Thursday, April 24, 2003

We've noted before that rss combined with news aggregators can be extremely useful (it has completely changed the way I browse). The problem is that not all sites have rss feeds. People have talked about intermediaries and now someone has built one. It is free, but you can sponsor them for better service. You could also build something like this that runs entirely on your computer ... an exercise for the user... If this became popular scaling is an issue and they will need real funding. At the same time rss may become more popular and the need for a service like this may drop. 6:35:00 AM     There are times when you need to put something into the upper atomosphere (or even space) from very high latitudes. Greg points out the Andøya Rocket Range in the far North (69 degrees for normal launches and 78 and 79 degrees for special work) of Norway. One of their sales points in a large impact area permitting the use of rockets without guidance systems. 5:59:16 AM     NPR ran a segment on the new opportunities available to independent musicians (as well as a public that shows increasing signs of becoming bored with the product of the majors). You can catch the segment here... (scroll to Indie musicians...) While the average "quality" of a performer signed with a major label is probably higher than that of the average independent musician, it is likely that there are many independents who are better than most of the name musicians. The majors are dead when the public figures out how to find talent by themselves. ___ Meanwhile the high end of the music industry only innovates through litigation. While it is perhaps locally effective, alienating a customer base isn't the best long term marketing strategy. 5:58:35 AM     Dave Hughes forwarded this useful bit (easy to do, but perhaps you haven't thought about it) Hurrah! I fooled the Westin Hotel, Santa Clara with my Vonage VOIP!!! As anyone who travels much and has to stay in major chain hotels, you increasingly get ripped off when making long distance calls from hotel rooms - either voice calls or modem calls. Not only do you pay the long distance charges, but hotels charge surcharges, and even up front charges to 'initialize' long distance calling. From 10 cents a minute up to $1 a minute. Now of course, many of the chains now offer, from your room 'high speed' internet connection - for like $9.95 a day. Which, on top of a $150 a day room, IF you can go out to the net high speed - not telephone modem long distance dial - and get your email and spam, and browse the net, that's an acceptable flat rate charge for temporary high speed internet when you are on the road. I have done that many times. But THIS time I brought my VOIP Cisco AT 186 Vonage service and a small touchtone phone to plug into it (hotel phones with their fancy dual line setups I wouldn't trust) AND a small 4 by 6 inch Netgear router. So I initialized the Internet Service in my room by plugging its ethernet into my laptop, turned it on, ran the browser which automatically comes up with the 'offer' screen. I accepted the offer and immediately went out on the net and read/answered my email browsed a bit. THEN having already plugged in my travelling phone to the Cisco AT186, powered it up, connected it by ethernet to a port on the router, plugged the Hotel ethernet into the router 'upstream port' added a Second ethernet between it and my computer, and finally powered up the router. Well, as expected ( a few retries to get the sequence right) the router took the DHCP ip address from the hotel net, and the router gave out the two public (192.168.0.x) DHCP addresses to my laptop and the Cisco AT 186, I pinged out to see if all was well. It was. So picked up the telephone handset and placed a call to back home, it rang, and I conversed just fine WHILE ALSO using my laptop on the net. The VOIP voice call was essentially free ( being already covered by the flat monthly rate of $40 for unlimited calls across the US and Canada, and the $9.95 fast internet connection served both the VOIP device AND my laptop at the same time, broadband. I used both for almost 3 hours, catching up with my work. And I managed to make NO long distance - in fact any - voice phone calls from my room! Perfectly legal and ethical. Just avoiding the gouging hotels now administer for voice callers from hotel room phones. VOIP, your time is here. Just a Hack I have been waiting to try since I got my home Vonage VOIP. Cause I will have to be doing lots of travelling the next six months. Dave Hughes 5:57:07 AM

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