The migration to the new server is complete. All accounts on all domains should function properly and all pre-existing mail archives have been preserved.

If you are still not receiving mail or are missing any old files please email me immediately at dmjossel@synfibers.com. As a last resort you may use the IP address 168.143.35.204 as your incoming (POP) and outgoing (SMTP) mail servers. If you have SSL activated you may see an error message that the certificate is unsigned. If you ignore it mail should function properly. Within a day or two you should be able to revert to using your own domain or the shared domain synthet3.securesites.net (for SSL support) on the new server.

This migration also brings a new option for webmail; an AJAX-powered interface that is a bit more advanced than the TWIG interface for handling mail. You can access it at:

https://your-domain.com/mail/

The login screen gives you options for Advanced (supported in Internet Explorer and Firefox, mimics the layout and features of Outlook Express in a web interface) or Standard Ajax (for other modern browsers) or Simple (for old browsers and/or mobile devices).

In most cases the old TWIG interface, should you want it, is still available at:

https://your-domain.com/twig/

If either of these options don't function properly or you have any other questions or problems, please feel free to contact me:

http://synfibers.com/user/1/contact

In order to take advantage of the increases in storage space and computing capacity, all the sites currently hosted at Synfibers.com are being migrated this week from the Virtual Private Server 2 platform to the new Virtual Private Server 3 platform. Other improvements include availability of PHP5, Apache 2 and MySQL 5.

Currently all but three of the sites have been successfully migrated and are currently being hosted on the new server. The new sites mostly use the "www." canonical name; if you access a site at the name without the 'www' and see a site in maintenance mode, that is because that domain also hosts email accounts currently still on the old machine.

The script to migrate email accounts and messages from the old server to the new one has run into a problem which is currently being investigated. I expect the migration to be complete by the end of this week. Full backups will be kept.

Okay, I'm a WiMax booster. I like it when WiMax gets good press. However, I don't like misinformation, no matter which side it takes. So when InformationWeek posits dualband LTE/WiMax handsets (which would be a good idea) but then says that:

Verizon's decision to go with LTE was particularly telling since that route represents a much more expensive, rip-and-replace approach than WiMax would have been

then I have to take umbrage, since that's wrong.

WiMax is a wholly new technology, based on OFDMA and IP. It's not in anyone's upgrade path, unless you're talking about going to mobile WiMax from fixed WiMax, but even that is what they call a "forklift" upgrade-- you take the old equipment out, and you wheel the new equipment in, since they don't share any components. New MSS, new RSS, new antennas, new ACR, new EMS. All new.

This is true for both WiMax and LTE. LTE is also a forklift upgrade. It is presented in the light of an "upgrade" from UMTS or CDMA2k, but it isn't. It also means new components.

So saying that WiMax is a cheaper upgrade might seem to compliment the technology, except here it is used to disparage it, suggesting that Verizon (a CDMA operator) chose it despite that disadvantage. That's not true. They chose it because many other incumbent mobile operators are choosing it, because the equipment vendors they've used in the past are choosing it-- but not because it isn't a forklift upgrade, because it is. You can't just update the firmware of a CDMA base station and get LTE. It's big bucks either way.

If anything, incumbent operators probably choose LTE because WiMax has no native voice bearer-- it's all IP, so you have to implement VOIP to get any voice functionality at all. That may be fine with some operators-- which is why WiMax appeals more to ISPs looking to go mobile and get into voice than it does to CDMA and UMTS operators who already derive most of their revenue from voice and are just looking for higher data speeds without changing vendors or abandoning the technology they know.

Another reason may be the schedule. WiMax is here now, but in the current financial climate not many operators may be interested in expensive upgrades, and not many customers may be interested in the new value-added services those upgrades enable. So the fact that there won't be any LTE deployments until 2010 probably doesn't bother them.

I mentioned yesterday that I felt that last year's announcement of the Nortel-Alvarion WiMax partnership probably didn't accomplish much. Nobody who was seriously looking at Nortel would have accepted Alvarion as a substitute, and nobody looking at Alvarion was going to make a decision based on what was essentially a distribution deal with Nortel.

Lo and behold, today WiMax.com announces that the partnership with Nortel had no impact on Alvarion's bottom line.

What's interesting to note here is that through this waffling, first announcing and producing WiMax gear, then dropping their own line for Alvarion's, then dropping the whole thing altogether, Nortel managed to hurt themselves and hurt the public perception of WiMax as a technology, without having any effect, positive or negative, on their chosen partner, Alvarion.

It's nice to have one's perspective validated by people who get paid to have them. Gerson Lehrman Group has an analysis of Nortel's WiMax market exit that basically boils down to the fact that this says more about Nortel than it does about WiMax, and that it means more, not less, opportunity for remaining manufacturers:

Nortel cannot afford to devote any resources to niche markets in which it has not built a leading position. Its abandonment of WiMax even as a reseller helps remaining WiMax vendors who are fignting over a limited opportunity, which lies primarily in otherwise underserved environments for broadband access.

This is an opinion I expressed in the comments on several of the "WiMax is dead" stories that made the rounds after Nortel's announcement. The bottom line is that the Alvarion deal was a hedge Nortel made against WiMax succeeding, and they don't want to pay for that hedge any more. In a way I think it was inevitable, because I don't think anyone who was on the fence, considering Nortel as a vendor, would necessarily have accepted Alvarion as a substitute. Questions about Nortel's commitment, and about who would support the gear, came up immediately. In other words, I doubt the Nortel-Alvarion deal got any orders from companies that weren't already seriously considering Alvarion as a vendor. Anyone who had been looking at Nortel was probably scared off by the Alvarion deal.

I'm sorry. Sort of. I just can't stop picking on CNet.

The following puddle of drool I found on the desk of Crave writer Matt Hickey, who apparently was sleeping in class, and then blurted this out as a response to a request for an analysis of the current smartphone market:

Consider this: your company has Dell servers, so what if Dell offered a special Dell suite of Dell software to connect your Dell servers to your Dell smartphones? Something like what RIM offers, but more compatibility with the Dell ecosystem many businesses already have. And better package deals on hardware when you buy everything together.

"Dell ecosystem"?

If Dell is going to make a cellphone that integrates with the "Dell ecosystem" then they're going to have to make the ecosystem first, since last I checked what they do is sell cheap boxes with Windows on it. Dell servers? Running Windows, or perhaps Linux. For communications-- probably running Exchange. What OS would Dell put on a smartphone? Probably some flavor of Windows Mobile, presumably.

What the heck part of this constitutes a "Dell ecosystem"? Why would a Dell phone care what brand hardware its Exchange server runs on? Is Dell going to try and replace Exchange? Good luck with that one, companies have been at it for years without coming up with much (all due respect to Kerio, which is probably the best of those).

What would distinguish the interaction between a Dell phone and a Dell server from the normal interaction between a Windows Mobile handset, Windows desktops and Windows server-- and what track record does Dell have in providing such custom software, or consumer hardware to go with it?

The current players in the phone/smartphone markets all have something they bring to the table. Apple has brought its excellence in interface and industrial design. (Palm is trying to recapture the lead in those areas with the Pre.) The various Windows Mobile licensees bring compatibility and a wide range of hardware features. Nokia brings their excellent Symbian interface, honed over many years of attention to detail and consistency. Google is bringing their "open source" mentality.

What, exactly, would Dell be bringing? The author tries to answer this unanswerable question by throwing out the buzzword "enterprise". Since Dell sells (cheap) servers, and didn't do well at all with its consumer MP3 player, the Jukebox, it should focus on "enterprise", and the equivalent device is a smartphone. Nevermind that the WinMo space is pretty crowded these days with vendors who can be better or cheaper than Dell-- perhaps even better AND cheaper-- and the iPhone has it beat on design and fashion and the Blackberry has it beat with a real ecosystem.

If their background in PCs says anything at all, what they should be bringing is price-- make a WinMo handset with most (not all) of the features people want, and make it so cheap it's practically disposable. That would be recognizable as a "Dell ecosystem".

When Nortel switched from making its own WiMax gear to partnering with Alvarion, they swore up and down they were no less committed to WiMax.

Anybody with sense knew better, and now, everyone does.

This doesn't mean WiMax is dead, although portions of the tech press are of course stampeding towards that conclusion with reckless abandon. It does mean, of course, that many vendors that announced WiMax equipment were doing so to hedge their bets, and many vendors (especially those filing for bankruptcy) cannot afford those hedges anymore.

A slashdot discussion about Windows 7 brought up an argument I've seen before about market segmentation and product pricing. One of the common objections to such segmentation is the idea of locked features, or crippled versions-- products that are physically identical, but function differently based on the license purchased to go with them.

The argument goes like this: If I buy a cheap car, I get a cheap car. If I buy an expensive car, I get an expensive car. I don't buy a cheap car that actually includes a 12 cylinder engine but only runs on 4 because that's the level of performance I paid for. The analogy then gets extended to software to suggest that there's something wrong with varied pricing tiers for Windows if the physical product, in this case the installation media, is actually capable of installing any version, or, in other cases, the resulting installation actually contains the code necessary for all product features, even if all these product features are not actually functional because of the chosen price tier.

This, of course, is a barmy line of thinking but it's not so obvious to see that it is. As so many times happens on slashdot, the faulty logic is dressed up as a car analogy.

My responses run like this:

Carmakers don't do that because it's not cheaper to do that and because markets wouldn't accept those products. The economies of scale you get by standardizing all of your engine manufacturing on the most capable models are not the same as the economies of scale you get by manufacturing only a single installation media type for an operating system, independent of actual product tiers. For one, there are too many other parts for the car that cannot be arbitrarily restricted in this way (leather seats, bodywork, etc) so the gains are minimal.

 Click here for the complete text.

The below is a comment attached to CNet's latest Is WiMax Dead? story.

WiMax's primetime has come and gone. It was announced, what, about 2 years ago? It took ev-do, HSDPA, and other 3G networks (excusing t-mobile) that long to get a ton of coverage. That beginning hype-time, in my opinion, is one of the most important part of a release.

(Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, I don't want to appear troll-ish)

Nokia's has just discontinued the N810 tablet with WiMax-- a device that is, incidentally, too small to be a laptop of any sort, even a netbook, and too big to be a phone, and as such, I thought was never going to be a success. Nokia is still making a others versions, though.

So any technology that takes 2 years between the formulation of the standard and the rollout of commercial service is dead?

The "wimax is dead" meme is pretty popular right now. Full disclosure: I work for a company that is rolling out WiMax.

First of all, WiMax doesn't compete with EVDO and HSDPA and other 3G networks, because it's (trying to be) a faster, 4G network.

In addition, because unlike those other technologies, it's based on (rather than simply capable of supporting) IP it is very appropriate for companies offering fixed connectivity using IP who want to expand into wireless, or voice-centric companies thinking of expanding into data, or companies who are primarily interested in offering fixed service but are blocked because of regulatory or market problems.

 Click here for the complete text.

This story at MacFixit mentions ways of migrating email from Windows to Mac OS X.

I can personally recommend Emailchemy for users migrating from Windows to Mac OS X and need to move mail from Outlook or Outlook Express. Many programs support one or the other; this supports both, as well as many other programs, including Eudora and Thunderbird.