I am for what is being call net neutrality, codified into law in some meaningful manner.

The push by companies like AT&T to squeeze another revenue stream out of the internet is ridiculous.

They already own the pipes, charge both consumers and producers for access in the form of hosting, broadband and related networking services.

The idea that any producer of content should pay additional fees to pass content, requested by consumers, over the network built with tax dollars, is wholly dangerous to the economy and business innovations generated by an open network – the level playing so to speak.

If AT&T wants more revenue, give me better service. How about fiber to the desktop? More stable DSL connections? VoIP service? Unified messaging for my mobile phone and business phone? The best data center, hosting or colocation services on the planet?

There are a plethora of services and enhancements that would motivate me to pay more.

I will NOT pay them to remove an considered impediment to consumers receiving requested content from my sites.

I would sooner route around them. Move everything to a foreign network make them irrelevant. Sure they will still affect some users, but the sucking sound of companies moving servers to other networks, and even countries would be deafening.

In the end, this push is simply a desperate gasp of a dying goliath, pierced by a million tiny spears. The tiny spears being P2P, VoIP, Wifi and on demand video.

The once mighty telcos are being driven from the top of the food chain. Relegated to middle man status, they don’t like the view from down their.

It might be futile to think so, but hopefully Congress will not cave to these bastards.

Having used mobile iTunes on the Motorola SLVR for a couple weeks, I am fairly impressed.

When syncing tracks from iTunes to the SLVR, it knows when you have partially listened to a track. This is hugely important when listening to long tracks, such as podcasts.

The big drawback comes when going the other direction, since no data it sent to your Mac regarding track location.

Here is an invention for Apple.

Automatically transfer track data from the mobile device to the Mac, kicking off the track currently playing on the phone when you are within range or initiate the sequence.

For example, I am listening to a podcast in the car, walk into the house and the device automatically launches iTunes and starts playing the track I am listening to, from the location in the track last played on the mobile device.

They could use bluetooth to send over the data quite easily, or perhaps the infrared port on the new MacBooks.

Obviously many nuances would need to be customizable. Such as whether to merely queue up the track to the location vs. actually playing the track, stopping the mobile device when the desktop start playing, etc.

I hope someone over at Apple is working on just such a feature in their rumored iPhone.

Pros – Solidly engineered, thin, excellent battery life and completely usable iTunes integration.

Cons – Slow USB transfers from iTunes, can’t use included headset while charging.

When deciding to dump the Crackberry, I went in search of a phone. I had settled on this phone mainly because it didn’t try to do too much. It is world-ready, has a completely usable OS, and plays music and podcasts dependably.

track Mr. Lovely rocks. You can buy her tracks or album here.

I caught it on Adam Currey’s Daily Source Code podcast.

It also turned me on to, Indieeclectic.com. Which is a pretty cool indie music site that sell DRM free music.

Tonight I gave Parallels a try, in place of Apple’s Boot Camp, and ran smack dab into Windows Activation thinking it has been activated too many times.

This on the same machine that was running the same copy under Boot Camp.

What a royal pain in the arse!

Now I get to chew up more toll-free minutes on Microsoft’s activation support line. At the pace I go through Macs, I’ll probably cost Microsoft more than they made selling me the retail copy in about 12 months.

Pros – Aesthetically perfect, stupendously fast and a perfect replacement for all currently shipping Mac Desktops.

Cons – Can reach searing temperatures when stressed, and some units have the dreaded CPU whine (like mine).

Overall, this is an awesome laptop that runs rings about all previous Macs. With the addition of Boot Camp/Windows XP or Linux the world is wide open to MacBook owners.

For the digitally entertained, I can be found playing Battlefield 2 on the Straferight.com servers or WoW on Bronzebeard under the name Slobberfist (<- don’t ask).

During my personal reboot over the last few weeks, I settled on a strategy for keeping e-mail in check.

That is, not distracting me from being present and focused on current activities.

First, I re-committed to the golden rules found at 43 Folders. Such as, organizing e-mail by priority (Inbox, Action, Hold, Respond and Archive).

The most important change though, was dumping my Crackberry and Growl notifications.

They were too distracting, pulling attention from what I was doing. Nothing breaks a chain of thought or the flow of activity faster than an e-mail message.

The golden rule for e-mail is to never expect a reply in less than 24 hours.

If something is urgent, get on the phone to either discuss the issue or alert me to any time constraint your incoming message may have.

I think a lot of internet-centric workers think they are working and being productive just by sitting in front of a computer.

Not so, in my opinion.