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Tuesday, December 1
3Com is launching a new commercial called "Express
Lane" to publicize the advantages of 56K modems. The
commercial will appear during Monday Night Football, 60
Minutes, CNN Headline News, and other outlets.
I'm all for the publicity. Most people were scared away
from buying 56K modems early on because of scare pieces in
magazines that emphasized the bad news. Many ISPs were quick
to downplay 56K in anticipation of the problems that modem
upgrades bring, both on the client and server ends.
Version 2.2 of the Linux
kernel will be out by Christmas. This is the first new,
non-developer release of the kernel since 1996. The new
release will support V.90 modems and cable modems. For all
things Linux and nerdy, head over to slashdot.org,
one of the coolest geek sites on the net.
Free stuff rocks! Here's why...
Raph's
Laws of Gaming is a guide to the culture and design of
multiplayer online games.
One of my favorite of the rules is Dr. Cat's Theorem:
"Attention is the currency of the future." Part of the
appeal of free
software and free
services is that being free gets attention, then
mindshare, then marketshare. That explains in part why
companies are offering free
email, free
web hosting, free
domain hosting, free
Usenet newsfeeds, and other
free stuff.
Prohosting.com,
for instance, offers free web hosting with your own domain.
They're upfront about the fact that what
they really want is publicity for their paid hosting
service.
Read this month's Wired for a look at how Hotmail
became the fastest-growing service in history by giving away
email service. Hotmail gave away so many email accounts that
Microsoft decided to buy them for $400 million. If you want
to sell a service on the Internet, you had better decide how
you're going to compete against companies who are giving it
away.
I put one toe in the free water by offering free web
space for Daniel Rosenzweig's Call
Waiting and Modem FAQ. It works out for both of us. He
gets free space and more traffic than he would get by
posting the FAQ on his home page, and 56k.com gets another
feature to attract readers. I'd be glad to host other
modem-related FAQs and articles. Just shoot me an email.
Don't click here!
Whatever you do, don't
click on this link! Otherwise you'll have to hit the OK
button about 100 times. It's pretty funny, though.
Friday, December 4
Joe Phillips tipped us off that 3Com had finally released
USB
drivers for the U.S. Robotics External Fax Pro USB
modem. Added 10:30 AM
EST.
Joe Smith notes that MaxTech doesn't have a V.90 upgrade
for the XPVS56I / T2 modem, but they will replace it with a
V.90 model for a $7.95 S&H fee. More details on
this
MaxTech page.
Kansmen's ISDN
Accountant software tracks B channel usage, a useful
thing if your telco bills B channel usage by the hour. It
also has features to allow bosses
to track which employees are using the Internet and for how
long.
3Com Palm VII
3Com's Palm
VII will offer wireless contact with the Internet,
though most people wouldn't call it surfing. Wireless emails
will be short - 500 characters at a time - with no
attachments. Built-in compression will reduce transfer
times. The messages must be sent to your palm.net email
address. Prices start at $9.99 per month for 50 kilobytes of
transfer.
Wireless access to web information will require the web
site store their information in a special format called web
clippings. Each type of information - stock quote, plane
reservations, etc. - will require a separate query
application to retrieve it. 3Com's press release mentions
twenty-two companies that have signed on to provide web
clippings, but that doesn't begin to cover the nearly one
billion pages on the World Wide Web.
Henry Norr weighs in with more information over on
Macintouch.
- David has a Xircom Realport 10/100 + 56K PCMCIA for
$200.
- Jim Delong has a KTX 56KFlex/V.90 ISA for $10 (you
have to disconnect the phone line to make it hang up,
though)
- Josh Carruth has a Supra Express 56e V.90/Flex
Shotgun modem for $95.
- L. Werner has a Motorola BitSurfr Pro ISDN terminal
adapter for $125 and a ZyXEL P100U ISDN Router for
$250.
- Gordon Trammel has a New Media Corp. ISDNSurfer
terminal adapter for $100.
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