OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[bimmer84]

Anyone try Live Mesh yet? Pretty slick.

Me! I have used it since January. Works great and it is nifty to be able to connect to the home desktop while traveling. I like the folder sync as well.

[-Deborah-]

Deb - ever try Logmein?

Angry Birds is quite addicting....

Yep I use LogMeIn to provide tech support to my out of town relatives, but it's blocked at work.

Yeah Angry Birds is ridiculously addicting. I installed the PC version and can't get enough!!!

[-Deborah-]

Me! I have used it since January. Works great and it is nifty to be able to connect to the home desktop while traveling. I like the folder sync as well.

Yeah it really does work remarkably well.

[Sweatpants Murphy]

AT&T-Mobile: Merger brings efficiencies, but will consumers see the benefit?

Posted by Scott Woolley
March 21, 2011 8:26 AM

T-Mobile and AT&T say they won't have to raise rates to make more money after the merger, but it's hard to see how they could resist.

Image by misterjt via Flickr


At a recent investor conference, T-Mobile's top executives made a point of belittling data plans for smartphone users offered by rivals AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). T-Mobile's entry-level data plan costs $10, they pointed out, while AT&T demands 50% more for the same 200 megabyte-a-month plan. That leads to an awkward question: Now that AT&T plans to buy T-Mobile, what's going to happen to those low cost plans?
Both federal antitrust regulators and the Federal Communications Commission, which has long functioned as an extra layer of antitrust enforcement in the telecommunications industry, will be scrutinizing the $39 billion deal. The proposal to create America's largest cell phone company, with a record 130 million customers, will also force regulators to revisit an even more fundamental issue. In the cellular industry, how big is too big?
Early reaction to AT&T's bid has split across the predictable fault lines. Consumer rights groups have denounced it as harmful to competition. AT&T and T-Mobile have defended it as the product of economic logic and a long-term boon for their customers.
Cellular is a scale business, meaning bigger companies almost always have lower costs. The merger would let AT&T spread the cost of running a nationwide network over more customers, lowering its costs and further improving its margins. The giant size of AT&T and Verizon already translates into cash flow margins that are often double those of smaller companies like T-Mobile and Sprint (S).
AT&T has promised to spread some of that windfall around. If regulators OK the deal the company said that it will build an expansive 4G networks that will deliver high-speed access to 95% of Americans. The Obama administration is keen on boosting corporate spending and speeding the rollout of rural broadband, twins political currents that will help push the deal along.
Other arguments put forth by AT&T are harder to take at face value. The company says that the deal will also benefit customers by helping solve AT&T's worst headache: its shortage of wireless capacity. AT&T's data traffic grew 80-fold over the past four years?mainly thanks to the iPhone swamping its network. The problem even got so bad that T-Mobile launched an ad campaign mocking AT&T for its old and slow network.
And yet T-Mobile recently admitted it wasn't that far away from running short on capacity itself. T-Mobile doesn't have much spectrum, and what it does have is of mediocre quality. (Wireless signals sent on the sort of higher-frequency spectrum that T-Mobile uses have a harder time reaching across long distances or into buildings.) To be fair, there will be some capacity gains from pooling spectrum, but not nearly enough to match the growth in demand.
AT&T says it is confident that the deal will get approved, and backed its talk with a promise to pay $3 billion to T-Mobile if regulators scotch the deal.
Regulators face a tough choice. There's no denying that T-Mobile would be far more valuable as part of AT&T, given the easy cost savings the pair could realize. To realize those profit boosts, the giant company does not need to use the reduction in competition to raise prices. But, if given the chance, would it be able to resist the temptation



http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/...enefit/?hpt=C2

I read something earlier on phonescoop.com saying that the FCC may not approve this merger.

If it does happen, I'll probably be working for Big Red before long.

[Topweasel]

Deb - ever try Logmein?

Angry Birds is quite addicting....

Yeah I have been using Logmein for quite awhile and if it works on our firewall it will on most. But this Folder sync has me interested, might give the Microsoft solution a try.

[Topweasel]

Any users here running Windows 7 and did you install Service Pack 1? Any issues? I've had three machines fail at various stages - one bad enough that I had to revert to the restore point it made before applying....kind of surprised as I've never had issues with Service Packs for any MS product...

I generally stay away from SP1's for a bit just to see if others have issues first unless I am doing a fresh install. But when it comes to SP's the intial rollout of the first SP has been an issue for Microsoft on all the Major releases.

[WingsFan]

Im certainly not a technology geek, but I updated my Firefox to .4 and it is really fast. Like double then the 3.6, definitely recommend it.

[nhwbrooklyn]

I generally stay away from SP1's for a bit just to see if others have issues first unless I am doing a fresh install. But when it comes to SP's the intial rollout of the first SP has been an issue for Microsoft on all the Major releases.

Haven't had any issues with SP1 so far. Been about a week. Doesn't mean much... just my individual experience with it.

[Tony G]

Im certainly not a technology geek, but I updated my Firefox to .4 and it is really fast. Like double then the 3.6, definitely recommend it.

I've been a Firefox fan for quite a while but am thinking of picking up Google Chrome. Anyone else have it and if so, any difficulties?

[Coop]

Running Chrome 10. 9 was very stable and fast, 10 is as well but have had a few crashes.

[Topweasel]

Going to wait a bit to install Firefox 4. Uses the graphics card to accelerate its performance, but I have heard of both desktop and laptop users that have been noticing their graphics cards running at game loads. Specially on a laptop that spells doom for battery and its not great to have that consistent amount of temp and power running through a computer. Going to let those bugs iron out a little.

[froot loops]

My OS crashed on my 11 year old computer so I had to do some reworking. I downloaded Firefox 4 and it is fast for that ancient computer.

[Coop]

have you tried chrome froot?

[Topweasel]

My OS crashed on my 11 year old computer so I had to do some reworking. I downloaded Firefox 4 and it is fast for that ancient computer.

Yeah the problem is on my end that I don't use computers with middle of the pack graphics. My work laptop has a Quadro, my personal laptop has a 9800GT, my desktop has a HD4870. That's a lot of extra power when I have two C2D's and a Phenom X4 doing that workload already. The 4870 in my desktop is at load something 220Watts of power, and I leave my windows open on that an extended time (upwards of weeks). My biggest issue with Firefox has never been its performance on any of those machines (though flash on my work laptop has always been an issue) its when its memory leaks explode and try eating all my RAM).

[froot loops]

chrome doesn't work on my OS