Turns out, I’ve already bought it at B&N. OK. My fault. Should’ve checked first. Initially, B&N said they wouldn’t be able to refund my purchase because audio books aren’t refundable. I wrote an email explaining that I understand that they couldn’t refund digital media because it isn’t returnable; once you buy it, there’s no way they can stop you from listening to it. However, I already own this media, so there’s no point in stopping me from getting a refund.

Guess what? They were pretty reasonable. They explained it would be a one-time deal, but they’d refund it to me. I really like when corporations listen to their customers and act reasonably. I know that it’s up to me to check whether I have media already before buying it.* Kudos to B&N for being reasonable.

* This is something many other stores do for you: maintaining a record of your digital library. My guess is that B&N will grow this feature in the future. Right now, it seems to be the trade-off you make for B&N’s cheaper prices.

Here’s what the same files look like under Firefox:

The HTML file I used to test this is:

The embedded SVG file is:

I’m basically trying to support MathML with SVG as a backup over at the circuit design site. I guess the 7% of visitors that use Chrome will have to deal.

Update 2010-1-3

I’m back to using Barnes & Noble. Every now and then, they have an ebook or MP3 audibook that’s way less than either eMusic or Audible. Also, I do know to look out for the WebLoyalty (etc) pitch, so it doesn’t bother me as much now.

Original Post

I’ve been pretty happy with Barnes & Noble as an alternative to Amazon. I just bought What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful and unfortunately found the following link to Webloyalty

Sigh. I have a hard time leaving Barnes & Noble; their discounts are good, but I’m afraid I might have to because of their affiliation with Webloyalty

I’ve been using Sprint’s 4G for almost a week. As I posted before, I didn’t particularly like their connection software popping up their start page every time I connected to their 4G network–especially since I had to connect several times on my train ride into the city. Don’t get me wrong, the Sprint SmartView software will auto-reconnect (although I’m still not sure how I got it to do so) in the background if your 4G signal gets dropped–except every time it does so, there’s the sprint start page again, completely interrupting your work.

I coworker had issues installing SmartView on his Windows 7 64-bit machine. (I’m running 64-bit Vista right now.) He read somewhere that ClearWire’s software will install on Windows 7. Since Sprint and ClearWire are the same 4G network (Sprint divested/invested in ClearWire), the software should work. So, I happily installed ClearWire’s software trying to “upgrade” from SmartView.

It didn’t work. What’s worse is that SmartView refuses to function. Even after a complete de-install/re-install. Even after deleting sections of the windows registry, and the Sprint sub-folder in my %APPDATA% folder. (For those of you who don’t know what registry and %APPDATA% are, be thankful, and just realize I was taking desperate measures to cope with broken software.)

As it turns out, one of our IT guys told us that the 32-bit version of Clear’s software seems to work with Sprint’s 4G network (meaning, it authenticates under a Sprint 4G account–Clear and Sprint have the same network). However, the 64-bit version doesn’t. That didn’t help my Win7-64 friend and I.

What did help immensely was this post at the sprint forums. This guy “manned up” and modified the Clear software so it’ll connect to the 4G network using a Sprint account:

And it worked for me! So, no more trying to get SmartView running again. This software is way better. It’s much smaller and less intrusive. Its default install automatically reconnects when the signal is dropped. It has more updated drivers, and it supports 64-bit Win7. It’ll connect using either the 4G or the 3G modems built into the U300 (which Clear also sells).

The lesson learned here is that Sprint is distracted by 4G. It’s not their main thing. They’re supporting a bunch of other devices, and they don’t invest as much in their SmartView software. However, 4G is all ClearWire does. It shows in their software’s usability.

Just an FYI: there are no guarantees to any of this working for you. Also, the buttons on the clear software “my account”, “my usage”, “my local” won’t work for me because I don’t have a clear account… but that might change.

ClearWire also supports the built-in Intel WiMax radio inside my Lenovo T400. So, I’m going to try out their service as an official subscriber. That means I give up connecting using 3G, but that’s not so bad. It’s almost worse to have the 3G backup, because your 4G connection will imminently drop, the software will connect you on 3G, and you’ll be stuck on 3G unless you manually reconnect to 4G. Also, the U300 works better with a proprietary Y cable (supplied by Sprint/Clear) that allows for more power; it’ll be nice to not have to worry about that cable.

Incidently: if you connect to Clear’s network (using Intel’s proset WiMax utility), you’ll get an offer for a 30-day free trial (until the end of the year)—which you won’t see on their home page or anywhere else. So, it pays to just try to connect and get the offer. You do have to agree that they get to send you emails during the 30-day trial period. I’ll post a follow-up with how ClearWire’s service looks (as an official subscriber), but for right now, I’m much more impressed with ClearWire than with Sprint.

That’s right: 5 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Except that by the time I reached the next station, the 4G was disconnected. I can’t say that this is due to Sprint’s 4G network, due to their software, or if it’s due to my laptop. Regardless, it’s annoying. I do have a couple firmware updates to install, though. I tried doing it last night, but I’m not exactly sure how to (the button to update didn’t seem to do the job.)

Another thing that’s annoying? After I reconnect, the Sprint Smartview software opens Sprint’s web site in my browser. This is mildly annoying when I have firefox up (it just adds another tab). However, it’s absolutely intolerable when I don’t, because I just want to get back to work, but instead, all of a sudden, firefox pops up with:

I’ve been looking for a way to stop SmarView from doing this, but I haven’t found it yet. Incidently, I had to reconnect twice while writing this post.

OK: make that 4 times. If anyone is wondering, I’m using the U300 (can’t tell if it’s Sierra Wireless or Franklin) modem. It supports both EV-DO and WiMax. It does not automatically hand over. I’ve also tried getting SmartView to auto-reconnect to WiMax, but that doesn’t work either. You have to manually reconnect when disconnected.

1.047 Mbps download isn’t bad. However, I’m extremely happy about the 657 kbps upload. That’s going to be some good VNC.

A little further out (near the Grand/Chicago stop on the Metra Milwaukee District West line), I got the following:

2.3 Mbps down and 731 kbps up. Nice! Hopefully, the connection holds stable.

I’d like to express my gross dissatisfaction with your association with WebLoyalty, Inc.

I noticed it recently when completing a purchase. You certainly know that most of your customers don’t gain any value in the services offered by WebLoyalty. In effect, it’s a scam that they will try to get out of in the near future. Most of your customers will be surprised that they unwittingly gave their credit card information to WebLoyalty through your web site.

If you want to beat Amazon and your other online competitors, customers need to trust your web site. They cannot do so when you present links to sites such as WebLoyalty that are notoriously nefarious [1][2].

[1] http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-207.htm
[2] http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/ecommerce-investigation-webloyalty.cfm

A few things strike me about the results:

1. It meets the 80/20 90/10 rule.
2. Twitter is basically a broadcast service–not a one-on-one messaging tool.

#2 strikes me because I’ve always seen myself as an outsider. I’ve always felt that there must be a large contingent of twitter users that use twitter to tell their friends where they’re meeting for drinks tonight.

I’ve told friends that the only thing they’ll get from me on twitter is spam. (That’s a bit facetious: I’d like to think that my blog posts have intellectual value that informing people that they can proffer money in exchange for retail products advertisements do not.) If I were a corporation, they’d be filled with tons of marketing.

I suspected that I’m not getting this utility out of twitter because my friends aren’t on there, sharing in dialog.

What I realize now is that there’s a sort of myth behind twitter: it’s generally being used as a broadcast medium. In that respect, it seems less useful for my socializing: I don’t really care what most of my friends are doing each night in Chicago. I’m not in Chicago most nights. If I have a night available to meet up with friends, I’ve already pre-arranged it.

Incidently, I learned about this post from http://twitter.com/HarvardBiz/status/1995340326

My difficulty with BlueHost is that you need to pay up-front: there’s no free trial term. I want to lock in this cheap hosting for as long as I can (3 years preferably), and BlueHost will reimburse you if you quit early. But I want to make sure I don’t regret the time I spend switching hosts—and I definitely don’t want to have to undo all my changes sometime in the future. If anyone has any experience with both DreamHost and BlueHost, let me know (in the comments for this post).

Here’s a comparison with the services I’d be interested in:

The “SORT OF” entry under Mail Filtering isn’t merely a pun: I just mean that both hosts provide mail filtering, but they don’t (for example) do custom sieve scripts.

Between DreamHost and BlueHost, the main difference is in off-site backups. BlueHost does not provide them, so I’d have to continue paying Amazon. (I use Jungle Disk’s interface to Amazon S3.) This isn’t so bad: Jungle Disk’s solution is set-and-forget, with very little intervention required. If I decided to use the FTP space that DreamHost provides, I’d probably go with manent. I haven’t tried it in a while, but it looks really good, and they’ve just added a Windows installer.

For SSL, BlueHost is better since they offer a shared SSL site and they offer unique IP’s (required for SSL) for cheaper than DreamHost. I don’t know if BlueHost provides SSH tunnelling. However, if I can use SSL, I don’t need it (I use SSH tunnelling to secure my HTTP traffic.)

I’ll probably stick with DreamHost for now. But, I’ll continue to obsess over BlueHost. If anyone has any information to tip me in either direction, I’d be relieved to hear it.

Mark Horstman says “Twitter, I don’t like it”

I’ve got to say that Mark Horstman at Manager Tools makes a point that I’ve learned surprisingly quickly. I am a member of twitter, identi.ca, and army.twit.tv. I have to say, though, that I generally use it as email. I do send updates of what I’m doing and done as I feel the need. (These updates sometimes also go to FaceBook and LinkedIn.) However, I don’t watch twitter all day long. I start Twhirl at the end of the day or when I need a break at work to see if anyone messaged anything cool during the day or if anyone responded to one of my messages.

I am also disappointed in its utility. The fact is that there are too many people saying “just walked my dog” or “ate breakfast” or “am going to sleep” to make it useful. These pedestrian messages are noise. I don’t learn anything from knowing that you ate breakfast.

Does it have to be this way?

Of course it doesn’t have to be this way: if people would generally post only useful or informative stuff (signal), then Twitter would be much better. Even then, though, I don’t see the utility of having the information in real-time.

I should say at this point that very few people I know are on Twitter. I basically go there just to see what’s out there, not to interact with my friends. I think it probably is a great tool for interacting with friends–especially ones that are nearby–so the real-time notification is more useful.

I have to say that I have good hopes for Yammer. I know I’ve posted things that are useful for those working at Motorola to Yammer’s Motorola group; of course, I’m biased. It seems that part of the problem is that Twitter is public: you start with a massive group of people and then try to find people that share your interests. What would be better is if you started your own group of people around some smaller conversation and then grew it to a larger size. I’m seriously thinking of doing this over at my CircuitDesign web site. To that extent, laconi.ca and OpenMicroBlogger seem to be uniquely suited.

The utility of Twitter

The utility of twitter/laconi.ca/openmicroblogger that make them better than email or mailing lists is that you are able to subscribe to specific people. If I post to twitter, not everyone gets that update–only people that want it. Contrast that with a mailing list, where if someone posts, everyone gets the update. Given that, I think it still has a unique value. I just don’t think it’s worth tracking in real-time.

I also think that twitter search is useful in finding topic posts that might interest you. Note that you can get an RSS feed for these searches that you can then read at your leisure.