The Mandelbear's Musings

There are excellent reasons why I prefer not to transact business by phone when I can possibly avoid it. Clearly, I am one of those people who should not even be permitted near a telephone, let alone call someone he doesn't know and attempt to get anything done.

Phones frustrate and infuriate me; voice-response menus frustrate and infuriate me even more. And if I reach voice mail rather than a human I'm better off hanging up, writing out a message in complete sentences, and going through the entire sorry process again to read it to the blasted machine rather than venting my rage on the spot.

Let's not even mention the fact that missed calls show up on my cell phone minutes or even hours before the corresponding message shows up in my voice mail. Let's not think about the fact that a phone has the worst user interface ever devised by a half-witted excuse for an engineer.

Note to companies: You want my business? Have a human standing by to answer your damned phone if your web page doesn't give me the information I need. And, I can assure you, it probably doesn't.

Note to self: insurance companies don't want to talk to customers. Only your own personal agent is equipped to talk to you. If he's out of town, you're hosed, so plan ahead.

Apparently cell phones are no longer immune to telemarketers. And of course we now have to pay for the privilege of being spammed. Lovely.

Time to update my entries in the National Do Not Call Registry.

And I'm putting potential contacts on notice now: if spam starts to be a problem, I'm going to be leaving my phone off when I'm not expecting a call.

Update: -- that number has been in the registry since 2004.

Today was marked by a surprising amount of press about Linux, leading off (at least for me) with a column by Larry Magid in the San Jose Mercury News with the title Another option to Apple/Microsoft duopoly: Linux PCs. Kind of surprising, actually. He mentions Dell, Wal-Mart's $200 Everex gPC, the ASUS Eee PC mini-laptop, and the OLPC XO. I may very well buy myself an Eee -- it's the right size and price. I'll have to see what the keyboard and display are like.

Magid didn't mention the day's other major announcement: Google's Android mobile-phone platform, but the New York Times does. Unlike Apple, whose iPhone is tied to a single carrier and locked down tight, the Google "Phone" is basically just a Linux distribution for mobile phones. Any handset maker can build it into a phone, it'll work with any carrier, and the customer can install software on it. There's a little more analysis here and here.

Say what you like about Linux not being "ready for the desktop"; it's just fine for the low-end user who only wants the web, email, music, and occasional word processing. People who want the darned thing to just plain work, and to keep working without needing an expensive upgrade every year or so.

I wonder how long it will take Linux's market share to double. Not long after Christmas, at a guess. And that's not even counting the millions of cell phone users who already have it in China and Japan, and the millions more who will get it when Android hits next year.

I can hear the screams of agony all the way from Redmond.

Neo Base -- everything the mobile application developer needs to enjoy the benefits of the first freed phone, the Neo 1973:

* Neo 1973 (GTA01B_v4)
* Battery
* Stylus
* Headset
* AC Charger
* Phone Pouch
* Lanyard
* SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card
* Mini USB Connectivity Cable

Neo Advanced -- everything the mobile device hacker wants to get down and dirty with the first freed phone, the Neo 1973:

* Neo 1973 (GTA01B_v4)
* Battery (2x)
* Stylus
* Headset
* AC Charger
* Phone Pouch
* Lanyard
* SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card (2x)
* Mini USB Connectivity Cable (2x)
* USB Host Mode Cable
* Debug Flex Cable
* Debug Board v2 (JTAG and serial console)
* Ruggedized Toolbox with shoulder strap
* Guitar Pick (for opening case)
* Torx T6 screwdriver
...
We're going to sell the Neo Base for $300. The Neo Advanced will be $450.

GTA02 (AKA: The Mass Market Neo 1973) is on schedule to go on sale in October. It will have the following new hardware components:

* 802.11 b/g WiFi
* Samsung 2442 SoC
* SMedia 3362 Graphics Accelerator
* 2 3D Accelerometers
* 256MB Flash

We will sell this device through multiple channels. Direct from openmoko.com, the price will be $450 for the Neo Base and $600 for Neo Advanced.

While all eyes may have been on San Francisco and the launch of the developer-unfriendly Apple iPhone, the real game changers were demonstrating their strategy at CES 2007, in Las Vegas.

While the hardware may be similar, the strategy is a complete reversal of Apple's closed platform and proprietary hardware. OpenMoko is an open Linux-based mobile application development platform that's designed to help operators and developers build innovative applications on top of a basic phone platform.

That platform is the FIC neo1973, an attractive curved device with a single large VGA touch screen, and a built in GPS. While it's only GPRS, this is a first cut at delivering open hardware, so we can expect future hardware to support faster data connections.

sbisson

The initial run of OpenMokos will be small and out soon, this month in fact. They are meant to be seeded to developers and those wanting to port apps before the mass market launch in January. If you are one of those wanting to get your feet wet, contact FIC for the details.

So there is now an open GPL phone that won't say no to you. It has GPS for location and is reasonably priced. OpenMoko could be good for all the players from users to carriers, and if it takes off, it's usefulness could grow exponentially. I want one.

It's been raining gently most of the day; no walkies. Just as well, since my left ankle has been bothering me a little this week, and it's good to give it a rest. Got my exercise, though, going up and down the garage attic stairs about a dozen times installing phone cable.

For a long time, the flower_cat has wanted a wired phone on her desk instead of the wireless one, which isn't doing very well. Don't know whether it's signal problems or a weak battery, but it doesn't matter. That was the easy one, though it did mean installing a new wall-mounted box for a two-position keystone plate, and drilling a new hole in the wall to run the cable through. I'm using Cat5, BTW, since I have most of a 1000-foot spool of it that I bought a decade or so ago.

The more challenging one was the phone in the bathroom: it's a waterproof, cordless phone, and not only was there no place to plug in a phone on that wall, there's no power outlet either. So what I did was to run the power in the phone cable, putting the wall wart upstairs in the garage with the ones for the 802-11 access point and the ethernet hub, and leaving the plug hanging out the bottom of the wall plate.

( for reference purposes )

And as if that wasn't enough, I then went to Fry's and bought chaoswolf's computer for her, since she's been tied up in the Baycon meeting all afternoon. It's a cute little HP s7410n; it came with a free-after-rebates Canon MP150 MFP, and I got her a Hyundai L72S 17" monitor as well. ( the damage )

While replacing the battery on my APC BackUPS 500 I noticed that, unlike the older ones I'm familiar with, it has a little switch next to the main switch labeled "test" on the top and bell on the bottom. The crossed-out bell icon does appear to mean that you can silence the alarm; you have to do it every time you unplug it.

The hardware cloth over the crawl-space vents will have to wait -- I can't find my tinsnips. Can I go to sleep yet? Oh wait, dinner. Right. Then I can sleep.