A new study contradicts some commonly held beliefs about people who use dial-up internet service.  We’ve long been assuming that they didn’t have access to broadband service–that they lived in too rural an area to be able to trade up.

Seems that idea is wrong.

The survey shows that only 14% are “stuck with dial-up” because they can’t get a faster service where they live.  35% say they stay on dial-up because of prices–they can’t afford broadband.

Perhaps the most surprising number?  The 19% of dial-up users who say nothing you do or say could convince them to give it up for something else.

That’s staggering to me.  They’re tech-savvy enough to want to be on the internet, but old-fashioned enough to stubbornly cling to 2 minute page loads even if that same page could load in 2 seconds if they swapped up to broadband?!?!  Weird.

How many of you still have dial-up?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

There’s a growing number of web users who turn to Mozilla’s Firefox browser for their surfing needs.  Each year, Firefox gains little bits of market share on Internet Explorer (Microsoft’s King of Browsers).

There are four of us here in the Keystone office that are total Firefox disciples (and three more who, sadly, insist on sticking with IE).  Firefox has built its niche on being a faster, more secure browsing experience–oh, and they invented the whole “tabbed browsing” thing that IE and Safari and everyone else has since copied.

Well, last week saw the release of Firefox 3, the newest release, and I’m pretty pleased to tell you that it’s the best Firefox yet.  There are, according to Mozilla, over 15,000 improvements in this new version.  Many of the things you’ll notice are aesthetic:  the back button is a bit bigger, the tabs scroll and animate during browsing in a very slick manner, etc.  There’s also a new address bar that Firefox calls the Awesome Bar.  It’s supposedly better at predicting what you’re trying to type so you can get to your preferred destination even more quickly.  And, as usual, there have been some security updates that make Firefox’s already safe experience even safer.

But here’s the real reason you should go download and install Firefox 3:  It is fast!  Lightning fast.  Noticeably faster than Firefox 2, and light years faster than IE.  For me… that alone was reason to upgrade.

So if you’re a Firefox user, but you either hadn’t heard there was a new version, or you were holding out until it was verified as a quality version… wait no more.  Head over to Mozilla’s site and grab a copy of Firefox 3 for yourself today. You won’t regret it.

This is fantastic news, and I say that with not even an ounce of my traditional sarcasm.  Anytime I hear about a new WiFi hotspot in my area, I’m happy about it.  If I had my way, I would see every square inch of Sumner County covered in a giant net of WiFi.  (And I think that day will come… but not yet).

Hendersonville residents visiting Drakes Creek Park can now surf the web for free.

According to the article:

Its wireless Internet access has been available off and on since mid-May, parks Director Dave LeMarbre said. “Within the last week to 10 days, it’s been up and operational 100 percent,” he said. LeMarbre said it cost about $5,000 to install the Web access.

Now I can go to the park on Friday nights, and live-blog the pick-up volleyball matches.  Or check email while I sit in the Little League stands.  Or download White Castle nutritional information before walking across the street for some tiny square burgers.

Outstanding news.  The park is already a favorite spot in town for many–this news only makes it more attractive.  Instead of buying a Starbucks card just for the privilege of using their WiFi, I can just buy my grande latte and walk on down to Drakes Creek… and get my Internet for free… no hoops to jump through, no strings attached.  Thanks Hendersonville!

Time Warner and the other cable companies are trying to find a way to deal with the rise in bandwidth demand.

Their genius solution?  Let’s meter out how much Internet each person can have, and charge them extra when they go over.  For instance, if your plan is 50GB per month, and you hit 53GBs, you’ll have to pay overage costs on those 3GBs.

Wonderful.  Now my Internet service is becoming more like my cell phone plan.  Except, with cell phones, the industry trend lately has been the opposite:  they used to charge you for going over your monthly minutes, but more and more plans are becoming “unlimited minutes” plans.

Time Warner is testing this metered access approach in Texas as we speak.  Comcast is rumored to be looking into it as well.

How is this any different from the airlines saying, “You remember how we used to let you check 2 bags with every ticket purchased?  Yeah, we’re going to stop doing that.  Now you have to pay for every bag you check.”???

This is not going to sit well with Internet power users like myself, who are online for several hours a day.  In fact, there may well be some sort of revolt.

Metering out the Internet access is a giant step backwards, not forward.  Remember dial up?  Yeah, in the early days of the web, you had so many hours per month of dial up access.  Then the cable companies got wacky with the broadband and trained all their customers to expect unfettered access.

And now they want to take it away.

It’s like taking candy from a baby, after training the baby to think candy was a regular feature of baby life.

From the article:

Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.

And there’s the rub.  Movie and television downloads (legal or otherwise) have caught fire and are clearly the direction that industry is headed.  Very soon there will be more people downloading digital copies of movies than those buying DVDs in the store.  So it’s hard not to see this new metered Internet approach as anything but a way to make more money.

Maybe it would be easier to take if there wasn’t such a clear problem with monopolies in the cable/broadband world.  If I had any other cable company to choose from besides Comcast, for instance, I could at least go see if they’d offer me a better deal.  If I want broadband cable Internet, though, I have only one choice… and soon they’re going to be telling me how much Internet I can use.

In the world of Technology and the Internet, mergers and acquisitions are fairly commonplace. You won’t hear about most of them, because the lion’s share are concerning companies and services you probably haven’t heard of.

Every once in a while, though, there’s a “Google Buys YouTube” or a “Microsoft Makes Bid for Yahoo” story that sort of grabs everyone’s attention.

Today there were three major acquisitions in the world of tech.

• First, CBS is buying C|Net for $1.8 Billion.
• Second, Comcast has purchased Plaxo for a rumored $150-$170 Million.
• Lastly, Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) has bought Dictionary.com (actually, they purchased Dictionary.com’s parent company, Lexico, which means they also bought Reference.com and Thesaurus.com) for a rumored price of around $100 Million.

Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Dictionary.com, as most moderate Internet users have. So that’s kind of an interesting purchase.

The Comcast deal is surprising, considering that no one in my office could even tell me what Plaxo is or what they do. Plaxo is a “social contact list” service that promises to help you “stay in touch with the people you care about most.” It’s kind of a mash-up of your address books and all your favorite websites.

The CBS/C|Net deal is the most astounding to me, purely from a dollar amount standpoint. $1.8 Billion is a heck of a lot of money for a site that offers tech news and reviews. Granted, C|Net has a stellar reputation, and is one of the most cited sources for Tech news on the web.

That being said… how many of you reading this recognized the name C|Net? It’s kind of amazing that a website you’ve never heard of is worth as much as a small country, isn’t it? Now I know that the bulk of our readers, while Internet-savvy, are not as plugged in to the latest services and hot companies online–hey, you’re busy running your small business. We get that. That’s why we’re here to keep you abreast of what’s going on.

But even if their business name doesn’t ring a bell, some of their subsidiary companies probably will:

CNet is an early pioneer in the Internet, and now includes a large stable of businesses in the entertainment, news and music areas such as ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com.

The world wide web is a crazy place, where dollars are thrown around like candy. I’m sure next week we’ll read that Ask, CBS, and Comcast have all merged and that they’ve been bought by Google for $4.6 Quadrillion.

I’m currently trying to pinpoint exactly which website I want to buy today. Hey, why should the big guys have all the fun? I don’t have $1.8 Billion, but I have enough to buy someone’s dormant blog. Maybe I’ll do that. Or maybe we could pool our money, you and I, and buy a MySpace account or something. How much you got? I just want to get in on the action… because today is definitely THE day to buy a web property.

PollDaddy is a create-your-own website poll service, and we thought we’d take it for a test drive for you.

The core service is free. You can create polls, publish them on your website, and have unlimited responses to them.

If you want to pay $20/month, you can upgrade to a premium package that allows for even more scalability and customization… as well as access to statistics about your poll and the people who took it. (We’re testing out the free version, because we’re cheap and we spent all our money on golf balls).

To give this thing a trial, we decided to ask our audience to help us name our robot.

We recently added a robot to our payroll. He takes care of a lot of the more mundane tasks such as taking out the garbage, cleaning the office, & fixing paper jams in the printer. Oh, he also answers tech questions from our readers in a new online Q&A column over at iSurfSumner.com (Dear Abby for Technology). Right now we’re calling him Arnie the AnswerBot, because we’re not very creative and didn’t want to waste precious time on the robot-naming task.

But we wonder if there isn’t a better name out there for him. Here… before you make up your mind… he looks like this:

Okay, so what does that guy look like to you? A Mike? A Simon? Maybe a Winchester?

Killing two birds with one stone, here is our PollDaddy poll where you can vote to help us name our new robot. Feel free to suggest a name yourself if you don’t like our choices, and vote as often as you like. Take the poll now:

As you can see, the poll is quite slick. It was easy to build and only took about 3 minutes. If you have anything worth letting your readers vote on… head on over to PollDaddy and sign up. Oh, and check back here on our blog to see what kind of name the little robot guy ends up with.

Papa Johns announced recently that they have made over $1 Billion from online pizza sales since they introduced the ability to order a pizza via the Internet.

I can just see John from those Papa Johns commercials, doing his best Dr. Evil impression:  “One… Billion… Dollars.”

That is a heck of a lot of pizza, too.  If you figure $12 bucks a pie, that works out to about 83 Million pizzas.

Now, it’s probably not going to be easy for you to start a pizza website and make that kind of cash.  For starters, you’d need a network of brick-and-mortar pizza shops across the US to be able to fill the online orders… and Papa Johns had that built in before they started.

But man, who knew that you could make that kind of money from a pizza website?

They’re on a torrid pace, too, and will make their next $1 Billion in half the time it took to make their first.  From the article:

“It took us seven years to reach our first billion in online sales, and at our current pace and growth rate it will take us less than three years to hit our next billion,” said Jim Ensign, vice president of marketing communications at Papa John’s.

It would be interesting to see how much of this online revenue is new, as opposed to coming from customers who were already buying pizza in the traditional method. I imagine there’s more new business there than you might think, simply because they’ve made the ordering process so convenient.

Almost all the major pizza chains have online ordering capabilities now, and most even let you order via text message… making pizza an impulse-buy item more and more everyday.  Pretty soon I expect to be able to order a pie by merely thinking about a warm, delicious pizza.  Until then… online or text ordering is the fastest method available.

New reports today suggest that, having walked away from their proposed purchase of Yahoo, Microsoft has turned its affections toward Facebook.

But wait–there are also reports that they’re trying to buy AOL.

Or not. Some reports are suggesting they’re still after Yahoo.

Man, does Bill Gates have some money burning a hole in his pocket or what?

Am I the only one starting to see Microsoft as the high school senior who just got $1000 in graduation money and can’t decide on what unnecessary & useless thing he wants to buy first? I mean, Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook are three very different companies… with three very different customer bases.

But they’re also very large companies.

Maybe Microsoft just wants to make a big splash. Maybe they’re more like the school bully who reigned for years until a new bully (Google) moved to town and starting stealing his press. So the first bully starts beating people up with vigor, left and right, just to make sure no one forgets that he was there first.

I’m not sure why anyone would be interested in buying AOL–I don’t even know what they do anymore.

I half expect to see headlines this afternoon like “Microsoft Submits Bid to Purchase NFL” or “Microsoft in Talks to Buy China.”  Personally, I’d rather see Microsoft take the billions of dollars they’re dying to throw away on some huge merger and instead spend it on, oh, maybe making Vista run faster.

But that’s just me.

This is a blog. This website you’re reading right now. It’s our Keystone Blog. We also have a standard business website here.

But this is our blog. It’s a bit more informal, and we get to have a little fun with it while still delivering to our clients something interesting in the world of technology.

And judging by our blog statistics, many of you enjoy reading it. Thanks a ton, by the way!

A lot of our clients have been asking about blogs lately. Do they need one? Should they get one? Is it easy to use? Can it enhance a business? Is it cost-effective?

All five answers are “Yes!”

For any of our local clients (Middle Tennessee), we’re actually introducing a new Keystone University class this coming Friday, May 9th, 2008… on Blogging & Your Business. We’ll cover what blogging is, how it can apply to your business, how you can market your blog, and much more.

Cost for this class is only $25 (or $30 for the Blogging class and the Search Engine class we’re also having that day… both combined). The Search Engine class is at 10:30 and the Blogging class is at 12:30, with lunch in between (buy either class by itself, and you get a free lunch!), and the venue is the fabulous Lighthouse Events Center in Hendersonville.

All Keystone University participants also receive a free KU T-Shirt!

For more information or to sign up, please see our class schedule here (click “Purchase Now” next to the class you’d like to attend) or call our office at 615-826-3500. Whether you’re clueless as to what this blogging thing is all about or you’re in the know and thinking of starting your own blog… this class is for you. We’d love to see you there.

For another resource on whether or not you should start a blog, we highly recommend this great guide from ProBlogger.

Not to be outdone by the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration), the U.S. Department of Transportation (the DOT) has now started a blog. 

Is this how we know when something is officially passe?  When our government entities jump on the bandwagon, maybe it’s a sign that blogging is no longer cool. 

I mean, what’s next… a MySpace page for Fed Chair Ben Bernanke?  “Just upt intrst rate 4 fun. LOL!”

Anyway, back to the point… The DOT now has a blog, which you can see here.  Wonderful. 

The U.S. Transportation Secretary, Mary Peters, has decided the DOT needs to step into the technology age.  From her first-ever blog post:

“After all, if I’m going to insist on 21st Century solutions for our transportation system, I better communicate in a 21st century way!”

Right on, Mary!!  Blogs are the one thing that can instantly make you modern and hip.  I mean, governemnt agencies starting blogs is a bit like my mom getting a Facebook page. 

I think it’s important to know that some elements of this blog will be censored.  From the article:

“Comments are reviewed to make sure they’re free of personal attacks, slurs or inappropriate language. If a topic attracts hundreds of comments, an agency spokesman said a representative sample of them may be posted instead.”

So, if you use hate speak or attack anyone personally, or use slurs, or swear…. your comment may be deleted.  But if you ask me, “inappropriate language” is a pretty vague thing to pinpoint.  So, don’t be surprised if readers of that blog start complaining that they have a criticism comment that’s been censored. 

Also, it appears they may censor comments if they simply get too many of them, which is weird.  They’re going to post a “sampling” of them instead–yeah right… a “sampling” means “the nicest and most complimentary comments only.” 

See, the whole point of a blog is that it builds discussion… builds community… encourages dialogue.  But censoring comments simply because you already got a hundred others seems strange and counter-productive.  “Oh, there’s just too much discussion going on here… we’re putting a stop to that.”  Bizarre. 

According to Wikipedia’s page on the DOT, their mission is:

“to serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.”

They may need to ammend that mission statement now to include some mention of their new 21st century tactics.  Maybe just a “… by blogging” at the end of the mission statement.  That should cover it. 

Or maybe not.  Seems that the DOT is also going to be starting their own YouTube channel.  Wow.  Talk about riveting!  DOT officials talking about transportation issues?  Sign me up now!  Where do I subscirbe? 

Right now I seriously can’t think of anything more boring than DOT’s YouTube channel.  Perhaps if the Department of Housing & Urban Devleopment started Twittering… maybe then that would be more boring. 

So do we give the DOT props for at least trying to be relevant and hip?  I guess we have to.  At least they’re trying.  I mean, what technological advances has the Department of Agriculture embraced?  Yeah, that’s what I thought. 

Anyway, you can view the DOT’s official site here, which is badly in need of a makeover.  Or go straight to their awesome new blog here–which appears to have been specifically designed to look like a blog from 1999–stealthy.  Looks like one of their first orders of business was to let Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley write a post, which is WAY less boring than you might think.  Or not.

Am I being to hard on them?  Probably.  Is mocking them too easy a thing to do for me to resist it?  Almost certainly.  I guess I’m generally in favor of government agencies embracing cutting edge technology and communication tools, but it feels so forced, and more than a little behind-the-trend.