In this final entry on Earthling, I mainly write to say thank you all for reading, commenting, e-mailing, talking, listening, and contributing. The blog helped us make the porous membrane between internal and external conversations a bit more...porous, helped resolve lots of individual one-off needs from customers, departments, and partners, and gave us a way to participate in conversations going on around us. I have enjoyed sharing my view of the internet with you, and hearing about yours.

I'd like to extend a huge thanks as well to all of the people inside and outside of EarthLink who supported the blog in numerous ways, made me feel welcome at their meetings and planning sessions, invited me in to their corner of the world and helped me get issues addressed, strategies refined, and problems solved.

If you'd like to keep up with me, you can do so over on Extraface, my own blog. Grab the Extraface RSS feed here. And if you happen to be at BlogOrlando where I am today, come find me and say hello.

If you'd like to keep up with EarthLink news and announcements, we've developed the new RSS feed below just for that purpose:
feeds.feedburner.com/elnk

As a final programming note, on Monday I'll be permanently closing comments and trackbacks and I’ll be preparing the site for its role as an archive throughout next week. Expect to see some visual changes then.

Thanks again,
Dave Coustan

Posted by dave coustan at 2:15 PM |

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With me moving on as part of the restructuring, and the company in the midst of transition, we decided it's best to end Earthling's run. I say "we" in all honesty; assessing the situation and available resources, this is the path I recommended, and my leadership agreed.

Since I last wrote I've been working on how best to handle the "sunsetting," and what to do with all of the stuff Earthling has produced. In addition to the 459 blog entries I've published and the 1739 comments you've contributed, there are lots of other things that have come out of Earthling. When thinking about wrapping it up, it's important to think about what's behind all of those things and the larger world they connect to. And that can be complicated.

To help inform these decisions, I've been reading the advice of a few people, including Josh Hallett, Jake McKee, and Jeremiah Owyang. Jake McKee has written about the question for companies as the bus test -- i.e. could your corporate communications vehicle still persevere if the main participant were hit by a bus. Jeremiah has kept a single blog throughout his career transitions, and that's been tremendously valuable for him. In my case, I came on board to create and run a blog for EarthLink, so I knew going in that Earthling would be something of a joint interest between me and the company and would be deeply tied to both parties. Josh has recently been observing the EarthLink situation and asking some strategic and practical questions about how an individual corporate blogger and the company he/she represents should best deal with transitions. I'm working through that in realtime, and through these last couple of blog entries hopefully I can offer some insight into how I'm doing it.

Over the past two years, I poured a great deal of myself into this blog and tried to avoid too many arbitrary distinctions between Dave, the person and Dave, the guy who represents EarthLink on Earthling. I still think this approach is the right one, although it does make it difficult to make a clean break. I'm grateful the company has for the most part trusted me with hashing that out. In part to help me sort all of that out, here are the parts and how I'm accounting for them. This is an active process and I may be adding thoughts here:

• The blog entries, comments, trackbacks - I'm leaving Earthling up as an archive in case it can be useful to future readers. I'm also respectful of preserving the information here so that inbound links don't turn in to dead ends. I'll change all of the templates to make it clear that what remains is a static archive, and comments and trackbacks will no longer be accepted.
  
• The Flickr stream - For the past couple of years I've been keeping both my personal photos and EarthLink-related photos on the anearthling account, at www.flickr.com/photos/anearthing. I think that's given you a better sense of who I am and hopefully made me more accessible and easier to connect with. I've gone back and forth on how to handle this, and I think it's best for me to start a new Flickr account for myself and keep Anearthling around at least until the Flickr Pro status runs out. I'll probably mirror some of the same photos from there on my account, to make sure they don't go away. On Flickr, my new home will be www.flickr.com/photos/extraface. Add me as a contact there if you'd like to continue to see my often goofy photo stream.
  
• The RSS feed - I'm working on helping EarthLink create a new feed just for announcements, and one tough decision was whether to have that take the place of the old Earthling feed, or be a new feed that people opt-in to. I decided on the latter, and I see it this way -- it's a completely different vehicle, with different purposes, schedule, and utility. So it should have its own, new feed. As soon as that's done, I'll be passing that address along.
  
• The product blogs and employee blog directory - The product blogs will continue in the hands of their respective owners, and I'll make their placement prominent on the front of Earthling. I'll be taking down the employee directory, but welcome readers to connect with me online and vice-versa.
  
• The relationships - I've had the privilege of interacting with thousands of people through Earthling, via various forms of online communication and in person. I've helped answer questions, resolved issues, gotten and given advice, connected product teams and leadership with their users, connected people to each other, and just gotten to know a whole lot of people. Fortunately I don't see those relationships as changing much, and I get to take all of that with me, and hope that many of you will continue to keep in touch.

I'll be publishing a final blog entry next week, and will include my future contact information and more on where to find me online then.

Posted by dave coustan at 7:04 PM |

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How the heck do you follow up a restructuring announcement on a corporate blog? A Friday heh list didn’t quite seem right on the heels of such a weighty announcement, and I’ve been struggling with that question and what to talk about next. Nothing seemed quite right, so I stepped away from Earthling for a while. As I return today, I thought it might be useful to give you a brief rundown of answers to questions that you may have about the current state of things:

Were you personally impacted by the restructuring?

Yes, I was. I will be moving on from EarthLink in a few months, but will continue to help out the product teams in the meantime.

What are the plans for this blog?

I’ll be making a last couple of entries in the next few weeks and wrapping things up. As far as what the company’s plans are for how to handle that transition, as those decisions are made I will include them in those final entries.

What is EarthLink's focus now?

In plain but broad English, we're focusing our attention on how we can best serve our current user base. Teams are starting to meet within the new structure, and the executive team is working on next steps as far as the bigger picture.

How will the products and services you offer change?

Nothing to say about this yet, as the product teams and leadership are currently getting together to work through any necessary changes. Our core offerings should remain unchanged, but there may be some adjustments as we evaluate our portfolio of products with slightly newer eyes.

What is happening with Wi-Fi?

As I wrote last week, despite misinterpretations in the press, our current networks continue to operate and we continue to explore new models for Municipal Wi-Fi deployments. Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News explored the topic in greater depth in an interview with EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff recently.

How has it been since the restructuring as an employee?

Everyone will react to this question differently, and large scale change within any company will bring with it some growing pains. For me, it's been a little chaotic, and I'm looking forward to things settling in to a new routine. In addition to offering severance and transition assistance, the company has done some nice things to help impacted employees get their next position, like rounding up a list of all of the firms, agencies, and companies that have contacted EarthLink about possible hires and sending it our way.

If you have any additional questions, drop me a line and I'll do my best to get them answered. But bear in mind that as we work through the company transition, we're not ready to entertain conversations about future directions or next steps yet.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:40 AM |

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I've seen a few articles online this morning suggesting that EarthLink is getting out of the municipal Wi-Fi business. This is not the case. After checking with our leadership this morning, I want to confirm two points:

1. We will continue to operate our existing municipal wireless networks in cities like Philadelphia.
   
2. In the other markets such as San Francisco, we're approaching city officials to discuss needed changes in our business model, which includes them stepping up to some sort of anchor tenancy agreement. Our CEO has stated publicly that he is not willing to invest any more money in new network buildouts under the old business model: coming in up front with the cash to build out the network and trying to buy customers one at a time.

If you'd like to hear more on this question, EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff discussed it on yesterday's EarthLink Restructuring Call for Investors(free registration required).

Posted by dave coustan at 8:57 AM |

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Today EarthLink announced a corporate restructuring that included downsizing and organizational changes that refocus us on our core business. Here's a link to the full press release with all of the details. EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff sent along some brief thoughts he wanted to share with you directly via Earthling:

Today, we announced changes to EarthLink's corporate structure that better position us to operate profitably and focus on the heart of our business: delivering award-winning Internet tools and services to our customers. These changes will affect all of us -- both our friends and colleagues who will leave EarthLink, and those who will remain. I am grateful for the hard work and care that all of our employees have contributed in their tenure here, and we are seeking to make the transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

If you are a customer, these changes will not impact the level of reliability and service and support you have come to expect from EarthLink. If you are a partner, nothing in terms of our relationship has changed; what’s changed is that we’ve right-sized our business to better compete in today’s marketplace.

Sincerely,
Rolla Huff

Comments are closed on this entry.

Posted by dave coustan at 12:13 PM |

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Late last week EarthLink made available a beta version of Montage, a new, free email/RSS/address book suite for Windows XP and Vista. It's a desktop application that lets you handle multiple email accounts along with RSS feeds and podcasts, all with a unified interface and organization system. Mike Strutton, Director of Client Software, calls the treatment of multiple inboxes "Separately/Together," and he explains how it works as follows:

"Using Montage you can manage multiple email accounts EarthLink/AOL/Yahoo/Gmail/Etc. in a way that other Windows clients don't do. You can view the inbox as an aggregate across all accounts, or just one account -- it's simple. No need for filters/folders or jumping back and forth between different webmail applications. This was one of two features that got the most reaction in our demonstrations and user testing."

Montage Mail View (click to see at screen resolution)

Smart Sorts are another Montage feature that help you bring order to your inbox. They allow you to automatically place email or feeds that match certain conditions into a folder or "sort". This is a way to nondestructively make piles of or views into your information without manually thinking about, keeping track of, and moving everything yourself. The productivity nerd sites abound with examples of how to use smart sorting to get a better handle on your overflowing inbox. If you're a Mac user familiar with the Apple approach to email and desktop management, you're probably already enjoying non-destructive sorting and easy mailbox aggregation.

On the RSS aggregation side of the application, Montage takes the RSS-as-email metaphor and treats individual articles within feeds as if they were email messages with the titles as subject lines and a read/unread state. There's a preview pane that shows either the article summary(referred to as the "abstract") or the fully-rendered web page the article comes from. You can also apply Smart Sorts and folders to feeds, and use tags to organize articles you'd like to hold on to in ways that are meaningful to you. There are also some good features behind the scenes, like it appears there is built-in support for authenticated feeds. The only one I know of off the top of my head today is Daring Fireball, but I expect to see lots more of these in the future.

Continue reading "Separately/Together And EarthLink Montage"

Posted by dave coustan at 12:03 PM |

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• The beta release of EarthLink's new integrated email client, address book, RSS, and podcast aggregation software Montage is now available as a free download for Windows XP and Vista. Here's the FAQ, and I'll have a more detailed write-up on Montage shortly. (Alright, not technically on a product blog yet, but it is now ;))
  
• Protection Control Center version 3.0 launched last week, with support for Microsoft Windows Vista. Ben has all of the details on the PCC blog.
  
• Travis answered a common new user question about deleting posts from myEarthLink Reader.
  
• And John wrote about increasing the folder limits in Web Mail in response to several user suggestions, so that you can now make up to 200 folders in your account.
  
• (update: a straggler) On the myEarthLink start page blog, Tom explains how to change your preference for what happens when you sign out of Web Mail.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:18 PM |

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Just got a Fin in the mail today (thanks, Helio!). It is one thin, sleek machine. I'm already having a bit of an identity crisis -- not sure if I'm a QWERTY powerhouse Ocean type or a wafer-thin magnesium-encased Fin type. Fortunately with Helio's account system, if you are lucky enough to have two devices, you can switch back and forth as you please with an online switching interface.

For scale, at 11.43 mm the Fin is thin enough to act as an underline on the spine of a book like this:

Here's another size comparison, some Fin unboxings a previously recorded Ocean/Fin Live Grope, and a Quick Look video.

As an aside, I also just got photo geotagging to work (to Flickr, via Helio UP on Fin/Ocean), which means my photos will now automatically be added to Flickr's world map interface. I'll write a separate entry on that.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:25 PM |

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This morning Helio released its newest device, the superthin, magnesium-cased Fin. At 0.45 inches (or 11.43 millimeters if you prefer), it's the thinnest clamshell-style device in the U.S. market.

(it's this thin)

It does everything its QWERTY sibling the Ocean does including the integrated messaging system, a great AIM client, and GPS integration, and also has a beefed-up 3 megapixel still and video camera.

Helio also released several software updates today, including a rentable ($2.99/day) Garmin turn-by-turn voice GPS app to go along with the included Google Maps for Mobile with GPS software, and an update to device desktop RSS software H.O.T. for the Heat, Fin, and Drift. The new version of H.O.T. supports adding your own feeds as channels, so you can receive updates on your device desktop and see them at a glance.

I've used Google Maps for Mobile with GPS on my Ocean countless times to search for restaurants, call them up for reservations with click-to-call, and then dial up directions on the fly from wherever I am. I can see using the Garmin Mobile app for those times when I don't have a copilot, have no idea where I am, and need the heads-up turn-by-turn directions spoken out loud to me.

The Fin costs $175 and is available at Helio.com, in Helio stores, or by calling 1-888-88-HELIO.

As far as the pun watch, I had to really stretch this time around. The major gadget blogs stuck with prosaic titles like "The Helio Fin," and I had to do some searching to find the more traditional punny blog entry titles. Here are the best of those:

• Helio dips a thin Fin into the flip phone pool
  
• Helio Fin - Thin is most definitely IN!
  
• Ain't No Fin Thinner Than This
  
• And the award for weirdest Fin headline goes to...
  Helio Fin, the Fine that it Satisfies - Either a weird machine translation, an SEO-spammy mashup, or a human who needs a little more practice.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:58 PM |

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I'm working on a couple of small enhancements to Earthling this afternoon:

• Enlarging the width of the main content area to allow for standard 500 pixel photos straight from Flickr
  
• Added the AideRSS widget to the right side, which provides some suggestions for the top posts on Earthling from the past month

Special thanks to Chris at Citizen Studio for his assistance with some graphics crunching.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:21 PM |

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Principal Engineer Jeff Pabian drops in again today with an update to Usenet Revisited:

Hey Folks,

Jeff Pabian, Principal Engineer at EarthLink here. Dave asked me to post a follow-up to Usenet Revisited since we made the cutover to our outsourced Usenet service provider recently.

The cat is out of the bag; EarthLink is outsourcing our Usenet service to Supernews. As I said previously, we were all pretty excited we would be able to improve our service. There are some changes and growing pains if you will, but over all I believe the Usenet service we offer now to be much improved.

Today, I'll talk about what I believe the improvements are and some of the issues we've come up against, and what might be in store for phase II. First, just to clarify, I am not the Product Manager for the service; I'm just a long-time employee who has seen the ups and downs of the service over the years. My colleagues and I conduct analysis and make recommendations to the Product group, (who also read the blog and comments and post every one in a while).

If you've been over to the earthlink.* newsgroups, you've most likely seen the lively discussion we've been having around the changeover to the outsourced provider. Right off the bat, I consider these items to be the biggest areas of improvement:

• Complete posts
  
• Way longer retention
  
• Additional newsgroups that ELNK hasn't added for years (binary AND text)
  
• Off network access (provided you have a valid Earthlink username and password)
  
• Excellent anti-spam measures
  
• No download cap / limit
  

In contrast, our old news service had the following, uh... features:

• Incomplete posts
  
• 2-3 day retention for binary groups
  
• We haven't added groups for about two years
  
• Limited to ELNK networks, only
  
• 5GB limit with a rolling 30 day window, then your connection was throttled down to 64Kbps

As far as what we're hearing from you all:

• Some users have had problems with their clients and seeing the changes to the new groups. The fixes range from simply "resetting" the news server settings in your client to completely removing and re-creating your newserver account.
  
• Some customers feel the download rate we're currently using to be inadequate. I anticipate we'll be able to conduct some analysis and adjust the rate accordingly, (but don't quote me on that). I can say that I've shared the concerns and feedback I've gotten with the product managers and the support groups.

We are getting ready to begin "Phase II" of the project. If you have any ideas or input towards "Phase II" please feel free to send them to me or post a comment, or... post it to one of the EarthLink newsgroups*!

Thank you for your feedback and keep it coming.

*Here's a listing of them:

• earthlink.watercooler
  
• earthlink.test
  
• earthlink.support.wireless
  
• earthlink.support.windows
  
• earthlink.support.web
  
• earthlink.support.usenet.newstest2
  
• earthlink.support.usenet
  
• earthlink.support.unix
  
• earthlink.support.startpage
  
• earthlink.support.other
  
• earthlink.support.macos
  
• earthlink.support.integrations
  
• earthlink.support.highspeed.satellite
  
• earthlink.support.highspeed.dsl
  
• earthlink.support.highspeed.cable
  
• earthlink.support.email
  
• earthlink.support.dialup
  
• earthlink.general-discussion
  
• earthlink.coffeehouse
  

Posted by dave coustan at 4:48 PM |

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I've been in "Certified Scrum Master" training for most of the past couple of days, which has my head all abuzz about agile development processes. In a week or so, I'll get my Scrum Master license in the mail. Not sure if that comes with a decoder ring.

After our initial round of Scrum training at the end of May, Dave summed up his impressions and the basic principles. To recap, Scrum is a rapid development method based on completing a set of "shippable features" (features or functionality that you could potentially release to the world) within a locked time period, called a sprint. You decide what you'll be doing at the beginning of each sprint, and you make every effort to get that work done in the sprint period, while not adding to it

Scrum trainer Pete Behrens returned this week to complete our training, and his second session was well-timed. The myEarthLink team has now been through two two-week sprints, and is gearing up to start a third on Monday. Some things have gone really well, but we've hit some major obstacles too. So, this week, we were right at the point where we have a little experience under our belts and several questions on our minds.

Speaking from my "product owner" seat, these have been some of the successes so far:

Continue reading "Scrum Update"

Posted by Tom Harris at 10:14 AM |

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Guest blogger Tom here, taking the wheel while Dave is on vacation.

I expect to talk a bit this week about my main project, the new myEarthLink start page. So, I thought it would be helpful to take a page from the "Lost" playbook and do a quick "catch-up episode" explaining what the portal team has been up to.

Our story so far:

Toward the end of last year, we took on the considerable task of redesigning the myEarthLink portal from top to bottom. We started with the portal's front door: the personal start page. We had a lot on our mind as we got down to business, but I would sum up our overall mission as "tightening up." The main user criticism of the classic start page has been "too much clutter," so a big part of our focus was streamlining the new design.

In tightening up, we focused on two things: grouping features together logically and keeping important information close at hand without taking up a lot of space on the page. One of the key ideas here was to show select information as soon as you load the page, and pop up additional information when you click a tab or button for more. This post from the myEarthLink product blog walks through some of the details of that approach.

In early February, we launched our Alpha release to EarthLink employees and a small group of early testers. At the end of February, we opened up our Preview release to everybody. Since then, we've launched several major updates with smaller tweaks along the way. Here are the highlights:

Continue reading "Previously, on myEarthLink"

Posted by Tom Harris at 9:25 AM |

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Helio Ocean users can now sign up for a 60-day free beta trial of Microsoft ActiveSync that enables calendar, contact, and email syncing with Microsoft Exchange Server. The service will cost $9.99 per month after the beta, and an additional software update will include Helio File Viewer, with support for viewing .doc, .ppt, .pdf and .xls files on the Ocean, which will make many EarthLink Ocean users happy.

Eric Zeman at InformationWeek observed, "It does everything from POP email to instant messaging, text messaging, and picture messaging--all while looking hip and embracing the young-at-heart. Many publications, including InformationWeek, have listed it as a solid alternative to the iPhone. But is it a business device?"

I'm not sure what that means any more for devices and services. Let's look at the example of Facebook. Initially it was built to service and is still used by millions and millions of high school and college students. But there's another set of users as well. Part of the recent explosive growth at Facebook comes from people signing on to use it for what can be considered business applications. Robert Scoble writes an awful lot about how he uses Facebook. Although it hasn't replaced Scobleizer, he sees it as a new platform for publishing and communication:

"See, what’s cool about Facebook is that for the first time I can see all of you and anything you publish on your Facebook profile also comes to ME.

In five words he nailed Facebook and why this thing has such huge value.

Facebook makes my blog seem very one-way. I can’t see anytime one of you writes something, or puts some media up, even when you do it on your own blogs. Facebook makes our media a lot more two-way."

Earlier this week, Judi at Web Worker Daily wrote up 12 ways to use Facebook Professionally. And Business 2.0 is looking to Facebook users to help them stay in print.

The line between what's "business-oriented" and what isn't is more blurry than it's ever been and can't be drawn based on form factor. The communications needs of "passionate young consumers" necessarily have lots of crossover with what would be considered the traditional business user. I'm seeing SMS become a much more common form of business communication all around me, and for a long time that was thought of as solely as a young person's social medium. As more of those worlds intersect, the same things that make the Ocean appeal as a personal communication device give it appeal to business users.

Business tools don't look matte speckled gray anymore and don't firewall off your needs as a "person" from your needs as a "business person," thank goodness. Helio's addition of Exchange now just gives people who use Exchange Server a way to integrate more of their streams of contact into the same communications system. It doesn't magically become a "business device," nor was it initially a "non-business device."

Posted by dave coustan at 11:10 AM |

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A round-up of what's happening on the EarthLink product blogs:

• On the PCC blog, Ben is baiting a phisher scammer to demonstrate the likely scenario if you answer a "get rich helping me launder money" scam email.
  
• John's Web Mail blog answers a question about how to automatically forward all of your EarthLink email.
  
• A tip for the myFavorites blog -- check out Anil Dash's article on how people have come to use the "toread" tag in social bookmarking applications. If you want to hunt around for other interesting ways people use tags in myFavorites, you can look at the tags in the "Everyone" tab on the main page. Or just try a url that starts with http://myfavorites.earthlink.net/tags/ and then add any word to see what people use it for. Gregg recently started using revisit for things that are good and merit a re-read. I use [this is good] to mark things I find particularly excellent.
  
• Tom from the Security Center writes about all of the various groups that help fight internet malware, scams, spam, and mischief.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:33 PM |

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Through our own networks and products, partnerships, and agreements, EarthLink looks to provide as many choices as possible to get internet and voice services to you the way you want them. If you look at what we offer throughout the country, it's a pretty diverse menu including standard DSL, accelerated dial-up, several different types of voice over IP, cable, satellite, DSL2, and Wi-Fi at home and throughout select cities. And as always there are more forms in the works via our next-gen broadband team. Today we announced that in Verizon territories in many of the states we service, we can now offer "freestanding DSL," or the ability to get our DSL service alone, without having to also pay the phone company for phone service if you don't want it. Freestanding DSL is now available(product page) in Verizon territory, including parts of California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington state, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Wisconsin. This should help lots of people reduce their communications bills and stop paying for services they don't want or need.

This isn't the first service we've rolled out to help achieve that goal. EarthLink DSL and Home Phone service, also known in the industry sometimes as Line-powered voice, was one of the first products we offered that put you in a position to fire your phone company. In fact, search Google for that phrase and as of today the first result is still the blog of EarthLink alum Chris Holland explaining how it allows you to do just that in the areas where it's offered.

All of these choices and the specifics of what's available where can make it difficult to lay out the best option available to someone in a particular place off the top of my head, but at our EarthLink High Speed page you can browse for what's available to your home specifically via the availability check tool. If you want the fastest speeds available and VoIP service that works even if your household power goes out, keep an eye out for DSL and Home Phone service, or if you're in one of the cities where we're building municipal Wi-Fi, that's a good choice for portability. And now in many parts of the country, if you just want plain old DSL but don't want to pay the extra fees associated with keeping a landline active, you can do that too.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:45 AM |

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Erin Murphy and Don Roberts, product managers for myEarthLink content, sent along the following update explaining some changes to myEarthLink Radio:

We’re proud to have partnered with Pandora to offer myEarthLink Radio powered by Pandora. While we at EarthLink enjoyed the service and used it extensively, it never found the level of acceptance in the myEarthLink community that we and Pandora had hoped for. While we and Pandora are disappointed, we thank our friends at Pandora for their creativity and hard work.

We went back to the drawing board to develop a new and improved myEarthLink Radio and myEarthLink Music Channel. Pandora is wonderful at helping users to discover new artists and songs that they might like, but discovery is only one piece of a truly useful music site and player. Just as important is granting access to and allowing you to store songs, albums, and artists that you already like and want to hear. Fortunately, we found a like-minded partner in Rhapsody, which allows you to save and listen to the music you already know you like as well as choose from more than 100 radio stations, ranging from acid jazz to afro-pop, bluegrass to bossa nova. Rhapsody requires a monthly subscription to reap all the goodies of the full Rhapsody service, but no worries—there’s plenty to enjoy for free: You can listen to more than 25 stations absolutely free for as long as you like, and if you have a particular song in mind, you can use one of your 25 “free plays” to listen to it on demand.

In the next few months, users can look forward to an expanded and improved myEarthLink Music Channel, one that will help users find new songs and artists in their favorites genres, keep them up to date on the latest music news, and give them access to the hottest music videos.

If you’re a devoted user of myEarthLink Radio powered by Pandora, we thank you! You’ll be able to get to your myEarthLink Radio stations on Pandora for the next few weeks by clicking the “Looking for your Pandora stations” link in the myEarthLink Radio area. After that, never fear—you’ll continue to have access to your stations directly through Pandora. And we hope that you’ll come try the new myEarthLink Radio from Rhapsody.

Posted by dave coustan at 5:03 PM |

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Update: The first phase of the Usenet changes described below have been completed, and Jeff has published more information here.

Principal Engineer Jeff Pabian borrows Earthling today:

Hey Folks,

Dave let me step in and post about something we are all pretty excited about.

Internet veterans and the savvier users among us will be familiar with a service called Usenet. You might have heard them called “Internet newsgroups” by some of the other providers. This was one of the first services on the Internet and it even existed before (the common use of) email as a way for users on various nodes to communicate electronically.

Today, the service has evolved into a service that allows people to communicate with like-minded people in various newsgroups, (like rec.running or rec.games,chess for example) to discuss topics, get help, tell stories and other things. If you have used Google to search “Groups” you have taken a foray into the world of Usenet.

Earthlink has offered this service to our users since the beginning. However, we’ll be the first to recognize that our Usenet service has been… let’s just say, not up to par for the last few years. I know several of you have written Earthling and to customer support about this. Although there hasn’t been much to share until now, we’ve been evaluating options and working on a plan to bring our Usenet offering back up to acceptable levels and get it where it needs to be to meet the expectations of the mainstream user.

In an effort to increase the level of service, we are working on outsourcing our Usenet service to a top-notch provider. If the current experience offers around two or three days of retention, the improved experience will offer months of retention with a lot more complete postings than we’ve been able to offer in the recent past. Internally, my fellow engineers are very excited about offering a great Usenet service AGAIN.

Continue reading "Usenet Revisited"

Posted by dave coustan at 12:04 PM |

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Weekend blog entries are fairly rare for me, but I wanted to write up some thoughts about my first day with the iPhone while they're fairly fresh in my mind. Now that I have both an Ocean and an iPhone in my hands, I'm well equipped to start thinking about how they stack up side-by-side.

iPhone in hand

I'm putting this entry in the "@EarthLink" section as a reminder that Helio is a joint venture between my employer, EarthLink, and SK-Telecom, and that Helio provides me free use of their devices and services. This entry reflects my own opinion and experiences.

Ocean in hand

Getting to know the iPhone has been really really fun. Especially because of the innovations around the touch screen interface, I think along with the Ocean it does point the way to the beginnings of a new kind of device, and Helio's "don't call it a phone" mantra equally applies here. In fact, the interface is so different from what I'm used to, I feel much more like a newbie learning a brand new operating system than I have in a while. As an example, when I first started browsing the web, I couldn't figure out how to just close the browser window. No "X", no obvious box to hit. Or how to wake it from sleep. Depending on what you're looking for, the prospect of being a total newbie again could either excite you or turn you off.

Read on for more.

Continue reading "Ocean In One Hand, iPhone In The Other"

Posted by dave coustan at 2:01 PM |

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If you're an Helio Ocean user, there are a couple of updates to the onboard apps you ought to take a look at. These haven't been officially announced and according to Crunchgear that will happen on Monday, but I've seen them publicly available on the Ocean I use, set them up, and given them a quick test drive.

First off, there's a new and easier-to-navigate version of MySpace Mobile in the Download Apps menu. I first spotted it a little over a week ago in the menu, and sure enough it's a refresh to the way you access MySpace. I can't get them side-by-side to do a features comparison, but it's a separate application instead of a section of the Surf menu, and it smartly adapts the full web MySpace experience to what you'd want on a smaller screen. Pages and images load quickly, layouts are formatted nicely for the size, and on profile pages, it offers you all of the basics on one screen, and then in the Go To menu you can drill deeper into categories.

Second and more exciting for an everyday Flickr user like myself, new versions of Helio UP and Helio Album make it even easier to upload photos to Flickr and video to YouTube. Within Helio UP, which you can get to by either taking a photo and hitting the blue "Helio UP" button or choosing it while looking at an existing photo in your album, hit the menu button and choose "check for updates". It should find and offer to download a new version of the software.

Once you get and install the software, go to Helio Album under the Snap menu. You should see a newly functional choice -- "share". Choose that and it will allow you to enter your upload addresses for Flickr and YouTube. There's a checkbox there to set it to auto-upload every time you Helio something UP as well. That's the fastest option, and potentially as new sites get added, it's a way to share your stuff with several places at once, to hit all of your YASPs(Yet Another Social Profile). In my experiments, this method took fewer steps than my usual way of sending a photo via email or pic msg to Flickr. But unlike that method it does add a subtle-ish transparenty Helio watermark to the lower-left corner of the photos. If that's not your thing, you can stick to the tried-and-true upload via email method by choosing "send" instead of "Helio UP".

Posted by dave coustan at 8:30 AM |

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• Much of the EarthLink press attention this week was focused on our new CEO, Rolla Huff. Here's the coverage from CNet News and CNN/Money , and for more commentary here's a link to a Google Blog Search, which seems to pull in mainstream media coverage as well.
  
• EarthLink was the featured sponsor for last Friday's episode of Rocketboom, where host Joanne showed off ebay listings including theirs of the domain name supercalifragilisticexpealiphone.com, a tornado, a time travel ring, and The Price Is Right toast. EarthLink was Rocketboom's second original sponsor in the first incarnation of their sponsorship model back in May of last year. More on how that developed here.
  
• President of EarthLink's Access and Audience business unit Craig Forman recorded a Trendspotter podcast covering his first online experiences as a pioneer user of NSFNet, the role of the new myEarthLink start page, and his vision for EarthLink's role in the lives of our users. Craig also participated in the Supernova 2007 conference. Some of the conference liveblogs, materials, and interviews are available on their Conversation Hub site -- here's a live blog from a discussion Craig participated in on Building Long-term Value Through Collaboration.
  
• We're offering free, secure Wi-Fi on our municipal networks on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. If you're on an N800 and within one of our Wi-Fi networks in Philadelphia, Milpitas, Anaheim, New Orleans, or Corpus Christi, you can create a free account and access the network by clicking on the EarthLink Wi-Fi logo in the connections menu or through the Tableteer portal.
  
• I also added conference badges just below the Flickr photo badge on the right of the Earthling main page, to show which upcoming events I'll be attending. I'm looking forward to leading a session on corporate blogging at BlogPhiladelphia in a few weeks. And if you're in Atlanta don't forget about tonight's SMC meeting.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:20 PM |

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If you use myEarthLink Radio off of the previous version of my.earthlink.net, today you'll notice that application serves you a message from Pandora CEO Tim Westergren instead of the music you usually get. Along with hundreds of webcasters, Pandora is participating in the Internet Radio Day Of Silence, and is therefore going dark today to shine a light on the Copyright Royalty Board's recent drastic increase in online music licensing fees that is making it difficult for all online streaming music providers to do business. Ian Rogers provides some more context on Yahoo!'s Yodel Anecdotal blog and a timeline of events on the Yahoo! Music blog. SaveNetRadio suggests that if you want to do something to help the cause, you can call your congresspersons and ask them to co-sponsor the "Internet Radio Equality Act" that would fix the rate hike.

Update: I read via Rusty and TechCrunch that Last.FM is about the only major music streaming service not participating. Their side of the story is over here. They see the day of silence as "punishing the user" unnecessarily. I think if this is their position, they should be making some other significant gesture today supporting the cause, as any gains will be to their benefit and they're all in this together. I'd like to see a "we don't believe in punishing our users over this, but here's what we're doing instead..." that's something other than business as usual.

Posted by dave coustan at 9:20 AM |

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Today Rolla Huff joins EarthLink as our new President and CEO. He comes to us from MPower Communications, where he served as Chairman and CEO. I look forward to meeting him and hearing more about his vision for the company.

There's more about him and the board's search in the press release issued this morning.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:15 AM |

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I was out of commission with a nasty cold for the past day and a half, so I stayed away from Reader for a decent stretch longer than usual. When I came back to it this morning, thanks to one of the new features, at the end of my first page of articles I saw this:

Previously when the number was lowish, I really liked knowing. But with the number so high today, it added some stress to my morning. Getting through my articles felt more like work than it usually does, and I felt like I had to get to all of them, instead of that breezy feeling I usually have that I can always skip a bunch and nothing bad will happen. Prior the new feature add, when I wasn't at all reminded what lay ahead at the bottom of the page, often I'd stop short and didn't feel stressed about it.

I've said before that a good test of a feed reader is what it feels like after you come back from an absence, and after this test I feel like maybe we've lost a little of that breeziness. As a Reader devotee, I think we should do some more thinking around the psychology of knowing what lies ahead. What should that moment be like when you first return after a long absence? Should that be a special case, and be handled in some special way? And on the flipside, what should happen when you get through all your recently updateds? Is there a way we can mark that moment or would that sort of goal-orientedness add to the stress factor? Maybe there's a way to mark it more than we do now without making it emphasized until you get there. A powerup or a surprise.

This is one of two new places on the app where Reader gives you a little more information. The other is in the "Recently Updated" box, which now looks like this:

I like the new timestamp lots. It gives you some good context for what you're seeing.

Reader basked in a lot of good attention when it launched, but since then I think it's gotten too comfortably nestled in its place while the closest comparable reader, Google's, has done some really innovative things. Reader is still a daily addiction for me, but it could be much better. I think there's still a huge opportunity for ours -- how about if we dedicated ourselves to making it the most stress-free and encouraging environment out there for getting through your morning's work? The app you look forward to seeing every morning, that brings you the things that are valuable to you, and does it in such a way that doesn't nag or overwhelm you on top of all of your everyday nags and concerns. It would be a worthy mission.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:00 AM |

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You might remember the new EarthLink Security Center from its beta launch back in April. Kinks have been worked out, a little polish has been added, and as of yesterday Security Center is now officially out there as a full product. As you may have noticed, our beta releases don't tend to stay in beta for long. Keep up with ongoing news about the Security Center and talk to the team via their product blog.

We've also got a new build of the myEarthLink start page as of today, bringing with it the ability for you to remove some of the page features if you don't want them on your page. Tom has the full story.

We're also anticipating a new build of myEarthLink Reader rolling out very shortly -- it's short on cheap thrills but long on much-needed performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:50 AM |

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• We officially launched a revamped and thoroughly EarthLink'ed Corpus Christi Wi-Fi network.
  
• Props for the Helio Ocean popped up on Yahoo!
  
• Last week, EarthLink execs Craig Forman, Dan Greenfield, and Mike Lunsford attended the D5 Conference.
  
• The Anaheim Mayor's TechScholar program announced its winners, who each get free laptops and up to 2 years of free EarthLink Wi-Fi service.

• Josh encourages us to think about how failing gracefully can lead to better and stronger results.
  
• Danilo writes about Test-driven development.
  
• Ashley is trying out a Chumby.
  
• Jeff is in the process of reviewing the T-Mobile Wing.
  
• Jason weighs in on the debate about simplicity vs. feature abundance.
  
• The powerful pistol shrimp is the current star of Eric's Phaithful blog.
  
• Tom Andrus' Six In The World blog retells the story of the family's adventures parasailing in Tunisia.
  
• Rob points out that Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was actually about television.
  
• Ernest cautions us about big box store return switch-a-roos.
  
• And Liza breaks down her math brain.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:15 PM |

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A belated shoutout to Earthling reader Mark Read who has installed blogging software Movable Type on his EarthLink business hosting account. Check out his MT-powered blog at Goreads.com. Mark provides some tips and observations from his install:

I'm a couple months behind on the discussion, but it relates to my current chalenges. I have manually installed Movable Type on Earthlink web hosting. Other than what I'm told is normal MT installation issues, it works great.

A couple of interesting things I learned along the way:

1. CGI, Perl or PHP scripts do not have to be in the "cgi" directory. Earthlink will execute any script either at the root directory or any sub-dir that you create. Just make sure you set the permissions correctly for the directories and the files that you want to Read/Write/Execute.
   
2. I read about a script called "servercheck.cgi" (easily found on the net). Run this and it will tell you much more about the earthlink environment. Currently they have Solaris 5.8, Perl 5.008.008, Server Software Apache, CGI 1.1, library "mod_perl" is not installed.
   
3. MT is able to do permalinks of any configuration, so I'm curious how WP is attempting to do it differently.
   
4. One thing I am stuck on is doing photo gallaries which require thumb nail image creation using something like Image Magick. For the life of me I could not get the binarys loaded. Earthlink does not allow you to compile any source code. So for now, I do not know how to do photo galaries.
   
5. One last thought, I completely agree that Earthlink is scarce on their documentation or even a forumn from other users on how to get the tricks to work.

And on #5, there's a new EarthLink tool on the way that should make it easier to share tips and tricks like this. More on that in the works.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:40 AM |

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New Helio Ocean spot:

I notice the big robot is still calling all the shots. And I hear this guy has been pulling all sorts of shenanigans to try to get himself an invite.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:23 PM |

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EarthLink has a next-generation broadband team whose job it is to explore and investigate the most promising new technologies for high-speed internet connectivity. They are our front-line researchers, and in a sense they're unsung heroes because I can't tell you about most of the neat things they're working on until they're almost ready to become a product. The next-gen team has lots of neat toys and prototypes on their desks, and they school me on a regular basis on what the next wave of connection products is probably going to look like.

All of that is meant to be context for a clarification/correction I'm helping out with regarding a Korean news story that went out earlier this week about one of the next-generation team's areas of interest, technology for Broadband Over Power Line(BPL). The original story incorrectly reported the details of an agreement(a "memorandum of understanding") EarthLink signed with a Korean technology company, Exscoms Inc. That article has since been modified(newest version linked-to above and here), but Jerry Grasso in EarthLink Corporate Communications has made the following additional clarification, to make the facts clearer:

"On Sunday, May 27th, Exscoms Corp. announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Atlanta-based EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK). It has been reported inaccurately by media outlets that certain won/dollar amounts could possibly be earned as a result of the agreement.

The MOU agreement is only to explore the opportunity to test and evaluate Exscoms’ ‘XPnet’ technology. Any other forecasts beyond this statement, especially regarding potential commercial viability, or related business arrangements, are premature and inaccurate. Any revenue forecasts are speculative, and are not endorsed by EarthLink, or Exscoms, at this time."

If you have any additional questions on this, drop me a comment or e-mail me(earthling at corp dot earthlink dot net) and I'll route you to the right person here.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:02 PM |

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Several people read my short note from earlier this week and asked me for more information on the Agile Scrum training we did. According to the not-for-profit Scrum Alliance: "Scrum is an iterative, incremental process for developing any product or managing any work." Although there's a fair bit to learn about the framework and how you "do" Scrum, once you know the mechanics it's a simple and straightforward process to follow.

Within the Value Added Services(VAS) group at EarthLink, we've recently started to incorporate a few of the methods of Agile development into our overall product development process -- techniques like short and frequent code releases, daily status meetings, and less reliance on a comprehensive up-front documentation process. Some project teams even describe themselves as "agile-esque." With the support of our leadership, the project management group brought in Certified Scrum Trainer Pete Behrens to give us all a deeper understanding of what it really means to use Agile development, specifically the Scrum method, and to help us think about how we could more completely and consistently adopt it as the way we all work.

The two-day training was fun, challenging, and led to some thoughtful conversations among the participants. Without looking back at the book or notes, here are some of the highlights that stuck with me. Please keep me honest if I'm getting any of this wrong:

• The goal is to create high-performing teams with high levels of commitment, trust, collaboration, productivity, and predictability.
  
• The basic unit of structure is a small, consistent team of roughly 4-7 people, composed of the product owner, the people who will be doing whatever kind of work it is, and a scrum master who facilitates the process.
  
• Work periods are divided up into discrete and regular timeboxes. Projects are broken down into a series of self-contained Sprints -- usually two- or three weeks long. Sprints are measured in working days.
  
• Each day there's a short "daily stand-up" meeting where each member of the team checks in on what he/she did yesterday, what he/she plans to do today, and whether any obstacles that need to be cleared.
  
• At the end of each Sprint there's a collaborative review and evaluation to see what can be improved upon as the next sprint begins.
  
• The unit of problem-solving is the user story, which is a declarative sentence in the following format: As a (user) I can (action) so that (business value). Project goals and tasks are made up of of user stories to address and complete.
  
• Unlike traditional requirements, user stories are negotiable -- they're what the team uses to explore and define what will need to be done and how best to do it together.
  
• Any tasks or stories that come up along the way and aren't agreed upon as part of a sprint can be put into a backlog to be handled in future sprints.
  
• While a team is in the middle of a Sprint, that Sprint's overall objectives are fixed and not changeable. But since each one is self-contained, future Sprints can be adjusted. This means that theoretically if a new feature needs to go into the docket after all of the up-front planning discussions have been completed, it could go in around Sprint-and-a-half's worth of time from when it's proposed.
  

There's more to it, but that should give you a sense of what the process is like. Some of the most enjoyable parts of the training were the exercises that gave us all the chance to experience what it's like to work within a Scrum team. It's significantly different from how most of us are accustomed to working, and actually trying it gives you a clearer understanding of how powerful and satisfying it can be to attack problems that way.

Special thanks to Pete for his insightful, patient, and instructive training sessions. We look forward to seeing him again for another round of classes, and to bringing the Scrum to our workflow.

More on Scrum:

• Scrum Alliance
  
• Implementing Scrum
  
• Agile Executive Blog
  
• Scrum in Wikipedia

Posted by dave coustan at 4:01 PM |

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This morning EarthLink announced that Wireless Philadelphia has approved our 15 square mile Proof of Concept(POC) area, and given us the green light to continue to build out the full 135 square miles of network.

Photo by paytonc and uploaded under a Creative Commons license.

As part of the POC announcement, we're also debuting a new faster Wi-Fi plan in Philadelphia to complement our current offerings. The new Wi-Fi Extreme plan offers 3 mb download/1 mb upload speeds for a couple dollars more per month($21.95 per month with an additional discount up front). You can get it by calling 1-866-433-WIFI.

I'll be in Philadelphia in July(if not sooner) for free unconference BlogPhiladelphia, where I'll be catching up with friends from across the country, participating in lots of interesting sessions, and leading one on Blogging and Business. I look forward to meeting any Earthling readers planning to make the trip. In fact, drop me a line in advance and we can plan a meetup.

More from Earthling on the history of the Philly project:

• Mayor's Event For Philly Wi-Fi
  
• Watch This Pole
  
• Free Wi-Fi In Philly
  
• Steps In The Municipal Wi-Fi Process
  

Posted by dave coustan at 10:55 AM |

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I've been using a Helio Ocean for about 36 hours now, and so far I'm very impressed with the evolution of the interface from the Kickflip to the Drift and now to the Ocean. It's usually a good indicator that things things are where they should be when you naturally discover new features on your regular path through the software. As a messaging device, I'm finding it eliminates some needless steps and does lots of things smartly. By coincidence Max and Doug from Helio were in our office for meetings yesterday so I got to geek out about it for most of the afternoon. Here's a quick spin through some of the details I've appreciated so far:

• Solid predictive search in several places -- The no-click searching from the phone's at-rest state is impressive, one might even say "insanely useful" to borrow a term from Frenchy. When you start typing it first starts showing you matches from your contact list, and then once your search query doesn't fully match any contacts and you hit the flame key, it does it's web searching thing. Max pointed out yesterday that in addition to the automatic tabbed results from Yahoo, Google, and Wikipedia, there are also tabs for Amazon and Yelp. That's a whole lot of information at your disposal for very little effort. Predictive search also works when you're adding contacts to an email or text message, and it shows matches for both first and last name.
  
• Sane and consistent message addressing options -- The interface makes it easy to add multiple recipients, even for a text message. It also understands groups and allows you to add contacts to groups, and send to a group. Groups aren't totally open-ended, but you get "friends, family, work, school, other" as groupings to use. Obviously, those are the names but you can use them however you want.
  
• Following URLs from emails, texts, tweets, and IM's is easy -- You just highlight a URL and click "go" and it opens in the browser, no matter how you received the URL. Or you can copy them to the buffer for use some other way. This makes mobile instant messaging far more practical -- instead of having to tell your friends not to send you URLs while you are on the go, now you have ways to use them or save them. I don't like receiving a lot of URLs via Twitter, but this has made them far more tolerable.
  
• Nicely staccato-ized alert sound -- Because of Twitter, I get lots of text messages to my phone. Sometimes these come in during a (don't call it a) phone call. With the Drift, the alert sound that told me I have a new message often temporarily interrupted calls, and because it was a little lengthy it made me miss parts of conversations occasionally. The default alert sound on the Ocean is a very staccato beep, and that does its job without dropping out bits of conversation.
  
• Add attachments menu available when you need it-- Whether you're composing an e-mail or an instant message, there's an "add attachment" feature in the menu that gives you access to your stored emails, the photo album, and the camera. So you can be on instant messenger and decide you want to show something to someone, hit "add attachment", snap a photo on the fly, and then send it over right there within the conversation.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:18 AM |

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Helio's new TV ad -- How the Ocean came about:

I can't help but feeling like the bigger bot with the belly full of nanotechnology was the real brains behind the whole project, though the two smaller assistants are clearly trying to claim the lion's share of credit. So you encased it in a plastic womb...big deal. It would be a big slab of nothing if it weren't for the hard work of those nanorobots following the big bot's design specs.

Makes this poor sap look all the sadder.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:53 PM |

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As of early this morning, the Helio Ocean is now available for purchase via 1-888-88-HELIO or www.helio.com. If you're near Santa Monica, Palo Alto, San Diego, Denver, or New York, you can enjoy the instant gratification of stopping by a Helio retail store and picking one up in person. Oceans will be in GameStop and EBGames stores next week, and then in authorized Helio retailers shortly thereafter. It sells for $295.

The result of efforts began even before Helio's formation as a company, the Ocean is a voice/GPS/3G data/multimedia handheld communications device with an integrated sliding QWERTY keyboard and number pad. It's hard to quickly convey all of its capabilities but in the words of Helio CEO Sky Dayton, it's an "exceptionally designed messaging, surfing, multimedia and talking device." There's lots of reviews and video walkthroughs in the blog entries currently just below this one, and more on the basics in the initial announcement.

Helio also announced a new $145 unlimited voice plan(with unlimited data as well), to join their current 500, 1000, and 1500 minute all-in data and a la carte plans.

Posted by dave coustan at 7:25 AM |

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Writing this particular blog entry requires my admitting two potentially revealing facts: (a)I don't yet have a Helio Ocean in my hands like the guys at Engadget, Gizmodo, SlashGear, CrunchGear, Techtech, and Gadget Fancier, and (b)I really did spend part of my evening last night reading every page of the Ocean user guide that Gizmodo published. True and true.

With that out of the way, I found some neat little details in the guide and wanted to share them here. These are nice interface and functionality details that would be tough to find room for in the big-picture coverage of the Ocean:

• Looks like you can add attachments to emails.
  
• You can hook the Ocean up to a Pictbridge-compatible printer and print photos straight off of it
  
• Set as contact pic lets you set a photo from the album as the image for a contact
  
• Record three minutes' worth of both sides of a phone call
  
• A very handy stopwatch feature
  
• Details on the browser including cache, cookies, and https choices
  
• Nice contact management including choosing multiple contacts and dealing with duplicates
  
• And last but not least, support for EarthLink e-mail

Lots more in the round-up from earlier today.

Posted by dave coustan at 5:12 PM |

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A few lucky gadget reviewers received Helio Ocean devices before they're available to the public(soon!), and they've been busy. Today Gizmodo shares part one of a video walkthrough:

...and Walt Mossberg has both a text review and a video piece.
Yesterday Gizmodo published:

• The Unboxing
  
• A scan of the complete user guide
  
• A size comparison with other devices including a paper iPhone
  
• A how-to on the easy switching you can do to move your number from one Helio to another
  
• Their first impressions after using the device for a little while

If there's any other hands-on coverage out there, let me know and I'll add it here.

• Ocean coverage on Slashgear.com
  
• Gizmodo points to an article in Tech Review about the thinking that went in to the hardware spring mechanism
  
• Two more walkthrough videos on Gizmodo
  
• Crunchgear's First Impressions and quick look video
  
• Sascha Segan's preliminary review at PC Magazine

In case you're just joining us, here's more on the Ocean from its announcement at the end of March. The fact that these expert reviews are up is usually a good indicator that it's bound to be available for sale very soon.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:22 PM |

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Knowing what you know today, are you more likely to buy the Helio Ocean or the Apple iPhone?

Gizmodo asks you to answer that via their Snap Judgement poll. There are 697 votes so far, and I won't risk affecting your loyalties by telling you which is in the lead at present.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:14 PM |

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After a two-month stint in preview mode, today EarthLink's next-generation start page becomes a full-fledged release. As part of that transition, the team has added an oft-requested new feature -- the ability to add and remove your own RSS feeds as part of the News area Here's more from Tom Harris on what it means to graduate from preview mode and how to add, modify, and manage your own start page feeds.

If you haven't sampled it already, you can take a look at the new start page(complete with what is now a hipster-compliant ironic URL) at http://preview.my.earthlink.net . There's a link there that looks like this:

..that you can use to make it your own permanent start page and move it to just regular my.earthlink.net for your account.

And here's the full story of the new start page development, as it has unfolded on Earthling since last fall:

• A myEarthLink Revisioning With A View
  
• Thanks For The Start Page Feedback
  
• We Hate Clutter Too
  
• Three LCDs And A Microphone
  
• We've Gone To Plaid
  

If you haven't already, add the team's official Portal Product Blog to get regular updates, hear about upcoming plans, and provide your thoughts and suggestions on the continuing development of the start page.

Congratulations and thank you to the next-generation portal team for all of your hard work.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:35 PM |

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If you're an EarthLink Web Mail user, one of the most valuable sites to keep in your back pocket is Email Guy John Foltz's Web Mail Blog. John works hard to make it a place where readers can have satisfying conversations with the Web Mail team, provide their feedback and suggestions, and find solutions to their problems as quickly as possible.

He has continued to add new features to meet the needs of his readers, including one in particular that's unique within our small but growing product blog array. As far as I know, the Web Mail blog is currently the only EarthLink product blog to maintain regular "open threads" where readers are encouraged to ask anything at all as it relates to John's beat. I sent John five questions to get his perspective on 6 months at the Web Mail blog, managing open threads, and his suggestions for other product managers thinking about using a blog to better connect with their users:

You've been doing the Web Mail blog for almost six months now. How's it going?

It’s the single smartest thing I did in the past year to help us improve the Web Mail product. The blog increases user interaction and involvement, and is a terrific source of direct information about problems users encounter and features they need to have.

To what degree has the blog increased your workload? Is that more, less, or about the same as you anticipated before you started?

I spend at least an hour a day on the blog, and occasionally 2 or 3 hours. I consider the time well-spent and very productive. I don’t think I had an expectation going in to it, but I knew I wanted to do a two-way blog and knew that this would take a lot more time than a blog where I just write an occasional article. I had to evolve some systems to manage the user input and sort of funnel it and control it, before I got things to the point that I could maintain it in an hour a day. For a while it took a lot more time.

Continue reading "Checking In With Email Guy"

Posted by dave coustan at 1:30 PM |

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The new EarthLink Security Center rolls out as a beta release today. Its goal is to provide a complete and trustworthy set of content, tools, and software to help you stay on top of your internet security needs.

We hope you'll find it a satisfying destination for learning, tips, troubleshooting, and solutions. In addition to hearing your thoughts overall, the team would love feedback on some specific elements of the Security Center. If you'd like to be a part of the development process, it would be extremely helpful to hear from you on the following questions:

• How's the editorial balance? Does it feel like you're seeing the whole picture of security software options available to you, or do EarthLink products and information take too prominent a role?
  
• Try the Security Assessment Wizard (currently requires Internet Explorer on Windows) How do you feel about the result you got? Were the recommendations helpful? Did you like or dislike the letter grade scoring?
  
• Take a look at the internet threat meter. Is it easy to understand what it's telling you at a glance?
  
• How is the selection of news and blogs? Any recommendations for additional content to include?
  
• Did you get lost or stuck anywhere on the site?
  
• Would you come back to help research a new problem or security threat?

Posted by dave coustan at 12:05 PM |

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Update: Oops, the voting deadline has already passed(as of midnight *Monday*), and I need more coffee. The site still lets you vote, but I guess it is no longer counting them. Let's change this to(and please read below as) "Congratulations to the Drift for its nomination and strong showing in the competition."

Engadget has nominated the Helio Drift for 2006 Cellphone of the Year. In this case I think it's permissible to call it a phone, but only just the once.

Vote for the Drift

Tweeting via Drift [photo by Josh Hallett]

FYI, you can vote only once, and you have to make your voice heard by midnight Monday, April 16th.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:26 AM |

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It's been a big week for EarthLinkers on TV. On Monday Tom Andrus and family were interviewed by Oprah via satellite from Cape Town, South Africa. This morning around 8 a.m. resident technology diva and VP in EarthLink's Audience division Erika Jolly Brookes is appearing live on Fox's Good Day Atlanta, on WAGA Fox 5. Erika and host Suchita Vadlamani will be discussing fashion and technology trends for the Spring. (Update: Here's a link to the video of Erika and Suchita on MyFoxAtlanta.) As a companion piece to her segment on Good Day Atlanta and for those of you who may be outside of the viewing audience, Erika wrote up for Earthling her five top tech tips on the intersection of fashion and technology:

The warm temperatures, high pollen count and itchy eyes are a sure sign that SPRING IS IN THE AIR. This is also a time when women begin pulling out all of the spring faithfuls – cute sandals, pastel-colored dresses and skirts, comfy capris…They’ve also made sure they know what’s “in” this spring (metallics, yellows, black and white, 80s body conscious, etc., etc.)…AND, since statistics show that women no longer lag behind men when it comes to technology (we make up 45 percent of total Internet users by some statistics), I’m sure many women are also busy updating their technology favorites for the season. In that spirit, I thought I would share my five faves:

• Cute Dress, Cuter bag -- Dresses are in this spring, and we start our pursuit of the best dresses this season by going to a local boutique (Sage Clothing and Kaleidoscope Boutique are two that I love here in Atlanta) to purchase the cutest dress on the rack. Make sure your laptop bag doesn’t take away from the feminine look that’s automatic when you’re wearing a pretty dress. Many shops – and even stores like Target – have cute, inexpensive laptop bags in all of the season’s hottest colors. Think slouchy bag meets laptop. Why not camouflage your technology in something attractive?
  
• All-Around Style -- Since the weather is nice, you’ll probably be out and about showing off your new sandals and freshly-waxed legs. But, when your boyfriend or hubby calls, don’t be caught with an out-of date cell phone. It will throw off your entire look! Check out the latest Blackberry Pearl and Helio phones for the latest and greatest. They even have cool features that make it easy to keep up with your calendar, address book and your MySpace page!

Continue reading "Erika on Good Day Atlanta - Spring Fashion and Technology"

Posted by dave coustan at 8:00 AM |

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This morning EarthLink is pleased to announce that Arlington County, VA, has selected us to build, own, and operate their 26 square-mile Wi-Fi network. There's more information in the press release, and less information in our new EarthLink Twitter presence, ELNK.

What's Twitter and why would you want this?

We'll be publishing "get to the point" versions of our press releases via the free services provided by Twitter.com. One way to think about Twitter is "Microblogging". Every piece you publish is limited to 140 characters or less, and the intent of the system is to provide status updates that answer "what are you doing right now?" So our Corporate Communications folks will be giving you updates about what EarthLink is doing right now, whenever we have something interesting to share. One neat thing about Twitter is that you can receive it any number of ways -- by looking at it via a web browser or through RSS, or if you sign up to get a free account at twitter.com, you can also receive it (and send to it) via instant messenger or SMS from your cellphone. There are also desktop applications and widgets you can use.

Even though it's in wide circulation in some circles and may already seem like old hat to geeks, at just over a year old it's still pretty new. So if this sounds weird and foreign to you, don't panic. None of our other ways of communicating are going away, this is just a new thing we're adding for those who might find it useful. Rafe Needleman from CNet and Webware, who I had the pleasure of meeting at SXSW this year, has written an excellent guide to Twitter for newbies. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I urge you to check it out.

So why would you want to get our news stuff via Twitter? Maybe you want to keep up with what's going on around here, but don't want to read through entire press releases. Maybe you like bite-sized content written in a way that gets right to the point. Or maybe you just like Twitter and are increasingly learning about what the world is up to that way.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:59 AM |

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Since August, EarthLink's own Tom Andrus and his family have been on a journey around the world, and they've been chronicling the trip on Sixintheworld.com. So far they've been to Australia, New Zealand, Korea, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, India and South Africa, and are next heading to Turkey, Eastern Europe, Tunisia and finally South America before heading home to Atlanta.

Oprah Winfrey interviewed Tom via satellite while he was in Cape Town, South Africa, and the interview segment will air today on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Here's more from The Six on what it was like to do a remote interview with Oprah from Table Mountain.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:52 AM |

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A quick summary of what's going on in the EarthLink product blogs:

• Ben Kaplan just launched a new blog covering all things Protection Control Center. Bring your ideas, questions, and feedback over to http://blogs.earthlink.net/pcc and watch Ben's blog for product-related news and tips. You can grab the feed here.
  
• The myFavorites product blog is active again after a short nap, with a very useful feature on the anatomy of a favorite and how you delete them.
  
• Email Guy John Foltz brings detailed information about a new release of Web Mail, version 5.13.2. This version fixes several issues introduced in the 3/7 Web Mail release.
  
• The Portal blog is following development of the new EarthLink start page, currently in preview mode. Take a look at the blog over here, and a sneak preview of the new start page in progress here.
  

For your reference, there's a full directory of EarthLink's product blogs and participating employee personal blogs over here.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:44 AM |

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This morning Helio announced the details of their new device featuring a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the Ocean.

It's a dual-slider, meaning that if you slide it one way, a numerical keypad slides out from the bottom, and if you slide it the other way, a nice QWERTY keypad slides out from the side. Even with the double slide action, it's lighter, thinner, and smaller than the T-Mobile Sidekick 3, at 4.33” x 2.20” x .86” and 5.61 oz. I went on a QWERTY test drive binge recently and tried out most of the devices in stores now. I found just about all of the smartphone keyboard implementations(with the exception of the Sidekick 3 and MDA) kind of clumsy for extended messaging for one reason or another. The Ocean looks markedly smarter in terms of keyboard spacing and size compared to the current QWERTY contenders like the Dash and Blackjack, and it follows well in the footsteps of the T-Mobile Sidekick's thumb keyboard which until now has really been the only small keyboard I could use efficiently and enjoy doing so.

Like the keyboard layout, the on-board software is geared towards easy and integrated communication -- e-mail, texting, IM, telephony, picture messaging, photo uploading, searching, and web browsing. It has several new features and additions to the Helio UI specially customized for its unique design:

Continue reading "Announcing the Helio Ocean"

Posted by dave coustan at 6:05 AM |

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Carla Shaw of EarthLink Corporate Communication reports in from from Spring VON, where EarthLink’s Voice team unveiled the beta for our new Wi-Fi phone, which looks like this:

Says Carla:

"We talked to a lot of bloggers and media about the new EarthLink phone, and most seemed impressed with the phone’s sleek design and its ability to work on EarthLink’s municipal wireless network. A lot of questions centered around how the phone would work on the Muni network (very easy, no set-up).

The phone even got a shout-out during the panel about softphones, where the moderator asked panelist Jim Bagnato (EarthLink’s Director of Voice Products), about the new phone the company announced.

The EarthLink Wi-Fi Phone should launch this Summer, after about a three-month beta period.

Other show impressions:

• A very busy press room that saw a few new (relatively) companies holding court, including GrandCentral. At least one reporter gave me a GrandCentral phone number for her contact info.
• VON Coalition members talking with excitement about the federal appeals court ruling that prevents individual states from regulating VoIP.
• More tech-y panels than in years past. One analyst said that the show could be summed up in “six letters: FMC and IMS.”

And of course one of the biggest hits was the table full of chocolate candy the show organizers were smart enough to put out for afternoon snacking. Good thinking. There might be an even bigger table at Fall VON. I can hope!"

Posted by John Nolt at 2:14 PM |

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Greetings, Earthling readers! John Nolt here, filling in with a couple posts to keep y'all occupied while Dave takes a few days off.

If you're an EarthLink subscriber, you've probably received our "eLink" newsletter. It gets dropped in your email Inbox every couple of weeks and contains articles and links that are written and compiled by the fine people in EarthLink's Marketing Services department.

Now, I know how tempting it is to ignore stuff that gets dropped into your Inbox by a faceless machine, but if you've never opened that newsletter message and checked out eLink, I urge you to do so. That's right, in italics even.

The folks who write eLink often find really cool links that even I, who basically stare at the Internet every minute of every day, haven't seen yet. That's a plug, it's true. But sincere!

Each issue of eLink includes a "Tech Tip" written by a technical writer from the Interface Design department. That's the department I'm in, and that's part of my job. Tech tips are short articles that illuminate some aspect of technology, computing, or the Internet. We've done tech tips on everything under the sun, from choosing a good password to "browser add-ons" to podcasting to keyboard shortcuts. You can browse past tips in the archive of Tech Tips.

Now for the real reason I've called us all here today: I need your help.

If you have any ideas for topics my colleagues and I could address in a future Tech Tip, please let us know! You can leave a comment on this post, or send email to Dave at the address over there on the right and he'll forward it on to me. We want to know what you want to know!

Posted by John Nolt at 4:31 PM |

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One of the perks of writing Earthling is that I can get away with asking potentially revealing questions of our executives, and often get a straight answer.

Jonathan Young joined EarthLink as VP of security software, subscription and services this past year. Most recently, Jonathan led the launch of EarthLink's Protection Control Center with Attack Shield -- a low-hassle, high-security internet protection suite designed to detect viruses even before they've necessarily been discovered by the experts. The cynic in me has always wanted to know to what extent a security expert practices what he preaches to the average user. How much convenience does a VP of security give up to keep everything in his life locked down -- not just his software but his living space and valuables as well? Is he an obsessive freak who lives in a steel fortress, does he have the same bad habits as you or me, or somewhere in between?

This week I seized the opportunity and asked Jonathan nine questions about his software and home security habits. It turns out that although he does live in what has been called a "fortress," I'd classify his security habits as smart but human. Read on to find out about his run-ins with computer viruses and burglars, and what he does(and doesn't do) to keep his personal information, computer network, and living space safe.

Continue reading "How Secure Is A Security Expert? 9 Questions"

Posted by dave coustan at 7:08 PM |

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Although we haven't heard much from Tom and the myEarthLink start page team here on Earthling in little while, a lot has been going on behind the scenes. Over the past few months in Campfire I've watched some of the most thoughtful(if a little poindextery) conversations you can have about UI, on topics like the comparative merits of "remove" vs. "delete" and which icon is best for "partly cloudy". The team has been living and breathing this project, and with a certain Spaceballs reference("We've Gone To Plaid"), they've given the nod to move the project into Preview phase. Today they're ready to give you a peek into their efforts. Tom has the full scoop:

It's been a while since my last update on the new personal start page, but rest assured, we've kept ourselves busy.

We hit the ground running in the new year and have been building, building, building. In January, we continued to add new features and fine-tune our work from last year. In February, we started putting the new page in front of fresh users as well. We did another round of usability testing in Pasadena and we invited a large group of EarthLink employees and test users to try our Alpha Release of the product. All the while, we were making large and small refinements and putting the product through multiple rounds of quality assurance.

I'm very happy today to announce we're launching a Preview release of the new page to our esteemed Earthling readers and existing start page users. To take a peek, go to http://preview.my.earthlink.net. If you are logged into myEarthLink already, you'll be switched to the Preview version, and your preferences will be moved over. If you're not logged in, you'll be directed to a log-in page.

The Preview release won't stay in "preview" for long. We have more features and functionality on the way, and will continue to refine the page based on the feedback we get. To learn more about what's coming up and talk about what you would like to see on the new page, check out the new Portal Product Blog. Your feedback has been a great help to our team, and I hope we'll continue the conversation on the new blog.
-Tom

Posted by dave coustan at 4:28 PM |

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Helio just unveiled their newest device. The Heat is a thin and nifty slider that comes in Onyx and Gold, with electrostatic keys on the front which I believe means that they work like the iPod's clickwheel. Like all new devices to come from Helio, it has GPS onboard and the applications that go with it -- Buddy Beacon and Google Maps for Mobile.

The Heat is slightly sleeker and thinner in profile than the Drift, has a slightly less beefy still/video camera at 1.3 MP, and is a bit cheaper as well, at $150. Like the Drift, the number/texting keys have textured breaks in between them, so you can feel the separations fairly easily. On the Drift I've found that makes it particularly texting-friendly. Helio also announced that they're adding mobile versions of Digg and Wikipedia to the sites featured in their "Surf" application. More photos in this Flickr set, and the full product details and purchase information are all now up at Helio.com.

Pun Watch

It's something of a custom for the various gadget blogs to announce new devices with punny titles, particularly when the device's name lends itself to that sort of thing. In the case of the Heat, I had high expectations. But only a couple have dared to make Heat puns. So far I've seen:

• CrunchGear: Helio Brings The Heat
  
• Gizmodo: Helio Turns Up The Heat...
  
• and Endadget took a pass with: The Helio Heat
  
• (update: more punny titles) Slashgear: Latest Helio Handset Is Hot Stuff
  
• Crave: Helio Heats Up Its Lineup With New Phone
  
• Yahoo Tech: Helio Turns Up 'The Heat'
  
• Another from CrunchGear: Helio Heat Hands Burned
  

It's not too late. If you happen to blog about gadgets and haven't yet written up your initial Heat coverage, may I suggest the following chestnuts:

• Heat Rises
  
• Hot Hot Heat (update: taken.)
  
• The Heat Is on
  
• Helio Throws The High Heat
  
• It's Not The Heat, It's The Functionality
  
• Ok, I'll stop now.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:20 PM |

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Our Anonymous Email Addresses feature just reached an important milestone -- it's now in use by over 100,000 customers. If you've been reading Earthling for a while, you'll remember when Julie walked me through the beta in May, and announced the official launch this past August. Almost exactly 6 months from the launch, the team is celebrating its 100,000th signup.

EarthLink internet access and Premium Mail customers can turn on AEA for their email accounts by clicking the ProtectionPack link on the left side menu of Web Mail. To learn more about AEA, check out the product page or grab the EarthLink podcast about it.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:32 AM |

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We're holding another blogging bootcamp conversation in our Atlanta location in a few minutes. We'll spend some time talking about how the guidelines in our blogging policy work in practical situations, and the rest of the session on whatever blogging-related topics come up.

I'll update this entry after the session.

Update: Thanks to everyone who participated. We had another good crowd, and lively conversation around our practical examples of the blogging policy. We present the policy as general guidelines, and then invite the room to talk about how they feel about mocked-up examples of blog entries by employees. We don't end up making hard and fast judgements in most cases because it's pretty difficult to do that. But hopefully talking around and through all of the potential issues involved helps us all to recognize the larger context that surrounds blogging about the company you work for, and we end up smarter for it.

Afterwards we opened up the floor and talked about some of our own blogs, reasons people get into it, and good blogging platforms to start with. A couple of links I promised to offer: PodCamp Atlanta is coming up March 16-18, which is a free event focused on "podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media." It's a good opportunity to quickly learn the theory and practice of podcasting, and discover some new things to listen to. And Social Media Club Atlanta's second meeting will be held here at EarthLink HQ on March 6th.

I'll also add a round-up of links to resources for getting started in blogging and podcasting below.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:11 PM |

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Email Guy John Foltz has made searching the full content of his blog much easier. Both John's "open threads" and his regular blog entries often stimulate a lot of conversation and tend to create long comment exchanges between himself and Web Mail users. But with the way search on our shared blogging platform works(MovableType 3.2) by default, the link you get in a search result doesn't direct you to the exact spot within a long comment exchange where the phrase you were looking for lives. There's a lot of useful stuff in John's comments and he's been working overtime trying to make all that stuff more findable via search.

Thanks to a feature he added last week, now when you do a search of his blog, the links in the search results will take you right to the spot where your search term is, even if it's a comment in the middle of a bunch of other comments. MovableType developer Stepan Riha created a custom plug-in to fill this need, and John wrote the code to make use of it and integrate it into his blog templates.

John explained:

"Some questions are asked over and over on this blog because it has been difficult for readers to find where it had already been answered. Now both readers and myself will have a much easier time. Note however, that if your question has been answered several times before, I probably will stop publishing most repeats of the identical question. So please use the search feature before asking new questions in the Ask Email Guy thread."

In addition to all of the value he brings to Web Mail users, I've personally appreciated John's presence on Earthling's platform because his drive to constantly iterate and improve the Web Mail blog inspires me to keep thinking about and working on ways to make Earthling better.

I also want to thank Steven H. for his assistance in implementing these and many other of our changes to our blogging platform.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:51 PM |

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EarthLink Web Hosting accounts now offer easy installs of several oft-requested applications, most notably that most excellent blogging platform WordPress currently in use by 699,486 bloggers. Here's the full rundown of what's available:

• Advanced Guestbook
  
• CGI E-Mail form
  
• Hit Counter
  
• phpBB forum
  
• WordPress

You can find them in the "Free Tools" section under "Site Management" on the left side of your hosting Control Center.

Installing each of these tools on your business hosting account takes just a couple of clicks and a few simple form elements to fill out. I'll keep you posted on new free tools and enhancements as they become available. If you have any suggestions for tools you'd like to see added, or feedback of any kind, you can reach the Web Hosting product team via the "feedback" link under the "help" link in the lower left of the Control Center.

For more adventurous souls, I'm working on an unofficial how-to that takes you through doing your own custom WordPress installation on an EarthLink business hosting account. For many bloggers-to-be, the easy install via the Control Center Free Tools area will suit your needs just fine. It's a full installation of WordPress and is mighty powerful in terms of customization and adding functionality via plug-ins. But if you're the hands-on type or find you want finer control over things like the pathname to your blog, I'll spell out the steps needed to do your own manual install. Update: here's that how-to.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:50 PM |

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Last week the cities of Houston, TX and St. Petersburg, FL chose EarthLink to build and operate Municipal Wi-Fi networks in those cities. Before I started working with our Muni Wi-Fi folks I had no idea how something like this comes about or what it means when a city "selects" a partner, so here's a run-down of the major milestones in the development of our Municipal Wi-Fi networks. In practice it works a little differently in each city, but here’s the general shape of the process:

• A city decides they want a Wi-Fi network. They may put out an RFP(Request For Proposal), asking for partners to bid on the right to build the network and proposing a basic design and approach.

• The city reviews the responses to RFP, and selects the partner they want to work with. *This is what just happened in Houston and St. Petersburg, and they chose us.

• The city and the partner then negotiate the full terms of their agreement, and then the agreement passes through all of the necessary checks, balances, and votes in city government. *This is where we are with San Francisco currently.

• Once all of the necessary approvals are in place, our deployment begins and we start the physical work of hanging radios, placing backhaul equipment on towers, and configuring network infrastructure. In some cities, we build a smaller proof-of-concept or pilot area before we build out the full city footprint. We may also build out large areas in phases. This is all usually spelled out in the city agreement.

• We test, test some more, and then test again, and when the network is ready, we officially open it for business.

As you can see there are usually a lot of moving parts involved, and just as the character of each city is unique, the proposal, negotiation, approval, and build process takes a slightly different shape in each case. The network themselves are tailored to the city's specific needs and requests as well; in Philadelphia we're working to designate certain public parks as free Wi-Fi areas, and in San Francisco we're working with our anchor tenant Google to provide a free basic layer of service at 300 Kbps.

In addition to Houston and St. Petersburg, we're working on Wi-Fi projects in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Alexandria, VA and Milpitas and Anaheim, CA, and are finalizing agreements with Pasadena and San Francisco, CA. Our nationwide coverage map shows the current and future Wi-Fi initiatives we have in the works.

Posted by dave coustan at 12:11 PM |

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Over to the right you'll see a new link that says EarthLink Blog Directory. That'll be a running list of both official EarthLink blogs and the personal blogs of any employees who wish to have them available there. Dan Greenfield, VP of Corporate Communications, offers some more background and perspective below:

Today we unveil an extension of Earthling – it’s a list of links to official EarthLink product blogs and a directory of unofficial personal blogs of EarthLink employees.

Check them out: Of course there is mine, Bernaisesource(shameless plug), but there are others as diverse as the employee base itself. From the observations of family life of a dad who works in marketing and those of a lesbian mother in the legal department to the peregrinations of a vice president on leave who is traveling the world with his family. It is only a beginning and the list is intimate. Participation is strictly voluntary, and other employees have chosen to keep their personal blog just that – personal.

It is an exciting day for me. I hope in time that we get many more participants. With the help of Dave Coustan and Reid MacDonald, this directory is an easy way to share part of the collective voice and experience of EarthLink employees.

Dave and I won’t monitor these blogs for content. The only criteria are that the blogs come from current employees and that they conform to EarthLink’s official blogging policy. If any postings raise the ire of fellow employees and senior management, we will have to take that on a case by case basis.

It some ways it is a gamble for us. We don’t know what will be written or how individual blogs will be perceived by the outside world. But it is a bet we are willing to take. Web 2.0 is changing the way companies do business and how companies communicate. We simply want to be a part of the conversation.

-Dan Greenfield

Update: Dan has shared some more thoughts on his own blog, Bernaisesource.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:22 AM |

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Back in October I mentioned some important software enhancements coming to our Business Web Hosting platform. If you're an existing hosting customer, you'll have received an e-mail earlier in the week announcing that MySQL support and easy installs are now available. Each Web site comes with 25 databases that can store up to 200MB of data each. I tried it out on a test account yesterday -- it's a dirt simple, two step process to set up new databases with sample code to get you started. To get to the new options, there's a link that says "MySQL Databases" on the left side of your control panel:

MySQL support paves the way for lots more free and easy-to-install tools which are on the way shortly, including more of the enhancements I wrote about back in October. Look for another announcement on this, including a WordPress easy install(yay!), in the upcoming weeks.

There's more information on MySQL support in this Knowledge Base article.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:35 PM |

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Here's the latest update from Ben on PCC 2.0:

I understand that some of you are still experiencing PCC 2.0 issues; please know that we are working to resolve them as quickly as possible.

The main issues we’ve heard are:

• Unable to Scan due to the application hanging on the first file scanned: We have fixed this issue and nobody should be experiencing this issue any longer
  
• If a customer has uninstalled and then re-installed, the user is told PCC 2.0 is already installed.
  
  • We’re not sure what is causing this issue but the user can remove the following registry keys and you will be able to re-install the application.
    
  • Open the registry editor (type regedit in the run command)
    Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
    Delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ProtectionService key
    Delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet 001 and 002\ProtectionService keys if they exist.
    Reboot and then re-install PCC

We’ve migrated over 1 million customers over to our new 2.0 version and we’ll continue to work with the rest of you to help solve your problems. If you are experiencing other issues, please email pcc20@corp.earthlink.net.

Thanks,
Ben

Previous PCC 2.0 Entries:

• News From HQ: PCC 2.0 Update
  
• PCC and Attack Shield Sneak Preview
  
• PCC 2.0 Product Information Page
  

Posted by dave coustan at 6:32 PM |

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One of these things should be familiar to any regular Earthling reader. The other two should be more challenging. Any guesses on what these things are?

#1

#2

#3

More photos from the trip in this flickr set, but don't go there unless you don't mind hints about the objects in the photos.

For the first person who correctly guesses what #1 is without any prior information from me and without looking at the other associated Flickr photos in the set (honor system), I'll send you a prize when I get back to Atlanta.

Update: Guesses from Jacque H:
#1 lens of a digital camera - nope.
#2 hot rodded wireless access point in a take-out container - heh
#3 potato battery -- able to power a cell phone for a quick prank call - good guess but nope.

Posted by dave coustan at 5:01 PM |

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Lil Mike at Metroblogging SF reports that the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco will be holding a hearing about municipal Wi-Fi today, February 7th at City Hall, Board Chamber, room 250, Budget and Finance Committee. At the time of my writing this, the start time appears to be between 1:30 and 2 pm, but I've also seen reports of it starting as early as 1:30. Best to get there early if you want to catch the start of the conversation. The committee meeting itself begins at 1pm. [found via Jesse at The Urban Commons]

Under discussion today is a proposal by Supervisor McGoldrick to put off the EarthLink/Google Wi-Fi project to do additional analysis and compare it to a theoretical city-owned and run network. The EarthLink/Google project would unwire the city and bring a 300 kbps free tier of service and a faster paid retail tier of service(1 mbps) along with digital inclusion programs, all at no cost to the city.

Both Mayor Newsom and Chris Vein, head of the City’s department of telecommunications and information services, have said that the negotiated plan is one of the best in the world, and will be an industry standard for citywide municipal wireless networks moving forward. However, the plan must still pass through a vote by the Board of Supervisors, and opposition there could delay or in the worst case, reject the network build out altogether. It is likely that if this network plan is voted down, then it will be another three to four years before a wireless network could be up and running in San Francisco, given the time required to study and re-study the issues further, to bring wireless expertise back to the City to bid, plan, and negotiate to build the same type of network already offered to San Francisco at no charge.

Read on for more on the project.

Continue reading "Come Support Muni Wi-Fi In SF"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:45 AM |

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Liuzza's on Bienville was packed when Ken and I got there on Friday night. We had chosen Liuzza's for a number of reasons, not the least of which was my having never experienced the Frenchuletta, a Muffaletta-ish sandwich served on a huge piece of french bread. It was interesting to see what it was like on a Friday night at a neighborhood restaurant in a part of town still very much in the thick of coming back to life. It was packed, loud, and full of good cheer. When we got there, both rooms were completely full and we ended up waiting outside with our beverages for our guests to arrive.

Liuzza's On Bienville

We were soon joined by local bloggers Alan, Karen, Maitri, and Becky. We shared some excellent food (Frenchuletta is highly recommended) and talked about the daily issues that come up there, technology-related projects like how to get video off of TV and on to the web, and the specifics of EarthLink's Wi-Fi project in New Orleans. Sitting down with the four of them and hearing about all of the votes and decisions and meetings and legislative sessions that have become the bread and butter of their everyday life made us realize how different resident life is there now from any other city. It's not just the physical space of the city that's different; it's all of the new concerns that come with trying to have a voice in the city's current and future development. It's trivial by comparison, but I have a hard enough time making it to my own neighborhood association meetings in Atlanta once a month -- if I lived in New Orleans there'd probably be meetings I'd feel like I should attend several times every week.

Continue reading "Frenchulettas, The Magazine Canyon, and Wi-Fi"

Posted by dave coustan at 3:48 PM |

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As both a resident of Atlanta and an employee of EarthLink, I'm excited to announce that we've been chosen to build, own, and operate the City's new municipal Wi-Fi network. The network will be similar in model to what we're building in other cities, including retail residential 1 Mbps up/down service, open access for competing providers to sell over our network, small business support with T-1 replacement services, and programs to help bridge the digital divide. There's more information about the city's RFP process on the Wireless Atlanta section of AtlantaGA.gov.

In addition to the possibilities it opens up for cheaper broadband bills, more efficient city services, and many more places to connect from wirelessly, I think the network will help foster the sense of online community in our city, along with upcoming events like Social Media Club Atlanta and SoCon 07. For a blog's-eye view of Atlanta, check out Metroblogging Atlanta and Outside.in's Atlanta section. I'm working on compiling a more specific list of my favorite Atlanta-oriented blogs including all of the people I read each day. Send along your suggestions and I'll add my favorites to the list.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:40 AM |

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Ken Womack from the Search team and myself will be heading down to New Orleans for a couple of days. Ken's doing some research around the local search and portal services in our Municipal Wi-Fi markets. I'm going to help plan some future EarthLink Wi-Fi events, reconnect with friends and colleagues, and hopefully meet some new ones as well. We'll be grabbing dinner at Liuzza's on Bienville on Friday night at 7 p.m. along with whichever bloggers and geeks can make it on the short notice. Feel free to stop by and say hello.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:58 PM |

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Yesterday as I was packing up and heading back from CES, EarthLink announced that we'll be offering free Wi-Fi access in the 15 square mile proof of concept area in Philadelphia at 1 Mbps up/down through January 21, 2007. I wanted to follow up today to show anyone who hops on the network in Philly how you can share feedback about your experiences with us. You'll find a feedback link on the landing page you arrive at on the network, in the bottom row:

The link leads to a short survey and an area to add your freeform thoughts as well. We'll look to your feedback to help fine tune the network and service as we continue to build it out.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:50 PM |

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We released our new Protection Control Center version 2.0 last week, and a few of you have commented here on Earthling with installation or scanning issues. I received the following update via e-mail from product manager Ben Kaplan last night:

"A few of you have mentioned that you’re having problems upgrading to the new Protection Control Center 2.0. We apologize for the problems you have encountered and have a fix that will solve the problem.

If you're experiencing an issue where after you’ve installed 2.0 your computer will not scan, you will need to do the following: Please un-install PCC from your add/remove programs menu and then re-install from http://csupdate.earthlink.net/win/pcc/elnk_pcc.exe. This will re-install PCC 2.0 and should solve your problems.

Please keep in mind that PCC 2.0 has the following system requirements:

Processor:

Personal computer with Pentium-compatible processor 500 MHz or higher

Operating System:

Microsoft® Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP SP2 (Home, Media, and Professional, Admin rights required for the latter)*

Memory:

256mb Minimum, 512mb Recommended

This is update is very large (32mb) and requires Microsoft .Net Framework. If you don’t already have the .Net Framework, it will download automatically. Most Windows users (approx. 90%) already have it installed on their systems. A normal upgrade will take anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on how fast your computer is so please be patient. The benefits of this upgrade are definitely worth your time. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

Please take the time to re-install the application from: http://csupdate.earthlink.net/win/pcc/elnk_pcc.exe.

If the steps listed above don't resolve your PCC 2.0 issue, please feel free to call 888-EarthLink or visit http://support.earthlink.net/ for more assistance ."

Posted by dave coustan at 10:21 AM |

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The following statement is attributed to Donald Berryman, executive vice president of EarthLink and president of the ISP’s municipal networks unit:

“Today, EarthLink and the City of San Francisco reached agreement on the terms of the contract to build a citywide wireless network.

This agreement catapults San Francisco into a leadership position in wireless technology: the network ensures universal, affordable wireless broadband access for all San Franciscans, especially low-income and disadvantaged residents; and through the Mayor’s digital divide program, children and students will have the digital tools to ensure that they have access to everything that the Internet has to offer the growing minds of the City’s promising future.

Other advantages of having a citywide wireless network include improving the efficiency of the City’s government; stimulating private investment into developing tools and applications to take advantage of wireless technology, and providing more consumer choice and competition for broadband services than what exists today in the marketplace.

We look forward to working with the Board of Supervisors to gain approval of the agreement so we can begin building out the network in 2007.”

If interested in scheduling an interview to discuss the term of agreement and next steps, please contact these representatives from the ISP’s public relations firm, Text 100: Nicole Fachet, 212.871.3950 nicolef@text100.com; or the company’s lobbying firm in San Francisco, Singer Associates: Adam Alberti, 415.227.9700 adam@singersf.com.

Posted by dave coustan at 7:03 PM |

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I am deeply saddened by the passing of EarthLink’s President and CEO, Garry Betty, due to complications from cancer. EarthLink’s founder and Helio CEO Sky Dayton put together a heartfelt tribute blog for your and our thoughts, photos, conversation and information at gbetty.earthlink.net. Please consider sharing your memories and photographs there. Thanks to the engineers at Ning and EarthLink for helping to pull it all together.

Memorial arrangements are being made at this time, and Garry’s family has requested that those wishing to pay their respects do so with a donation to The Garry Betty Foundation in lieu of flowers. Donations can be sent to:

The Garry Betty Foundation
c/o EarthLink, Inc.
Level A
1375 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30309

Update: The foundation's site: www.garrybettyfoundation.org is now online as well.

There’s additional information in the press release.

Update: Garry's family has announced that the visitation will be Friday, January 5, 2007 from 6-8 p.m. at H.M. Patterson and Son, Oglethorpe Hill Chapel, 4550 Peachtree Rd, NE, Atlanta, GA 30319.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:29 AM |

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Part 2 in Earthling's look back at the most commented, most viewed, editor's choice, and best photos from each month.
(Part 1 over here)

July

Editor's Choice: Framing Reader
Most Comments: What Do You Think Of The New Technorati?
Most Viewed Of The Month: What's A Helio?
July's full archive
Best Photo:

August

Editor's Choice: ...So Then India Called Me For Tech Support
Most Comments: Handling Dead Domains
Most Viewed Of The Month: What's A Helio?
August's full archive
Best Photo:

September

Editor's Choice: Hyperlocal In NOLA
Most Comments: More Info On Dead Domain Handling
Most Viewed Of The Month: Handling Dead Domains
September's full archive
Best Photo:

Continue reading "The Year In Earthling, By Month, Part 2"

Posted by dave coustan at 11:04 AM |

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Today and tomorrow, I'm taking a look back at the most popular, most commented on, editor's choice, and best photo from each month of 2006. Today I'll cover January through June, and tomorrow July through December.

January

Editor's Choice: How To Share Photos In A Hurry
Most Comments: Googletalk And Vling Can Now Play Nice (note: Vling is now MindSpring)
Most Viewed Of The Month: Best Of The Worst Technologies At CES (also most popular in 2006)
January's full archive
Best Photo:

Yep.

February

Editor's Choice: A Great CD Is Not A Failed Radio Station
Most Comments: What's A Helio?
Most Viewed Of The Month: The Web Day Zero: How To Get Started
February's full archive
Best Photo:

The Helio Kickflip Phone (and a mechanical pencil)

March

Editor's Choice: Working To Keep Wi-Fi In New Orleans
Most Comments: EarthLink Line-Powered Voice Coming To 8 More Cities
Most Viewed Of The Month: EarthLink Line-Powered Voice Coming To 8 More Cities
March's full archive
Best Photo:

A pre-Katrina snapshot

Continue reading "The Year In Earthling, By Month, Part 1"

Posted by dave coustan at 11:44 AM |

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Here's another update from the team developing EarthLink's new start page. Part 1 set the stage, explained what the project is about, and asked for your thoughts on start page priorities. In Part 2, the team reacted to your feedback and gave us an update. Now, in part 3, Tom talks about usability testing, and how it helps to shape the product:

Last week, we had our second round of usability testing on the new personal start page. Our first round of testing was in the Pasadena office, and this time, we held the testing in Atlanta. In fact, we had the honor of taking the Atlanta office's shiny new usability lab out on its maiden voyage. We had some technical difficulties for the first session -- bad feedback in the audio tech sense, rather than the usability sense -- but after that, she drove like a dream.

Usability testing can mean several different things, depending on what you're testing and how you're testing it. In this case, the usability testing went like this:

• One by one, we brought Web users (generally known here as
  "participants") into a windowless room with a computer, a desk, two chairs, two cameras and a microphone.
  
• The lead usability engineer for the new start page project sat with each participant in the room and brought up a series of browser windows on the computer. Each participant saw our (mostly) working version of the start page and several mockups of how the start page might look when the final design is finished.
  
• For about an hour, each participant took the working version out for a spin, poked at the mockups, and talked about what he or she did and didn't like.
  
• Meanwhile, in the next room, the rest of us watched it all on three big flat panel monitors. Two of the monitors show the user, from different angles, and the third shows what the user is doing on the computer screen.

We had eight different sessions, over two days.

The juiciest bits of a session were usually when the participant took a first crack at the working start page. More often than not in this type of testing, at least one thing that seems clear to the project team isn't intuitive at all to fresh eyes.

Continue reading "New myEarthLink Part 3: Three LCDs And A Microphone"

Posted by dave coustan at 11:08 AM |

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It's been a big week for EarthLink Wi-Fi -- on Tuesday we announced the launch of our network in Milpitas, CA and today we're officially unveiling our New Orleans network.

A quick recap: Back in March, the City of New Orleans asked for EarthLink's help as it faced the possible shutdown of its emergency Wi-Fi network. We agreed to build and run a network at no cost to the city, and the project was approved by the City Council a couple of months later.

The Municipal Wi-Fi team and myself went to New Orleans in September to kick off the project and meet with interested members of the community, and I got to meet some local bloggers and residents over an informal blogger dinner. In November, Schroeder spotted the network's SSID out in the wild, and I went nodespotting on my way through town. Chris found a door tag at his house announcing the arrival of the network, and took EarthLink Wi-Fi with him on the bus.

Today, about nine months from when we got the original request from the City, I'm excited to announce the launch of the new New Orleans Wi-Fi network. It covers approximately 20 square miles, and will continue to expand as additional parts of the city rebuild. Here's a map of the areas it covers. There's free Wi-Fi service at 300 Kbps throughout these areas -- you can log on at https://www.featherwifi.net if you're there right now. And higher speed service at 1 Mbps down/up is available for $21.95/month, $3.95 for an hour, or $15.95 for three days. There's more information in the press release.

We'll be heading down to New Orleans in the new year to celebrate the network launch, and I look forward to hosting another blogger meetup. I'll have more information on that once plans are finalized.

Posted by dave coustan at 9:18 AM |

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Today we proudly launched our Wi-Fi network in the City of Milpitas, CA. As part of the launch festivities, for the next 30 days Wi-Fi access will be completely free. We invite residents and visitors to try out the service throughout the city. The service will be $21.95/month with speeds up to 1 mbps down and up, $3.95 for a 1-hour pass or $15.95 for a 3-day pass. There are more details in the press release, and you can see our current coverage areas here.

Puff pastries from Bolansa Dessert in Milpitas, photographed by Pay a bluish oak

Although I couldn't be there in person for the festivites in Milpitas this morning, I took my own personal tour of Flickr photos tagged with Milpitas and geotagged to the area and found a great diversity of stuff (and lots of delicious-looking food) including:

• Carne Asada fries
  
• Cream Puffs
  
• Filipino Fiesta
  
• Youth softball
  
• City Hall at night
  
• Lu'au Practice
  
• The Milpitas monster?
  
• A firing range
  
• An old time Fourth of July parade
  
• A cool old vintage sign

There's also an excellent Milpitas photo essay on the Mercury News site.

Update:

The team sent a few photos from yesterday's event.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:34 PM |

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I usually don't write too much about employee-focused stuff, but I took part in an interesting meeting today. We held an event in our Atlanta location today to talk about blogging, mostly as it relates to blogging about the company you work for. Earlier this year, Our Legal and Corporate Communications teams (with some input from me) put together an official Blogging Policy, and part of the goal of today's meeting was to have a conversation about it and how it works in practice.

The four presenters, Dan Greenfield from Corporate Communications, Les Seagraves from Legal, and Chris Marshall from Employee Communications, and myself, had a dry run and planning session a couple of days ago. We found that although we're in agreement as far as the policy itself, in specific examples we each leaned in different directions. It was a good exercise even apart from the meeting, and I've come to appreciate how tough it is to craft policy around blogging.

We had good attendance today, and great conversation flowed from it, especially around the particulars of the sample blog entries we presented. I met some new faces and picked up some new URL's. Some feedback from the crowd:

• Make the policy conversation as clear as possible on the hard and fast "rules", if there are such things.
  
• Spend more time on blogging practicals, conversation, and how-tos.
  
• We should have some more social-focused conversations as well where we all share what we do.

I think the fact that I'm not the first employee to blog about today's meeting is a great outcome.

So coming out of this, it seems like there are a few things for us to focus on. One is, reach more people with the subject matter of this meeting, and at our other locations. Another is that there's interest in additional conversations that go beyond the policy itself. I'm also working with Dan Greenfield in CorpComm and Reid on our development team on a blog directory for Earthling, where any employee who wants to list their blog can. That should be up and running soon.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:50 PM |

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Whew, that's a mouthful. Product Manager Julie Van Leuven gave me the heads-up that they just rolled out a new version of ProtectionPack's Anonymous Email Addresses. They've upped the number of addresses you get in total to 10, and now they are "replenishable" -- if you delete one, you can get a new one to take its place.

This feature fulfills one of the most consistent requests I got via Earthling and the product team received via their feedback form.

To manage them from Web Mail, you click "ProtectionPack" in the left hand navigation, and then click "delete' next to the one you want to get rid of. You get the choice of trashing all associated mail, adding it into your inbox, or canceling the deletion.

When you need to replenish your supply, you can go to ProtectionPack.net and add in as many as you need, up to a total of 10 addresses. In the next release of Web Mail, you'll be able to replenish your supply right from within Web Mail itself. Watch John's Web Mail blog for more on that release, scheduled to come out soon.

While I'm on the subject, John has added a couple of neat new features to the Web Mail blog -- a sortable list of all comments, and a new interface for searching on a page. John's blog is a really useful way to research an issue and provide your suggestions, questions, and feedback about Web Mail.

Update: Here's a list of EarthLink Knowledge Base articles that cover the basics in greater detail:

• How to Add Additional Anonymous Email Addresses in Web Mail: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=164629
  
• How to Add Additional Anonymous Email Addresses: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=191151
  
• How to Delete an Anonymous Email Address: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=184606
  
• Allowed Number of Anonymous Email Addresses: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=186056

Posted by dave coustan at 11:13 AM |

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Last Friday, Robert X. Cringely wrote about a problem he and a friend had with EarthLink Web Hosting e-mail. Zonk at Slashdot picked it up today as well. I spoke to Stephen Currie from the Communication Applications team this morning and he provided some more context on the issue:

I wanted to respond to the thread about EarthLink Web Hosting Email and provide some more information.

In October, we did reach a capacity issue on our Web Hosting mail farm that was largely triggered by a sudden and unexpected surge in spam. For a short period of time, this affected email deliverability for some of our Web Hosting customers. We immediately took steps to address the problem. We added more capacity to the mail farm and also migrated hosting mailboxes to an improved mail infrastructure. This resolved the issue. An added benefit of these mailboxes being moved to this new platform is that our web hosting customers now have access to web mail and new anti-spam tools. We have continued to monitor the situation and improve the capacity to ensure ongoing deliverabilty for our hosting customers.

Stephen Currie
Director of Product Management, Communication Applications EarthLink

Posted by dave coustan at 11:58 AM |

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I'm thrilled that so many of you shared your thoughts about our new myEarthLink start page development project. The MyEarthLink team has been following the conversation on the original Earthling entry about what should live on a start page, and over the weekend Senior Product Manager Tom Harris sat down with all of it to think it through and provide some of his own thoughts about your comments. He wrote up the entry below:

A hearty thank you to everyone who took the time to make suggestions for the new myEarthLink. Building a personal start page is tricky business, to say the least. We aren't simply building one landing page -- we're collaborating with a wide range of people to build millions of individual pages. A personal start page should be, after all, personal, which means every user gets to finish the job we started. Input from you, our collaborators and potential collaborators, is invaluable.

Before digging into what you would like to see on a portal, many of you cleared the air with what you didn't want to see. Heading up the enemies list: clutter and advertising.

Rick said, "you should remove all of the clutter on the page, such as the 'special offers' that appear in many of the boxes."

Tracy observed, "in general, I find portals to be too crowded and cluttered for my taste."

Lance succinctly requested "de-NASCARification."

Mike H. asked us to hold the "tattoos and dancing ads."

Jon Stephens hit the mark with his comment that "a clean design is much more valuable than clever or cute."

As we've taken the new start page through different iterations, clutter has been enemy #1 for us as well. Of course, one man's clutter might be another man's essential feature. We don't want to simply strip the page down to the bare minimum. While we are cutting out some features, our approach to de-cluttering is really centered around improving organization. For example, essential links and search-based tools will all be together. They'll be easy to find when that's what you want and easy to ignore when that's not want you want.

Our thinking here is that you don't toss out many tools completely when you're de-cluttering your workbench. Rethinking where everything goes solves most of the problems.

Continue reading "We Hate Clutter Too"

Posted by dave coustan at 1:01 PM |

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As of October 1 of this year, EarthLink has been proudly sponsoring the live Panda Cam at Zoo Atlanta. At that time we took over for temporary stopgap support generously offered by CNN. Lun Lun and her new cub are viewed remotely in all of their cuteness by thousands of visitors each day.

On Monday, Mark Davis reported in a blog article on AJC.com that the Cam will now be operating from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Eastern time, rather than full 24 hour coverage. The change in operating time is due to ongoing staffing and bandwidth costs that have outpaced zoo resources, and was planned independently from EarthLink's sponsorship agreement in October. Judging from the activity on the AJC's Panda Watch page, the Cam has developed an enthusiastic following. Some of the commenters to the AJC blog article mistook the change as related to EarthLink's coming on board. While I empathize with those who want 24-hour live Lun Lun coverage, according to the zoo the costs associated with staff to keep the Pandas well in frame and the resources involved in supporting live simultaneous streams have made the new hours necessary.

I called Zoo Atlanta PR Director Susan Elliott for her thoughts. Susan appreciated the passion of the Cam following, and explained that the sponsorship has ensured the Cam can support the thousands of viewers it gets each day. According to Susan, "Without EarthLink's support, the number of viewers we'd be able to accomodate would be extremely limited."

Posted by dave coustan at 12:08 PM |

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I'm pleased to report that EarthLink has been selected to develop a municipal Wi-Fi network in Alexandria, VA. The city has chosen EarthLink's bid to create a roughly 16 square mile Wi-Fi network. Our proposal also provided for discounted access for a certain number of qualifying, low-income residents, and free public hotspots in approximately two dozen areas. Like the networks we're building in Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Anaheim, and Milpitas, CA, it will be an open-access network, allowing other providers to sell service over it as well.

More details in the press release issued earlier today.

Update: There's more information on the city's planning and development process and timeline on the Wireless Alexandria site.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:30 PM |

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• First of Five Helio Stores Opens - Helio's first standalone store location opened on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, CA. Here's coverage from Rafat Ali at mocoNews, a snarky write-up at Gizmodo.com, and more details at Phonemag. The Drift was recently given an 8.0 out of 10 by CNet reviewer Nicole Lee.

• Third Helio TV Spot - This one for the Drift, directed by Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. Calling it a phone can have dire results.

• Try Out DSL And Home Phone In Person - The EarthLink Tour is at the Topanga Canyon Mall and the Santa Anita Mall in LA from now through December 30th. At the tour set-up, you can take a look at DSL and Home Phone in person, and make a free long-distance call through the service itself.

• Mile High MindSpring Call - Director of Systems Engineering Michael Sugg sent in a report of his unusual usage of MindSpring - "...I called my wife this morning at home using our MindSpring product from 34,000 feet about halfway between Canada and Dublin (over the Atlantic Ocean)." He says it worked pretty well way up there.

• New RSS Feeds From myFavorites - According to the myFavorites Product Blog, you can now subscribe to Popular, Recent, and Tag pages via RSS. Don't subscribe to heh or you'll ruin the Friday surprises.

• Beyond Internet Access Podcast - President of Value Added Services(VAS) Craig Forman was recently interviewed about EarthLink's mission and the role of VAS for the latest in a series of EarthLink podcasts. You can listen to it directly here, subscribe to the podcast feed, or check out all of the EarthLink podcasts on the main page.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 10:30 AM |

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I received word today that EarthLink's CEO Garry Betty was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer and will be taking an indefinite medical leave to receive treatment. Garry is a very visible personality at our offices, and someone who I’ve bumped in to in the elevators and at the airport on several occasions. As one of my colleagues remarked today, optimism and positivity have always been hallmarks of his personality. We'll all feel his absence from the office during his treatment, and our thoughts will be with him.

Mike Lunsford, EVP of Access and Voice, and Shared Services will be stepping in as interim CEO. Mike has been with EarthLink since 1999, and has worn many hats in the organization.

If you'd like to send along your best wishes to Garry, I've set up a mailbox at wellwishes@corp.earthlink.net specifically for that purpose, and will make sure they get to him.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:58 PM |

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One of the most exciting things we're working on right now in the Value Added Services group is a tear-down/rebuild of the myEarthLink experience.

That's a fancy way of saying we're redesigning what you see at my.earthlink.net. It has remained an important point of access for all of the tools and services that our users rely on, but we've been building on the same "collection of boxes and widgets" model for some time. In the meantime, web browsing habits and the average user's demands on their start page and browser have changed. In the past couple of years, we've also started to serve a wider audience -- people who just want to use our free start page and e-mail in addition to those who also get paid services like voice and internet access from us. The project was in motion well before Mike Arrington of TechCrunch referred to our current portal as ancient, but we aim to make our new page as useful for Mike as it will be for those who are now saying to their neighbor, "what's TechCrunch?"

Here's what a couple members of the project team had to say about the project:

"We're moving beyond boxes you shuffle around the page. We're focused on 'what does the user want to do any time they open a browser window?': search, get a quick status on their life, and go to their frequently-used online tools." - Gregg Hartling, Director of Web Applications

"For the initial launch at the beginning of 2007, our focus has been on easy access to information. For example, users will be able to see essential information such as news, weather, new video and e-mail status at a glance; they'll be able to jump right into using tools from other sites, such as Expedia, eBay and Amazon; and they'll be able to add their own favorite sites and feeds to the page. Later in the year, we're going to focus on personal publishing and sharing. We want users not only to access everything that's important to them, but actually comment on what's important to them and contribute their own content." - Tom Harris, Senior Product Manager

Read on for more on the project, and how you can be a part of it.

Continue reading "A myEarthLink Revisioning With A View"

Posted by dave coustan at 5:50 PM |

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Last I checked in on Security Product Manager Ben Kaplan, he was inviting large amounts of viruses and spyware into his computer. He and his team are preparing to release the new version 2.0 of EarthLink's Protection Control Center in the next couple of months, which will feature a new technology called Attack Shield. Attack Shield represents a new approach to fighting malware, that sniffs out potential threats as they are happening to your computer, and stops them from doing any damage. I interviewed Ben via e-mail to find out about how it works and what's new in PCC 2.0.

PCC 2.0 interface - click to see a larger screenshot

What feedback and suggestions did you hear most often from users of the current PCC, and how did you incorporate it into the new version?

The number one suggestion was to improve the Firewall to be more user-friendly in terms of providing better information about whether to allow or deny alerts. We took that information and made the firewall smarter to decrease to the number of firewall alerts while still maintaining excellent protection. We also now give recommendations to the user on whether to allow or deny an inbound/outbound communication. We also improved the UI to give the user an easier way to make sure their computer is always protected. At a simple glance EarthLink customers can now see if their virus/spyware definitions are up-to-date, if they need to run a scan, or if their Firewall settings are correct. A simple click can now make the necessary changes to keep your computer and personal information safe.

So what's the Attack Shield part of it?

A new piece of malware is created approximately every 3 minutes. According to research from our partner Sana Security the average time it takes a traditional security vendor to release a definition file is 22 days. That's 22 days between when a virus is known about, and when your traditional protection software suite can do anything about it. Attack Shield incorporates the idea of keeping your computer clean during that lag between when a new threat comes out, and when the security companies can recreate it, analyze it, make a vaccine, and get it out to you in the form of a new virus definition. This is sometimes known as Zero-day protection.

Read on for more.

Continue reading "Protection Control Center 2.0 and Attack Shield Sneak Preview"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:44 AM |

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I'm back in the office today* and in the middle of catching up on everything. If you're expecting a reply from me on something, please bear with me while I dig out.

A couple of weeks ago Schroeder, one of the bloggers I met on my last trip to New Orleans spotted an EarthLink Wi-Fi SSID in the wild. Before my vacation I asked our Wi-Fi team for an update and found out the build-out is in fact in full swing and they're installing Wi-Fi radios on light poles and working on the network infrastructure. I had little intention of doing much work on my vacation, but knowing all that (not to mention the tremendous food options available), I couldn't resist passing through the city on my way back from Baton Rouge. So on Sunday I went nodespotting.

Behold, a node!

With my carefully trained nodespotting instincts and some rough instructions about where to look, I saw a bunch of nodes on light poles up and down South Carrollton Ave. With a friend's laptop I was able to hop on to the free network from there and perform my first Google search from FeatherByEarthLink. More photos of nodes in the wild here.

*Thanks to John for keeping the blog well fed while I was gone.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:22 PM |

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A new Helio device joins the Kickflip and Hero today. It's called the Drift, and it looks like it'll be my new favorite. Sorry, Kickflip.

It brings completely new functionality to the Helio line-up including integrated GPS technology and new applications that put it to good use. Through Google Maps for Mobile and GPS, the Helio Drift can:

• Give you driving directions from wherever you happen to be
  
• Show you the results of a Google search for services near you (right on a draggable map)
  
• Point out traffic jams and accidents in your path with real-time traffic reports
  
• Give you access to satellite views of your maps

Through another application called Buddy Beacon, you can find where your Drift-carrying friends are, and let them know of your location throughout your travels. If you'd rather stay under the radar, you can always turn Buddy Beacon off. And if you want to know where everyone is, you can send them an SMS prompt to turn their beacons on.

Helio tells me that all of their new devices will be GPS-enabled from now on, and they'll continue to develop new features for Buddy Beacon and new applications as well.

The Drift is the first Helio to offer Bluetooth technology, including support for wireless stereo headsets. It supports USB mass storage mode, so you can connect it to a computer and drag and drop to it like a USB hard drive. Like the other Helios, the Drift has a really nice 2 Megapixel still and video camera, nationwide 3G connectivity, MySpace Mobile support, video on demand, MP3 audio, and supports microSD cards up to 2 GB. And it makes excellent phone calls too. It's made by Samsung, is only available to Helio members, and comes in both Black and White.

The Drift costs $225, and is available right away at Helio.com, in retail stores, and through 1-888-88-HELIO. New Helio stores will be opening throughout the country soon.

As soon as I get my hands on one, I'll report back on what it's like in the flesh.

Update: More details at Helio.com.

And some thoughts from Google's Alex Medina about the GPS integration with Google Maps for Mobile at the Official Google Blog.

I'll add more photos after the "continue reading" link.

Continue reading "Meet The New Helio Drift"

Posted by dave coustan at 12:01 AM |

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Have a question or suggestion about EarthLink Web Mail, or just want to stay informed about upcoming features? Email guy and Senior Product Manager John Foltz is putting the finishing touches on the new EarthLink Web Mail Product Blog, and invites you to stop by, kick the tires, and say hello. You'll also soon be able to get to it via a link on Web Mail itself as well.

One of the things I like best about John's blog is the open thread where you can comment on any Web Mail-related topics that don't have a home elsewhere on the site. It’s a nice way to make sure he’s covering both what’s most important to the product team, and what’s most important to the users.

A few quick facts about John and the new Web Mail blog:

• John's first commercial email account was from MindSpring in ‘93 or '94. He was MindSpring user #589.
  
• In addition to Web Mail itself, John works on SpamBlocker, CAPTCHA, and various back-end services related to email.
  
• The primary goals of the blog are "to keep users informed, and to use their collective wisdom to guide the product."

Take a look or add it to Reader. And if you don’t have an EarthLink Web Mail account, you can sign up for myEarthLink and get one for free.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:45 PM |

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I've seen a recent jump in the amount of spam that ends up in junk mail folders of my various e-mail accounts -- like it's thousands instead of hundreds every couple of days. Until I saw some headlines about it, I assumed it was just the natural ebb and flow of the Spam arms race. An Ars Technica article pinned some of the blame on the rise of botnets, networks of zombie-ized drone computers that Spammers harness to blast out massive amounts of unsolicited e-mails that are hard to trace.

I asked EarthLink Network Abuse Manager Mary Youngblood if we're seeing a similar rise in Spam recently, and what we're doing about it. Read on for her thoughts.

Continue reading "Are You Noticing More Spam Out There?"

Posted by dave coustan at 2:48 PM |

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Check in on what people are finding online related to "halloween" at the myFavorites Halloween tag page. It's good for last-minute costume tips, recipes, spooky web applications, and impressive pumpkin feats. Here are some of the finds I've added there:

• Halloween Eggs - Who says you can only decorate eggs on Easter?
  
• Make Your Own Zombie Costume
  
• Scary *and* Nerdy Star Wars Paper Masks (in kid sizes, but you can improvise)
  
• Google Maps Zombie Tracker
  

Help us all out and throw your best Halloween web finds in there too. If you're new to tagging, when you save something to myFavorites, just include the word "halloween" in the "tags" field, and your find will automagically show up on the halloween tag page. If you don't already have a myEarthLink account, you can get one for free including Web Mail, Reader, myFavorites, and your own myEarthlink start page.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:22 AM |

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There was a New Orleans Times-Picayune story last week about the city's plan to take down the current Wi-Fi hardware as part of the development of EarthLink's new network, and today Katie Fehrenbacher from GigaOm wrote an entry about it after speaking to Clifton Roscoe, our city General Manager. There was no particular news here other than the fact that our development efforts in New Orleans are taking shape on the ground. In the original press release and in my coverage on Earthling, it was spelled out that a free tier of service would be available throughout the city's rebuilding efforts and not permanently.

Our network infrastructure will be a definite improvement over what the city has currently, and I feel that more is being made of the removal of current city radios than should be. For one thing, we won't be removing the city hardware until our network is up and running. For another, New Orleans is a unique situation for us, and it's the only city where we're offering our own free tier of service. On the San Francisco network, our partner Google will be providing and supporting their own free service as one of our anchor tenants. We're proud to be able to offer this special arrangement for New Orleans during the rebuilding period.

Further, when Katie discusses the timeline of the temporary free tier of service, I think her conclusion doesn't match her paraphrased quote from Clifton. In the second-to-last paragraph, she writes:

When asked about how long the temporary free service would be offered, Roscoe said the company would revisit the decision in the second half of next year. So, probably only a few more months of free for New Orleans residents.

I'm not sure how the conclusion that "probably only a few more months of free" follows from Clifton's statement that the length of time the EarthLink free tier would be available will be evaluated in about a year's time. I spoke to Clifton this afternoon and he confirmed that a characterization of "a few months" of free service is not accurate, and his statement was meant to indicate that the service would operate at least until a determination is made in the second half of next year.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:18 PM |

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There were two more EarthLink/Google community meetings in San Francisco since I last wrote about them, one last night and one on the 17th. I'm still looking around today for reports from last night, but there was quite a bit of blog coverage from the 17th. The first two were very different from each other, and judging by the reports the third was more raucous than the first. Much of the conversation seemed to center on Google's free service that will run on top of the EarthLink network, and there are also some residents who are coming to these meetings to argue against the current city plan and in favor of starting over to investigate a fully city-owned and operated network.

In any conversation those with the loudest voices, not necessarily the most numerous or with the greatest needs, are often heard most. While some residents clearly have come to the meetings to question the network's motives or what each participant will gain on a theoretical level, other residents are showing up with very down-to-earth, practical questions: to learn how they might be able to get affordable Wi-Fi, how difficult it will be for a novice to use, whether or not it would work with the computers they have today, whether it’s coming to their neighborhood, and how the whole thing works.

I think some of the theoretical concerns are misdirected at Google and EarthLink, and the residents who show up to lobby for a different project than what the city has asked Google and EarthLink to build are better served working directly with their City Council representatives. While by their nature these community meetings entertain any questions or concerns that residents have, their best purpose is really to go over the details of the project, answer any questions about how it all works and how it would work for them, and hear about local needs as directly as possible. Comparing the EarthLink/Google project to all of the possible theoretical alternatives is fine for blogs, articles, and analysis papers, but focusing on that at these meetings may take away the opportunity for those who have real practical questions to get them addressed.

Here are some write-ups from the meeting on the 17th:

• Davis Freeberg was there and with affection in his write-up refers to his own home town as "land of the nuts and fruits".
  
• Valleywag says the meeting included "angry angry SF political gadflies who somehow think that Google giving away free internet access to the city will harm them."
  
• Thomas Hawk has been following the meetings as well (more here) and is anxious to see the network come together.
  
• Katie from GigaOm.com has her eye on the timeline.
  
• More blog coverage via Techmeme.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:10 PM |

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This morning, from over my cube wall, I heard "hey, what's a site I can go to where it's guaranteed that I'll get drive-by downloads and spyware on my computer?" And "Would it be ok if I totally jacked up your computer?" I'm nosy. I had to know what was going on.

Turns out it was Senior Product Manager Ben Kaplan banging on a piece of protection software his group is evaluating.

(above: Malware that popped up during Ben's shenanigans, all dressed up like a real Windows security message for halloween)

In agreeing to a single active-x install on that site (one of those innocuous alert box that asks you if it's ok to install some component on your computer), he invited in 19 processes, 40 files, and 10 new registry keys. In total, the security software detected 70 malicious pieces of software on the machine after he clicked "yes" to the install.

While I'm on the topic of security, Niall Kennedy documented a MySpace spam scheme where the code to embed a video clip on your page has spam text and/or links piggybacked on to it. So when you add the video you're adding spam as well. Clever.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:44 PM |

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In the next few months, the folks in Business Web Hosting are rolling out a number of new features -- most exciting to me will be support for and easy installation of the excellent blogging platform WordPress for business hosting accounts. Here's a list of some of the other new features on the way:

• Support for MySQL: Several Earthling readers have asked for/about this. It’ll enable the use of many common web applications and development tools on hosting accounts.
  
• Mail Enhancements: Hosting customers will get all of the e-mail features that our access customers get, including Web Mail, 100 MB of mail storage space and the full SpamBlocker.
  
• Simple Machines Forum Software (SMF): There'll be an easy install of SMF, which means hosting customers can start their own custom and feature-rich message boards. I've not administered an SMF board myself, but I participate in one daily as an enduser.
  
• Coppermine Photo Gallery: From their home page: "Coppermine is a multi-purpose fully-featured and integrated web picture gallery script."
  

Expect all of these new features in this first quarter of 2007 or sooner.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:59 PM |

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A few updates from the last couple of weeks:

• Helio Hybrid launches - Hybrid is a new wireless access plan, hardware, and software that lets you connect to the internet via your own regular Wi-Fi if you have it at home or work, Boingo Hotspots where available, and Helio's nationwide 3G data network elsewhere. The included "Hybrid Connector" software picks the best available connection wherever you are. The service costs $85/month, and the hardware (card) is free with a 2-year contract.
  
• EarthLink helps shut down phishers and spammers - EarthLink's year-long investigation into spam e-mails connected to phisher schemes contributed to a fraud, theft, and conspiracy indictment against six people from Connecticut and Florida, three of whom entered guilty pleas. An EarthLink investigation also helped the FBI document, identify, locate, and arrest a group of Miami-based spammers using PeoplePC accounts to send thousands of spammy unsolicited e-mails with subject lines like "I just got back in town" and "I'm finally back home."
  
• myFavorites gets a myEarthLink widget and Toolbar integration - Now you can get various at-a-glance views of your (or everyone's) bookmarked sites from myFavorites on your myEarthLink start page. You can add more than one customized myFavorites widget if you want to see different slices of your stuff and the pool of favorites everyone is creating. Saving favorites is also now integrated into the EarthLink Toolbar for Internet Explorer. And a couple of minor enhancements -- back-end performance tweaks should improve the time it takes some of the longer pages to load, and when available myFavorites displays a site's custom icon next to any URLs from that site. More in the myFavorites product blog.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 3:20 PM |

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I wrote this up on the plane back to Atlanta, thinking back on last night's meeting. Each night's conversation was valuable in a different way. The first meeting's discussion was fairly technical, theoretical, and to some extent academic. The second was more practical.

It was a small and down-to-earth group, and that worked well because it allowed us to focus the conversation on what was most important to them. They had questions about how the service would work, what it could do for their communications needs, and how their community's needs could be met. They wanted to know what parts of the city the network is being deployed in, whether it will be supported in lower-income areas, how reliable it'll be for everyday and indoor use, and how fast and fancy a computer you'll need to get on it. The idea of Wi-Fi phones found a lot of interest, as did the potential applications to make city services run more efficiently. People seemed to see value and opportunity in having a city-wide Wi-Fi network, but some were also concerned that without enough outreach and training many who could benefit it may not even know enough about it to use it. One resident asked how he could help support the effort.

In being a part of these conversations with communities, we're reminded of the differing role technology plays in everyone's lives. To that point, one thing we heard last night is that not everyone uses the internet to get their information yet. One resident rightly pointed out that we and Google should have paper handouts with us for people to take with them in addition to putting all of the information online. It's something we'll do for subsequent forums, and it's a small illustration of how important it is to have real, in-the-flesh conversations with the people who you're aiming to serve as much as you can.

Jean Ellingsen, a EarthLink customer going back several years who came to the forum last night after reading about it in the local paper, had the following good advice for us: "There's information overload all around us. I need to know only the down and dirty. How do I make it [Wi-Fi experience] safer and more productive? Just make sure you get in touch with us mere mortals, not geeks." In speaking to a broad audience, we need to speak regular language and avoid the abbreviations and geeky jargon that creep into our vocabularies. I heard a similar message at BrainJams in New Orleans back in May. You shouldn't have to have a deep technical vocabulary to know how to make sure your computer is secure, pay your water bill, read the news, or connect with your friends and relatives online.

Continue reading "Second Wi-Fi Community Forum"

Posted by dave coustan at 7:50 PM |

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As useful as blogs are for two-way communication, there's still something qualitatively different about face-to-face discussions. I've found this when I meet people at conferences who I've only known through their blogs, when I meet some of the bloggers from a particular area, and in conversations that eventually migrate from blog comments to phone calls or e-mails to in-person interactions. Blogs have other benefits that in-person conversations don't have, like findability, creating a lasting record, and the ability to have lots of geographically-impossible interactions. But the give-and-take is never quite the same mediated as it is live and direct. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to be a part of these community forums about the San Francisco Wi-Fi project.

Minnie and Cole at the 10/3 SF public Wi-Fi forum

More photos from last night in this Flickr set.

About 20 SF residents participated in last night's meeting. After VP Cole Reinwand for EarthLink and Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll for Google gave presentations about the origins and details of the project, members of the community asked a wide range of questions. People wanted to know about things like the specifics of how Google and EarthLink will work together, privacy, data, and security policies and procedures on each network, potential signal conflicts with other networks, the differences between a publicly-owned and privately-owned network project, and next steps in San Francisco. I have decent notes but not a verbatim transcript, and if anyone wants more information on how any of those points were addressed, let me know and I can go into more depth.

Continue reading "First SF Community Wi-Fi Meeting Notes"

Posted by dave coustan at 4:19 PM |

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I'm headed to San Francisco next week for the first two of eleven public neighborhood forums EarthLink and Google are holding about the city Wi-Fi project. The goal of the meetings is to tell you more about our proposal and hear your ideas. The first meeting will be held on October 3 at the Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church at 32 Ocean Ave. between Mission and Alemany, and the second will be October 4 at Southeast Community Facility at 1800 Oakdale Ave. at Phelps St. Both will start at 6 p.m.

If you have questions or ideas about the plan, it'll be a great opportunity to meet people from EarthLink and Google in person (and yours truly) and be a part of the conversation. There's more information and a full schedule here.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:30 PM |

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There's now a way to keep an eye on the sources in your Reader from your myEarthLink Start Page. The new Reader widget shows you all of your recently updated Reader feeds at a glance. It's a similar view to what you get on the side within Reader itself, and when you click a source it takes you to that source's content in Reader.

The myReader blog has more information and a quick add button to get it to appear on your myEarthLink Start Page. And if you're new to Reader, there's more background on what it is and what it does over here.

Posted by dave coustan at 8:49 AM |

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It's early on a Saturday morning and I'm outside of my usual blogging schedule, but I received the following update from the product team and wanted to get it out to Earthling as soon as I could. Several commenters on the previous update have been asking patiently (and a few not so patiently) for more information, so I'm publishing this now and will catch up with everything else -- including any pending comments that may come in over the weekend -- when I'm back in the office on Monday.

"As Dave mentioned last week, we've been working to tune the configuration of dead domain handling to address the issues some EarthLink customers have been experiencing during the rollout. We've been able to mitigate a number of issues, but we've also recognized that some of them such as certain problems with VPN access are not easily addressed through configuration changes in our dead domain system. For customers who are still experiencing issues, we've set aside a pair of servers that will remain outside of our standard DNS system. If you have a need to stay clear of our dead domain handling, just point your DNS servers to:

207.69.188.171 (west coast)

207.69.188.172 (east coast)

If you're west of the Mississippi, use the west coast DNS server as your primary and the east coast as secondary. And vice-versa for those of you in the eastern U.S.

This is a self-service solution, and it creates a mechanism for those users who choose to opt out to do so. These servers have been set aside to resolve problems you may be having, but this isn't something that you'll be able to get customer support help with."

-Ken Womack
Senior Product Manager, Search

Update (9/29): Our support team has created a set of Knowledge Base articles about how to make the change:

DNS Opt Out Servers
http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=187117

How to Specify DNS Information in Mac OS X
http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=173670

How to Specify DNS Information in Windows 2000
http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=187078

How to Specify DNS Information in Windows XP
http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=187109

Posted by dave coustan at 9:39 AM |

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There was a good crowd last night for the Louisiana Technology Council's EarthLink Wi-Fi Tech Tuesday event. Donald Berryman, President of EarthLink Municipal Networks, explained the roots of our municipal Wi-Fi initiative, how it came about in New Orleans, how the network will work, and what it will mean for residents and businesses in New Orleans. It was a pretty comprehensive presentation, and addressed everything from strategic to practical to technical issues. There were lots of good questions afterwards, and it felt like those who came in with an incomplete understanding of the project left with a better sense of what it's all about. I enjoyed the opportunity to meet new CTO Mark Kurt, and speak to many of the members of the LTC as well.

Don presenting to the LTC

One of the more interesting topics Don covered are the special radios (4210's) that can be mounted in police, fire, and rescue vehicles and draw power from the vehicle. This makes an individual vehicle into a mobile hotspot, allowing rescue personnel to download things like blueprints and building plans at the scene, and a group of these vehicles can provide a temporarily internet access zone wherever it's needed.

There's now a toll-free number for New Orleans citizens to use for information and support on the network, 866-936-WiFi, and a site that has more information about the rollout and a place to sign up to be notified when it's up and running.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:16 PM |

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The official announcement on the expanded DSL and Home Phone Service came out this morning (see this blog entry for more background and links). Unlike other types of DSL and Voice over IP phone service, you don't need an adapter between your phones and standard wall jacks, it works even when the household power goes out, and it offers speeds up to 8 mbps.

The service is coming to the 8 new cities -- Atlanta, Chicago, LA, Miami, NYC, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington DC -- and the serviceable areas in the original cities of Seattle, Dallas, San Francisco, and San Jose are expanding as well. We'll continue to expand the coverage areas in these cities through the end of the year.

I just called 1-877-ELNK-VOICE to check availability at my house in Atlanta and see what the qualification process is like as a regular customer. I already use EarthLink TrueVoice, so when I got on the line with the rep. I specifically asked about the new DSL and Home Phone Service. I gave them my address and the number for my current landline (which I'm about ready to dump). It was a pretty quick process and the rep told me that I'm not serviceable today but should be soon, and I'll be notified via e-mail when my address is serviceable.

If you're in any of the cities above, you can check to see if it's available to you here or if you'd like to get the service on an existing number, call 877-ELNK-VOICE. There's more information on the features, pricing, and service at www.earthlink.net/voice/bundles/dslhomephone and in this blog entry from March.

Posted by dave coustan at 12:32 PM |

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Next week EarthLink DSL and Home Phone service will be expanding to the additional cities we announced back in March. This is the combination high-speed DSL and voice (VoIP) service that works through regular phone jacks with no adapters needed. I'll have more detail on this soon.

Update: Jon Van at the Chicago Tribune wrote a piece today about the service coming to Chicago.

Posted by dave coustan at 9:01 PM |

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Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and concerns about our dead domain handling system (see this blog entry for the background), through blog comments, e-mails, and in the conversation on Slashdot. Please don't take my relative absence from the back-and-forth discussions as anything but my interest in being a good listener. Behind the scenes, I've been tracking down individual technical issues, taking notes on the concerns and issues expressed, and helping the project team and EarthLink as a whole stay on top of the conversation.

The goal of the system is to provide a helpful error page in place of a dead-end, and we think this is a benefit to the vast majority of those who use EarthLink internet access. You probably won't see too many comments from most of the users who are helped by it, because by design it's just a brief signpost to help you on your way to where you're trying to go. But we recognize that not every user has the same needs and expectations, and those who weighed in on the previous blog entry don't see it as a benefit. We're listening, and we're working on some changes that should minimize some of the problems that have been raised.

We're continuing to tune how the system works in response to our analysis and the feedback you've provided. Part of the reason we're rolling the changes out to a small number of servers at a time is to catch and correct any anomalies before we scale the service to a larger user base. I want to take a moment to run down some of the major questions that have come up. Read on for the list.

Continue reading "Update on Dead Domain Handling"

Posted by dave coustan at 10:26 AM |

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Back at the end of May we announced a challenge for podcast listeners to help us make advertising better by coming up with their own EarthLink ads. Today, the winners have been announced.

Congratulations to David Ippolito, Steve Webb (and his son Timothy), and Dennis Gray -- the three winners in the EarthLink Make Advertising Better Challenge. They'll each receive $2000.00, and the finalists will each receive $250.00. You can find out more about their stories on the challenge main page, and listen to their winning ads along with those of the finalists here.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:15 PM |

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The Times-Picayune published an article today with some information about EarthLink's Wi-Fi project in New Orleans, and I also got some questions from Earthling reader Dave Ryan about the current status. I spoke to Clifton, the project's General Manager to get a run-down of the current status and plans.

One correction to my earlier entry -- I guess I incorrectly picked up an error that the Times-Picayune reported in July of a "September 1 launch date" for the Wi-Fi network. As is correctly reported today, that September date is wrong. We haven't had a specific launch date targeted, but we'll begin building in September and our current estimate is that we'll complete the initial 20 sq. mile rollout in late December. Here are Dave's other questions:

1. One of the wireless signals I keep getting in the French Quarter/CBD area is named "CityofNewOrleans." Is this the one provided by Earthlink?

   Earthling: No, this isn't ours. This is probably a City of New Orleans signal from their existing network.

2. I've read that Sept of this year is the goal that was set to "unwire" us. Are you able to meet that goal?

   Earthling: That was incorrectly reported in July as a goal (see above). We're estimating late December for the initial 20 square miles.

3. Will the 1Mbps speed be available to residents willing to pay for it? Or is that speed only for businesses?

   Earthling: There will be a consumer retail service at 1Mb in addition to the free tier of service at 300 kbps.

4. If the above services will indeed be available to residents, I want to get a headstart and be one of the first to sign up when all is said and done. Is there a way I can recieve an email notification?

   Earthling: At http://www.feather.net/neworleans, you can sign up to be notified when the service is available to you. There's also more information there about the initial coverage area: "a 20 square mile area encompassing most of the area from Carrollton through the French Quarter and South to the River, and Algiers on the West Bank." An initial coverage map will be published there as well.
   

As an aside, I have a short trip to New Orleans planned for mid-September, and I hope to pull together some sort of blogger meetup while I'm there. I'll provide more details when my schedule is nailed down.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:47 PM |

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Today, if you use EarthLink internet access, when you mis-type the URL of the web site you were trying to find, or if the site no longer exists, one of several things happens:

• (a) The site you wanted also owns the misspelling and redirects you. You typed "Goooogle.com" but you get to google.com anyway.

• (b) Someone unrelated to the site you wanted owns the misspelling and serves you their own page. Often it's a page filled with useless nonsense text and affiliate links, or it's a prankster.

• (c) The misspelled domain is not owned by anyone, or no longer exists. Your browser (often Internet Explorer) or an add-on toolbar you may have displays a suggestion for what you were looking for, or sends you to the site it thinks you wanted.

• (d) The misspelled domain is not owned by anyone, or no longer exists, and you get an error page with very little information on it that you've come to understand is the equivalent of "Try Again." In Safari, it looks like this:

  
  

Last week EarthLink started rolling out a new system for handling certain specific types of browser errors on our network. You'll only see it in the fourth case listed above. It serves you a page with suggestions for what site you might have been looking for, along with the ability to search using Yahoo. It also has an ad on it. We think that for the vast majority of users who end up in bucket "d", this is a better experience because it helps them to get where they are going quicker, and doesn't leave them with a dead end. In addition, EarthLink will generate revenue from the page.

Here's a screenshot how it would look with the new service if you tried to go to "www.lsusprts.net".

Read on for more on the service.

Continue reading "Handling Dead Domains"

Posted by dave coustan at 2:37 PM |

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There's now a myEarthLink widget to go along with our TV Listings application. So now, once you've spilled your guts to the application, you don't have to go back to the full application to see what's on tonight. The widget gives you your favorite shows, best bets for tonight, and top selling DVD picks from Amazon, all on the myEarthLink start page and at a glance.

It's not on your start page by default, so to add it find the "add a feature" box:

If you haven’t yet set up your zip code, favorite channels and cable provider, this would be a good time to do it. More on the TV Listings application itself here.

There are more enhancements on the way as well, including a changeable date on the widget, and streamlining the way you move back and forth between the myEarthLink widget and the full app. Special thanks to the TV Listings team for their ongoing hard work.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:10 PM |

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We recently sent out an email to our customers to tell them about the full launch of the Anonymous Email Address feature I wrote about in beta a few months ago. One of our customers has become so wary of scam emails he asked on Earthling "Is this the real deal?"

It is the real deal, and apparently not a moment too soon.

For the uninitiated, it's an add-on to your EarthLink e-mail account that gives you anonymized addresses that point to your real e-mail address, to protect your real address from spammers. There are two ways you can get it -- it's free for current EarthLink internet access customers (i.e. if you have a DSL, Cable, Wi-Fi, or Dial-up account). Or if you have a free e-mail account, you can get it and other features by upgrading to Premium Mail.

There's a flash demo of how it works here, and there's more information on the AEA product page.

If you're a current internet access or Premium Mail user, you can go to protectionpack.earthlink.net to turn on Anonymous E-mail Addresses for your account.

Posted by dave coustan at 12:29 PM |

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Robert Scoble points out today that individual Microsoft employees are often vocal in defending their company's reputation and products when it comes into question in online discussions (trying to wean myself off of the term "blogosphere" as much as possible). He notes that the same can not be said for most other tech companies including Apple and Google. Scoble goes on to ask:

So, why do we give Google and Apple such great reputations when they don’t engage with bloggers (and, actually, the “professional” journalists tell me that Apple and Google are harder to deal with too)? Is it better for a company to play aloof and stay above it all and not engage in the conversation? After all, why do Google and Apple have such great reputations, especially with bloggers? (Go to a blogger conference and you’ll see more Google and Apple products used by bloggers than are used in the mainstream world)."

So I wonder the same thing about us. Realistically, we don't have the same kind of reputation or reach of Google or Apple, but we have a decent one. We don't get the 24/7 press coverage that a Google or an Apple gets either, but when our number does get called, today you don't see swarms of EarthLinkers jumping up to join in the conversation. There's me, and often an individual on the team of the product in question will contribute as well.

EarthLink has fewer employees than each of the other three companies, so you'd expect there to be proportionally fewer voices. But I also think part of it probably stems from the fact that today we don't have an employee blog farm like Microsoft does. We have many employees who blog on their own, but we don't have a blogging platform we specifically give to our employees as part of their everyday tools. Having a large number of employees who blog as part of their job increases the likelihood that you'll get active participants in online conversations about the company elsewhere as well.

Sometimes, as a matter of course, we as a company choose to engage in a particular discussion. For example, when Steve Rubel and then Mike Arrington wrote about a couple of our yet-unlaunched products, we jumped in to the conversation. And through a few new product blogs (Reader and myFavorites), we're actively soliciting feedback on some of our new products. I spoke to our Vice President of Corporate Communications, Dan Greenfield, about these issues specifically this afternoon. He said we see ourselves as more like Microsoft than Apple or Google on this, and that we do feel the need to engage with the blogosphere and still working through the best way to achieve that.

There's been nothing since I've been here by way of a memo telling people *not* to engage, and in fact, we're just about ready to release a new, clearer policy explaining what the expectations are if employees do want to become more vocal in blogs and comment threads. What do you think? Is it better for us be more like Google and Apple, and generally stay out of the every day back-and-forth, or is it better for us to aim to be as vocal as Microsoft?