Best. Music. Video. Ever.

Why my 4 year old Treo is better than an iPhone

Everybody loves the iPhone. Except me. I see the iPhone, and I see nothing more than an Apple club badge. The only unique feature is the multi-touch interface, but to be honest with you, that doesn’t make up for the fact that it:

1. Costs $400
2. Does all these great things… which Palm and Windows Mobile devices have done for like 8 years.

I have mobile service through Sprint PCS (love them, customer service blows AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon out of the water. My unlimited data plan was free, thank you very much!). I originally had the free phone, which was a Razr, which recently died. So, I needed a new phone.

Scouring eBay, I found a pretty sweet deal on a Palm Treo 650 Smartphone. It’s 4 years old, and I paid $80 for it. Now, to prove to you that my 4-year-old USED Treo is better than a brand new $400 iPhone, I will compare the so-called “revolutionary” (quoted from Apple.com) features of the iPhone against those of my Treo:

There you have it.. a side by side comparison between the $400 iPhone, and my $80 used Treo 650 from 2004. There are only two things the iPhone has that my Treo doesn’t:

1. Visual Voicemail
   But who the hell cares? Is it really worth $400 just to have a list of my voicemails? Come on.
2. WiFi
   This is truly a gimmick when included with any phone. If you have a smart device like an iPhone, Treo, or other smartphone, you are primarily going to be in places where there isn’t any WiFi at all, and you’ll have to use your mobile data service from your provider. Considering unlimited data for most providers is like $15 a month… why the hell would I even NEED WiFi? I have a permanent 3mbps connection, no matter where I am. Always. Don’t need WiFi on my cell phone.

Apple has some serious nerve to claim that anything in their iPhone is “new”, let alone “revolutionary”. Read this carefully, iFags: It’s just a phone. Oooh, you got a weather report on it. So did I, and it was loaded 3 times as fast, since my Sprint Treo is on EV-DO, and not EDGE. That’s the other thing.. AT&T kind of sucks… a lot. If the iPhone really was the best phone ever (it isn’t, but this is a what-if) it would still be worth getting a “lesser” phone, just to avoid AT&T.

I can install any program I want onto my Treo, for free. Hell, if I so desired, I could even write my own native apps. iPhone? The closest thing it has is webpages that fit on its screen. Seriously.. dudes.. wtf. That is lame.

The whole ‘triangulate your location for the mapping thing’ is pretty bogus, too. Most people have experienced an accuracy of something along the lines of 300 yards. It may just be me, but doesn’t that sound a bit.. you know… COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS?! Three football fields?! Yeah thanks Apple, but I could have guesstimated my location to within 300 yards for free all on my own. With the Treo, it costs extra, but I can get a GPS SDIO card with software that will pinpoint my ass right down to 3 yards. That’s 9 feet. I could actually navigate with that.

Besides, any real geek would never touch a phone that couldn’t SSH into their Linux or UNIX server:

Screenshot of justice right there. SSH’ing into my Linux box while taking a dump. Pure geekery, brought to you by the Palm Treo.

Down with the iPhone(y)!

Complete Windows XP Hardware Drivers For Gateway MT3421 Notebook

Note! Since rapidshare sucks and deleted my files, I am biting the bullet and putting these files on my server, using my own bandwidth. If anyone has a server and would be willing to mirror these files, please contact me.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DRIVERS!

Late last year, I purchased a Gateway MT3421 notebook from Office Depot to replace my damaged and unusable Toshiba Satellite M45. At this point, I wish I had bought another Toshiba.

I have spend the past 5 months trying to find a complete set of Windows XP drivers for this machine, as it came pre-installed with Vista, and I don’t want Vista. This has not been an easy task, but I have finally come out on top, and there are no more yellow (!) in my device manager! Hooray!

To aid those facing similar issues with this particular notebook, I am redistributing the drivers here for everyone.

Note: These will ONLY work with Gateway MT3421. If you have another Gateway model, you’ll need to search elsewhere, and I wish you the best of luck. Without any further ado, the drivers:

nVidia Chipset Driver: . . . . . 84 MB

nVidia Display Driver: . . . . . 46 MB

LAN Driver:. . . . . . . . . . . 40 MB

HDA 56k Modem Driver:. . . . . . 822 KB

RealTek WiFi Driver: . . . . . . 167 KB

SigmaTel HD Audio Driver:. . . . 8 MB

Coprocessor Driver:. . . . . . . 172 KB

FAST is slow

Trawling the tubes this afternoon, I stumbled across this article by pcpro.co.uk, an interview with John Lovelock, director general of the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST). FAST is a UK organization advocating the criminal treatment of those who download software illegally.

I just had some comments.

How do you propose ISPs tackle the problem of file-sharing and illegal downloads?

We understand ISPs can’t monitor all the content going through their pipes. What they could do is, where it has been demonstrated their customers have abused rights holders’ intellectual property and we provide evidence of this, they should close the accounts of those particular customers.

Why? Close the account? No warning? No investigation? What about people stealing WiFi? It’s not always the account holder who is committing the crime.

Once people see you can’t use the internet for illegal activity, because you’ll lose your account, that will act as a deterrent.

Uhhmm… no… it won’t. It will just piss people off, especially those who are wrongly accused.

Secondly, like the insurance industry, the ISPs could compile a register of customers that have been investigated and been found to be abusing the terms and conditions of the ISPs, whereupon they shouldn’t be conducting illegal activity.

Whereupon? What is this, 1869? Anyways, what right does the ISP have to share that information with another private organization? Certainly that violates the customer’s right to privacy, regardless of whether or not they (allegedly) violated the terms and conditions.

Then these people would have no place to hide by going from one ISP to another.

You speak as if people who download pirated software are career criminals who should be cut off from society. “No place to hide.” Who are we talking about, here? Software pirates, or serial killers? Regardless, what’s stopping them from hopping on someone else’s unsecured WiFi? Or getting a cellular phone with Internet access? Are you going to ban them from mobile phone providers as well? Isn’t that a little excessive?

With unsecured wireless accounts and file-sharers potentially falsifying their IP address, isn’t there a danger innocent people are going to find themselves cut off?

This is part of an education process now. There is so much protection available to people: if I use my wireless here, it will show three or four wireless networks around me, but they are heavily encrypted and it’s not possible to do it. The technology’s there to stop that happening.

Just because the technology exists doesn’t mean that everyone uses it, or is obligated to. Until I see legislation written stating that WiFi users are required to encrypt their network, this is bunk. If I forget to lock the door to my house, and someone walks in and steals my computers, and then proceeds to burn my house down, does that mean it’s actually my fault, and I am not only no longer entitled to help from the Police, but also guilty of grand theft and arson? Utterly ridiculous.

Furthermore, “protection”? Please. WEP encryption can be cracked in 10 minutes with some very simple tools, and a crappy laptop. WPA takes a little bit longer, but is similarly easy to circumvent. Heavily encrypted is a severe overstatement. Both WEP and WPA are very insecure encryption schemes, and saying that it is not possible to use an encrypted wireless network without knowing the key is simply an outright fallacy, put out there by a software industry lobbyist who doesn’t know the first thing about the very industry he represents, let alone the technologies that support it.  

Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame. FAST, you aren’t protecting software vendor’s rights, you are scapegoating the users for the vendors’ greed.

Waffles 2.0

Waffle House’s sign lost a light in the perfect way. Had to snap a photo. Introducing… WAFFLES 2.0!!

Why not to use Microsoft Exchange for your enterprise email solution

Many, many, many companies use Microsoft Exchange for their email and directory solution, and in almost every case, this is a waste of resources and money. Now, I’m not an anti-Microsoft pundit, or anything of the sort. I personally own a Windows Server 2003 machine, two Windows XP Professional machines, and a Windows Vista Ultimate machine, in addition to some Linux servers. I feel that every operating system has an optimal task, and that there is no fix-all OS out there that is perfect for every user and purpose.

But that is not my point. This is about Microsoft Exchange. Small businesses are especially vulnerable to the problems that arise because of Exchange. It’s mostly about money, so listen up.

The way you pay for Exchange is interesting. You would think that you just buy the software, and all of your users have email once you have configured it. This is a logical assumption, but it’s just not the way Microsoft makes billions of dollars. When you buy Exchange, the real cost is in licensing, and leave it to Microsoft to make it as complicated and counter-intuitive as possible.

So, without an experienced professional to guide you in purchasing Exchange CALs (Client Access Licenses), you alone face this question:

Do you need per-device CALs, or per-user CALs?

Heh, well, if you are a small business, it doesn’t really matter. Allow me to explain. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you are the IT manager of a company with 30 employees, including yourself, the bosses, and everyone. Whole company, 30 employees. Everyone has a workstation, and everyone needs an email address. If you buy per-device CALs, you must purchase a CAL for each computer that will connect to the Exchange server. So, if you have 30 people with 30 workstations, that means 30 CALs. A 5-pack per-device CAL from a trustworthy vendor for Exchange 2007 costs about $300. You will need 6 of these to properly license your copy of Exchange. That will set you back about $1,800, not including what you already have spent on the Exchange software. Exchange costs $700 initially, and does not include any licenses. So, now you are looking at $2,500. Kind of expensive for a small business, eh? Not to mention the fact that you also have to purchase a copy of Microsoft Windows Server 2003. “Standard Edition” costs $999. Grand total: $3,499.
[Source: Microsoft 1, 2]

“Okay, but what about per-user licensing?”

Well, in the case of a small business, it’s really the same thing. You still have to buy enough licenses to cover every user that will connect. They cost the same, and the same number will need to be purchased.

“Doesn’t Microsoft have a Small Business suite?”

Yes, but you will spend even more money! Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 contains Exchange, but for the default configuration, with only a 5-user CAL, the price is $600, and it will cost $690 for each 5-user CAL beyond that. So for 30 users, the total works out to $4,050.
[Source: Microsoft]

So, what it boils down to, is that Microsoft server technologies are really not a wise choice for a small business that wishes to minimize initial cost and overhead. What happens when your company grows, and you need to hire more people? Now you have to pay $690 for every 5 (or less, you can only buy 5 at a time!) people. For a large corporation, this is pocket change, but for a company that has less than 50 employees, the costs of using Microsoft software can be crippling.

There are many free/open source, and low-cost solutions out there that will allow you to continue using Microsoft Office Outlook to connect to your email server, share calendars, and have email directories.

To name just a few:

• Low cost
  • Open-Xchange
  • Xchange Network
    

• Low cost/Free version available
  • Scalix

• Open source/completely free
  • OpenGroupWare
  • Sun Java Communications Suite (Free, paid support option)
  • OpenChange (Not for the faint of heart, build your own frontend)

As you can see, there are plenty of alternatives out there. I’m sure there are even more than the ones I have found and included in this article. The bottom line is: If you are a small company, and you are looking into email/groupware solutions, open source / Microsoft-alternative software may be the best choice, both for initial cost, and TCO.