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Inside this issue:
From Dialup to CableShalom, I am just back from a one week trip to Israel. It is an amazing country where creation goes on while under the eyes and guns of surrounding people who only know how to destroy. Israel is probably the most productive of the "third world" countries, with advances in all areas including medicine and particularly computer applications. One of the leading programs used for building websites is PHP. PHP started out as a utility to create counters for websites. Two Israeli students enhanced it and turned it into the fastest growing language for interactive website design. It has the ability to run on almost any platform including Unix and Windows and is public domain, so that it can be used freely. Many of the advances in VOIP (Voice Over IP - the technology that lets you make phone calls and video conference over the Net) were made in Israel. Microsoft has a large presence there, as does Oracle and many others.
One reason for the great advancement of this country under siege is the ability of the people to overlook all national and cultural differences. The band at my nephew's wedding consisted of a chassid in full regalia, several Israelis in normal wedding attire and one long-haired black (possibly an Ethiopian "falasha" from the many who were rescued by Israel). Services during the week took place in many dialects. Instead of the rigid structure of American synagogues, where anyone who wants something different must form another congregation, there is only one central synagogue in the neighborhood. As soon as a group of ten formed (called a minyan), the service followed the tradition of the majority. There were both Sefardic (Jews from countries such as Spain and Arabic lands) and Ashkenazic (European) minyanim under the same roof. On the plane coming over, I had just finished the morning service (in a group consisting of sefardim, ashkenazim and chassidim) when a man approached me. He resembled a gorilla, squat with hairy arms and legs, a bushy mustache and tattoos. His head was not covered. Then he asked me in Hebrew if he could borrow my tefillin (phylacteries), siddur (prayer book) and my kippah (yarmulka). After doing so, he went into a corner and prayed silently for several minutes.
This is an Internet news letter, so I won't go into more details about the dangerous situation Israel finds itself in due to the interference of the U.N. and other world hypocrites. No one who does not live there can even begin to understand the situation and anyone who does not live there has no right to decide that they know exactly what the problem is and how to solve it. Anyone who wants details is welcome to email me privately. I can only say this to the brave people who live there and don't let the destroyers break their spirit: Kol Hakovod!
Verizon has been cornering the market on DSL service. DSL is a faster connection even though it works through your phone line. The advantage of DSL is that no cable needs to be run to your home and it is generally a bit cheaper than cable. The disadvantage of DSL is that it requires that you have a phone line registered with Verizon (even though the Internet connection does not actually tie up the line), it is generally a bit slower than cable and it not available everywhere. One of the reasons I did not go with DSL is because Verizon could not get their act together. One Verizon employee would pester me to sign up and once I agreed, the next person would tell me that the service was not available in my area. Even my argument that numerous people in my neighborhood had it, including the person across the street, did not help. Then several things happened that convinced me to go to cable.
One of my neighbors required DSL in order to do some work for home. His company arranged for him to get Verizon DSL. He had a great deal of difficulty getting it to work and numerous visits from technicians were needed. The irony is that he works for Verizon. Then another neighbor ordered Verizon DSL and had many problems. He received a package in the mail and was expected to hook it up himself. I tried to help him out and couldn't believe the amount of misinformation provided by Verizon. The modem he received had both USB and NIC interfaces, yet the instructions were for NIC only. When I called Verizon, they said that the USB port wouldn't work. Yet another neighbor did have it working. It took several visits before I got it working. Then it stopped working several times because someone on Verizon's end kept changing the password and user ID for the account. Now it finally works but I still find it slow. One of the annoyances is that the connection is not automatic. The user must click an icon and wait for the connection to be made. Sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes it disconnects. Still for only $30 a month, it's definitely better than a dialup.
I opted for a cable connection. Earthlink was running a promotion for $30 a month for the first 6 months, ($42.95 after that). This included free installation and a free cable modem. Unlike the movie, the cable guy came on schedule and did the job neatly and efficiently. As soon as I turn on my computer, I'm online. The speed is blazingly fast. Earthlink also offers some very good extras.
Their spam blocker is great. There are several options. At its simplest, it routes all spam into a spam folder. I can review the messages if I choose. Eventually they are all erased automatically. I reviewed them for the first two weeks or so, before deciding that no legitimate mail had been blocked. Now I don't bother to check and just let the program delete it. With over 200 spam emails disappearing daily, I am a happy camper. But the nice thing about it is that it also works for email which I forward to earthlink. So I am now forwarding all my email to my earthlink account, which removes about 80% of the spam and thus reduces my wasted time. (Yahoo mail also has a spam blocker but it only works on mail addressed directly to my Yahoo account. Forwarded mail always goes into my in box.) I could choose to upgrade my Earthlink spam settings higher so that only people on my list could email me but as the owner of a busy website, this wouldn't work for me. Still an 80% reduction in spam is quite a feat. The Earthlink package also includes a pop up blocker and Zone Alarm's Firewall.
The bad news: Earthlink is not perfect. The email is somewhat quirky. Even though I have my settings to include the original email when I reply, sometimes this does not happen. On occasion I will write an email and just as I hit send, it forces me to log on again and the email I was about to send is gone. Sometimes I hit send and nothing happens. So I hit it again. Then it sends out a duplicate email. The email screen is split into frames. The left side shows my folders and the right side shows my emails. Sometimes the left side will go blank and I can't change folders unless I refresh. These quirks happen rarely but when they do, it is annoying. More annoying is that when I emailed Earthlink about them, they told me to clear my cache, shut down other programs and follow a series of steps as if the problem had to do with my computer. When I told them that the identical problems had occurred on three different computers with three different operating systems, they responded "Our technicians are aware of these problems and are working on them." If they are aware of these problems, why are they trying to blame my computer? Which specific problems are they aware of? Any ETA on when they will be fixed? I guess this is the new trend on the Internet because Earthlink is not the only company to respond with canned and vague emails in response to problems.
Overall, I am still very happy with the service and highly recommend it. If you sign up and want to do me a favor, please enter Yisgood@@earthlink..net (extra characters thrown in to fool spam spiders) as the referrer. I get a free month's service for each person I recommend.
Time Warner Marketing Stupidity - Suppose you had a service that was cheaper to give away than to block, but folks didn't realize they could get it free and offered to pay for it, what would you do? I think a smart marketer would price it so low that folks would just buy it and not even think about some way of getting it for free. A stupid marketer would ask folks what they were willing to pay, then quote them a price 400% higher and have them reject the offer. Eventually, they would learn that they could get it free. Time Warner is the cable provider for Earthlink service. When I ordered the Internet service, I asked them if they had a basic television package. My TV roof antenna came down a few years ago and ever since the World Trade Center went down, reception has been pretty spotty. I was told that the basic package was $40 a month. I told them that I was not looking for late run movies and 100 channels, just decent reception for the public access channels. It didn't make a difference. $40 was the bottom line. So here they are, going to all the trouble of sending an installer to my home to run the cable and they can't come up with a basic package at a basic price. Then a friend let me in on a secret. The same cable that carries the Internet connection also carries the television signal. Not only are all the public access channels available, there are even a few more. So if the signal is already included and it costs them nothing extra to provide it, why price it out of the reach of most households?
They should learn from the example of A&E. A&E broadcasts family-appropriate programming and classic shows. They charge a very small fee per subscriber (something like 25 cents). When a cable company is putting together their packages and learns that they can include A&E for only 25 cents, it's a no-brainer. That's why it is rare to see any provider that does not offer A&E. But all those quarters add up. A&E makes their money on volume, not on gouging the individual subscriber. I'd rather have 50 million people paying me a quarter a month than 1 million paying me a dollar. It seems that Time Warner would rather have a million people paying them $40 than ten million paying them $10.
Time Warner is not the only company to follow such a foolish marketing plan. For years the phone company charged extra for touch tone dialing, even though touch tone cost them less to provide than pulse. Eventually they did away with the fee. Some companies take this kind of marketing to an extreme level. IBM produced a 10 page-per-minute that sold for about $800. Other companies came out with 5 PPM printers that sold for about $400. IBM wanted to get a piece of that market as well but didn't have a low-end printer. Their solution was to add a chip to the 10 PPM printer which slowed it down to 5 PPM and then sell it for $400. They actually spent more money making a slower printer. It didn't take long for someone to spread the word that you could remove the chip and have a 10 PPM printer for the price of a 5 PPM printer. IBM would have been better off lowering the price of their 10 PPM printer so that it would appeal to everyone. Yes, it would have taken away their ability to gouge the buyers of the more expensive printer but they would have made it back on volume.
Free cable trial for AOL users
AOL is offering 6 weeks of free Internet cable access for AOL subscribers. After that the monthly fee is $30 in addition to your regular AOL charges. So if you are paying AOL $22 a month, you will be paying $52 a month for cable. This seems awfully high. I advise AOL subscribers to try it out. AOL will send someone to your house to set it up so you will know what your system needs in order to get cable access. Use the 6 weeks to set yourself up with a free email ID such as Yahoo, so that you are not tied to a specific ISP such as AOL. (Though I recommend that you spend $10 a year and get your own domain name, so that all your friends will know your email no matter how many times you change ISPs.) At the end of 6 weeks, tell AOL that you can get Earthlink for $30 a month and see if they'll match it.
There are at least two reasons why a so-called "businessman" would use a free email ID. 1) He is very cheap and finds $10 a year too much to spend. This attitude doesn't fill me with confidence. Someone who tries to save $10 a year at the expense of having a real business may be the same sort of person who will cut corners in packaging and shipping or sell an inferior product because it was cheaper. 2) He is unsure of how to get started. It's true that the task of obtaining a domain name and setting up a web site may seem daunting, but it is not that difficult. If you need help, it is readily available - if you go to the right web host. That is why I highly recommend AlsoNetworks.com, the web host that I have been using for several years. Not only do they have the lowest prices I have seen, their support is unrivalled. You can read the article I wrote, Choosing A Web Host, in the new website launched by Auctionbytes.com called MyEZSale. I have written several articles for auctionbytes, a site dedicated to helpful tips on becoming a successful auction seller. MyEZSale covers all the aspects of selling on the Net, beyond auctions alone.
The rates posted on AlsoNetworks.Com are higher, but I have arranged for a discount for my subscribers. Just email me for a discount coupon.
NRAM works by balancing the nanotubes on ridges of silicon. Under differing electrical charges, the tubes can be physically swung into one of two positions representing one and zero. Because the tubes are so small--under a thousand atoms--this movement is very fast and needs very little power, and because the tubes are a thousand times as conductive as copper it is very easy to sense their position to read back the data. Once in position, the tubes stay there until a signal resets them: with a tensile strength twenty times that of steel, they are expected to survive around a trillion write cycles.
End of Excerpt
What This Means
If the story is accurate, Nantero has created a 10 gigabyte Ram device that is faster than today's RAM and holds its memory without power. In other words, if this memory were used in a PC and the PC were turned off, the next time it was turned on, it would resume at exactly the same point. No need to reboot and reload applications. Instead of buying a 40 gigabyte hard drive, you could buy a "drive" made of several of these 10 gigabyte devices. It would run many times faster than today's hard drives because it would be composed of RAM, not a moving platter which must be erased and recorded. You would be able to the pull the device out of one machine and stick it in another for multiple gigabytes of removable storage. Imagine a digital camera that can hold 10 gigabytes of photos. Imagine taking the same memory used in your camera and exchanging it with you palm, desktop or laptop. One of the biggest power drains on laptops is the hard drive and it also adds to the heat produced. Replace it with a RAM device and you have extended battery life and reduced heat. All that remains to be seen is if it can be produced quickly enough and cheaply enough.
But thanks to smartcards, this may be about to change.
The smartcard concept is this: 1) a card that is protected by a biometric method, such as a fingerprint check, so only the registered owner can use it 2) a card that not only contains information but lets you add information to it. So you can use the same card to store all your credit card information, banking information, investments and passwords. 3) a card that can be read by a standard, inexpensive reader, so the identity information (not the cardholder's private information) can be verified at any time, in any place.
Imagine this: a smartcard is made up for you by let's say, the Department of Motor Vehicles. It has your photo and is coded to your fingerprint. You put this card in a reader connected to your computer and add such information as passwords to various sites, credit card information, bank account information, etc. Now all this information is at your fingertips. Stick it in a reader, apply your fingerprint or other biometric method to identify yourself and extract the appropriate information. When at a store, you can use the credit card feature. Because it needs your fingerprint, a thief can't use it. Similarly, you can use it to make purchases online and your fingerprint validates that it is you using the card and not a hacker. Remove it from your PC when you are done. If a thief steals your PC, he will not find any passwords or financial info because all of that is only contained on the smartcard that you carry with you.
Ebay often sets itself up as judge and jury. Someone makes a complaint and ebay begins putting pressure on one of the parties. According to the complaint in the case referred to in the link above, a buyer claimed that a seller defrauded him. Despite what appears to be overwhelming evidence that the buyer is lying, an ebay employee who refused to give his name, NARUd the seller. Then not satisfied with that, also NARUd a separate account held by the seller's wife. The seller points out that if ebay were a collection agency, the law prohibits them from using the threat of public shame to collect a debt. This is in effect what ebay did. If ebay is not a collection agency, they have no right to operate as one in demanding payment for a third party.
In another lawsuit, a seller alleges that he informed ebay that he was under bankruptcy protection when ebay continued to harrass him and force payment. Again, this would put ebay in violation of the law.
Paypal may have been trapped even more cleverly. When a seller's account was restricted, he used the funds in his account to purchase shares of Paypal's money market. Then he instructed them to sell the shares and send him the proceeds. Because his account was restricted, they refused to do so. He then complained to the SEC that he was a victim of securities fraud. He posted this on a bulletin board and several people followed his example. The outcome remains to be seen.
As a wise former President once said, "You can't fool all the people all the time." As former Enron executives discovered, flouting the rules does eventually catch up with almost everyone.
Someone had purchased a web site for $15,000 with a written promise by the seller that the site was getting over 150 sales a week. Shortly after the purchase, the buyer discovered that the seller had misrepresented the site and only 30 sales a week were actually being made. After some discussion, the buyer returned the site to the seller, who promply registered it back in his name and changed the order form and credit card form so that all orders went to the original owner. However, the seller refused to credit the buyer back the $15,000 she had paid.
The buyer contacted Paypal. Paypal asked her to prove that she had returned the site. She referred them to the site registration, available online, which showed that the site was owned by a company on the West Coast, with the name, phone number and email ID of the original owner. Since she was located on the East Coast and had a different name, phone number and email ID, this should have been proof enough. But Paypal is refusing to return her money unless the seller signs a document stating he took back the site.
Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't Paypal's terms state that the SELLER has to prove delivery to the buyer's confirmed address in order to be protected? Since nothing was shipped to the buyer and the web site is still in the seller's name, what is the problem here? Fortunately, the buyer used several credit cards to fund the payment, so the option of a charge back still remains. But the buyer is trying to work within the system and Paypal's poor customer service is making that difficult.