Washington Post featured my CEO in our demo vehicle at CES in Las Vegas. Very cool how we are on the cutting edge of bringing DVB-SH to the US market. Here is the Washington Post blog article.

I love getting my finances online. I can look up info on my WAMU Checking account, Citibank credit card (with ThankYou Rewards), my 401k, and my direct deposit paycheck stubs. ADP iPayStatements provides the paystub in PDF format, but it is an awful website. I can review my Pay Statements or my W-2 forms, which is great. I can also get email notifications when new statements are available. Since we no longer get paper copies, this is great. The only issue is the way the website is constructed. They don’t let you ‘Open in New Window’! So my multi-tasking browser is stuck dead in the water with the following message: “To protect your sensitive information, you cannot access iPayStatements from this browser window.”

Okay, so no second browser window is not the end of the world. But they are going further and screw with Adobe Acrobat’s settings. So Acrobat’s default setting is to “Display PDF in browser”. This means that the browser window is open, and the PDF is displayed within Internet Explorer or Firefox. I hate this concept because it limits the toolbar, can crash/stall your browser, and is usually inefficient since I usually download the full PDF so I can view later. This ’security’ limitation is a pain, and will cause me to hate the site. I went to look for help on the topic at ADP’s website since the PDF was not displaying initially, but the only answer I got was to either install Acrobat (meaning I didn’t have it already) or upgrade to the newer version.

Someone over at ADP needs to learn how to make a website more user-friendly. Until then, I am only going to visit to get my W-2 and 1099 forms once a year.

Okay where are the Windows Mobile 5 phones for Verizon and Sprint? My CEO loves Verizon’s coverage in NYC, but hates the battery life of the new Blackberry 8703e. The standard battery only lasts 3hours of talk time, and there isn’t an extended battery available currently. He had a Motorola E815 with extended battery and liked it, but it eventually got worn out and he wanted to go for a combined device. Sprint and Verizon both offer Windows Mobile 5 PDAs with full QWERTY keyboards, but no simple phone WM5 devices like Cingular and T-Mobile. Does that mean people don’t want the Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition? I don’t think so, since I know several people who own the T-Mobile SDA, Cingular 2125, Audiovox SMT5600, and Motoral MPx200 and 220.

Avaya put out another PR that I was featured in today. I can’t say more than I love this piece of technology. It fits SMB market better than the Nortel BCM and a lot cheaper than the Cisco solution. It allows our employees to do more without costing us a ton of money.
Avaya Helps Financial Services Firms Use Intelligent Communications to Succeed in a Shifting Marketplace

I was featured in a Press Release for Avaya’s new version of IP Office 3.2. I really enjoy working with the IP Office and think it is a great solution for SMB customers. It offers the flexibility to use Digital phones, IP based phones, or a combination of them. It also has great features like the new Mobile Twinning and the conferencing system. The free sofware updates top it off, although some new features are license-based, but that means you don’t pay for features you don’t use.

Here is a quote from the release: Small and Medium Businesses Worldwide Improve Operations with Intelligent Communications from Avaya

Companies Use IP Office to Improve Operations and Customer Service

For Cascadia Capital, Avaya IP Office is an important tool for keeping the company’s highly skilled investment bankers connected to clients, colleagues and critical company information.

“The new mobile twinning feature of IP Office 3.2 is extremely important to us,” said Christopher Bettin, director of information technology for Cascadia Capital. “That means we can give our clients one number to reach our investment bankers; whether they are in the office or visiting a client. The new management capabilities also allow us to deploy new policies and features to groups of users.”

By integrating IP Office with the company’s Microsoft Exchange email application, investment bankers at Cascadia are able to use their Blackberry handheld wireless devices to access Avaya voicemail from a single, integrated email and voicemail inbox.

Bettin said the built-in conferencing features of Avaya IP Office are also heavily utilized by the Cascadia team.

“Meeting with clients is a huge part of our business,” he said. “IP Office makes it simple for them to quickly establish a meeting and collaborate. In addition, we’ve saved enough money by eliminating outside conferencing services to pay for the Avaya system within 18 months.”

Yesterday we officially launched the new website for ICO Global Communications (www.ico.com). I’m excited to be finished with the project, well almost since we have a menu tweak to make. First time using SideJobTrack to track some of my hours and project timeline, and I’ll write a review soon. I think we successfully gave the website a breath of fresh air and added a lot of content. I was responsible for recovering the logo, recreating it in vectors, and smoothing out the color palette. We also used Shareholder.com’s Dynamic Investor Relations product to give more information to Investors. Let me know what you think of the new design. You can compare with the old version via the WayBackMachine.

Hooper just left his job with me, and needed a new PDA-type device since he wasn’t going to use his Blackberry. You might remember that he had been using the Nokia 6682 from his article on CityID. It was not really “Outlook compatible” in both of our minds as the sync software was clunky at best, and required a USB cable. He needed a professional device that he could use as a mobile worker, but without the bulk of a blackberry.

Castle and I have the Audiovox SMT5600, but it runs Windows Mobile 2003 SE. While great, it is not top of the line with only offers GPRS data speeds along with a lot of software bugs. Schlosser upgraded from his Motorola MPx200 and picked up the new Cingular branded 2125. Would that be the device for Hooper? (more…)

Traveling to Singapore is like stepping into a tropical version of London. The city is a fantastic place to do business and an even better place to watch ex pats make fools of themsleves. First off, prepare for humitity, think New York City in July, but never ending. Second, get ready to have a great time. The food is fantastic, the bars are a blast and you can eat and drink outside along the river or harbor. As the regional hub for my business I was excited to be in town to get to know the local markets and understand some of the challenges our team is facing, however I got much more than I ever expected by discovering a truly great international city.

Some must do things if you visit:

1) Have dinner at one of the fine restaurants on Sentosa Island, you will feel as if you are in a tropical wonderland

2) Go out drinking along Clarke Quay (I recommend the fine establishment One Night Stand, and no it is not a whore house)

3) Eat, Eat, Eat - from fine chinese to great indian the food is fantastic all over town

4) Shop!! - Every brand you have ever heard of has an outlet along Orchard Road

One thing to avoid at all costs, the live music, unless of course you like slow 80’s tunes, every bar seems to have a band and every one is awful (Except the band at one night stand which totally rocked the joint)

Trying to be a good industry banker in the investment banking community means getting out to meeting with a lot of companies and working with your relationships to get better information about small private companies, financial investors (which invest in the small private companies), and large public companies (which acquire the small private companies).  My most recent trip down to the valley was spent with Juniper Networks and Google.

Needless to say, Google has an amazing campus in Mountain View.  We toured the facilities, which have a beach volleyball court at the center, tons of toys and scooters all over campus, and (best of all) three meals a day in the cafeterias around campus - all at no cost to the employees. 

For the hour and a half I was on the campus, I honestly felt like I’d been transported back to Colby.  As we were walking, skateboards would go rolling by, you’d see people working out in state-of-the-art gyms and swimming in the current pools.  You then walk into the cafeteria and select just about anything you might want to eat.  After the tour, I was wishing that Mountain View was commutable from Seattle, as it is the type of place where you could just see innovation thriving.

If you ever owned a blackberry, you will know there are tons of ways to accessorize your crackberry. Ever wonder how people walk and type at the same time? They cheat! Most of the time they aren’t looking for the obstacles that exist in front of them! Check out this useful accessory that Rick Mercer from the CBC put out. I sure hope they start making one of these for Palm Treo, iPods, PSP, and a kids version for the Nintendo DS. These days kids need something like this!

via Steffen Nork from Frankfurt, Germany