2007 25
How I use Ubuntu
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
In this video I show how I use Ubuntu and some cool new social sites like Dopplr.
2007 18
Michael Dell uses Ubuntu!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
Lately I have been blogging that I am an Ubuntu Fan and after a major crash with my Lenovo with Windows XP I left Microsoft for a combination of Ubuntu and Mac.
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Last night I was having dinner with C.J. Cherng, the very able CEO of Taiwanese ISP Seednet, a Fon partner. During dinner we were talking about how global the Internet is and yet how different local rules are for ISPs around the world. On one side, there´s the US, who invented liberalization and, after being successfully copied by the whole world, retreated into a duopoly situation that is hurting the US consumer. On the other, there´s Europe, which implemented unbundling to such an extent that now European ISPs are the most competitive in the world. ISPs, like another Fon partner Neuf in France, have a menu of choices that would make any American forget about French rudeness and want to move there. For around $40 you get free national and international long distance, up to 20meg download speeds, a TIVO like service, cable TV channels, storage, mail, etc. And if you are an Internet fan and you happen to live in Sweden, then Labs2 offers you 100MB both ways for 89 euros a month.
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2007 26
What Is Going On With Alexa?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
Lately, every single site I check in traffic measuring tool Alexa seems to be losing traffic. Concerned about this trend I decided to check Amazon´s traffic in Alexa. Since Amazon owns Alexa, I thought it would be surprising if Alexa showed a decline on Amazon´s traffic as well. But this is what I saw. Enormous decline in Amazon traffic over the last 12 months.
Frankly I can´t believe that traffic to Amazon has dropped 50% over the last year so I don´t understand what is going on with Alexa. At this point I am concerned about the lack of reliable measures for traffic on the Internet.
2007 21
Microsoft Products Are So Damn Slow!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I have recently left Microsoft after being a customer since 1986. I am with Apple now. I left Microsoft for many reasons, but if I had to summarize them I would not say propensity to crash, but slowness.
We can argue about Apple’s design vs Microsoft’s design forever, but what we can’t argue with is that it takes much less time to start a Mac than a PC. Same to turn it off, which is something you just don’t need to do with a Mac. And, in general, everything you do on a Mac happens much faster. Now if slowness is the case with Windows on PCs, it is even more so with Windows Mobile on phones, as phones are something that we are not used to be patient with.
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2007 21
Mobile VolP Services ranked by Alexaholic
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
After having mapped out the available VolP technology services for cell phones, it seemed like a good idea to use Alexaholic to compare the reach and growth of these services. Alexaholic is a refurbished version of Alexa Internet, a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides information on the quantity of visits that websites receive and their comparative popularity.
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2005 23
Random Google
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
Here´s an idea for my friends at Google. It´s called RANDOM GOOGLE. We all love the google ranking algorythm… but sometimes it is useless. For example, let´s say Al Gore, tired of seeing hurricane after hurricane hit the States as a result of global warming, wants to run again as the “environmental president”. The people who run his campaign would like to have a way of “polling” google. They would like to search for “Al Gore”, but this time they want to do away with Larry´s famous algorithm. Voting is not a ranked activity (and there are many who aren´t). Voting is one person one vote. So what the pollers want to know is how popular Al Gore is in Google, posting by posting. What the campaign manager wants is what I call the RANDOM GOOGLE button. What would RANDOM GOOGLE do? Basically give you a random string of say 100 results. Pollers could then read them and classify them as pro Gore or anti Gore. In other words, they would poll Google provided that they have a Google without the ranking. They could search random strings by quantity and time periods. From Google´s point of view, the Random Google button would greatly increase ad servings. People would search a term and then random Google it. Maybe more than once. And they would randomly learn about their search term being more frequently exposed to google ads.
2005 2
Wifi Nation?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Wifi rocks. When you are within reach nothing beats Wifi. Wimax is not around the corner, it will take years to develop, and if and when it comes it will need a new generation of devices to go along with it. And that is years away as most devices now are going Wifi. The Wifi iPod is around the corner, Wifi digital cameras as well, Playstations with Wifi are all the rage, PDA´s are mostly Wifi enabled now and so are all laptops. Now the paradox about Wifi is that every operator who has tried to build a Wifi network has failed miserably. Nobody seems to have the funds to create a Wifi national network. So coverage is uneven, and that´s the only thing that´s wrong with Wifi. How can we create a Wifi nation? That is the challenge.
2005 17
Technology Opportunities to Prevent Climate Change
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Notes on the session of Technology Opportunities in the Area of preventing climate change
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2005 17
Google IM
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
Last night during dinner I finally was able to tell Sergey and Larry about my idea for creating the type of IM that Google could launch that in my view could beat Instant Messenger. My concept for revolutionizing chat is based on something I said before, that text of the kind I am using right now to write this blog is obsolete. If you think about it, text is great only because you were trained for 12 years, or more in most cases, to use it. Otherwise text sucks. Have any doubt? Watch an 8 year old chatting and you will see. Younger children who have not developed the skills to type endlessly without making mistakes that others frown upon, use much less text when they chat. What they use is emoticons, skype, webcams or anything to get away from text slowness and boredom. Well my idea is a plan to include the best emoticons of all, your files as given to you by Google Desktop (if you don´t have this amazing tool download it right now!) and by Google when you chat. What makes a good chatter? To me somebody who chats very well is someone who can reply quickly and with somebody who sends you a lot of MEANING in little time. Now how can u increase the rate of MEANING going through a chat? With GOOGLE!
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