JC - Technology and Stuff

Two minutes! That’s how long it took me to correct a problem I had on my home PC this morning. And I wasn’t even at home when I fixed it. Let me explain…

It seems that now I have my fast cable internet installed, my Yahoo! Messenger at home refuses to give up its connection like it used to. What I mean by that is usually I have Messenger loaded at home and then I come to the office and then reopen it on my desktop. What this normally does is close down my Messenger at home (well, takes it offline anyway) and I then carry on using it at work until I get home again in the evening where I reverse the process. Sounds easy. And it’s been working fine like this for a few years now.
But this morning after I got to work and connected to Messenger it decided to go offline by itself after a few minutes telling me it was online on another computer! Well, not to be outdone, I got it back online on my work PC again and carried on. Yet again a few minutes later the same thing happened and so the tussle continued for an hour or so. Hmmm, what to do?

Then I remembered I have Mesh and Home Server, both of which allow remote access to your PC. That is they are both supposed to. I found out there’s a little clause in the Windows Home Server documentation that says it doesn’t support a remote desktop connection to a PC that’s running Vista Home of any flavor. And yes, of course my PC, likes millions of others, is running Vista Home Premium and so I can’t remote desktop to it. Still, that leaves the ever trusty Mesh which I’ve blogged and blogged about before. This little application never ceases to amaze me. I simply navigated to mesh.com, hit the ‘connect to my PC’ button and lo and behold I got a login prompt for my home PC right on my screen at work. Magic. One password and one click later and I had my desktop in front of me and I was controlling my home PC from the office, just as if I was sat in front of it. I quickly opened up my Yahoo! Messenger and closed it down and then logged off my home PC. I re-opened Messenger on my office desktop and there we go, sweetness and light had been restored. No more interruptions!

This is exactly what modern day computing should be about. Doing simple clever things. Just a few years ago I read all these pitches to buy remote-PC (or some such program) and all these applications cost like $20 a month. Mesh is FREE!!!

Well it finally seems like my home PC network setup is coming together. Now that I have fast internet installed, and after some small adjustments to everything, I am fairly happy with what I have. I still need to get backups properly organized via Home Server; I currently do partial backups via that and other backups via a backup program that runs every day for me. My T-Mobile home phone is still performing flawlessly and now that they have introduced Discounted International Calling there really is no need for anything else.

…and so should yours be.

Mathematicians tell us that most ‘normal’ distributions fall under a bell shaped curve. That is to say if you drew a bell (see diagram opposite) with quantity along the y axis and ‘whatever’ on the x axis, then the area under the curve at distinct points would be equal to certain pre-defined percentages. Put another way, most of us would exhibit a certain behavior a certain percentage of the time. Nearly every possible population set for any given set of circumstances results in a curve of this nature. That’s both reassuring and disappointing at the same time. Reassuring because there’s some predictability to it and it’s nice to know where the boundaries are, but disappointing in that we as human beings are at the end of the day so predictable after all.

Anyway I digress. I wanted to write a little today about careers (or my observations about careers, since I claim to be no expert in the matter). If my career was a bell shaped curve then I guess I’m over the hump. In fact I could apply some simple mathematics to work out exactly where I am, but that’s not the point. I only need to know that I’m over the hump. Maybe that means I’m ‘over the hill’ too, but that’s another totally unrelated topic! The hump of the bell curve is a good way to look at our careers. At first we are struggling for success (and wealth, and happinees, etc.), but as time goes on hopefully we improve and we start climbing that hill of the bell curve. New heights bring new challenges - normally in the form of stress. I am a firm believer in the theory that the higher in the bell curve you are (also factor in direction and gradient), the more stress you are also under. Wow! That really explains my late 30’s and early 40’s.

I don’t think most people undestand bell curves (or really care) and therefore don’t understand that in the end it all has to even out. Many people keep trying to climb and climb, thinking that by the time they are nearing retirement they will be at the top (but how stressed will they be? - I’m thinking 60 year old CEOs here). So let’s think about it for a moment. If the area under the curve represents a big part of your life and you use it all up at work then you’re not going to have any of it left by the time you retire. One day you’ll be at the top of the curve and then very next day you’ll be at the bottom. I would hazard a guess this is the quick route to the next world (think heart attack or stroke). Life needs to be a balance. Bell curves work for a reason.

So, I’m on the down slope of my career bell curve. I need to work out the exact angle and area I have left so I can do a good job in managing it. I think I’ll plot it out so I can calculate it.

In the chart above the black line represents the ‘ideal’ career bell curve (the red line maps my career path to date) and is mapped with age in years along the x axis and percentage of career capability / effort / investment along the y axis. Of course you could be an early or late bloomer and the curve could be skewed either way, but for my example I am assuming a standard bell curve. Either way you have to understand that there is only so much area available under the curve and this area eats into the rest of your life. If the area is too large you have no life outside of work!! Consider that when the line is at 80%, you only have 20% of your life quality left to give outside of a work environment.

My early career was steep and precipitous. Then it plateaued out for a few years. Then it took a brief  downturn. Then it went skywards for several years. Then it plateaued out again. Now it’s taking a natural downturn. Not because I’m unemployed or anything (I actually have a very good job), but because I need to keep that balance - for my own health and well being. I don’t need the stress anymore. I have interests and committments outside of work. I have a life. I have other bell shaped curves I want to embrace. My mum used to say that you can’t burn the candle at both ends (well actually I don’t think she did, but it’s the sort of thing that mums say). What that means is that you can’t fit in more than a day’s stuff in 24 hours. If you try and do then something will suffer. Put it another way. If you spend all your energy and stress on work, then your social life is going to suffer. Or your marriage. You know where I’m going. There is only a finite area under the bell curve. Use it wisely!

Well gosh I’ve rambled on for a few paragraphs without seemingly having any purpose. But I do. I have real purpose. By starting that journey down the other side of my career bell curve I have freed up time in my mind and for my body. I am now paying attention to things I let wander over the last few years. My health is benefitting (let’s not even talk about what my blood pressure used to be), my weight is coming down, my diet is improving, and my mind has more opportunity to imagine the future. Heck I even have more time to devote to a better relationship with my wife and children. It’s all in the bell curve.

I hope I’ve given you a little food for thought in this post and maybe you’ll try and map your career path to this chart. No matter what age you currently are, try and keep to the black line. You’ll live a lot longer and have a much happier and more fulfilling life.

Today was the day the T-Mobile G1 phone was finally announced. There have been hundreds of posts already written about this new phone all over the Internet but I just have to add a little one of my own. I am SO eagerly awaiting MY chance to get one of these. I wish I was privy to a pre-release model but I am just a lowly employee who will wait his turn like everybody else. I’m sure it’ll be another 5 weeks or so before I have mine and it is activated. Until then all I can do is dream.

The best picture gallery I have found is here at Engadget.

Of course the day at T-Mobile was full of the announcement. Internal emails and websites are awash with the new iPhone contender. And so they should be. This is the biggest thing to happen in the cellphone market since the original launch of that alternative device! I am confident the G1 is going to be HUGE. And this is only a first generation, first model. In another year’s time the world will know it’s here to stay, and this phone / platform combination was first available on T-Mobile.

So, that’s my take. I promise I’ll stop writing about this phone now until I’ve nearly got one. In the meantime, here’s a final list of its features and a link to the official T-Mobile G1 website:

Touch screen

• Instant access to key information with the touch of a finger
• Just tap the screen and go

Real Web browsing capabilities

• Quick and easy access to the Internet one click away
• View more pages and rich Web content on your phone

3MP camera

• Capture key moments in high-quality fashion wherever you are
• Never worry about blurry photos with auto focus built right in

Customizable home screen

• Just drag and drop any of your favorite applications, photos, or folders onto your home screen for quick access to what you use all the time

QWERTY keyboard

• The built-in familiar layout lets you type messages easily without scrolling for the letter you want
• Hinged screen slides open to reveal keypad and closes to prevent accidental dialing

Easy access to Google applications

• One-touch access to Google applications: Maps (including satellite, traffic, and street views), Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, IM/text/e-mail
• All the ways you need to connect while you’re on the go

Music player

• With the 1GB memory card, you’ll never be without your favorite tunes

One-click Google Search

• Quick and easy access to the Internet in one click

Video playback

• Watch your favorite videos, even YouTube, anywhere

3G network and Wi-Fi access

• High-speed 3G network connection for surfing the Web or downloading information quickly and effortlessly
• Seamlessly transition to open Wi-Fi networks to surf the Web or download information quickly

Android Market

• One-touch access to Android Market
• Customize and personalize your device to fit your life with a variety of software applications like games, social networking, and on-the-go shopping
• Download the applications wirelessly with just a couple short clicks

Looks like it’s going to be a bumper week next week with all the new announcements of phones for the retail season. Me? I just want one of the new T-Mobile / Google / Android phones. Watch out iPhone!

So, the other thing that’s on my mind this evening is just exactly which phone I’m going to upgrade to in October? Previously I’d settled on the Blackberry Bold, but I’m now getting more and more tempted by the upcoming HTC Dream which of course will be the first Android / Google phone and will be marketed exclusively at first by T-Mobile.

I’ll keep updating this blog as I learn about new features and see upcoming reviews on the two phones.

It’s going to be an exciting couple of months (actually only 6 or 7 weeks).

The feature set looks great but it’s bound to be a little buggy at first and I have to ask myself whether I can put up with that. Also I’ll probably lose my T-Mobile corporate email and calendar features, not the biggest loss in the world, but a loss nonetheless. But, I would get a better browsing experience, a fun development platform, better videos and Google’s great GPS / maps application. No need to buy in-car GPS anymore.

At the office I have to use Microsoft Outlook to manage email and my calendar. Not that I hate it, I just choose not to use it outside of work. As I have written earlier, I have now switched to a 100% GMail and GCal solution for my personal life.

Anyway back to the plot. In the early days of email everyone was encouraged to create different folders to store your emails on, for easy reference later. Well, that’s all well and good when you’ve only got a few hundred emails, but at work you quickly get a few thousand. Then how do you file them? If you get an email from your boss about a project you’re working on that has a link to something you don’t want to forget, where do you store it? In a ‘boss’ folder? In a ‘project’ folder? Or in a ‘reference’ folder? Hmmm…

I struggled with this conundrum for a few years, probably like many others of you. Well, I have to say I discovered a solution a coupl of months ago. I have been using this solution since then and it’s stuck. It works. It’s that simple. So, to read all about it, go to this link here. A few words about the post.

Firstly, you can ignore the piece about the ‘X1 Desktop Search’; it appears this is no longer free software. Still, it’s not necessary. Secondly, if like me you have a small size limit on your email box, you no doubt archive everything off to some desktop mail.pst file. If you do, then just run the exercise twice; once for the exchange mailbox and one for the personal mailbox.

As I say, I have been using this system for several months now and I also get my work emails sent to my Blackberry automatically and from time to time access my work email via a browser and ‘webmail exchange’. The system advocates using flags (which I use) and so the only small anomoly is that on my Blackberry if I read an email I have to remember to clear the flag in Outlook when I am next at my desk. A small price to pay. What I like is that I can read my emails and still leave emails I need to do something with with the flag set. When I’ve dealt with the email I simply clear the flag and the email ‘disappears’ into the rest of the pile. Later, when I want to find a particular email I can search on the whole ‘AllMail’ and very quickly find what I want.

Confused? Just give it a try… It’s worth it.

PS. One slight twist is that I also mark messages that need much later action with a red flags. That differentiates them from blue flag emails that I have just not yet processed to their conclusion. It’s sort of like short term and long term action items.

So, I apologize in advance. This post may appear as a piece of sponsored advertising for T-Mobile. I do indeed work for T-Mobile, but even if I didn’t this wonderful piece of equipment and marketing would still get my vote. What am I talking about? T-Mobile @Home.

Let’s start with the basics. What is T-Mobile @Home? Well, it’s a wireless router that connects to your broadband network at home, that you can plug a normal wireline (you know those large old fashioned phones that stay in the apartment or home) phone into. The router will set you back $49.99 (currrent pricing) and the service will cost you $9.99 a month (current pricing) with a two year contract. For that you get unlimited national coast to coast calling and a shiny new wireless G router that will connect to your current setup (and I know ‘cos I’ve done it). There are a few other bonuses too, but we’ll get to those. First off let me tell you my experience.

We employees at T-Mobile had to wait for the national launch of the @Home service before we could get one of these beasts. The service had already been released to the Seattle and Denver markets a few months previously and I spent those months eagerly waiting my turn to eat my own dogfood. I previously used Vonage for my service and although I had no complaints about the service (after all I had been using it for nearly 3 years) I was eager to switch to @Home (besides which Vonage was charging $24.99 a month for the same unlimited plan). So, on the second day after the launch (I was on vacation on the first day) I signed on online at the special T-Mobile site and placed my order for the service. Then I waited. I was so impatient that for once I wished it was possible to go to the T-Mobile store like an ordinary customer! Well, I placed my order on the Monday and on Thursday my router arrived. Pretty quick! I unpacked it, stared at it, read all the instructions and tried to stay calm. There were big stickers over everything that warned to run the CD before you connected anything or turned anything on. I had to believe T-Mobile meant it too as there were literally stickers and instructions on everything. So, I had a think and decided how I should connect this thing up in my apartment. I have a Verizon DSL connection at present that gives me 1.5mbs of speed (yes I know I can get 6mbs from Comcast - I just haven’t gone there yet), and the DSL connection comes in from the wall and gets plugged to a Verizon wireless G router with 4 ethernet ports on it. My Vonage box was connected off that and also a 4 port ethernet switch was wired and attached about 30 feet away that connected up my server, desktop, network printer and network storage. I had two options. I could connect the T-Mobile router in place of the Vonage box and use my home phone off that, or I could replace my ethernet switch with the T-Mobile router and run all my networked devices off the new router. I decided for the latter option. It involved more work in setting things up as I had to unplug and replug all my equipment and also I couldn’t perform the swap out until halfway through the install process because of the warnings on the @Home materials but nonetheless I went ahead and took the plunge knowing that at some point I would be without an Internet or network connection on my main PC.

The install was extremely painless and at the appropriate time I hooked up the router, plugged in all the cables and my network and Internet connection sprang into life. Oh and by the way, halfway through the install you have to insert a SIM card (just like SIM cards that are inside mobile phones) that you also receive with the kit, into the router. This SIM card will be what makes your home phone work. So, I had followed all the instructions, set up my router, plugged my home phone into one of the two ports for the phone, gone to the router’s admin page and set it up for everything and thought my work was done. Hmm, only one little thing. No dial tone on my home phone. Alas there was also no blue light on my router where the phone was connected like there was supposed to be. Not to worry, I could call T-Mobile customer care from my mobile phone and troubleshoot the problem. It turned out that I hadn’t actually been assigned a number for my home phone yet. There had been such a rush of T-mobilites requesting these little beasties that the delivery had gotten ahead of the provisioning. Still, I was assured that my phone ‘would be working in a few days’. Hmm (I’m always slightly dubious when I hear these reassuring words from a support department).

Still, in the meantime there were some other things I could and needed to do with my router. First things first I turned off the wireless signal from my original Verizon router and set up the wireless signal on the T-Mobile router. The reason for this was I wanted all my network traffic to go through this router. Why? Because the T-Mobile @Home router has call (VOIP) prioritization built in. This is a wonderful feature and it means that when you are using your phone on the router the service will get priority over other Internet traffic. This is a good thing - trust me! Secondly, I wanted to set up my mobile phone to use the new T-Mobile router. What do I mean by that? Well I have a Blackberry Curve that has WiFi built in and clever T-Mobile has enabled it so that it can connect to wireless networks and use VOIP wherever possible too. Whenever my mobile phone is connected using WiFi it costs me zero minutes - now that’s a good feature! And of course as the T-Mobile router is optimized for VOIP then I wanted my mobile phone to connect to that too. My wife’s phone also has WiFi and so when she got home from work I set hers up to work with the router too. And in case you’re asking why I would do this it’s because as we all know, mobile phones work brilliantly except at home where they always manage to find a dead spot somewhere in the house. When you’re connected via WiFi this problem goes away!

I’ll take a little detour here too, in case you’re not familiar with phones that are WiFi enabled. With mobile phones in normal use when you are out and about you will use your provider’s airwaves (network) for both your phone calls and Internet requests, but when you are attached to a wireless network (think T-Mobile Hotspot) your phone will use that network instead of the airwaves for its calls (actually not all providers are like T-Mobile and so sometimes only your Internet requests and not your actual phone calls will use the wireless network). Anyway, within a few minutes I was cooking on gas and my mobile phone seamlessly connected to my home network and was ready to receive and make calls using my broadband connection. Sweet (by the way, my mobile phone also connects automatically to T-Mobile Hotspot connections all over  - like at Starbucks - whenever it can).

Anyway, back to the plot. I still didn’t actually have my home phone working on my router. Then, a few days later I received an email saying my home phone was now provisioned and the email contained my new home number (by the way you can port your existing number too if you want to). I was at work at the time but I thought to myself there was no harm in trying. I mean, what was the worst thing that could happen? What am I talking about? I dialed the number T-Mobile had sent me of course! And my wife answered the phone! Sweet! That’s what you call an easy setup.

So now I have a great new VOIP optimized wireless G router AND a landline equivalent with unlimited national calling. Like I said at the beginning, even if I wasn’t a T-Mobile employee I would have happily spent the $49.99 equipment (once off) and $9.99 a month fees for this service. Quite frankly this is something that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and all the others can’t match. After all, why would they want you to give up your expensive home phone for a cheaper model?