Scourings

Verizon’s drive to obtain a Philadelphia FiOS by the end of 2008 may be bogged down in town committee meetings plus a play by a cable business to get in the action. The Organization, which owns a little part of Philadelphia’s cable franchise, is lobbying for an equity partnership with Verizon. It currently providers thousands of customers, mostly in Philadelphia Housing Authority units. A metropolis councilman reviewing the Verizon proposal is concerned they might lose customers as PHA builds a lot more single loved ones houses, and he has questions about outside minority contractors involved in the Verizon installation. On account of delays, the entire City Council could not act until January about the proposal. There’s also a push for Verizon to shell out up front for public access channels. A committee on the Philadelphia Metropolis Council has approved Verizon’s program to create a large FiOS network inside the metropolis; the complete Council may approve the understanding in two weeks - assuming no other roadblocks show up.

The Verizon FiOS Philadelphia franchise understanding using the town of Philadelphia demands Verizon to cover the whole city with FiOS inside of the first couple of years. The committee amended the contract to offer Philly’s mayor much more power to enforce minority contracting conditions. Verizon has committed to create a handful of million in public entry obligations above the life of the contract.

Thursday’s hearing was the third since early December ahead of the Philadelphia Metropolis Council, and there has been heavy lobbying by cable-incumbent and home-town company Comcast in opposition to the FiOS arrangement. Verizon fired back above the past month with newspaper and radio ads to try to bring “cable choice” to the metropolis. Each organizations likely wish to play nicer inside the long term provided the scrutiny above broadband issues.

How much time do you spend using search engines to look for people you used to know? Come on, you’re looking for old loves and lost classmates just like everyone else. And how much of that time do you spend actually looking at stuff about your old compadres? Zilch. Zero. Nada. The truth is that you find Websites that go on about people you’ve never heard of, couldn’t care less about, and will probably never read about again. But for some oddball reason you clicked on links you should not have clicked on and went on your merry Websurfing way, wasting hours of your life looking at other people’s lives.

We’ve all done it. We’re reading about the Roger Linakers of the world. Studying the lines in the faces of the Amelia Smiths on the Web. Asking ourselves why we cannot be as fit and trim as the Barry Smithmeiers of the world. Wondering who the lucky guys are that married the Sonja Pressleys of life. Oh, it’s so disgusting but we do it again and again and again. Why? Because it’s so easy to do.

One moment you’re trying to find information on a local golf tournament and the next thing you know you’re reading about some guy named Dennis Tamburo. You couldn’t care less about his career, where he went to school, or why he donates money to charity. But you cannot stop clicking on the links to Websites that mention Dennis Tamburo because somehow, unlike us, the guy gets around.

Who makes up the rules of life that says most of us have to be spectators? Why do we have to be satisfied with going to the grocery store when we need food? Why do we have to live in small apartments, rickety old houses, and drive rusty smoke-belching cars from the 1980s? The Internet frees us from the doldrums of everyday life and gives us the power to dream about living someone else’s life.

Maybe you don’t want to be Dennis Tamburo but you might just think about being his neighbor, his rich uncle, his sister’s boyfriend’s aunt’s friend-at-work who gets a really cool award. And then someone starts yelling at you and you look away from the screen long enough to realize that your Mom has sent your little sister down to tell you it’s time for dinner. Some days, life just sucks.

ATTs U-verse (fiber tv deal) is the fastest growing TV service in the US and is rising by leaps and bounds every month. AT&T, who has long been known for providing superior home phone service as well as cell service, has really made a stir in this new area.

Now AT&T U-verse servicehas a crystal clear picture that rivals the best High Definition programming their competitors have to offer. Once its up and running and your friends check it out you’llhave to invest in new furniture because you’ll have company over at your home very often. U-verse packages start out at more or less 200 channels and include a DVR (digital video recorder) for taping your favorite episodes.

Speaking of the Video Recorder, U-verse’s DVR does more than a conventional one does. You can view one of your favorite shows while you recordanother at the same time. Most DVRs already have this capability built in. But AT&T’s DVR allows you to tape up to four (4) shows simultaneously. This makes TV haggling, especially for roommates and partners, easier.

Along with stellar television service and a multi-purpose DVR, AT&T Uverse offers thousands of On Demand Movies. On Demand is an outstanding accessory to renting flicks from the local video store, or from DVD mailers like Netflix and Blockbuster.

ATT Uverse has a good deal of different choices to pick from when you decide on U-verse. Their bundles are designed to fit any household’s demand regardless of the situation. If you require their most basic package which has digital stations and fewer of them in HD, it is definitely possible. AT&T U-verse also packages their services offering up a soup-to-nuts service package for their clients. That means Television Service, online service, and phone service all in one easy bundle.

The immediate step to take is to obtain ATT Uverse Coupons. The coupons anywhere . Once you’ve chosen the service that best fits your household, AT&T will schedule a day and hour for an installation. The installation might may take a few hours and may be the most complicated part of the process.

But AT&T has the most skilled and professional staff that is well suited for installations as any necessary fixes that you might need in the future.

Perhaps you’re moving to a new city that has U-verse or you’re just looking for a change from your normal run of the mill cable company. Whatever the reason, now is the time to check U-verse out. They’re firmly dug in a good portion of the country and their service gets better and by the day.

Also, ATT is really looking to grow their customer base and have been offering some inviting cash incentives recently. Try and check itout soon!

Well-known economist Marie Josee Kravis, wife of Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts Co’s Henry Kravis, is a senior fellow as well as a member of the board of trustees of the Hudson Institute. As an economist, Marie Josee specializes in public policy analysis and strategic planning.

Since 1973, Marie Josee Kravis has been actively working with the Hudson Institute. She directed Hudson’s “Corporate Environment Program” as well as the “Europe and the World” study. In addition, she has also done studies that dealt with the economic development of countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Mexico, and France.

Prior to joining Hudson, Marie Josee served as the special assistant to the Federal Solicitor General and then worked in the same capacity for the Minister of Supply and Services for the Canadian government right after she served as Power Corporation of Canada’s financial analyst.

Aside from her involvements with the Hudson Institute and the Canadian government, Marie Josee Kravis also served as a member of the Bilateral Dispute Settlement Board, a part of the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement. She became a part of the Quebec government’s Committee on Financial Institutions and currently serves as the President of New York City’s famous Museum of Modern Art.

ATT Uverse is hands down best service out there. Our family was fed up with Qwest after they removed most of our stations and the internet service was non-functional for long periods of time. There was news about U-Verse back in May 2007 and decided to delay some time to switch over to U-Verse while they worked out their kinks in Los Angeles.

So the installer finally came at 3:30 PM, about 2 hrs late, and he tried hooking stuff up but claimed our basement had rodents which it did not. So he said a technician would come the following day. The following morning I could not be there so my dad was and the second installer could not do the install and had my dad do it. After the install disaster I called ATT Uverse and they gave us a nice discount. The Internet is quick and we are very near to the junction so we obtain the highest speeds.

I can already tell a difference from cable tv the pages. It seem to load swifter and we are never down or need to unplug and re plug the router and modem. On Time Warner we were loosing our DNS signal. You also have the option of visiting any Starbucks or ATT Hotspot and use the internet for free. For me this was a pretty big selling point. I’m always out with my laptop so this turned out to be awesome. The tv is cool and I love the DVR. You can record up to 4 shows at one time during the same time period. We currently have the 200 Channel Package with standard definition channels.

We do not need any more channels currently. Also, If you have an ATT wireless phone you can also hook up your new lists for shows from there. The installation was horrible but overall we’ve been pleased with ATT Uverse.

Q: Not to ask a ridiculously obvious question, but what is a blog? And what’s the
future of blogs and blogging?

A: By a remarkable coincidence, Steven Streight, aka Vaspers the Grate, just asked
me the very same questions about the definition of blogs on his own site, so rather
than write something new, I’m just going to quote what I wrote for him:

What is your definition of a “blog”?

A blog isn’t what everyone thinks it is.

In fact, on this very page, you have a pile of definitions of blogs that I disagree with.

Why?

Because everyone likes to focus on the *presentation* of information and blogs are
really all about the *management* of information.

Here’s what I mean: if you think that a blog is a web site characterized by frequent
articles displayed in chronological order, typically with timestamps, a la a journal or
diary, you’re missing the forest for the trees.

Weblogs, instead, are just the facade that we see of considerably more powerful
content management systems that really revolutionize the maintenance of Websites.

Look at it this way: if you’re not using a blog to help manage your site, when was
the last time you added any new content or revised an existing page?

When you do add content, do you make sure to link it into all the other pages on
your site, including your sitemap?

Sure, there are other software solutions for managing Web sites, but none that are
as flexible, easy, inexpensive, and SEO-friendly as weblogs.

What is the future of blogs?

Having said that, I think that blogs are going to go the way of the dinosaur, evolving
from an animal we spot into the petroleum we use to fuel our journeys, without
giving an iota of thought to the source of the petroleum.

It’s not that blogs aren’t cool and interesting, but just as geeks used to learn
PostScript so they could work with printers and display systems and now…

…have no idea that PostScript is the underlying language of many devices, so we’ll
find that we can focus on our sites, how the information is displayed and how we
utilize it for our needs.

After all, the bottom line is the same as it was before the blogging “phenomenon”:

How do you find the best, most useful and valuable information on the Internet for
any given question, problem or query?

Dave Taylor is an internationally recognized expert on business and technical topics
and is the author of 18 different books and thousands of magazine articles. His Q&A
Web site is http://www.askdavetaylor.com/