Carl Tyler's Blog

Category : Hulu Playon
So what does Hulu Plus bring you for $9.99 a month?  
The key things that Hulu talks about are
* Current Season Ticket, watch every single episode of the current season of certain shows (mainly NBC, ABC and Fox)
* Access to Hulu content on other devices like the apple iPhone, iPad and Playstation 3

Now what they don't tell you is that much of the content you can watch on your PC from the regular Hulu website is not available through Hulu Plus. So imagine you use Hulu for watching Top Chef, or Warehouse 13, well you can't watch that on those additional devices, any content that comes from cable channels isn't on Hulu Plus.  Only the stuff that is on your regular Over The Air channels, so stuff you can watch on regular TV is available for free.

So what about the additional devices, true you can now watch Hulu plus (with it's limited content) on the apple devices, but get this, to use Hulu Plus at 9.99 on the PS3 you need to sign up for a new sony service Playstation plus, which is another 10 bucks a month.   So as far as I'm concerned Hulu Plus is a waste of money.

If you want to watch Hulu on other devices, I suggest you buy a copy of playon I've used it for about a year now and whilst it has issues every now and again, it works great most of the time, and they've just added support for ipods and iphones (I imagine they're working on iPad).  Playon works great with the PS3, XBOX and Wii, and provides access to tonnes of other online content that Hulu doesn't have.  Comedy Central for example.

So save yourself 10 bucks a month and avoid Hulu Plus.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 02:03:48 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category : iPhone Update
There are three things I'm looking forward to with the iPhone 4.1 update coming this week:
1. The thing that has irritated me most with the iPhone 4 is that it's been hard to use it as an iPhone.  Nothing to do with antenna issues, but a major issue with the proximity sensor, what this means is that you would put the iphone next to your head, and in previous iPhones this would disable the keypad, but with the iPhone 4 it didn't seem to acknowledge existence of my head, so I'd often find myself on speaker phone, hanging up, trying to make a facetime* call or punching in random numbers on the keypad.  It was enough to make me call apple support to make sure I could return the phone if this update doesn't fix it.

2. Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) support.  AVRCSP is a protocol standard that lets bluetooth devices control media playback on paired devices.  So what this means is that my Plantronics BackBeat903 track buttons will now work to control playback on the iPhone.  Lots of people bitched that this was a BackBeat problem, I wonder what they will say now that apple have fixed it?

3. High Dynamic Resolution (HDR) support for photos, in theory this should lead to better photos. with HDR, three photos are captured when you snap a picture, the three pictures are captured at different exposures, so if you had for example a picture of a mountain against a blue sky, in a regular iPhone photo you'll typically find the sky overexposed leading to the mountain appearing dark.  With HDR, the three images are kind of merged so your sky remains blue and your mountain can be built from the underexposed image leading to a much better photoe.    See here for some examples of differences http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/hdr-photos-ios/

*Facetime - this feature is a waste of space as it currently stands, the Nokia N800 years ago had video chat on a mobile device, but it suffered in that it only worked with other N800s and people that had installed specific software. Apple Facetime is even worse as it only works with other iPhone 4 users that are connected to a WiFi network, it can't even chat to a user using an apple mac computer.  Facetime will be dead as soon as Skype bring out an iPhone version that works wither other skype users.  If apple are smart, they'll bring out a Facetime update that lets it work with skype and ichat users pretty sharpish.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:03:06 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category : Bethany Alaska
It has nothing to do with Notes or Domino, it's all to do with an English teenager doing a semester at a US college in Alaska.  The blog is for none other than my Niece Bethany and can be found at http://www.bethanykingblog.com/, she says she'll try and blog every day so it will be interesting to see if she manages too.  I'm already jealous in that she's got to see the Northern Lights, and not so jealous she is already suffering from going from a country where she could legally drink to one where she isn't even old enough now to sit in the bar, poor thing. Enjoy.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 03:38:26 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category : SystemDisk Backup
As I blogged in the past, I've been really pleased with my Windows Home Server (WHS), I use it for so many things, it backs up all my machines, it runs a Domino Server that replicates key databases from other servers, it runs uTorrent, it's my media server, it's my iPad music server, you get the idea, this little box not much bigger than a Bible does a lot of things.  Recently it has been having issues though, the system drive had started to return errors writing to disk C, constantly logging bad sector failures etc. Now if this was a data disk that wouldn't be so bad as I could just remove it and replace it, but the C drive is the WHS system disk.

Now you can replace the system disk with a new one, and Microsoft provides a WHS system recovery disk, which basically creates a fresh install on a new system disk, whilst still keeping all the data nice and safe on those disks, but here's the problem, see I installed all those other apps on the WHS box, Domino, uTorrent, various WHS plugins etc.  Well if I just put in a new disk and run the system recovery I need to install and configure all those applications again, which would be a major pain in the arse.  There's been lots written on this on the web, with lots of amazement that Microsoft missed something so basic.  You may think you can just use something like disk cloning software and be all set, but it isn't quite that simple, various registry settings reference offsets, disk unique IDs and device names etc. that make it a little more complicated.  Fortunately the web comes to the rescue again, and someone has posted complete steps on how you can clone the WHS System Drive which can be found here How to successfully clone and upgrade a WHS system drive.  So using a couple of SATA USB adapters, I successfully followed these instructions and now have a new system disk in the WHS, twice the size, and my Domino server and all the apps are happily running.

Hopefully, the new version of WHS that is planned by Microsoft will address this.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:17:11 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category : SametimeMeeting Telephony
As many people know, we at Epilio do a lot of work building integration for companies between their Sametime Web Conferencing system and their telephone systems, we even do this for vendors, so you might very well be using some of the integration we built but just don't know it.  If you've ever wondered about the value of using a web conferencing system that is tightly integrated with a Telephone conferencing system watch this funny short video that Bilal Jaffrey posted a link to.




I'm sure anyone that has attended a telephone conference can associate with this call, but here's the thing it doesn't have to be that way.  If you use a system like Sametime integrated with a telephone conference bridge, these issues vanish, they evaporate, they disappear, they're gone!.  You can see who's entered the call, you can see who's typing loudly, you can see who dropped off,  you can see who's dog is barking, you can mute them, you can hang them up, you can invite in other people, you can lock the call, plus more, all from a simple easy to use interface, you get the idea. You want more productive telephone conferences, then take a look at a web conference with tightly integrated telephony.  Oh and as I'm forever telling people Sametime Unified Telephony(SUT) does not do this, SUT is for click to call, call routing etc. it has zip nada, zero web conferencing integration with Sametime web conferences.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 12:32:44 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category : iPad Surprises
For the last couple of weeks I've had access to an iPad Wifi (not 3G), here are some of my initial impressions:

• The iPad adapter is not your regular USB adapter.  It's expecting 10v to charge instead of the 5v that your typical PC, and USB adapter delivers.  So whilst Steve Jobs talks about standards, he likes to tweek them a little bit.  Apparently on the Mac this isn't an issue, as it' recognizes when an iPad is connected and outputs 5v.  Now I have discovered though, that if you do plug an iPad into a PC USB port and turn the screen off it will charge, very slowly.  But if you turn the screen on it will say "Not charging", so a bit like wondering if the light in the fridge goes off when you close the door, you have to believe me when I say it is actually charging, just very very slowly.
  
• I think they should have also put a connector socket on the side, this way you could put the iPad in a stand whilst it is in portrait mode, versus all the stands that have power which require the iPad to be in portrait mode, would make much more sense when using it to watch movies.
  
• The VPN client works great with my witopia.net account, which means that I can VPN into the Witopia UK servers and watch BBC shows on the iPad.  Sadly ITV and Channel4 use Flash, and we all know Steve Jobs hates the idea of Adobe stopping them from making money on Apps, so blocks Flash.  One of the places I most miss Flash is on the Flickr website, Flickr Screenshow uses Flash so it can't be used on the iPad.
  
• The iPad is still pre OS4 that is on the iPhone and iPod, it will be much better when it supports the mutli-tasking.  The thing I miss most though is the multiple mail account inbox.
  
• The device has no way to lock applications, or to put password protection on applications.  So imagine you have the device in your house, people come over you let them use it, they can go read your email, check your Facebook account etc.  The device really needs a way to lock applications, or support multiple user accounts. Otherwise, don't let anybody get that hands on it.
  
• No built in USB or camera SD card adapter.  This would be the perfect companion device for photographers, but you have to buy a separate adapter that can read SD memory cards.
  
• I blogged a while back about how finger prints on screens really bug me, so I have to install an anti-fingerprint screen guard, which also has the added benefit that it's anti-glare, which is essential for using the Foreflight application when flying.
  
• It's hard to go back to the iPhone's tiny screen after you use the iPad for a while.
  
• No ability to install additional video Codecs, for things like playing DiVXs.  My solution was to install TVersity on one of my PCs, which transcodes files on the fly, it also has the added benefit I can use it remotely, and also use it on the iPhone.
  
• Something I couldn't believe, but the iPad doesn't connect to the iPhone across bluetooth.  What I really expected, was if I saw a phone number in my iPads contact list, or within an email I'd be able to click it and have my iPhone make the call.  I can't believe that apple, the company that so many say is an innovator hasn't done something so simple.  If you jailbreak your iPhone and install something like MyWi that lets you use your iPhone as a wireless access point for your iPad, they are perfect companions, so I really wish they were setup to initiate phone calls, and in the same way, if I'm on the iPad and my iPhone rings, let a pop-up appear and let me choose to accept or send the call to voicemail.
  
• The iPad Wi-Fi model doesn't have a GPS chipset, it finds it location via the wifi network, it works well, but obviously has no idea where you are if there is no wifi network in the area.  Only the 3G model has GPS, I imagine the GPS chipset is shared with the 3G chip or something (It means I have to upgrade this iPad to the 3G model as I really need that GPS)
  
• Just after I got the iPad, I also received the Netbook which was my prize from the Twilio.  The Netbook is a Dell Inspiron 10N and has Ubuntu on it.  People that compared Netbooks and iPads (I wonder if I ever did that) don't get it.  The two whilst having some things in common are totally different, and their usage models are nothing alike.  It's a bit like comparing a bus to a car.  The bus comes pretty much as it is, it goes where it bus company wants it to go, and if it doesn't go to the place I want to, tough luck.  Don't get me wrong the bus goes to some great places, and more places appear everyday, but the bus company pretty much decides where that is.  The car on the other hand, well I can take that where I want, I can change the engine, repaint it, add more locks, remove locks, change the rims etc. Some of the places it goes to might not be as pretty as the places the bus goes to, but at least if someone wants to, they can try and get there.  Honestly, I think the Netbook would be more useful to me if it had Windows, I know Windows, I can connect to the network server without having to search Google, so would feel at home with it straight away.  If I was to give my mother a Netbook I'd be expecting support calls, if they didn't come then I know the netbook was sitting on a shelf somewhere not being used.  The iPad, just screams touch me, it's pretty intuitive for most things, and if I was to give one to my mother she'd love using it, I expect she'd be reading books with a larger font setting, checking facebook update, looking at pictures of the grand kids, watching BBC iPlayer and losing hours playing Solitaire and Spider and other card games.  Apart from the initial setup with iTunes I doubt I'd get any support calls either.

I'm not at the stage where I'd give up my laptop for an iPad, and to be honest, the iPad gets most usage in bed, where I use it to check email, catch up on google reader, and maybe watch a show before going to sleep.  I haven't really used it for any kind of note taking and haven't taken it to any customer meetings yet, to be honest for that kind of thing I still prefer a pen and paper.  But I can say it's a great device, it's well engineered, although has room for improvement, but it is a version one product so room for improvement is to always be expected.  So I don't use the iPad as much as many of my colleagues, but I do use it and am very grateful some kind considerate folks gave it to me as a very generous gift.

So with all the above comments would I recommend one?  Well it depends, what do you want to do with it?  As I said, I think this is the perfect device for people that find the computer a pain with too many menus and well it's just too easy to break, so for my Mum this is a perfect device.  If you want to run business productivity apps, and you don't want to run them by accessing a regular PC remotely then this probably isn't for you.  Maybe if you're only go to customers and present and only show Camtasia type movies for your demos then this could well be a replacement with a suitable, but if you need to show live apps, tweak things in apps etc. then probably not.

For pilots, this could be the killer device, for the same cost as a few charts you can buy an application like ForeFlight HD which brings sectional, IFR charts, IFR plates, weather and flight planning to the iPad.  A great application and hooks into the iPad GPS if it has it.

What are the apps, that I use most on it?

Netflix, BBC iPlayer*, TVersity Media Server*, Google Reader*, Facebook (actually still an iPhone app), ForeFlight, Civ Rev, FlightCtrl HD, LogMeIn, Scrabble, Enigmo Deluxe, SoundHound,

* These are all web browser apps, with iPad looking front ends.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 06:57:47 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (6) |      

Category : Sametime Advanced
With the arrival of Sametime 8.5.1, the Sametime Advanced plug-ins required some updates.  Pleased to say that IBM has these available already no need to delay your 8.5.1 deployments waiting for the advanced plugins.  There is a technote explaing how to deploy and get the the fixes, About IBM Lotus Sametime Advanced for Lotus Sametime 8.5.1

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:10:44 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category : Sametime Fix
Often when I take a look at customers Sametime servers, I'll often see a message along the lines of STT120MCU.EXE terminates abnormally shown on Domino console.  There are a few technotes on this error and even a couple of hot fixes, but customers still see the message after following the technotes and applying the hot fixes.

9 out 10 times I find the fix is actually really simple, in the names.nsf open the server document and go to the Internet Protocols tab, and on the HTTP tab below, make sure the Fully Qualified Host Name of the server is entered in the Host Name(s) field.  Reboot the server and see if the error goes away.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 07:26:55 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category : Sametime 8.5.1
Yes, it's true a technote appeared on the IBM site this morning titled "Can Sametime work with Internet Site enabled?".  For the last 10 years the answer has been no, now with Sametime 8.5.1 the answer is yes.  This is great news, although to be honest, the issue is becoming less important as the web meeting components for Sametime have moved to Websphere, so unless you're using Sametime Classic meetings it really didn't matter much.

So thank you IBM for doing something I predicted you would never get around to doing, but please next time, do it it a little sooner.  Next thing you know, they'll fix the IBM extst.ibm.com server.

Update: Looks like I may have been a little over excited, the technote says "Beginning with Lotus Sametime 8.5.1, the Sametime server supports Internet Sites configuration using a single Internet Sites document. "  HHmm, so does this mean your Sametime server can only have one internet site configuration?  Kind of pointless then, unless you only need this because you want to run traveller or something on the server.

Update on the Update:
The 8.5.1 Sametime Community server can be configured with multiple Internet Sites. The Community server will refer to a single site, but the underlying Domino server can use as many Internet sites as needed

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:45:07 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (10) |      

Category : Notes Domino

Yes read all the posts, yes this is a shameless ASW post and yes I have plenty of opinions on the matter, but honestly I don't care, I'm at the World Cup in South Africa and that is way more interesting!  I can tell you that the only Lotus Knows ad I have seen was at Boston (for E2.0 I think) on the way out, when on the departure level the sign said "Lotus Knows you landed" actually I was taking off as I was leaving.

Anyway, follow our "Three men and a world cup" blog at http://www.vvorldcup.com
Pictures at http://www.flickr.com/groups/vvorldcup/
Videos at You Tube

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:19:59 PM Location South Africa | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category : New Blog
As I mentioned in an earlier post,  I've setup a new blog and twitter account to post World Cup events during our travels in South Africa.

The blog is http://www.vvorldcup.com and the twitter account is vvorldcup  I've had the vvorldcup domain for a long time, and yes it is two Vs not a W, pretty sure FIFA would sue for worldcup.com

The blogging will be done by myself and my two fellow travellers, Chris Miller and Andy Higgins.  Interestingly enough we all have a very strong background in Instant Messaging technologies, so it was a tough call whether we should have gone with the vvorldcup website name, or created a new one The Three IMigos ha ha.

We're going to try and post videos and photos during our 5 week trip, it all depends on our connectivity over there.  Also word of warning, I may be a little less politically correct on that blog, so add it to your favourite RSS reader.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:33:33 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category : apple video
And you thought this blog had become a World Cup blog, ha, you couldn't be further from the truth, I actually just turned on www.vvorldcup.com for that (and yes that is two V's not a W) anyway back to the purpose of this blog.

So in the past I blogged a little bit about my Nokia N800, it was my device looking for a problem, kind of how I view an iPad for myself today if I was to get one.  One of the features the N800 had was a camera that could swivel around so you could use it to video to video chats.  But there was one major problem with the camera, it required Nokia client software on the PC if you wanted to communicate with a none Nokia N800.

So the first issue I see for apple's iPhone FaceTime app is interoperability, sure it lists a bunch of standards it supports, but until it chats to other video clients Skype, Cisco, Polycom etc.  It's only good for chatting to other iPhone users.  Sure a perfect world for apple where everyone owns an iPhone 4, but not one yet in touch with reality.

Why iPhone 4 FaceTime is good?  The camera is really close to the screen, this means you get less of that problem where when someone looks at your video you see their eyelids, it's much closer to what you see when you watch the news on TV, where the news reader appears like they are talking to you, hopefuly apple FaceTime won't have the condescending, I'm talking to a 3 year old tone that local news has in the US.

Why it's bad, it requires wi-fi, this is a mobile device, what if I'm a roving reporter in the middle of New Hampshire with no Wi-fi and I want to make a video call? Should I buy another iPhone that I can turn into a wi-fi hotspot so that my primary iPhone can make video calls?

You're going to have tired arms.  You need to hold the device away from your face, and lets be honest, unless you want to show the other person the inside of your nostrils, and how many double chins you have, you're going to be holding the device up and away from you, that becomes tiresome very quickly. Perhaps we'll see a market where harmonica holders are converted into iPhone holders.  Or perhaps you can do what this guy did for his Harmonica and build your own (Is it just me or does it look like that guy made that video in prison? Either that or he lives in a closet with a prison bed)

Why it's good?  It gets people more comfortable with video devices, and chatting to others over them.

Why it's bad?  Chat Roulette for the iPhone, really do I need to say more?

Why it's good? You can tell someone how much you love them on video.

Why it's bad? You can tell someone how much you love them, at 3am in the morning, when you're stinking drunk, so not only will you sound an arse, you'll look one too.

Why it's good? It came from apple, how can it be bad? (OK that is for fanboys, not cynical old me)

Why it's bad? You have to be dressed to take calls ( yes Dad especially you)

Why it's bad? It doesn't work with apples own iChat or iPad yet.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 10:05:05 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category : World Cup
It's three days until the World Cup kicks off, which means you have three days left to get your WorldCup-Pool entries in, it closes midnight June 10th.  On Saturday is one of the biggest games, USA vs England.  If you're in New Hampshire Saturday afternoon, please feel free to come by my USA vs England party, I admit the flags etc. may be a little biased towards England, what can I say? That's who I want to win.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:27:57 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category : Twilio Domino
I found out this morning I won the Twilio Developers contest with the Flying Club Booking System I built for the club.  

I found it interesting that in the write up I wrote for them, they removed my references to Domino and how it made it easy for me to build it, hhhmm, they also didn't publish my picture which they asked for.  Oh my God, it is like that old joke, "Should I tell my parents I still use Notes or I'm dating Carl?"

Still not to bad for a few weekends work from someone that tends to project manage more than develop.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:38:09 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category : WorldCup Brazil
Well I'm not really sure it's a crowd yet, but based on the 18 paid entries received so far in my World Cup Pool site, the highest picked team for winner of the WorldCup is Brazil, followed by England and Spain, with Portugal and Argentina picking up the rear.  England picks we can pretty much consider patriotic English folks like myself picking their home country, but Brazil and Spain haven't been picked by Brazilians and Spanish folks so I consider those selections a little more based on true belief.  It will be interesting to see how this changes in the remaining days that people can submit entries.  The 1st place prize money is up to $270 and steadily increasing, don't leave it to the last minute to take part.



If you're interested in seeing people's picks here they are http://www.worldcup-pool.com.  Anyone can create an entry, but you have to pay for the entry to be entered into the competition.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:42:45 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category : UC ineroperability
This new group Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF)

UCIF is a non-profit alliance of communications technology companies working together to realize the potential of unified communications (UC) by increasing efficiency, decreasing implementation costs and improving the interoperability experience for UC customers. The UCIF’s vision is to enable interoperability of open, standards-based UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers, and consumer clouds, as a means of generating incremental business opportunity for all stakeholders in the ecosystem and of increasing the business use of UC technologies and services. The UCIF creates and tests interoperability profiles, implementation guidelines and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing communications and business applications.

If you read between the marketing filler, it sounds promising, but I was surprised to see IBM are missing from the party http://www.ucif.org/AboutUs/OurMembers.aspx.  IBM should be all over these things, as an early creator of many of the UC protocols in use, seems crazy they aren't involved.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:03:43 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category : Sametime Sharepoint
I've had a few blog posts recently that have bitched a bit about Sametime, and to be honest I think with good reason, lately I have wondered what kind of QA process IBM has been putting Sametime releases through, do they have one?  So I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I setup something for a customer and low and behold, it worked first time, and as advertised (rare days in the recent release of Sametime).  The feature in question, Sametime awareness within Microsoft Sharepoint.  The customer in question is a pure Microsoft shop, no Notes, no Domino (apart from the Sametime server), definitely no WebSphere, they're all Outlook, they're all Office, they're all Sharepoint, not an IBM shop at all.  So it's always good to see Sametime being installed at a site like this.  

Whilst the Sametime integration install involves editing a few JavaScript files, it takes all of about 5 minutes, and after a Sharepoint restart, it just works.  So credit where credits due, this feature worked, and worked first time.  Sadly, the customer is planning on upgrading to SharePoint 2010 in about a month, and there isn't yet Sametime Awareness for Sharepoint 2010, so Sametime awareness in Sharepoint may be a short lived feature, until IBM issues an update..

Posted by Carl Tyler At 07:06:57 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (4) |      

Category : Plantronics Quote
Today I was happy to see my quote in the Plantronics press release endorsing their products working with IBM Lotus Sametime.

Epilio uses IBM Lotus Sametime to increase the effectiveness of its virtual workforce by integrating voice, data and video communications on the PC. "As an organization with no single physical office location, we rely heavily on our Unified Communications infrastructure to provide customers with the high level of expertise and responsiveness they expect. With the new Plantronics software we've experienced immediate usability and productivity benefits," said Carl Tyler, director at Epilio, "With its intuitive one-click call control functionality integration, the Plantronics endpoints have transformed our PCs into true audio platforms, allowing our employees to quickly switch between PC-based VoIP calls and customer telephone calls without missing a beat."

It was almost 20 years ago when I had my first experience with a Plantronics headset, which we wore for about 8 hours day in tech support, and the poor thing suffered through all sorts of bad language from customers having problems with their MLANDATAs, @IRR and OS/2 printing.  The headset had a funky clear plastic tube for the microphone.  The thing was very comfortable, and had a quick release and shirt clip, hate to think how many times that clip was clicked out of boredom when chatting with someone explaining how to use edlin to edit their autoexec.bat.

So skoot forward more than a few years to today where myself and my colleagues are now using Plantronic bluetooth headsets, and a Sametime plug-in that allows us to easily switch between being connected to our cell phones and Sametime.  We're  outfitted with Voyager Pro UC Headsets, which consists of a Bluetooth Headset and a USB dongle.  These headsets are very comfortable, in fact, (this is a true story) one of my guys even found himself in the shower wearing it as he had forgotten he had it on.  I quite happily move from the car to the office without even thinking about it, and I'm pretty fussy about having comfortable ears.  If you're a gamer I had no problem pairing this with the PlayStation 3.

Marlon Machado who often blogs on theSametime Bloghas a guest poston the plantronics site.
Read More

Posted by Carl Tyler At 05:15:31 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category : Airline Maths
So I'm sorting out my Boston - London Leg for my World Cup trip, and I have an unused airmiles ticket and an unused BOS-LHR ticket from last year, so I thought, well why not get the return leg on Airmiles and on the outgoing leg use the $ from the unused flight,  the return ticket I'd looked at was ~$1200 so I thought, a single must be about 1/2 - 2/3 that cost. Check out the price difference...

Return Price


One Way Price


What kind of crazy mathmatics is that?  I'll just take the return leg for $100 please.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 10:12:02 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category : UniversityWindsor Article
This appeared in my intelliwatch database this morning, a nice little hints and tips article at the University of Windsor.

Lotus Notes best kept secrets Part 1

Saying it's part 1, implies there might be more in the future...

Posted by Carl Tyler At 07:10:48 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |