Forget Everything You Learned In School?

For those of you who went to college directly after high school, how many of you graduated and got your first job only to hear the words "Forget everything they taught you in college"? To be honest, hearing that would tick me off immensely. After working very hard for more than two years and racking up somewhere near $25-30k in student loans, I would not be happy to hear that the entire time was mostly a waste and the concepts I just spent time and money learning are only theoretical and won’t do me any good in the "real world".

The University of Phoenix is far from perfect, but one thing I do like about the school is that instructors are required to have a minimum of a Master’s degree and must be leaders in their fields. I spent my entire time in the FlexNet program, in which a student attends the first and last class session at the campus and the weeks in between are conducted online through a newsgroup. I’m currently taking my final class onground at the Buck’s County campus. I’m finding that the on ground program is much more demanding than FlexNet. I don’t mean demanding academically, but more demanding on time. Since I go to class directly from work, I stay at work until time to leave. That means putting in more than a ten hour day at work, then driving to Buck’s County, PA for four hours, then get home around 11 PM when I normally leave the house at 6 AM.

Because instructors must be highly educated and experienced, I’ve had some really good people to learn from. One instructor had risen all the way to Vice President at a telecommunications company. Another instructor was an IT manager in a very large corporation. My current instructor is a microbiologist who has had a highly successful business career.

The material that I’ve learned in my classes is much more than theoretical. I truly have learned material to help me in my current job and to give me perspective on how we conduct business. I was hired into my current job after providing onsite support to engineers for development testing of the very large scale program that I work on. (I purposely leave my employer and industry vague when I have to mention work on this blog.) One of my responsibilities in this position is to represent our customer during a hardware acceptance test. I act as an observer and sign off after analyzing data with my counterpart in another organization. I then produce a report. When I first started in this position, I was trained as an observer on the last shipment of the previous platform. Because this was an established platform, the hardware acceptance test took about 40 minutes to complete and sign off. We had a few "glitches" to adjudicate, but for the most part the test went off without a hitch. After that, the platform changed. The hardware changed, and the program had to change to accommodate the hardware and newer features. The next three acceptance tests I observed took more than five hours to complete. Talk about being late for lunch! Because of my background in developmental testing support, I murmured that the program was bad and needs a lot more work however; officially I did my duties with the sign-off and report.

After beginning the IT program at the University of Phoenix, I learned about concepts such as the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). To be honest, I had not up to that point differentiated between hardware and software testing. I assumed that the software did not work therefore the entire system had a problem (part of the reason for Microsoft’s reputation ) . That was not so. Because the platform changed, the hardware had done its job but the program had not been developed enough yet to be mature. I talked with some members of my organization and learned that indeed, the software being used to certify the hardware was only guaranteed for that test. Because this is such a large program, the hardware is shipped first and the software is installed later.

I now have a new appreciation for the hardware acceptance test that I observe. I got a chance last year to assist the engineers who conducted the development testing, and that was a lot of fun and very interesting. I learned a lot from that experience and now having worked both hardware and software testing I have a new appreciation for how programs like this (large scale programs) go together. I tried to get a position in the development test group, but at the time it fell through. I’m needed in my position, and while development test would have appreciated my help, nobody would provide funding for me to have an extra computer to keep in that office, and I could not get VPN access to the network that they have to use.

I am pleased at least in this regard with the University of Phoenix: I will not be told "forget everything you learned in school."

Technorati tags: Univeristy of Phoenix, College, Education, Testing, Engineering

Labels: Hardware, Software, U of Phoenix

IT Needs A Backup

Even though I’m about to get an IT degree, and I have a lot of IT experience and knowledge, and a lot of my friends work in IT, I don’t actually work in a straight IT capacity. I’m more of an engineer working on a testing program. I know enough about IT to be at least a little bit critical of other people’s work when the situation warrants it.

I was talking to some people recently about the IT field. I can’t say that IT in many organizations has a stellar reputation, and in some cases I would say it is deserved. If you’ve ever read (or been) the Bastard Operator From Hell, you might understand what I’m talking about. What I told the people I was talking to that day is that IT is a very strange paradox. IT is a highly service oriented field, but the qualities that might make a person good at IT also tend to make them less personable. Most IT training centers around the technical and so the service aspects are often left out. I do notice that a lot of IT departments don’t provide a lot of user training, and most users aren’t interested in that training. If anything, the goal seems to be to lock the user down so that the helpdesk has to be called to change the wallpaper on a user’s workstation.

What really gets me though is when IT departments seem to go out of the way to appear incompetent and lazy. Last night I had class at the University of Phoenix’s Bucks County campus. UOP does provide wireless Internet access, as they should when the textbooks are all online. Why shouldn’t you be able to get to your textbooks WHILE YOU ARE AT SCHOOL? Last night, I was able to connect to the access point but there was no further connection to the Internet. My instructor was having the same problem. We also noticed that the projector was projecting "Please clean filter" onto the bottom of the lecture Power Point presentation, cutting off some of the text at the bottom. When the school’s employee came in to pick up the attendance sheet, we decided to ask her about these problems. As for the "Please clean filter", she said that IT told her it’s supposed to do that. Seriously, they said that? Talk about lazy. Just clean the damn filter, turn off the warning, or return the projector and get one that works. Doesn’t anybody do research before they purchase equipment?

As for the Internet issue: "Oh, our IT guy is on vacation." So, what? I’m paying $1400 a class, and I should be able to get to the textbooks while I’m actually at the campus, shouldn’t I? They do have another IT guy, but he doesn’t know where the router is. Son of a motherless goat! How stupid and incompetent can this department be? We’re talking about an organization (UOP) that supposedly trains professionals. Don’t they hire any? Of course, if the IT guy who was not on vacation actually knew where the router was, he could probably fix the problem in a few second by resetting the router, which is one of the most common reasons why a wireless access point would allow connections in but not back out.

I know there are a lot of problems in modern companies regarding the IT department. They’re often overworked and under appreciated and at war with their users. I’ve worked support jobs before, and it’s hard when every single phone call starts off with somebody yelling that somehow you did something to cause their problem before you even know what the problem is. It’s very, very hard not to go to war with your users under those circumstances. We have to avoid it though. We have to face the fact that IT is service oriented. We have to provide some training to the users whether they want it or not, and we have to make sure that somebody else knows how to reset the router when we go on vacation.

Technorati tags: Information Technology, Bastard Operator From Hell, Univeristy of Phoenix

Labels: Misc comments, U of Phoenix

How To Interpret Technology Product Reviews

I’m still considering options to replace the productivity void left by the death of my hx4705 Pocket PC. I’m trying to avoid what would be the easiest and most inexpensive option: learn to live without a Pocket PC. I spent a good part of time the other day looking over the pool of available devices and comparing them to the features that I need, the features I want, and the features I can compromise on. One problem I’m facing is that Pocket PCs, especially phones, are still an emerging technology and a lot of good features aren’t completely worked out yet. There has been a lot of progress but I still find it hard to narrow down my choices to one particular device.

As much as I would love to have kept the 8125 if it had worked properly, I am now scalded and do not plan to buy another one, even if it were brand new with a warranty. The model that I had was a store return, reason unknown. Some of the usability problems that I had were widely reported by other users, although my stuck camera button problem seemed to be unique. After spending a decent chunk of time comparing my options, I am seriously thinking about the HP iPaq 6945, which is the unlocked GSM version of the 69xx line of iPaq Pocket PC Phones. However, if I were to buy this phone, I would have to expect it to last for at least two years. I can’t decide in two months that I’d rather have a 4" VGA screen, and I can’t decide that the thumb keyboard is not adequate for my short, stubby fingers. In order to help me to make an educated choice, I have to rely on hardware reviews as taking a "test drive" of a phone is never easy. I don’t know anybody who has this model, and while chances of AT&T having one in their stores are slim, chances of them letting me try to make and receive calls while browsing the Internet and writing a paper for school while taking pictures of my kids are even slimmer.

When evaluating and interpreting hardware reviews, you have to consider several factors:

1) What kind of review is this?

There are professional reviewers and there are user reviewers. One of the first places I like to go when researching cell phones or other gadgets is CNET.com. CNET has been around for many years and has access to all of the cool gadgets. They have the tools to test every aspect of the device. However; CNET falls short on long term usage. They may play with the gadget for a few hours, but they really can’t tell you how well it will hold up over a period of six months of heavy use. For that, you need a user review.

Where do you get a user review? Well, what is this? My blog is an example of a user review. I have owned several gadgets, and I write about them. I may not write extensively and I may not be formally trained but maybe I complained about a feature and your Google search dropped you here to read it. CNET does have user reviews for most products as long as users provided them. Some gadgets get more reviews than others; for instance, the Cingular 8525 had 270 reviews last night while the iPaq 6945 had only four. To get more information, I had to go to Google.com and Live.com to search for "iPaq 6945 user review". I found some blog posts and forum discussions, and Amazon.com had 29 reviews that gave me some good information to make a decision with.

2) What is the perspective of the reviewer?

CNET.com has professional reviewers. Typically, the manufacturer will send them a review unit that they can play with, post a review, and send back. They’ll tell you what features the device has, how well it operates under certain conditions, and of course they can compare the device against more "absolute" standards. I think of them like movie reviewers, except slightly more useful to society. How many times have you seen a professional movie reviewer dismiss a movie as a total waste when you saw the movie and thought it was great entertainment? The reviewer is trained differently than you and has a different perspective. The reviewer normally has very elite tastes and is trained to recognize concepts like plot and character development. Maybe you just want to see some zombies getting their heads blown off. The movie may not have any real plot or character development but it keeps you entertained for about 90 minutes. CNET.com reviews can be looked at in this light. They are comparing the iPaq 6945 against a higher standard while I’m only comparing it against devices in my price range. They might say that the 8525 is a better device, but if the 8525 is out of my price range, I am not going to be able to compare the 6945 against it. It’s the same with cars. If you can only afford a $12,000 car, you honestly don’t care how well it stacks up against a $50,000 car; you want to know how it compares against other $12,000 cars.

3) What information does the review contain (especially important for user reviews)?

If you look at reviews on Amazon, and you see something resembling the following:

THIS DEVICE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON’T BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mine broke. Tech support is horrible!

What does that actually tell you? You know nothing about the conditions the user tried to operate the device under. You know nothing about the user’s knowledge or skill level with this device. This tells you nothing about the user’s expectations for the device at the time of purchase. I read some negative reviews about the 6945 from Palm users who preferred the Palm OS better. They compared the 6945 to a Treo. That gave me some information about their background, skill level, and expectations. Similarly, when I read reviews from previous 63xx and 65xx users, I could tell that they had used this platform before, had experience with similar devices and software, and I could relate to their reviews. Their reviews gave me an idea of how the device would operate under my conditions at my skill level. One review from a Palm user said that "todo list doesn’t support categories" and "Outlook isn’t customizable". I see that these statements show the user to be unfamiliar WITH THESE PLATFORMS, as I do know that Pocket Outlook tasks do support categories and Outlook is highly customizable, but only an experienced power user such as myself can unleash a lot of the customizability of Microsoft Outlook.

Remember to use critical thinking when reading reviews. As an experienced Windows Mobile user, I can sympathize with a "newbie" having problems adapting to the platform but newbies complaining about "this device sucks" really doesn’t tell me what to expect if I buy the device.

Actually, after doing all the research I did the other day, I have come to a conclusion for now. I’m going to wait to hear back from PDASmart.com and if my hx4705 can be fixed for a reasonable amount, I’ll just continue to use it for a while. This is a tricky time to buy a Pocket PC, especially the phones. Windows Mobile 6 is out, but not in wide circulation yet. If I bought a Windows Mobile 5 device, chances of an update being provided (you heard me, HP) are almost non-existent.  I might as well wait for a complete line of WM6 devices to hit the market and build up reliability and usability statistics before I jump onboard. In the meantime, I borrowed my mother-in-law’s iPaq 1940 to get me by. It’s WM2003 1st edition and lacks wi-fi, but it will hold my calendar and tasks and I can keep my UOP textbooks on it in RepliGo format. That helped me survive the staff meeting yesterday… There are few things in corporate life worse than an hour or more long staff meeting with no Pocket PC to help pass the time.

Technorati tags: Hardware reviews, Pocket PC Phone, iPaq hx4705, iPaq 6945

Labels: Windows Mobile

Conclusion to my Cingular 8125 Adventure

I returned my Cingular 8125. The intermittently sticking camera button rendered the device unusable. I was thrilled with it, and I really wanted the 8125 to work so I could use it. The company that I bought it from through an Ebay auction, Dyscern, has a return policy so I mailed the 8125 back yesterday. I also sent my old hx4705 to PDASmart.com to see if they can diagnose and repair it.

Having had my taste of a Pocket PC phone, however, I’m hungry for more. However, as I survey the field, I’m having a hard time making up my mind. I talked my dad into the 8125 as a graduation present, even though I haven’t completed my degree yet, I have three more weeks of one class and one DANTES exam left. I asked my dad what sort of limit I should adhere to and the figure he gave me should be enough to get a new model rather than a $219 "Buy it now" deal on Ebay. However; I’m having a hard time deciding if I should look for a Pocket PC phone, wait to see if my hx4705 can be fixed, or just wait until next year and see what comes out. I saw a post on Pocket PC Thoughts stating that SonyEricsson apparently contracted HTC to make hardware for a Windows Mobile phone. I haven’t used any of SE’s smartphones, but the two SE phones I’ve had did impress me so if SE could combine the best part of their phones with Windows Mobile, I could see waiting until next year.

I have many conflicting preferences and the pool of available devices does not match them. My hx4705 had a 4" 640×480 VGA screen, and frankly the smaller 2.8" 320×240 screen on most Pocket PC phones is hard to adjust to. The slide-out hardware keyboard is nice. I like a lot of the utilities and customizations that HP adds to their iPaq line and HTC did not include similar features in the 8125. However, HP does not have slide-out hardware keyboards in their Pocket PC phones. They have the thumb board, which might be acceptable but the screens on those devices are 240×240.

Of course, the iPhone does fall within the price range my dad mentioned, but the data plan is separate. I’m not sure that the iPhone is worth using without a data plan.

And so, my options appear to be three or four:

• Get a Pocket PC phone such as the Cingular 8525, making appropriate sacrifices in preference for features.
• Get a regular Pocket PC and just continue using a cell phone.
• If hx4705 can be fixed, continue using that until next year and see what devices are available then.
• Live without a Pocket PC.

While I’m waiting for PDASmart.com to receive my hx4705 and contact me, I might spend some time reading reviews. I will also return this blog to normal programming.

Technorati tags: Windows Mobile, Pocket PC Phone, Cingular 8125, HP iPaq, hx4705

Labels: Windows Mobile

The Cingular 8125 Saga Continues

I made a little bit of progress on my Cingular 8125. My years as a technician combined with my IT degree are becoming quite an asset to me. I couldn’t sleep last night; at least, I couldn’t sleep very well. I actually did fall asleep twice just long enough to dream about wandering the house because I couldn’t sleep. You have to love that. My wife told me I should stay home from church (I also didn’t feel well at 11 PM last night) but I still couldn’t sleep so I went to my computer room to get my geek on. I put the battery in the 8125 and tried to turn it on. It actually looked like the unit would boot up, and it did. I shut it down to swap my SIM card back in, and I was back to the "crashed" splash screen. I tried off and on to get it to work, and finally after about the 40th try it did boot up. I didn’t bother to put my SIM card in this time because I wanted to try to get some of my data off. We went to the Lindenwold Park for Lindenwold Day (yearly town celebration) and I got some pictures of my kids riding ponies that I wanted to recover if possible. Also, many of my tasks in Outlook disappeared somehow and I wanted to see if the Pocket PC still had them available. They are gone. I have no idea why.

When the Pocket PC booted up, I did find one problem I was having last night. For some reason, the camera keeps coming on and taking pictures. I guess the hardware button is stuck somehow. That’s not a good thing. I wonder if that’s why I can’t restore the Pocket PC to factory settings. I went into the button assignments and assigned the camera button to <nothing>.

I’m still hoping to return this 8125 for a refund. I’m not sure I want an exchange considering the problems I’ve been having with it. I did some reading last night and discovered that a lot of people have the same problems with the Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard).

By the way, if you see the screen on my previous post, it is a bootloader screen, according to XDA-Developers. The bootloader screen appears when you start up the phone with the camera button pressed. This is more confirmation to me that my camera button is stuck on.

Technorati tags: Cingular 8125, HTC Wizard, Pocket PC Phone

Labels: Hardware, Windows Mobile

Yet More Pocket PC Problems

I’ve had my Cingular 8125 for just over 24 hours and it is already dead. I emailed the company I bought it from to ask about a replacement or a refund. Their policy states that they do refunds or exchanges within 30 days. I have been using the phone most of the day. I installed all of my usual programs, although a few such as Magic Button just don’t want to work on this phone. There were a few problems I was willing to learn to live with. Some areas of the screen, especially the taskbar, didn’t want to respond to tapping. I had to slide the keyboard open to put the Pocket PC in landscape mode to take my chances. Toward the end of the evening, the input methods started to fail one by one. First the hardware keyboard started spitting out special characters rather that letters, then it stopped working altogether. Next the software keyboard suddenly didn’t want to respond to input. Finally, the 8125 rebooted to the screen to the left. Rather than the Cingular splash screen, this is what I got. I have not been able to get a functioning ROM since. I am a fairly heavy user of Cell phones and Pocket PCs, but I should not have used this one that much in 24 hours.

In the meantime, I’m back to my trusty SonyEricsson z525a. The z525 is a great phone. I just like to have the Pocket PC functionality as well. I followed the links on HP’s website to send an email asking for support for my hx4705. I strongly suspect that the battery is the problem; however I did not want to spend money on a new battery to find that the hx4705 is completely dead. Perhaps HP can confirm a dead battery or can fix the problem. One thing the Cingular 8125 taught me is that I really miss the 640 by 480 VGA screen on the hx4705.

Technorati tags: Cingular 8125, iPaq, hx4705, Pocket PC Phone, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile 5

Labels: Hardware, Telecommunications, Windows Mobile

I’m Back In Business With My Cingular 8125

I got the battery for my 8125 yesterday, and spent several hours last evening setting it up. I can’t say the situation was ideal. I had been waiting all week for this battery, and having a working Pocket PC meant a lot to me. My wife went out with her sister for a while, leaving me with the kids. I had school Thursday night, so the kids didn’t see me at all. They missed me, I missed them, yet I also wanted to get this Pocket PC setup. I tried to play with the kids and install my applications and setup and test the 8125, but I can’t say I did either well. My kids wanted me and I wasn’t focusing well, so I ended up making the same mistakes over and over again. Eventually things calmed down and I was able to get enough of my favorite programs installed.

For the most part, I like the 8125. I definitely miss the large, 640×480 screen on my old hx4705. However, this device is built to run Windows Mobile 5 and it does run WM5 with a decent amount of efficiency, considering this is only a 200 Mhz processor. My last two Pocket PCs had 624 Mhz processors. This one has the 2.25 ROM update, so the OEM software is current. I might consider upgrading to one of the cooked ROMS on XDA-Developers.

I have to drive up to the University of Phoenix’s Wayne, PA campus for a CLEP test today. I’m taking the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP. Next Saturday I take the Here’s To Your Health DANTES test. If I pass these two tests, I should be good to go to complete my degree.

Technorati tags: Pocket PC Phone, Windows Mobile 5, Cingular 8125, HTC Wizard

Labels: Telecommunications, Windows Mobile

What Is Your Opinion of Customer Service in This Country Today?

After two years in the University of Phoneix’s FlexNet program, I am now in my final class. Although I have finished the Interdisciplinary Capstone class for the bachelor’s program, I have a critical thinking class to make up which I am taking right now. I have to take this class on ground, which means each week I have to drive the the University of Phoenix’s Bucks County campus from 6:00 to 10:00 PM each Thursday. For the most part, other than being exhausted and of course having a hard time getting up at 5 AM on Friday after getting in so late, I’m enjoying the class. My instructor has run many businesses and has worked as a business consultant and has a lot of background to share with us in the class.

Last night, he asked us a question pertaining to the subject material of identifying problems. He asked "What do you think of customer service in this country today?" I could have gone on all week. Let’s see what I think of customer service off the top of my head:

• For one thing, I’m not very happy with customer service at the University of Phoenix. The classes are great, but you’re on your own if you need to speak to an academic or financial counselor. If you call, you had better get a live person on the phone and you had better resolve the issue within a phone call. Nobody will return a message and in my experience, nobody will call you back "after I look into it". I have lost thousands of dollars in GI Bill benefits because they won’t report my attendance correctly to the Veteran’s Administration, and they have reported to Citibank that I have completed my classes and am now in that six month window to start repaying student loans EVEN THOUGH I AM CURRENTLY ENROLLED! You also cannot expect a consistent level of service from each counselor you talk to. I’ve had some jump over backwards to email me information while others tell me to look it up on the website.
• Last Monday, my iPaq hx4705 Pocket PC died. I found a Cingular 8125 on Ebay for a good price and took the Buy It Now option last Thursday. The Pocket PC arrived at my house less than 24 hours after the shipping notice was sent, but the wrong battery was in the box. I contacted customer service and was told the correct battery would be sent to me. Here I am, five days later, without a battery. How can it take five days to ship a battery from Virginia to New Jersey? I’m not aware of any anthrax threats, there’s no postal strike, and this business seems to ship UPS anyway. UPS shouldn’t take five days for this distance unless you specifically paid them to do it.
• And of course, if you look at my archive, I can’t get a medical claim processed unless I take my own time to call and call and call and shepherd the claim every step of the way.

I haven’t had a very good time with customer service lately. During the discussion in class, I proposed to my instructor that customer service people should somehow have to be accountable when they make mistakes or overlook certain issues that cause pain or financial problems in a customer’s life. Why nobody at Aetna over a two year period could look far enough into my case to see that the reason the claim was denied in the first place is because that doctor was not recorded as a primary care physician for an 11 day old baby is beyond me. I did not learn this until right before the doctor’s billing office was going to put this on MY credit report and I stayed on the line with the CS representative going through every last line of the database for both of my children to find the cause. I had to do the work for them by standing over their shoulders on the phone.

If you work in customer service, yes, I know the job normally sucks. Maybe it’s the only job you could get. Still, please recognize that you may hold the finances and medical cases of other living people in your hands. So what if the people are jerks? It’s your job. Please, take some pride in your work.

Technorati tags: Customer Service

Labels: Hall of Shame, Misc comments, U of Phoenix

I’m Getting a Cingular 8125

I’m getting a new Pocket PC. I hope the seller doesn’t mind if I take the image from their Ebay auction. If they do, I’ll pull the image down. I linked the image to their site to show my good faith.

I’m getting the Cingular 8125. This one was a good price. It’s not a top of the line model, but it’s the best of all worlds. It is a Pocket PC Phone, but a true Pocket PC so all of my applications should work unlike the Smartphone version of Windows Mobile. The 8125 is quad band, and though it does support EDGE, it also has 802.11 wireless so for the time being I can use wireless rather than get a data plan. It has Windows Mobile 5 and I understand that an upgrade to WM6 is available. I’m hoping to have my new PPC phone sometimes next week. I’ve gotten so used to depending on my iPaq hx4705 that I’ve been going out of my mind the last three days. The staff meeting today was especially brutal without my Pocket PC to work on.

This will be my fourth Pocket PC in four years. Much like buying cars, I always end up getting my Pocket PCs used. This one is no different. The Ebay auction said that it had signs of slight use but has been tested and is functional.

 

Update: I wrote the text above last week. I’ve been tied up ever since and have not had a chance to edit and post, so I’m just going to append. My phone arrived Friday afternoon by UPS. The auction provided free 2-day UPS air shipping. I bought the phone on Thursday morning and it arrived in a little more than 25 hours. My family and I were down in Wildwood for the yearly Firemen’s Convention, so I asked my neighbors to watch for packages. I got the box when we returned home Sunday. When I opened the box up hoping to be back in mobile productive bliss, I discovered that the wrong battery had been enclosed. I called the customer service line and left a message. When my wife and I returned from a small group we meet with on Sunday nights, I found an email from Dyscern, the company I bought the phone from, that the correct battery would be mailed to me on Monday. I also bought a 2 GB mini-SD card to use. I’m hoping that the battery arrives today so I can start using my phone tonight. I’m planning to keep my Sony Ericsson z525a as a backup. It’s a really good cell phone with many useful features, including the ability to put together a conference call.

Technorati tags: HTC Wizard, Cingular 8125, Windows Mobile, Pocket PC Phone, Pocket PC

Labels: Telecommunications, Windows Mobile

Unified Communications Through Grand Central

I arrived at work this morning to find an invite to Grand Central. I logged in and set up my account. I picked a phone number that should be easy enough for people to remember and setup my voice mail. Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to have the clearest connection, so my voice mail is a little broken up. I’ll have to find a way to change that.

I wrote a post last year in response to one of Bill Gates’ Executive Emails regarding unified communications. Grand Central looks to be a way to help unify the many phone numbers we often find ourselves having.

I do have some invites if anybody is interested. Email me at e m u e l l e 1 at gmail dot com (no spaces in actual email). I’ll definitely offer one to my wife, but otherwise the rest are up for grabs to any interested early adopter.

Technorati tags: Grand Central, unified communications, telecommunications, phones

Labels: Telecommunications