Figures. No sooner do I soften my stance (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/softening-my-stance-on-skype.html) on Skype then something happens to not only reinforce my initial stance (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/08/skype-lives-down-to-my-expectations.html) but to undercut my reasons for relenting.
To recap, I'm not a fan of Skype's business model. They charge money for service that's actually being provided by their users and have virtually no control over it. At best, I consider it a useful secondary voice service, and I was considering using it as such.
However, news 'round the Internets (http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2007/11/could-uk-skype.html) is that they also don't control the phone numbers for the SkypeIn service they sell, and as a result their London, UK customers will be given new numbers this holiday season. Kind of sucks.
Turns out Skype only leases the numbers they use for the SkypeIn service they sell. So basically, when they sell SkypeIn service, they sublet a number to a user. Nothing wrong with that, except they can't control when the lease is up, just like they can't control the quality or uptime of their service.
The most ridiculous part is the response from Skype: [That’s because Skype itself is not a telecommunication company. We make software.] (http://heartbeat.skype.com/2007/11/london-based_0207_skypein_numbers.html) Really? Skype is not a telecommunication company? So what, you make money selling the software you make? Oh wait, no, you give that away. How do you make money? Is there something you sell? Some sort of service perhaps?
Anyway, the whole practice of selling service with no quality assurance continues to strike me as bad business. I suppose this doesn't affect my decision to use Skype as a secondary, non-vital service, but it sure doesn't make me feel any better about it.
By popular demand (which means demand by a popular person), here's the recipe for my award-winning Buttered Belly Fat (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/buttered-belly-fat-for-win.html), known commonly as Butter Mochi. Downloadable version here (http://www.markandtanya.us/scribbles/ButterMochi.doc).
Butter Mochi
Ingredients 1 box Mochiko (sweet rice flour) 2 ½ cups sugar 1 tbsp baking powder 1 stick of butter (softened or melted) 1 can coconut milk (12 oz.) 2 cups milk 1 tsp vanilla 5 eggs
Directions 1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. 3. In second bowl, blend wet ingredients thoroughly. 4. Pour wet mix into bowl of dry mix and blend together thoroughly. 5. Pour slowly into greased 9” x 13” pan. 6. Bake for one hour. 7. Let cool before cutting into slices.
Okay, I was pretty tough on Skype (http://www.skype.com/) for their service failure (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/08/skype-lives-down-to-my-expectations.html) this year, but I still think it has its place. For me, that place could be as a secondary voice calling system.
All the trees in Reston kill cell phone reception (even though we're a mile from Sprint HQ), and signal strength goes to crap in the basement. I'd prefer not to get a new landline, so I'm considering voice over IP for a home line. Despite its shortcomings, Skype is the obvious choice.
For one thing, I'm already using it. Just need to add services and hardware to set it up for home use.
Also, it's an eBay company. I may not think much of Skype's business model, but I respect eBay and love PayPal. Buying Skype credit with PayPal appeals to me.
Another big plus is lack of lengthy and costly commitment. We don't need unlimited calling, just a solid connection for an hour or so per week. the nominal fee for a SkypeIn number and per minute pricing for SkypeOut should fit that need nicely.
I plan on using handsets, independent of a PC, but the ability to track Skype calls in Outlook courtesy of Tablet Enhancements for Outlook (http://www.tabletoutlook.com/) is another consideration. Would be most useful when making and taking calls on my Tablet PC, particularly when away from home.
And once I have the handsets set up, I can call to them from my tablet within the house like an intercom system. Useful for our three-story townhouse.
So the plan is to set up handsets. Been testing it on our PCs, which has worked out well. Need to dump the Comcast wifi router and upgrade to one that can accept more than four connections. Might take advantage to go 802.11n and gigabit. I'll post more as it happens.
Okay, even though I see great potential (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-amazons-kindle-should-succeed.html) for Amazon's Kindle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle) electronic book reader, I must wonder if it can, or if it's even possible, to overcome the perception of books as property and convince people to think of them as data to be accessed.
The Amazon folks have been very deliberate in their effort to describe Kindle as a service, not a device. The physical product is a device, but it's a medium to access data. That access is what they're selling.
Likewise, when you buy a book for the Kindle, you're actually buying the right to read that book. The data resides primarily on Amazon's server and temporarily on the Kindle for access. On the plus side, you can't lose the books. If your Kindle is destroyed, you can buy another to regain access to all your books.
However, barring loss or destruction, books do last a long time and are freely transferable. Your rights to Kindle ebooks have an undetermined lifespan and are non-transferable. If Amazon loses the right to distribute a book, you could lose the right to read it, since the data resides primarily on their server. When you're done with a book, you can't give it to someone else.
Understanding and accepting these differences will be difficult for many people. However, I'm sure there is also a good number who will embrace the shift. But I think this shift in thinking, more than its price or unattractiveness, is the major obstacle to its success.
Blogger James Morman recently added ink (http://sixftunda.blogspot.com/search/label/inkblogging) to his blog Drivin' The Lead Car (http://sixftunda.blogspot.com/). Gave Build 52 a try, but he needs to add the requisite styles and scripts to his template. Still, that hasn't stopped him from spilling ink, and that merits adding him to the list.
I've argued consistently that the secret to the iPod's success is that it's an extension of iTunes. Until a company gets serious about an iTunes competitor, I see little danger to the iPod's dominance. Similarly, I haven't seen any electronic book readers to get excited about, until I realized that Amazon's Kindle (http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983/) functions like an extension of Amazon.com.
Amazon's new ebook reader has been flooding the Internets today, and I admit, I wasn't that impressed. Its fairly ugly and not open to all content, tied instead to Amazon's DRM format.
However, it has anywhere-access to content via EVDO. Basically, you can buy books and periodicals anywhere, directly from the device. That's a major step forward for ebook readers. Furthermore, it does so from the top name in online book buying.
The Kindle, I believe, will act as an extension of Amazon. Instead of buying physical books from Amazon and getting them in a couple days, users can buy ebooks instead and get them in minutes. If Amazon can transition their customers to the Kindle, and I think they can, it could be quite a success.
Saw the headline "Kitty Sumo" (http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1389799&cache=1) on Yahoo! today. Obviously I had to click-though. Here's what I saw...
My plans to bake an authentic poundcake (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/search?q=poundcake) (with a pound of each ingredient) are still pending, but I whipped up a batch from a mix for today's Clean-up Day lunch. Customized it a bit with cinnamon and substituted soy milk. Turned out to be quite a hit, possibly helped by the lack of other desserts, but a hit nonetheless.
Received a virtual visit from a fresh, new ink blogger going by the name iDorkas (http://idorkas.blogspot.com/), who has joined the ranks of those few of us using Build 52 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/07/build-52-v2-beta-is-online.html) to create Links in Ink.
He composes in Windows Live Writer using Ed Holloway's Ink Blog plug-in (http://www.edholloway.com/archive/2006/09/26/Ink-Blog-Plugin-goes-Gold_2100_.aspx) then adds the links using Build 52. He's using a Fujitsu tablet. Not sure which one but appears to be a touchscreen model. He just got started, but it's a good start. Adding him to the list now.
So I'm letting most of my lost Halloween entries (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/halloween-hard-drive-failure.html) stay lost, but this one was a winner, so it's the opposite of lost.
Behold, my award-winning dessert: Buttered Belly Fat! No, not really. It's actually Butter Mochi, my favorite dessert from back home. I baked up a batch and renamed it for our Halloween dessert contest. Nothing inherently disgusting or Halloween-ish about it, but the name won the award.
Saw an iPhone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone) in our wild on Friday. Woman at the Starbucks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks) was tapping away at it, so I knocked her down and took it!
No, not really. A woman at the 'Bucks did have one, but I didn't handle one until we went to Tyson's Corner on Saturday and popped into the Apple Store (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Store_(retail)).
Didn't spend too much time fooling with it. Primarily wanted to see how it displayed my blog and to try out the keyboard. Both worked beautifully.
Scribbles was fully rendered. No hover for the Links in Ink since the iPhone has no cursor, but they displayed and clicked through properly. Zooming was smooth and sharp. The keyboard took some practice, but I like the feel of the screen, and I worked it well enough to leave a comment on the blog. Definitely keeping an iPhone on my future buy list.
Been tinkering with my tablet since restoring it from backup (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/halloween-hard-drive-failure.html). It's functional but funky-I'm calling it "funky-tional". Of the two processor cores, the first goes into overdrive every now and then, especially when there is extended hard drive activity, like the scans I've been running.
Happens regardless of Internet connection and malware scans have come up empty. Chkdsk and defrag have been successful. If it's a software issue, I can't figure it out.
Despite that, I'm still not 100% convinced it's a hardware issue. There's been no data loss. The drive continues to hum. Everything else runs normally.
Regardless. I'm keeping my eyes open for a new drive, specifically a Hitachi 7K200, 16MB cache, 7200 rpm & 200GB. Might not solve the problem, but more speed and capacity never hurts.
