b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Rethinking Skype Conference Call Scenario
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Congratulations to Anne Davis and JH House Elementary!
Meetup.com Cuts Freebies, Charges $230/year
Alternative Voice Options
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Congratulations Dot Drummond - Beaumont Unified Teacher of the Year!
This is a personal note to my aunt Dot Drummond, in Redlands, CA. Dot has been a school teacher since Methusela was a pup, and has taught science at Mt. View Middle School in the Beaumont Unified School District in Southern California for more than 20 years. This year Dot has been voted one of two Teachers Of The Year for BUSD.Congratulations, Dot! Way to Go!
Rethinking Skype Conference Call Scenario
Skype Journal has me rethinking my opinion on Skype conference calls. As usual, I was thinking inside-the-box and viewing conference calls as requiring individual endpoint origination (participants should call into the conference.) Of course, with SkypeOut I can originate the conference and connect all parties. I had some initial resistance to the idea of having to pay for calls here in the states, having gotten used to calling anywhere in the US from my cell phone without additional fees. But SkypeOut's $.02/minute rate is less than half the lowest conference calling service I've seen, and the hassle factor is lower. Not requiring participants to remember a special number and passcode is a good thing.I'm still having lots of trouble with the 1.2.0.41 client, and Skype have not bothered to answer my support request. But once I get that cleared up I'll be adding some SkypeOut minutes and trying the conference calling feature. I'll still be adding the VoIP line for my main business number, but the Skype scenario is promising.
Terry Frazier at 12:25 AM
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Help With Technorati Tags
I don’t know how to use Technorati tags. I know how to make the tags, but I don’t know how to do anything really useful with them. I just barely figured out how to use delicious to capture my bookmarks and I don’t have time to think about this never-ending plethora of techno-tagging stuff (I admit I don’t get flickr, either.)
But tonight I decided to look into it a little, so I went to Joho and found a post with Technorati Tag: Tags where I found this helpful guide to tagging by Janet Tokerud. There are still a lot of missing pieces for me, but lots of good stuff in Janet’s article. Being a fan of using graphics and illustrations, I particularly like her Tip #2.
Tags aren't Category Names
[…]
Tag Tip #2. I like to illustrate my posts and decorate my post/feed with a graphic for each post. Technorati tag-surfing may help you quickly locate that little graphic for your post. That's how I got the graphic for this post which I copped from a Flickr photo of Peter Morville's great slide. [More…]
Friday, April 15, 2005
Congratulations to Anne Davis and JH House Elementary!
This is so cool. My neighbor Anne Davis runs a fantastic weblog program for elementary kids at nearby J.H. House Elementary in Conyers, GA. Her program is getting lots of recognition. Anne is the quintessential tech educator, making the technology transparent while teaching the kids important stuff like how to think, write, and communicate. Way to go, Anne! Thanks to Will Richardson for the tip.
Anne's J.H. House Blog is Site of the Month
Did I know this? Technology and Learning's School Site of the Month for March is Anne's "Write Weblog". Well deserved.It can't be said enough...Anne does such great work with blogs and elementary school kids, and she's really giving them a passion for writing. I can think of few better models for the technology. She works hard to highlight their best work, to celebrate their successes, and to capitalize on the teachable moments. It's inspiring!
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Meetup.com Cuts Freebies, Charges $230/year
Meetup.com has put away the teat. It will be interesting to see if this starts a spiral down into nothingness.We have some news to share that we don't think you're going to like. There's no point in dancing around it so here it is. Starting May 1st, every Meetup Group will have to pay a monthly fee. Read on for the details.
How much? If your group starts paying in April, the charge is $9/month for the rest of the year. (If you wait until May 1st it goes up to $19/month). The substantial discount (more than 50%) is a "thank you" for being one of the first Meetup Groups.
Nine dollars?! To some, $9 every month may sound like a lot for an Organizer to pay, but remember, it's a group fee, not per person. If the Organizer splits the cost among the members who show up each month, it's probably $1 - $2 per person.
With a Thank You like that, I'm not sure Meetup users need any enemies. "Only $1 or $2 per user" is a tired, overused ploy that just doesn't work. Hundreds of internet services have died on the premise they could get a few pennies a day per user. I'm sure Meetup has lots of user stats and something makes them believe, however vaguely, they can pull this off. I don't know. I sure don't have the smarts of someone like Esther Dyson or the other backers, but this is such a drastic change that, to my cynical mind, it smells like VCs at DFJ have tightened the screws to get some profits rolling at any cost - maybe to pretty it up financially to try and unload it or something.
Meetup has never really taken off here in the south and maybe that colors my view. This will be interesting to watch.
Terry Frazier at 8:35 PM
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Alternative Voice Options
For the past several months I've been experimenting with using my Treo 600 as my sole business phone. This just doesn't work - partly due to hardware problems on the Treo, and partly due to the realities of SprintPCS cellular service, I've grown increasingly dissatisfied.
I like having my cellphone, calendar, and address book in the same device and being able to sync it with Outlook. But I've had two Treos with defective headphone jacks (making the phone unusable with headsets) and the speakerphone facility sucks. SprintPCS offers no way to permanently turn off call waiting, which means that anytime a client calls me we're subject to being interrupted by a second call. And the thing rings, beeps, buzzes, or makes some kind of noise at every event and these beeps and buzzes are audible to whoever is on the other end of the line.
I need alternatives and I'm not going back to the telco.
The latest news on SkypeIn looks promising, and the $30/year price is low enough to make experimentation attractive. Reading about Steve's Skype and Treo combination started me thinking, so today I bought a SkypeIn number
- 678-608-1406 SkypeIn
VoIP looks like the best option. I have a great ISP - Speakeasy - that offers dry copper (no dial tone) DSL up to 6Mbit. I got a dedicated DSL link installed in my office some time ago. Today I ordered Speakeasy VoIP service that gives me unlimited calling in the US and Canada for $24/month. It will take a week or so to get my new number and the adapter, but I should soon be back in business - literally. And all without a single call to or bill from a telco. Now we're talking!
The cell phone experiment wasn't a total failure. I learned that running a business from a tiny, portable device isn't a strategy for heavy or long-term usage. It's great as a backup, temporary, or failover option but not reliable enough for everyday use. And I still like my Treo - I just need to get it replaced (again) under warranty.
Terry Frazier at 1:07 PM
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