Archive for the 'Analysis & Commentary' Category
Every year it’s the same, millions of people wake up early in the wee hours of the morning – before the sun even wakes up – with a belly full of turkey to venture into the malls of America for…a deal. A really, really, good deal. The day is affectionately called Black Friday. Not because it’s dark outside the morning after Thanksgiving Thursday but because it’s the first day merchants historically begin making a profit for the calendar year.
Stories of amazing finds are often reported but rarely had by most. Those too-hard-to-believe opportunities are the hype that draws the pack to the stores of crazed buyers such as last years TJ Maxx’s sale of $399 iPads which the store never carried before nor did after it sold out in seconds of opening its doors that cold Friday morning.
You can find true deals, however, without the need to wake up first thing in the morning and you don’t even have to leave your home. Most Black Friday sale items run the course of the weekend and are available online as well, according to the examiner.com. I know five years ago I purchased a full-sized side-by-side fridge and freezer from Sears for nearly half off on a relatively quiet Saturday afternoon the weekend of Turkey Day.
So, what will be the deals this year, you ask? Mark LoCastro at dealnews.com sent us a nice little chart (below) of some of its predictions for 2011.
Topping the list are HDTVs. Expect something to really happen here since Best Buys recent earnings showed these electronic toys to fall harder than a 60″ LCD off the wall onto your living room floor. The economy isn’t enticing anyone to spend money on TVs and with most homes filled with thin screens at this point, there is little reason to replace existing models. Well, if you do need to replace that 60″ that did fall onto your living room floor, dealnews thinks you’ll see them as low as $699.
Next on the list are laptops. The basic no thrill models will hover around $200 with nicer desktop replacement models around the $700 mark. Apple? dealnews thinks free shipping (you can get that most of the time anyway) and maybe a 5 to 10% discount on the iPods and MacBooks is what you’ll see. I accept that as well since that’s about what Apple has done in years past. In other words, don’t waste your time looking at Apple too long.
Amazon, Samsung, and Motorola, however, will want to save you some money and dealnews says watch out for some sweet tablet and eReader reductions.
The one I’m most excited about is $50 network enabled Blu-ray players. Sony has a nice unit that you can control with your iPhone. I hope to get that one…if priced right. 
Noise cancelling headphones are probably the best sort of headphones on the market today to help get rid of unwanted sounds. When choosing noise cancelling headphones there are actually two different types; you can choose from active noise cancelling headphones or passive noise cancelling headphones. Each pair works a little bit differently, however each pair has the same end result in mind, and that is successfully reducing unwanted noises.
Passive noise cancelling headphones work to muffle offending sounds. They have a special design known as circum-aural sound dampening. Basically this means the headphones are built into the shape of cups. These cups are then made to fit the entire perimeter of the ear. These cups are constructed of high density foam. This foam is specially made to muffle or reduce the decibels of certain sound waves. As a result, passive noise cancelling headphones can keep out noises as high as 20 decibels.
The second class of noise cancelling headphones is active ones. Active noise cancelling headphones are made of a design similar to that of the passive models. Again the circum-aural dampening design is used but another feature is added on to the active noise cancelling headphones. Technology has been created to be part of these headphones and they are designed to eliminate unwanted sounds.
A microphone is included in the active noise cancelling headphones to pick up sounds from the surrounding environment. These would be any sound that cannot be muffled out by the foam in the headphones. The sound is analyzed so the active noise cancelling headphones can then create the exact opposite sound. This sound is then made by the headphones and neither this sound, or the annoying sound, are ever heard by the ear.
There are significant implications when choosing active noise cancelling headphones. For instance, there is no longer a need to hike up the volume of a device in order to try to block out the background sounds. The active noise cancelling headphones do this job for you. This helps save your eardrums from music that is way too loud.
Between the two methods, active noise cancelling headphones are the better option to preserve your hearing. If you want anymore information visit lindy.co.uk.
First and foremost, our heart felt prayers go out to Steve Jobs and his health.
Wednesday, Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple, Inc, the most valuable company in the world. The tech world as well as the entire world was shocked. Jobs promised the board that when he could no longer function fully in his capacity as a CEO, he would step down. Wednesday, that promise was fulfilled and Steve Jobs stepped down. Interestingly enough, in his resignation letter, he asked the board to “execute” its plan for succession of his position indicating that his stepping down has long been planned out.
Jobs has carried Apple through much since his taking over as iCEO in 1997 and that past has shown a well laid out plan. From his severing of the Mac clone and the Newton to the bringing of the iMac and OS X, Jobs from the start since returning to Apple has proven he had a plan. With the iPod as an obvious calculated maneuver to boast Apple into the next dimension and the iTunes Store as the icing to that cake, Steve Jobs knew from the start what his attentions were for Apple. Further, Jobs admitted to the crowd in Moscone Center in 2010 that the iPad was a decade long endeavor, clearing indicating Jobs has well planned out Apple’s destiny.
Has Jobs gone the final step and planned out his removal from the company he saved and done it in a way that would minimize the damaging effect to the company’s stock by announcing his resignation just weeks before the iPhone 5 announcement? Think about it for a minute. By announcing the resignation just a few weeks before the biggest news of Apple of the year would be perfect. Give the media and public just a few weeks to chew on the fact that the greatest CEO has just stepped down and then – bam! – announce the iPhone 5 with all its new features. Distraction. After stories of long lines, sale outs, sale records, and then Christmas sales, months will pass by since Jobs stepping down and many will simply forget of the “devastating” effects it could cause. In a few more months, the iPad 3 will be announced and then more months of amazing stories. All of sudden we are nearly at the year mark of the fabled announcement and one realizes, ‘Hey, Apple is doing fine.’
Is Jobs announcement his last master piece or just one more amazing decision in a long line of more as the Chairman of the Board? Time will tell.
In-stat finds in a recent study that the vast majority of the United States will own a smartphone and/or a tablet in just a few years. With the insane growth of both Android and iOS, these figures are not surprising at the least. In fact, with the App Store and the Android Market Place and their plethora of applications that are preached about on TV shows, office watering holes, and even shown off at the kids soccer games, more and more of those stuck with a dumb phones are kindled to move up.
Take a read of the findings…
In-Stat Release
Video entertainment in the US now allows consumers to access more content, on more devices, and in more places, than ever before. In-Stat (www.in-stat.com) forecasts that within five years, over 200 million people in the US will own a smartphone and/or a tablet PC. This market trend will have a huge impact on how video entertainment is acquired and consumed.
“To track the use of mobile devices for entertainment purposes, In-Stat has introduced a unique research service called the US Multiscreen Video Database,” says Keith Nissen, Research Director. “The US Multiscreen Video Database quantifies consumption and interaction with video entertainment on mobile devices both outside and inside the home. This new research complements that of the US Digital Entertainment Database, which tracks the rapidly evolving online/pay-TV video market.”
The US Multiscreen Video Database is updated quarterly in Excel format and it quantifies:
Mobile device shipments
Mobile broadband subscriptions
Mobile video content and sources
Frequency of use
Primary devices being used
Location of use
Multiscreen forecasts including the adoption of social TV, device-to-device interworking, paid mobile apps/services, and advanced multiscreen network features
In addition, the US Multiscreen Video Database(#IN1105139MSV) is an invaluable trusted resource for market statistics and analysis. Quarterly updates track key metrics and five-year forecasts indicating that by 2015:
86% of smartphone/tablet users will view video on their mobile devices.
Nearly 60% of smartphone/tablet owners will also be viewing OTT video at home.
There will be nearly two smartphone/tablet owners per OTT household.
The average Apple household will have four Apple devices.
The average Google Android household will have over two Android devices.
So, here we are all happy now that Apple’s Mac OS X update, Lion. Yes, 10.7 has finally arrived. App Store users across the land clicked Install faster than you could say, “Dude, how long is this going to take?” Long? How about how much?
My Lion download was 4.78GB, nearly 5GB in size. That’s massive. I remember installing Windows 3.11 on my PC back in the early 90s from only three floppies. Floppies! Now I’m downloading the equivalent of a DVD movie? Shesh.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I am on a T1 and I can download to my hearts content. But what about all of those on satellite or cellular Internet connections? Granted, I understand they are the minority, but with the fast majority of us becoming accustomed to smartphones and tablets, more and more of us will start relying on mobile Internet. It won’t take long for us to snip our cords like we are doing with cable television and land-line phones.
There is a minority group of users on mobile Internet with caps. The number is not a small number, however. No, that number is a double digit number ranging from 10 percent to 15 percent when compared to wired broadband users. That puts a good chunk of people on limited Internet to upgrade. What will become of them? Is this the beginning of the revolution against these lines in the sand? Will providers make exceptions or become greedy with overage fees?
Apple is pushing the media-less distribution of software and the App Store was the beginning of the end for boxed software. Its release of Final Cut Pro X was the test for Apple to see if it could handle large amount of requests for a big fat download. While the downloads had better success than user feedback concerning the actually software, it didn’t quite push the bandwidth envelope like Lion.
Lion is the king of the jungle and its users will make a roar when Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and the folks at Hughes ding its clients for going over their 3, 5, or 6GB caps. Hughes users actually have it worse with even lower limits.
Apple has commented that users without true broadband or with limits can stop by an Apple Store and log into the free Wi-Fi network to download Lion onto a laptop. I guess if you want to bring your desktop in, you could do that as well. But my problem with this solution is the wait time. Unless Apple has cached the download onto a proxy server, users will be looking at an hour or more for download depending on the amount of users on the network.
I do not see this as a good work around. Truth is, most people who are using a wireless broadband solution are doing so due to their location and the absence of a wired connection such as DSL or cable. In other words, they live out in the boonies. I doubt there’s an Apple Store near by. What once could be ordered from Amazon and delivered in a day or two now has turned into an ordeal for some to get the latest operating system from Apple.
Time will reveal just how bad of a problem this is and I doubt too much noise will be made. However, as Apple continues to push software through the Internet and as mobile connections, such as “4G”, become more common, the natives will become restless. Add in all that streaming from Hulu and Netflix and, ya, things are going to get messy for Verizon, AT&T, and others.
How will Apple respond to this? Time will tell.
Being behind the GSM folks is no fun, especially if some prime features are not making it to your phone. Couple that with the fact that CDMA can not perform simultaneous voice and data tasks like the GSM 3G iPhones do and now you even more separation. Also certain features, such as disabling Caller ID and Three-way Calling are not supported by CDMA iPhones.
While I despise AT&T and it’s horrible signal, dropped calls, slow data rates, and other issues, at least I have the most current iOS, full-feature set, and when not in an EDGE network – Hey Ha Bell, others are working on “4G” and you still don’t have a full 3G network! – I can chat while checking email or surf the web. These are all important to me and are enough to weigh the scales into the Death Stars favor, just by a tad, for me to carry on another year with it before going to Verizon.
Lastly, even leaving the Evil GSM carrier a year early with its termination fee would be cheaper than purchasing a new LTE iPhone with Verizon since it does not subsidize the iPhone year after year like AT&T.
I guess what it comes down to is over all, Verizon is inferior. Ouch, I don’t like saying that, but it’s the truth as it stands today. However, if Apple surprises us with the next generation iPhone supporting LTE, then heck, it’s good-bye AT&T.
T-Mobile wants to be bought out bad. Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile Senior Vice President of Government Affairs (a title for everything, huh?), is desperate and he proves it with his press release below. Instead of acknowledging critics issue of less competition and how this will hurt the consumer, Sugrue simply deflects the issue and mentions another one. While Sugrue would like us all to believe there is a crisis that a merger with AT&T would “fix”, he completely misses the point. Granted, spectrum is tight; however, the FCC is handling this with recent sales in which all the carriers and even Google have put bids in for.
Mr. Sugrue, spectrum is not the issue here, competition is. With the Death Star absorbing you, Vader will be larger than before and AT&T will continue to raise prices while forgetting to improve service. Simply look at its last earnings call where it complained about the cost of bandwidth and how it slyly stated it would put in the same dollar amount in the next year for network upgrades. This ignores AT&Ts increased gains and thus decreases the percentage from 11% in the previous year to nearly a 5% investment this year. This means AT&T will spend HALF on its network than before. I guess this also means AT&T isn’t too concerned about the spectrum, either, Sugrue.
Press Release
BELLEVUE, Wash – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Today, Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, issued the following statement:
“The opponents of the AT&T-T-Mobile merger have had their final say as part of the FCC’s formal pleading cycle and, not surprisingly, they have failed to offer any credible arguments to support their view that the Commission should deny the transaction. What is surprising, however, is their repeated head-in-the-sand insistence that no spectrum crisis exists. As part of their application, AT&T and T-Mobile provided a compelling showing of their need for more spectrum to continue to provide quality service to customers and roll out new technologies in the future. And the two companies have demonstrated that a combination of their networks and spectrum holdings is by far the best way to solve this problem and ensure improved service and enhanced innovation. The FCC has long acknowledged the harmful consequences of ignoring the spectrum crunch, and we are confident it will approve our proposed market-based solution.”
Less than a week to go Apple fans. Stay tuned!
Boy oh boy, am I getting tired of all these iPhone 5 delay stories. First we got the suppliers leaks that there was not enough activity happening to prime the pump for an iPhone summer release. Then the Japanese earthquake added some spin into it. Now the latest is Apple’s own WWDC announcement only talks about – gasp! – software. I mean, shouldn’t a developers conference be talking about hardware?!
I don’t get the short-sightedness of everyone.
Supply concerns or lack of ramp-up: wasn’t that a similar story just as early as late February for the iPad? Then what happened? Oh ya, the iPad 2 was released EARLIER than originally anticipated. Huh, go figure.
Take a short read of Apple’s WWDC 2010 press release and – Holy cow, NO mention of hardware?! Oh man, I bet the iPhone 4 will be delayed then. Oh wait a minute, that’s right, it came out in late June.
Well, what about that TechCrunch story about this cloud thing Apple is working on? Isn’t that just going to shove the iPhone back because Apple can’t possibly do two things at once, right? Maybe, if you believe TechCrunch but if you – once again – just go through Apple’s own press release archive you find some interesting news from the past. Like, “Apple Announces iTunes 6 With 2,000 Music Videos, Pixar Short Films & Hit TV Shows” in 2005 a month before it also released, what were they, oh yes, new iPods. This was BIG news back then so how could it every take on that huge undertaking AND release new hardware the next month? Incredible.
How about the following year when Apple proclaimed, “Apple Announces iTunes 7 with Amazing New Features“. Some of those new features was the ability to play, let me check, yes, movies. I mean, full fledged movies that filled up the screen on your brand new iPod. Dang, two years in a row!
Well that was then and this now. I mean Apple hasn’t really been spreading things out. Look at the iPhone 4 for Verizon for example. That came at the end of January. Sure, but old hardware doesn’t count.
Let’s look to September 1st of last year when Apple presented the world with “Apple Introduces iTunes 10 With Ping“. Ya, big deal, it jumped into social networking and it wasn’t that tremendous – not like a cloud undertaking would be. Um, let me see, oh yes, more press releases such as, “Apple Premieres New Apple TV for Breakthrough Price of $99“. Along came Netflix to the streaming party with that brand new Apple TV and some other amazing features. While we’re talking hardware, let’s remind the reader of the “Apple Introduces New iPod touch“, and of “Apple Reinvents iPod nano With Multi-Touch Interface” (you caught that Reinvents part, right?) as well as that little guy, “Apple Unveils New iPod shuffle“. Phewf, my wrist hurts from so much copy-and-pasting. How did Apple do ALL that in just one day?!
No, I think too many are getting caught up in the “hot story” of now and not looking at the past for some kind validation. Sure, Apple can change how it does things, I fully understand that, but I just do not see strong evidence for a slipped iPhone 5 ship date.
Reality is this for Apple: Android is taking over and the iPhone is no longer the must-have phone it once was. The longer Apple waits to push the phone, the more it slips in market share. Even if iOS 5 is completely revamped like TechCrunch claims, the average consumer won’t even hear about this and will buy what’s in front of them at the local cellular store. “Oh, that new Android just came out and the iPhone is over a year old now? Ya, let’s get the Android instead.”
Jobs isn’t dumb, he invented this game. Keep a steady upgrade cycle with minor but still cool features with each revision and people will keep buying Apple gear. Look to the iPod going on strong with a decade of fall updates.
Heck, I really believe the Ring Master himself is letting these little tid bits of “stories” slip out to throw not the press off but the competition. Give it false hope it has more time. Again, remember the iPad 2.
So what to make of the cloud? This story has been going for over a year now. No one knows for sure why Apple purchased Lala or why it has that massive data center in South Carolina but they both probably do have a relation to one another. When will the news come? Maybe at WWDC but again, how much does it tie into coding? Apple’s cloud is Apple’s cloud. Don’t expect any APIs for it. Because of this, I don’t see the cloud floating in on Moscone West for WWDC 2011. I see it as a separate iTunes event…with, ya, an iPhone 5 shown off.
There are literally thousands of commands and sub-commands available to configure a Cisco security appliance. As you gain knowledge of the appliance, you will use more and more of the commands. Initially, however, there are just a few commands required to configure basic functionality on the appliance. Basic functionality is defined as allowing inside hosts to access outside hosts, but not allowing outside hosts to access the inside hosts. Additionally, management must be allowed from at least one inside host. To enable basic functionality, there are eight basic commands (these commands are based on software version 8.3(1) or greater):
- interface
- nameif
- security-level
- ip address
- switchport access
- object network
- nat
- route