Family & Computers

So in keeping with the holiday season I'm writing tonight about family, in particular the family members with little to no computer skills. I'm sure almost everyone has received the frantic call/email for "HELP!" at some point, some of us unfortunately receive it more often than others. You know the calls, "My icons are all big and funny", "I can't find anything", "why's my computer so slow", how do I install well...anything" or the infamous "some box popped up what do I do?".  At first I attempted to answer these by phone with detailed explanations on the hows and whys. It soon became apparent that my thoughtful and informative answers were going in one ear and straight out the other, this of course led me to the inevitable decline into binge drinking. So with serious protests being issued from my liver I searched for a more peaceful solution to those life altering computer questions and lo and behold I discovered a most wonderful program, "Team Viewer" http://teamviewer.com/index.aspx 

This is an awesome remote desktop program for both business and personal use, and it is free for personal use on up to three computers. This program does it all, you can control unattended computers, file transfers including .exe, uses secure data channels with key exchange and AES session encoding, works behind firewalls, and has browser based access. As an additional bonus, it's very easy to set up on the other end, all I did was send my mom the application via email, had her copy and paste it to her desktop and within minutes I was into her system and fixing the problems. A quick word of advice, send the family member into another room immediately after logging in, this avoids the phone call to tell you their mouse is moving all on its own and thus starts another round of the "why?" questions.

So my suggestion for keeping the peace this holiday season is - visit their site, download the program and get on with your life, trust me, your family and your liver will thank you for it!

Fiber Optics

Now I know Verizon has made quite the splash with their FIOS offering but I'd like to go back to the year 2000 when Charter Communications purchased a little known company called Bresnan Communications that primarily serviced Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan . Back in 1998 I lived in a small, remote town in Michigan and was doing phone support for Charter and met two men who were in the area selling...you guessed it fiber optics. They talked about speeds only dreamed of back then, they said that they could replace a T3 with one cable. We also talked about the home consumer and what it would mean for them, basically higher quality of service at a lower cost point. I met with these men over the next few years whenever they were in the area and was fascinated over the resistence to change that they spoke of. Fiber was not an easy sell. Then Charter and Bresnan came together, Bresnan was already deep into fiber optic rollouts, from a press release "By year-end 1998, the company (Bresnan) had rebuilt and upgraded the large majority of its systems, and launched high-speed Internet service to markets encompassing nearly half of its homes. In partnership with Blackstone, Bresnan acquired in February 1999 more than 400,000 TCI (now AT&T Broadband & Internet Services) subscribers and launched a major capital improvement program to continue to upgrade its new cable operations and interconnect the majority of its systems via fiber optic cable. By the end of 1999, the company anticipates that nearly 85% of its subscribers will be served by hybrid fiber-coaxial systems". So, I guess my point here is that yes, FIOS is cool but Verizon did not discover fiber optics like I hear so many people saying and I should mention that neither did Charter/Bresnan, yet back in 1999 in an area no one has ever heard of, this geeky girl had fiber!  (for a history of fiber optics check out this link http://www.sff.net/people/Jeff.Hecht/history.html )

iPhone vs. Android part 1

Being the mobility coordinator for a global midsized company has given me the opportunity to work with both the iPhone and most recently the Android. Today I had an iPhone that was malfunctioning and while working with it I realized one of the biggest differences between it and the Android was the way Apple has incorporated the iPhone with iTunes whereas Google has pretty much left the Android hanging. The simple integration with gmail that Android offers seems like pure beginners fodder compared to how Apple has set up iTunes' functionality with the iPhone. From my personal iTunes account I can set up multiple iPhone accounts and label them according to user. This allows me to upgrade, backup, remote wipe and half ass manage our iPhones. If you think this is something minor imagine trying to manage 50+ iPhones with users ranging from somewhat tech savvy to having no clue beyond checking email, I'm sure you can see the challenge. Android has no such ability, the only offering is contact backup via gmail. If you want to upgrade, backup or remote wipe this must all be done via 3rd party apps, i.e. Remote Wipe for Root Users (free), SMS Erase (paid), My Backup Pro (paid), Handy Backup for Android (free), Sprite Backup (paid), My Backup (free), much more difficult to manage and control. The few Androids I have rolled out were met with initial excitement and then came the 1st update, no one knew what to do, then the questions on backups and remote wipes, these are questions I still have not resolved not just from a management perspective but also taking in security issues. Now I realize that chasing corporate money is probably not a high objective for Google but I would think that they would learn a lesson from the iPhone, i.e. in the past year AT&T has aggressivly sought corporate accounts and in meetings I've had with them they have pushed the iPhone for business, stating improvements with Exchange, security patches and most notably that in my local area all AT&T corporate reps are now using the iPhone and letting it be known that if it is secure enough for them it must be secure enough for us. Personally I prefer the Android but from where I sit my choice for business at this time is the iPhone. I like the user friendly tabs in the mobile area of iTunes, the ability to upgrade, backup apps, and manage multiple phones from one location. I'd love to see something similiar from Google for the Android. Expand gmail to include complete backups, multiple phone accounts and remote wipe ability then I would be more than happy to dump the iPhone and move to the Android.