telephony – Page 3 – Observations Along the Road

Your Are What’s On Your Phone

Posted onSunday, March 30, 2014Authorcahwyguy

userpic=verizon Yesterday, I asked people to suggest some of their favorite apps on their phones. Although few fave answered directly on the blog, I have gotten responses on Livejournal, Google+, and on Facebook. The responses have been telling, less in providing useful app suggestions, and more in showing how one’s phone reflects one personality and lifestyle.

There are people who use their phones as a media center. These folks suggested apps such as Kindle, Netflix, Pandora, and such. This is much less important to me — my media center is my iPod Classic, which holds all my music. I’d rather not use precious bandwidth for streaming media.

Others use the phone as a tool. These folks were suggesting apps such as rulers, levels, calculators. They were also suggesting apps such as terminal emulators to give ssh access, or (apropos for where I work) satellite monitors.

Still others use the phone as a tool in a different sense — learning about the environment. These folks included traffic apps, apps to provide social connections, and even earthquake monitoring.

One might even wonder whether the collection of apps on one phones is a signature for an individual…

Looking for a Few Good …

Posted onSaturday, March 29, 2014Saturday, March 29, 2014Authorcahwyguy2 Comments

userpic=verizon Thursday evening, I entered the modern world and got a smartphone, a Motorola Moto X. I’ve figured out a few apps I want (the Caltrans Quickmap app, Waze, a QR code reader, and apps from our credit unions). Still, I’d like some recommendations. What are your “must have” apps for the Droid ecosystem? One note: no bandwidth hogs, and I’m not interested in games. I don’t plan on streaming music — that’s why I have an iPod Classic!

Some additional security questions:

Do you encrypt your phone? (I see pros and cons)
Do you run a mobile virus scanner, such as Avast Mobile Security? Is this unnecessary given the Motorola capabilities?
Have you enabled the remote administration features for lost devices? According to Motorola, this allows you to find your device instantly when you’ve misplaced it. You can also lock and wipe your device remotely, and have it display a message asking for its safe return. To do this, however, you need to activate the device administrator?

Technical Items of Yore

Posted onSaturday, March 15, 2014Saturday, March 15, 2014Authorcahwyguy

userpic=television In my continuing question to clear off my accumulated news chum list, here is a collection of links related to technical items of olden days (like, say, when I was young 🙂 ):

Telephones. Here’s an interesting article (and infographic) that illustrates how telephones used to work, and how they work now.
Typewriters. Before we had printers and word processors, we had typewriters — both mechanical and electrical. Here’s a graphic of 100 years of typewriters.
Power Plants. Something slightly different. LAX recently moved from it’s old steam plant to a brand new modern steam plant. During the transition, they brought back all the retired engineers to run the old plant, as the current folk were busy with the new one. Here’s their story.
Television Themes. OK, it’s not TV, but the shows. Deal. Here’s a list of TV shows that changed their themes over their run. They missed quite a few — Lost in Space had at least two different themes that I recall; Gimme a Break had at least two; Enterprise had two versions as well. More recently, Mike and Molly updated their theme. By the way, if you’re into music history, here’s an article with Elton John and Bernie Taupin looking back at Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

What’s Missing in This Article?

Posted onWednesday, November 20, 2013Wednesday, November 20, 2013Authorcahwyguy

userpic=verizon While eating my lunch and reading the news, news.google.com highlighted an interesting article (alas, from Fox News): “FCC announces plans to upgrade century-old phone system“. In short, currently 1/3 of people use cell phones, 1/3 use digital services from cable providers, and 1/3 use what is called POTS – Plain Old Telephone Service. This is the century-old copper wire switching network. Of course, eventually, both the cell phones and digital services end up on that copper as well.

What happened is that yesterday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced plans to expedite the largest change to the nation’s phone system in decades — a move away from the circuit-switched system that sends those analog signals over copper cables to a digital, IP-based network that largely relies on fiber optics. Once tests prove that the new system works in localized trials, the system will be rolled out nationwide, and the copper wires that have been the basis of POSE for over a century will be turned off.

Be scared, be very very scared.

According to the article, the FCC is expected to begin in January “a diverse set of experiments” in order to figure out how to transition to the new IP-based system, a transition certain to take years. FoxNews was told that the initial experiments will likely include regional tests of an IP-based system to ascertain reliability, scalability and so on. The commission’s technological advisory committee set a goal of 2018, which is likely too ambitious, he said. But expect localized trials as soon as 2015. The upgrade may mean introducing the age of video calling to landlines. An IP landline network, unlike current copper wires can handle much larger amounts of data that could be used to make video calls.

What’s missing in the above? Security.

One of the facts I remember from studying for the CISSP is that Federal wiretap laws apply only to telephone (read: POTS) communication. It does not apply to VOIP (which is one reason I don’t do digital phone systems). Once our copper lines move to all digital…

Further, there is no mention of using encryption — or giving the provision for encryption. Ideally, if we’re going digital, it would great to be able to be able to use public-key encryption for the payloads of the messages (not routing), where the user controlled the key (for one thing, this would allow you to sign over the phone). Will it be there?

What about analog devices? Is this the death of the modem? What about all the technologies that depend on analog signals over copper (many medical devices do; fax machines may)? Does this mean (using an IP-based service) that a side-benefit is instant internet connectivity? What does that do to the ISPs?

One big advantage of copper is that it provided its own power infrastructure. If your electricity went down, often your phones would continue to work. That’s not true for VOIP, where you require additional power adapters. Further, the phone system was very simple — which also made it robust. Yes, the Internet was designed for robust switching, but I’m not sure it will have the resiliency we’ll need for nationwide telephone service in emergencies. One wonders, in fact, if they’ve actually figured out all the requirements properly.

Much as I can see the benefits to moving away from copper, I’ve got the increasing feeling that these benefits are not necessarily for the end users. They will lower costs for the telcos, and may make things easier for, umm, other parties, but the end consumer?

Your thoughts are welcome.

Things That Aren’t Around/Will Not Be Around Anymore, Plus Friday News Chum

Posted onFriday, December 14, 2012Saturday, December 15, 2012Authorcahwyguy8 Comments

userpic=dr-george Today’s lunchtime news chum post is mostly about things that either aren’t around anymore, or are going away. But, as it is Friday, there are a few “clearing the links” items at the end….

Writing. What basically prompted this theme was a wonderful article from Mental Floss about 12 letters that didn’t make the alphabet. Some of these I knew about, such as why “ye” was originally “Þe”, and was pronounced “the”, or the use of the long-s (ſ) in phrases such as “the perſute of happineſs”. Others I didn’t know about, such as the origin of the & (and why it is called “ampersand”), the yogh, the eth, and others.
Photography. An article I had noted in November but forgotten to post was about the effect of the death of 35mm film on classic motion pictures. Basically, we’re losing the ability to make 35mm prints of films, meaning that many more obscure pictures may be lost forever, or may never be shown. Furthermore, the digital “restoration” is often off in some way from the original. In other film news, the bankruptcy of Kodak means that those “Kodak picture spots” at Disney Theme Parks are going away.
Telephones The SF Chronicle is reporting that a new area code overlay is coming to San Francisco: 628. No more will 415 just mean “The City”. Of course, there are fewer and fewer of us who remember when there were only a few area codes in California: 213, 415, 714, 805, 916, 408, and perhaps one more I’m forgetting. Of course, 628 could become like 747, which has been in the Valley since 2009, but I’ve never seen a 747 number.
Reading. Computerworld is already reporting that the tablet may be killing the dedicated e-Reader, just as its multipurpose sibling the smartphone put the dedicated music player (I loves me my iPod Classic, I do) on life support. I personally like single-purpose devices: I want my phone to be for communication; I want me music player to be for playing music; I want a camera that is a camera; I want an e-reader to read books. But I’m also old, and all my Ss look like Fs.

In other items:

Brain Food. I meant to post this with yesterday’s post, but the link was a work. Evidently, eating too much fructose can make it harder to think. According to research by UCLA biology professor Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, binging on soda, candy and sugary snacks for as little as six weeks may reduce brain function. The study, which was conducted on rats, is the first to show that a diet high in fructose slows the brain, which hampers memory and learning. The article fails to note they wanted to conduct the experiment on UCLA students, but they couldn’t find a control group.
Junk Food. Things that make you go “huh?”: Pepsi-Cola and Chicken flavored Potato Chips.
Thinks You Need to Know. Did you ever wonder why . . . – – – . . . (better known as “SOS”) became an international emergency code? Wonder no more.

And lastly, I wrote about the updated UC logo earlier this week. Well, it has been suspended from use.

Friday News Chum: Periodic Table of Tech, USS Enterprise, Kickstarter, Disney+Lucas, Sitcom Spinoffs, and Robocalls

Posted onFriday, November 2, 2012Friday, November 2, 2012Authorcahwyguy4 Comments

Well, it’s Friday at lunch (well, really, it is Thursday evening, but you know how things go), and it is time to clear out the accumulated links of the week. There’s a bunch of real interesting stuff here folks, so let’s dive in…

Periodic Table of Tech. I think I found this through Slashdot, but I my memory could be off. This article goes through every element in the periodic table and discusses how it is used in technology. You’re probably aware of many of the common ones – O, C, Si, Al – but seeing how some of the more obscure elements are used is really interesting.
To Boldly Go. The mega-storm Sandy damaged the demonstration shuttle Enterprise, which was named after the USS (Starship) Enterprise, which was named after the US Navy Enterprise. Here’s a nice article on the various real ships that have born the name Enterprise, and how soon we might be without a USS Enterprise.
Helping Out. I’ve recently begun to explore Kickstarter; I participated in the funding of the Now. Hear. This. Cast Album and the new Big Daddy ’59 album with Songs of Stage and Screen. I’m thinking about funding the Dry Bones Passover Haggadah, and I keep suggesting that the Colony Theatre look to Kickstarter for its emergency fundraising (which they haven’t done to date). So I was amused with the Mentalfloss summary of 13 interesting Kickstarter projects. These include neat documentaries, books, games, and toys. Speaking of helping out… here’s a really neat story about some restauranteurs in New York, who are feeding the city with what they have on hand and their wood-fired ovens.
The Force is With Them. By now, you’ve heard Disney has bought LucasFilms. But what did they get for $4.05B? This article describes it in detail. A significant chunk is ILM and the theatre sound portions, which aren’t the glamorous parts. They got Star Wars (at least the characters and the future films; the released films are tied up with Fox for a few years, and the first (or is that fourth) is entirely Fox). They got Indie Jones (but that is also tied up with Paramount for a few years). They got a few other movies. They may get Clone Wars, depending on Cartoon Network. Related to this, an article in Wired Magazine (h/t andrewducker) explores how the House of Mouse valued Lucasfilm. My one problem with the analysis is that it doesn’t mention the value of the Lucasfilm ILM and sound technology arms; when you factor that into the analysis, it means that Disney valued the existing franchises even lower! (In other purchase news, Warren Buffet has purchased Oriental Trading)
Mork, Joey, Gloria, Rhoda, Frasier… What do these have in common? They are all spinoffs of sitcoms. When I was growing up, the sitcom spinoff was very common, and there were often branches of sitcom trees. Nowadays, we have “franchises“: NCIS, CSI, L&O, etc. … and none of them are sitcoms. Why? This article from Vulture explores why the sitcom spinoff might be dead.
Reading Too Much Into It. Andrewducker also alerted me to an interesting analysis of the Rocky Horror Show as a deep metaphor for the battle of the Glam movement of the 1970s against the “pure” rock and roll era of the 1950s. This analysis finds all sorts of parallels and allegories and makes some interesting points, but I also if the author was just thinking too much about it — in other words, whether they were finding more than the original author intended.
Dreading the Call. We’ve all gotten the call, usually while we are cooking dinner, from Rachel at CardServices with an important announcement about our credit card. Try and track those down, and you get into the 5th ring of hell. Good news. The FTC is shutting down those robocall services. See, your government is on your side and trying to do good things for you. Now if they can just go after those political pollsters that call during dinner…

News Chum – Old Things: Dumb Phones, Old Medicine, and Building with Books

Posted onWednesday, October 10, 2012Wednesday, October 10, 2012Authorcahwyguy

Today’s lunchtime news chum presents three articles about old things:

Stupid Phones. A CNN reporter has an article where she defends her use of a stupidphone. Although I’m not the luddite she is, I too have a phone without a data plan. Why? The primary reason is that I’m cheap, and data plans are expensive. Second, I’d probably waste far more time futzing around on the nets than I already do (did I say that with my outside voice?). But I’ll probably cave at the next replacement, depending on the cost of Verizon’s data plans.
Expired Medicine. A recent study has shown that most drugs are actually still good for years and years after their expiration date (aspirin being a notable exception). This, of course, is published after I cleaned my dresser and got rid of a load of expired medicines. Still, it is useful to know. The same, by the way, is true of much food, where the “expiration” date is really a “best by” guess. Speaking of medicines, CVS has been refilling prescriptions without consent and billing insurance companies. The LA Times is investigating this, and wants to know if it has happened to you. I’ve never trusted the current incarnation of CVS — the outlet near us has screwed up prescriptions, been late on filling things, and has been uncommunicative. I’ve been very happy to be able to return to our local Walgreens.
Building with Books. Old fashioned books. Most of us love them; some of us are replacing them with digital books. But what should we do with the books and books that fill our house. Perhaps build another? This interesting Curbed article looks at what happens when people build things with books. The results are well worth reading.

P.S.: There’s an election coming up. Read. Investigate. Be informed. I’m going through my sample ballot, and you can find the results of my research in the following two posts (a third should be up by this weekend):

Getting the Message

Posted onMonday, September 3, 2012Authorcahwyguy

An interesting article in USA Today today notes that with the rise of texting and chat applications, “voice mail” is being killed, just as voice mail in turn killed the home answering machine (who here remembers RecordaCall), and the home answering machine killed the answering service (made famous in Bells Are Ringing). The article notes that:

Vonage, an Internet phone company, says the number of voice-mail messages left on user accounts was down 8% in July from a year ago. Checking one’s voice mail seems to be considered an even a bigger chore than leaving a voice message. Retrieved voice mail fell 14% among Vonage users in the same period.

The article also noted that use of voice lines is down as well. As for me (and I’m one who grew up in the telephone age), I’ve grown to dislike the phone. It always seems to interrupt me, and I have no control over the call. I much prefer to get messages via email or text, and I really like the service we have at work where your voicemail gets delivered as an email message (although I wish the attached WAV file would play in something other than Lotus Notes; outside of Notes there are regular bursts of static).

So what do you think? Do you still like to call people up? Do you leave voice mail? Do you retrieve your voicemail? Do you prefer text and email? Are you finding this is a generational thing?