Selected Daily Notes Archive (Home Page has current notes)
Oldest (Page 1) to most new (Page 52)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40) (41) (42) (43)(44) (45)(46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52)
April 8, 2005
Q. Who wrote all these articles at privateline.com? I need sources!
A. Every author, besides myself, is credited at privateline.com. I wrote the piece, in other words, unless otherwise noted. In The Future I will try to sign each article I write.
April 7, 2005
The Financial Times reports that Andrew Robertson, chief executive of Omnicom's BBDO advertising agency, thinks mobiles will "replace TV as [the] prime ad medium." Yeah, right. The FT goes on to quote him as saying, "We are rapidly getting to the point where the single most important medium that people have is their wireless device. It's with them every single moment of the day. It's genuinely the convergence box that everyone has been talking about for so many years."
The mobile is indeed convergence, but advertising would doom its effectiveness and I can't see how subscribers would tolerate it in a TV like form. Since all wireless screens and displays are quite different and most quite limited, I think the best an adman could do are Google like text ads. Other interesting tid-bits from the FT article:
"Mr Robertson spoke as BBDO released a report that said consumers are now more willing to live without television than without mobile phones or home computers."
"The agency asked nearly 3,000 typical consumers in 15 countries to choose the communications device they would most want to keep. Forty-five per cent said their home computers, 31 per cent their mobile phones and 12 per cent their televisions. In China, 61 per cent opted for mobile phones, compared with 30 per cent for home computers and 4 per cent for televisions."
"The survey found that mobile phones users like to stay connected even while they are asleep. More than 60 per cent said they kept their phones on and within reach 21 to 24 hours a day, and 15 per cent said that figure was 16 to 20 hours a day."
April 6, 2005
An $849 brake repair bill?!
I'm selling some books to pay for a recent car bill. E-mail me (thomasfarley@yahoo.com) first to see if the book you want is still available; when I respond positively you can pay with your credit card through PayPal. I can only ship to and accept American orders. Shipping is five dollars a book unless otherwise noted. I'll be posting more titles soon:
DMS Supernode System Maintenance: Technical Overview (Student Manual, 2 Volumes) Northern Telecom (1995). These two volumes won't teach you how to hack into a DMS Supernode but you will learn quite a bit. These two books went along with a computer based course the student took at the same time; it relied on an old five inch floppy which I do not have. Not that it would do you much good, I think you'd have to have the old computer network to run the program. Anyway, you have half of the puzzle, not the whole. But I was able to make a map of a Supernode switch room using just these volumes. Click here to see my handiwork, it's down about halfway on the page.
http://www.privateline.com/dailynotes/index25.html
$35 for both volumes, $7.50 for shipping.
Pacific Bell/Nevada Bell Safety Handbook, 1976, weathered and beat up on the cover, some creased corner pages on the inside. Not too technical, hey, this is a safety manual, but interesting. $10.
Early Electrical Communication, E.A. Marland, 1964 (First edition with dust jacket). $15. Last chapter is on the telephone, all the previous concern telegraphy. An authoritative work you can cite.
The Lineman and Cableman's Handbook, Ninth Edition. Electric power oriented, not telephone. Still much good, fascinating stuff. Great info on utility poles. Fine shape, big bruiser of a book. 400+ pages. $20.
Memorial of Joseph Henry
Book Description: Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880. Good. First Edition. 4to. 528 pages. Ex-library book with all the assorted markings thereof. Who cares? This is a working copy for any technology historian. Primary source material. Nice stories about his life you might not find anywhere else. $20
April 4, 2005
Excellent Ericsson white paper on CDMA basics here (internal link). Good information on power control, cell breathing, soft handoffs, and so on. This 10 page .pdf complements well what I have done on cellular basics. (internal link). Note especially that a cell site is located at the edge of a cell, not the center, and that one base station or cell site can control several cells. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the discussion on layers, understanding them isn't necessary to comprehend basic cellular radio.
April 3, 2005
It's raining today in the Central Valley of California. I'd like to be hiking but I think it's best to do site maintenance instead, I'm working on the daily notes' files. (internal link). Don't expect all of the pages to be working before the afternoon.
I'm very sad about the death of Pope John Paul II. I disagreed with his views on many things but he was consistent and a man of great faith.
Speaking of faith, I've recently met someone very special after several years of looking. In the same week my precious cat died, a terrible ending, I found someone new. A new beginning. Coincidence? Perhaps. But since all gifts are from God, does He arrange the timing as well? I don't know. I do know I will treasure my new gift, my new friend, even more than my last great gift, my wonderful cat. Perhaps the last gift was for practice, to see how well I could take care of something beautiful. Mindless speculation! :-) Back to the website. . .
March 30, 2005
Open Wire
The photograph above shows an open wire telephone line near Rio Vista, California. It has long since been pulled down. The insulators were only seven feet or so off the ground. Much of rural America was served like this, farmer built telephone lines made of baling like wire, with parts and instructions you could buy as a kit. Click here for a bigger picture (internal link) or go here (internal link) to understand more about outside plant.
March 28, 2005
7:50 p.m. Update.
My beautiful, treasured cat is dead. Montel was the first pet I ever owned. He was a warm companion, a terrific mouser, and a source of joy I never took for granted. Never. He was 13 years old. My prayers for his health were answered but in a different, less complete way. He has peace now but not life. I must be thankful for his peace; he is no longer in pain.
I had him put down. He might have lived for a while if I were to inject him twice a day with insulin. And if the serum in his abdomen wasn't there. Most likely his liver or heart were failing and producing this bile, the veterinarian, Dr. Schultz, was not optimistic for Montel's success. Perhaps a one in four chance of him living a while longer. And the insulin shots would need to be done for his lifetime, no chance of those being suspended.
Dr. Schultz and I talked a great deal throughout the day about making the right decision. After Montel's body was returned to me the doctor reached into a cabinet and pulled out a decanter of whiskey and two shot glasses. Dr. Schultz had been Montel's only vet. Early on, the doctor's office, All Animals Veterinary Service, had Montel as their office cat. Once the whiskey was poured the doctor and I put on smiles, clinked glasses, and toasted the life of a good cat gone.
I will miss him terribly.
---------
My cat Montel (internal link) has become seriously ill. You can continue to send me e-mail (internal link) but my response to you will be delayed a day or two. I hope you had a joyous Easter weekend, regardless of your faith. And if you do pray, could you say a small one for my cat? We both thank you in advance.
March 25, 2005
Worst patent drawing?
I don't want to humiliate this company by saying who they are, but I am told they are a German firm who makes radios for Mercedes. This is the first page of a real, European Union approved patent. Click on the image for more:
Click here for more of the cover sheet
March 22, 2005
From the former Chairman of NTT
After Nippon Telephone and Telegraph spent much effort to develop a new aerial cable an unusual enemy appeared:
"We discovered that a species of bird, the Spotted Woodpecker, liked to peck holes in the hard polyethylene sheathing. We have never figured out why the bird should do this, but it certainly seemed determined to peck its way through the plastic sheathing."
"At first we thought it was looking for insects, then perhaps it was using the cable to sharpen its beak; someone even joked that it was, literally, 'wiretapping.' Although we dedicated a good deal of research to this problem, we failed to come up with any convincing explanation for the bird's behavior."
"Many of our cables in mountainous Hokkaido and Nagano prefectures were continually damaged by this industrious bird. And once it had made one hole, it would not stop until it had riddled the cable with holes for hundreds of meters on either side."
"We tried setting up scarecrows and stringing piano wire above the cables to mate it more difficult for the birds to perch on them, but all our attempts failed. In the end we were reduced to installing special cables coated with an extra layer of protective steel."
Telecommunications: NTT's Vision of The Future, Yamaguchi, (1991) NTT Publishing Company, Tokyo, 94
March 18, 2005
What does Nokia stand for?
Nokia sells a third of the world's phones. But what does their name mean? You get this trivia only at privateline.com:
"Emblem of the city of Nokia. The Nokia name comes from the river Nokia, which in turn apparently took its name from a dark, furry rodent called the nokia, (in English, the mustelid) a member of the weasel family." Nokia, The Inside Story Haikio (2002) Prentice Hall, London, 48
March 15, 2005
Tom:
Hello. My name is William Schwartz and I'm with the United States National Forest Service (external link). We're restoring an old forest station. I thought your readers might be interested in this project since the station acted as a communication link for a remote area north of Yellowstone Park. . . click here to continue reading --> (internal link)
2005: The 100th year of the United States National Forest Service
Selected Daily Notes Archive (Home Page has current notes)
Oldest (Page 1) to most new (Page 52)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40) (41) (42) (43)(44) (45)(46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52)
Free Telecom Magazines through TradPub.com. Click here to go there
