What Is Your Favorite Color?

My primary mobile phone for quite some time has been the Handspring Treo 600 with Sprint PCS as the service provider (operator). The Treo is a really terrific device with many great features. There are just two problems. First, Sprint PCS does not support GSM (the protocol used in most of the world) and since I travel quite a bit outside of America, I have had to travel often carrying two mobile phones. The second phone (a Motorola service has been provided by T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telecom), a major provider of GSM in America (and many other parts of the world). I have had T-Mobile service for a long time but, unfortunately, their coverage in the part of New England where I live is very poor. Having to manage two mobile phone accounts and two mobile phone numbers has been a pain for quite some time.

The second problem with the Sprint/Treo combination has been that the TREO, which operates on the Palm platform, does not support the Opera browser. Since I am an enthusiastic user and supporter of Opera (and member of the board of Opera Software ASA), I have been looking for a mobile phone and mobile operator with which I can use Opera. Needless to say, my colleagues at Opera Software were very sympathetic toward this objective and during my visit to Oslo, Norway for a board meeting in June, I acquired a Sony Ericsson P900. The P900 is quite an extraordinary device. In many ways it is similar to the Treo, but in other ways it is superior. The P900 uses the Symbian operating system. It is not Palm nor Windows, but it has some amazing features. (read more)

Supernova 2004

Supernova 2004 took place this week at The Westin Santa Clara, right in the heart of Silicon Valley.
I have been wanting to attend this conference for years but up until now there has always been a calendar conflict. Supernova is a unique technology conference focused on the decentralization
of software, communications, and media. As with most conferences, the value is mostly in catching up with friends and colleagues in the industry and sharing insights. There were approximately 200
innovators, technologists, journalists, company CEO’s and up-and-coming stars in attendance. The topics discussed included social networking, WiFi, web services, voice over IP, digital
identity, broadband media, and much more.

Kevin Werbach, CEO, Supernova Group is the organizer and host of Supernova. He kicked off the conference with an excellent overview about how the world is becoming more decentralized. The first speaker,Tom Malone, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management put a lot more meat on the bones of the topic. (read more)

Do We Really Need All The Paper?

Today was the day for the annual physical examination. There are certain aspects of the "physical" that are not pleasant for anyone, but the thing I enjoy the least is filling out the paperwork. Step one at the doctor’s office is to be presented with a clipboard and forms with fields that are too small and questions that I don’t know the answer to — like the address of my healthcare provider. I said that I had been a patient of the doctor for years and nothing had changed since the last time I filled out the paperwork. "Yes, but we have a new billing service and they require that all patients fill out the paperwork again". It seems like at every visit there is some reason that I have to write down my name, address, phone number, date of birth, etc. After I wrote down the health insurance information from my insurance card, the office assistant asked for my insurance card and then made a photocopy of the front and back of it to put in the manila folder. This is the 21st century?

Before I continue this story I should say that I feel extremely fortunate to have healthcare coverage. It is very unfortunate that many millions of people have no coverage at all. There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest is the cost. Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. One of the reasons for that is the paperwork. Not just the forms at the doctor’s office but also prescriptions that the pharmacy can’t read. Another big cost factor is human error. In part because the various processes and sources of data are on paper and are not integrated, there is an increased administrative cost. When medical errors occur, patients (mainly their attorneys) decide to take legal action. This adds tremendously to the cost of healthcare. It is not uncommon for some doctors to incur a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for malpractice insurance. I believe the glass is half full, not half empty. (read more)

First Trip To Oslo

I have been looking forward to my first visit to Oslo for quite some time. The journey began with a midnight flight with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) from Newark, New Jersey to Copenhagen, Denmark. At that time of night it seemed as though there were more TSA employees at the airport than passengers. The flight arrived in Copenhagen on time about 1:30 PM the next day. The SAS flight to Oslo was just over an hour from Copenhagen. According to the Magellan handheld, Oslo is at 59 degrees 55 minutes North, 10 degrees 42 minutes East — not quite to the Arctic Circle, but way up there. It is 3,624 miles from home. As I wrote this from the lounge at the Rica Hotel (not sure where the WiFi signal was coming from), it was 10: 20 PM and there was complete daylight outside. The purpose of the trip was to visit Opera Software ASA, where I am a member of the board. I took a some pictures which are now in the photo gallery. As always, I apologize for not being a better photographer.

One of the highlights of the meeting was getting to know Nils Rydbeck, the newest member of Opera’s Board of Directors. Dr. Rydbeck is the former CTO of Ericsson Mobile Phones and was Senior Vice President for R&D there between 1985 and 2001. Since 2002 he has combined being Professor of Communication Systems at Lund University, Sweden, while also doing some consulting at various companies around the world. Nils is a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences; a recipient of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Gold Medal (1997) and the Telecom City Grand prize (1999). Blekinge Institute of Technology awarded him a an Honorary Doctorate degree (Ph.D. honoris causa) in 2000.

Opera is an exciting company to be part of. If you haven’t tried the new Opera 7.5 browser, you are missing something.

Privacy Conference

The IAPP is an association of more than 1,000 of the world’s leading privacy and security professionals. The first day of their conference culminated in a very nice reception at The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, one of the largest museums in the Western world devoted exclusively to Asian art. Its contents include nearly 15,000 treasures spanning 6,000 years of history, representing cultures throughout Asia.

The IAPP partnered with TRUSTe, an independent, nonprofit privacy organization whose mission is to build users’ trust and confidence on the Internet, to create the conference. Their combined focus on the subject of privacy will surely help accelerate growth of the Internet.

The first speaker the next morning was Howard Beales, Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, at the Federal Trade Commission. Howard has a team of attornies who are constantly fighting the battle to stop identity theft, spam, and other consumer issues. Talk about a tough job! There have been some successes in taking the perpetrators to court and hopefully the visibility of them will act as a detrrent. I believe the major answer is from technology, however, and not from regulation. It was great to hear in the news today that the FTC has decided to not pursue the "do not spam" registry. I believe it would have been a huge target for hackers and unlikely to be effective. (read more)

Zippity Doo Dah

The title of this short snippet, zippity doo dah, has nothing to do with the Wizard of Oz, but it does have something to do with wizardry. The magic comes from a company called Zip-linq and specifiicly, the product is a retractable cable that simplifies plugging things in at home or on the road. (See related story about Power Over Ethernet). Here a few pictures of the cables to help you see what this is all about. The IBM keyboard is a new product also. It is a cousin to the ThinkPad keyboard and connects to your PC via a USB cable. There are many interesting features to the keyboard including two USB ports on the back. I keep a zip-linq cable plugged into the keyboard. Before hitting the sack, I extend the retractable cable, connect the Treo, press one button on it’s touchscreen, and return in the morning to a completely synchronized and charged handheld.

Simple, Decent Housing

On Monday, June 7, the First Annual Housatonic Habitat for Humanity Golf Outing was held. Not being a golfer myself (see prior story), I did not play the course, but for those who did, it was a nearly perfect day. There were twenty-six volunteers who got the golfers registered, handed out gift bags that had been donated by sponsors, sold raffle tickets, monitored results, and kept everything moving along smoothly — not an easy task with 120 golfers playing at once. The day was quite successful with net proceeds of more than $50,000. The golf outing proceeds will cover more than half the cost of building a brand new Housatonic Habitat for Humanity home. The goal for subsequent annual golf outings is to be able to finance the construction of a new home every year.

On a global basis, Habitat for Humanity will have cumulatively built more than 200,000 homes by sometime next year. The result is simple, decent housing, for many who would otherwise not be able to afford it. Habitat homes are not giveaways. A Habitat home owner invests at least 300 hours of "sweat equity" during the construction period and makes a monthly mortgage payment (thirty years with no interest). The payments provide funds to build more houses.

Cable and Wireless

There is an international telecommunications company, with customers in 80 countries, called Cable & Wireless. For 130 years it has constantly reinvented itself to embrace the latest technological advances to serve its customers’ needs and today is a leading provider of IP (Internet Protocol) voice and data services to business and residential customers.

Speaking of "cable(s) and wireless", there is no end to the creativity of the technology industry. The USB (universal serial bus) cable has the primary goal of creating a more compact, instant, hassle-free way to connect a keyboard, mouse, printer, joystick, scanner, digital speakers, digital camera, PC telephone, and more to your PC. Prior to the sleek and simple USB cables we had big and bulky serial and parallel cables. If you had more than one device, then you needed a special box with multiple cable connectors and a switch know and you ended up with a mess of cables. Adding a non-USB peripheral device to a PC was a non-trivial task that required a lot of technical savvy and a certain amount of luck. First you have to figure out which port to use and then, in most cases, you have to pry open your PC to install an add-in card, set special switches, and figure out various "settings". USB makes adding peripheral devices really easy. USB replaces all the different kinds of serial and parallel port connectors with one standardized plug and port combination. With USB-compliant PCs and peripherals, you just plug them in and turn them on. What’s next? (read more)

Getting A Grip

This month it was time for 12,500 mile service on the Dresser (nickname for "full dress" Harley-Davidson "Touring" motorcycles). The maintenance was routine but I did have a new set of handlebar grips installed. For long rides, the comfort of new grips makes a difference. What to do with the prior grips? Ebay, of course. As they say, what is one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

Ebay is truly an amazing phenomenon. They have thought about every aspect of e-commerce completely — from end to end. Not just providing click here to buy or sell, they have created a community of buyers and sellers. They address all the issues related to buying and selling — payment, insurance, escrow, advertising, marketing, pricing, used car evaluations, local agents, and more. They also use IBM technology infrastructure so they can be an on demand business.

Time or Distance — It Makes A Difference

Today was the final planning meeting for the first annual golf outing of the Housatonic Habitat for Humanity. The meeting finished at 1 p.m. and there were two choices: head back home and work on some board meeting preparations and committed writing projects or take the long way home on the Fatboy. The blue sky and 75 degree temperature made this an easy choice. The meeting was in Stony Hill, Connecticut on Route 6, just off of Interstate 84. I headed east on Route 6 and merged onto route 25 and then headed south to Bridgeport. According to Microsoft MapPoint, the 24 mile trip should take thirty-five minutes. That would be true if there were no trucks, traffic lights, construction, nor congestion. On a Friday afternoon or in bad weather, the trip can easily take double what the mapping programs suggest.

For a Friday afternoon motorcycle ride, it really doesn’t matter how long it takes, but if you happen to be in an ambulance on the way from Danbury Hospital to the hospital in Bridgeport, the travel time can be a matter of life or death. The State of Connecticut regulates which hospital is able to perform which procedures. On the surface this appears to be a very political and financial process, as opposed to a quality of care process like most people expect. If you have a heart attack in the western part of Fairfield County, an ambulance will take you to Danbury hospital. The outstanding emergency department team would apply numerous techniques to bring you back to normal. An attending cardiologist would utilize some of the latest drugs known to be effective for certain heart conditions. However, if the treatments are not adequate and it is determined that you need angioplasty, you would then be put back in an ambulance to make the trip to Bridgeport. (read more)