Posts by Mikko Kaarela

Happy Anniversary: What’s new, what’s missing in Microsoft’s giant mobile update

A Pocket CRM in Lumia...

One cool feature in W10 Mobile is the Timeline associated with contacts. You can see the history of interaction in a glance, calls, e-mails, meetings/calendar entries, SMS and WhatsApp messages etc. Hopefully Microsoft will integrate this data (if enabled for each particular contact) with the company CRM.

With that, we'd finally have a CRM that doesn't require extra updating effort.

P.S. One of these years, the business phone could display also the company name for incoming calls...

Insulin pump attack prompts call for federal probe

Can we trust that the WLAN works?

Hospitals are increasingly relying on WLAN, not just for security cameras and doctors' laptops, but also for patient monitors, infusion pumps and medications carts etc. That makes patients' well-being and, indeed, their life dependent on WLAN ability to function properly.

Some hospitals across the pond have already understood that WLANs performance must be monitored 7/24. Hopefully the same approach will eventually arrive here as well: http://www.ohio.com/news/wireless-tech-firm-7signal-plugs-into-akron-1.208537

Nokia spits out network diagnostics

Ad hoc is good, 7/24 monitoring better

It's nice to have little tools to look at the network, but when WLAN turns from "network of convenience" into a real part of critical business infrastructure, these gadgets are not sufficient.

What we do need, first of all in places like hospitals, logistic centres - and increasingly - in wireless offices is vendor-independent, continuous Wireless Quality Assurance (WQA) and SLA-monitoring such as the Sapphire system by 7signal. That allows to centralise the WQA and cost-effectively concentrate the expert resources to look after all corporate campuses - or simply outsource this activity to an external service provider, just like mobile operators have been doing for some time.

Nokia E72 smartphone

VoIP is nice, but VoWLAN better

More and more handset come with Wireless VoIP functionality, but the promise doesn't materialize unless the WLAN Service Level is properly guaranteed. To be effective, Wireless Quality Assurance requires more than just user complaint-driven reactive maintenance. Luckily some companies are thinking along these lines, some like Aruba adding WLAN QA into the Access Point, others like 7signal developing vendor-independent solutions for both continuous quality monitoring and WLAN commissioning and troubleshooting purposes.

ID cards not compulsory after all, says Home Office

What's the problem with you folks?

Here in Finland, every time I pay a purchase of 50 euros or more I need to show a proof of ID and the credit card-sized ID is the most convenient document fot that purpose. This protect my rights as it makes use of stolen payment cards less easy. No, it's not mandatory, just convenient - also as a passport replacement across the European Economic Area (including Switzerland, Iceland and even UK).

On top of that, the national ID number helps to verify my address etc. much better than recent gas or electricity bills and things like cashing social security benefits in a number of municipalities is here unheard of.

Of course, I could run around with my passport, but the little card is always i nmy wallet.

Spam filtering services throttle Gmail to fight spammers

Throttle account registration to prevent spam?

If spammers are using sweatshops to circumvent CAPTCHA, why not introduce a system that causes delays in setting up multiple webmail accounts e.g., from same IP address (space) effectively?

Another approach could be Google et al. to set up a limit against sending too many e-mails to too many recipients. A limit not even noticed by bona fide users could be detrimental for spammers sending large numbers of e-mails. Gmail could also throttle heavy outbound traffic that too many of the recipients report as spam. "Many mail recipients have reported your e-mails as spam, for the next X days you can only send Y e-mails per day, to max. Z recipients each..". A bit of cooperation between the mail providers would be helpful here, too.

Obviously, these measures would not stop spam entirely, but if the spamming process turns costly and complicated, it reduces the profitability = it works.