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Hi all, Although it gets lousy battery life and is a bit sluggish compared to a blackberry, the Sprint PPC-6700 allows you do the very same thing without having to open a $60 data only account with Sprint. Even better, they allow the phone to not only work in a tethered USB mode, they also support bluetooth if you happen to be on a Mac. Speed is pretty decent, tethered to USB I get about a half a megabit. I get less bandwidth with bluetooth, but it's certainly much zippier than a 56k dialup.

Try again.

Your issue is exactly why enterprise and government wireless providers offer versions of modern phones without cameras, such as the no-camera Treo 650NC offered by Sprint.

A second-hand recommendation but my roommate just got one of the new Sprint pocket pc phones, and it's pretty slick.

Sprint has standardized the power connectors for every phone they cell, independent of manufacturer. I, for one, am glad to see an end to the "you-must-buy-our-overpriced-accessory" extortion.

We need to standardize the selection of voltages to increments of 1.5 volts (the nominal voltage of a standard battery), then you would have "only" 16 different voltages to deal with between 1.5 and 24V. Then you standardize to ONLY use DC voltage (no low-voltage AC power supplies), then you standardize the power plugs to a single, unique connector for each voltage.

This leaves us with 16 different power connectors, which seems like a lot, but is far less than the countless proprietary connectors that are out there. If we further standardized to about 6 different voltages (say: 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 volts) then it would be manageable. It would be great to have ONE power supply on my desk that would work with my cell phone, pager, Palm, headset, toothbrush, shaver, router, switch, camera, etc.

Huh? Where do you get unlimited data for $15/month?!?! When I look at Sprint's site I get $79.99/month from their site here. If that's an addon to phone plans is it full speed, and what is the cheapest phone plan?

Sprint and Nextel have merged you bonehead!

http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=7800

Personally, I'd rather have a promotion w/o pay raise even with worth stock options than the insulting 1% raise I had last year (one of the reasons I switched to HP). At least the promotion and stock options are some sort of recognition that you're doing well. Sometimes the recognition isn't enough, but it's certainly better than busting your ass and no one saying thanks (another reason).

Stupid policies--I used to work for a government contractor. I've seen way worse. Regardless of whatever stupid policies they may have, HP is in business to make money, whereas the government contractor was in business to spend money--usually none of it for the first 10 months and all of it in the last two (or they won't get as much next year). So at least w/ HP, their policies will go away if they're negatively affecting the bottom line.

Sprint has the 'walkie-talkie' feature. It's called Ready Link.

A while back (pre-2000) I worked at a company that had 20+ Frame Relay lines (56K to T1) through Sprint. The contract we had with them was that they owned the line all the way to the jack on our DSU/CSU. Even if the building wiring had a problem, it was THEIR problem. I only had to call the support centre. They handled the phone comapny (BellSouth, SBC, Sprint Local, etc). I usually got a very good response time.

http://www.sprint.com/business/products/products/s printLinkFrameRelay.jsp

The downfall was that there was no Internet connection from the same line. But the up side of that was there was no need to worry about getting hacked from every monkey on the net. I think that has changed. They might have a gateway service.

Sprint has a network based VPN service.

Okay. Here's a couple:
AOL.com - go ahead and laugh, but their site is classy and the layout is table-free.
Sprint.com - ditto. They use tables, for tabular data, like their stock quote info, but that's what tables are *for*.

Commercial sites, especially big ones, are deep and take a lot of work to redesign and recode. Most of those probably aren't being torn down and rebuilt with CSS because there isn't an enormous return in doing it yet. This doesn't mean it cannot be done, nor does it mean that if you're starting a new site, or re-doing an existing one, that CSS can't do the job.

In fact, I'll bet it can. See the Zen Garden for a hundred or so examples of what can be done with only CSS.

Sprint offers the Sony Ericsson T608.

The link above is from last yeat, and I don't see the T608 on the sprintpcs website, but a friend in Atlanta just got one and loves it.

I've got two clients on DirecWay, and it is basically useless except for basic web browsing. I'll not rehash all the previous comments.

One solution I'd investigate if I were you is Cellular Wireless. Assuming true fixed wireless is unavailable, this solution may be.

I'm using Sprint's PCSWireless product for mobile access and emergency internet usage in non-wired areas. It's a PCMCIA data modem that gets between 60-175K up and down transfer rate.

Upside:
* Latency is pretty low, and it works anywhere Sprint's PCS network is available.
* $90/month unlimited bandwidth (they may have pulled this offer, but it's what I was able to get)
* Great for travel. Compact, and pretty reliable once it's setup.

Downside:
* AFAIK, Windows only (you can move to the next post now).
* Supreme pain in the ass to initially setup
* Tech support that I'd rank as some of the worst in the business.
* You'd have to run a computer with a PCMCIA slot as a router, and make sure it's got a good cellular signal

If you can get somebody to write an open source driver for this puppy, it'd be great for SSH, or any other remote access, and you could use Satellite for large file transfers as well.

AT&T, Cingular, and other providers are rumored to have similar products on the way as well.

Sprint Hardware: http://www.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/devices/wireless _cards/index.html
Rate Plans: http://www.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/plans/data/wirel ess_laptop.html

I've got two clients on DirecWay, and it is basically useless except for basic web browsing. I'll not rehash all the previous comments.

One solution I'd investigate if I were you is Cellular Wireless. Assuming true fixed wireless is unavailable, this solution may be.

I'm using Sprint's PCSWireless product for mobile access and emergency internet usage in non-wired areas. It's a PCMCIA data modem that gets between 60-175K up and down transfer rate.

Upside:
* Latency is pretty low, and it works anywhere Sprint's PCS network is available.
* $90/month unlimited bandwidth (they may have pulled this offer, but it's what I was able to get)
* Great for travel. Compact, and pretty reliable once it's setup.

Downside:
* AFAIK, Windows only (you can move to the next post now).
* Supreme pain in the ass to initially setup
* Tech support that I'd rank as some of the worst in the business.
* You'd have to run a computer with a PCMCIA slot as a router, and make sure it's got a good cellular signal

If you can get somebody to write an open source driver for this puppy, it'd be great for SSH, or any other remote access, and you could use Satellite for large file transfers as well.

AT&T, Cingular, and other providers are rumored to have similar products on the way as well.

Sprint Hardware: http://www.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/devices/wireless _cards/index.html
Rate Plans: http://www.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/plans/data/wirel ess_laptop.html

...these types of deals don't look so expensive.

hey, it's slower, but the coverage area makes up for that.

i tried it out on my last trip, works well. doesn't work so well from a moving car, though. (no, i wasn't driving :-)

I just did this. I had an old phone with no real reason to upgrade, but a co-worker of mine is one of those people who knows every Sprint deal and gets a new phone every month, and she told me about it. They make you sign a new contract, but you get any active rebate. It's at least worth it to check it out, it's ammo when you go into the Sprint store.

Interesting!

Play with numbers:

Sprints info on TAT-14

As stated, the TAT-14 is 16 pairs of STM-64 fiber. With a help from google, the average cost was $6000/km per cable.

6000 * 16 = $960,000/km For All 16 pairs.

The total length of the cable is around 15,000km long.

$960,000 * 15,000 = $1,440,000,000

The cost of a transatlantic link cost almost 1 and a half billion dollars that is capable of 640Gbits throughput!

MY Samsung I330 is a great PDA AND a great phone.
I'll give you one good reason for the combo: Integrated dialing from the same address book. Also, it has the ability to be held to your head, use a headset, or use the SPEAKERPHONE. Never mind the fact that carrying 2 devices is a royal PITA.
Lasts 2 days on the small battery, a week on the big one, and I use it contantly. With Sprint PCS Business Connection it even trumps Blackberry, giving me notifications wehn I get new mail, full access to the mail server, and the ability to view attachments and attach files from my PC to outgoing mails.

The SPH-i500 (CDMA) looks better. The SGH-i500 (GSM) is also on it's way. It uses PalmOS 5.2 and has a SDIO port that can take wifi and bluetooth. It says it will be available for Q3 (it will be in Just-talk.com in 26 days, at least that what the website says).

I remember when I was in Japan I was impressed by their vastly superior cell phone technology. 3g phones which double as pdas and have video capability.

Like this or the older now $199 model from Sprint? Ironic they should fair poorly in the poll in the article, but understandable, since I can't get a signal at times in uptown New Orleans (note there are no tall buildings in uptown New Orleans, due to the difficulty and expense of building a structure in the swamp. And in general, we're quite poor). Also, the market is a bit different between Japan and the United States.

While our students are lazy and self centered individuals, the Japanese youth know the value of conformity and hard work. Ever hear of crime or poverty in Japan ? There isn't much. Gun control along with a generally more polite attitude keeps crime there very low.

I'm going to skip my flaimbait rant here, because your next sentence

We Americans could learn a lot from the Japanese, although we are still the best damn country in the world our technology is slightly lacking!

astounds me. Tell me, is it our lazy and self centered students, or our high crime and poverty that make America "the best damn country in the world"? I'm a bit confused here.

Makes me wonder if I can load VNC on PocketPC yet... cause if I can, I would be able to use WinXP wirelessly from:

Windows in your hands

Here's what you need:

Mobility in your hands

The Sprint Press Release states that they are going to use ATM, not IP.

Just think - the ability to keep numbers allows anyone to switch to the cheapest price plan du jour, until the price war bottoms out. Then what? Maybe certain companies (anyone? anyone? ) would have to stop competing on pure price and actually start to offer services valuable to customers, such as the ability to make and receive calls reliably.. the horror! (in fact, the telcos could even realize that if thousands of people in a certain area code are ditching, then perhaps it's time to buy a few more towers there?)

never underestimate the powers of condescension - It knows not the bounds of time or space

Sprint posted at its DSL support site today some instructions on how to disable remote management in the ZyXel P645 modem. They are available in PDF here

In a nutshell, they instruct you to use the unit's system management software to turn on some filters that block incoming port 80, 21, 23, and 69.

Stylesheets are nice for simple text styling, but can't even be depended on for font sizes! (Don't believe me? Set up a web page with a style

BODY { font-size: medium }

And see how it shows up on IE, IE for Mac, Netscape, and Netscape for Mac. They'll all be different sizes, last time I checked.)

Yeah, well, try these:

BODY { font-size: 14px; }

BODY { font-size: 12pt; }

I'll bet you'll find that those will display similarly on all browsers on all platforms. This of course assumes the same font, and that all the platforms have similar DPI settings. However, there are plenty of people who need the text to be larger than many sites provide (OK, Sprint?! 10px Verdana? *squint squint*) and get quite understandably annoyed when you've confined the text into a little bitty group of pixels.

If you want overly-anal control of the exact font size, you should be specifying it in pixels or, preferably, points. IE doesn't "magnify" fonts set with either, but Mozilla will magnify both. I consider both behaviors to be wrong, I think the Right Thing would be to scale up the points-to-pixels conversion as text is magnified, and leave things specified in pixels alone. Or, if pixel-sized font is scaled, then the "virtual pixel" to "real pixel" conversion should be scaled everywhere, including with <img>s.

Bottom line: "medium" is a browser-based setting. It's supposed to change from browser-to-browser (well, it should be expected to change - it doesn't have to). So complaining that the browsers don't have a uniform definition of "medium" when there isn't one is kind of silly.

Kyocera Wireless had the first 3G (CDMA2000 1X) phone launched over a year ago. The 2200 Series have sold in excess of 3 million units at Verizon, Sprint, and Virgin Mobile USA. Nokia really isn't doing anything special here.

Pricing
"Through competitively priced customer offerings, we believe that Sprint will drive the pricing standard and accelerate the adoption of convenient and relevant mobile data services made possible by PCS Vision, just as we did with nationwide long distance and other industry-first offerings," said Esrey.

Once customers determine how they plan to use PCS Vision in their lives, they have greater billing flexibility through new business and consumer PCS Free and Clear Plans with Vision, both of which provide separate allotments for crystal clear voice calls and data applications: minutes for voice calls, megabytes for data usage. For data applications, customers will be charged for data sent or received over the enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network - meaning they can have the benefits of PCS Vision and still have all of their service plan minutes to make amazingly clear calls. Billing for PCS voice plans will remain unchanged and customers will continue to select a calling plan with a pre-determined number of minutes.

PCS Free & Clear with Vision -- Initially ranging in price from $44. 99 to $119.99, PCS Free & Clear with Vision plans will include megabytes for data usage along with varying amounts of voice minutes, depending on the individual plan. For a limited time, Sprint will offer special introductory rate plans that provide more Anytime Minutes than standard Free & Clear plans; allow customers to share minutes with another PCS phone for no additional charge and each phone will have two megabytes of data to use. An example of the introductory PCS Free & Clear with Vision plans include the $89.99 per month plan that features 2,000 Anytime Minutes that can be used by an individual or shared between two people. Additional phones can share the minutes for only $20 per phone and each phone on the plan will receive two megabytes of data. The special introductory plans require a one- or two-year PCS Advantage Agreement and will be available until October 31, 2002.

Here's one example of what an avid messaging user can do with two megabytes: send 100 e-mails and 150 Instant Messages and check out 100 Web pages as well as a few Games, Ringers, Screen Savers and Pictures. Heavy Web users, for instance, can expect to use two megabytes to browse 300 Web pages, send 20 e-mails and Instant Messages and download a few ringers, screen savers and games.

PCS Vision for Laptops and PDAs - For a limited time, business customers may take advantage of introductory pricing at four levels: $39.99 per month for 20 megabytes; $59.99 per month for 40 megabytes; $79.99 per month for 70 megabytes and $119.99 per month for 120 megabytes, all with a one-year PCS Advantage Agreement. Business customers can also select an introductory offer of unlimited data usage for $49.99 per month for the first three months and $99.99 thereafter with a one-year PCS Advantage Agreement.

Realizing PCS Vision is more than just new content, devices or network capability, Sprint has capitalized on the advantage of its single technology platform to revamp back-office infrastructure, most notably in the way Sprint sells to customers. On the retail side, Sprint has fundamentally changed the design and delivery of its sales process and training as well as migrated to sophisticated and innovative in-store merchandising. Sprint is extending this same targeted retail approach by elevating the retail experience at select third-party retailers and providing these partners with a high level of training and differentiation opportunities for PCS Vision products and services.

This same single technology platform has also provided Sprint with clear advantages in the industry. Building its network from the ground up with advanced wireless data services in mind, Sprint selected CDMA technology to allow an efficient and cost-effective evolutionary path to CDMA2000, maximizing spectrum and enabling Sprint to achieve up to double its voice capacity. Additionally, this single technology will support data speeds up to 144 kilobits per second, with average speeds between 50 and 70 kilobits per second. Finally, the single technology of the enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network allows consistency so services and features work the same, everywhere on the enhanced network.

From a business customer standpoint, Sprint has realigned its sales account team structure and internal processes to focus more on creating compelling reasons for enterprise customers to centralize and standardize the management of their wireless purchases. Sprint plans to accelerate the sales of PCS Vision wireless data solutions to enterprise customers of all sizes by adding five new IT and telecom industry leaders to its PCS Business Solutions Program including Accenture, HP, IBM (Personal Computing Division), Ingram Micro and PwC Consulting, a business of Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

For more information on products and services, please visit www.sprint.com/mr.

Or visit a direct link

I've been using Sprint PCS for years now, eagerly awaiting this nationwide upgrade. Now that its arrived, where's the information on what phones can take advantage of the new network? I have a Sanyo SCP-4500, which apparently is not compatible with the new 1xRTT network ... the 4700 model is, but apparently only with the voice side of 1xRTT, data speeds are still as slow as regular CDMA.

The Sprint PCS site has NO readily apparent information on the new 3G network - you'd think it would be front-page news, either on the PCS site or on Sprint.com. What would be even nicer is an email from Sprint PCS to all current subscribers of the Wireless Web option indicating (a) which phones will be able to take advantage of the faster speeds on the 1xRTT network (b) what the costs plans are for the networks (c) what additional peripheral devices are available and (d) what to do to sign-up (online, preferably).

What's the deal here?

Here is the submission I made just as the story got posted:

Sprint has just announced their 3G stuff. Looks pretty sweet, and the prices look to be a heck of a lot better than that ION thing they tried. Compared to the Palm VII service, the 3G pretty much kills that right off as well. Also, be sure to check out the pretty pictures of the phones.

The phones look pretty cool, though there is nothing really new now that I go back and look at previous /. stories about things like the Treo.

The pricing is set to start at $50 and go up to $115/month. Not great, but not bad either. They are saying most people will do the $80/mo plan which gives you a few megabytes of data. Still not great. Though it is still cheaper than what Palm/Blackberry want.

Here is the submission I made just as the story got posted:

Sprint has just announced their 3G stuff. Looks pretty sweet, and the prices look to be a heck of a lot better than that ION thing they tried. Compared to the Palm VII service, the 3G pretty much kills that right off as well. Also, be sure to check out the pretty pictures of the phones.

The phones look pretty cool, though there is nothing really new now that I go back and look at previous /. stories about things like the Treo.

The pricing is set to start at $50 and go up to $115/month. Not great, but not bad either. They are saying most people will do the $80/mo plan which gives you a few megabytes of data. Still not great. Though it is still cheaper than what Palm/Blackberry want.

Here is the submission I made just as the story got posted:

Sprint has just announced their 3G stuff. Looks pretty sweet, and the prices look to be a heck of a lot better than that ION thing they tried. Compared to the Palm VII service, the 3G pretty much kills that right off as well. Also, be sure to check out the pretty pictures of the phones.

The phones look pretty cool, though there is nothing really new now that I go back and look at previous /. stories about things like the Treo.

The pricing is set to start at $50 and go up to $115/month. Not great, but not bad either. They are saying most people will do the $80/mo plan which gives you a few megabytes of data. Still not great. Though it is still cheaper than what Palm/Blackberry want.

The full press release is here.

Pretty, high res images here.

Finally catching up with the rest of the world (maybe even sneaking ahead).

From looking at their website, I cannot tell what kind of pricing they will offer. It seems to me that it will be a part of their normal "wireless web" pricing, which can be gotten with about 4000 monthly minutes for about $60. That doesn't seem so bad for a 140kbps wireless net connection.

PCS Free & Clear with Vision - Initially ranging in price from $44. 99 to $119.99, PCS Free & Clear with Vision plans will include megabytes for data usage along with varying amounts of voice minutes, depending on the individual plan. For a limited time, Sprint will offer special introductory rate plans that provide more Anytime Minutes than standard Free & Clear plans; allow customers to share minutes with another PCS phone for no additional charge and each phone will have two megabytes of data to use. An example of the introductory PCS Free & Clear with Vision plans include the $89.99 per month plan that features 2,000 Anytime Minutes that can be used by an individual or shared between two people.

If I recall correctly, 2000 anytime minutes right now is $149, so this could be a good initial deal! There's other pricing for laptops.

-DJ

Sprint was used for internal communications until 1968, when the FCC (Carter Phone Decision) allowed alternative to the Bell system. After that they parlayed it into a business.

Actually, the CarterPhone decision related to connecting 3rd party (not leased from the telco) telephones and equipment to your phone line. It was instrumental in allowing things like modems. More info on CarterPhone (and a real cool telco history page) here.

It did not relate to Long Distance at all, that was more related to Judge Green's decision to break up AT&T. Sprint did not enter the LD market until the 80s, with details here. You are correct about the internal communications part though (I know IBM used them for inter-office comms in the 70s).

According to Qwest's FAQ, they were started in the same way.

How long has Qwest been in business?
In 1988, Southern Pacific Telecom was established as a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad to lay telecom cable. This subsidiary was purchased by The Anschutz Company. The company began offering limited long distance services in 1991, changed its name to Qwest Communications in 1995, and incorporated in 1996 when it began construction of the Qwest Macro Capacity Fiber Network. Joe Nacchio was appointed CEO in January 1997 and Qwest made its Initial Public Offering in June 1997.

Is this some kind of sham that the railroad execs pull everytime they gets a subsidy to build out new lines? Can anyone shed more light on the history of this? Or is this just misinformation. Sprint's history page make no mention of Southern Pacific, and dates itself back to a 1899 as a telephone and utilities upstart.

You mean you still give $$$ to those dino-tech land line (and cable) fscks to help fund their political maniplulation?

With wireless from SprintPCS, MesaNetworks and DirectTV, the copper and coax feeds running into my house are dead dead dead.

I'm going to do my damndest to make sure I'll never need them again - it's called voting with my wallet.

(Full disclosure: I have worked with most of these companies).

Telephony-based voice-recognition is going to be the Next Great Thing (tm). The main companies that are involved in this stuff are SpeechWorks, Nuance (both work on the main speech recognition/software stuff), HeyAnita (which works with Sprint), and TellMe.

Ahh, I remember the first time I saw an advertisement in a game - it was the Sprint banner that popped up for a second or so whenever you made a subspace comm connection with another ship or a base in Space Quest V ("Roger Wilco and the Next Mutation", by Sierra On-line).

However, I live in New Zealand, and had no idea what Sprint was, let alone how I could give it any money.

As such, for me at least, that was a pretty pointless ad. It was a novelty to see advertising in a game though...

• For TV, why not get a satellite dish? Dish Network's "I like 9" plan works out to $25.58/month if you figure in the cost of the receiver/dish, which is cheaper, has more channels, and better picture than TW's standard $36/month service (at least that's what they were charging me, YMMV). Or spend a little more and get their 501 receiver with no extra PVR monthly charge.
• For internet connectivity, I still use RR because it's the best option (which is how competition should work) but there's still DSL, satellite and good-old dialup. For argument's sake, let's say I switched over to a $59/month DSL service just to get rid of anything TW related.
• For phone, if you live alone you're probably better off cutting the land line and getting a beefed-up wireless plan - most of the /. crowd probably has a cell phone already. Imagine how many minutes you'd have if you added your monthly land line bill to your wireless plan (hint: Sprint's most expensive non-web-enabled wireless plan is $75, probably less than the two bills combined, and probably more minutes than you need).

Cringely didn't seem to notice that, two years after their initial announcements, Sprint has finally rolled out their service. Based on the web site and hype, it seems to (finally) be everything they promised back in 1999.

I don't have the service yet -- so I can't comment on how good it is -- but I'll post something when it's installed.

Not only monetarially, even though my company has donated over $500,000 already, there have been many, many more stories of fantastic generosity in the face of these attacks. Allow me to share a story.

I have a story to relate about blood donating today. My wife Melissa and I went to our local donation center yesterday to try to donate blood. We picked our daughter Alexis up early from school and went to stand in line. We got there around 3 and put our names on the list. After waiting about 45 minutes or so we were told it would be at least a couple more hours, so we went home and made some sandwiches and had a light dinner, then went back around 5. Around 6:20 we were told the nurses were exhausted and wouldn't be able to get very many more people through and we were asked to make appointments for donating the next day. We made an appointment for noon the next day and left.

All of that is kind of peripheral to the story though. The real story is the vast number of other people who were there. There was a line of people out the door and halfway around the building. I'd estimate a hundred people or more. For a donation center which only services about a dozen people a day on a regular day, this was an extremely busy day. They were eliminating much of the paperwork and putting it off so they could keep up the rate at which they actually drew blood(I later found out that they had stayed past 11 to catch up on the paperwork even though they stopped drawing blood around 7). But the donors were there, and they stayed there for HOURS. There were people who were there, standing outside the doors of the donation center, from before noon until almost 6 PM. The mood was very friendly, there was not too much chatting, everything was kind of subdued, but optimistic and glad to do whatever they could to help, even though they were hundreds of miles away(the DFW area) and no one I spoke with knew anyone in those areas. They were just there because they felt it was the right thing to do. There was a little bit of grumbling when people were turned away, but most made future appointments.

Today Melissa and I went back for our noon appointment. The place was packed again. There was a line out the door AGAIN! There were donations of food and refreshments from local stores. Papa Johns pizza had a person who had come out early that morning with the back of his SUV loaded with pizza and sodas. He donated blood and then spent the rest of the day handing out pizza and drinks to any and everyone who wanted some who was waiting in line. He left a couple of times to go get more and fresh pizza for the staff and people donating. The backup and wait was large again. People were taking a number, getting a time estimate of when their number would be called then going back to work and calling in when their time was close. If they were about to be called, they left work and came back. And they REALLY DID COME BACK!

Jason's Deli dropped off several party trays of snacks and bags and bags of deli sandwiches like they would bring to a catered event. The Kroger down the street came by with supplies of bottled water and food because many people, myself included, were skipping lunch to come stand in line. Both today and last night there were several people who took the day off work/school to volunteer at the center to handle the non-medical work. They were passing out questionnaires, making sure all the donor info was filled out correctly, keeping the lines flowing smoothly and doing their best to keep the work flowing well. I estimate six or seven volunteers last night and an equal number today. Things like bringing new bags and tourniquets for the nurses, keeping the lines in order, walking up and down the lines answering questions about the wait, how long you have to wait between donations, reassuring people who were first-time donors and who were nervous.

There was a young man who skipped school today because he felt that volunteering to help the nurses at the donation center was more important. When I saw him he was helping a woman who was feeling faint after donating by keeping her company and keeping a cool, wet rag on her forehead and bringing her drinks and snacks. He was running errands for the nurses and helping patients in any way he could. He was cracking jokes and making many people feel more comfortable during what is a very nerve wracking experience for first time donors. The nurses expressed their appreciation for his efforts a couple of times in the short time I was there.

The number of people who shared their time, their money, their very lifeblood(literally!) to give aid to strangers whom they shared nothing with except the distinction of being Americans. Then the acknowledgement of the needs of the support workers who do vital things like draw blood and the outpouring of help given by volunteers and local businesses. Melissa and I were spending time re-assuring first time donors(I've donated well over a gallon and Melissa has donated several times as well) and while she was on the table(after I was done) I took the kids and went across the street and purchased several gallons of orange juice and apple juice to stock the pantry of the donation center(it is important to drink juice or water, not soda, because soda is a diuretic). I wish I could do more and so do many of the other people who were in line. America has a fantastic reputation for pulling together in a time of crisis, and I consider myself privileged to have been in the same room with so many giving, caring people yesterday and today. If any of you can, please donate blood and/or support the Red Cross.

I'm including a snippet of an email sent out to us at work with contact info for the local Red Cross and donation info. If you're not in the DFW area, please look up your local chapter and ask what they need. Typically they need money because they can't ship supplies up there due to air travel restrictions.

If you would like to donate money, you can make checks payable to Red Cross, and mail directly to:

Red Cross
4800 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75235

Writing DR789 in the memo line of your check will ensure the money goes directly to the victims of the WTC and Pentagon tragedies.

Or, you can call 1-800-HELP-NOW to make a donation by phone. For more information, go to the Red Cross website at www.redcross.org. Since they are having heavy web traffic today, you may or may not be able to access the site.

Steven

The communications system that glues the Internet together was designed for no more than 4.3 billion computers and devices -- thought to be plenty 20 years ago. Half the connection points have already been assigned, and the life span for the remainder is estimated at five years. At that point, a "No Vacancy" sign may have to go up.

First the Y2K bug, now the IPv4 debacle. You're making technology look bad! How will you ever get widespread acceptance if people think you don't think far enough ahead to have your infrastructure scale?

Seriously, I think this is going to grow into something like the Y2K thing. Sure people won't be stockpiling on water and food like a few people I know did, but the reporting of this limitation could cause the public to think "Well, if I get involved in this thing, it'll just max out and then I'll be stuck with a useless 3G phone, or whatever."

Hell, my company is already taking IP addresses away from our servers and workstations and putting us on NAT because they need those IP address spaces for customers. This is a serious problem for the growth and mainstream acceptance of a wired world.

Steven

The problem is, with Rhythms going under, I now have no choice but to stay with Telocity and let Ameritech provide the line. Or, I could switch to Ameritech DSL.

Or you could refuse to allow your business to go to the evil entity that helped drive Rhythms out of business and go with Sprint ION. Yeah, it is ADSL, but it is (up to) 8 Mbit/1 Mbit. They also move your phone line to VoDSL (over ATM, no VoIP) and turn the screws a little bit more on Ameritech.

I am not sure I consider Sprint any kind of shining knight, but they are considerably lower on the evil scale, are not likely to go belly up soon, and have the legal muscle to minimize Ameritech's ability to screw with them. The loop has already been installed for me, and (in theory) Sprint comes next week to finish it off.

Basically, fsck Ameritech! Not sure if you are in Sprint's service area for ION, but it sounds like you are in Chicago, if so, you likely are.

While the company did comply with rules for overtime pay, the fact that it went on for years non-stop reached well past the point of abuse. For a company that says it respected the rights of workers, and espoused allowing employees a balance of personal and professional lives, it sure didn't seem that way when you could take two paid vacation days in a week and still have to work your 20 hours overtime.

And while it was official company policy that the company cooperate with any legal attempts by employees to organize, at least where I live, there are lots of reasons to fire people. It's also interesting to note that the company chose locations for its call centers in weak employee-rights states ... Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, etc.

Not all unions are good. Not all of them are bad. And sometimes they can provide protection against abuses by employers.

I just HAVE to weigh in with my own experience here. Sorry in advance for the rambling. It's therapeutic. SWB has been jacking me around the same way for the last 6 months. I moved into my new apartment in December and ordered DSL then (we are within walking distance of the CO). The order was approved, and slated for installation on Jan 2. Around Christmas time, I get a letter saying something to the effect of oh, something is wrong and we can't install it after all. No further explanation. So I call them. At this point I first hear the term pair gain though with no further explanation, and I also didn't ask. But I do get told that it is slated to be fixed sometime in the first quarter of 2001. Later in January, the helpful SWB salesperson leaves a message saying that the problem on my line now has been fixed, and she is reinstating my order. It should be installed in February. The day of the installation the install technician realizes that I am still on pair gain, and leaves a message to that effect. At this point I am really curious about what pair gain really is, call SWB, and finally end up with a technician from Advanced Solutions, which handles their DSL installations. He informs me that though I am within the required distance from the CO, the phone company is running fiber to my apartment (pair gain), but - but - there is an RT in my neighborhood, which should give me a really good DSL connection, ONCE THE DSLAM IS INSTALLED, which is part of SWB/SWB Internet/Advanced Solutions' Project Pronto. Pronto my ass. We now constantly get flooded with advertisement from SWB, saying DSL is now available in your area, and why wait on the old dial-up connection. Well, the first time I got the ad in the mail, I again reinstated my order, only to be followed by a very rude message on our answering machine from a fellow at Advanced Solutions named Steve, who, frustrated as he was, couldn't understand why the salespeople would keep taking [our] order, when [we are] on pair gain. So why am I still bothering with the telcos in order to get DSL? Aren't there other alternatives? Well... Yes and no. I can't get AOL Time Warner's RoadRunner, as our apartment complex has Optel. I can't get Optel's cable modem service as our apartment complex doesn't subscribe to it, and has no plans to. I can't get Sprint's ION, because they don't install it in multi-dwelling units. I can't get Sprint's Broadband Direct, because there is no direct line-of-sight between our balcony (which is the only place where the apartment complex will let us put up the transceiver) and the Sprint's central antenna. I can't get DirecPC's satellite feed, because said balcony is facing north and the satellite is due South. And finally, I can't get ATT Broadband (another fixed wireless technology, that does not require line-of-sight) because their antennae, on a building 4 blocks south of us either is not turned on, or they are pointing in the wrong direction, or they are simply honoring their agreement with AOL Time Warner to not sell to customers who are in an AOL Time Warner served area (which we technically are). For now, DSL is my only option. But since there apparently is no incentive for SWB to install the DSLAm in the remote terminal, I, and everyone else in our apartment complex, are screwed.

ICANN's strength lies that it is not a commercialized entity, so its unlikely it can fall into some of the problems that plague other companies, monopolization, absurd rules, irrate Terms of Service, etc.

Sure many can be upset with ICANN, but as stated it is a non profit organization, so it makes due with whatever resources they have at their disposal. In comes company xyz with all the funding (think about these irrate issues such as Microsoft, Sprint's garbled Terms of Agreement, etc.), and you have to wonder if it really such a good idea.

As for the top two browsers, how many people DON'T use the top two browsers, why should they be forced to switch to another method of communications on the net to accomodate Idealab's idea?

Just my non important thoughts.

Just what the doctor ordered // sil

This could give rise to a whole new breed of Seti@homers Those of us who either work at huge corporations with tons of extra hardware laying around after all the Y2K redundancy like mine or little dotcoms with more hardware than customers.

Now we'll show you some real power, silly @homers. A Beowulf cluster of E10K... drool.

Steven