have a big SLR but don't always like to carry it so thought I would try a smaller camera and, as you can see from Flickr, it is taking some nice pictures.

When I picked it up at Yodabashi Akiba they gave me a great gift. A small tripod mount the bottom of which fits on top of standard drink bottles.

The contraption looks like this:

And the result, of a 1+ second exposure at ISO 200 on the "tripod" with self-timer engaged to prevent camera shake, looks like this:

iPhone 3G

Appears to be sold out almost everywhere - including Tokyo.

Although not everyone is happy. A friend who is obsessed with using his Nokia 95 clunker to take photos and MMS them around the world writes:

i phone is terrible...you cant send pics via sms ???? and the camera is beyond crap with no setings, no video. and bluetooth is not stereo and very ordinary...i am so sad :(

I noted that he clearly had not done his research as these complaints were known 18 months ago at the initial announcement.

I advised him not to buy one LOL. One more for the people, like me, who love the phone and think it is the most innovative mobile computer ever invented.

whoisi

Fun, interesting, simple, clever: here is the Techcrunch story and here is my page.

Crazy geeky funny

Posted on techcrunch today and too good not to cross post

Apple Fanboy moment

So I am travelling in LA and staying at a great hotel which has, like many, an iPod dock.

I did my workout this morning and enjoying the song, decided to dock my iPhone and listen to the music whilst showering. I docked the phone, the display went weird and the phone crashed. I did a hard reset, and it came up with a message that basically said iPhone cannot make or receive calls, please contact Apple.

I went online to the Apple Concierge and made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Beverly Center store for 12:45. Drove to the store, parked, at 12:45 my name was called.

He took one look at the iPhone (including using an optical device much like an otoscope to peer into the headphone socket - apparently there is a telltale there that shows if any liquid has ever been spilled inside), checked the database to see if I was still under warranty, and then said I was getting a new iPhone.

They swapped the SIM into the new phone, he activated it in the store, I signed a piece of paper and by 1:00pm I was done.

I came back to the hotel and connected the iPhone to my PC (I use my Mac to sync music and PC for calendars and contacts) where I had last synced my iPhone the day before. iTunes said - this is a new iPhone, do you want to restore from your backup?

I said yes and in about 20 minutes the entire phone was restored (except for the music, which is currently now syncing from the Mac.) I'm not just talking the contacts either. It restored my home screen customization, my photos, my contacts, the calendar, ALL of the SMSs (which I thought might have been toast), everything.

An absolutely superb customer experience and once again gives a lot of weight to what Jobs says: when you control the hardware and the software (and, it turns out, the point of sale) then the integrated experience you can give to the consumer is nothing short of superb. I bet there is not a single phone on the market made by anyone else that could reproduce this experience.

MicroBooHoo

Amongst all of the flood of punditry around the undeal, the Emergency Edition of the Gillmor Gang is worth your half hour on the treadmill. Verdict, on a scale of 0 = Loser 10 = Winner is:

Yahoo: -10 (that's minus ten) - they appeared to have committed suicide rather than be smothered by a heavy lover
Microsoft: +5 - played with a straight bat, now have to figure out a different future but nose clean
Google: +8 - Yahoo now taken out of contention, Microsoft thwarted (though more to do with Yahoo than Google) but by stepping in with Yahoo early on, vs. sitting it out politely, appear wholly capable of doing evil as needed (EOD)* to protect their market position.

* Evil-on-Demand