Hogs and Heffers. 1:30 am. Sunday. Only in Manhattan are biker bars packed at 1:30 am on Sunday, where we were minutes ago.

After a madcap manhattan evening, it was funny. Dancing on the bar and me feeling more white/suburbantourist than ever. Must be my white tennis shoes...fun anyway...time for sleep.

in NYC for an event that Telecom behemoth Ericsson is putting on tomorrow. It's being held in the Swedish part of town. tonight my brother, who is kindly letting me stay at his place in Manhattan, has made reservations at Nobu.

more comdex some other time. Here are the shots of Orchid lane.

I was on a panel today at Comdex...really slow here in Las Vegas. More later...

Off to tonight's black tie concert at Fairbanks Ranch. tonight's program is for fans of Carmen, not really chamber music, but a great change of pace.

still can't get over this day. It's typically nice here, but this is especially great. The photo on the left is what I call "the best stoplight view in the world". It's looking down the coast past Torrey Pines State Reserve on the left towards La Jolla CovePast Torrey Pines (out of view) is the Torrey Pines golf course. , Scripps institute of Oceanography and more.

What an incredible day! I'm sitting at the Pacifca Grill in Del Mar waiting for lunch. The photo is looking out towards the north on one of those spectacular clear days we have after rain. It is also unseasonably warm here today. If you ever visit Del Mar, I recommend this place. Del Mar is my favorite place in the world. I've left a couple of times, but always returned. Funny, but after growing up here I was in college before I realized that it is the first city named by the beach boys in their classic "Surfin USA" is Del Mar. Duh.

My 1XRTT Verizon modem is performing well. I think I'll keep it.

Ok. From the "yea, I feel stupid" department, I finally got around to seeing if installation of subsequent programs on my e740 somehow stomped on my 128 bit encryption upgrade to PIE. I didn't do this as I had success with my PPC as is (was) with the Admirals club in Austin. Two lessons learned. First, you don't need this upgrade everywhere, and second, there are programs (not browsers) that will re-write the dll files and somehow put back the older PIE version. Well, I ran home and re-installed it and the place I tried that did not work minutes earlier now worked in a flash. If anybody knows how to find the version of a program on the PPC let me know. The "light" OS strips many normal functions out.

more e740 failures...this time at this Starbucks. I hate intermittent problems; they are the hardest to diagnose. The e740 would not log in here - despite re-starting, changing the config, etc. I'm beginning to think I was hallucinating when it worked. This post is from the laptop (which always works) and I believe I'm in denial about the e740...it may just suck (read: "it's less tolerable of older configurations") in some settings.

Well as a benchmark, I'm getting 1.144 Mbps on the old cnet speed test (I know about the inherent inaccuracy...is there a better way?) using this setup.

With the Verizon CDMA 1X card I'm getting a paltry 32 kbps. This is slow (recall the last time I got over 80 kbps). But I'm getting excatly "0" bars of coverage on my phone. Perhaps Verizon is provisioning the service differently depending on the local voice load. In many systems the data rate is directly related to S/N ration (like 1XEV-DO and most newer systems), but I'll have to look at the spec again to understand that effect here. Anyway...it's better than nothing.

As an aside, in this "social" starbucks there are about 15 people inside and out, of which I'm clearly the oldest. It's real loud and I don't see how you could concentrate on anything really tough, like quantum mechanics or legendre polynomials with all this racket. I'm outta here.

One more try tonight at a place I swear it worked before.

Internet Groupware for Scientific Collaboration a little old, but still a good reference for ideal collaboration. He (Udell) followed this with this one on story telling, also good.

Did this guy have a bad day or what?

Toshiba e740 and Starbucks/T-Mobile continues....

I tried about 10 ways to get my Toshiba e740, which had worked in a couple of starbucks in San Diego, to work in Austin. The one I tried in RoundRock never worked. I was convinced I'd done something...convinced it was in fact my fault. That's human nature I suppose. At any rate upon trying again as I was getting on the plane in austin, and in range of the Admiral's Club, it worked fine. today I tried it at a different starbucks near Del Mar, no go. before my 30 days is up I suppose I'll have to try a couple of dozen. The laptop works fine everywhere. I'm tempted to try a different PDA too. I've been reading on the e740 message boards how much better the units that have had a new ROM factory load are working (this is being done as a part of a recent recall of this state-of-the-art PDA).

I installed yet another web cam on my laptop. Sure is fast to run the hi-res web server off the laptop and have in-home surveilance wherever you put the laptop. I thought my wife would be thrilled - she always wanted to know who was at the front door, or what the little kids were up to outside in the summer, I had my finger on the "slect Enter to complete your transaction" button with the D-Link Wireless camera, but hesitated. I've got all these old computers that I could sell on ebay for $250, or, use them as servers for these camers (those with win98 anyway). I'm going to try that route first. Webcams are cheap.

Here's a good primer on basics of using PocketPC from those wizards at O'Reilly . Pretty interesting reading if you have not done it elsewhere already.

Will the hiptop drive mobile data further than the crackberry? It sure looks like it will help anyway, judging from the latest BusinessWeek article on "hot technology" that featured it. I was using one back in January at CES (reported in this very blog). As "big tigger" says about the hiptop (or the "sidekick" as TMobile branded it):

Not any more. Last summer, Big Tigger first caught sight of the T-Mobile Sidekick. One of a growing breed of handheld computer-phone combos, the slick Sidekick has a screen that rotates to reveal a keyboard for sending e-mail and instant messages. A couple of months later, Big Tigger got the Sidekick ($200 with activation from T-Mobile, plus voice and data service at $35 a month). Now he carries it everywhere, using it to zap quick e-mails and chat on the phone. And when he flashes the little machine, it causes a big stir.

"People have even tried to buy it off me," Big Tigger says.

I also saw the new BMW 745i..ooohh..ahhh. It's always amusing when you get the full blown stereo demo for auto stereo when you are sitting in a trade show, the dealers showroom or Circuit City. As if it will sound that way after adding 45 dB of road noise. I did like that Popular Science had Usability guru Jef Raskin test drive it...here's his review.

Enjoying reading Andrew Odlyzko's Content is not King article while loving watching/listening to The Last Waltz.

The last waltz...ahhh..If you have not yet seen it, you must (if you like music). I really like Stop Making Sense, and of course, Spinal Tap,(and speaking of Tap, I had to laugh when my Google search for my friend Liz - above - came up with, literally, a "where are they now" column..if you've seen Tap you get it) but this one is about my favorite concert film. I guess that's what comes to being born during the Eisenhower administration.

My younger brother Peter (13 months younger) is a drama/theatre/film guy. He seems to know everything about movies, which from the sound of it, is a much more difficult field to make money in than engineering. He has helped me appreciate excellent film making. Anyway, The Last WaltzMartin Scorsese film was thrown together at the last minute. A few weeks was all they had to put it together. They shot it in 35mm, they had no contract, they had no deal. The film was shot at the Winterland theatre in San Francisco. (It was also Winterland's last waltz...after everybody from the door's, to Hendrix, to The Band played there, it's time was limited and in 1978 it was demolished) In the short time they had, they did the ideal thing - which always is - think about what would be the perfect thing to do, big budget or not. They got Boris Leven (west side story, sound of music, more)to design the format, and planned the shooting like "an Alfred Hitchcock film"...according to Robbie Robertson. You hear all of this on the "special features" section of the dvd

But one of the biggest reasons that I love this film so much goes back to the "Content is not King" story at the begging of this post....the first non-school band that I was in,
"Esquire", back during high school (1974-1978), had Jim Gavuzzi as the lead singer/guitar player. We would stay up very late in his parent's house and play and record music - me on my fender rhodes and him with his ovation guitar. He was later my roommate in college for a year, and I sat in on his (and Chris Conway's) band Urban Umbrella in San Diego in 1983. Those were some fun days. He passed last year at the young age of 41. We must have sat through The Last Waltz in 1998 about a hundred times.

Well, this Sierra Wireless Aircard worked in about 5 minutes and I instantly got 80 Kbps in my bedroom on the Verizon Express network, where I'm lying down recovering from my operation. With FOUR daughters, I've given back enough to mother earth and the next generation.





Yea - 802.11b is great, awesome, [your adjective here], etc.; we all get it, we all have it in our homes. But, as soon as you get used to getting anything at any hotspot, you will wish the whole world was one big hotspot (rendering the term "hotspot" illogical)...and...you will want AT LEAST 56k without having to plug in - which is what the CDMA1Xnetworks deliver everwhere today, and then really .demand what they could do today, if there was a demand. Well, for a meager $100/month (maybe not so meager) that's my new life: 1+ Mbps on TMobile, (indoors) 100K on Verizon (the whole United States). Life's too short to have to scrounge around for a hotspot when you're traveling. My time is worth more to me than my money, and I've spent hours some weeks looking for ways to get online when traveling - even locally. Tip for Austin travellers with t-mobile and no Admirals club ($400/year) membership - go to gate 12 - the signal is stong..the photo on the left is looking at gate 12 from the club in the airport

OK...opinion section over.

And speaking of traveling, Austin was fun and too short. I was invited to the UT Austin Wireless event...some other attendees are in the photo up top. I was staying with friends and had to admit it was relaxing.

Live from the Austin Admirals Club with T-Mobile! 1.15 Mbps according to the CNET speed test.

90 minutes of frustration with sprint pcs

Early on in the process of trying to activate my Sprint PCS Connection 1X card, I looked at my cell phone battery and laughed that if took too long I would have to re-charge my Kyocera 3035 mobile phone (used on Verizon). By the end of the process, the battery was dead, and still I had not activated my card. I’m going to return it tomorrow and go with Verizon, but first, some of the scenes from Sprint Customer Care Hell.a

After deciding I needed to have full high speed connections everywhere, with my laptop or desktop, I decided I had should try Sprint again. My last experience was horrible, but maybe this time…

I purchased a Novatel Wireless 1XRTT 3G card : $250 at Radio Shack.

Customer call 1 (dropped after 1 transfer and 10 min)
Customer call 2 (4 transfers, 7 min each: customer care, to web tech support1, to web tech support 2, to customer care who told me the computer had gone down…to call back in 2 hours or more)
Customer call 3 (4 transfers, 9 min each average, customer care, web support, customer support, PCS vision support, after 40 min, quit and decided to return the card)

Three of the people who I really thought could help me admitted this was the first time they had tried to activate a card. A couple of the reps had no idea what I was trying to do, and all of them asked me, at one time or another during the call, for my sprintPCS phone number. It did not matter that I had told all of them that I was trying to activate the card and had no number. They kept asking me for my number anyway. I gave up in the end without a number or service.

Total time with Sprint on the phone was well over 1 hour, and in the end a part of my life was gone and was no closer to getting mobile data than earlier in the day. I was planning on getting their unlimited plan ($100/month). I’m shocked I was not able to buy this service. Nothing had become better in the 6 years since my first activation. The experience with my neopoint phone 3 years ago was worse than the first time, and this card situation was the worst of all time.

The customer care with TMobile WiFi hotspot service was so much better!

After all that, frustrated again. My attempts to have the perfect solution on the road has left me without my contacts from my master home PC having synchronized out my contacts to zero. My laptop does not have the new ones either. Enough to make a guy want to use MSN or AOL instead of plugging away with POP3 email.

Here in the shadow of Dell, who's new PPCs will be out soon, in a starbucks where I'm "roaming" now ($). My use of TimeWarner's RoadRunner remote access has been problematic. The local Georgtown numbers don't let me connect well. Yiso won't have a CF 1X card until next year. Just a few more teaks...

And BTW, when will the CA DMV wise up and discontinue "convenience fees" for people who process their car registrations on-line? They rationalize this by looking only the credit card transation fee cost recovery without considering the cost savings in reduced labor.

I know I've written this before, but, in reading how well picture phones are selling in Asia the concept of the Webcam network for mobile device makes so much sense. The fact that I can see an image of places around the block or the earth on my mobile phone, live images, is compelling. For instance, here's Bourbon Street in New Orleans RIGHT NOW.

I thought of this about 3-4 years ago when going through MMSand installing my own web cams. That night I watched Beauty and the Beast for the, um, 125th time. If you have kids, you understand. When Belle wants to see her dad, the Beast gives her a mirror that allows her to see anything she wants. She sees her dad needing help in the mirror. Well, in speeches (as a wireless carrier CTO, which I retired from 2 months ago) I loved to present that vision. Even if you had not seen the movie, it sure would be nice to see how long the line at the car wash was, or the parking at the stadium, or (for singles) the bar cam: how many available people are at each bar. That last one I know folks would pay for.