The next 75 posts are re-posts from my work at a local TV station over the past few years. They will be removing them soon and I didn't want to lose them. They have some interesting history such as several predictions. Some came true, like the ones on the demise of Blackberry, and the rise of the iPhone. While other predictions fell short like the ones on the iPad. I thought it would be replaced by a better product by now.
Enjoy a little piece of history and feel free to comment with your thoughts.
TechPublishing Now MS Certified
Professor Robert McMillen, MBA Microsoft Certified Trainer and Solutions Expert
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Missing the Mark on Craigslist and the Adult Section
Missing the Mark on Craigslist and the Adult Section
By Robert McMillen, KOIN’s Tech Guru
Last week, Craigslist, the popular site for selling everything from cars to companionship, decided to take the adult section off of their website, at least temporarily. PC Magazine projected that Craigslist would have made an estimated $36 million from the adult section in 2010. This represents about one third of its income.
There has been no word from Craigslist on whether or not the section is coming back. If you were to lose one third of your income, I’m sure you would figure out some way to earn it back, right? Well, you may not create ads to sell “dates” with strangers, but you wouldn’t leave that money on the table either.
The complaints against Craigslist were rampant. 17 Attorneys General filed complaints against the company saying they were exploiting the selling of women and children. Their acceptance of the ads, which cost about $10 per day, was tacit approval of the practice. Some even called Craigslist an electronic pimp for selling the ads. I don’t disagree with any of it, but once again authorities have missed the mark completely by going about it this way.
If you’ve ever had a cockroach in your home you probably know that when you turn the light on the cockroaches scatter more quickly than you can stomp on them. My first apartment was like that. It got to the point where there so many that I would just ignore them and go about my day. Eventually, an exterminator took care of the job when it got bad enough. This is exactly what will happen with Craigslist removing the adult section.
The ads immediately went to other web publications, like Backpage.com. The ads for escorts more than doubled from just a few days ago, and the cockroaches just picked up their ads and moved. There are other locations where the oldest profession has moved to as well, but there’s no reason to list them here.
Instead of scattering the troublemakers, why don’t they just arrest them and their John’s? They have pictures of themselves in the ads. They even leave their phone numbers. Plus, Craigslist could easily provide law enforcement with credit card information and locations of IP addresses from where the ads were placed. I’ve tracked down bad guys for law enforcement and for businesses who’ve been illegally hacked with less information than what they’re offering. They couldn’t give you any more information on how to arrest them if they knocked on the door to the police department and handed them a written confession!
So why don’t they just arrest them? I can offer some possibilities, but without a statement from the police, I couldn’t really know for sure.
Here are my “shots in the dark” as to why police don’t just arrest the offenders.
First off, Portland was listed as one of the biggest areas for child prostitution in the country recently. It made for lots of bad Portland press. So we know many of these ads are about children, but even if they weren’t, we know they are exploited women. If you have all this information and you still don’t make an arrest then it’s obvious something is amiss with our law enforcement. Either the police are incapable of making an arrest using technology, or children and abused women aren’t important enough to be saved. For the first to be true we have to assume that the police departments in our area don’t have technical enough people to properly survey predators and make an arrest that can hold up in court. If that’s the case, then I offer my services free of charge. I will not only help in making the arrests and testify in court, but I will also train the departments on how to do it themselves. If the latter is true, and the abuse of children and women has no importance, then we have a much more serious problem. A problem beyond my comprehension.
So which is it?
Could it be a budget constraint? We know this is a constant problem, especially in a recession. This reminds me a little bit of a meeting I attended recently with several Chief Technology Officers for several large organizations. They were all asked what they did when the recession hit in regards to their technology. All of them said they cut their staff in half and reduced their spending. I was shocked at how short sighted these people of obviously high tech education were. If you have ten departments in a company when a recession hits, why cut the one department that can make 90% of the rest of the company more efficient? They could have easily used technology to replace several positions in other departments, and make things like sales and fund raising far more efficient by automating them with an upgrade to their infrastructure.
Bringing us back to our Craigslist topic, I see perpetrators giving their street name, photo, phone numbers, locations, and the nature of the crimes to officers all over the metro area. All they have to do is go pick them and their customers up. The practice of selling will dry up in just a few weeks, and the children can be saved. The adult women can be brought to safe houses.
The police may need a little technology training (I grant them that), but I can’t think of any easier way to clean up the illegal adult trade in Portland than by busting the bad guys with the evidence they are handing law enforcement on a silver platter.
To reach our company for computer support at your home or business, call All Tech 1 at 503-598-8408. We have a team of Microsoft certified technicians and engineers.
For great tips, you can check here, listen to Bob on All Tech Radio at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or go to - http://alltechradio.com.
To buy Bob's latest book, go here http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/.
Are “they” ready for Cloud Computing?
Are “they” ready for Cloud Computing?
By: Bob McMillen
My wife and I have a running joke anytime we see a piece of news about something “they” say. “They” say that if you take vitamins everyday then….Who are “they?” No one ever sees who “they” are, but we apparently trust them implicitly. Well, last weekend I met “they.” At least the “they” sayers in the computer industry, that is.
I was invited to Dallas to see all the new computer software and hardware that “they” are dreaming up for the big Cloud Computing transition that we are all going to eventually be a part of, whether we like it or not. Every “they” was there, including the folks from IBM, Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, Intel, Oracle, EMC, and dozens more.
Cloud computing is the transition of data from being locally held at your home or office to being kept at data centers worldwide and accessible via the internet. It doesn’t really matter where the data is, as long as it’s accessible, according to “they.” The data can also be replicated and synchronized so if the data is somehow lost at one location, you wouldn’t even realize it because you would automatically start using it from another.
“They” naysayers tell us that this can be a good thing, but we are rushing into this transition without thinking about the consequences of security for our data. Who has this data? How is it being backed up? What if that data center goes out of business, or is hijacked by bad guys? These are just a few of the questions businesses are having. There have been several famous Cloudtastrophes that I have mentioned in the past, but I still believe this is ultimately a good idea, if implemented correctly.
I flew into Dallas after heading to the Portland airport at 4 AM last Sunday. It was 105 degrees by mid afternoon. Fortunately for us, we were in a climate controlled mega hotel that had an atrium larger than two football fields. It was an amazing piece of engineering that we could be in a giant atrium that felt like you were outside, but without all that nasty heat and humidity. During the four day stay I had no reason to go anywhere outside the building because everything I needed was right there. The organizers knew this so they had us in meetings within two hours of landing at the airport all the way until 7 that night.
The next two days were spent in 14 hours of meetings and appointments with all the different vendors. The topic of the conference was Cloud Computing, so I was all jazzed up to see what was new. We offer some hosted services in our business and I wanted to see some new hosting ideas I could offer our customers.
I also got to see some interesting speakers. Besides the industry leaders that most people have never heard of, I got to see Mark Cuban, of TV and basketball fame, speak. He was a computer guy a couple of decades ago, and started his own business. He sold a couple of them and made enough money to buy the Dallas Mavericks, among other things. I also got to hear from Don Yaeger, who is a famous sports columnist. He didn’t have much to do with technology, but it was fun to hear him speak about beating Michael Jordan in a fluke game of one-on-one at a charity event.
By the time I had heard from all of the vendors I came to see and some new ones that have joined the party in recent years, one very obvious conclusion came to mind: “They” are nowhere near ready for the Cloud. The largest manufacturers of technology from all over the world are not ready for us to join the Cloud. The main things any of them had to offer were the same applications we’ve been using for years, but licensed in a new way. Instead of paying $1,000 for a piece of software and then buying the upgrade a couple of years later, you could now just rent the software in perpetuity at $50 per month. Support and upgrades were included, but if you stopped paying for it, then you could no longer use it.
That was it. There was nothing new “they” could show me. They could have sent me that information in an email, or even a 140 character Tweet. Twitter was newer than most of what “they” were trying to sell us.
The rush to the cloud is more likely going to be a bit of a slog. Businesses say it’s now the second most important thing on their minds next to server virtualization, but they have no idea how they’re going to get there. We will get there, and like a slow moving slide of mud we won’t be able to stop it or change its direction. The mud will keep going and going until it accomplishes what it set out to do. Cloud Computing is just the wrong terminology. I vote we rename it to “Mudslide Computing.”
To reach our company for computer support at your home or business, call All Tech 1 at 503-598-8408. We have a team of Microsoft certified technicians and engineers.
For great tips, you can check here, listen to Bob on All Tech Radio at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or go to - http://alltechradio.com.
To buy Bob's latest book, go here http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/.
You Can Reach Your Computer Equipment Away From Home
You Can Reach Your Computer Equipment Away From Home
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Your office has an IT staff that allows your company to do some amazing things. Some of those things are the ability to securely reach your company’s computer equipment while working from home, host a website, remotely access data files, security cameras, and more. There’s a whole host of equipment that’s reachable from the outside. You may want to do that with your equipment at home, but you don’t want to pay the money to hire someone to do it for you.
Well, it’s not as difficult as you might think, and there’s even some free help out there to do it. Some of you may be even paying companies like “Go To My PC” around $20 a month to access your computer from home, but you don’t have to do that. You have everything you need to access all of your stuff. You just need a little knowledge to push you in the right direction.
Let’s discuss the main technology items you may want to reach remotely: your PC, security camera, and DVR.
Every broadband connection (that’s any internet connection that’s not considered dial up) comes with a firewall. Up until a few years ago, you were responsible for the firewall because the internet service provider would just hand you an unsecured internet connection. But that caused the ISPs to become overwhelmed with hackers and other bad guys, so they started handing firewalls out with each order. If you’re not sure if your computer is behind a firewall, just do the following. Click on your start button and choose command prompt from the accessories menu (sometimes this gets moved around but you’ll find it). Type ipconfig and if your IP address starts with either a 10, 192, or 172, then you’re behind a firewall. These are all considered private IP addresses which means your firewall is hiding your real public IP behind it.
Look at the Default Gateway IP. This is the inside address of your firewall. Now go to a web browser and type in http://192.168.1.1, or whatever your gateway IP address is. A firewall login will likely come up where you can log in and take a look around. Look for the “Port Forwarding” option. A port is like a doorway into your computer. The login username and password may be different based on who set it up, but Comcast users can type in “cusadmin” and the password default is “highspeed.” Linksys firewalls tend to have no username and the password is “admin.” If you can’t figure it out you can always reset to factory defaults and call your ISP.
You access the internet using TCP/IP. The TCP portion has around 65,000 doors. By default every door is closed, but you can open them up to allow you to access the devices remotely. You should also see a DHCP tab. Click on that and you will see the list if IP addresses your equipment is using. If you go to your web browser and type in the IP address of each one with an http:// in front of them, then you’ll see which device is using which IP address.
For outside access, just go to the network or system status area and the firewall will tell you what public IP address you’re using. This is the address on the outside facing the internet. Every firewall has an inside IP and an outside IP. This will be crucial so you can connect to your devices remotely. This may occasionally change, so if your remote access doesn’t work anymore, you may need to log back into your firewall to see what it changed to. You can also use a free dynamic service to help you when it changes. It’s called Dynamic DNS. One good website that does this for free is no-ip.info.
Before you open any ports, be sure you have no usernames that have anything less than an 8 character password, at least one number, one letter, and one upper case letter. Also make sure the password doesn’t spell a known word. Dictionary attacks can usually guess these variations on words and numbers, so just make it random.
You can choose to port forward 80 or 443 to your security camera. This allows you to remotely log in to your security camera and see what it sees using a web browser. Think of it! You can now see what your dog is eating in your home while you’re at work. You can keep tabs on the babysitter or in general make sure your home is safe. Some higher-end cameras come with low light sensors for when it’s dark, and some have fire detection capabilities. You can also get this with your security alarm system, but there’s no monthly fee if you do it yourself.
Your computer has all kinds of free ways to access it remotely. If you have a professional version of Windows, you can use the free built in remote tool called Remote Desktop Protocol. Just port forward TCP 3389 and you can log into your computer from anywhere in the world just as if you were sitting there. From your remote computer, open the Remote Desktop program under Communications and type in the public IP address of your firewall to connect. If you have a home version of Windows, then download a free program called VNC from download.com and port forward TCP 5500. Make sure your Windows firewall allows for these programs to pass through. There is an exception list under Control Panel- Windows Firewall.
The other device people want to see is their TV set and have the ability to record or watch programs while away. You can purchase a Sling Box for this. Plug it into your cable box on one end and your internet connection on the other, and now you can record or watch programs with no monthly fee. The stream gets sent to Slingbox.com and you log into your account to watch shows through your web browser. There are even apps on smart phones where you can watch. No port forwarding is necessary.
You may have to occasionally check your DHCP tab on your firewall in case your public or private IP addresses change. Typically they don’t change, but if it stops working then you know where to check.
There are all kinds of things you can do without recurring monthly charges for remotely accessing your equipment, and these just scratch the surface. If you have any questions just email me at rmcmillen@koin.com .
To reach our company for computer support at your home or business, call All Tech 1 at 503-598-8408. We have a team of Microsoft certified technicians and engineers.
For great tips, you can check here, listen to Bob on All Tech Radio at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or go to - http://alltechradio.com.
Use the Internet to Plan Your Wedding
Use the Internet to Plan Your Wedding
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
When I met my wife in 1996, it was a curiosity that we met on the internet. It was the days of dial up. There wasn’t even a DSL in sight.
It was so unusual to meet and marry someone you originally started talking with on the internet that the TV show 20/20 asked if they could video our wedding for broadcast to go along with a story about the growing trend. I was already so nervous and stressed out about all that goes along with planning and being in a wedding that I thought having news cameras around might just push me over the edge (I also didn’t want Barbara Walters to try to make me cry for the camera). So, we declined the invitation.
Now many of us get our news on the internet and 14 years later, we see Chelsea Clinton getting married. The entire world can witness all the planning and thought that went into her multimillion dollar affair. I’m sure the stress was incredible.
There is one point of irony that I should bring up. Before I went into the computer field, I was a wedding photographer. I have personally photographed over 700 weddings. I don’t think there is a single flavor of religious or secular wedding I haven’t been to. I have attended weddings anywhere from 4 people to a thousand. Some weddings cost just a few hundred dollars to pull off while others cost so much that parents have mortgaged their homes.
There was one thing in common, however, and that was almost all of them lacked any kind of coordination. Since I was always the most experienced at any wedding I have been to, I was the one who had to tell the groom which side to stand on, when the bride should walk down the aisle, how to assemble a receiving line, and how much time each thing should take. I even wrote articles for photography magazines about all the funny things that happened during the weddings I photographed. There has never been a wedding I attended where everything went right. More things go wrong than right, in my experience. You have to have a sense of humor.
Another commonality I’ve found about weddings is that it is next to impossible for couples to find the time to plan the wedding. In times past, you had to do everything in person. How do two working people find time to do such things? Now it’s much easier because we have the internet. I will show you how to save days of your planning, save money, and possibly save your marriage. I will also point you in the right direction so you won’t make the common mistakes many couples make.
Weddings are so important to our culture that in the US, they make up 1% of our GDP. There are very few industries that come even close to making up that much of our economy.
There are several major points that make a modern wedding work: The ceremony location, the reception, invitations, food, flowers, cake, dress, tuxedos, photographer, videographer, honeymoon, engagement party, limousine, and music for the wedding and reception. There are a million little details that go along with these, and some extras that aren’t even major categories.
I suggest you start with a wedding planner. You really don’t want to wait for a photographer to show you what to do next on your wedding day. When I photographed weddings, I didn’t know what the couple was trying to accomplish because I hadn’t followed them from the beginning to the end of the preparations.
The following link will take you to two pages of local wedding planners:
One catch to the planner is that many times they have agreements made with local companies to do all of the services listed above. If you choose the easy route by going with what the planner suggests, then you may end up paying more because the planner gets a cut for everyone you sign up. The good news is that you’ll likely get a vetted company, and it will be more of a one stop shop. But if pinching pennies is for you, then just say that you’ll be searching for the best deal and that the planner should assist you in that endeavor.
For wedding etiquette, here is a link that tells you all you need to know. I especially like the parts about who pays for what:
The good news about etiquette is that they are not all hard and fast rules. You can break etiquette if circumstances just don’t work out the way you had hoped. Don’t stress about it, just adjust.
For reception halls in your area you can go here:
The largest cost of any wedding is the reception. Many couples save money by having the ceremony at the same location as the reception. It also cuts down on travel. If you do decide to have a more traditional church wedding and separate reception, then try not to have it more than 20 minutes away. People from out of town really hate that. You can also solve your food questions here. They may push you into a cake they recommend, but I’ve found that to be a large mark up item and a disappointment in quality. Go taste the cakes yourself before signing up.
A great place to find out about different vendors and Portland wedding styles would be to visit a Portland Wedding Blog. Here is one you can check out:
Rather than just rely on blogs, you should also look at forums. Forums are where many people ask and answer questions about everything they are interested in. A blog is one person’s opinion on what’s happening. They both have their merits, however.
A forum from multiple people is more advantageous so you know you’re getting some unbiased opinions. The wink and handshake agreements between vendors are very strong in this business. Remember, we are talking about billions of dollars changing hands, so you have to assume that if you hear it from a vendor, rather than a customer, it should be considered suspect. Sign up at this site to hear what people are actually saying about vendors and weddings in our area:
That should get you started using the internet to narrow down to some smart choices for your special day. Don’t use the internet to choose all of your purchases. Ultimately, you’ll want to go onsite to check many of these vendors out. But instead of doing this for months and spending lots of hours away from work and family, you can now do it in days with less time off.
If you have any questions in this area I would be happy to help.
To reach our company for computer support at your home or business, call All Tech 1 at 503-598-8408. We have a team of Microsoft certified technicians and engineers.
For great tips, you can check here, listen to Bob on All Tech Radio at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or go to - http://alltechradio.com.
Fun New Internet TV Options Anyone Can Use
Fun New Internet TV Options Anyone Can Use
Fun New Internet TV Options Anyone Can Use
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
There are a slew of new ways to watch TV on the internet. This works whether or not you watch on a computer screen or directly on your TV. We will be discussing You Tube’s new streaming service called Leanback and also Clicker.TV.
All of us have a little “attention deficit” when it comes to watching TV now that we have hundreds of channels of nothing to watch. Many people have dropped their premium cable packages because of this. We don’t need more content, just better content, right?
Before getting into these services, I should probably mention the ways you can watch them. If you have an internet capable TV, you only need to go to the Internet Component option and open your web browser. If you didn’t spend $2500 for this new type of TV, then you can connect your computer to your component TV by either S-Video or HMDI connection. Then your computer screen will show up on your TV. If your computer doesn’t have one of these types of connections, you can buy one from any computer or office supply store for around $40. I suggest you get the USB type so you can move it between computers in case you decide to change which computer you use to connect to your TV.
The alternative is to just watch directly on your computer monitor and skip the TV. Although monitors may be smaller than the giant LCD or plasma TVs out there, they are typically four times sharper than your high end TVs. This is because they have a massively higher amount of pixels packed more tightly compared to television sets.
Once you’re connected, go to your You Tube account and sign in. Then go to youtube.com/leanback. From there you will need to use your keyboard. The mouse doesn’t work, and it begs the question “why?” But that’s a rant for another time.
When I tried out the service, I was pleasantly surprised by the HD quality of the videos. The first video just started playing. It supposedly picks videos based on your You Tube account settings, but the first video that played for me was a Spanish speaking South American tribal melodrama. At least that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t tell what they were saying. I had no idea how You Tube thought this would be what I wanted. By using the keyboard I was able to point the arrows left and right to scroll through a list of other videos I had no interest in. But the service itself is a great idea because once one video completes, it just starts the next one.
Another completely new website TV service is Clicker.TV. You don’t even need to sign up to use it, which is great. I am so tired of creating usernames and passwords for more websites. If you do decide to sign up, you’re supposed to get better results. This seems to be a little more like Hulu because it also shows network videos, but it will search far beyond that for you if you want it to.
Just start typing on the screen and videos start popping up. I typed in “The Office” and not only did episodes from the American show pop up, but the UK version did as well. But it didn’t stop there; I also saw You Tube parodies, and other shows that had an “office” atmosphere. Even news shows about offices came up as options. Very cool! When I clicked on any video, it would redirect me to the location of the website that played that video. For instance, when I clicked on an episode of the well known TV show, it played in Hulu. When I clicked on a news option, it redirected me to MSNBC’s video player since it was a news story from that site.
It wasn’t all chocolate bunnies and Yoo-hoo, however. It didn’t search every option as I had hoped it would. It won’t pull up local TV news stories. I typed in Koin News and didn’t get anything. Also, some players didn’t give me the option to stop and rewind the video. It just played on and on until it was over. A little work definitely needs to be done, but I still like this service a lot.
Another cool feature appeared when I clicked on the movie section. I was linked to “pay per view” movies that are available using “On Demand” like Comcast uses. I had options to go to all different kinds of sites that offered movies, and I was able to choose which site I would use to watch it. Some sites charge more than others and this way I was able to shop for the best price. For instance, I could watch Hurt Locker at either Amazon or iTunes. The iTunes site allowed me to watch it online for several dollars less than Amazon. I wouldn’t have known this if Clicker didn’t do the checking for me.
There are other new services like Google’s Android TV I plan on trying out next. This service goes even further than just searching for shows because it also includes “Apps.” It’s like having a giant smart phone.
Check out the alternatives to watching TV. You’ll find just what you’re looking for in a fraction of the time it takes to scan through the hundreds of channels you normally look through.
To reach our company for computer support at your home or business, call All Tech 1 at 503-598-8408. We have a team of Microsoft certified technicians and engineers.
For great tips, you can check here, listen to Bob on All Tech Radio at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK, or go to - http://alltechradio.com.
To buy Bob's latest book, go here http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/.
Blood Feud Breakdown: iPhone 4 vs. Droid X
Blood Feud Breakdown: iPhone 4 vs. Droid X
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
Now that the dust has settled on the iPhone 4, let’s see if you made the right choice. While all the media hype has been going to Apple (thanks to the wizard himself, Steve Jobs), the Android operating system has been quietly taking away market share from the iPhone for the last quarter. However, that may change, at least temporarily, with the new iPhone. Most people knew iPhone 4 was coming so they just waited for it. This allowed Android to outsell to the consumer market over the iPhone this year.
Now that the iPhone is selling millions of phones, will we see the shift go back to Apple? I don’t know, but what I have seen is a shift to Android away from Blackberry more than anything else. I manage dozens of Blackberry servers, and in the last two months I have shut down more Blackberry servers than I’ve installed for my customers. Almost none of them went with Apple. They went with the Android phone of one flavor or another. Some have regretted it.
But a new Droid phone is coming out mid July and the specs have been released for us to do a comparison between the two. I won’t even get into the problems that iPhone 4 users have experienced with holding the phone the wrong way (according to Apple), or the yellow spot on the display that is driving people crazy. The reason for not getting into it is that the Droid X may have similar issues when it’s released in a couple of weeks, so it wouldn’t be fair.
Instead, let’s just focus on pure specs and features. One of the new Droid features is a game changer. It will blow you away if you haven’t heard about it yet, and it may make you cry if you already bought the iPhone 4.
Hardware:
The iPhone sports a 3.5” display compared to the Droid X’s 4.3”. The iPhone has more resolution but the Droid X screen is much larger. iPhone has a 1 Ghz processor with 512 MBs of RAM. Droid X has the same, although the RAM figure hasn’t been officially released.
The Processor on the iPhone may have an advantage because it was custom made for the iPhone and iPad, whereas it appears the ARM processor on Droid X is more of a stock piece. The flash drives are going to be comparable with 16 and 32 GB options, but the Droid can also take an SD card for an extra 16 GBs. iPhone 4 cannot expand. Droid X will be a little larger and heavier as well, but not enough to be a deal breaker.
Talk time and battery life specs are very similar. Both claim a little more in separate categories, but because the screen is so much larger on the Droid X, the usable battery life for the average user will no doubt be longer on an iPhone. Droid X did drop the physical keyboard and is now running the soft keyboard like the iPhone. This will upset some previous Droid buyers.
The camera is better on the Droid X, but Apple has a front and rear facing camera.
Cost:
Both will cost $200 for the 16 GB model with a two year contract. I say you should go with the 32 GB model if you buy the iPhone because after two years you’ll need it. You can go with the lower model on the Droid X because the storage is expandable.
Apps:
iPhone has well over 300,000 apps confirmed and may be close to 400,000 or more. The Android has an estimated 100,000 apps, but no one is nailing this down for sure. It does appear that the apps are being created faster for Android because developers find it easier to work with Google than with Apple. Apple is now under investigation by the Feds about making developers use only their tools instead of working the way the developers want to. This will give a bigger kick to Android because they have a much more open developer plan. The downside to that, however, is that the apps won’t go through the same rigorous testing. So you have to ask yourself, do I want more stable apps that are controlled by a father figure I never wanted, or do I want the Wild West with more options and more opportunities to crash my phone? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you?
Flash Support:
Apple no! Droid X yes!
New Features:
The iPhone has added multitasking support which has been a long time coming. I understand that a slow processor and unknown problems kept them from doing that in the past. There has been many upgrades to the email, browser, and other items, but let’s talk about the cameras. The iPhone 4 has one on front and back. The front one will do video calls where you can see the person you’re talking to. It only works over Wi-Fi because of the amount of data a call like that would take, but that is the single biggest improvement in my opinion. The Droid X has one back facing camera only, so no video calling as of yet. Tethering your phone to your computer has also been added. ATT didn’t want this before because you would use up a big chunk of 3G bandwidth on your laptop that you wouldn’t likely use on your iPhone. Now that ATT has a 2 GB limit with the ability to charge for overages, the tethering option has been added.
If you are ready, I will now reveal what may be the most compelling reason for the switch to Droid X. There is a new rumored feature that the Droid X will have a built in Hot Spot capability. That means that you will be able to share your internet connection with multiple computers at once. This is similar to the Mifi device that gave Steve Jobs no end of problems during his iPhone 4 presentation. So many Mifis were in the audience that he couldn’t get a good signal to show off his new iPhone. A Hot Spot feature such as this could save businesses money and time if you only need to have one person in your workgroup to have wireless capability. This would be the first phone to offer a feature like this. People in your area would only have to have Wifi capability on their phone, tablet, netbook, or laptop. They would find your wireless SSID name just like they would at home or in the office. From there they would share your 3G connection to the internet. That is going to be a huge advantage to Droid X.
Connection Speed:
Verizon’s Droid X will join the new 4G LTE technology 3-6 months sooner than ATT’s iPhone. Once they are both on it, however, the speed should be very similar. With multiple manufacturers making phones for Android, I have to assume that Android models will be faster. The Droid X is just one of many phones that run Google’s Android OS on it, and that is not going to change the speed comparison for this article.
Connection cost:
iPhone is $25 for the 2 GB data plan on ATT, while Verizon’s 2 GB plan is only $20 per month.
In marketing the iPhone and Droid X, it’s clear that Verizon wants to appeal to business customers, while Apple wants to appeal to consumers, but with some business features and usability. That goes in line with what I have been seeing in our business where Android phones have been replacing more Blackberry units than iPhones.
Before deciding which phone to get, you may need to consider your main purpose for having a smart phone to begin with. They cost more than a regular phone, but the features are amazing compared to just a few years ago. The question is, can you use them?
Let me know which one you pick, because my contract is up next month, and I am deciding which way to go just like the rest of you.
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