ABC news has an article on their site explaining that, “[there is a] distinct possibility that the North Pole could be free of sea ice — for the first time in recorded history…” Lest anyone think that these are the ravings of crazed environmentalists, the Naval Postgraduate school in Monterrey, CA is predicting that the entire ice sheet could disappear in the summer months within 4-5 years.
So I’ve been getting a bunch of emails from Sonicwall telling me that my “subscription services” are about to expire. I just bought the thing a month ago, and it has a number of add-ons (e.g. content filtering, spam filtering) that you can subscribe to annually. I don’t need any of that and basically ignored the emails. I finally got a call from a sales rep who explained that all of the firmware and software upgrades would no longer be available unless I renewed my support. This was pretty disappointing and a very surprising; hard to believe that you buy a piece of hardware and it only comes with 30 days of firmware upgrades. I’ve been very happy with the performance of the firewall so far, and it is very full featured. However, anyone who’s considering it as a purchase should know that you’re going to be paying at least another ~$50/year if you want to stay current with firmware and security patches.
I’ve just registered for the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. It’s being held at the convention center from August 14 – 16. Should be tons of fun; some very well known podcasters and new-media luminaries are presenting. Only downside: as it’s the middle of August in Vegas it will probably be about 145 degrees outside…
