Mobile Phone Etiquette

I am at the airport waiting to catch my flight back to Salt Lake for the weekend. Normally I would be bored and trying to figure out something to do. Today I get the pleasure of listening to someone talk on the phone. In the past we used to have somewhat private phone booths that tried to absorb some of the sound. Now people just sit in their chairs carrying on a conversation about their latest prostrate exam like nobody else can hear them. Trust me, there are conversations I really don't want to hear.

The lure of listening in on other people's conversations used to be somewhat diminished by the fact you could only hear half of it. I don't know why but people now think it is perfectly acceptable to use Skype and FaceTime in public places. Every Thursday night as I wait to catch my flight home, I see at least one person with their phone held out like they are taking a selfie so they can FaceTime someone else. Not only can I hear the usual half of the conversation, I get to hear the whole thing. Tonight is no different.

For those that are interested, yes, that scab does look infected and he really should go to the doctor's to have it checked out.

God Gives the best Christmas Gifts

Today is Christmas and this morning I received one of the best Christmas gifts ever: Christmas snow. There is something magical about Christmas snow. If you watch the "Frosty the Snowman" Christmas special, that is the important ingredient that brings Frosty back to life after he melts in a poinsettia greenhouse. In my case, I always have a wonderful ski experience with Christmas snow.

The whole family was up at 6am this morning opening gifts. We hung out eating candy from our stockings and then used Skype to talk to my son currently living in Armenia. Once we were done, we headed outside and had a serious amount of snow to remove from the driveway before we could head up the mountain to go skiing. That is always a good sign. It was especially nice to pull into the parking lot and immediately find a premium parking spot so close to the lifts.

We spent the next several hours skiing the wonderful fresh powder that has fallen over the past few days. It was glorious skiing where you could point your skis downhill and make the smallest of turns. There was so much snow, you didn't need to make a lot of turns to slow down. When you got to the bottom, you could look up and see your superb figure-8 ski tracks. It was as perfect as a day of skiing as could be. Life is good this Christmas.

Troubleshooting an Internet Connection

I am in Japan this week because of the Tokyo Game Show. That means I am using Skype to talk to my wife every day instead of running up a huge phone bill. I went to call my wife today but couldn't get through to her home computer. When I used Skype to call her cell phone she answered and said that our home Internet was down. Naturally she was rather frustrated. I asked her to reset our cable modem to see if that helped. Nope, it didn't. There was not much else I felt I could do to help as I am over 5,000 miles away.

Later in the day I got a text from her saying that not only was the Internet down, but also the cable television connection. A few minutes later she said that the soonest the cable company could get to the house wasn't for 2 days. I thought about it for a few minutes and remembered a similar problem several months ago. So I called my wife and had her check a few things for me.

I used to get a really strong cable signal and then my cable company did something stupid. Since then I have to have a signal amplifier inside my house. That amplifier requires power and I had my wife check to make sure the power was still on. Nope, it wasn't. I had her check the circuit breakers and they were all set correctly. The power for the amplifier comes from a single outlet in the basement that is tied to a GFCI outlet in my main-floor powder room. I had her reset that and power was restored. Once the signal amplifier had power, the cable television connection started working as did the home Internet connection.

I'm glad I was able to help my wife get our home Internet connection restored without requiring the help of the cable company. I know I feel really stupid when they come out and it is as simple as a power connection.

It is Good to be Home

Friday night I made it from Tokyo back to Salt Lake without too much difficulty. It is good to be home again. Unfortunately it is a short weekend as I have to head to California for the week ahead. Two days in my own house is not enough and so I am looking forward to being able to return again Thursday evening.

While in Tokyo I used a number of technologies to keep in touch with my wife. Normally I use Skype but my wife's schedule didn't allow it this time. At least not computer to computer. I did use Skype on my iPhone while in my hotel and called my wife directly on her mobile phone number. It cost me only a few cents per minute but was well worth it.

My wife wasn't always available to talk and so I sent her a number of text messages. I kept my iPhone in airplane mode and just turned on the WiFi. As my wife and I both have iPhones, we were able to exchange text messages over WiFi and without me having to connect to the local network in Japan. I have written about this before and my son informs me that you can do the same thing with Android phones, but I have yet to give it a shot.

Next week my wife and my schedules should sync up a bit more nicely and that will make talking much easier. I love that technology has made it easier to call home as I will be missing it a lot this week.

Score a Point for iPhone

I am back in Japan only a month after I was here last. I love coming to visit but this was a bit of a quick return trip. Fortunately it is because of a new project that needs some coordinating instead of something bad.

I decided to try something a bit different on this trip in that I have left my iPhone in airplane mode instead of turning it off for the week. That means it won't try to connect with the very expensive phone network here in Japan. As most of the apps on an iPhone are worthless without data connectivity, I have turned on my WiFi network while still keeping the phone in airplane mode. One benefit of that is that I am still able to send text messages to other iPhones. That is because iPhones use iMessage when both parties are using Apple products. That allows you to get text messages on your iPad. I can't send messages to Android or Windows phones, but as my wife has an iPhone, it doesn't matter.

This has been great because Skype has really been awful lately. On Mother's Day, we tried to use it to talk to our daughter in North Carolina. The calls kept getting dropped and we kept having to reconnect. Here in Japan, I can only get about 30 seconds of the call before it gets dropped.

It is kind of nice to still be able to keep in contact with my wife via text messaging even though I am so far away. While iMessage isn't perfect, it is working. I have to keep the phone awake to keep the WiFi signal going, but I am not sure if that is because of the hotel or how WiFi works in airplane mode. I will keep playing with it to see what magic makes it work.

While I enjoy my Android phone and think it is better for certain tasks, I have to give a point to my iPhone for communication use on International travel. At least for those of us paying our own wireless phone bills. For those with employer provided mobile phones, it doesn't matter as you never see the bill.

I Forgot My Phone . . . Again

I was on my way to the airport this morning and realized I had left my phone at home. I did this once before and just took my wife's phone at the airport. Now my wife uses her phone too much to let me use hers and so I just got on the plane and headed to San Francisco for the week.

I sat on the plan and came up with possible solutions to not having a mobile phone with me for the week. I have a desk phone in my office and can use that during the day. The only time I need to be in contact with anyone is when I am back on my sailboat at night. I wasn't too worried about talking with my family because I have Internet on the boat and can use Skype on my computer.

I was kind of looking forward to being out of contact for a week. Then I realized that if there was a problem at work, they would need to get a hold of me. That left me with one of three possible choices:

1. Have my wife overnight my phone to the office
2. Buy a cheap prepaid phone and just use it for the week
3. Go to the AT&T store and replace my old iPhone 3G with a new 4S

Naturally I was leaning towards option 3. My iPhone is really old and doesn't seem to hold a charge as well as it used to. I asked around the office and had some coworkers telling me it was a good decision while others were telling me to wait for the new phone due out shortly. I don't know if there is a new iPhone looming on the horizon, but knowing Apple, there probably is.

I didn't need to buy a new prepaid phone as we have them all over the office and I could have borrowed one for a week. The trick was buying a SIM card with just enough minutes to last a week. I could have picked one up for about $20.

I ended up choosing the first option as it was the path of least resistance. There is something about having your own phone. Now I just hope they don't need me at the office tonight while I wait for my phone to arrive tomorrow.

A Skype Christmas

I thought I would take a break from video game reviews this evening and write about my Christmas. I used to love getting gifts on Christmas. Now that I am older, there are other things that make for a good holiday season. One thing that has been nice this year is having my older brother living so close to me in Utah. I spent the day at his new house visiting with him and his family.

Yesterday I enjoyed opening my gifts, but the best gift of all was being able to talk to my two oldest kids. My daughter is living near Cleveland, Ohio and my son is in Romania. With the help of Skype, we were all together as a family for the first time in seven months. We talked for over two hours and it was free. For a parent, it was the best Christmas gift ever.

In Japan

This month starts a series of regular trips to Tokyo, Japan. I will probably be making the trip every couple of months. I have been to Japan before, but it has been at least fifteen years since I was last here. While I enjoyed my first trip to Japan, I was only here for two days. This time I get to spend an entire week and really get the chance to see the city.

There are several things that stand out relating to technology. First is the quality of the Internet service in the hotel. I have no problem using Skype to talk to my family back home. Yesterday we did a video conference for about 30 minutes and it didn't cost me a dime. While my iPhone has the ability to work all over the world, I have turned it off after hearing horror stories of people traveling internationally and getting phone bills worth about the same amount as a new compact car. Skype works great and so that is how I am communicating with my wife and kids.

The second thing that stands out is the quality of public transportation. I arrived into Haneda airport at 11pm on a Saturday evening. I got through customs, changed some money, and caught an express train to Shinagawa where I am staying. The train left exactly on time, was clean, and easy to figure out. This is a sharp contrast to the poor public transit system in the Bay Area. Last night I was with a group of coworkers and we missed our train by mere seconds. Not more than 5 minutes later, another train came along. In the Bay Area, we would have been stuck anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes waiting. Furthermore all the signs were in both Japanese and English, which made it easy to get around. The best part about the public transportation here is that it is affordable. It cost $5 to get from the airport to the hotel whereas the Bay Area would have cost over twice as much for the same distance.

Now that I am over my jet lag, I get to spend the next couple of days in the office. I will be interested to see what other technological differences I notice between here and back home. So far Japan has been fun and so I hope I am not disappointed.

Be Careful What You Write

A few weeks ago, I attended a presentation on Internet Security. The purpose of the talk was to expose the dangers of putting too much personal information on the Internet. With the advent of Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook, there are a lot of ways to keep all of your friends up-to-date with your latest activities. However this can be a bad thing. Perhaps you mention that you have just acquired that rare item on e-bay that represents the bulk of your net worth. Then a few weeks later, you mention that you are on vacation. Any thief with Internet access and a willingness to do a bit of research can figure out how to unburden you from your prized possession.

For some in the audience, it was difficult to see how one could make the jump from reading a blog (like this one) to knowing the exact location of a person. The speaker then gave an illustration of how a teenager was befriended by an online predator. The teenager was smart enough to know better than to give out personal information but that didn't stop the predator. He was able to discover her e-mail and did an Internet search. He was able to find a post on a collectibles website where she gave her mother's phone number. The predator was able to do a reverse telephone lookup and get her address. It was only a matter of luck that the authorities were able to apprehend the predator before any damage was done. When they caught him, he had a map with driving instructions to the teenager's house.

At the end of the presentation it became very apparent that the speaker was against any type of online presence. While that may be a bit drastic, he did have some good points. First, make sure you have a valid reason for posting information. Second, be careful what you post as it may become a lure for tragedy. Finally, be aware of what your children are posting. While I may be upset if someone were to steal my favorite pair of skis, I wouldn't cry too long. If someone were to harm one of my children, it would be a much different story.

Online Video Games

Working away from home during the week can take its toll on your family life. While I have plenty of time to talk with my family, it just isn't the same as being there. Video conferencing with Skype helps a bit, but it is easy to miss that interaction you get by just hanging out together.

Several years ago, my extended family started a weekly game night. My Brothers, dad, and I would play an online video game on Thursdays with our sons. While some of us live close to each other, my older brother and his son are in San Diego. The game we started playing was SOCOM, which is a first-person-shooter game where you are a Navy SEAL that hunts terrorists (or visa versa). We originally started playing the game on Playstation 2's. Then it came out on the PSP. The PSP is nice because you can bring it on the road with you and don't have to lug around a larger console, nor do you have to worry about connecting it to a hotel TV.

My youngest son is 14 and really needs his Dad around. Since I can't be there, I try to talk to him on the phone. Unfortunately he is a boy and doesn't really like to talk on the phone (unlike his older sisters, who can talk for hours about nothing). Lately we have pulled out the PSP's and started playing online together. It may only be for a half-hour or so, but we are doing something together. I have the headset game in one ear and the cell-phone headset in the other. We are in constant contact the whole time. While we aren't in the same room, I think that this is as close as it gets to being home even though I am out of town. Now I just have to get better so he stops complaining how lousy I am.

A New Laptop

Recently I received a new laptop at work. It isn't nearly as nice as my old black MacBook, but it means I have yet another computer. For a while I was leaving my work laptop in San Francisco and carrying my MacBook back and forth to Salt Lake. This week I decided to leave it at home and utilize the laptop the company gave me. So far, it has turned out to be a good decision, but the week is still young.

One nice thing about my MacBook is that it has a built-in camera to use with Skype. My new computer has the same setup. None of the computers we have at home have a camera and so it was kind of nice to talk to my son. He logged into my MacBook while I was on my new laptop and we were able to see each other as we talked. It didn't take long before everyone in the family was down in my office crowding behind the laptop screen to get a look at Dad.

Working 600 miles away from home can be a little lonely sometimes. While I spend quite a bit of time on the phone with member of my family, it will be nice to enjoy seeing them as well as talking to them.

The Green Office

I just got back from making a deposit in the bank. This gave me the opportunity to look at the mileage on my car. My car turns 9 in a couple of days but only has 39,000 miles on it. That is still a relatively brand-new car. At the time I opted for something practical that could comfortably seat 5. Now I wish I had gotten the Ferrari. With a Ferrari I could probably sell it for about the same price I paid for it.

The reason my car has so few miles is because I don't go anywhere. Most people drive to and from work every day and that has a tendency to rack up the miles. Instead I work from home. I am a third-generation telecommuter. My Grandfather who still practices law works from home. My Dad who runs and advertising agency also works from home. This has me wondering why more people don't work from home.

Right now it is stylish to be "green." What is more green: a guy who owns a Toyota Prius but drives to work 20 miles round trip every day, or a guy who works out of his basement? Even a 5th grader would answer that someone working from home is "greener."

I don't believe offices will ever disappear completely but I do think they need to be updated. When I used to work at Oracle, they would send out surveys to their employees asking how they were being "green." This was an attempt to get people to carpool or utilize mass transit. It also had the effect of getting managers to allow employees to work from home several days a week. If you are not in the office every day, then you don't need a permanent office or a cubicle. Fewer offices save the company a huge amount of money.

With the Internet it is easy to have all your calls forwarded to your home office. With services like Skype, you can even do inexpensive home video conferencing. Technology really has the potential to help makes our lives easier.

One valid criticism of working from home is that there are the potential for more distractions while working from home. This is especially true if you have a family with small children. I used to work in an office and so when I started working at home, I discovered the importance of a door. You know that big flat thing found near the entrance to your study or office. When the door is closed, Daddy is at work. When it is open, Daddy is at home. It takes about 5 minutes to train even the most stubborn child. Amazingly I found that I get more work done at home than I ever did in the office thanks to the use of a door.

Every year I wonder when corporations will figure out that they can save huge amounts of money by not having large offices. Unfortunately I keep waiting.