October | 2008 | /usr/local.com

Smart Phone

October 15th, 2008 | by matt | apple, toys

Oct
15

I’ve finally taken the plunge. I have purchased an iPhone.

I have to say, I love the thing. I had exchange rocking with this thing within 3 minutes of getting it home on the wifi network. I had a Sprint service for many many years and they were pretty good to me for the most part. But the fact that they didn’t have the iPhone and the fact that Apple released as SDK for the thing put me over the top.

Some benefits that I have found to the phone have been numerous. The biggest one for me and my current job is the tie in with Exchange 2007. I swear I get my mail faster on the iPhone than I do with my Entourage checking constantly. Calendaring tied in. My contacts I can sync from exchange though I choose to sync from my local contact list.

I surprisingly don’t use the iPod part of it as much as I thought I would. I guess I still look at it as more of a phone than anything else. I still have my 4GB 1st generation Nano that I can use for going for a walk and jamming out to the tunes. I guess I still prefer its smaller form fact for holding in my hand as I walk.

The App store is pretty amazing. Cro-mag rally is kick ass. But the SSH client TouchTerm has been a nice addition to the arsenal. Now whenever I am on call I am a few finger clicks away from being securely on the network and fixing the issue at hand.

One thing that I wasn’t quite sure on when Jobs said it was that this would be a player in the mobile gaming market. Seeing as I am addicted to LED Football and Texas Hold ‘em, he’s absolutely right!

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The New Macbooks

October 14th, 2008 | by matt | apple

Oct
14

The New MacBook from First and last name on Vimeo.

Ok, I like the fact that it is made from one piece of metal to form the body. There are a lot of advantages to that. Apple has also continued to make a very nice looking laptop. But do the users care about these things? I think that the business traveler will, but the home user sitting on the couch, I’m not so sure.

I still want one

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Windows 7

October 13th, 2008 | by matt | in the news

Oct
13

Mike Nash, one of the VPs in the Windows Product division at Microsoft had a recent blog post announcing the new name of the next generation Windows operating system. Looks like this will be one of the few times that the development code name will be the full release name.

Personally, I’m not sure why I have ever known the internal development name of a product from Microsoft. In reality, it should stay internal if you have good security measures in place as the only people that need to know the name are the developers and engineers working on the project.

However, that’s not how Microsoft works. They use it as a marketing opportunity, even though it causes more confusion than anything else.

Now, what do I really think of the name? I think its rather bland, but also very smart. Microsoft is terrible at making deadlines. And since the code name is always leaked by marketing, they have to answer for deadlines that some manager comes up with years in advance. Wombat will be known as M$ Office Publishing Tool 2009 due out in early 2009 but due to delays, will most likely be released in 2010.

The customers could care less about what it is called. Do I really care that I am running OSX Leopard vs Tiger. They could have called it spotted barn cat for all that I care. Its the functionality and features that the users want to see.

Hopefully, Microsoft will do a better job of not announcing features that they can’t get into the product. I was actually excited about a few of the features that were going to come out in Vista. Unfortunately, none of those features made it in.

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‘Perfect storm’ could give Dems ‘magic 60′ in Senate

October 8th, 2008 | by matt | politics

Oct
08

In the face of an economy in crisis and a deeply unpopular president, some analysts believe the situation is ripe to give Democrats a shot at a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in November.

It’s “the perfect storm,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “You’ve got Republican voters angry at Republicans, many Americans just petrified about the future…wanting change. And right now change appears to be coming in the form of Democrats.”

Not so fast, say Republicans. And even Democrats admit it’s too early to say whether they can pick up the necessary seats.

According to Rebecca Fisher, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Republicans are confident that they will, at the very least, keep their current seats.

Of the 35 Senate seats on the line this year, 23 are held by Republicans. Five Republican senators are retiring: Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Wayne Allard of Colorado, John Warner of Virginia, Larry Craig of Idaho and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Democrats control the Senate. Although it’s split evenly with 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans, two independents — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — caucus with the Democrats.

source

This really scares me, no matter which party it is. I like for the president and Congress to be at adds. This way, only the important laws get passed.

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LightEdge Launches Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Mobility Access Services

October 7th, 2008 | by matt | in the news

Oct
07

Whoohoo! Its alive!

Below is a blurb from the press release for the project that I have been working on.

Hosted offering gives small and medium-sized businesses access to mobile communication and collaboration services through a cost-effective Scale-on-Demand model

DES MOINES, IA, October 7, 2008 – LightEdge Solutions, the leading hosted services partner dedicated to the full breadth of communications and IT needs for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), announced today the launch of a new Hosted Microsoft Exchange 2007 platform. This fully redundant platform will enable SMBs to implement a mobile Exchange environment for their employees in a simple, hosted scale-on-demand model rather than an expensive and time-consuming on-premise implementation.

Microsoft Exchange, the dominant application for delivering corporate e-mail, personal and corporate calendars, task lists and contacts in enterprise settings, has been deemed too difficult and too expensive for most small businesses. This offering from LightEdge levels the playing field for the SMB by giving businesses of all sizes access to the communication and productivity tools in Microsoft Exchange in a monthly, “per-mailbox” fee structure that emphasizes the benefits of the service rather than owning and depreciating corporate infrastructure.

“We think that the timing of this offering couldn’t be more perfect,” said Jim Masterson, chairman and CEO of LightEdge Solutions. “Businesses fully understand the benefits of Exchange and access to Exchange from mobile phone, but the present economy is forcing business owners to rethink capital purchases. Given the instability in the market, Hosted Exchange really is the best option for businesses that are either ready to adopt Exchange or migrate from a legacy in-house implementation.”

source

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