The Hot Iron

Monday, April 09, 2007

What’s a Vonage Customer To Do?

If you use Vonage for your telephone service or you follow the tech community, you may be aware of the court battle they are having with Verizon.  In short, the courts have ruled that Vonage has been using Verizon’s patented technology and not paying for it.  The courts have ruled in favor of Verizon and ordered Vonage to pay $58 million.  This article from the Chicago Tribune sums up the case so far and a court stay allowing Vonage to remain in business.

As a Vonage customer, I am undecided on what to do next.  I am a content customer of the Internet telephony company, as I have never been really pleased with their service.  To begin with, it took over 4 months for Vonage to transfer my phone number from SBC, then the name of the local phone provider now called AT&T.  There were many outages early on as well, where I would lose phone service for hours or even days.  Occasionally, voice mail and three-way calling do not work.  However when it does work, I get a clear signal and email notification I received a voice mail message.

Last week the courts wanted Vonage to stop signing up new customers, and as I write this they have a stay of that order.  That would choke incoming funds to the company, or as some may say good money after bad.  Unclear is what the 2 million plus current customers have for options.  Can I easily move my phone number away from Vonage?  If so, what other telephony options do I have?  Sorry AT&T – there was a reason why I wanted to leave you in the first place, and it’s still there!

Right now I am taking a wait and see approach.  I doubt that any court would shut down the service before its customers were able to go elsewhere.  Well, I hope that would be the case.  Do you have Vonage, and what are you thinking?

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Beware Unsolicited Invoices for Your Domain Name

Earlier I had posted about knowing who manages your domain names.  I would like to build on this by adding being aware of solicitations that appear to be invoices for domain name renewals or services.

Recently the mail has increased with what appears to be an invoice for the renewal of a domain name or for Web site services such as search engine submissions.  These usually come by US Mail, but are now starting to come by email.  Where they look like an invoice, they are in actuality a solicitation, and further inspection will show small print to that effect.  The hopes of these scam artists is to trick you into moving your domain name to them or to pay for services you may not want.

In that original post I said there is a big business around domain names.  You can register domain names with any number of sources.  My business Dunkirk Systems is a reseller of domain names, and all domain names are registered through ICANN-accredited domain name registrars.  Asking a person or entity for their business is not deceptive or unethical itself, but it can be in the way it is executed.

If you receive such an invoice letter or email, verify who it is from.  Contact whomever you have your domain names registered through to verify if the invoice is legitimate or not.  If you do get a letter or have any questions, please post a comment here – I am more than willing to help!

Monday, April 02, 2007

92 - 1 - 100+

After taking a long weekend away from the computer (note PC, not Treo for email) I went back to check on the status of The Hot Iron and see if anyone posted any comments while I was away.  While I checked this information, I also caught up on reading blogs that I subscribe to.

Here are my results:

• 92 comments posted since last Thursday morning
• 1 legitimate comment (thanks Adam!) meaning 91 were pure spam
• 100+ new blog posts were in my Google Reader, as it only displays accurate numbers under 99.  For some reason, they can’t count in Mountain View

Where my blog is new and I am not expecting zillions of hits and comments, getting them from the far-away spammers was not a welcome after the weekend.  As I do have moderating turned on, these were only my problem and did not impact any readers.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Twitter Has Inspired Me

One of the largest consumption of my time, next to delivering Internet solutions to my clients, is following the news and trends in the Internet space.  It is tough to keep up with all that is new, some of those things more relevant or interesting than others.  Twitter has been in the headlines since the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.  I won’t rehash what Twitter is, and fellow Chicagoan Andy Wibbels wrote this good overview of Twitter.

To me, the fact that someone will care about what I am doing right now, the core of Twitter, is as much fascinating as it is odd.  However, when I hear of new services or gizmos such as Twitter, I tend to think of more practical implications.  Perhaps knowing what I have been doing all day, at the end of the day, would help in accounting for my time?  And in addition to logging what I am doing, could I also log what I just did or notes on something I need to do?  Could an application like this replace scraps of paper and sticky notes all over my desk?

Twitter has inspired me in this regard.  But I won’t be using the application itself, as I don’t want the world to know what I have been doing all day.  A small enhancement to an existing custom Web application could just do the trick.  I’ll let you know how this plays out.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Searching Wikipedia over Google

Many times we instinctively do something that, if we take a step back and observe ourselves, we didn’t realize we do.  I found when I go to search the Web for some topics, the first place I go is Wikipedia and not Google.  I have Wikipedia in the search engines in Firefox, so it is as easy for me to search Wikipedia as it is for me to search Google using the Google search bar.  The picture below shows my Firefox setup.

So what am I searching on Wikipedia?  Proper nouns – names, cities, companies and even some words I need the definition for are what I am entering in the search box to the right.  If I am looking for a technical solution, then I am most always searching Google.

A few things come to mind as a result of this search.  I am not viewing any ads on Wikipedia that in some cases may give me a link more relevant to what I may be seeking.  I am also relying on the editors of Wikipedia to provide me information.  But am I taking anything I see on either search as gospel?  Of course not!

What are you using to search, and for what?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

200 is My Magic Subscription Number

As other bloggers have commented over the past few days on how they read blogs, I have decided to chime in, as well as make a public declaration not only of how I read them, but how many I will read.

Google Reader is my feed reader of choice.  I say “feed” as I subscribe to feeds that are not necessarily blogs, such as the news headlines from Web sites.  It has worked well for me, both on my PC and my Treo 680.  I browse through all of the new feeds in a big list, and do not use any of the other features, including folders.  This is acceptable to me as I have a variety of feeds, both business and personal, and going through the list and reading the mix is a good break in the day for me.

Last week I decided to keep the number of feeds I subscribe to fewer than 200.  I have found that I don’t put too much thought into a blog or Web site when I subscribe to the feed.  If I happen upon the site for whatever reason and find some useful information, I will just subscribe.  It is not until I subscribe that I see what the feed gives me.  If the content is no longer relevant to me, duplicate of something else I am reading or if there are too many posts, I will unsubscribe.

Two hundred has actually been the cap I have been using all along, noticing it when I manage my feeds.  Do you have a magic number for your feeds?

Friday, March 09, 2007

All Patched for Daylight Savings I Think

In the event you haven’t heard already, this Saturday night in the US we switch into Daylight Savings Time (DST), earlier than in the past.  This law was passed last year to conserve energy, with the thinking that the more natural light you have, the less energy you consume.  Of course our technically-challenged legislators did not take into consideration other costs, including software changes to ensure all is running after the change.

I have run Windows Update on all of my PCs and got the DST patches.  Weeks ago I saw on MobileBurn.com that Palm issued a patch for my Treo 680 and patched it then.  Interestingly I just got the email directly from Palm this past week – so much for their concern for their customers.  And of course I am ready to run around the homestead to change all of the manual clocks.

Are you all patched and ready?  I believe I am.  Then there are the vendors and merchants that I do business with and only a handful have emailed me to tell me they are ready.  A couple of vendors are in Arizona, the only state that does not abide by DST – lucky them.

As the time change is at 2 am on Sunday, the impact should be minimal to me, and I will have time to run tests.  Hopefully Monday morning is not a challenge for your and businesses.  And hopefully all airline software is in check, otherwise my friend will have a hard time flying back to Europe on Sunday night.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Usable Mobile Phones for Seniors

Recently I bought my aunt a new mobile phone.  When I had asked her if she used her previous phone, she said no, as it was too bulky and the buttons were not the most intuitive to her.  My aunt can be considered a senior citizen – she may not be tech savvy, but she is extremely worldly and knows the value of a mobile phone, she just had problems using it.

The phone I selected for her was a Motorola model that was a clamshell phone with large buttons.  I gave her the new phone already programmed with every number she would need in it.  She liked the smaller size and larger buttons.  Though she has it mostly for emergencies, she now carries and uses this phone.

You don’t have to do too many Web searches to find content on devices of all ilk that are unusable.  For phones, at least in the US, the emphasis seems to be on “cool and hip” rather than more intuitive, robust functionality.  Sure, I am pushing 40, but look around the world and see what they’re using in Europe and Asia.  And don’t even ask me the difference between a RAZR and KRZR!

Two new phones have emerged – one in the US and one in Europe – that meet the needs of the growing older population using mobile phones.  GreatCall has come out with two models of their Jitterbug phone, one with large number buttons, and another without numbers, but has text buttons for making emergency calls.  Each phone is US$147.00, however you have to buy their mobile service plan, as they share the short-sidedness of other phone manufacturers and don’t sell the phone unlocked.

Another phone is coming from Austria’s Emporia Telecom.  Its EmporiaLife model has a large screen and just 4 buttons on the surface with a full number pad that can slide out.  They are not being sold yet, but my guess is that I will be able to get an unlocked version when they do.

Thanks to John Wall of The M Show for clueing me into the Emporia, which led me to the Jitterbug.  He refers to them as a “geezer phone” in his latest edition… and the term geezer is one that could easily fit him or I!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Is Your Web Site Ready For Its Close-Up?

Whenever I meet with a new client to talk about delivering a new Web site or enhancements to an existing one, I always talk about who may be visiting it.  At the end of the discussion, I always add to the list “anyone” as the reality is that if you have a public Web site, truly anyone can see it.

When people think about viewing a Web site, most of the time the though is that it would be viewed online, using a browser.  The next natural way is that it is viewed on a handheld device.  But what about TV?  Last night, one of my client’s, Foresight Childproofing, was featured on a local Minneapolis TV station relating to a child safety story.  At the end of the story they showed the home page of their Web site, childproofhome.com.  You can watch the story here:

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_066101558.html

So the next time you think of who will be looking at your Web site, realize it could be a couch potato.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Are blog calendars useful?

Many blogs feature a calendar of the current month, where days are bolded to indicate one or more blog posts were written that day.

When I setup The Hot Iron, one of the first things I did was to remove the calendar, and I have done so on other blogs.  I did not see a value in the calendar, especially compared with lists of categories and most recent posts.  I am now seeing more blogs without calendars.

So what do you think?  Would a calendar add value to this blog?