Author: Ashley Bischoff

Opera Browser Now Free!

Ashley Bischoff9 Comments

Opera has always been a good browser with excellent standards support — and now it’s free!

Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera's growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made today's milestone an achievable goal. […]

For a moment there, I was wondering how they’d make their money, but it looks like they have a Premium Support plan in place. All the same, I’m pretty stoked about this. And, if Firefox didn’t have so many scrumptious extensions, I’d consider trying Opera as my day-to-day browser.

Update 2005-09-23: According to Om Malik, it was Google that made Opera free, through a compensation deal. Well, yay Google :).

CNN Sues to Cover New Orleans

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

As the government began its recovery operations in New Orleans and other Katrina-stricken areas, it prohibited the media from covering this; as Col. Terry Ebbert put it, “You can imagine sitting in Houston and watching somebody removed from your parents’ property. We don’t think that’s proper” And, in this instance, CNN took a reasonable course of action — they sued FEMA. In a memo to their staff, CNN explained their reasoning:

[…]As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf, CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns. Government officials cannot be allowed to hinder the free flow of information to the public, and CNN will not let such a decision stand without challenge.

Some people might give FEMA the benefit of the doubt, that maybe this decision was a gut reaction that they didn’t quite think through. However, considering the amount of red tape that even the local DMV has, I can’t fathom that this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Fortunately, a judge has granted a temporary restraining order “to prevent emergency officials in the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone from preventing the media from covering the recovery […]”.

PowerBook Internet Access with Bluetooth Through a Treo

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

Well, now that my mobile provider supports EDGE (whee!), I’ve been wondering whether I could put that to use for more than just my Treo. And, since my Treo 650 has Bluetooth, I went searching to see if I could use that to feed Internet access to other devices (like my PowerBook). Apparently, that's possible — Captn Swing figured out the steps to set up Bluetooth on a Treo and have OS X treat it as a Bluetooth modem.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the prerequisites are steep, but they’re not a shoo-in for everyone. Among other things, the author only tested the sequence on OSX Tiger (10.4) and it needs an unlocked Treo 650. Fortunately, I have both of those :). Basically, it’s a matter of installing scripts (on the Mac) for a generic GPRS modem), pairing the Treo with the Mac, and then configuring the network on the Mac. Of course, there’re a few sub-steps to each of those, but the article includes plenty of screenshots as well.

I have WiFi set up at my apartment, so I wouldn’t often need to use this, but this could be particularly useful for places like airports or coffee shops. Sure, there’s often WiFi there, but not the free kind ;). And, with my unlimited data plan, it doesn’t cost me anything extra to siphon some TCP/IP from my phone to my laptop.

All the same, if my speed tests from yesterday are any guide, I’m in for about 12 KB/sec with that kind of setup. On the bright side, that shouldn’t be straining the Bluetooth connection (which can apparently handle 721 kbit/sec or 90 KB/sec), but I’m not exactly going to be steaming XviD over that kind of connection either ;).

EDGE Coming to T-Mobile!

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

I’ve found T-Mobile’s customer service to be exceptional and, even if their featured cell phone was a pair of tin cans connected by string, I’d probably still stick with them for the customer service. (Among other things, if you call the customer service line, you’ll be speaking with a real human being within about sixty seconds.)

Having said that, they aren’t exactly the early adopters of new technologies. For instance, they basically have no high-speed data plan — but that’s about to change. Edgadget reports that T-Mobile will be completing its EDGE rollout by the end of September. As described on T-Mobile’s About page:

By the end of September 2005, T-Mobile plans to launch EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) service across its nationwide network, offering average data speeds between 100-130 kbps […]

Naturally, EDGE’s throughput is reported in kilobits per second — in more common units, that would be 12.5 - 16.25 KB/sec. Ok, so that’s not breakneck speeds, but it’s still pretty usable for e-mail and some web browsing. On the other hand, EDGE (“Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution”, if you’re curious) maxes out at 384 kbit/s (48 KB/sec) which would be kinda nice, even if only for moments at a time.

Of course, Edgadget couldn’t resist snarkifying T-Mobile’s progress:

T-Mobile’s finally made it for sure solidly official that they’re planning on EDGE rollout by the end of September. Yes, of this year, smart aleck—that is, just in time to get stomped by Sprint’s EV-DO and shortly before Cingular’s data-gone-gangbusters HSDPA network lights up. Still, you get what you pay for, and if they’re smart enough to offer their EDGE service at, say, a $15 all-you-can-eat rate, they might just have something going for ‘em. […]

All the same, I look forward to this speed boost. And, as I understand it, it’s not as if T-Mobile is “flipping the switch” on September 30th — they're activating EDGE as it becomes available in each area. So, if you're on T-Mobile, you may be able to make use of EDGE presently. (I just wish I could figure out how to get my Treo 650 to tell me if I’m connected with EDGE.)