So one of my colleagues bought the new Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station for work but the Network Security Guru wasn't going into the office until after the weekend, so he lent the APE router to test to see if it's the right device for me.
I'll skip the beautiful aesthetics of the unit and cut straight to the features and functionality. At first glance, the setup was easy...it was slightly more technical than your average Apple setup wizard, but given the highly-technical nature of this type of device, that can be forgiven. At first, I noticed that many of the router options were not present. It wasn't until after awhile that I discovered that I was playing in the "simple" mode and not the advanced "manual" mode where all the advanced security settings were hiding.
After I got that figured out I started playing with the security settings. I should first mention that anyone who has used a typical router admin screen from Linksys or D-Link, using the Airport Utility is completely different since the admin requires a software application and the router cannot be configured via a web admin. Since it's an application, it looks completely different than your average web admin, so it may be confusing if you've configured other routers.
That being said, I actually found it a bit more difficult to find some of the settings I'd normally be able to find pretty quickly, such as MAC address filtering, shutting off SSID broadcasting, dialing down signal strength, etc.
One HUGE absolutely annoying issue I was running into was that any setting that I made and updated the router required a reset of the router, which meant it rebooted...and rebooting the device was not a fast process.
In addition, I had to reset the router 3 times to its default factory settings before I got my settings to work properly and finally stick.
Okay, so since I don't have a working printer, but I do have a USB hard drive, I gave the Airport Disk a try. At first I plugged in the drive into the USB port of the router, and something didn't happen right. I'm not quite sure but the USB drive did not show up in the Airport Utility admin. I had to reset the router...again, and then it finally showed up.
Setting up the security for the Airport Disk was easy and worked flawlessly with my MacBook Pro. I was able to see the disk, and was restricted to my assigned share. Data transfer was BLAZINGLY FAST, even in mixed mode (b/g/n compatible). I transferred a 12 GB VMWare image that was on the USB drive and it took about 11 minutes. I then transferred about 70 image files that were about 700 kb each to the USB drive and it performed that transfer in under a minute. The speed of data transfer was better than what I had hoped.
One other strange kept occuring...I had set up the router as it's own wireless network. When I went to switch wireless to and from my main wi-fi network, it wouldn't show the Airport Disk when I browsed my network until I performed a reset of the router. It was able to connect to the router fine, but I had to nudge it to get the disk to show up.
Okay, after figuring out that I should be using WPA/WPA2 Personal as my WPA setting, I finally got my 2 Windows PCs to connect to the network. It was excruciatingly difficult for my older eMachine laptop to connect mainly because of the older WPA setting would only work with its wireless network adapter. By big beef is with the inability for my Windows machines to see the Airport Disk on the network. I wasn't able to browse to it through a Windows Explorer through the "browse entire network" option, but I was able to connect to it by its UNC path. It worked but it wasn't very fast trying to connect to it. When I finally connected to the drive, I browsed to those image files that I had placed on the USB drive and tried to browse through them through the Filmstrip view in Explorer. It took several seconds for each preview to be generated on-the-fly so it was faster than my existing Buffalo NAS device, but it's not as fast as I had hoped.
I was conclude that as far as Airport Disk functionality was concerned, file transfer was good, and definitely as expected, if not better. Using it as a file server, it may not be as good as a real file server.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Why Customer Service Sucks...
Do you ever wonder why we, the consumers, get such crappy customer service? Why we're kept on hold, in a call queue, for minutes on end...and then encountered by a customer service rep that doesn't seem to care?
It's because companies want it that way.
Customer service levels are kept at a minimum satisfactory level because it's actual cheaper to provide lower levels of customer service. The bean counters actually have the numbers to back it up. If you spend less time on a call with a customer, you get through more calls. If a call rep spends more time on the phone going above and beyond to help customers, it actually costs more to provide that higher level of customer service.
Okay, so shouldn't a customer service manager be concerned about low customer service levels? Shouldn't it be their mandate to provide better levels of customer service? Doesn't common sense tell you that better customer service will make people happier? Happier customers = customers who purchase more? Don't customers pass on customer service experiences, both good and bad? One would think that if a customer had poor customer service experiences, that they would go to the competition. Apparently lowering your level of customer service will save you enough money to cover any losses due to customers defecting.
Does this sound far-fetched? Maybe...but the VP at the company I work for has told its customer service department managers that their customer service levels are TOO HIGH. Yes, TOO HIGH!!! I've heard that statement from more than one person and on more than one occasion.
I don't think this VP is an evil person, I think he has a mandate, and an agenda, but it's hard to argue with real numbers that fly in the face of common sense and doing what's good for people. So does that mean he's a bad person for not doing what's right for the customer? I'd like to think that operating costs shouldn't be cut and customer service levels shouldn't be cut...but maybe companies should provide better quality, better service, things that will drive customers to their products.
It's because companies want it that way.
Customer service levels are kept at a minimum satisfactory level because it's actual cheaper to provide lower levels of customer service. The bean counters actually have the numbers to back it up. If you spend less time on a call with a customer, you get through more calls. If a call rep spends more time on the phone going above and beyond to help customers, it actually costs more to provide that higher level of customer service.
Okay, so shouldn't a customer service manager be concerned about low customer service levels? Shouldn't it be their mandate to provide better levels of customer service? Doesn't common sense tell you that better customer service will make people happier? Happier customers = customers who purchase more? Don't customers pass on customer service experiences, both good and bad? One would think that if a customer had poor customer service experiences, that they would go to the competition. Apparently lowering your level of customer service will save you enough money to cover any losses due to customers defecting.
Does this sound far-fetched? Maybe...but the VP at the company I work for has told its customer service department managers that their customer service levels are TOO HIGH. Yes, TOO HIGH!!! I've heard that statement from more than one person and on more than one occasion.
I don't think this VP is an evil person, I think he has a mandate, and an agenda, but it's hard to argue with real numbers that fly in the face of common sense and doing what's good for people. So does that mean he's a bad person for not doing what's right for the customer? I'd like to think that operating costs shouldn't be cut and customer service levels shouldn't be cut...but maybe companies should provide better quality, better service, things that will drive customers to their products.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Let's talk about DRM baby, let's talk about you and me....
As you've probably seen, Steve Jobs posted a manifesto on the iPod, iTunes, DRM, and the evil record companies.
My co-workers and I had a healthy discussion about the posting. I won't go into detail about what Jobs posted, but he played the victim of being bound to the big 4 record companies' demands (Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner) that all their songs that are for sale on the iTunes Store must have DRM, and that despite the European Union's whining about the iPod being tied to iTunes Store, it's not Apple's doing. If that's the case, why aren't they nagging Microsoft about their Zune device being tied to the Zune Marketplace?
Anyway, my co-workers and I were talking about Jobs insistence that the world would be a better place without DRM. If you, the consumer, had the choice between downloading music wrapped in DRM, or music that was DRM free, which would you choose? If you had to pay a premium for the DRM-free music, like say 20-25%, would you still buy it? What if you had to buy the album to get DRM-free music, whereas singles were wrapped in DRM?
What would it take to get the record companies to give up DRM, since, according to Jobs, DRM doesn't work? My co-workers and I bandied about suggestions that either the artists, the consumer, or the record companies are the impetus for change.
Let's discuss...
The consumer as the impetus for change? Doubtful since the record companies don't really care about the consumers since they have no qualms about suing them.
The record companies aren't going to change their tune unless they're given reason to, which is money. If they're given reason to believe that DRM-free music will produce more sales, then they'd go for it. But given that there's no evidence to support that hypothesis, that's probably not going to happen soon.
The artists as impetus for change? Possibly. The artists are the record company's golden goose. Without artists, the record company can only sell back catalog. If there were enough artists, and I mean major artists of the calibre of U2, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, artists with a large and lucrative back catalog, left their labels and went independent, and sold their music online DRM-free, do you think the labels would pay attention?
There are some artists who have gone independent and formed their own label, including one of my favorite bands, the Barenaked Ladies. In fact, you can download their performances of their current tour and previous tours from Nettwerk in DRM-free, MP3 format. If you want the iTS flavor, you can get the same performances from the iTunes Store but wrapped in DRM. If the price for each of the albums were the same, which would you choose?
What about giving away DRM-free singles to sell the albums? While iTunes has a free download every week, it's still wrapped in FairPlay DRM which means you can only share the music with 5 computers. The giveaway is to a.) discover new music; b.) get you to buy the album; and c.) get you to explore the iTunes Store. While the download is free, you're still bound by the iTS terms and conditions.
I think we're all in agreement as consumers, that the current landscape of music sucks, both in quality and legal bounds, so who's going to make the ground-breaking moves to make ripples of change in the music industry?
My co-workers and I had a healthy discussion about the posting. I won't go into detail about what Jobs posted, but he played the victim of being bound to the big 4 record companies' demands (Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner) that all their songs that are for sale on the iTunes Store must have DRM, and that despite the European Union's whining about the iPod being tied to iTunes Store, it's not Apple's doing. If that's the case, why aren't they nagging Microsoft about their Zune device being tied to the Zune Marketplace?
Anyway, my co-workers and I were talking about Jobs insistence that the world would be a better place without DRM. If you, the consumer, had the choice between downloading music wrapped in DRM, or music that was DRM free, which would you choose? If you had to pay a premium for the DRM-free music, like say 20-25%, would you still buy it? What if you had to buy the album to get DRM-free music, whereas singles were wrapped in DRM?
What would it take to get the record companies to give up DRM, since, according to Jobs, DRM doesn't work? My co-workers and I bandied about suggestions that either the artists, the consumer, or the record companies are the impetus for change.
Let's discuss...
The consumer as the impetus for change? Doubtful since the record companies don't really care about the consumers since they have no qualms about suing them.
The record companies aren't going to change their tune unless they're given reason to, which is money. If they're given reason to believe that DRM-free music will produce more sales, then they'd go for it. But given that there's no evidence to support that hypothesis, that's probably not going to happen soon.
The artists as impetus for change? Possibly. The artists are the record company's golden goose. Without artists, the record company can only sell back catalog. If there were enough artists, and I mean major artists of the calibre of U2, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, artists with a large and lucrative back catalog, left their labels and went independent, and sold their music online DRM-free, do you think the labels would pay attention?
There are some artists who have gone independent and formed their own label, including one of my favorite bands, the Barenaked Ladies. In fact, you can download their performances of their current tour and previous tours from Nettwerk in DRM-free, MP3 format. If you want the iTS flavor, you can get the same performances from the iTunes Store but wrapped in DRM. If the price for each of the albums were the same, which would you choose?
What about giving away DRM-free singles to sell the albums? While iTunes has a free download every week, it's still wrapped in FairPlay DRM which means you can only share the music with 5 computers. The giveaway is to a.) discover new music; b.) get you to buy the album; and c.) get you to explore the iTunes Store. While the download is free, you're still bound by the iTS terms and conditions.
I think we're all in agreement as consumers, that the current landscape of music sucks, both in quality and legal bounds, so who's going to make the ground-breaking moves to make ripples of change in the music industry?
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Everything old is new again...this old Newt
So for nostalgia sake, I dug up my Newton 2000 and got it to sync with my MacBook Pro. It used to sync with my Powerbook without issues via a USB-serial adapter.
For some reason my MBP wouldn't recognize the adapter...I couldn't remember if it needed a special driver. I dug out the mini CD (why do they distribute software like this) and had to stick it in an old skool CD drive because the slot-loading SuperDrives don't do the mini CDs. Of course the drivers were not Universal Binaries. Luckily I found the USB-serial adapter manufacturer website and they had an updated Universal Binary driver. I downloaded it, installed it, rebooted and all was good.
I've no idea why I have these periodic moments of nostalgia, especially with my Newton. I can think of many reasons not to even waste the effort on using it, nevermind getting it to sync with my Mac, getting it access the internet, or getting it hooked up with Wi-Fi. But then, does Apple have a tablet (ModBook excepted), a PDA (wait, that would be the Newton), or any other portable, pen-based device? It's probably a reason why I'm pretty excited about the iPhone...mainly because I know that in a couple of hours, I'll put the Newton back in the drawer and won't see it for another 8 weeks again.
In a previous post I mentioned that my Palm had been resurrected from the dead and is now undead. But it's still not what I'm looking for, mainly due to the limitations Graffiti.
So why the iPhone, especially since it's not pen-based, is more of an entertainment device than a proper office tool? Probably because Microsoft products remind me of work, and having a personal device with Windows just reminds me more of work.
For some reason my MBP wouldn't recognize the adapter...I couldn't remember if it needed a special driver. I dug out the mini CD (why do they distribute software like this) and had to stick it in an old skool CD drive because the slot-loading SuperDrives don't do the mini CDs. Of course the drivers were not Universal Binaries. Luckily I found the USB-serial adapter manufacturer website and they had an updated Universal Binary driver. I downloaded it, installed it, rebooted and all was good.
I've no idea why I have these periodic moments of nostalgia, especially with my Newton. I can think of many reasons not to even waste the effort on using it, nevermind getting it to sync with my Mac, getting it access the internet, or getting it hooked up with Wi-Fi. But then, does Apple have a tablet (ModBook excepted), a PDA (wait, that would be the Newton), or any other portable, pen-based device? It's probably a reason why I'm pretty excited about the iPhone...mainly because I know that in a couple of hours, I'll put the Newton back in the drawer and won't see it for another 8 weeks again.
In a previous post I mentioned that my Palm had been resurrected from the dead and is now undead. But it's still not what I'm looking for, mainly due to the limitations Graffiti.
So why the iPhone, especially since it's not pen-based, is more of an entertainment device than a proper office tool? Probably because Microsoft products remind me of work, and having a personal device with Windows just reminds me more of work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)