San Francisco politicians are proving that they are not really on the cutting edge, but rather in bed with big business like the rest of Washington. The mayor and his cohorts have recently placed a proposition on the November ballot asking the city to vote on a “free” municipal WiFi system. This is a joke. First it was touted as free access to anyone who could not afford it. Well, if you live in San Francisco and you cannot afford $10 a month for internet access, then surely you cannot afford a computer to begin with. Then Earthlink and Google said they could each build the wireless network…even though Eearthlink has no experience building or managing a WiFi network…great. But, in the end, why would we, the citizens of San Francisco, want to put money into an unreliable technology…especially when there are much better alternatives with more upside to the taxpaying citizens who are paying for this proposal? Got me.  If we are going to pay to connect everyone, then let’s do it right. Let’s put in some fiber to each home. This means that we will not only have virtually unlimited bandwidth capabilities for internet connections, we will have virtually unlimited bandwidth for just about any service you can dream up including phone, video….[insert your idea here].  Politicians need to stop pandering to people and start serving the people that are paying their salary and electing them to do what is in the people’s best interests…not their buddies who let them use their jets and corporate homes.

Yeah, it is time to pimp out the mobile phone my friends. Be the first one in your group to have a spooky sound ringtone. I am not a huge user of the whole ringtone thing, but I have to say that the Halloween ringtone is different to me. I still freak out when I hear that piano theme from the movie Halloween.

[tags]Halloween, Ringtone, Mobile Phone[/tags]

Jason Golod just posted a coupon for $100 off a dedicated server at Server Beach.  I have actually been in the market for a debian dedicated server now for a while and have been too lazy to really research it like I should. He also posted a list of Debian dedicated box hosting companies that are all over the world. Pretty cool.

[tags]Debian, Dedicated, Server, Coupon[/tags]

I was looking around earlier and noticed a nice review of binary newsgroup providers as I am in the market for a new newsgroup service provider…if that is what they are called. I am tired of my intermittent connection issues and all of the excuses that my current provider seems to come up with.  Anyway, I will keep you posted on how the trial goes with NewsHosting.

Just thought I would drop a link here to a guy that has saved me a TON of time. I have an old arcade style game, Centipede. I could not find ANYONE to fix it in the Bay Area for months. Then I found Ken at I Repair Sega. He has saved my life, well at least he saved my game and now I am back in business! Thanks Ken.

Ok, the wife got a new phone, a brand new Nokia 6682. Of course, I was the one to unwrap it and put the thing together and I have to say that I was impressed with the 6682 upon first site.  The first thing that I noticed was the large screen that the Nokia 6682 is sporting.  It is super fantastico.  It makes my old Nokia 6620 look like a Ford Pinto compared to a shiny new Mustang.  Menus have been consolidated a bit from the 6620, which is welcomed as the 6682 is much more intuitive to use. But, that does not mean that it does not have the features that power users would want to see.  The buttons and direction pad are fully programmable allowing you to change functions and/or program them to do whatever you would like.  This was the first thing that I changed on her phone. I don’t have a lot of time to get into the details and the specs that you can easily find on the Nokia 6682 page, but I will say that this is a great phone for the money.  If you can pick one of these up for a general use phone that has a great screen, then I doubt you will be disappointed.

Cingular, 6682, Wireless

I guess times are changing when kids are not mugged for their milk money anymore, rather they are mugged for their mobile phones…

Publisher:Jon Land Published: 13/04/2006 - 15:50:19 PM Printable version Send to a friend Children with Mobile Phones The number of schoolchildren robbing each other for their mobile phones has soared in the past three years, new figures revealed today.

mobile+phones, wireless, milk+money, mug

How do you know if you are doing a good job selling your product? How about when you have sold more of your product then there are people in your country? I think that is a pretty good indication that you are doing something right, or that the people love what you are selling.

Mobile penetration in Ireland has passed the 100% mark, the latest quarterly report from ComReg on the electronics communications sector shows.

mobile+phones, wireless, Ireland, Saturation, Marketing

Good news for US Cingular customers who have been waiting patiently for Cingular Wireless to roll out their wireless broadband service using HSDPA technology. Cingular recently announced that they are now offering their Broadband Connect wireless broadband service to a number of major metropolitan areas across the country. They have also included a number of devices that support the new high-speed service with data rates from 400-700kbps with bursts up to 1Mbps.

Broadband, Wireless+Broadband, Broadband+Connect, Cingular, Wireless

I have been using Vonage VOIP service for a few years now and while not 100% perfect, it is very good. The nice part is that you can make free calls to any other Vonage user, but many of my friends are using Skype VOIP service. Skype is just like Vonage, except that it has a pretty cool message client that runs on your computer. Vonage will not be replaced by Skype in my opionion, but instead the two services can work side-by-side. I signed up for my free skype account the other day, but you have to have a headset and microphone for your computer or a Skype approved phone like the Linksys you see here. Rather than going the headset route I went ahead and picked up this really cool cordless Skype phone by Linksys. The phone has a charger base with a usb cord that attaches to your computer. The phone has a large screen that can display your Skype contact window, so if you are sitting on the couch and you want to call someone using Skype, you can do it all from the phone handset. It is pretty nice.

I think this is the best Skype phone solution as you are not tied to sitting at your computer to use this great service. My 2 cents.

Linksys Cordless Internet Telephony Kit for Skype

Features:

• One-year warranty
• Wireless Skype-only handset supports incoming, outgoing and messaging
• USB port connects directly to your desktop
• Supports up to four handsets
• Handset includes Caller ID screen, speakerphone, intercom and call waiting
• Wireless Skype-only handset supports incoming, outgoing and messaging
• USB port connects directly to your desktop
• Supports up to four handsets
• Handset includes Caller ID screen, speakerphone, intercom and call waiting
• One-year warranty

skype, VOIP, Linksys, Wireless, Mobile