Thoughts on technology, investing, marketing, and entrepreneurship.

Category: Wireless

Free Wifi at Starbucks with AT&T

There’s been a lot of buzz about Starbucks partnering with AT&T to offer two hours of free wifi with a purchase. Starbucks today announced a deal to offer AT&T WiFi service at more than 7,000 locations in the U.S. Starbucks card holders get up to two hours of free WiFi access per day; customers of […]

iPhone launch hype, the day after

I wasn’t planning on purchasing an iPhone (primarily because I’m on T-Mobile), but I’ve been watching the hype and subsequent launch with great interest. I love smartphones and tend to buy a new one every six months or so. Partly because of new features I *need* and the rest is I just love playing with […]

Sprint Ambassador Program

I received an email yesterday from the Sprint Ambassador Program. A bit skeptical that this was spam, I read the email and was intrigued. Apparently, Sprint has developed program to get new phones and service lines into the hands of folks who would hopefully give them feedback and evangelize their products. The Sprint Ambassador Program […]

BlackBerry and SideKick Intellisync Issues

This is hopefully the last in my series of “trying to buy a new mobile phone.” Recently, I had tremendous difficulty in trying to sync my Outlook 2003 both with my BlackBerry 7100t and then my new SideKick II using the Intellisync software that comes bundled with both devices (though under different names, both are […]

Laptop and mobile phone insurance

After buying my new smartphone, the SideKick, I asked T-Mobile about the phone insurance I saw on the web site. I rarely opt for insurance on these types of devices, but the whole swiveling screen on the SideKick has me a tad bit worried though I haven’t read of any failures. Long story short, T-Mobile […]

Smartphone search completed with SideKick II

Continuing from my last post on buying a new smartphone, I settled on the SideKick II from Danger through T-Mobile. There were numerous reasons for this decision. Iâ??ll outline them below, but after a few days of using the SideKick, I can honestly tell you it just blows the BlackBerry away in terms of both […]

Mobile viruses

Business Week has an interesting article on mobile viruses. This is something I’ve been increasingly concerned about as most users now understand the risk of viruses on their computer, but not so much on their mobile devices. Mobile viruses are a whole new concerns for so many more consumers as many don’t even realize the […]

Search for a new smart phone

Every once in a while I like to make technology device or gadget diversion on this blog as I know many readers face many of the same issues as I do. Today highlights my new smart phone plight. As I wrote almost a year ago, my primary mobile phone has been a BlackBerry 7100t through […]

Best mobile RSS readers

There’s a nice little thread on Engadget regarding mobile RSS readers. I had been experimenting with the beta of FeedBurner’s mobile RSS reader and it works, but nothing to get too excited about. From the comments on the Engadget post, I found the following to be getting the most votes as favorite mobile feed readers: […]

Skype coming on strong

After hearing more and more buzz surrounding Skype, I finally downloaded the software to see what it was all about. As far as VoIP providers go, I think Skype has a great business model – free calls to existing Skype users, cheap rates to everyone else on a per minute basis. Unlike other VoIP providers that allow customers to simply plug in their existing phones, to this point Skype has relied on an all-computer setup. This worked for a set of users, but couldn’t really hit mainstream usage in that form. New developments may be changing that reality. Skype recently announced a strategic alliance with Motorola. The announced partnership goals:

The initial focus of the collaboration will be on co-marketing of new optimized Motorola ‘Skype Ready’ companion products, such as Bluetooth(R) headsets, dongles, and speakerphones, as well as delivery of the Skype Internet Telephony experience on select Motorola mobile devices.

Skype is not without its challenges though. Poor performance of both Skype and SkypeOut have been reported. Although this is to be expected with any newer technology (especially as all VoIP providers have documented issues), it will be interesting to see if Skype can make the leap from an an all computer based server to one more integrated with how people are currently familiar with making voice calls.

As far as my experience with the service, Skype really looks like vocal instant messaging. When you sign up, you select a username. This username then becomes your “phone number” in the network. Much like IM, another user either needs to know your username or look it up in a directory. Unfortunately, my own trials are incomplete, as i don’t know anyone using Skype yet!

Related resources:
Skype, Xandros Bundle VoIP, Linux
Skype to provide WiFi VoIP service to Motorola mobile devices