+ Oodles of missed opportunities. Western Union was the worst. They even rejected the telephone back in the late 1800s because they thought no one would use it. AT&T missed the cell phone, the Internet, the communications satellite and fibre optics. When they finally got broken up, they choose to keep Western Electric, the manufacturing arm, because someone in Western told AT&T’s chairman that they had invented a spectacular new computer which would put IBM out of business. Then they bought NCR and wrote off $8 billion plus — when $8 billion was worth something. Remember those days?<\/p>\n
+ At one stage the telecom industry defined “open” standards, but never opened them. Then never bothered using those standards themselves. It was only when the Internet came along that we got really open standards. And Apple’s AppStore allowed us to write communications apps, like Whatsapp, which singlehandedly destroyed the billions of dollars of revenues the phone companies were stealing from us in instant messaging. Couldn’t have happened to nicer people.<\/p>\n
+ This stuff will never stop and will only get better. When I first entered telecom, a NY to LA call was 35 cents a minute. Now it’s free. Fiber is the best. Nobody knows what it can really carry. Google is delivering one gigabit of data to households in places I don’t live. (Shucks.) That’s 1,000,000,000 bits per second — 143 times as fast I’m getting this morning. Speed really matters. Every time we’re notched speed up, someone has figured a creative way to use it. And not just watching old movies on Netflix.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I bought this darling little $27 modem.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 Now I can send faxes directly from my laptop. It’s from Amazon. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n People keep asking why Europe is doing so well? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I just read that the European Union spends nearly 40% of its total budget on subsidies for its farmers. Makes sense to me!<\/p>\n Favorite New York Times sentence:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Hedge Funds Give Quarterly Snapshots of Their Portfolios Four times a year,<\/p>\n Create a System-Repair Disc<\/strong><\/span>. this useful information from a computer magazine (I don’t remember which one):<\/p>\n Before you do one more thing with your PC, dig out the box it came in. Do you see a Windows 7 disc or a system-recovery disc? They’re less common these days, so chances are it falls to you to create your own. And it’s vital that you do, because if your system ever becomes unbootable, a recovery CD or DVD might be your only recourse.<\/p>\n Thankfully, Windows 7 makes the task exceedingly easy. Just pop in a blank, recordable CD or DVD (you’ll need a burner, natch), click Start, type repair, and choose Create a System Repair Disc. Follow the instructions from there, remembering to label the disc when you’re done.<\/p>\n If you ever run into trouble, boot your system with the repair disc. It includes a variety of recovery and diagnostic tools, and also lets you choose a System Restore point to help get your PC back to a previous, working state.<\/p>\n Make this disc now. If you wait until after you encounter a problem, it’s too late.<\/p>\n Jimmy Fallon honors Robin Williams with a spot-on impersonation, vintage clip.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"TrendnetModem\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/TrendnetModem.jpg\")
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