Over at Ars Technica they are running an article about how the current US broadband plan still will leave the USA as a second tier country as it relates to internet access. I agree for the most part that this is unacceptable, but I understand the challenges.
First of all we have a very large country as it relates to land mass. This means it takes far more infrastructure and at a higher cost to provide access. Companies have not been properly motivated to roll out the fast access since they are driven by profit and can lock people into contracts. This allows them to be slow in rolling out access since they know that people can not change companies for a few months or even a couple of years.
They can also play the money card with regulators. They can easily claim that they simply don’t have money to spend on the infrastructure or that spending it will put the company under undo stress financially. While I don’t agree with most government regulations and I think they government should have a limited roll in business if any at all. This is one area I am for the government laying down mandates. Doing so will allow US kids to have access to cheap fast broadband access that will encourage learning and development. It will also help draw the greatest minds from around the world since we will have the internet infrastructure to allow them to do research with ease.
Now that leaves the question of what we should be shooting for by 2020? Well I would think that 10Gbps synchronous or asynchronous would be a good start. I would also like to see our cell networks capable of 1Gbps by 2012! I am not really confident that either will happen or that law makers really care. I just know somethings needs to be done.
Aparently the encryption used to prevent third party clients from connecting to Skype has been broken. The site that hosted the original post seems to be down, but you can find it in Google Cache. There also seems to be a directory up with the code you can read for yourself.
Here is my take on this. Skype has done a really good job of protecting this cypher so I can’t knock them for using obscurity. But this does prove a point. Even with the best obscurity you can’t keep something hidden forever. Now the real key is going to be how well Skype responds to the breach.
I just updated my site with a mobile theme. I hope this helps for those of you that want to view the site on Android and iPhones. I have also switched to IntenseDebate comment system for testing. Comment and let me know what you think.
I have been away from OSX for a long time now. Since my company bought me a MacBookPro recently I had to move back in and get used to the environment again. I have to admit that one of the first things I missed was AeroSnap from Windows 7. I started immediately to look for tools that would replicate some of the features. I came across two options and started using them both for testing.
Divvy – Divvy was one of the first tools I found. Divvy is great as it gives you the option of splitting windows onto multiple parts of your screen. It has a very nice interface and allows custom keyboard shortcuts. Divvy is also shareware so it is not free.
Shiftit – Shiftit is a good tool that offers the basic functionality with a minimal user interface and less options. It does come with keyboard shortcuts already configured and this would be an extra step on divvy. Shiftit is free.
I would recommend that you try them both and decide which you like better, but either way you will be more productive.
Lets be clear here. I am a huge WoW fan. I love the game and the challenges to both timing and thought that it presents. I am not a fan of paying every month to play it. I know that it represents a contribution and you can gain a ton of entertainment value for that dollar, but it can become obsessive. Especially when you consider that a large portion of the gaming community do not get to spend everyday online. In fact, I would bet that a fairly large portion only play once or twice a week. Some would also only play a few times a month as time permits. If blizzard were to give this a go it might open up the game to a few more people that might never play otherwise.
