Earlier tonight I spent some time at the Cloud Camp attached to the Interop 2009 event in Las Vegas. I’m a firm believer that a lot of the mobile solutions that are coming in the near future, whether they be applications or services will have some component with Cloud Computing.
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Thanks to Kristi Conforti from PAN Communications who passed me the invite to the Eluma party during Interop/Web 2.0/Mobile Business Expo in New York City in September.
What is Eluma? Here’s a short description: Eluma was founded on the premise that finding the most relevant information on the internet and keeping it organized should be simple and fun. With Eluma, you collect anything you want from the Web, organize it however you like and share it if you choose to. You can also discover collections or tidbits of information that someone with similar interests has created and Eluma users recommend. Eluma has their own Facebook app: Collections in which you can share pictures, links and more based on a topic you ask your friends to populate. Since it’s based on topics, it can help organize your digital content. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a project where I can use it, at least on Facebook.
At the Eluma party, I was fortunate to win a new gadget, a Flip Video. Flip Video allows anyone to take video with the size of a late model iPod and quickly upload the content via a built-in USB port. My particular model stores up to 60 minutes and uses two AA batteries. The Flip even can be mounted on a tripod and can directly output to a TV with some cables.
As I am attending more events, I’ll try and bring this along and see if I can capture some quotes or moments that are worth posting on Mobileslate.
The picture above just about sums up the past week from last Thursday until today.
My aircard stopped working. My Apple iPhone stopped working. I was traveling from San Francisco to New York for my conference session at Interop/Mobile Business Expo as well as a few meetings and no email, no blog access. WTF?!?!?! But why was I able to access other email and websites such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn? I think AT&T has it out for me. Though I’ve been a pretty loyal customer for quite some time (if you include me as a Cingular subscriber), for some reason they chose to block access from the AT&T network to mobileslate.com.
So last Thursday after noticing that it wasn’t just my iPhone and that my aircard was not able to access it either, I first called up my webhost and asked if there was a problem. The response: No, everything is functioning normally. So from my hotel in near Central Park and Columbus Circle in New York City, I walk down to the closest Starbucks and plug into the T-Mobile Hotspot access. No problems. Works great. I can get to my email and my blog’s admin page to post and respond to comments. I head over to Javitz Convention Center using the free Interop WiFi access and no issues. But as in New York, when you are a bit more mobile, you tend to be more dependent on mobile technology. But where ever I went, AT&T would not let me access my email or website. Safari didn’t allow me. Last Friday, after my speaking session, I went to visit a friend at his office, asked to plug into their network to do some work and everything worked great.
Meanwhile on the AT&T network, no dice. I finally call Technical Support and explain my situation to them. They bounced me around several times from iPhone support to Laptop Connect support, and finally I had enough and just told a Tech to file to support issue.
I enjoyed the rest of the weekend and Sunday when I got back home, I plugged into my DSL connection at home and was able to access everything related to my domain. Perhaps there was some issue in New York and being in San Francisco, it might be an isolated regional issue. So I tried to connect using my iPhone and my Laptop Connect card, but still no luck. Ummm, am I that popular that AT&T has decided to block me? Is my content offensive to AT&T? So I call again to file another complaint. This time, I try and perform a few more tests from my laptop. Traceroute fails. It doesn’t even see past the first router that I connect to. Ping fails. But all other websites and email accounts — no issues. Hmmm, they’re out to get me.
Wednesday with still no access from my iPhone or Laptop Connect card, I call again. This time I am on the phone with the Tech rep for over 2 hours trying to convince him that I have tried everything to isolate the problem. He doesn’t believe me. He tells me to reboot my laptop with all drivers off. He tells me to contact my webhost (I web chat with my webhost — no issues). I run traceroute (it fails) to prove to him there is an issue. I then tell him to try and connect. He cannot either. We go round and round. He keeps telling me, it’s your fault. Or your web host. They are block us (AT&T network) from access your site. I ask for a Supervisor or Manager. He tells me that it won’t help. I ask him if it’s possible that there is something wrong with the router/firewall that is blocking my site. He says *NO*. Obviously this guys is just reading the script. I ask again for a Manager. Finally, after 90 minutes with this guy, he transfers me. 15 minutes more of being on hold and I speak to a Supervisor. I explain the issue again and she tells me, “yup, it’s an issue on our side. I will contact the network group and see what’s up.”
Today around 13:00, my iPhone starts beeping and I see that mobileslate email is working. I try my Laptop Connect card. It’s working.
So after a week of service outage for just my website and email server, looks like things are back to normal. I never did get a call back or email as to an explanation. But now that the problem *is* resolved, I believe it to be an AT&T router issue that blocked access to this site.
A big thank you to Sandra Gulam, Manuela Farrell and all the others from TechWeb for allowing me to speak on a panel about Mobile Web 2.0 – Access and Applications at the Interop/Mobile Business Expo in New York. We certainly had a lively discussion, good debate about the issues and great questions from the audience.
I have posted my slides here to let people know about the topics that we covered.
