The rumor mills were grinding stories including annoucement of a new 4th generation iPhone, the next OS release for the iPhone/iPod, an announcement about carrier partnerships for the iPhone and the biggest one, Apple’s new tablet device.  There were pictures popping up all around the web of alleged prototypes, office pools going as to what Apple was going to name it and even well known tech reporters spreading false rumors in jest because of all the hype.

Unfortunately, no matter how eloquent Steve Jobs was when he introduced us all to the new Apple iPad, it didn’t take enough attention away from the fact that the new product did not really bring anything new to the table.  And that’s what everyone has come to expect from Apple. From the introduction of the first neon color CRT iMacs in 1998 on through the iPhone 3GS last June, Apple has stepped up to the plate and scored on almost (let’s not forget about the Mac Cube) every product they’ve created.

The iPad after all the confetti has fallen is just an overgrown iPod touch.  No one was anticipating Apple to make a direct attempt to compete with the Kindle. Because the Kindle already does what it does well.They were expecting an amazing innovative product that does all the cool stuff that stands alone as an Apple product, that also happens to be just as convenient as a Kindle, so they could get rid of or never bother buying a Kindle eReader.

They weren’t expecting an Apple netbook either.  Everyone says they want to see a budget Mac that everyone can afford, but nobody really expects to ever see Apple make one.  That’s because most Mac users feel like they are a part of an elite club for owning one. It’s a phenomenon that occurs when consumers knowingly spend more money on a product than they know they really had to.  Macs are purchased and used as a personal computer in much the same way as a Louis Vitton purse is, or a BMW. Owners feel a sense of ownership pride.  That sense of elitism is a large part of their willingness to spend that extra dollar.  Apple has established that as their product image and should protect that image at all costs.  Diminishing the value of the brand as a whole will weaken the perceived value of their products, thus making it impossible for them to maintain high product standards and price accordingly.

I believe Apple’s attempt to price the new iPad close to the Kindle and other eReaders was the reason for the iPad lacking key features that many expected it to have. For example, it has no camera.  The iPad is a PERFECT device for video chatting while lounging on your couch over a wifi connection.  Another missing element: proper GPS hardware. How much extra would that have cost?  What about multi-tasking? Everyone knows a big gripe about the iPhone/iPod touch is the lack of multi-tasking and apps running in the background.  They couldn’t make that possible? With a large screen, users will undoubtedly want to use multiple applications concurrently.

These are all weaknesses that could be overlooked when you are talking about a mobile device such as a phone.  It would be unreasonable to expect a small cell phone to have the computing power of a full personal computer. The iPad isn’t a small mobile device. If it were, you could stick it in your pocket. The perception is that the list of compromises should stop at “It can’t fit in your pocket.”  Since it won’t fit in your pocket, it better do everything just as well or better than that netbook you gave to your little nephew since you bought yourself a new iPad.

Unfortunately, on your new iPad, the list of compromises continues – no hardware keyboard, no multi-tasking, no webcam and no file system browsing to name a few.

Don’t get me wrong. Steve Jobs is right that the iPad represents a new era in mobile computing.  Imagine waitresses walking around taking orders on an iPad, Doctors and nurses reviewing and updating your medical chart bedside on their iPads, public events where anyone with an iPad can view the slideshow from their own iPad instead of straining to see the projection screen over the guy with the big afro sitting in the next row, personal video chats while laying in bed or lounging on a couch.  The iPad form factor will evolve into a really cool device. But what they’ve got today… was it really worth the big media event? They should have just introduced it at CES and let the public enjoy watching it evolve into an entirely new market of devices.  People wouldn’t have been so critical about it.

Between that time and now, I have upgraded the version of Wordpress my server is running twice and I also changed the url convention as well.  Either one of these has caused my RSS feed url to change ever so slightly.  The old url still works but it would seem that the Pubsubhubbub plugin I installed is not working with the old feed url.  I am about to post this and test to see if it all works now.

Crossing my fingers….

However, that piece of armor is no longer in my arsenal. It has been replaced by a White 32GB 3GS. But though I start by bragging about my new gear, this post is more about the latest war being waged on the wireless telecomm battlefield of guam.

Thanks to the powers that be at Apple coupled with the lethargic efforts of our local carriers, up until very recently, Guam wireless carriers were not able to obtain iPhones for sale to us Guammies.  A few local consumer electronic shops advertised unlocked iPhones for sale at astronomical prices. I was skeptical about these offerings and could never bring myself to inquire with these shops as to the reliability and genuineness of the units they were selling.

The only other option for us geeks was to forage for ourselves in the deep, dark recesses of eBay for that hidden gem that is a safely unlocked iPhone.

First came the hardware unlocked phones –  with solutions ranging from razor hacked sim cards to TurboSIMs from unknown vendors. How legal could that be? And even if it were legal, how reliable could it be? Remember, we’re talking about a several hundred dollar investment that could potentially be the most expensive paper weight you ever bought if you get burned. I couldn’t bring myself to taking this chance.

Eventually, the community of hackers intent on releasing the iPhone platform from the regulatory hands of Apple proper, found a way to unlock the iPhone using software alone.  I believe it was around the same time that Apple began distributing iPhones to countries and locales that would not allow Apple or their partner wireless carriers to lock the phones.  Thus began the proliferation of “factory unlocked” and “software unlocked” iPhones.

It was then that I felt confident enough to make the plunge and gamble on purchasing an unlocked iPhone from eBay.  My first iPhone, a white 16GB 3G, arrived earlier this year.  After much research, I confirmed that my phone was “software unlocked” by third-party software and NOT “factory unlocked”.  Boo hoo. I did not have the luxury of being able to receive the firmware updates that Apple distributes via iTunes. I was lucky enough to already have version 3.0, but when I got it, iTunes was already asking me to upgrade to 3.0.1. Today, it’s already at 3.1.2. That would prove to be the bane of my ownership of an unlocked iPhone.

When GTA MPulse announced that they would be officially selling the iPhone, my first reaction was that of mild amusement.  I thought, “Oh, how nice. Finally. That’s okay because I’ve already got an iPhone.”  But then, remembering the frustrations with my unlocked phone and it’s shortcomings, I began to contemplate a replacement.

GTA was smart to strike up their deal with Apple to sell the iPhone.  I don’t know how difficult it was or why it took so long for any of the local GSM carriers to make it happen but it was the smartest thing GTA has ever done in their wireless business plan.  Apple has set up the iPhone for long term success. In the mainland, the iPhone arguably is the only reason that AT&T continues to survive in the highly competitive market there.  GTA will ride on those coat-tails for years to come.

Another Guam carrier, Docomo Pacific also made a smart move, albeit not quite as smart as GTA.  They did not get the official license to sell iPhones in Guam. I’m not sure if Apple would be willing to give one to them now that GTA has one.  They haven’t given one to T-Mobile. But Docomo did realize that absolutely nothing would be able to compete with the pent up demand that has developed on Guam for the iPhone. Well, nothing except . . . the iPhone.

So they did what they knew would be the only thing they could to prevent a mass exodus of their non-contracted customers. They bought up a bunch of factory unlocked iPhones from some country that Apple sends unlocked iPhones and put a full page ad in the paper on GTA’s big launch day. They even offered them for essentially the exact same amount that GTA offered them. GTA’s pricing mirrors the Apple Store and AT&T stores. I have a feeling GTA’s pricing might be mandated by Apple as official resellers of the iPhone.  I’m sure Docomo is taking a big hit on the cost of the unit as I am certain they are paying premium dollar for the factory unlocked units they are procuring.  But so goes the battle for monthly access revenue, right?

Docomo has taken quite a beating from critics for their guerrilla marketing tactics.  Although I agree that their failure to beat GTA signing up with Apple is pretty sad (they are only the oldest and largest wireless carrier in Guam), I respect their marketing team for what needed to be done based on the situation at hand and actually acting on it.

That being said, I have to admit that I am a Docomo user. I have been a Docomo customer since their early years in the mid 90s when they were known as Guam Cellular and Paging with the exception of a short stint using iDen based push-to-talk phones with iConnect Guam. I have always been partial to Docomo as my experience has been that their cellular network is the most reliable and robust.  It will take more than an official Apple reseller license to get me to switch away from Docomo.

So fast foward to today, where I am the proud new owner of a factory unlocked iPhone courtesy of Docomo Pacific.  Sorry, GTA, you guys get credit for your efforts, but a cell phone is a cell phone –  and is only as good as the cell service it is attached to.

My best advice to all the telecomm companies out there is first establish what you consider to be core products and services and make those products transparent.  A wireless company advertising ‘reliable coverage’ makes it seem like that is a special feature.  Shouldn’t that be a given? Reliable and robust core services is what keeps your existing customer base from jumping ship at the next big marketing campaign of your competitors.

Once you’ve gotten a good handle on your core services, then don’t sit idle. Start growing your services with new and innovative products.  That’s what attracts new customers and grows your market base.

If you aren’t able to develop these primary business practices, then you’ll forever be damned to reactive marketing efforts and the growth of your business will be dictated by the market and your competitors and not the other way around.

Jason Salas and I had several discussions about how the Guam web community has been so slow to embrace twitter.  We both agreed that part of twitter’s appeal in the US mainland is the mobile access convenience.  Something that is not possible here in Guam unless you are graced with a smartphone, a la Blackberry, iPhone or Android.  We decided that we wanted to see if that was a doable service and if it was something that we might be able to offer.

We have now been working on this new project, now called TwitterNeni for a little over a month now.  I’ve been so engrossed in the development side of the project that I haven’t once taken a minute to write about this whole experience.  The service is up and running and the official public beta was released on Monday, April 27, 2009.   The launch has gone surprisingly well without so much as a hiccup along the way.  I’ve got so much to talk about regarding my experience developing the application and the supporting infrastructure.  But I’ll save that for a later post and I’ll just keep this post about the service itself.

If you’re curious about what Twitter is, check it out.  It’s a “microblogging” platform.  Participant members think of it just as bloggers do, but the brevity of the medium allows for much faster, more efficient means of communication and interaction.  It’s really one of those things in which the experience cannot  be explained but must be experienced to truly be understood.  As you can see by the scarcity of my own blog posts, I am not one to take alot of time updating my blog.  But I am constantly on Twitter, giving my 140 characters worth.

With the new service, Jason and I have created, now us Guam tweeters can do it while on the go, too.

With those tools in hands, I set forth on a quest to design and install the most fitting sound and video system that our church needed. I’ve gotten some really uplifting comments from congregation members on what we’ve been able to do so far, but it’s by far still a work in progress.  If I was a neurotic planner like other people, I would have had the presence of mind to take some photos to use in this for visual reinforcement, but that wouldn’t have been very characteristic of me.  Instead, true to my form, I’ll try and get some shots of the finished setup posted later to help you get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Here were the needs in a nutshell.

1. Install a digital projector for displaying computer, powerpoint, and DVD output.
2. Relocate the mixer/sound/recording equipment from the weird stage left location to the back of the church house so whoever is on sound duty can better manage the sound.
3. Figure out how to fix the bad sounding praise and worship band. (Seriously, it’s a sound staging issue. The band is actually really good.)
4. Upgrade the recording equipment so we could offer sermon recordings in CD format. (Right now, we only offer cassette format.)

It’s been quite a learning experience for me. The existing PA equipment, although several years old, are reasonably good equipment that are professional grade. The core of the system is a Mackie 1402-VLZ Pro mixer that in my opinion sends a very clean signal to the loudspeakers.  The loudspeakers being a pair of JBL Eon15 self-powered speakers.  They’re the first generation of this model and are starting to show signs of age, but still provide good quality sound reinforcement.

In order of priority, my first obstacle was to figure out how to wire the equipment that would be relocated to the back of the church.  Through God’s grace, I was able to network with Doug Gregson through Jeff at Faith Presbyterian Church in Mangilao.  I believe Doug works with Trans World Radio and he helped Faith Presbyterian Church set up the A/V system in their church.  He was able to direct me to a great site for digital wiring and equipment.  I purchased a VGA extender that allowed me to run a computer source VGA signal over Cat5 cable.   For the video signal from the DVD player, I ran a simple RG11 cable with adapters on each end to RCA plugs.  Wiring the digital projector . . . check!!  The projector itself, an EIKI LC-XB42, was ceiling mounted by a universal mount purchased by Pastor Andrew at www.kingdom.com.

The next task was to get the mic and instrument signals from the stage to the mixer and the mixer output back to the on-stage loudspeakers.  To do this, I purchased a ProCo audio snake from http://www.sweetwater.com.  The guys at Sweetwater are really helpful and their prices are some of the lowest you can find.  The audio snake made the install really easy, clean and professional.  Unfortunately, I might have made the mistake of ordering too small of a snake.  I should have allowed for system growth, but the snake has enough channels to handle the 14 channel mixer, so I figured that if we out grow the mixer, then we could just upgrade the cabling as well.  To be frank, with the size if the church, adding anymore sound sources might be overkill.

Now that everything was installed, I had to get all the equipment connected to the mixer so I could have complete control of the sound stage.  Here’s where I learned the hard lesson of audio signal impedance.  This is where the guys at American Music here in Guam come in.  I wish I had gotten the name of the young guy behind the counter that introduced me to the Radial ProDI Passive Direct box.  His explanation of the importance of matching audio signal impedance between instruments and equipment led me to understand what I was faced with when I couldn’t seem to get the guitar, bass and keyboard to jack in to the mixer just right.

With his help, I finally understood that the XLR mic inputs on our mixer expects a very low impedance “mic” signal such as that which comes out of a microphone.  The signal that comes out of a guitar’s jack or a computer’s headphone jack is a high impedance “line out” signal.  Just rigging an adapter in line won’t do the trick for you there.  The DI boxes were expensive, but they are of good quality and really provide the best signal to the mixer at just the right impedance that the mixer wants.

With that knowledge, I was also able to understand that some of the channels of the mixer do allow for a high impedance (or High-Z) signal.  So those channels ended up being where I plugged in the Electronic Keyboard, PC, DVD, and Tape Deck.  Once I had those equipment all connected, I had everything wired up to the mixer and theoretically, full control of the sound stage for the church.

Now, with a properly wired mixer at my disposal, I now set forth in tackling my next obstacle – make everyone sound better.  This step is where I’m at right now and is really a work in progress.  First off, I’m not a sound manager by profession in the least, so I am learning all about acoustics and sound physics as I go along.  Second, I am not a musician either, so I am also learning what each musician/singer’s needs are as I go along as well.

My first attempt to balance everything out, I forced all the players to lower their on-stage amps and keyboard speakers to help balance out the sound coming out to the audience.  Suddenly, the music started to sound really out of synch and all the musicians and singers kept getting lost and off tempo.  The band members started explaining to me that they can’t hear themselves play and are getting lost.  Normally, they would be able to follow each other because they each set the volume of their amp or instrument at the level that was comfortable for them to hear themselves over the other instruments.  As for the singers, they can’t even hear themselves, so with the band getting lost, they just don’t know what to do.  Thus started my lesson in the importance of stage monitoring.  I never realized that this aspect of live sound can get so complicated.  A little research showed that even in some large venues, there’s even a dedicated stage monitor mixing board with a dedicated sound technician managing each performer’s monitor mix.  Of course, this is nowhere near the level that my application is, but it gives you a perspective as to the importance of a good balanced stage monitor mix.

Now I’m faced with trying to get a good balanced signal to all the players and singers on the stage without overwhelming the first two rows of church members with the stage sound bleeding off to mix with the loudspeakers.  This is especially a problem for our church because the pulpit is quite small and the front row is very close to it.  As much time and effort as I have put into this so far, I think this is the biggest challenge.  I need to find the right balance of all the needs because each requirement seems to be contraindicative to every other need.

There are so many questions now without obvious answers.  Do I get stage monitors and set them up?  If I do, where will I put them because the stage is so small?  How loud will the stage now be with stage monitors, guitar amps and the keyboard with its own speakers.  How do I create a separate mix for the stage monitors?  Do I need to get another mixer?

I’ll do a follow up post when I’ve gotten closer to getting that right balance that satisfies all the needs of our church’s sound staging.

I leave you with a final thanks and praise to God for providing for the needs of the church as He has.  He has provided me with this great opportunity to do what I really enjoy doing all while allowing me to serve Him through the gifts He has provided me.  And another plus for me . . . being able to spend time in fellowship with all the praise and worship band members.  I’ve been learning alot of cool stuff from all the praise team and their input into the setup of the sound system has been invaluable.

Talk about spot on.  He’s really got his finger on the pulse of Guam’s tech industry, or lack of therein.  People in Guam have always known that our island has been slow to adopt anything modern.  It comes with the territory (no pun intended).  We’re a small rock in the middle of the largest ocean on this Earth with a population of some 100,000 or so.  What else can you expect, right?

But hey, we’re a territory of the world’s largest superpower!!  We’ve got, not one, but TWO U.S. military bases here.  That makes us a strategic military resource to our mother country.  We’ve also got this HUGE multi-billion dollar tourism industry that is a significant market segment of the outbound tourist traffic from Japan – the country with the world’s largest number of tourist based outbound travel.  And why wouldn’t we.  Our island’s a beautiful island paradise and is US soil, so when you’re here, you can feel confident that you are in a safe place.

Therein lies Guam’s identity conundrum.  Jason did a great job of giving Guam’s tech report card.  Now here’s my shot at playing parent-teacher conference and explaining why Guam’s such a disappoint to so many.  Especially many of whom choose to call Guam their home.

You see, no matter what we think of Guam, because of geographic logistics, we will always be just like the little rural town of Sleepy, Iowa (sorry that’s a fictituos stereotypical town, not real) that doesn’t have a metropolis within 1,000 miles of it.  Run by an overweight Sheriff and his cousin the Judge; with a Mayor who keeps getting elected because his wife makes the best apple pie.

We see it portrayed all the time on TV, but we won’t admit that we aren’t that much different.  Everyone in Guam knows everyone else and when you do meet someone for the first time, you’re guaranteed to run into them again sometime in the future.  The same people or their people and their friends run the government.  The big businesses in Guam are all owned by an elite few.  Whenever a big company, i.e. K Mart, Home Depot, come in, everyone gets excited but there’s always those complaining that they’re killing the local business owners.  In fact, how many times has someone tried to use the “Support local businesses” marketing tactic on you?

Despite our true grass roots and small island heritage, everyone watches MTV and Friends and tries to make Guam the big city metropolis that it isn’t.  Okay, we’re lucky.  We’ve got tourism.  So that supports having a Sandcastle (for those wondering, it’s a Vegas style production house), and some nice cappuccino shops and a couple fancy discotheques.  And us local folk get to take advantage of those nice amenities.  Even with a  local discount because we can’t really afford to pay what it really costs to keep them running.

On top of that, because we have tourism and a military presence, we’ve always got big business and sophisticated city folk coming here all the time with their fancy ideas and cool clothes and us island folk get all jealous and want the same thing.  Unfortunately, we aren’t really that well edumacated and we’re really just a bunch of fisherman and farmers.

Now with that as a backdrop, let’s add on the fact that again we’re a small population on a tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific where it costs more to ship an apple here than it does to grow it.  Can we really expect to ever reap in the modern luxuries that our counterparts in New York City and Hollywood do?  Well, its a motivation that’s commendable.  We should stay positive and strive to achieve greatness.  But this is my way of saying – Keep your feet on the ground as you reach for the sky.  (Before anyone cries foul, I AM paraphrasing the great Casey Kasem.)

Well, my blog editor is telling me I’m well on my way to a 1,000 word essay, so I’m gonna cut it here.  Until next time, keep on keepin’ on.

Anyway, as you can see to the immediate right, I’ve finally tried to play around with adding some widgets to my blog page.  Albeit, these are so rudimentary and basic that I’m sure no one is impressed, it’s just a feat that I’ve gotten around to trying this out.  So to Jason at KUAM, thanks for the news widget  And to Facebook, thanks as well.

I’ve also decided that I prefer this theme over the drab earthy one I was using before, even though the old one has the nice island and beach images.  This cool blue color is just more relaxing and more my style.  I hope you all enjoy the new look.

It’s no secret that google is the largest and most popular search engine on the web today.  It would seem, at least at this early stage in the game for their browser, that they are well on their way to have the best browser out there, too.

So now you’re probably thinking, why am I comparing Chrome to Firefox and not the other browsers.  Well, that’s because you have to consider the distribution channels of browsers before you can compare them and their popularity.  Looking at it that way, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is in a different league than the other guys like Firefox, Opera and the like.  In a similar fashion, Safari can’t be compared because it ships with Apple’s OS X.

Which leads me to the question of:  For those browsers designed to appeal to the more demanding surfer, can the reigning champion, Firefox stand up to the new challenger?  This is the market where product performance really counts.  Okay, Firefox has the advantage of coming bundled with many Linux distros, but most people who will use a Linux distro would be inclined to use a preferred browser anyway, whether it come bundled with their favorite OS or need to be downloaded, untarred, compiled, installed, programmed, reverse engineered, or whatever it takes to get the most of their computing/browsing experience.

So let’s take score at this point.  What are Firefox’s strengths?  It’s familiar, of course.  It plays well with industry accepted standards.  It’s very customizable.  I think that’s where Firefox is a big winner.  The Firefox add-ons and themes makes it the most versatile offering out there.  Everything from embedded FTP clients to web page screen grabbers, there are so many tools out there that have been made possible through Firefox’s approach to plug-in development.  And I think that’s a HUGE plus in favor of the reigning champ.

Now what’s the challenger touting?  Chrome is just plain fast.  Again, Google shows their understanding of what users are looking for.  No frills, or bells and whistles, here.  A minimalistic approach to one thing.  Give the user what he needs fast and easy.  The browser doesn’t even have the now famous search bar.  Google just said, “Use the address bar.”  Wasn’t that simple enough?  Firefox 3 does that, yes.  But there’s still that search bar that takes up precious sreen real estate – another big complaint from the demanding web surfer.  But back to how fast Chrome is.  Try it out a few times and you’ll be amazed at how different of an experience it is surfing with Chrome.

So only time will tell now, can Firefox keep the new kid, Chrome under control?  Or will Google once again prove that their business model works better than anyone else’s.  At least when it comes to anything web.

I’ve decided that it isn’t enough that I’ve got this up and running.  I am determined to delve deeper into the inner workings of the platforms that I have chosen to build this here doo-hickey.

A good friend and learned web programmer told me that I’ll need a boat load of patience and a fair amount of elbow grease to try and reverse engineer Wordpress‘ php interworkings with the MySQL back-end.  He was probably being polite.

So wish me luck in my endeavor.  I’m sure that I’ll need as much as I can get.