Damien Stevens Blog

I have Joost - On Demand TV

Posted on May 14th, 2007 in Web2.0 by admin

I have a Joost Beta account — “Friends Edition”. I think it’s good… still a little rough around the edges, but a really good product. They could also use more content and channels.

However, I welcome the demise of the traditional cable company monopolies and applaud their efforts. I’ll be watching…

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Google Apps vs Exchange

Posted on February 22nd, 2007 in Google, Hosted Applications by dstevens

Google Apps vs Exchange (or hosted Exchange). After reading the big news today, it made me wonder:

Which is better - Google Apps or MS Exchange Server 2007?

I currently pay Mailstreet, a hosted Exchange Provider over $25 per mailbox per month. I get Wireless Access, Outlook Web Access, and SPAM/AV Filtering. However, that’s less than 500MB of disk space per account for $25 per month. Exchange is over-priced.

So, let’s see if I am giving up anything by switching from Hosted MS Exchange to Google Apps…

Google Apps Pros:

Free or $50/yr per user

Enterprise Features: Single Sign-on, Mail Compliance & Archiving APIs

Document Sharing built-in

Chat built-in

Opt-out of receiving Ads

Works like Gmail, no training needed!

99.9% Uptime Guarantee

24/7 Support

Great SPAM Filtering (Included)

Wireless Access built-in

MS Exchange Pros:

Fully Sync’s with Outlook 2003. Not just email, but calendar, contacts, tasks, etc…

What’s in your inbox is available via Outlook Web Access

Deep Support for Blackberry, Goodlink/Treo, and Windows Mobile

Verdict:
While it’s quite a compelling offering, I’m still missing some important pieces. The most important pieces (in my opinion):

Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks Sync. Currently you can buy a Calendar Sync. as a 3rd party add-on, but when will all this be standard?
Google Apps offers mobile and even Blackberry access, so for me, their are only 2 major reasons left to have Exchange. Hopefully Google will address these.

What’s more, it looks like Google has addressed all the major Enterprise concerns in this funny Press Release by a Hosted Exchange Provider.

Post a comment, let me know what you think!

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Which design should I use?

Posted on January 28th, 2007 in Uncategorized by admin

Which design should I use?

A - Cordobo Green Park Theme
B - Vistered Little Theme
C - Another theme - please make a suggestion, you can start with these links:

* Themes.WordPress.net, the official theme directory
* List of themes on the Codex
* Alex King’s Theme Directory
* Template Monster Wordpress themes
* Any Template Monster Design

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Why should I do the right thing?

Posted on January 28th, 2007 in Uncategorized by admin

Why should I do the right thing? Because of Morals? Because of Religion? I thought this was the Internet, and I thought I didn’t have to do the right thing!

A new startup, http://www.dotherightthing.com/, is supplying transparency and putting pressure on companies to do the right thing.

Quoted from there tutorial:

* Share information that you discover about companies’ impacts on people and the world
* Learn about the activities of companies directly from people and rate the impact of the important ones
* Track the “social performance” of companies in real time

What do you think? I’d like to see a poll on whether DoTheRightThing.com is good or bad (Positive or Negative in their terms). Take a look at the Techcrunch post for more info.

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Google TV

Posted on January 28th, 2007 in Funny, Rumors by admin

Google TV, a very elaborate hoax! On one hand, I was interested… I think it’s time that a company like Google comes out with a TV service. Fortunately, I don’t have enough time on my hands to try out the 11 - 1,000 logins that they imply it requires.

The easiest way to know this is a fake? If you watch closely, the video shows tv.google.com as the hostname for this new service. Someone suggested pinging tv.google.com. Alas, it’s possible that they block ping. What’s not possible, it to hide the fact the DNS records exists or not.

Don’t just trust me, Go See for yourself!:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/lookup.ch?name=tv.google.com&type=A

You’ll see that is says: