Online Maps That Steer You Wrong

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/technology/28soff.html?ex=1277611200&en=b0ba16ba70e0dd5f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT
Published: June 28, 2005

ONLINE mapping services were supposed to be a godsend for business travelers when they were introduced a few years ago. But for motorists like Diane Taub, the devil was in the turn-by-turn directions.

Ms. Taub, a computer tutor from Merrick, N.Y., has become lost using every major Web site, including MapQuest, MSN Maps and Directions, and Yahoo Maps.

The maps became a problem when she relocated to New York from Miami recently. "On Long Island, two nearby towns may have roads with the same name," she said. The sites do not draw a clear distinction, she added, "So it's easy to make a turn on the wrong one."

Her frustration recently boiled over when she queried three mapping sites for directions to LaGuardia Airport, and received three different sets of instructions. "Mapping sites give me a false sense of security," she said. "I don't trust them anymore."

Neither do a lot of business travelers. As increasing numbers of travelers come to rely on the sites for directions (about four of five business trips are by car), they are discovering that computer maps can sometimes lead them astray.

Roughly 1 in 50 computer-generated directions is a dud, according to Doug Richardson, the executive director for the Association of American Geographers. He blames inaccurate road information for most of the failures.

"You have to have the latest data about road characteristics - things like one-way streets, turns and exits in your system in order for it to generate accurate directions," he said.

Even if the streets remained static, online mapping would be an inexact science. Most of the major Web sites draw their data from a small group of competing suppliers and update their maps quarterly. They use a process called geocoding, which assigns a latitude-longitude coordinate to an address, to find a destination. Then their systems calculate the most efficient route. Each site handles the data in a slightly different way, which is why search results vary from mapping site to mapping site.

Online maps are free, of course. And to get something that hits the mark most of the time and doesn't cost anything, well, where's the catch?

If you're out for a Sunday drive, there is none. But business travelers know that the errors can be costly, especially when a deal hangs in the balance. The more business travelers lean on the Web-generated instructions, the greater the chance they will eventually drive away with a printout that leads them down the wrong road.

Many travelers have a story about getting lost following directions from a Web site. Vicki Burton, a process server in Chattanooga, Tenn., says the Web frequently throws her for a loop. "The police dispatchers get tired of me calling from out in the boonies when my directions don't pan out," she said. She says there are glaring errors on Internet maps. For example, she said, the road next to her house is listed as Ford Street on MapQuest, even though it has been named Beason Drive for decades.

Thanks to MapQuest, I've missed numerous business meetings in Washington. Recently, I clicked on MSN Maps and Directions to find the quickest way to an Italian restaurant in Orlando, Fla. It pointed the way to a quiet residential neighborhood but, alas, not to the pizza parlor I had in mind.

MapQuest, which claims to have a 75 percent market share, is easy for drivers to blame when they become lost. The company insists its service is reliable, with a nominal percentage of users complaining about bad information. "The vast majority of our directions are accurate," said Brian Hoyt, a spokesman for MapQuest, which is a unit of America Online. He acknowledges the crucial need to update the information to ensure continued accuracy.

Online mapping specialists say the directions will probably never be completely dependable, at least for business travelers on important road trips.

"Maps are generalized, graphic devices that help us understand the world," said Michael Peterson, the chairman of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Maps and the Internet and a professor of geography at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. "But they are not accurate depictions of reality."

So are online maps as good as they can get? Unless the world stops changing, the answer may be yes.

That doesn't mean you have to get lost. To improve your chances of making your next business meeting, consider buying a navigational computer that uses G.P.S. technology. Those systems constantly monitor your position and calculate the most efficient course. An old-fashioned atlas would help, too.

Or you could do what Ms. Taub, the computer tutor, recently started doing.

You could ask for directions.

E-mail: elliottc@nytimes.com

Which Internet phone service is best?

Smooth Operators
http://slate.msn.com/id/2121742/fr/rss/

By Sam Schechner
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2005, at 3:10 PM PT

I'm sitting in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. I just spoke with my girlfriend in New York for an hour. Per-minute cost: $0. That's because my trusty Internet phone came along with me.

An Internet phone is nothing more than an inconsequential-looking electronic adapter with blinking lights on the front and a few jacks in the back. Plug a normal telephone into its phone jack, then plug the adapter directly into your router, which is hooked up to a broadband Internet connection. Some Internet phone carriers also let you make calls through your computer; others, like Skype, require it. But the genius of most Internet phones is that your computer isn't involved at all.

Increasing competition from tech upstarts like Vonage and anxious traditionalists like Verizon has led to insanely low prices for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service. For flat rates as low as $20 per month, you can get a U.S. phone number with unlimited domestic calling?and several services also throw in Canada and parts of Latin America, Asia, and Europe, too. Moreover, because the little Internet phone adapters plug into any broadband Internet connection, your beloved 212 number will follow you to Abu Dhabi.

Competition has also led to a proliferation of newfangled Web features, many of which have spread to most carriers. You can have your voice mails e-mailed to you or check them online. You can forward your calls to several numbers?like your work or cell?simultaneously. And many have some kind of online address book that can enable call blocking and call filtering, too.

The downside of VoIP is that it's not real phone service. You may pay fewer taxes, but you don't automatically get, say, 911 service, and the thing won't work in a blackout. Reliability also is not always up to land-line snuff. Sometimes there's no dial tone, your outgoing calls don't go through, or the other party can't hear you. I also have a nagging suspicion that I am missing important calls, a fear stoked by scattered complaints like, "Your Internet phone sucks" and, "Why does your damned phone never pick up?"

Still, VoIP marketing has become so ubiquitous that even my dad wants in. To find out if VoIP is really mature enough to replace your land line, I performed a series tests on seven services. Keep in mind that these results are hardly scientific: The quality and reliability of these phones depends in great measure on the quality and reliability of your Internet connection. While my setup?a cable modem?is very common, it does not mean my experience was typical.

Methodology

Sound quality (15 points): Does it sound as good as a land line? I called a tester with no Internet phone experience (my dad) and asked him to blindly judge each phone. To hear how each system performed with limited bandwidth, we had conversations while I uploaded and downloaded enormous files on BitTorrent and played Xbox online. To find out how well each phone distinguished my voice from background noise, we spoke while I blasted OMD's Architecture & Morality.

Reliability (15 points): Do outgoing calls always go through? Does each incoming call actually ring? I set up a computer to make and receive one call every 10 minutes for a little more than nine hours straight. The idea was to see how many of the almost 60 calls were actually placed or received. Each missed call led to a one-point deduction from the maximum score of 15.

International (5 points): Some newer phone services include unlimited calling to certain countries. Many others charge very low per-minute rates. I averaged the per-minute rates from the United States to London, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo, then plotted the costs on a five-point scale. The most expensive service got 1 point, the cheapest 5 points. (To be fair, the highest average?AT&T's 6 cents per minute?wasn't terribly high.)

Portability (5 points): I lugged every one of these devices on a plane to Los Angeles, and none of them set off any red flags with baggage screeners. Two of them went with me to Abu Dhabi, where they passed through customs without a problem. The score, then, is based solely on size and weight. They vary from the size of a deck of cards (GalaxyVoice) to that of a George Foreman grill (AT&T).

Bells and whistles (5 points): These days most VoIP providers have the same suite of features, but some are missing big ones (online voice mail), and others stand out with intuitive Web interfaces that allow you to make call-forwarding schedules or even program music to play while your friends are on hold.

Number selection (5 points): With local number portability, you can bring your own number to your Internet phone. But half the fun is choosing your own area code, and sometimes your whole phone number. Points were awarded for ease of selection and availability of the coveted 212.

Results (from worst to first):

BroadVoice
$39.95 activation fee and $24.95 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S. and 34 countries.

I tested BroadVoice as the geek option. It advertises the ability to BYOD (i.e., "bring your own device"), meaning you're in luck if you're one of the few who has something like the ZyXEL P-2000W v.2 Wi-Fi phone. For the rest of us, the most appealing thing about BroadVoice is the promise of unlimited calling to 35 countries. If only it worked consistently. During the reliability test, the phone got stuck on a fast busy signal for more than two hours when making outgoing calls. It didn't fare so well in voice quality, either. When I uploaded a few big files to test the response to limited bandwidth, my dad grew frustrated with the garbled sound. "This one is the pits," he said.

Sound quality: 9.5
Reliability: -2
International: 5
Portability: 4
Bells and whistles: 4 (sleek Web interface, but awesome-sounding new features like e-mail notifications for calls from specific phone numbers have been listed as "coming soon" for months)
Number selection: 2 (no 212; international numbers are available)
Total: 22.5

Skype
0.017 euros per minute (approximately 2 cents per minute) to the U.S. and many countries (10 euro minimum purchase, plus 30 euros for 12 months of incoming calls and voice mail).

The free computer-to-computer phone service has recently made a play to be your everyday phone. Skype now offers the bare minimum that you need to replace a land line: outgoing and incoming calls to and from regular telephones, plus voice mail service. You'll have fun choosing your phone number through a snazzy interface that searches for specific sequences of digits or letters, but the selection isn't very big. (Also, for some reason your number shows up on other peoples' caller ID as a weirdo foreign number.) In the automated test, all but one incoming call came through. But several times when I called on my own, calls wouldn't connect and I'd have to try again. The hollow voice quality wasn't nearly up to land-line snuff on my older PC laptop, either.

Sound quality: 6
Reliability: 14*
International: 3
Portability: 5 (no adapter required)
Bells and whistles: 1
Number selection: 2 (no 212; international numbers are available)
Total: 31

*Only tested incoming, as I couldn't figure out how to automate a batch of outgoing Skype calls.

Verizon VoiceWing
Free activation and $34.95 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S.

Verizon's "VoiceWing" service raises a key question: Why dilute a recognizable brand by inventing a stupid name for your VoIP service? (Also see: AT&T CallVantage.) In any case, VoiceWing's top-notch Web site features integration with its online yellow pages and lets you coordinate simultaneous ringing of your VoIP line, cell phone, and work number. But even in the normal conversation test, my dad thought VoiceWing sounded a little too tinny. When I made business calls, one source told me I sounded "fuzzy" and told me to call back. Can you hear me now? Not so well.

Sound quality: 8
Reliability: 10
International: 1 (even Canada isn't free)
Portability: 4
Bells and whistles: 5
Number selection: 4 (no 212; nice selection otherwise)
Total: 32

Packet8
$29.95 activation fee and $19.95 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada.

I've been a Packet8 customer for more than a year now. Packet8 once lapped the field by offering a flat, $20-per-month rate for unlimited long distance when everyone else charged around $35. But in the last several months, everyone's lowered their prices while continuing to offer features that Packet8 doesn't have?like online voice-mail retrieval, which I desperately covet. Instead, Packet8 has invested its time making an optional $250 videophone that at least works pretty well (even between Abu Dhabi and New York). The good news: The voice quality was perfect when I wasn't uploading anything, and not so bad otherwise. "It's better than a regular phone," says dad.

Sound quality: 11
Reliability: 13
International: 3
Portability: 3
Bells and whistles: 1
Number selection: 2 (no 212)
Total: 33

Vonage
$29.99 activation fee plus $24.95 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada.

The most prominent VoIP provider did fine: good reliability and pretty good voice quality. It has the de rigeur online voice-mail retrieval and multiple-phone-ringing ability?what it calls "SimulRing." But Vonage doesn't quite rise to land-line replacement level?it doesn't sound as good as Packet8.

Sound quality: 9
Reliability: 14
International: 1
Portability: 4
Bells and whistles: 5
Number selection: 3 (no 212)
Total: 36

GalaxyVoice
$24.95 activation fee and $19.95 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S. and to 20 other countries.

The cheapest option turns out to be a very good value if you're willing to sacrifice some voice quality. GalaxyVoice offers 212 numbers, the smallest adapter I tested, and a perfect score in the reliability test. But the real claim to fame here is the "free" plan: Pay $60 for an adapter and activation fee and you get 60 minutes of outgoing calls and unlimited incoming calls for free, so long as you accept a Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, or New York area code?including 212! The catch: Even under optimal conditions, the quality wasn't so great, and it was completely impossible to have a conversation during the BitTorrent/Xbox test.

Sound quality: 8
Reliability: 15
International: 5
Portability: 5
Bells and whistles: 3
Number selection: 4 (has 212!)
Total: 40

AT&T CallVantage
$29.99 activation fee and $29.99 per month for unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada (first month free, through Dec. 31, 2005).

Along with GalaxyVoice, CallVantage is the only service that didn't miss a single incoming or outgoing call. Most important, this was the only provider to sound as good as or better than a land line during both normal and Xbox/BitTorrent conversations. The reason, an AT&T flack tells me, is that their adapter replaces your router and throttles back bandwidth-hogging devices (like your computer or Xbox) while you're on a call. Unfortunately, that means it's bigger than any other adapter?about the size of a small George Foreman grill. And it also needs to be wired between your cable or DSL modem and anything else that's connected to the Internet, making it more cumbersome to unplug and take with you. Not that my dad cares. "This is the one I want," he says.

Sound quality: 14
Reliability: 15
International: 1
Portability: 1
Bells and whistles: 5
Number selection: 5 (has 212!)
Total: 41
Sam Schechner is a freelance writer in New York.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2121742/

Expansion Upgrades: USB 2.0 and Firewire

Source: Dummies.com

Consider adding ports onto an older PC. Although adding or upgrading ports won't speed up your computer, you'll be able to connect a wider range of external devices ? and those devices are likely to run faster, transferring data to and from your PC at many times the rate of your pokey old serial and parallel ports.

 

Adding Universal Serial Bus (USB) or FireWire ports to your PC is a relatively easy upgrade. All this involves is removing the cover from your PC and adding an adapter card to one of the open slots on your motherboard. Remember, this is how that original cadre of IBM engineers ? the ones who designed the architecture of the first PCs ? intended for you to add functionality to your computer, so it's practically a walk in the park.

The major differences between USB 2.0 and FireWire ports are as follows:

 

USB 2.0: This is the faster version of the USB port, with blazing speed and the ability to connect to older USB 1.x hardware. Unless you're using an external FireWire drive, digital camera, or digital video (DV) camcorder, USB 2.0 is the best choice for adding state-of-the-art, modern portage (ports for scanners, external hard drives, CD/DVD recorders, fax machines, printers, and the like) to your PC.

 

FireWire: If you'd like to upgrade your PC for use with your DV camcorder -- or if you're interested in adding a fast external hard drive or DVD recorder -- FireWire is your port of choice. Also, FireWire peripherals are usually easy to share with Mac owners because every modern Mac made within the last two or three years has at least one FireWire port.

Real Estate Resources on the Web

Web Guide: Real Estate

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1069048,00.html?promoid=rss_business

Whether you're looking for your first home--or second, or third--or trying to unload while the market is still hot, these web resources can help answer your real estate questions
By PATRICK STACK

Posted Saturday, Jun. 04, 2005

NEWS AND INFORMATION

Realtor.com: Real Estate 101
This real-estate listing site, run by the National Association of Realtors, offers tutorials on financing, buying and selling, home styles, price factors and more for those new to the world of real estate

Realty Times
Realty Times features a stable of columnists and advice for those in the real-estate market

Reals.com
With links to nearly every type of real-estate site, this index is one of the most comprehensive ones online

International Real Estate Digest
Extensive listings of brokers, real-estate agencies, blogs and hundreds of real-estate sites across the globe

CraigsList Housing Discussion Group

Domania.com
House prices, home valuations and property value information

INTERACTIVITY

BankRate.com Calculators
Figure out what you can afford to pay for a home or property ?and then calculate your mortgage.

SmartMoney Mortgage Calculator
Use this site to decide what you should be paying for your property

HousingMaps.com
Find maps of available housing with this service from Google Maps and Craigslist

TerraFly
Get a bird's-eye view of a property using its address, then find data on real estate in the area you select

REAL-ESTATE BLOGS

Technorati Tag: Real Estate
Search blogs that have real-estate content tagged by Technorati

Grow-a-Brain
Billed as "the original real-estate blog", real-estate agent Hanan Levin in Southern California runs this blog on behalf of the three-person agency where he works. The blog offers commentary on the real-estate industry, with tips and tactics for selling or buying properties, as well as general sites of interest on all topics under the sun

The Housing Bubble 2
Arizonan Ben Jones blogs on the white-hot real estate market and its impact on the larger economy

Real Estate Memoirs Blog
Local real estate agents from various markets contribute to this blog, which also offers a Statistic of the Week and tips for selling or buying property direct from agents themselves

Using Your Cellphone Anywhere in the World

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/travel/19prac.html?ex=1276833600&en=0b800c807ab54abf&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

By DAVID A. KELLY

AMERICAN cellphones work fairly well across most of the United States, but what about when you travel to, say, Paris? With newer phones that support international standards, reducing roaming rates and allowing you to take advantage of local rates, it's now easier and cheaper to stay in touch with cellphones when traveling overseas.

The place to start is with a GSM phone. Just as radios operate on different standards (AM vs. FM) and frequencies, so do cellphones. Two of the most popular cellular standards are GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access), each of which uses different frequencies (think radio stations).

For travelers, GSM is the driving force behind easier roaming, since it's the standard used in most countries (though some like Japan and South Korea use others). GSM is also the main network for American carriers like Cingular and T-Mobile, while others, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint, have recently released hybrid phones that include GSM for roaming. Without a newer hybrid phone, a traveler on a non-GSM network will have limited international roaming options.

In recent years, Cingular, T-Mobile and other companies have begun selling phones and service plans that can be used in both the United States and other GSM-based countries. Susan Simmons, vice president of strategy at the Management Network Group, a communications industry consulting company, said that the move is aimed at "the average consumer, student or business person traveling abroad who doesn't want to worry about the hassle or expense of renting an international world phone."

For example, Cingular's World Basics Plus Western Europe Plan ($5.99 a month) has a flat 99-cents-a-minute roaming rate in 23 countries. Users need a GSM phone with the frequency for the country they're visiting. Sites like www.gsmworld.com (click on Roaming, then Coverage Maps) list GSM bands for each country.

With the purchase of a global phone, Verizon Wireless customers can obtain GSM roaming rates of $1.29 a minute plus long distance charges for many countries. In some that use CDMA, like Canada, Bermuda, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, the rate is just 69 cents a minute.

"Verizon has done a good job of creating solutions where customers can use their phones overseas," said Delly Tamer, founder and C.E.O. of LetsTalk.com, a San Francisco-based online wireless retailer who notes that Verizon Wireless has two new phones - the Samsung SCH-A790 and Motorola A840 - that are compatible with both GSM and CDMA networks.

For a $36 fee and $6 a month, Sprint customers can get GSM and lower roaming fees - for example, $1.50 a minute including long distance with a Samsung IP-A790.

But there are drawbacks to these hybrid phones, said David Rowell, founder of The Travel Insider, a Web site and online newsletter that focuses on travel and technology (www.thetravelinsider.info).

"For someone who wants the most flexibility, a hybrid phone is not the best choice, since it has fewer frequency bands and locks you into a service," Mr. Rowell said. "Hybrid phones that work on CDMA and GSM don't currently work in as many countries as a normal GSM phone."

On top of that, hybrids are expensive. For example, Sprint offers the Samsung IP-A790 for $399.99 (online price with activation), and Verizon Wireless the Samsung SCH-A790 for $349.99 with a two-year agreement.

Conversely, Cingular offers the GSM-only Siemens CT66 for as low as $29.99 with a two-year agreement, or the Nokia 6230 for $99.99 after a rebate.

Once you have a GSM phone, you need to make sure that it is "unlocked." American carriers usually configure the subsidized phone that you receive when signing a service contract so that you can't simply use that phone on another network.

Unlocking that configuration allows you to use other carriers' SIM cards - removable chips that determine the phone's network and number - and potentially obtain cheaper rates. Web-based companies like www.unlock123.com will unlock phones for as little as $5. Mr. Rowell said that while most American companies won't unlock phones for their customers, T-Mobile will do it after 90 days in a contract.

With an unlocked phone, "you can simply walk into any cellphone store in the foreign country your visiting, purchase a new, local SIM card and some additional air time, pop the SIM card in your phone and be making calls," said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research in San Francisco.

This new SIM card gives you a local phone number, making local calls inexpensive. Incoming calls (even international) are free in many countries, so you can have friends or associates call you at less expensive United States rates while you can talk free as long as your battery holds out. But your voice mail may or may not work, and you may have to manually dial your voice mail number.

Sites like www.telestial.com offer pre-paid SIM cards for foreign countries, saving travelers the need to find a store. For example, a Virgin Mobile SIM card for Britain with $6 of airtime credit costs $40 from Telestial; rates to the United States are about 37 cents a minute, at $1.87 to the pound.

Even after you buy a SIM card, you may want to do as Mr. Tamer of LetsTalk.com suggests and buy a separate prepaid phone card to save money on international calls. "Instead of eating up local minutes," he said, "you can call the equivalent of an 800 number and obtain much cheaper rates."