As this post goes live on the web, I am giving a presentation on How to Choose a Smartphone at the West Sound Technology Association meeting. I’ve actually been working on this presentation since November. Nice to finally give it. You can watch me give the presentation on ustream and/or download the slidedeck:

• Choosing a Smartphone (PPT)
• Choosing a Smartphone (Keynote)

The presentation covers the various things that go into choosing a smartphone, which unfortunately includes a lot of other things than the phones themselves–the operating systems they run, the network operators that sell them, and so on. It is specific to the United States and the major operators (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile). Smaller operators are not included because they are not available in this area. Prepaid operators aren’t included because, quite frankly, none of them are selling smartphones yet

One of the challenges I had with doing this presentation is that the information relevant to making such a decision changes almost daily. The phones change, either because new ones are introduced, old ones are discontinued, coverage changes, or even available software updates for existing phones. It’s hard enough for someone like me who tracks the industry to sort through it all, much less someone less informed who’s just trying to make an intelligent decision about what they should buy.

The problem is, no matter what you buy today, there’s always going to be something better tomorrow. Thus, whatever you choose to buy, buy the phone for what it can do today, not what you think it might do tomorrow.

The folks from Able Planet sent me a pair of their new entry-level Active Noise Canceling Headphones to review. Considering my bad experience with noise canceling headphones in the past, I was probably an ideal test subject for these sorts of things.

The way that noise canceling headphones generally work is that they analyze the ambient audio in the room and send a sound that is the exact opposite of the ambient noise. The end result: you don’t hear the ambient noise. However, sound waves are still hitting your ears.

While I do a reasonable amount of air travel–probably the most ideal place to use these headphones, given the relatively constant, loud drone of the jet engines–I went for a place almost as loud and with variable noise–the local Starbucks where I often spend my afternoons working. While it certainly does not cut out all the noise, it does lower it noticeably. The lowered background noise made it possible to listen to my music and podcasts at a lower volume. However, I find the white noise added by the headphones to be distracting in quieter parts of my music/podcasts.

The $129 list-price headphones (though you can get it for ~$70 if you shop around) come with a handy dandy carrying case and a number of plug adapters, allowing you to plug these headphones into an airplane, your MP3 player, or a component stereo system. I think they’re pretty nice, do what they say on the tin, and are competitively priced.

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One of the products I was most excited about finding out shortly after I joined Check Point was Abra. I’d be more excited if we were shipping the product–that is expected to happen at the end of March–but at least it’s announced so I can talk about it a bit more freely

The product is pretty simple: you can walk up to any computer, plug your USB stick in, and access a secure virtual environment complete with connectivity to your corporate Intranet, access to applications installed on the host computer, hardware encryption, and simple, centralized management. Abra gives you all this and more!

The technologies that are being employed here are not entirely new. What is unique is how it is all tied together. SSL VPN products (including Check Point’s own Connectra) have had the concept of a “Secure Workspace” for quite some time. When you connect to the SSL VPN gateway, you are allowed to run local applications and connect to remote resources. However, the apps operate in a kind of sandbox that restricts how you can get data into and out of the sandbox and what happens to the sandbox after the connection terminates (usually, it disappears).

Now, instead of writing the sandbox data on the local drive, move that onto a USB thumb drive that contains both hardware and software encryption. Add autorun capabilities so that when you insert the thumb drive, you are immediately prompted for authentication, taken into the secure workspace, and automatically connected to the corporate network. Meanwhile, the secure workspace and VPN settings are centrally managed using your existing Check Point Security Gateways.

I’m really excited about the future of this product! You can find out more on the Check Point Abra product pages.

One of my personal complaints with the prepaid industry in the US is the fact that while voice minutes have gotten reasonably cheap, data is still somewhat of a crapshoot. It’s expensive, if it’s available at all. Especially on mobile handsets. I’m looking at you, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Meanwhile, the folks from Virgin Mobile USA (which is supposed to be owned by Sprint any day now) have come up with a mobile broadband plan that is at least on-par with a typical contract data-only plan. For $60 a month, you can get up to 5GB of data that you can use for 30 days. There are lower-priced plans also ($40 for 1gb, $20 for 300MB, and $10 for 100MB). You have to buy their Broadband To Go stick for $100, though, but that’s a small price to pay for contract-free nationwide 3G data service.

I hope that when Sprint finally closes the acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA that they keep this plan. It’s seriously good. It’d be even better at a lower price.

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I previously reviewed the original Das Keyboard, which I found to be quite phenomenal in every respect except the price. Last month, I got their newer Model S keyboard to try. It comes in three models: the Professional, Ultimate, and Professional “Silent” (which really means “less noisy”).

Like the original Das Keyboard, the keyboard feels–and sounds–like an original IBM AT keyboard. When you pressed the button, you could both hear–and feel–that the button was pressed. That’s because those keyboards–unlike most keyboards today–were made with mechanical switches. The Das Keyboard is made with similar switches. These mechanical switches add to the overall heft of the keyboard as well as the cost, which is $129–a bit more than your standard keyboard.

The Model S includes media keys (i.e. volume and stop/start/rewind/forward buttons), most of which work just fine on the Mac. Unfortunately, it does so at the expense of the left Windows key, making it somewhat more difficult to use on my Mac since that maps to the Command key on the Mac. Yes, there is a Windows key on the bottom right, but it’s not quite the same.

This particular keyboard also requires two USB plugs: one for the two-port USB hub and one specifically for the keyboard itself. This is likely necessary because it’s possible to use this USB keyboard as a PS/2 keyboard with the included adapter. Why might you want to do that? Because with PS/2 mode, there is N-key rollover support (USB mode only has 6-key rollover support).

If I worked in a conventional office, I would be using this keyboard daily. It’s very good, even without a Windows key on the left-hand side. Unfortunately, my office is located next to my daughter’s bedroom, making this keyboard all but impractical in the late evening or early morning. I could purchase the earplugs from Das Keyboard (yes, they sell earplugs!), but that’s not practical in my situation

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One of the things In Store Solutions sent it to me for review right around Christmas 2009 was the RTX Dualphone 3088. I’ve actually been (trying to) use it for the past couple of months and I’m now finally ready to write my thoughts down about it.

When I say “try to” use it, it’s not that the phone is hard to use. In fact, relatively speaking, it’s easy to use once it is set up.

The base unit plugs into your regular telephone jack and your router. This gives you the ability to use your regular phone line as well as Skype from the same handset. You can configure which one PSTN phone calls will use by default (and override on a per-call basis, if you’d like). You can browse your Skype buddy list, do buddy list management, and make direct calls to Skype users also. You can even change your Skype status, check inbound/outbound call history, your Skype voicemail, and see your SkypeOut balance!

At home, I have this set up both with my landline and my personal Skype account. Calls to my landline and calls to my Skype account are set up with different rings (yes, you can do that). I have used it both for Skype and for PSTN calls and the sound quality is excellent. The connection between the base and the handset is DECT, making it both secure and WiFi friendly.

Here’s the problem with this handset–I just don’t use them all that much. Nothing against the handset at all, but I either use my mobile phone to make calls or I use Skype with a headset. Yes, the phone has a headset jack and supports speakerphone, so I could use it, but it’s not something I have to work to make use of.

One thing the handset is missing that would make adopting it problematic is the fact it lacks a mute button. It is one feature I make heavy use of on Skype and my mobile phones and not having it makes using this phone difficult.

If you’re looking for a way to make calls on Skype without using a computer and tie into your normal landline, this is a great device. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The pricing, though, presents a challenge: $170 for the base unit and handset, another $100 each extra handset. At half the price, it would almost be a no-brainer.

Here’s a fun tweet I picked up recently:

phoneboy.com has been here for more than 10 years, you might say? Well not the way this person remembers it.

And, of course, he’s right. A lifetime ago in Internet time, phoneboy.com was a different place. The most popular thing on it was an FAQ on FireWall-1, a product made by my current employer, Check Point Software. At the time, I did not work for Check Point, they didn’t have a knowledge base (at least that customers could access), and the product was MUCH simpler then. One person might actually be able to keep track of everything related to it

Since then, the product suite has grown substantially. Before, it was just firewall. Then VPN. Then Floodgate. Then a whole bunch of other add-ons (which have been renamed “Blades”), not to mention appliances, Provider-1, VSX, and now VE (Virtual Edition). Keeping it all straight, along with all the things that can go wrong, is a bit of a challenge.

So what does this have to do with Stone Tablets and Communities? A lot.

Stone Tablets

Back when I ran an FAQ on FireWall-1 on my personal website, I was (at first) using static web pages. Yes, I edited them in VI or using Netscape’s web page editor, depending on my mood. They were static documents that changed only if I decided to change them, either because of personal experience or because someone gave me updated information about the issue.

This is what I like to call the Stone Tablets approach (or Ivory Tower documents, if you prefer). Some wise person comes up with “the answer.” It’s written down, 10 commandments style and is considered gospel. It doesn’t change unless new information comes out (and the “wise man” decides to update it).

Note that this is pretty much how all knowledge bases operate, including Check Point’s SecureKnowledge and the Knowledge Base that I edited for Nokia’s Security Appliance Business.

Communities

Before the stone tablets were written, there was a community. At least in the Check Point world, this was mostly centered around the fw-1-mailinglist, which surprisingly, still exists today (albeit a shadow of its former glory). I got frustrated with the signal to noise ratio on the mailing list, so I created my own moderated list in July of 2000, which I eventually shut down last year. There is also CPUG.org, whom I donated the previous phoneboy.com FireWall-1-related content to during the summer of 2005.

The idea here–and the idea behind many of the attempted FAQ site redesigns I did before–was that communities were, collectively speaking, smarter than the stone tablet guys. Anything that would enable the community to “speak up” would, therefore, be a good thing. If I made my documents editable (or at least they would allow public comments), maybe others would contribute to their goodness?

The part I miscalculated, and the part I now understand after having been through a similar experience helping to build the Voxilla forums is that getting a community built around your site is a lot of work. For every 100 people that visit, 90 will participate mostly in read-only, 9 will participate occasionally, and 1 will participate often.

Those numbers are with forums. With Wikis and the like, it’s more like for every 10,000 people that visit, 9 will occasionally edit things and 1 will be a hardcore editor. In short, my attempt at being a sort of Wikipedia for all things Check Point was an abject failure and I let CPUG see if they could do better with forums.

Why Stone Tablets Are Hard, But Popular

I like stone tablets. A lot. Not because I’m religious–far from it, in fact–but because there is an indescribable feeling one experiences when they see their problem written down on a stone tablet along with a succinct solution. Customers often demand that their obscure problem be written down on a stone tablet–or a knowledge base or some other official document of the day–and made available for everyone to see.

The problem is that things change. That which made the content of the stone tablet true may have changed (e.g. a software upgrade). The guy who wrote the stone tablet may have been wrong in the first place. To make matters worse, the guru who knew about the topic may have disappeared or no longer wants to write things on stone tablets. There’s also people for which the older “truths” are still true (i.e. they’re still running the older software).

Mutable truth is the hardest thing to write on stone tablets. It takes ruthless dedication, an infinite amount of time and patience to extract the truth from those who know it, and of course, the ability to write it down in a coherent fashion. Few people have all of these qualities.

Will I Ever Do An FAQ Page on Check Point Products Again?

While I will never say never, my current circumstances make it highly unlikely I would undertake such a task again. At least independently.

At the time I started the FAQ page, I was doing technical support related to the Check Point product line, which at the time was FireWall-1 and SecuRemote. The main reason I started the FAQ in the first place was so I could keep track of the problems I solved so I didn’t have to solve them again. Granted, I started it with some content from my employer (a Check Point reseller), who had an FAQ page on FireWall-1. I took that content (with permission), updated it and put it on my own site. It ended up being a smart thing since that company got bought by another company who ultimately had nothing to do with Check Point.

In 2010, I work for Check Point. I am also a bit more removed from the realms of technical support. Check Point also has this thing called SecureKnowledge, which did not exist back when I started the FAQ page. SecureKnowledge contains many “stone tablets,” including the collection I wrote/curated during my 10 years at Nokia. While it is nowhere near my current job responsibilities anymore, I have written a couple of SK articles since I joined Check Point. I do consult with the SecureKnowledge team periodically on various higher-level things as well.

My inbox is bursting at the seams, it seems.

Skype and Verizon Wireless?: One of the surprises to come out of the recent Mobile World Congress show is that Verizon Wireless and Skype have signed an agreement that allows a specially designed Skype client to be available on several devices (Blackberries and Android phones). Om Malik uncovers some sources who say that this deal is exclusive for 2-3 years. What kills this for me is that all calls (either Skype-to-Skype or Skype to international number) are routed through the Verizon Wireless voice network, meaning no WiFi. Not to mention the fact that the Verizon Wireless 3G network doesn’t support voice and data. Meh.

Skype and the iPhone: Related to the above, Skype is planning on issuing a version of their iPhone app that will actually allow calling over the AT&T 3G network. Previously, Apple’s SDK forbid this practice, but this has recently been changed. The stated reason for the delay is that Skype wants to ensure the iPhone experience is tuned for an optimal experience. Skype isn’t tuning the software, if you ask me. I think they’re waiting for the next version of the iPhone OS to release, but that’s just my theory.

Restaurant Paging over SMS: The Recess Paging System is something that’s recently been brought to my attention. Instead of those annoyingly large restaurant pagers that they give you, just send an SMS to the patron when your table is ready. Clever idea, though any heavy user of SMS will tell you that it’s not always reliable. And, of course, there’s always the “it’s a great tool to spam market to your customers.”

Voxbone Provides SMS Support for iNum (+883) Numbers: One thing that makes virtual numbers more real is the ability to text message the number. I was real happy when Google added this feature to Google Voice (formerly GrandCentral) numbers. Voxbone is now providing this service to their “global” iNum numbers (which have an ITU-assigned country code of +883). I wish more carriers supported these global numbers–for calling and SMS–but the list keeps growing.

Fonolo Comes to iPhone: I got heads up several days ago that Fonolo was launching an iPhone app in the App Store. The application lets you search through the phone tree of many different companies toll free numbers. You can find exactly the right point in the phone tree and have Fonolo call you when it has navigated to that point. In short, you spend less time navigating the phone maze and more time dealing with the company you’re trying to deal with. It’s a free app and a free service.

Calliflower Adds Skype Support: I wish I had an opportunity to use Calliflower more than I do. While you could always use Skype to enter a Calliflower conference, albeit via a PSTN number, now you can dial the Skype user CalliflowerSkype and get into any Calliflower-hosted conference. It certainly makes it cheaper and easier to join a Calliflower-hosted conference. In theory, this should give you better voice quality as well, but when I tried dialing the CalliflowerSkype user from my Mac’s Skype client, I saw it was using G.729–the same codec as if I were using Skype to dial into the PSTN number.

The folks at In Store Solutions sent me this headset to review a while ago–the Freetalk Wireless Headset. I had tried a couple of times to write a review of this headset, but ran into technical issues. Now that I’m off the road for a bit, I’ll give it a try.

Like its wired cousin, the Freetalk Everyman Headset, which I reviewed a while back, the focus is on audio quality. It rocks, even without wires! Skype-to-Skype audio quality is just like being there! It’s light and comfortable to boot.

Unlike it’s cheaper cousin, the Freetalk Wireless headset actually has buttons on it: a power/mute button, volume control, and a link button to link the headset with the dongle. Yes, all these buttons work properly on the Mac as well as the PC.

The dongle for this headset is a little bulky, but it provides a USB jack to allow you to charge the Everyman Wireless headset directly. It also allows you to use the headset in a “wired” way when the headset needs charging, which is a problem I’ve run into with this headset. I often find the headset without battery. Maybe because I use it too much

The power button doubles as a mute button, if you press it briefly. The green power light blinks blue when the headset is muted. It would have been nice if the headset provided some audio confirmation that the headset was muted so it could be reliably used, but I generally just mute inside the Skype app instead so I know I am muted.

While this headset is clearly geared at Skype (or other desktop VoIP usage), you can also use the headset to listen to music. Just like with Skype, the music sounds great!

Unlike the Freetalk Everyman Headset, which is priced absurdly inexpensively, the Everyman Wireless is more pricey but still respectable at $79.99 from the Skype store (prices vary outside the US). It comes with the dongle, a mini-USB cable, the headset, and the carrying case, as shown in the picture above. People looking for great audio quality without wires should seriously consider picking one of these headsets up.