I can’t remember the last time I used Telnet, not for debugging purposes that is, it was probably for setting up routers or other networking devices a few years ago. Hardly anyone uses Telnet for it’s original intended purpose anymore, mostly due to it’s lacking security. When I do need Telnet, I use it out of PuTTY, quick, simple and comfortable. So it was a bit of surprise to see that Telnet is not part of the default Windows installation anymore (Since Windows Vista). It’s still there, just not available until you specifically enable it.

To enable Telnet on Windows 7, do the following:
Go to Start –> Control Panel
Choose Programs –> Programs and Features
Click Turn Windows features on or off, it might take a while until the list loads
In the list, check the Telnet checkbox and click ok.
It might take a while here again.

That’s it, Telnet is enabled.

VirtualRecorder is an Android application meant to record live audio, much like the old tape or Digital voice recorders. I’ve been using VirtualRecorder to record audio conferences and lectures but when you want to play it back on your pc, you may find that the resulting pcm file is not recognized by any standard audio player on your computer. This is because the file is a raw audio file that music players do not know how to play and in most cases can’t even recognize. To be able to play back the Virtual Recorder pcm file, you will need a designated audio software or editor that will be able to play and convert the file to a different format for better accessibility.

The most convenient (and free) application, both to play and convert raw audio files is Audacity, available for download here. The application is supported on Windows, Mac and various variants of Unix and Linux, if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, be sure to download version 1.3 and up (currently in beta), since they are supported only from this version on. Once Audacity is installed on your system we can move on to loading and converting VirtualRecorder’s pcm files.

Importing the pcm file:
- First copy the pcm files from your device memory card, located in the VirtualRecorder folder, to your computer.
- Open Audacity, go to File –> Import –> Raw Data… and choose the pcm file you want to convert.
- In the Import Raw Data menu choose the following:
Encoding: Signed 16bit PCM
Byte order: Little Endian
Channels: 1 Channel (Mono)
Sample rate: 22050 Hz
- You can set the Start offset and Amount to import as you wish. To import the entire file leave them both at default values (0 and 100, respectively).
- Click the import button.

Now you can listen to the audio track using Audacity, or convert it using the application’s export capability. To export the track, go to File –> Export… Choose the format to which you want to export, a wide variety of formats is supported (WAV, MP3, AIF, OGG, FLAC, AC3, WMA and more) and save the file.

It’s not a new discussion really, I can remember arguing about it at least a dozen times in the past few years, and yet, the subject does come up again every once in a while. The hypothetical, what if talk about charging a fee to register and/or participate in social networks. Will you pay to be a member in a social community? Will it work? What would have happened if social networks charged a fee right from the start? And so on.

Let’s start from the beginning (Which might have created a while new discussion about what is the beginning of social networks. Since it always ends up being the old dial-up BBSs, I will not get into that), or to be more precise, the wide spread of social networks outside the realm of the tech savvy. We’re talking mostly about the Friendster and MySpace era of social networks. What if MySpace charged a fee to be a member of it’s community? But before answering this question, a new question arise, how will they charge their users? Looking at the social network users demographics of the time, it’s apparent that the large majority of users were teenagers and young college students, the same groups who does not possess the means to pay online, certainly not five or ten years ago. They had no credit cards or Paypal accounts and no way to transfer funds online. So in the reality of the time the question is kind of mute.

Even if the payment problem was solved somehow, owners would have a hard time convincing users that the benefits of using a social network service are worth the fee. Especially when considering the time before users experienced the kinks of social networking. There’s simply not enough added value. Not that it’s never been tried before, Tickle.com, a site providing self-discovery, and social networking services was the first to introduce charges for access to some of it’s profiles, back in the beginning of 2004. This is somewhat the same case as today’s LinkedIn, which charges members for premium services, but LinkedIn, unlike Facebook or Google+, is a niche network specializing in professional contacts and it’s fees, like in the Tickle.com case, are for premium services only and are not a membership fee.

A recent survey revealed that 96.77% of social networking users will not pay any membership fee, 9.97% will consider paying for premium services, depending on the services offered. Many studies are trying to follow and track the rapid growth and the business model of such social networks. If recent polls numbers are any indication, social networks imposing a fee will completely halt it’s growth. A majority of social networks users say they would rather delete their accounts than pay a service charge.

The talk about some social networks considering minimal fees to monetize their networks has been going on for years, but I have yet to see that happen on a large scale. The subscription model poses many challenges, mainly the loss of users to free sites and loss of critical mass that is required to keep the whole social eco-system in tact, the premium service however may work in most instances. So although Facebook has experienced more rapid growth than LinkedIn, Facebook’s model is much easier to copy and replace than LinkedIn’s platform which has deeper business applications and more users who are willing to pay for premium services. The Freemium model with about 95% of free users and 5% paying for premium services seems to be the model that is working best at the moment.

I received my new Nook Touch a few days ago and I wanted to share a few first impressions. The reasons for choosing the Nook over other options in the market were numerous. First and foremost, it’s my inherent objection to the closed garden approach, an approach that made Apple products non granta in our household In the book reader market, the bullying leader is of course the Kindle from Amazon. There are many other players in the market with Sony among the first and leaders, but when it comes to specs and price, none of them have any advantage over the Nook.

Looking at the Nook, it’s obvious that Barnes & Noble are trying to encourage customers to purchase books through their own service, but the big advantage of the Nook over the Kindle in that regard is the support for the ePub format – EPUB (Electronic Publication) is an open, free and standard format developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Books in ePub format can be purchased from multiple electronic booksellers and content providers and the user is not looked into a single vendor to supply all their content, like in the case of Apple and Amazon.

The Nook is smaller than its predecessor and the Kindle, thanks to the removal of everything other than the screen and 5 buttons on the sides and bottom of the device. It’s the smallest book reader with a manageable 6-inch Pearl e-ink touch screen. The device weighs less than 210 grams (7.5 ounces), and measures 6.5 by 5.0 by 0.47 inches (H,W,D), which is smaller in every measure than any Kindle or Nook before it. When holding it in the hands, it feels like the Nook’s screen is smaller than other ebook readers because it feels so small, but it’s actually the same size as most others. The matte black back is sculpted, with a taper designed specifically for being held in one hand. The power button is at the top of the back, and the USB port is on the bottom. On the right side, there’s a micro-SD slot for adding up to 32GB more storage to the 2GB that’s built in.

The E Ink Pearl display’s resolution is 800 by 600, text and images are very crisp and clear in 16 shades of gray. The matte screen isn’t prone to fingerprints, can be read in direct sunlight, and doesn’t hurt the eyes. Touch interaction is very responsive (much better than most other E ink screens). When the Nook is turned off, it shows one of various images of authors on the screen. If you wish, you can add/replace your own photo as a “screensaver”, which adds a touch of personalization. Turning it back on and unlocking it, will bring you back to the same page you were reading.

The new Nook is stripped off the built-in 3G modem, and only features Wi-Fi. If you need a new book while out and about, Barnes & Noble’s partnership with AT&T means that you can step into any B&N store, Starbucks or many other stores and download a book. When in a Barnes & Noble store, you can read entire books for free. The Nook also supports e-book lending and EPUB loans from libraries. If you are out of the US, you can get books only where there is available Wi-Fi. Though officially there’s no Web browser in the Nook, if you type a url into the search bar, a browser will show up and display the website.

More impressions to come.

The talk of the net in the last few days have been Google+. Google’s new attempt at social networking. A new concept in hope to grab the masses and move them away from Facebook and into Google’s social bosom.

Like many others, I’ve spent some time and efforts to grab my own Google+ invite, in order to check Google’s new social endeavor. I went through the usual websites, blogs and contacts, though still curious to get some hands on experience with the new creation, I realized I’m not sure I actually want one. The current attempt looks more promising than Wave, Buzz or any of the other creations, but the entire premise of getting new users into the social network is completely flawed. This is because getting an invite opens the door to a social network where none of your friends is. Mainly because getting an invite has become an impossible mission, so what will you do in a social network none of the people you know is, and can’t get into even if they wanted? That’s the problem with limiting access to social services. They rely on the “network effect”, where the nodes of the network do the work of increasing the user base. The more end nodes, the faster the network grows. Meaning that a social network becomes increasingly useful as more of your friends join in. If they can’t join even when they choose to, why would you want to be there?

By limiting the number of users who can join Google+, Google is limiting the type and number of experiences those users who do use it will have. Early adopters have plenty of influence on mainstream opinion, in most cases, they are used to not having anyone in their network when they start out. But part of the advantage of being an early adopter is the ability to invite close friends and contacts, without that ability, all they are left with is a social network without anyone to be social with. What kind of experiences the early adopters will have on that wasteland of a network?

This begs the question, does creating hype using the limited invitation only model work in social networks really work? After all, social services depends on a large or at least open user base in order to work. Can you increase the interest of users? Or more accurately, for how long can you keep them interested before the limited invitation model collapse on top of your network that never had enough steam to get the minimum critical mass required for it to start growing? I can’t entirely figure out why Google’s opted for such a limited release. Surely it’s not technical reasons, I don’t think Google have server capacity issues.

Considering Google’s history with social services, the current move seems completely out of place. Maybe their marketing team thinks differently but Google+ is not Gmail, and what worked there will most likely have the opposite effect here. For now, the worst social service is the one users can’t access to, and at this point, time the worst social service is Google+.

RockMelt announced yesterday it raised $30 million in a Series B funding – A considerable amount for a company creating a product which all of the competitors in the space are not making any profit from it. RockMelt’s first round of funding came in September 2009, just over a year before it released it’s product. The funding came from new investors Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures along with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bill Campbell, First Round Capital and Ron Conway, and brings Accel’s Jim Breyer and Khosla of Khosla Ventures in as board observers. The new funding will be used for marketing, business development and hiring. Mountain View, Calif.-based RockMelt employs 40 people now, which is expected to double in the next year.

Rockmelt has been tagged as a “social browser,” with deep integration of social networks, services, sharing and chat, noticeably the tightest integration is with Facebook. But the company’s ambitions are broader, Andreessen — co-creator of the first Web browser — said in an interview. “When we created the browser 15 to 20 years ago we had no idea what the killer apps would be,” Andreessen said. “Had we known about these things we would have built it very differently.”

But RockMelt’s challenges are huge. First of all, its competing against other browsers, each of those browsers have a huge market share and is either backed by one of the largest companies in the tech industry or have long standing reputation and fan base. In a recent interview Khosla said the following “When a browser changes from an information retrieval tool to a social media tool it’s probably some new company that’s going to figure it out… When shifts happen I sincerely believe start-ups are the best at entering the new market.”

Facebook and RockMelt worked closely together to create a custom Facebook experience when the site is visited from the browser. As for potential competition from Facebook themselves in case they were to create their own Facebook browser, both Andreessen and Khosla shrugged it off. “These things (browsers) are not easy to do.” Khosla’s said, while Marc Andreessen added “I’m in a conflicted situation as a Facebook director so don’t want to speak on Facebook’s behalf. But as a RockMelt director, RockMelt is thrilled with our relationship with Facebook.”

For now, RockMelt has been especially embraced by the young crowd, said CEO Eric Vishria. Fifty-six percent of active RockMelt users are age 24 and under, and most of them use the browser’s chat feature which is unique to RockMelt.

Many of us move around the house with our laptops, tablets and other mobile devices knowing some areas around the house have weak wireless reception. Trying to avoid the troublesome areas, we find ourselves confined to specific areas of the house or sitting in weird positions in order to have optimal reception. Here are 10 tips to try and improve the wireless signal around the house or office.

1. Position your wireless router or access point in a central location – When ever possible, make sure your wireless router or wireless access point (WAP) is at a central location in your home or office. If you place your wireless equipment against an external wall, the signal will be weaker on the other side of your home (assuming the space you are trying to cover is larger than a small flat). If the wireless router is on the first floor of the house and your endpoint (PC, laptop, game console, etc.) is on the second floor, place the router high on a shelf in the room where it is located. In general try to place it in the most central location in the house.

2. Move your wireless router position – Metal objects (steel doors, file cabinets, etc.), walls, and floors will interfere with the router’s wireless signal. The closer your router is to these obstructions, the more severe the interference and the weaker the wireless signal will be.

3. Replace your wireless router antenna – The common antennas supplied with wireless routers are designed to be omnidirectional, meaning that they broadcast in all directions around the router. If your router is at the edge of the house or office, half of the wireless signals will be sent outside, while the coverage inside the house might be limited, this is a waste of the router’s power. Most routers have removable antenna’s that you can unscrew and replace, in that case you can upgrade to a high-gain antenna that focuses the wireless signals in one direction and then aim the signal in the direction you need it most. In case your router is in a central location but the signal is still too weak to cover the entire house you can purchase a more powerful antenna and increase the coverage.

4. Change your wireless channel – Wireless routers have the option to broadcast on several different channels. In the United States and Canada, these channels are 1, 6, and 11, other places may use different channels. Try changing your wireless router’s channel through your router’s configuration page to see if the signal improves. You don’t need to change your computer wifi configuration, it will automatically pick up the new channel. You may use any of the available channels in the router configuration and not limited to the one’s mentions above.

5. Reduce wireless interference – The most common wireless technology, 802.11g (wireless-G), operates at a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz (GHz). Many other wireless devices, such as cordless phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, various remotes, and other wireless electronics also use this frequency. Some of these wireless devices may create so much “noise”, it could interfere with the on going wireless connection. If your network uses wireless-G, you can quiet the noise by avoiding wireless electronics that use the 2.4 GHz frequency. The more advanced cordless phones use the 5.8 GHz or 900 megahertz (MHz) frequencies. Moving your wireless network to the 802.11n (wireless-N) standard (this may require replace the router and wireless network adapters) operates at both 2.4 GHz and the less frequently used 5.0 GHz frequency, you may experience less interference on your network.

6. Update the firmware – Router manufacturers regularly make improvements to their routers. These improvements fix errors or bug, increase performance and/or add new features. Those improvements come in the form of firmware – A software upgrade to the router’s system. To get the latest firmware updates for your router, visit your router manufacturer’s website. Similarly, network adapter vendors occasionally update the device driver. These updates typically improve performance and reliability. Getting those drivers depend on the manufacturer and the operating system you are using.

7. Replace your endpoint wireless network adapter – Laptops with built-in wireless networking capability typically have excellent antennas and don’t need to have their network adapters upgraded. In case you feel the wireless adapter in your laptop is not strong enough, some measures should be taken, but this should be done only after you verified at several locations that the issue is with the laptop wireless network adapter. Wireless network signals are sent both to and from the router. In some cases, your router can broadcast strong signals that are enough to reach the computer, but on the computer can’t send signals back to the router. One of the measures that can be taken is to the laptop’s internal wireless network adapter with a USB wireless network adapter that uses an external antenna. These add an external, high-gain antenna to your computer and can significantly extend it’s wireless range.

8. Add a wireless repeater – Wireless repeaters extend the wireless network range without the need to end wiring, it’s a wireless network after all. Repeater extend the coverage of your wireless network in any give space. Just place the wireless repeater at any location in the space you are trying to cover to boost the wireless signal strength. Please keep in mind that you need to use the same type of network as your original router.

9. Pick equipment from a single vendor – Considering today’s wireless network standards, all equipment form most recognized vendors should work with each other efficiently. However, some vendor add improvements to their equipment that will work best with their own equipment. So, while working according to the defined standard should 100% compatible with all equipment vendors, special enhancements might be available only if you are using equipment from the same vendor. When it comes to built in wireless network in laptop, this is of course not an option.

10. Upgrade older networks 802.11a/b/g devices to 802.11n – While wireless-G (802.11g) is still the most common wireless network around, wireless-N (802.11n) is at least twice as fast and has better range and stability. Wireless-N is backward-compatible with 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g, so you can still use any existing wireless equipment with the new network – though you won’t see much improvement in performance until you upgrade both ends – The router and the end point device. If you’re using wireless-B or wireless-G and you’re unhappy with your network’s speed and performance, consider replacing your router and network adapters with wireless-N equipment.

Looking at the latest release of iOS 5, it seems like Apple is out of ideas. All the new features and additions look like something we’ve already seen before, somewhere else. The problem didn’t start with iOS5 though, we’ve seen it before in the release of the iPad 2. What did they do there? A new processor, a new speaker, and a pair of camera’s – All the things that should have been integrated into the first version of the iPad to begin with. But things get even worse with iOS 5 – All the new features Apple are adding to their mobile OS are copied from it’s fiercest competitor – Android.

Don’t get me wrong, Apple deserve a lot of credit, although they didn’t invent anything new, both MP3 players and touch phones were there before Apple introduced their products, still, they made them more appealing and easier to operate. But now, considering the limitations they imposed on themselves – Not supporting flash, no USB port, no external memory cards and the entire closed garden attitude, Apple is kind of stuck. Those limitations restrict innovation. With no innovation, Apple are only left with their sleek designs, but good designs can take you only that far.

Looking at the iPhone, it’s exactly at that juncture, considering the limitations, there is not much apple can add other than try to catch up with it’s competitors. The problem is, that catching with competitors, is not one of Apple’s strong suits. It’s devices were missing copy and paste, voice dialing, video calling, tethering & mobile hotspot, just to name a few, years after they were available in Android.

iPhone 5 will have both CDMA and GSM versions, will feature a stronger processor and better camera. Yawn. It’s believed to also have the same design as the iPhone 4, so this upgrade will be very similar to what Apple did with the upgrade of iPhone 3g to the 3gs. Unless Apple are coming out with a completely new product soon, they are going to release the same devices with minor improvement over and over again.

One approach Apple might take is going after markets they don’t have presents in – The low end mobile phone market. The mobile phone users who don’t chase the most advanced technology or can’t afford the newest smartphone models. According to a recent New York Times report, Apple is working on a cheap smart phone. On the other hand, the 3GS model is now available for $49 with a two-year contract in the US, so in essence, it is the cheap iPhone model. To strengthen this assessment, a senior Apple executive said recently during a private meeting, that it did not make sense to release multiple iPhone models, noting that Apple would stick with its existing practice of dropping the price of older models as it introduce a new one.

Some published reports, citing anonymous sources, say that Apple are working on a smaller iPhone model for users who are not looking for the big screen and would rather a smaller phone that is easier to carry. As of yet, there is very little information to support those reports.

Veteran readers of Techmount know that while this blog is not of a personal nature, it does represent, in the most part, the areas of technology that interest me (or at least the ones I care to write about). It’s not hard to conclude that it’s focus on technology is very wide. Unlike most professional blogs, which tend to focus on narrow niches, I prefer to widen the focus and write about anything that interest me at the time.

As some have noticed, this blog is not updated regularly, mostly dependent on how much free time I have, or if I feel like writing at the time. Knowing this, it’s not hard to see that I was either busy or not very much interested in writing lately. So indeed I was very busy, and still am, but the writing bug have never left me. So I’m back.

Starting today I’m going to revitalize this blog and write more regularly. And if I don’t … Well, I’ll have to deal with it myself.

It’s been six months today since I wrote about Evernote, ever since then I’ve been thinking a lot about the switch, wondering if I made the right decision. I’ve been thinking about it every time the desktop application got slow, sluggish or stopped working altogether slowing the entire system down together with it. As you can understand, it happened a lot. Things got worse when Evernote slowed down the entire system while refusing to shutdown. even trying to kill the process didn’t seem to do the trick.

When problems became more and more frequent, I was wondering if there is an update or upgrade to fix the problem. It was incomprehensible that a simple note taking application will become so slow and effect the entire system in this manner. Even if the problem was only with Windows 7 64-bit systems such as mine, I would guess there are enough users using the same system to encourage the developers to come up with a fix. Saying that, I didn’t check the company’s website for an update, thinking in the back of my mind that if such an upgrade was available, I will get notified by the application itself.

Lo and behold, a notification about an available Evernote update showed up within the application yesterday. A new Version of Evernote, version 4.1 is out and ready to be downloaded. Reading through whats new in this version, only a single line caught my eye, the fact that it’s completely rewritten from scratch (this may have applied to 4.0 or 4.1, I’m not sure). I don’t know why the 4.1 update notification showed up while the 4.0 did not (It might have showed and I canceled it in the heat of getting things done).

After the upgrade things look completely different. Evernote is both easier to use due to interface improvements and running much smoother. Now, it’s running in the background with me feeling any performance effect on my system. It’s only been hours since the install and things look pretty good for now. I hope the application will stay as smooth as it’s now. Thumbs up Evernote, keep up the good work.