Gordon And Mike's Ict Podcast

Intro: Amazon launched the Kindle in the United States in November 2007. Demand for the Kindle has been high with long waiting lists. We finally got our hands on one and review the Kindle in this podcast.Show Questions: Can you give us some basic specs on the Kindle? What about external storage, battery life and ports or connectors?  Can you give us a quick overview on the Kindle controls - How do you use it? How do you navigate? Does the ruler do anything else? What's Whispernet? How do you get content on the Kindle? Can you get content from other sources? What file formats does the kindle support? Are there other ways to read pdf's? Can you view pictures? What else can you do? I'm always reading things and making notes to include in blogs or other documents - is there a way to do this? Is content on the kindle searchable? How does the dictionary work? What are some of the experimental extras - does it allow web browsing?? I've heard about

Intro: Two weeks ago we gave an overview of IPv6. This week we take a look at some of the technical details for this protocol. Mike: Gordon, a couple of weeks ago we discussed Ipv6 - can you give us a quick review - what's the difference between IPv4 and IPv6? The most obvious distinguishing feature of IPv6 is its use of much larger addresses. The size of an address in IPv6 is 128 bits, which is four times the larger than an IPv4 address. A 32-bit address space allows for 232 or 4,294,967,296 possible addresses. A 128-bit address space allows for 2 28 or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 (or 3.4x1038) possible addresses. In the late 1970s when the IPv4 address space was designed, it was unimaginable that it could be exhausted. However, due to changes in technology and an allocation practice that did not anticipate the recent explosion of hosts on the Internet, the IPv4 address space was consumed to the point that by 1992 it was clear a replacement would be necessary. With IPv6, it is eve

Intro: On March 18, FCC Auction 73 bidding round 261 ended and, after 38 days and $19.592 billion in bids (almost double the $10 billion the FCC had hoped for), the FCC closed out the auction. In this podcast we review and discuss the auction results.Mike: Gordon, can you give us an overview of the auction results?Sure Mike - this comes from the FCC auction website linked up in the shownotes. Rounds: 261 (started on 1/24 and ended on 3/18) Bidding Days: 38 Qualified Bidders: 214 Winning Bidders: 101 Bidders won 1090 Licenses *Auction 73 concluded with 1090 provisionally winning bids covering 1091 licenses and totaling $19,592,420,000, as shown in the Integrated Spectrum Auction System. The provisionally winning bids for the A, B, C, and E Block licenses exceeded the aggregate reserve prices for those blocks. The provisionally winning bid for the D Block license, however, did not meet the applicable reserve price and thus did not become a winning bid. Accordingly, Auction 73 r

Intro: The world has changed significantly since the Internet was first created. IPv6 gives over 4.3x1020 unique addresses for every square inch on the planet, and is going to allow us to do things we've only dreamed of in the past. In this podcast we give an overview of IPv6. Mike: Gordon, before we get into the technology, can you give us an update on IPv6 history in the United States? Sure Mike, this comes from a 1-minute history of the Internet by Federal Computer week at FCW.COM Mike: So, the federal government has ordered its agencies to become IPv6- capable by June of 2008 and this is going to happen in June on our federal government networks - how about businesses? It's  happening with business too Mike.  Let's take Verizon as an example as quoted in a Light Reading post from last September. Verizon Business, which began its first phase of deploying IPv6 on the public IP network in 2004, will complete the North America region in 2008 and move into the Asia-Pacific and European region

Intro: On Thursday, March 6, 2008, Apple released the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) beta along with the App Stores, a place where iPhone users will be able to get applications written for the iPhone. Apple also launched the Enterprise Beta Program. Gordon: Mike, can you give us a quick rundown on what Apple released on Thursday? Sure, much of our discussion today is based on an excellent post at macworld.com titled The iPhone Software FAQ. Macworld editors Jason Snell, Jonathan Seff, Dan Moren, Christopher Breen, and Rob Griffiths contributed to this article. They also thank Glenn Fleishman, Craig Hockenberry, and Daniel Jalkut for their feedback and contributions. Here's how Macworld answered the question: The SDK is a set of tools that lets independent programmers and software companies design, write, and test software that runs on the iPhone. Right now there's a beta version for developers, but a final version of the iPhone software that supports the installation of new programs written by i

Intro: In this podcast we continue discussion on the in-progress FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction, with a focus on the D-Block public safety piece. Mike: Gordon, can you give us a little background on the auction? Back in 2005 Congress passed a law that requires all U.S. TV stations to convert to all digital broadcasts and give up analog spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. This law will free up 62 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band and effectively eliminate channels between 52 and 69. This conversion, which has a deadline of February 18, 2009, has freed up spectrum that is being split up by the FCC into five blocks: A-Block - 12 MHz, split up into 176 smaller economic areasB-Block - 12 MHz, split up into 734 cellular market areasC-Block - 22 MHz, up into 12 regional licensesD-Block - 10MHz, combined with approximately 10MHz allocated for public safety, a single national license.E-Block - 6 MHz, split up into 176 smaller economic areas Each Block has a reserve price set by FCC and if a reserve price is not m

The FCC 700 MHz Spectrum AuctionIntro: In this podcast we discuss the in-progress FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction.Gordon: Mike, you are the reigning Global Wireless Education Consortium Educator of the year so you know about this stuff - what exactly is this spectrum the FCC is auctioning and where did it come from?Back in 2005 Congress passed a law that requires all U.S. TV stations to convert to all digital broadcasts and give up analog spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. This law will free up 62 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band and effectively eliminate channels between 52 and 69. This conversion, which has a deadline of February 18, 2009, has freed up spectrum that is being split up by the FCC into five blocks.Gordon: What so interesting about this block of spectrum?Cell coverage, required cell-site density and cost (total network cost and cost per customer).I understand each spectrum block in the 700 MHz auction, except for the national public safely D-Block, has been assigned an area designation by

Special Notes: In this podcast Mike and I interview Martin Trieu, a former community college student and current Google Engineer from California. The interview was done on January 5, 2008 during our National Science Foundation funded National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (located at Springfield Technical Community College) winter conference hosted by Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. We’d like to thank Dr Ann Beheler; Dean, Business, Computing, & Career Services at Orange Coast College and Principle Investigator of the NSF funded Convergence Technology Center (located at Collin County Community College), for hosting our conference and arranging this interview with Martin. We’d also like to thank the National Science Foundation for funding and support. In the interview Martin uses a couple of acronyms that may need clarification. He refers to UCI - short for University of California, Irvine and EE – short for Electrical Engineering. He also refers to Orange Coast College as

Intro: In this podcast we discuss the growing array of online collaboration tools.Mike: Gordon, because I'm in New Jersey and you're in Massachusetts, we've had to rely on online collaboration tools quite a bit. What are some of the tools we use most often?Gordon: If we look just at what we're doing today. We use Skype - the free VoIP client to record these podcasts and we use Google Docs (docs.google.com) to write, edit and share the scripts. In fact, I use Google Docs to collect material and write my blog - ictcenter.blogspot.comMike: Although it's not a new tool, we also use email quite a bit.Gordon: Yes - email is still a very important tool, but more and more we seem to be communicating with other tools such as Twitter and Text Messaging. The iPhone really lends itself to quick communication with email, Tweets, and IM.Mike: Twitter and Google Docs aren't the only options.Gordon: No. in addition to twitter, there are micro-blogging services Jaiku and Pownce, although if you compare the three using Google

Mike Intro: December 19. 2007: Broadband the AT&T and Qwest WayIn this podcast we discuss AT&T and Qwests Fiber to the Node projects. Mike: Gordon, can you give us a little background on what AT&T is doing?Project Lightspeed was announced as a 6 billion dollar project by AT&T in June 2004 and involves running optical fiber out to a remote terminal, or node and providing the last portion of the connection over copper wire. The project was ambitious from the start with initial plans to reach close to 19 million homes by the end of 2008. AT&T has given the product the name U-verse and at the TelcoTV conference last October, VP of converged services at AT&T Labs Research Peter Hill gave the keynote address featuring the product. Here's a few quotes from an October 26 CED Magazine post: AT&T’s roll out of its IPTV video services has been slower than it originally anticipated, but with more than 126,000 current subscribers, the company feels as though it’s on the right track. AT&T s

Mike Intro: Earlier this fall we discussed DOCSIS 3.0 and how the cable companies will use this technology to deliver high bandwidth services to consumers. In this podcast we discuss the implementation and technologies the traditional telephone companies are using to deliver-high bandwidth voice, video and data services. Mike: Gordon, I know you are very familiar with Verizon and the companies FiOS fiber to the home ((FTTH) product. How is the project coming along? FiOS is Verizon's Fiber to the Home (FTTH), also know as Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) product offering. The service provides high-bandwidth data, voice and video services. The company has posted some interesting data on their policy blog for the third quarter of 2007. Here's a summary: Fiber Implementation: Source: http://www.verizon.com/fiberoptics FiOS is currently available in parts of 16 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Isl

In this podcast we discuss new Apple, Microsoft and Google products and services including Leopard, Vista, the iPhone and Google IMAP support. Gordon: Mike, this past week Apple announced it had sold 2 million copies in the first weekend (last weekend).You've got Leopard and have it installed - what are your impressions?Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X and is packed with morethan 300 new features."Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit withcustomers,"said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Leopard's innovative features aregetting great reviews and making more people than ever think aboutswitching to the Mac."Leopard has many key innovations including the Time Machine, "aneffortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; aredesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share filesbetween multiple Macs*; Quick Look, a new way to instantly see fileswithout opening an application; Spaces, an intuitive new feature usedto create groups of applications and instantly switch between

Title: The Next Generation Cable Network: DOCSIS 3.0 Intro: The first DOCSIS standard, short for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications, standard was released by the company Cable Labs in 1997. In this podcast we take a look at the history of these standards and discuss DOCSIS 3.0 – the emerging standard in the cable industry. Mike: Gordon, can you give us a brief history of the first DOCSIS standards? Gordon – just covers up to 2.0 Mike: What are “tiered services?? Tiered services is business jargon for providing a service (such as telecom connectivity or cable channel service) according to separate, incrementally distinct quality and pay levels, or "tiers." We’re seeing this term used a lot recently in political debate regarding “net neutrality?. Mike: Can you tell us a little more about DOCSIS 3.0? Sure – in a nutshell it’s bigger, better, faster… It’s a needed response to products from competitors like Verizon with FIOs FTTH product and AT&T with the FTTN Lightspeed product. It’s

Title: Sept 16, 2007 - Micro-bloggingIntro: You may be thinking about starting a blog but feel you don't have the time or maybe won't know what to write about. You may already have a blog and are looking for ways to provide interesting content in real time. Micro-blogging may be a great solution. In this session we discuss micro-blogging and take a look at a few of the many free micro-blogging applications.Mike: Gordon, I know you've really got into micro-blogging recently - could you describe what it is?Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as:"a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."Gordon: I think we've both developed a recent addiction to micro-blogging. Your recently wrote a blog describing Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce. Many are

Intro: On Wednesday, September 5, Apple announced a new product, the iPod touch. In this podcast we take a look at the itouch.Mike: Gordon, the itouch is not available yet - you've done a little research - if you had to describe the device in a few words how would you describe? The iPod touch is basically an iPhone without the phone. It comes in two storage sizes – there is a 8 Gigabyte version for $299 and a 16 Gigabyte version for $399. I’ve written about the iPhone and storage capacity in the past - as a rough guideline, 1 Gigabyte of storage space will hold approximately 250 songs or 45 minutes of video. The iPhone requires a 2 year AT&T contract while the iPod touch idoes not require any cellular contracts. You buy it and use it as you would a classic iPod. Gordon: Mike - the products appear to be similar and you have an iPhone - can you describe wireless connectivity? In addition to allowing you to listen to music and watch video the iPod touch has built in wireless WiFi functionality and can

Intro: Business and Industry continues to implement Web 2.0 technologies to make things run faster and more efficiently. In this podcast we discuss the use of these technologies by various corporations. Gordon: Mike - you've been doing some reading and poking around in this area over the summer - can you give us a list of some of your favorite references?Mike: I've been reading Wikinomics by by Don Tapscott (Author), Anthony D. Williams (Author) Gordon: Mike - can you give any info on specific companies implementing these technologies?Mike: At Procter & Gamble, The Good And Bad Of Web 2.0 Tools By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek Jun 23, 2007 12:02 AM (From the June 25, 2007 issue) Business technology execs at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston June 18-21 to explore integrating Web 2.0 technologies into their enterprises. A.G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, is pushing improved internal and external collaboration primarily to develop new products faster. Leading this eff

Intro: You may think Google and Yahoo have a lock on search but it may be time to starting thinking a little differently. In this podcast we take a look at some niche search sites. Mike: Gordon, we love Google products and services - is there a the problem? It may be Google does too good of a job! Have you ever tried Google searching on a persons name? A simple Google search on my first and last name gives over 1.9 million results! Today, three companies control almost 90% of online search: - over 50% of all searches are done using Google - over 25% on Yahoo - and over 13% using Microsoft There are some problems though – these search engines primarily give results based on the number of sites linking to a page and the prominence of search terms on a page. Because they work this way there is room for niche. Mike: With this kind of lock on search it would be almost impossible for a startup to launch a successful general search product - right? Yes - it would be almost impossible but we are seeing so

In this show we take a look at some previous blog postings. NCTT 10th Annual Summer Worskshop discussion. Thanks to all that attended and special thanks to our presenters and Juniper Networks and Apple as sponsors. Thursday, July 12, 2007 Blog Skype Everywhere There have been a couple of interesting Skype product upgrades/releases over the past few days. The first is SoonR Talk, an AJAX enabled application that allows Skype to run on the iPhone and other mobile devices. The second is the release of Skype on the Nokia N800 Internet tablet. The small hand-held device connects to available Wi-Fi networks that we're all finding just about everywhere these days. Here's a Yahoo News quote from Gartner analyst Elroy Jopling: "We will see more Skype and similar free Wi-Fi phone services moving into mobile devices in the U.S. and Europe, he said, although Europe could adopt it more quickly. However, he said he expects to

Intro: On Friday, June 29, Apple started selling the new iPhone, a device that combines the functions of a cell phone, ipod and computer. In this podcast we take a look at the iPhone from a users perspective - Mike Q got in line the first day and purchased one!Here's an outline of the interview:- waiting in line + the purchase- activation- first impressions- hardware- screen- software- camera- keyboard- email- web browser- voice quality- phone- data network (edge + wifi)- ear buds- iPodAT&T (Cingular) has the exclusive rights for the phone for the next two years with current phones running on AT&T�s EDGE network when there is not a Wi-Fi connection available. Current pricing plans, with unlimited data, start at $59.99 and run up to $219.99 per month. There are a few things that some are concerned about, here's a list:The cost - it is expensive!The AT&T EDGE network is slow when compared to Verizon's 3G  network.  This is a concern for some but I could deal with that. Most places I go now I

Introduction: We are here today with Springfield business owner Erica Walch. Erica has recently started Speak Easy Accent Modification in Springfield. Speak Easy teaches people how to change their accent so that clients, colleagues, strangers and even friends can better understand them. 1. What is Speakeasy?The Speak Easy program teaches fluent English speakers how to recognize and produce the sounds of standard spoken American English. As people feel more confident in their spoken English, their business, professional, and social interactions become easier and more successful.The Speak Easy program teaches fluent English speakers how to recognize and produce the sounds of standard spoken American English. As people feel more confident in their spoken English, their business, professional, and social interactions become easier and more successful.2. How did you get started - what made you decide you wanted to do this?3. How does this program work?A: Speak Easy accent modification training teaches you how to r