Offline Living – email, visualisation

Maybe this will become some sort of series, who knows….

another thing that occurred to me while offline is how annoying it is getting an invite to an event with a distribution list/bcc that you can't see the details of and then a few mails later geting a forward of the same mail from someone or even forwarding yourself to someone you think should go but not knowing if they got the original, thereby annoying them too….

Wouldn't it be nice if people were able to confidently use collaborative tools so that if I tried to forward it would tell me that Joe B was already invited ?

added to that is mail in general in our company, cross domain invites don't always work , inbox allowance is rubbish, performance is terrible if working remotely (which I almost always am) and as if Outlook isn't a bad enough tool already we are using Office XP which is ancient, al least 2003 has better connectivity options, better UI etc, everyone else is on that version it seems except us, it sucks.

Some MIT guys have done some nice work on visualising mail and I'd love to be able to run it against the Exchange servers we have, I'm sure some very interesting results would emerge…. oh and just before I start 'working' how about some people in our company get forced to adopt some of the principals of GTD (getting things done)

Offline Living – URLs Bookmarks etc

As you know I harp on about offline experience etc etc and am in that situation now on the Eurostar reading RSS feeds offline in the now firm favourite OnFolio, lots of cool features but it occurred to me that it would be even better if I could bookmark urls in articles I read that would then be automatically uploaded to del.icio.us when I get back to connectivity rather than locally to the browser (yuck) or saving it in my reading list which means I have to go back when online and do the work again.

 

I did try the option in OnFolio to save to Live Favourites but they didn’t make it, just as I expected as there was no connection to push them through so now i have a bunch of links in the new Favourites centre in IE7 that I’ll have to load and then post to delicious…

 

This could also work for subscribing to new feeds linked in articles that would then auto upload to my online OPML resource?

 

Any good? Am I missing a way to already do this? has someone already done it and I just haven’t found it?

 

 

ETel: Freedom to connect

Freedom to Connect by David Isenberg (nothing on the site as a last minute replacement)

does his opening skit in a Dr Seuss style which is fun – it’s all about how bad the telco is and we are soo bad and how freedom of speech is being impinged and how we want to toll everything

he is getting very animated – we’ve got to fight!

The internet has to be free – big claps for “you dont need big brother f%^&ing with you”

The next Motto “fat pipe, always on, get out of the way” and the crowd chants along

http://freedom-to-connect.net is about the Freedom to Connect conference, the crowd chants the new mantra again, and again, and again

when Sony does root-kit, NSA spying on you etc etc “it takes kids to keep the stupid network free”

all good fun

ETel: More Security stuff

CALEA – Wiretapping VoIP and Keeping Garage Innovators Down – Brad Templeton

More on how bad central orgs are at keeping telecom innovators down, and how we have massive resources to keep the garage developers down and that’s how we keep the ‘man’ down, very American slant to this

check out Calea here

all new systems must be certified by the FBI as being compliant for wiretapping

if you want to choose your cable provider you can, move house..

Whoo hoo and yeeha because EFF is going to file a lawsuit against all this, I’m really not sure where I sit on this, most propably on the EFF side but I have a nagging sense that there is a requirement to keep people/states safe and sometimes that might infringe, I’m not going gung ho but it’s a very dificult line to take and I find all the talk of why it’s so bad, the references to drugs being ok to hunt down unless you are a stoner ‘man’ !

The usual argument that there are so few people that need catching for whatever that it’s insane to spend so much money making sure that everyone can be tracked or tapped – then you can posit against this the argument “if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear”

Not getting involved in this one and certainly not giving it up for the man

ETel: Security on VoIP

Security on VoIP – Philip Zimmermann

Using the PGP servers as has a nice relationship, trying to do for VoIP what he did for email with PGP.

Looking at the way encrypted phone calls work under consideration at the IETF, 10 years ago created PGP for VoIP

Aim is to create disposable keys for each call so they can’t be retroactively used to decrypt calls after the event

Public key infrastructures have failed in general, to the degree that many went out of business

He gets a phone call which he answers “Hi, I’m giving a lecture so I can’t talk”

He wants to avoid PKI as not really used anywhere, he now gets into SSH and it’s too complex crypto talk for me…..

He ends with a statement that a public beta should be out at the end of February

ETel: The VoIP declaration of Independence

The VoIP Declaration of Independence – Rick Ringel

Who is Inter-tel and I have to ask yes who are they !

From the website:

Inter-Tel offers voice and data communications solutions for customers of all sizes, whether you are a large enterprise, small to medium business, or have residential home-based business needs. Inter-Tel’s diverse product line includes network communications solutions based on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, converged (IP PBX) platforms and IP-centric systems. Scalable deployment and migration opportunities enable our customers to grow and adapt their communications portfolio as their business needs change. Additionally, Inter-Tel’s belief in open, non-proprietary standards, such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), IEEE wireless and ITU voice standards, and more, helps protect your communications investments as technology changes. Most importantly, Inter-Tel recognizes that the true value in business communications is software applications that improve business processes and connect all the departments and resources of your organization into a single, cohesive unit.

He does a nice skit of changing some words in the original declaration of independence to suit VoIP etc – identity, mobility and the pursuit of innovation”

He then goes through each of these and explains why, it’s a good presentation.

the wrap up is

• there will be conflict
• there will be compromise

He close with a pledge that no-one engages in:

we mutually pledge to each other our Vision, our standards, and our…..