Cal Net Technology Group Case Study

Cal Net Technology Group provides consulting for top college preparatory school in Los Angeles

Harvard Westlake, one of the top college preparatory schools in Los Angeles has a student body of 1,597. With such a large student body and faculty, the school needed a firewall solution in order to protect its’ data and students’ information.

Cal Net to the rescue! Harvard Westlake and Cal Net developed a work strategy in order to fulfill the technology problems that the school was experiencing. With Cal Net’s regularly scheduled technical assistance and rotating specialists, Harvard Westlake can now implement technology faster while also keeping costs affordable.

CLICK HERE to view the case study: Cal Net Technology Group provides consulting for top college preparatory school in Los Angeles.

FCC Survey Reveals Nearly a Third of Americans Don’t Have High Speed Internet at Home

An article on LATimes.com today discussed a survey by the FCC that revealed some very interesting statistics about Americans and Internet usage. After finding that 93 million Americans do not have a high speed Internet connection at home, the FCC decided to survey over 5,000 Americans to find out more. The following is a summary of what they found:

• 36% of adults said they don’t have a connection because of the high cost
• 15% said they couldn’t afford a computer
• 9% said they didn’t want to enter a long term agreement
• 22% of those who don’t have Internet access said they “lack ‘digital skills’”
• 12% of those surveyed stay away from the Internet because of a fear of potential hazards
• 19% of non-users said that the Internet was a waste of time

The survey results will be used in the FCC’s “National Broadband Plan” that they will be presenting to Congress next month.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

Google Buzz Review

I’ve been hearing a lot of negative talk surrounding Google Buzz ever since Google started rolling it out so I thought I’d do some investigation and post a review for those interested in learning more about it.  Essentially, Buzz is a social networking tool of sorts that allows you to post text, pictures and media. People can then follow you and you can also follow them. Again, it’s built like a social network.

You can also post to the general public, similar to Twitter. Of course, by public it means anyone with a Google account.  Same thing applies to followers–must have an account. Interestingly, you can use Buzz as an aggregator so that each time you post something to Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc., it automatically will update Buzz as well.

Although you are allowed some privacy controls, it’s a little confusing and even limiting. As people’s lives become more and more public as a result of social networks, it’s important that privacy controls be clear and easy to understand. Remember the problems Facebook had? CLICK HERE for a video review by ComputerWorld.

Am I the only one that feels that Google shouldn’t have ever bothered with creating Buzz? I mean, whatever happened to Google Wave? Do people use it? Do YOU use it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. I think both Buzz and Wave require fixes and updates which makes me wonder why Google would release both in less than a year, neither of which are great.

CLICK HERE for a more thorough review.

10 Worst Technology Predictions

Readers of this blog know just how much I love lists, especially ones related to technology or IT. Towards the end of 2009, everyone was making lists about the decades/years best whatever. Many were making predictions as well. However, predictions don’t always come true. In fact, some of just down right suck.

The following are the top 10 Worst Technology Predictions compiled by L. Gordon Crovitz of WSJ:

“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments,” said Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D. This end-of-progress view has been echoed many times, including by Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, who in 1899 said, “Everything that can be invented has already been invented.”

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys,” Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night,” Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most,” IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home,” Ken Olsen, founder of mainframe-producer Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer—640K ought to be enough for anybody,” Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981.

“Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput,” Sir Alan Sugar, British entrepreneur, 2005.

If you happen to know of any (as I’m sure there are many) missing from this list, I’d love to read them in the comments below.

Techy Holiday Gift Guide

If you’re at all like me, then you probably dislike shopping–especially around the holidays. You can’t find parking, can’t find gifts and have to wait forever to checkout. Thankfully you could always shop online and avoid all of that!

However, the toughest part is figuring out what to even buy. If you have a geek in your life that you’re shopping for, or just a general tech-lover, then you should definitely CLICK HERE and check out CNET’s 2009 Ultimate Holiday Tech Guide. I hope it helps!

Improving Transportation with Technology

One of my favorite things about being a “tech geek,” or just working in the field of IT and computer services, is knowing how much potential there is in the field of technology to improve and advance.  This occurred to me earlier today when I came across an article on “Five ways technology can transform transportation.”

Living in Southern California means I’m automatically interested in what can be done to improve or “transform” transportation so I read through it.  The writer of the article, Steve Dickerson, offered the following:

Generally, the only hardware required would be a smart phone such as a BlackBerry or iPhone equipped with GPS and radio frequency (RF) communications, cellular and Bluetooth-type technology. For some applications GPS is not needed; any modern cell phone will do. The other basic assumptions are that shared rides include carpools, vanpools, buses, and rail transit; and shared cars such as ZipCar will be available. Commuters would subscribe to a cellular-based transportation support system much as with their current telephone and energy utilities, running an appropriate transportation application on their phone. What can be accomplished?

1. Passengers can know with near certainty the arrival time of a shared vehicle.

2. Passengers can arrange for a shared ride or car with ease.

3. High-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes can be implemented with little more than marking of lanes as now done for HOV lanes.

4. All payments for shared rides and cars and tolls can be automated as a utility.

5. Shared cars can be any personal car.

Knowing vehicle arrival time is the simplest and most obvious. Transit becomes more attractive if master phones report the location of vehicles and travelers know when the vehicle will arrive at their pick-up point.

He continues to explain the advantages to developing such a system including safety and the overall improvement of traffic congestion.  For a short piece, it’s rather dense, but I highly recommend you read it if you’re at all as interested as I am.

CLICK HERE for the full article.

Ladies and Gentlemen … The Paper Battery

If you ever doubted what technology is capable of, the paper battery is proof not to.  After the death of print, or so they say, scientists decided to create a new use for paper–energy storage!  It’s lightweight, high-performance and made of silver and carbon nanomaterials. Oh and did I mention it’s low-cost?

Paper batter technology can be used for the following:

• Powering electric or hybrid vehicles
• Making electronics lighter in weight and last longer
• Portable and wearable electronics
• Applications that require instant high power
• Grid-connected energy storage

And the list goes on …

The Pros and Cons of Google Wave

I’d like to start off by admitting that I have not used Google Wave. I’ve had the opportunity to request an invitation from a friend but decided to pass on it because I didn’t feel I needed it at the time.  However, being a fan of Google in general and having an interest in new technology, I thought I’d at least do some research and read up on it.  I came across a pretty interesting article at InformationWeek.com titled “Is Wave a ‘Concept Car’ for Google?” In the article, author Mitch Wagner describes his experience with Google Wave and the various pros and cons he’s encountered–mainly pros.  However, the con (yes, there is really just one con that he focuses on), is a pretty important one and that is: email is universal.  In other words, the reason Google Wave won’t gain serious traction anytime soon is because majority of the world is too accustomed to email whereas Wave is far more complex for the average person.  The pros focus primarily on the use of Wave in a group setting–more specifically, a business setting.  They are as follows:

• You don’t have to worry about “threading” because conversations are stored on a server so everything is kept intact.  This means you can add someone to the conversation at any point and they will be able to go back and comfortably read through and catch up on everything.
• You don’t have worry about “versioning” because anyone on a Wave (a.k.a a single conversation) can add to a document so you don’t have different versions floating around.
• One of my favorites: because all of the Waves live on the server, the consumption of IT resources is reduced.

Ultimately, Wave combines email, wikis, discussion boards and instant messaging all in one platform.  It’s just not the simplest and easiest platform to use.

CLICK HERE to read Wagner’s full review.

Increase in Business PC Sales Due to Windows 7

A recent report by Dell revealed that there’s been an increase in demand for business PCs.  Right before the release, Dell had actually seen their sales in business PCs fall.  Windows 7, however, gave businesses a reason to purchase them sooner than later.  Not only that, but the demand has remained steady for about a month now–with an increase in sales expectations running from 80% to 110%.  Prior to the release, many were speculating that businesses wouldn’t bother updating their machines for Windows 7.  Looks like they were proven wrong.

CLICK HERE to read more.

“Top 10 Internet Blunders” by Time Magazine

Did you ever stop to wonder why URLs have those forward slashes? I mean, are they really necessary? Well, they’re not … and this is according to the creator of the World Wide Web.  Now I know you’re going to think I must be obsessed with lists, but I promise you I’m not.  I’ve just been getting a kick out of reading about all the various screw ups that have occurred technology wise throughout history.  Given that it’s Friday and you’re already planning your weekend I thought I’d keep this post fairly light. CLICK HERE to read about the “Top 10 Internet Blunder” by Time.com.