Wireless Industry related job growth still predicted

As more and more consumers switch to smartphones, tablet computers and wireless applications, the U.S. wireless industry is doing well, but hiring was reported as down according to U.S. Labor Department figures released earlier this month. There are about 20,000 fewer jobs than when the recession ended in June 2009 and 2,000 fewer than a year ago.

While that may seem like bleak news, the customer service aspect of the increased sales will lead to a continued need for call center process outsource providers to exist and prosper. With the similarity of electronic devices between carriers, cross training call center employees is something that is already being done.

Back when I worked at a call center several years ago, customer service staff were cross trained to provide technical support for several different cable providers. That can be done in many industries, including wireless.

Call center operations in the U.S. as well as overseas continues to grow. Recent research conducted by IBM shows there are now more call center agents in the Philippines than there are in India.

The Contact Center Association of the Philippines estimates that 350,000 Filipinos work in call centers, compared to 330,000 Indians.

Woof it up ...

There is nothing worse than having a great visual system but having a weak sound system, you miss the thrills and chills of a high definition movie when you don't have the ability to take full advantage of stereo sound. The same goes for computer game playing -- which is why many look for speakers such as this Energy speaker seller to amp up their surround sound abilities. Time to woof it up and have fun ...

Compare the ink costs

One thing many consumers don't do when considering buying a new printer is look at the long term costs associated with the purchase. They often buy based on the lowest price of the printer, which may end up costing them much more in the long run. Whether it's brother printers or any other brand, compare the price of the printers you are looking at with the cost of the replacement ink cartridges. There can be a huge variation in the price, that less expensive printer as far as initial cost, may cost you more than it's price in ink. Considering almost every place that sells printers, either online or in a store, also carries ink? It's simple to compare ...

Speakers of the House

I bet you thought I was going to go political didn't you? Not this time, this is about a different type of speakers of the house, one that more people are probably fond of -- home speakers. The right home sound system can make your television or gaming experience better. Now that we have a Wii, we use it to watch Neflix through our television, with surround sound, it makes it a much better experience than back in the day when we would watch from the computer.

Cabling nightmares

Where we live now we don't have cable or dish television, we have a digital adapter that only occasionally gets in one station -- that's a horror story for another day -- However, the last place we lived, we decided we were going to get satellite television. We ordered it, the cable contractor showed up and we thought all would be well.

All he did was drill a huge hole in our living room since we wanted and paid for two boxes, and left the cable that would go from the living room to the bedroom. He said that if we wanted it ran, we'd have to pay him extra or call in data cabling installers. Never mind that the agreement stated "2 complete installations" and we weren't talking about a difficult endeavor, there was an attic crawl space that went from one end of the apartment to the other.

While the company promised to send out another installer, we then discovered they lied about the ability to get local channels -- which was one of the reasons we went with them. So, we just canceled the whole thing, and were charged for the damage to the living room wall, when we moved out since they never made that right.

Moral of the story? Make sure you are dealing with an experienced Structured Cabling Contractor and if there is damage? Document it, it makes it easier later if you get the run around when it comes to repairs.

Online computer shopping

One of the best ways to find good deals on computers is to shop online, it's an easy way to compare prices and features, as well as getting exactly what you want on your computer. Almost every computer manufacturer, from those who make gateway computers to a number of other brands offer the ability to "build your own" system. It can however, be less expensive to buy a system that's already been manufactured and don't forget to check out re-manufactured computers, they may have a surface blemish or two, but are typically priced quite a bit lower.

Return to sender

Many of us turn to the Internet for bill paying instead of sending a check through the postal mail system. However, there are still times when you mail items out not to mention other ways that return address labels can be helpful. I use return address labels on forms where I'm required to fill in my name and address, I also put one on the battery of the cell phones in our household, that has already created one scenario where a lost cell phone at a concert was able to be easily identified even with a dead battery. I was asked to identify the cell phone, once they popped off the cover? It was simple to determine that it was indeed our lost phone. Which the concert location mailed to us since it was a few hours away and it was initially thought the phone would be gone forever.

Nokia & Motorola make a 4G license agreement

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. and ESPOO, Finland, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and Nokia Corporation today jointly announced that the companies have entered into a 4G license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Motorola and Nokia have extended the companies' existing intellectual property licensing agreement to include 4G cellular technologies, such as LTE, WiMAX and LTE-Advanced. The terms of the agreement are confidential.

"We are pleased to extend our existing IP licensing agreement with Nokia to include 4G technologies and are confident this agreement will help foster continued innovation and technological advancement for the telecommunications industry," said Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property, Motorola Mobility, Inc. "Motorola is committed to leveraging the strength of its industry-leading intellectual property portfolio for the benefit of its customers, partners, shareholders and licensees."

Entourage is Townsend's favorite sitcom

Entourage - My Favorite Sitcom on TV

Thanks for the post from Rashad Townsend

As I watch Entourage on direct tv irving, I can't help but wonder if there's ever been a show that has been so little about itself and so much about the culture that surrounds it. Entourage, after all, is not just any sitcom. While there have been plenty of television programs based on the lives of others, there has never been one that has so pandered to audiences obsessed with celebrity, and this is why it is my favorite sitcom on TV.

Like a reality show on the inside of Hollywood, Entourage seeks to replicate the experience of being a famous actor. It tries to blend its reality with our own, often hiring real actors to play themselves in either parody or superficial cameo. In this way I feel as if I am gaining some kind of insider knowledge, not from the show's banal plot, but the actors choices of how to display themselves. Often times you can tell who has a sense of humor and who is narcissistic about their image just by the lines they agree to. Furthermore, while it's likely Entourage takes large dramatic liberties with how deals go down, it is still an interesting representation. Finally, the dynamic of the lead actors themselves is noteworthy, because while they are all on equal standing, they are asked to play roles where one actor is of larger standing than others, and I relish in the awkwardness this creates.

Governments turning to VOIP

This article on some of the savings that have taken place when Governments have switched to a VOIP system was interesting. Part of the longer piece:

Government agencies that use VoIP like the return on investment, but acknowledge that implementing these solutions involves more than buying a bunch of IP phones and plugging them in. Making sure the network is ready to handle the increased traffic is critical, observers say, and that can turn into a hefty expense up front.

The price tag can be daunting, but current VoIP users say it's worth it.


Worth Every Penny
The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) took an inside-out approach. First the department deployed VoIP in its central office -- with 300 employees -- two years ago, said Cindy Valentine, CIO of the DLI. It then outfitted seven other DLI offices with VoIP in June. Overall, the DLI deployed 450 IP phones, she said, producing substantial savings in several key areas.

The DLI's monthly phone bill dropped, and the agency consolidated functions.

"Before we started the IP phone system in the main office, our phone bill was about $21,700 per month," said Mary Benner, project manager of the DLI's VoIP implementation. "Our bill following the installation was about $13,400. Those [monthly bills] include costs we were paying for two small call centers we administered externally through the Department of Administration, which runs our central mail hub and is the traditional telephony provider."

Advantages of VOIP with an iPod

When my fourth oldest child was in Mexico City, I learned first hand how expensive phone calls from here to Mexico were and how our cell phone plan did not allow the calls to even be made. It was then that I started searching for information about VOIP. I found ways to be able to call her, but it was difficult to find ways for her to call me without having to purchase phone cards in Mexico.

As I was searching through iPod Apps I found information on a VOIP iPod app. She has an iPod, the concept of being able to use her iPod instead of a cell phone is pretty neat. International calls are not free, but 2 cents a minute is much better than most of the other systems out there.

There are also VOIP apps for iPhone which depending on your phone plan, could create some savings for you. There are an amazing number of apps out there that could make what you think is the only way, not even remotely true anymore.

Strange psychedelic patterns....

I don't watch television very often, however the other night when I turned on our television to try to watch the local news, this strange psychedelic pattern appeared instead of a normal picture. It eventually stopped, but I'm guessing it's a sign that the television might need to be replaced soon. This has created a discussion as to what kind we should get. There are some good deals out there on Samsung HDTV as well as other flat screen television models and types that would take up quite a bit less room that the huge box of a television set our current Samsung is.

Unplugging

The one downside to the increase in the use of the laptop computer is it is harder to unplug from the internet. Back when you could only access your computer from home or work, when you left? You had to wait till you were at a physical location to be able to go online. Now, you can go online anywhere, and you don't even need a laptop since many cell phones can access the world wide web. Watch what happens when there is some type of a service outage, those of us who can manage to unplug at times are noticeable among those who panic at the lack of access...

Study says security systems deter crime...

If you ever wondered if having a security system or having security cameras worked to deter crime, I came across this press release from last year on a study done on this topic:

(Newark, NJ) – A comprehensive study of five years of statistics by researchers at the Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice (SCJ) in Newark found that residential burglar alarm systems decrease crime. While other studies have concluded that most burglars avoid alarms systems, this is the first study to focus on alarm systems while scientifically ruling out other factors that could have impacted the crime rate.

Researchers concentrated on analyzing crime data provided by the Newark Police Department. “Data showed that a steady decrease in burglaries in Newark between 2001 and 2005 coincided with an increase in the number of registered home burglar alarms,” said study author Dr. Seungmug (a.k.a. Zech) Lee, who received his doctoral degree from SCJ in 2008 and presently teaches at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. “The study credits the alarms with the decrease in burglaries and the city’s overall crime rate.”

In short, the study found that an installed burglar alarm makes a dwelling less attractive to the would-be and active intruders and protects the home without displacing burglaries to nearby homes.

3D technology coming to a television near you...

Reuters reported in January that China is expected to become the largest consumer of LCD TVs in 2011 and many manufacturers are putting significant investments into their LCD factories in 2010 to build capacity for the expected boom in 2011.

New technology is also expected to help to drive sales of LCD TV in 2010 as well. One of the most important is 3D panels. A number of networks also announced new 3D channels would be coming in 2010 and in 2011 to take advantage of the new 3D TV availability. LED-backlit sets were also predicted to still generate higher sales than 2009.

How the Tablet Will Change the World

I don't have an iPad, I don't have an iPhone but? It's hard to not want a tablet after reading Wired's How the Tablet Will Change the World. I thought I was doing well with my tower and my netbook for work and blogging on the go until I read this:

Even though the iPad looks like an iPhone built for the supersize inhabitants of Pandora, its ambitions are as much about shrinking our laptops as about stretching our smartphones. Yes, the iPad is designed for reading, gaming, and media consumption. But it also represents an ambitious rethinking of how we use computers. No more files and folders, physical keyboards and mouses. Instead, the iPad offers a streamlined yet powerful intuitive experience that’s psychically in tune with our mobile, attention-challenged, super-connected new century. Instant-on power. Lightning-fast multitouch response. Native applications downloaded from a single source that simplifies purchases, organizes updates, and ensures security. Apple has even developed a custom chip, the A4, that both powers the machine and helps extend its battery life to 10 hours. The iPad’s price puts it in the zone of high-end netbooks: $500 for a basic 16-gig, Wi-Fi-only model. (A version with AT&T 3G connectivity will cost $130 more, plus $30 a month for unlimited data.) But don’t call it a netbook, a category Jobs went out of his way to trash as a crummy compromise. The iPad is the first embodiment of an entirely new category, one that Jobs hopes will write the obituary for the computing paradigm that Apple itself helped develop. If Jobs has his way, before long we may be using our laptops primarily as base stations for syncing our iPads.

One way to learn about a person...

This may sound funny but you can actually learn a lot about a person when it comes to how they put together items, such as tv stands which recently happened here. My youngest daughter and her boyfriend decided they were going to put one together, it was one of the first "projects" they'd done as a couple. Would one of them be the impatient "I don't need directions" type and the other, "read the directions first" type? Would tempers flare if they did something wrong, with one of them blaming the other?

Or, would they glance at the directions, assemble the pieces and then be happily watching tv less than an hour later...

Wll the iPad fly?

More on the topic of how will the iPad fare from Time. I didn't read this before I wrote the below post, so it's kind of ironic that it points out what I did as far as the netbook:

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a very rich, very clever man. He got up on a big stage and held up a new kind of computer. It was flat, and it didn't have a keyboard. This very rich, very clever man then tried to convince a bunch of reporters that in five years this flat, keyboardless computer would be the most popular kind of computer in the country. Some of them even believed him.
The year was 2000. The man's name was Bill Gates.
That year at Comdex, which at the time was the biggest technology trade show on the calendar, Microsoft unveiled something it called a Tablet PC. Just for good measure, the company unveiled it again at Comdex in 2001. But it never particularly caught on, because who wants a computer that's basically an underpowered netbook without a keyboard? The Tablet PC was much like a piece of paper, except it was heavier and more expensive and it broke when you dropped it.

Yet, it appears they still yearn for one too.

:-)

iPad does look pretty neat...

I admit when I looked at the website for iPad and read articles like this one on Wired I experienced a few moments of yearning for an iPad. For me however, the price is a factor, especially when you consider my latest toy, a Dell netbook does just as much if not more and was only $200.00. That said, if the price drops, just as the price did when it comes to netbooks? I may be unable to fight the urge...

iPhone Games summit

It can be said the iPhone has truly arrived to warrant its own summit, as CNN reports:

To those who work in the iPhone games space, there's little question that the platform deserved a separate summit at GDC, which, with 17,000 attendees last year, was one of the biggest video game confabs in the United States, if not the world.

Already, Think Services, which puts on GDC, has had an iPhones-only summit at its GDC Online conference in Austin, Texas, last fall. But the San Francisco GDC is Think Service's main event, and for Scavio and the rest of the advisory board to make the decision to spin off the variety of iPhone content into a discrete summit is a sign that the platform's time as a major gaming player has definitely come.

"The iPhone is now recognized as a leading platform that's independent from the mobile" market, said Simon Jeffrey, vice president of social applications for leading iPhone game developer Ngmoco, which makes popular titles like Rolando and Topple. "People are specifically naming the iPhone as a threat to their businesses. Nintendo said the iPhone is taking customers away from [its popular] DS handhelds."

My oldest daughter's boyfriend has an iPhone, it's a nice phone, but for me? It could never replace my netbook as far as possibilities.

:-)