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Sunday, September 29, 2002 |
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Inside-Out A friend of mine received an order confirmation from Ticketmaster recently that contained the following... "Thanks for purchasing your tickets with Ticketmaster. Your confirmation number for this purchase is 5-20471/NY4. You might want to print or save this email for future reference. Don't wait on the phones--buy your tickets online & speed through the ticket buying process!" The email went to say "Register & receive all the membership benefits" and then it presented the follwing URL... "http://ntr.ticketmaster.com:80/ssp/?C=90003_1&R=12&U=FREDERICK%40 "Got any other questions about your Ticketmaster purchase? We're here to help!" (read more) |
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Wednesday, September 25, 2002 |
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Running An Errand Just took Running An Errand Just took a motorcycle ride downtown to run a few errands and then stop at Subway for a sandwich. On my way back from to my parking place I noticed a gentleman taking pictures of my bike. I asked him what was going on and he replied that he was just taking pictures for himself -- his hobby. He was a friendly person and we got talking. Turns out that he has a publishing business and so I asked him if he into blogging. Seems that everyone I have asked about blogging in the past year has replied with "what's that?". I got carried away with my enthusiasm for explaining it and he was quite interested. Explaining the "Blogging Revolution" is not easy. I described how it is like an on-line diary maintained by anybody who has a point of view and wants to share it with others. Then I explained how people can subscribe to another person's blog. The average person never heard of XML let alone an XML schema such as RSS. I decided to write a piece on this very soon. It goes near the top of the list of a dozen or so postings I want to write as soon as possible. Stay tuned (and that blog posting about blogging will explain how). |
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Sunday, September 22, 2002 |
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Conducting Mozart 25.1 - Part 1 I am very fortunate to have many hobbies -- especially motorcycling and music. I wrote about the origins of my love of music back in December 2000 so I won't repeat it here -- suffice it to say that my interest in music has continued to increase. I find almost all kinds of music enjoyable and have recently organized more than four hundred CDs as mp3 tracks which I can select and play via a Lansonic digital audio system which is on the home local area network (more about that in a future posting). Of all the music and great composers of the world, my favorite for many years has been Mozart. The chance to conduct an orchestra playing a Mozart composition was not even in my dreams. (read more) |
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Tuesday, September 17, 2002 |
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WiFi On Steroids You will find quite a few postings here on patrickWeb about WiFi. My enthusiasm continues to grow as WiFi continues to gain momentum. The technical name for WiFI is 802.11b. That is the standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, of which I am proud to be a senior member). 802.11b will soon seem primitive! (read more) |
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Monday, September 16, 2002 |
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Two Percent - case 2 I continue to say we are only two percent of the way into what the Internet has in store for us. It isn't the technology -- its the gap between expectations and results. What we expect and what we get. You would think by now that major e-businesses would have pretty slick ways to satisfy our expectations yet even the simplest of things seem to elude them. Today I received a reminder in the mail to renew a software package that I use. Not from a fly by night software and services company but one that is valued at more than $10 billion. The renewal notice said I could renew this particular software by fax, phone, mail, or online. Have it your way -- this is good. I entered the link in my browser and the renewal form popped up immediately. I thought this was going to be a snap. No so. (read more) |
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Sunday, September 15, 2002 |
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ThirdAgers Pretty gloomy weather in New England today but things brightened up when I got a call from my good friend Mary Furlong. It started out as a brief chat as we do from time to time just to update each other on happenings and points of view. It is always a privilege to hear Mary's view of things. There is nobody on the planet who knows more "third agers" than Mary. She is a leading authority on technology and aging and is founder and chairman of ThirdAge Inc. Before founding ThirdAge in 1996, Mary founded SeniorNet, a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to educating older adults about computer technology. She served as president of SeniorNet for 10 years. Our conversation caused me to dig out the chapter in my book, Net Attitude, where I had some things to say about "seniors". (more) |
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Friday, September 13, 2002 |
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Fall Internet World Fall Internet World is coming up in less than three weeks and I am honored to being one of the keynote speakers. I'll be talking about "The Future of the Internet" on Tuesday, October 1, 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM . There will be a short press meeting afterwards and then the conference book store will be hosting a book signing for Net Attitude. You can be sure that part of the talk will be about WiFi. |
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Thursday, September 12, 2002 |
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No Radio, No TV, No Computers, No Fax I have been in need of a keyboard platform for quite some time so I put the Logitech cordless keyboard in a saddlebag and took a motorcycle ride to Jefferson Business Interiors in Stamford, Connecticut. A diagonal model with easy rider arm and tru-gel wrist rest turned out to be just what I was looking for. The manager at Jefferson's offered a small discount and free shipping of the item, which had to be special ordered. I then noticed his colleague put a form into an IBM typewriter! (read more)
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Wednesday, September 11, 2002 |
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Book of Ki: Co-ordinating Mind and Body in Daily Life Just finished reading Book of Ki: Co-ordinating Mind and Body in Daily Life by Koichi Tohei. This was a remarkable book written by a remarkable man. It provided excellent insight about Eastern medicine and philosophy and added practical examples that were easy to relate to. If you are looking for something a bit different than a Clancy novel and want to learn what Qi is all about, I highly recommend this book. Thanks to Chris Smolyk for telling me about it. (also see "Books I have Enjoyed") |
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Sunday, September 8, 2002 |
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What a Day! Update and some pictures from a motorcycle trip up to Massachusetts on Sunday coming up shortly. |
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Friday, September 6, 2002 |
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WiFi in Europe - part 2 It wasn't my plan for the blog to be a WiFi blog -- there are so many other things to write about in the world of Internet Technology. However, my enthusiasm for WiFi grows each day as I hear from readers. Anders Jacobsen, a Norwegian subscriber to my weblog's RSS newsfeed, sent me some additional WiFi resources I was not aware of. Wireless communities are popping up all over the world -- it is not an American phenomenon. (read more) |
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Thursday, September 5, 2002 |
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WiFi Evolution -- It's In The Chips C|NET ran a story called, "Wi-Fi to climb aboard modems", that describes how Wi-Fi chips for wireless home networks will seeon become integrated with broadband modems. Communications chipmaker Conexant Systems announced Tuesday that it is adding Intersil Wi-Fi chips to the semiconductors it builds for high-speed cable or DSL modems. This is clearly the next step in the evolution of Wi-Fi. Not long ago people with home LANs had (and many still do) a cable or DSL modem plus a router to make the Internet connection available to other PCs in their house plus a wireless access point to extend the connection to laptops in the backyard or wherever. Three boxes. By the end of this year it sounds like there will be one box that does it all. There are already nearly twenty million homes and offices with WiFi. The momentum will surely accelerate even beyond the current frenetic pace. |
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Wednesday, September 4, 2002 |
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WiFi In Europe Matt Gould at Megabeam dropped ma a note to remind me that WiFi is not an American thing. Megabeam is building a pan-European wireless hotspot network targeting business travelers at airports, hotels, train stations, and convention centers. Hotspots are up and running in both Milan and Rome airports and in key European business centers including London, Milan, Rome, Munich, Zurich and Amsterdam. The service will soon be available at 12 European airports with a total of 65 hotspots live by the end of the year. (read more) |
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Internet2 Virtual Briefing There will be an Internet2 "Virtual Briefing", entitled "New Networks, Old Economy," on Friday, September 13, 2002, 1:00pm-2:30pm EST. |
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Tuesday, September 3, 2002 |
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CEOs Need To Walk In Customers' Shoes Stephanie Stahl wrote an Editor's Note in Information Week (Aug. 26, 2002) called "CEOs Need To Walk In Customers' Shoes". She says, "Maybe it's just one of the many trade-offs for living where you want to live, but I know so many people who still don't have access to high-speed cable lines or DSL...." One technology CEO told her that he thinks it's important to understand and operate within the limits that others around him have. And since the telecom companies have dubbed the connection to the consumer the last mile instead of the first mile, there's not a lot they can do about it right now, right? Stephanie adds, "John Patrick doesn't buy it". (read more) |
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Monday, September 2, 2002 |
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NewburyOpen.net Puts WiFi On The Road The latest addition to NewburyOpen.net is that they have made a "mobile" version of their wireless node that sits on top of one of their cars. They plan to park it next to various places every Sunday and provide free wireless Internet service in new locations every week. For their first day out it happens to be parked by a Starbucks, which is somewhat intentional since NewburyOpen.net wants to make the statement that free WiFi is the way to go, not $14 by the hour. (read more)
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Sunday, September 1, 2002 |
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Archives updated to include August 2002 Archives are updated to include August 2002. I hope you enjoy the postings. |
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Newbury Surfing The momentum is building to create community area networks everywhere! My first taste of this was during Subway Surfing and now it seems that each week I learn of something new. NewburyOpen.net -- on Newbury Street in Boston -- provides free high-speed WiFi Internet connections for Bostoners and travelers away from work or home -- at Internet-by-the-Hour stations at 252 Newbury Street and in cafes and shops on Newbury Street. (read more) |