When will Voice Mail die?

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Voice mail was invented when people had just one phone at that was wired to the wall at home. If you’ve got one way of communicating leaving a message is  fine, but when you’ve lot’s of options Voice Mail is almost redundant.

How many times do you get (or send) an email saying, I just left you a voice mail, but if you could sent me XYZ that’d be great..that kind of defeats the object of Voice Mail. The person now has to go into Voice Mail and listen to the first three seconds (that’s a great idea too) and then delete it.

Most people simply call back when they’re free again or if it’s really urgent drop you an email saying “hey would be great if you could call me this afternoon, really need to talk to you”

So if no one objects I’m going to take voice mail off my phone, so if you call and I don’t answer then try again a little later or drop me a text or an email and I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.

Once a few people do it, people will get used to it and move on…RIP Voice Mail I say.

The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It – or ubiquity

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Wired’s Article is interesting as it acknowledges we’re about to enter the ubiquitous computing age.

We won’t care much about the computer devices themselves since we’ll be more focused on the world of information

Our interactions with computers is about to change. We already flick between maybe 3 or 4 different computers throughout the day. Laptop to Phone, to iPad, to desktop PC all the time consuming the same information (Twitter, Facebook whatever) just on different OS’s different platforms each becoming less relevant to the us as the information we’re trying to consume.

The interesting piece now will be what other shapes and forms can computers morph into to allow us to consume the information?

BYOD still getting mixed reviews

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I keep reading about BYOD and nearly every article contradicts another; it’s cheaper, it’s more expensive, it allows users to choose devices, users must choose a device that works with our MDM platform.

Some articles indicate the users pays the bill, others they expense it, other use corporate provided sim cards. Some mention how they deal with expensive roaming, others neglect that hot topic completely.

Probably the best article I’ve read is this one from CIO.com, have you seen anything better?

do you need a blog anymore?

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I started this blog back in June 2003, so almost 10 years ago now, but back then there wasn’t a Facebook or a Twitter, I think there was a Flickr as I recall linking photo’s to this site pretty early on.

Nowadays, I seem to be spending my time reading posts via RSS (that killed off visiting blogs) and chatting via Twitter (that’s reduced comments/conversations on blogs).

A few days back I found myself thinking about the web back in late nighties. I felt something was missing, the app based internet has dulled the excitement of the internet.

The excitement of finding new websites, watching people build more and more interesting sites in innovative ways has gone. There’s a small buzz finding a new app that does something funky, but it’s not the same as finding a website listing all the secret codes for a gadget.

So those days have gone and I miss it, I miss visiting peoples web pages, I miss seeing people create things and share their passion on their site.

Today that passion is still there, it’s not gone away, it’s just that you don’t read about it on their site, it’s via twitter, an article in Greader, I think the internet has become too clean, too uniform, too sterile even, I loved the quirkiness, the bad selection of font colours.

Maybe the it’s because back then, the web seemed closer to the technology that made it work, you had to understand FTP, be able to write/edit HTTP by hand. You were closer to  internet. Today it’s all disconnected, a user had now clue of FTP, yes it’s easier, but it’s just not the same.

So that’s my excuse for not posting here as much as I used too, I’m elsewhere.

Bring back the text based frequently ‘under construction’ web please!

PS. I’m off to find a retro theme for this site.

When You’re Constantly Checking Your Email, You’re Putting Your Needs Behind Everyone Else’s

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I found this interesting and read it on Readability http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Roaqv-Cvs3U/when-youre-constantly-checking-your-email-youre-putting-your-needs-behind-everyone-elses

As we noted last week, email is not the problem—we are. And it’s not just the productivity drain or the antisocial effects of constantly checking our phones and computers for new messages.…