Michael Graves

This author has written 1380 articles

Living With The HP Mini 2140

hp-mini-2140-netbookAs I make my way back from SFO for the 8th time in as many weeks I’m given to consider what good company my little netbook has become. It’s been my traveling companion for a relatively short 4 weeks and I’m still coming to graps its utility. It can’t possbly replace my laptop or desktop. After all, I’m in the TV graphics business and there’s just no replacing a high resolution display for some activities.

Yet, here I am on another flight and the little netbook is my solace. Even in a regretably coach class seat I’m able to listen to music, catch up on by backlogged RSS feeds and write blog posts. It’s as close to ideal as I could have hoped for. 

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Hotel Broadband: The Ongoing Saga

As mentioned last week for the next few days I’m appearing nightly at the Hyatt Regency SFO. I don’t normally stay at Hyatt’s as they’re typically beyond my budget, but a UK based coworker is here and I decided to stay where they put him for convenience. He’s here two weeks so he got a deal, for my three nights I didn’t.

Anyway, returning to the theme of broadband this place, which is vast, has wifi throughout the rooms. Last night it was solid and pretty speedy. This morning it’s simply D.O.A. A call to in-house tech support, provided by a company called Z-Net, had me try various things…but no joy. I have both  a laptop and a netbook, neither of which get issued an IP address. Although both report decent wifi radio signals.

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Review: Plantronics .Audio 480 Headset

plantronics-audio480usb_cu-120-copyLast Christmas my wife got me one of Plantronics .Audio 480 headsets. I’d seen this model of headset offered for a while, and since I’ve used noise reducing headphones for listening to music for many years, the idea of a similar approach to a VoIP headset was intriguing. She knew that I was searching out a wideband capable SIP soft phone and thought that a suitably capable headset might enhance my traveling arsenal.

My earlier experience with noise reducing headsets started with the venerable Sony MDR-NC10…which I simply loved, and had several sets over the years.  I found them both comfortable to wear and very effective.  The concept of soft rubber-tipped ear buds that form a noise blocking seal into the ear canal was simply brilliant.

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Finally, We Have A 311 Solution

Figure 3: Portech MV-370 SIP-GSM gateway

In the spring of 2008 I installed a SIP-to-GSM cellular gateway as a means of backing up our wholly IP-based home and office phones. The installation of the cellular gateway allowed me to route calls to and from T-Mobile should our DSL circuit go down. In addition, it provided us access to 911 and 411 services that were not at the time provided by our ITSPs.

The one thing we wanted that it did not address was access to 311 service. In Houston a 311 call rings a non-emergency city call center that is intended to take notifications about city services. For example, we call 311 when we see a street light out, a broken fire hydrant, large fallen trees in the roadways or packs of wild dogs roaming dangerously.

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Headphones & Headsets In The Works

plantronics-t100I’ve been thinking a lot about headsets and headphones lately. This comes to be for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I left my favorite headset for listening to music in a coworkers car, and I don’t think I’m getting them back. Secondly, my favorite cell phone headset is very aged, and near death. Finally, I’ve been needing to upgrade the headset hardware that I use for telephony to better address my increasing use of wideband telephony. That has both desk-bound and portable aspects to be considered.

So I decided that I’d try a bunch of headsets of various sorts and see what I found the most appealing. This got started last December my wife bought me a Plantronics .Audio 480 headset as a gift. I’ve been using it quite a bit and I’m just about done with a written review of my experience using that device.

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