mail2web.com Blog

Welcome to part 3 of my series on Anti-Spam and Whitelisting. My last post referred to a method which makes it easier for email senders and recipients to request and complete the whitelisting process. I just wanted to take a moment to elaborate on that procedure now that its available for our customers. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in mail2web.com ~ 1 Comment

Subscribers of our mail2web.com Exchange Professional plan can now download their copy of Outlook 2007. This free upgrade from Outlook 2003 is currently available in 8 different languages and we’ll be adding more languages as Microsoft makes them available. Read the rest of this entry »

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Two researchers at the University of Warwick had a look the life spans of 528 Nobel Prize winners and mere nominees in physics and chemistry, and concluded that the winners outlived the losers by 1-2 years.

The authors postulate that winning the elusive prize enhances one’s socio-economic status (SES), which lowers psychological stress levels and in turn reduces coronary heart disease. The authors go on to say that there are many examples in society wherein higher status correlates with lower mortality rates. The attached graphic shows Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize winner in literature for 2006, having his socio-economic status improved. 

Our comment: We’re not entirely convinced – another explanation for longevity and overachievement might simply be that those with better immune and cardiothoracic systems outthink and outlive the rest of us.      

Mortality and Immortality - M.D. Rablen, A.J. Oswald, January 2007

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A co-worker here once had a Jaguar XJS – he loved the car, but it was in the shop every few months – the car was beautiful but the reliability sucked. 

Jaguar’s MTBF seems to have improved greatly lately, and if their new C-XF concept unveiled at the 2007 North American International Auto Show ever makes it into production, as the new X-Type, the company might well stage a comeback.

AutoWeek describes some of the C-XF’s highlights and design points, things such as the “raked windshield” “continuous lines” and “low roof”. 450hp 4.2 liter V8

Jaguar C-XF concept – AutoWeek 01/04/07

Posted in Automotive ~ 2 Comments

Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw seems to have a thing for astronomical watches. The Planetarium 2000, for example, which sells for $23,700, shows the 6 innermost planets as they orbit a tiny sun. Presumably, the orbital times are depicted accurately, and Saturn does indeed take 29.458 years to complete it’s turn around the dial.

Nice watch, but it might be a pain to have to reset it – imagine turning the crown for several hours in order to realign the planets.  …via Cool Hunting

Posted in General ~ No Comments

January 2007 marks the tenth anniversary of SoftCom.

The world has changed a great deal since we started. The Dot-com bubble saw the founding (and in many cases, dramatic failure) of numerous new Internet-based companies. The political and economic situation has been marked by increased globalization and the aftermath of the events of September 11th 2001. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in mail2web.com ~ 100 Comments

Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun got to spend about 45 minutes using the new Apple iPhone and reports back that that he really, really liked it. His review has several superlatives and many positive comments such as “perfect”, “simplest phone” and “most beautiful display”.

He confirms some details, such as 3rd party apps will not be allowed on the iPhone, and provides a bit of new info such as the device will run a sub-set of Leopard, Apple’s new OS.

There seems to be somewhat of a social epidemic of positive comments about the device going around at the moment, and just in time to prevent the iPhone from slipping into hubris, we thankfully find some nemesis comments courtesy of Steve Ballmer…in an interview with Information Week, Mr Ballmer was kind enough to share his opinions of the iPhone with us, viz: “Many other vendors are doing similar things for less” and to remind us of the phone’s high price tag and its lack of a keyboard.    

You could call iPhone perfect - Chicago Sun-Times, Jan 18 2007  

Posted in Music Players, Phones ~ 1 Comment

While that old saw re underpromise and overdeliver as a tool for managing customer expectations, always did seem to be true, it now seems to have some theoretical underpinnings as well. The Wall Street Journal is reporting new findings indicate that while the payback for exceeding expectations can be small, the penalty for missing them is greater.

To quote from the study Doing More, Doing Less: Asymmetric Consequences of Exceeding versus Falling Short of Promises by G.Ayelet and N.Epley : “…falling short of one’s promise makes promise-receivers significantly unhappy compared to doing exactly what was promised.”, at least according to the authors’ experiments.

And so, as per the above study, we will be changing the corporate motto here at GadgetManiac Inc. from “Cool Gadgets and Beyond” to “Lame Gadgets and Less“… 

Why Preparing Others for an Effort’s Failure Can Bring You Success – WSJ, January 16 2007     

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Thx to the Commonwealth Bank in Australia we now have a good idea of the cost of the iPod nano 2G in various countries, normalized to US$.

The nano seems to be most expensive in Brazil by far, and cheapest in Canada.

The reasons put forth for the differences include duties & tarrifs, shipping costs as well as Apple Inc’s pricing policies.

Sadly, there do not seem to be any arbitrage opps here.

Apple’s iPod takes on global currency markets – Reuters, Jan 18 2007

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LG officially announced the Prada Phone, model KE850, today. LG indicates that they worked closely with Prada SpA on various aspects such as design, user interface and marketing. The nearly-buttonless phone itself will sell for $775, has a 3.2in 240×400 resolution touch-screen, a 2MP camera and measures 99 x 54 x 12 mm and weighs 85 grams…a kind of diminutive but lux version of the Apple iPhone. 

PRADA and LG launch the world’s first completely touch screen mobile phone – LG Press Release, Jan. 18, 2007

Posted in Phones ~ 3 Comments