Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

An open plea to Google

Dear Google,

I'm writing this letter to ask for your assistance in a campaign of awareness.  Currently the US Government is considering legislation that would undermine the fundamental freedom we enjoy in using the Internet.  In the spirit of openness, please help out our fellow Americans to protest the gross miss use of the US Law.  I'm talking about current legislation that goes by the names SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and others.  These bills, if passed, would break and ruin the Internet as we know it.  

My request to you, Google, is to stop processing search requests for 24 hours beginning on January 1, 2012.  Instead, change the Google.com page to simulate the censorship that would result from these bills.  A campaign of this magnitude is what will be required to raise the awareness of the American public. Maybe then the guys and gals in Washington will understand the mistake they are too close to making.

Sincerely yours,

Everyone on the Internet

The New Guy

I would like to take this time to welcome myself to the toilet. The tech toilet, that is.

I have been give the privilege to post to this blog we call a toilet. What that means, I have yet to decide - but it shall be an interesting week trying to correlate tech news with toilets. Whoever came up with this blog title must be very strange (did I just say that out loud...). 

Anyway, a little background on me - I am currently a network engineer working for a large corporate client. And when I say large, I mean it. We will see where my posts lead us, but with my heavy Cisco focus don't be alarmed by a large number of network related posts over the next few months. (Maybe I am the plumbing for the toilet - you know - the network ... okay, that was lame). I love my gadgets and tech news and hope that my opinion is useful to someone out in the great sea of tubes. 

Let the journey begin.

(Feel free to follow me @wrwarwick)

How can you not love the Swiss?

The entertainment industry really needs to wake up and embrace digital distribution.  I'm not promoting piracy, if the entertainment industry saw people as customers and not criminals, they would make more money.  Consumers want their entertainment quickly and on demand.  Instead of taking legal action, embrace it, provide more online services for consumers.  Look at Netflix, no matter how much they mess up this past year, they still have a massive customer base.  Why?  Because it's dead simple to fire up a Netflix compatible player and watch TV/Movies.

Domain Name Collectors

Tech junkies are notorious for "collecting" domain names.  Ask your IT guy how many domain names he owns and the answer could surprise you.  This past year I've made a conscious effort not to renew sites I don't use.  The problem starts when something in my brain says "toomuchcoffeeinthemorning.com" would be a great name to own (as of this post that name is available).  Sites like Hover.com and Godaddy.com have made it financially "stupid-easy" to buy up any available domain name.  Somehow you convince yourself this site will be the next million-dollar idea.  Then a year goes by and it's time to renew.  Since it's only another $10-$15, why not?  You were too busy this past year, but you'll get to making the site this year, right?  WRONG!!!  I've got a site expiring in a week that I've had for four years.  All I've done is waste money on it. 

Now the hard part comes in letting a name expire.  It feels like the moment the site expires, some enterprising 15-year old is going to buy it and become rich.  I have to convince myself that's not going to happen.  But it's much harder said than done. Instead, "I'll just buy it for one more year" becomes very temping option.  Now you know why I've had a site four years and done nothing with it.

I'm pretty sure the next TLC hit TV show will be domain name hoarders.

~TT

Google Apps Update

I've been completely on Google Apps for ~ three weeks now and haven't looked back.  I've been using Google's multiple sign-in feature to quickly switch back to get that one document here or there I need.  Overall, my only real complaint is with my chat log from my old google account.  When i used to search my old account, any instant messages would show up in the searches as well.  Unfortunately, I relied on that more than I realized.  I find myself switching back to my old gmail account, finding the chat, and forwarding it as an email to my new account.  That way I only have to find this chat once.  But I'd like to move ALL my chats over to google apps. Hmmm, as I type this post, I did a google search and found :http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=1c1da926ecc12d50&hl=en.  I'll have to try this and report back.  Hopefully it works.

I find it amazing that I've not told anyone about my new address.  I just start emailing them from my new address and for the most part, they respond to the correct address.  It's got to be a lesson in email psychology.  I can train my email recipients without their knowledge.  Very cool.

Question: How long will AT&T fight for T-Mobile?

Answer: Hopefully not long.

Anyone who's been following this story knows that nothing good will come from a merger.  AT&T's own reason for buying T-Mobile (expanded coverage... yada yada) isn't valid since they could spend less money and have the same expanded network WITHOUT purchasing a competitor.

Google to Google Apps

I've had my generic gmail address for seven years.  In that time I've accumulated 50,000+ email conversations.  Since I archive and never delete, I have every one of those 50k conversations.  Roughly speakings, that's 5.5 GB of email.  I've owned my own domain for nine years and have recently begun thinking about changing my email address to one at my own domain.  After much consideration, I slowly started migrating services.  Since I love gmail's web interface, I settled on using Google Apps Standard.  

With my domain now in Google's playground, I need to migrate my data.  Gmail has a nice feature that allows importing email via pop.  I configured my new account to download all my old email from my regular gmail account.  This. took. forever.  About two weeks later, all the mail was imported, minus labels, filters, and chats.  Labels and filters I can easily recreate.  All my chats however, that's a loss.  Still don't have a solution for those.

Actually making the switch to my new email address is going to be a slow process.  I figure I'll just start replying to folks with the new address.  I'm hoping to avoid sending out some email blast to all my contacts about my new address.  We'll see how well that works.

Calendar, contacts, and Google Reader were the easiest and quickest to migrate.  Google provides tools to import/export the data from all of these services.

I've had an iphone for a few years and Google's services sync nicely via the exchange features.  I told my old gmail account to stop syncing contacts and calendar, and told my new account to start syncing contacts and calendar.

Services I have yet to migrate:  Google Docs, Picasa web albums, Google+, Google Voice, Youtube, Google Books, Google Maps.  Of these services, I imagine Google Docs will be the toughest, since I have several shared documents.  Stay tuned, I'll report my progress throughout this process.

Browser Toolbars

I wanted to write a post about a major problem affecting way to many users these days, Browser Toolbars.  However, a smart fellow over at Emory Law covered this topic nicely.  Plus, he saved me the time (and security) of not having to install these toolbars myself to demonstrate the problem.  Browser toolbars are a nuisance and should be punishable by a permanent Internet ban.

Good Customer Service Should be Rewarded

Not many posts earn my "Unflushable" tag, that's what makes this post worth reading.  Don't you hate when you call customer service and your put on hold, then "routed" to another department, then put on hold, and finally hung up on.  Well, I gotta commend the folks over at Eye-Fi.  They make the SD cards that connect to your wifi and auto-upload the pictures to your computer.  I bought my wife one of these last Christmas.  It comes with a USB card reader to connect the SD card to the computer.  Well yesterday the card reader stopped working.  I consider myself tech-savy (I run this blog) and began to troubleshoot the problem.  You can imagine my humility when I couldn't make it work. I took to Google to find the problem, and quickly ended up at Eye-Fi's support page and submited a request.  Within 12 hours I had a response from Eye-Fi.  They wanted my mailing address to send a replacement. Whoa! Seriously? Yup, seriously.  They didn't want to spend hours on the phone with me troubleshooting.  They didn't care if it was under warranty, they just replace it.  Kickass! Finally, in case your wondering, hellz no I don't work for Eye-Fi.  I just run a blog nobody reads and I'm happy when I get good service.