Last week, my daughter proudly informed me that she had eaten something she knew I liked to eat.
I asked, “What is it that you ate?”.
“Burnt turkey,” she proclaimed.
“Burnt turkey?”.
“Yes,” she insisted.
I had to think fast and hard. Then it came to me.
“Do you mean beef jerky?”, I asked.
“Yes, that’s what I said, beef jerky.”
Whew.
I registered a domain for my family’s email some years ago and it has been hosted by a traditional method. I use a company (Dreamhost) that provides web and email hosting. So far, this has been a great option to the various free email services that are popular for a day and then get replaced. I wanted something that would last years and always allow me to connect with people over that time. This hosted solution has other advantages, most notably, the ability to save all my email and access it via IMAP. Those two can not be over exaggerated when your wife wants an email you sent last month and you only have your iPhone. Traditional email uses POP, which anyone who uses a desktop will tell you, once you download it, you can’t get it back on webmail. Hence the mail hosting. Over the years, free webmail has grown to encompass these two advantages of the traditional hosting model, but still require you to use their domain, i.e. me@fremail.com. Not bad, but not terribly portable. If they go out of business/get bought out/change service, you’re out of luck. So, I had not real reason to move from Dreamhost to another hosting solution for my email.
Until recently.
I noticed Dreamhost tried hard to advertise the ability to host your email on Gmail for several months before I actually even looked at what it meant. Essentially, they are referencing Google’s App service. For just about any organization, you can get fifty (50) free accounts that come with Gmail, Docs and Calendaring. Not bad. Everyone needs email these days. Throw in calendaring and document creation and you have me interested. The real trick would be how this all worked.
It was easy.
Dreamhost has a link on the panel under mail management to get you started. Essentially, you sign-up with Google Apps for your domain and then have the option to setup what apps are available and for whom. After that, you can access email, calendar and docs with ease. The pieces that intrigue me the most are calendar sharing and storage capacity. I uploaded my entire email archive and it came in at almost 7600 messages and several hundred megabytes. That’s pretty large for some and not so much for others. To get it up there, Google also has a handy little tool aptly named the Google Email Uploader. I used it on my Mac with Mail and had no problems uploading both my and my wife’s email. The only email that was skipped were duplicates. It all ended up under a label (Google eschews the traditional folder paradigm for IMAP accounts) with today’s date.
So far, no problems.
Recently my wife and I had a salesman from Time Warner Cable stop by and inform us of a special deal they offer to new customers. Buy three services (Internet/Cable/Telephone) and it will cost $99/year. This is a good deal. However, we had AT&T at the time and I did not want to switch, especially since it would mean redoing all my home connections for modems, wifi and telephone. I just didn’t want to commit to the change. However, it did peak my curiosity and made me look over my AT&T bill. It was $170 for essentially identical services from TWC. Ouch! So, it made me think about what alternatives exist and whether or not it was wise to make the switch to TWC.
We talked about for a few days and I researched all of our options. We could stay with AT&T and move to a lower (comparable) tier of cable service similar to TWC. That brought it down some, but not much. It was at this point I realized the price was going to be high no matter what we did. So I expanded the criteria for entertainment/Internet/telephone options to include those offered via Internet delivery, i.e. Hulu, Netflix (already had subscription), Vonage, MagicJack, Skype, etc. What I found were various options all with their own strengths/weaknesses. This led me to further consider wireless Internet as an option since I was then willing to break up the monopoly of home Internet/cable/telephone from AT&T or TWC. This led me to Clear Wireless. I was intrigued by their offering for none other than the ability to take my modem and move it around to meet my needs at home. The Internet connection for the entire house was originally in my son’s room. (Don’t ask me why the original owner’s had it installed anywhere but the master bedroom.) Thankfully, he did not play with the various cords and devices in his room, but he did disconnect the wireless printer on at least one occasion. So, I was hoping for the opportunity to move these devices somewhere else in our home and Clear Wireless offered that possibility.
I decided the best way to continue my research was to actually use one of the possible solutions and see if it fit. First up, Clear Wireless.
We went to Best Buy and quickly found the Clear rep to ask some questions. After convincing my wife this would be at worst a fourteen (14) day test and at best a better solution that we currently enjoyed, we decided to subscribe. While talking with the rep, we also were also offered a wireless 4G hotspot for travel. Now, this was not a small part of my overall decision to go with Clear. I have an iPad that is wifi only. My wife travels for work and takes her laptop all over the country. I work for private clients and sometimes need access where ever I am at the time. All of these situations could benefit from an Internet connection. So, for a few bucks more, we purchased home and on the go Internet access.
I took it home that day and redid our home wifi so it used the Clear wireless 4G home modem instead of the AT&T Uverse modem and away I went. First, I tested Netflix as I figured it was the most data intensive thing we did. (We don’t play online games even though we own a PS3 and Wii.) The movies looked OK. No big difference even though the download speed was lower on Clear than AT&T. I then tested the download/upload speed on Speedtest.net and was immediately disappointed. With AT&T I was getting over 6Mb/s, but Clear was only yielding about 2-3Mb/s.
Big difference.
I tried everything I could think of, including a wired connection directly to the router (all our connections were wireless with AT&T), but there was just no way to make it faster. I decided that perhaps this was not going to work after all. This was bittersweet considering I really liked the 4G on the go modem for my iPad. So, I called Clear with the intent of canceling our account. Instead, I spoke with two CSRs who not only saved my account, but converted me to a Clear Wireless evangelist.
I had a chance to experience a new (for me) way to use my iPad. Now, Saturday evening, my alma mater, Notre Dame, was playing at Michigan State. The kids are all in bed and my wife is watching TV with me. She also does not like football. Her ability to tolerate it is surpassed by her love for me, or I would never be able to enjoy games since we married. So, I’m watching this back and forth contest with MSU and she is reading a book. I can tell she would prefer to watch something else instead of read. So, I looked around and found the Count of Monte Cristo on some movie channel. Bingo (for her). As for me, it meant missing large swathes of the game.
So, I picked up my iPad and turned on my iPhone version of ESPN ScoreCenter (I’m just not paying for the iPad version, ESPN. Highway robbery.). I was able to keep up with the game as she watched her movie. I checked in on the game from time to time after I saw a good play mentioned on ScoreCenter. Once her movie was over, I was able to switch back and watch the heart breaking overtime loss.
Overall, the iPad afforded me a chance to sit with my wife as she watched TV and I read about my game. Thanks Apple.
For my birthday, my wife decided to splurge and get me the latest object of my interest.
An iPad.
I must say, this is quit an amazing tool. That’s how I like to view computers and their brethren, as tools. They cost too much and I use them and gladly put them down when done to think of them as anything else. They are certainly not toys as some might insist.
Nevertheless, it should be pointed how I plan on using this new tool. Well, it immediately relegate my MacBook Pro to development. And other processor intensive duties. Is this. Good idea given my purchase of this expensive laptop? I think so. Every tool has it’s use and I plan on using my laptop and pad when the job suits me. (The fact I am fortunate to have both is not lost on me.)
In addition, I will use it to conduct my Sunday School lessons for the youth group. It will be much easier to carry this into class instead of my laptop. Whoo hoo!
Finally, I will teach my kids to use it. They immediately wanted to play with me at the Apple store when I showed them what it could do. My son and I played “air hockey” and then I showed my daughter the Dora the Explorer paint app. They were hooked.
I’ll update often how this new experience feels for someone who has transitioned from multiple desktop systems, to a laptop and finally, a pad device. Technology is truly advancing, even within my short lifetime.
