A look at business, law and life from a technophile.
Archive for February, 2010
Android Doomed? I think not – but PCWorld does
0On a side note, PCWorld claimed Android was doomed. Galen Gruman has a hypothesis that basically states that manufacturers can choose what features to implement and whether to allow an upgrade to the next OS.
Wow. Personally, I think manufacturer choice was a good thing. I also think that while consumers may want to run the latest OS, that we recognize that many of our devices are underpowered for some tasks. Plus, it should count as an advantage, not a detriment that there is even possible an upgrade path.
When we look at the actual world, Linux is fractured – but its still very successful and often tailored to the desired device. Ruby on Rails (the language and framework) has strange compatibility problems between versions, but its still on fire in the the development community. Both are open source. Android is open source.
In sum, I think Galen is reading tea leaves in an alarmist fashion (ie I don’t think the facts he sees add up to the death of Android – but the contrary). Microsoft has been predicting the death of Linux for years. Despite their best efforts, it hasn’t happened. I think Android is here to stay as well.
–Ben
Source: PCWorld
Verizon Speeds Lacking compared with AT&T in PC World Test
1PCWorld has a report that shows that Verizon’s uptick in phones isn’t all its cracked up to be. In fact, the report states that Verizon has had problems keeping up with the demand (see the reliability numbers). Verizon apparently has also been hampered by an uninterrupted signal – only 76% of the time was it uninterrupted.
Personally, I’ve seen in on my train ride into work. I keep dropping into 1x instead of 3G. So, let’s hope Verizon gets back on top. We bought into the network because it was the best, right?
Verizon’s come back is that their map is bigger. Bigger isn’t necessarily better if it drops speed. 1 in 4, it appears.
–Ben
Source: PCWorld
Utah Makes the List of Top Jobs Created and Top Job Growth
0Wow. Just saw an infographic on mint.com about where the jobs are predicted to be. Salt Lake, Provo and St. George cities in Utah made the list. Did yours?
Budgeting – Mint.com
–Ben
Source: Mint.com
Disclaimer – I use Mint for my personal finance. Its free. I like it. However, I did not receive any special compensation for this post.
Valentine’s Day Statistics – Who gets What and How Much
0Billshrink put up an interesting infographic on Valentines Day and they’re inviting people to share it. Here’s the surprising low-down on who gets what for Valentine’s Day. One of the most surprising stats is just how many parents buy cards for kids. I thought it was a “lovers” holiday.
–Ben
Droid BOGO – Buy a Droid, get one free from Verizon
0UPDATE 5/19/2010: The Droid BOGO sale is back on. See Droid Does for more details. Check in the top right corner. You’ll have to add the phone into your shopping cart to verify the Droid BOGO deal is still going. See the current Droid BOGO post for info.
UPDATE 5/18/2010: The BOGO sale is long over, but there are some deals to be had. It looks like the Droid is available for $19.99 from wirefly.com. (I am not an affiliate – it should be a clean link).
Verizon apparently is running a special on Droid and Droid Eris. Buy one phone, get a second of the same kind for free. Of course by free, I mean that you eventually get one phone for “free”, but end up paying the $30 times 2 surcharge for data and then a voice plan plus another $10 for another line that shares the minutes (or $60 times two for unlimited voice). But hey, there’s really no free lunch. Just an awesome phone.
In any case, if you were looking for his and her Droids, now might be the time.
–Ben
Source: Verizon, Phandroid, Phones Review
Skype App Coming to Verizon Wireless in March- Has Hell Frozen Over?
0Verizon Wireless and Skype just announced that Verizon is going to carry skype calls over its network starting in March. It may require a data plan, but those international calls may have gotten a lot cheaper.
Seriously? This seems such an about-face from the wireless carrier that was known to lock everything down and make you pay for any small incremental benefit (I’m looking at you, ringtones from the V-shop). I’m skeptically optimistic at this point. And I hope it continues.
Here’s the initial phones with Skype support:
- DROID by Motorola
- DROID ERIS by HTC
- Motorola DEVOUR
- BlackBerry Storm 9530
- Storm2 9550
- Curve 8330
- Curve 8530
- 8830 World Edition
- Tour 9630
–Ben
Sources: Skype, Verizon Wireless, PCWorld
Motorola Gives timeline for Android 2.1 for Smart phones and Droid
0Motorola has put up a page giving expected roll-out dates for their android phones to upgrade to Android version 2.1. Here’s the summary
- Droid – soon
- Milestone (Europe) – Q1 2010
- Milestone (Latin America) – No Date
- Milestone (Asia-Pacific) – No Date
- Cliq (USA) – Q2 2010
- Dext (Europe) – No Date
- Dext (Latin America) – Q3 2010
- Dext (Asia-Pacific) – Q3 2010
They also claim to be working closely with Google and carriers to bring “the most optimized” experience on each of the phones. Let’s hope that “the most optimized” doesn’t mean “missing features” in marketing spin.
–Ben
Sources: Motorola Support, Phandroid, InfoSync
Motorola Admits Jumping the Gun on Android 2.1 Details
0Apparently Motorola released the Droid 2.1 details too early according to their forum. Bummer. I was hoping the update would coming this week. I guess a few days more won’t hurt.
Maybe something good will come of this. Motorola has been getting some flak for releasing a “gimped Andriod 2.1” compared with the Nexus One.
–Ben
Sources: Motorola Forum, PCMagazine
Free Must Have Website Checking Tools
0I’ve been working on updating the skin to this site, and I wanted to comment on a couple of tools that I think are useful:
- Port 80 Software Analysis Tools – Compression Check, Bandwidth Savings Calculator, Cache Check, Header Check, Error Check
- Is My Blog Working – Basic Blog Idiot Test, Speed Details and Feature Test
- GID Network compression test – Is my blog compressed?
Fascinating Stuff. I’ll write about the plug-ins I’ve installed in another post, which is the reason I was using these sites.
-Ben
Sources: As stated above
1and1 Nameservers Down – Can’t find 1and1 DNS Status Page
0I just helped my brother set up his blog. I just discovered that a few days after setup the 1and1.com Nameservers have failed. See for yourself:
So, I go look to find a status page or something and I come up empty handed. Not a good sign in my opinion. However, this is the first failure that I’ve seen. Its just a very large failure.
–Ben