A recent post by Julian Bleecker on how people will devise complicated systems to find a way to communicate reminded me of the time I worked in a callback company.

In areas where owning a cell phone is not routine — for economic reasons, predominantly — it is not uncommon for a stranger to ask another stranger to borrow their handset to make a call. This happened to Francois on a trip somewhere and he, being a nice guy, agreed and handed over his phone. Only he thought this stranger was going to just go ahead and make a call. Instead the stranger dismantled Francois’ phone — removed the back, spilled the battery out and popped out the SIM card and then popped his own SIM card in there, reassembled the phone and made a bunch of calls in rapid succession, hanging up on each one after the first ring or two. (Mobile Phone Usage Idiom — No. 1)

While I worked there, I experienced a lot of so called hacks both to prevent callback to operate and to fight these restrictions. I had to designed some of these hacks to keep the service operating in some countries. Let’s first explain how callback works.
Callback is based on the following principle: instead on making one call, make 3 calls with the help of a distant machine. On the downside, calling somebody can be seen as a hassle but on the plus side, you can make calls for much more cheaper (depending on where you are located).

How does callback works (the original system)

1. You contact a callback company
2. They create a account for you with the following information
1. the number you need to call, which is uniquely assigned to you
2. the number where you want to make the call from
3. You call the number assigned to you
4. You let it ring (generally once is enough)
5. You hang up before anybody picks up
6. The company (which recognized you based on the number you called) calls you back
7. You answer the call and get a prompt to dial your destination number
8. The company puts you “in relation” with this number
9. Once you hang up, the company will have billed you for 2 calls: once for the call from the company to you and once for the call from the company to your destination number

An example of how it works

Person A lives in Angola and wants to call Person B who lives in France. This kind of call are usually really expensive (more than $1/min). Person A decides to signup with a callback company (like United World Telecom the one I worked for). Person A account main information would look something like that

• Callback Number: +1 305 555 1234
• Source Number : +244 123 456 789

Now Person A wants to call Person B whose number is + 33 9 12 34 56 78. Person A will need to do the following:

1. Person A calls the number +1 305 555 1234, let it rings once and hang up (cost = none)
2. The company receives the call on a group of lines dedicated to receiving these call ( like 10-15 lines dedicated and matched to hundreds or thousands of phone numbers). The phone number +1 305 555 1234 can be thought of as being a “virtual” phone number, there is actually no physical line dedicated to this particular number. Along with the call, the telecom operators along the way are passing along the phone number in a format that can be captured by the callback company.
3. Once the phone number is captured, the callback company will look up in its database for the phone number called (here 305 555 1234)
4. The callback number is associated to the corresponding source number
5. The callback system picks up a line, calls the number +244 123 456 789 and wait for the person to pick up
6. The callback system picks up another line, calls the number +33 9 12 34 56 78 and link the two lines on its system so that Person A and Person B can talk to each other.
7. Once the call is finished, Person A can end the distant part of the call with a key combination and redial another number or hang up
8. On the callback company side, the two calls are added up and charged to Person A

Cost (as of 2002)

Option A: Direct Call from Angola to France: > $1

Option B : Same Call using callback

• Trigger call: Free
• Call from US to Angola: approx. $0.40/ min
• Call from US to France : approx $0.05/min
• Total: $0.45

Next, I will describe some of the features (speed dials,…) and how they can sometimes serve other really important functions that the ones they were originally designed for.

Typepad, one of the blogging tool from Six Apart , was down for several hours on Friday (approx 15-20 hrs)
Now, it is the turn of Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking manager, that just got bought by Yahoo!
Del.icio.us has been down since 8pm PST yesterday and was back online early today.

More info on the Del.icio.us blog

OSU’s Valley Library has many ways to get the books you need

By Riad Lemhachheche

The OSU Valley Library owns about 1.9 million monographic volumes (books, videos, maps and government documents). Yet, OSU patrons may not find all the items they need for their research or classes in the shelves of the Valley Library.

Indeed, while the OSU collection is substantial, it is nowhere near the Library of Congress with its 130 million items spread over 530 miles of bookshelves. Additionally, OCLC WorldCat, a worldwide library cooperative, reached one billion holdings this August.

The Valley clearly pales in comparison with it’s 1.9 mil. But, as the saying goes, it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it.

So, what are the options left to OSU patrons if items they’re looking for isn’t on the shelves here in fair Corvallis?

In the case of articles, the library subscribes to several online publications accessible through the online catalog.

Another resource is the Summit Alliance Web catalog. Summit is the catalog of all the holdings of the 33 partnering academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest and was created by the merger of Orbis, the Oregon Academic Library Association, and Cascade, its Washington Counterpart. The catalog contains more than 20 million items of which 8 million are unique titles.

Any search done on the OSU catalog, OASIS, can be repeated on the Summit catalog and OSU patrons can borrow items available from any of the Summit Alliance member institutions.

Turnaround time is around three to five days for Summit borrowing.

“The interesting thing is that of this database, 65 percent of the books in the database are owned by only one of the Alliance members. That heterogeneity really increases the value of belonging to the Alliance,” said John Pollitz, the associate university librarian for public services and innovative technology.

Other benefits to the OSU community come from OSU belonging to Summit.

“If you live in Salem or Portland, you can pick up items at another member university,” said Sara Thompson, the library employee in charge of Summit.

Extended campus students living more than 30 miles from campus may even be eligible to receive items at home.

While Summit can prove to be a good resource to look for books, patrons looking for scientific articles and more specialized books may need to go to the next level and place a request for an interlibrary loan (ILL). The request will then be processed by the library ILL office. Using the WorldCat database system that connect libraries from around the world, library staff search for other libraries holding the item based on location and cost and sends electronic requests on behalf of patrons. Using ILL, it can take from three days to one month or more to receive the item. Books come from around the state, but may originate from South Africa, the United Kingdom or even China

ILL can be used by all the library patrons indifferently of class status or major, free of charge. But not all requests may be accepted.

“It is primarily a curriculum resource. Interlibrary loan should fulfill your curriculum,” said Susan Wood who works with ILL.

So while Summit requests are not mediated by library staff, interlibrary loans may be cancelled if they don’t have an academic goal.

“We usually don’t cancel interlibrary loan requests,” Wood said. But unless a student is doing a research on “Harry Potter” or other popular books, the request for the latest volume may not get through. The Library will then redirect patrons toward the Corvallis Public Library and that interlibrary loan service if necessary.

Ordering items from other libraries can reserve some surprises though.

“Once, we received a CPR dummy in a big box with a video and a book,” said Thompson.

Some other surprises included patrons receiving 16 mm film when they expected to receive a movie on DVD.

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is What you need not flying off the shelf? Try the library’s catalogs

Global Positioning System technology has become famous for letting hikers and travelers find their location wherever they are.

GPS devices are used in cars to provide driving directions and in airplanes to display the distance to one’s final destination. But GPS is only the tip of a growing industry and academic field known as Geographic Information Systems or GIS.

“GPS is no good unless GIS is doing analysis with that data”, said Dawn Wright, professor in the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University.

GIS technologies are used for research in forest science or oceanography, as well as being incorporated in products and services used by millions of people every day.

Mapping services like Mapquest, Yahoo Maps or Google Earth rely heavily on GIS to associate topographic data, street and highway layout and traffic information to enable their users to plan their travels.

GIS experts were on the forefront of the emergency response team during the Katrina relief effort. They were able to generate up-to-date maps of transportation systems and locate areas where flooding had the most impact.

OSU is an academic leader in the GIS field, as it is one of the 16 founders of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the major academic consortium in the field, that now counts over 70 members.

Last fall, OSU launched a new program for students and community to provide increased learning opportunities in the field of GIS.

The certificate program in Geographic Information Science is available to students from any major. It is a collaborative effort among at least six programs at OSU: geosciences, oceanography, forestry, computer science, horticulture, and crop and soil science.

The Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI, the major corporation in the field of GIS, supports OSU’s initiative with $500,000 worth of software.

To support their coursework, students have access to the resources of different research programs on campus through the extensive collection managed by the Valley Library. An example of these resources is the Oregon Coastal Atlas built jointly by the geosciences department, the state of Oregon and Ecotrust, a group interested in sustainability.

The certificate program includes a course on ethics principles, making OSU one of the few schools in the nation to educate its students on the ethical issues associated with geographic data.

These issues are becoming ever more important as mobile phones make it possible to log every move people make. For example, Internet users have already cross-referenced public databases, such as sexual offenders listings, with Google Maps. Dots on such maps represent the location of the sexual offenders.

Today is an opportunity for the OSU community to see for themselves what GIS is all about. As part of Geographic Awareness Week, OSU is having a campus-wide GIS day where activities will present the different aspects of the technology.

Among the general public, 400 sixth graders and their teachers will invade the OSU campus for a GPS hike. The City of Corvallis Mobile GIS truck will be parked in the MU Quad from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to showcase the new wireless networking technology in use in its Public Works department.

“We look forward to seeing what our colleagues and students are doing with the technology, some of which is also receiving national attention, to interacting with the kids who will be visiting, as well as with locals from the Willamette Valley who will come to campus to see our events,” said Wright.

The OSU GIS Day activities schedule is available on the Internet at http://www .geo.oregonstate.edu/gisday.

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story published in the OSU Daily Barometer. The original is Oregon State GIS group gets ready to map your world

San Francisco – Alamo Square

See also San Francisco City hall, Bay Bridge, Telegraph Hill, The City.

There is also a 1-min amazing video of San Francisco in Jell-O earthquake

(via metamanda)

Local start up is also a multi-national enterprise

By Riad Lemhachheche

OSU alumni Matthew McLoughlin, left, Rick Hangartner and Jim Shur show off the MyStrands program they have helped develop into an international franchise with more than 40 employees.

MusicStrands, a local company, is planning to change the way people discover and share music.

Music enthusiasts may search numerous venues for novelty: specialized magazines, MTV, the radio, concerts or even friends. There isn’t an easy way to discover new cool songs without some effort.

MusicStrands is trying to change that. MusicStrands’ free software, MyStrands, recommends songs based on what you are currently listening to.

Connected to Apple’s iTunes (and soon other players), the application looks at your listening behavior and searches in its 5-million-song database for recommendations.

“When you listen to radio, watch TV, or read a magazine, you are discovering the music others are telling you to discover. What MusicStrands wants is for people to have greater control of the music they discover,” said Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, vice president of marketing and communications at MusicStrands.

Several other companies are trying to provide innovative music recommendation services. Amazon.com, for example, provides its customers with recommendations based on their previous purchases. LastFm collects your playlists and provides you with recommendations based on your profile.

What sets MusicStrands apart from the competition is the fact that “MyStrands is the only system that recommends based on what you play, that provides with instant recommendations,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

“The songs you are playing now represents your context,” said Matthew McLaughlin, a 2005 OSU graduate and vice president of product innovation for the company. In fact, MusicStrands offers two types of recommendations. MyStrands offers instant recommendations based on your current mood and the latest songs you played, while the Web site gives you recommendations on your complete profile.

What if your tastes do not fit mainstream standards? MusicStrands places a lot of emphasis on independent music. The MusicStrands Indy program enables artists to get profiled for free in the system by including information on their music and letting them add links to hear their songs.

“It is not based on advertising, it is based on how they play,” McLaughlin said.

Another service offered is MusicStrands’ music charts, which enable users to share music charts that update daily and automatically on their Web site or blog.

And according to the company, this is just the beginning. MusicStrands, which was created in the summer of 2004, is growing fast. It employs 40 people in offices in both the United States and Spain.

The company, headquartered in Corvallis, is on a highly dynamic market and enjoys agreements with companies such as Amazon, Apple and Wal-Mart.

The company’s relationship to OSU is special since it employs several OSU alumni and counts Jon Herlocker and Thomas Dietterich, two computer science professors, among its founders.

“MusicStrands is rooted in Corvallis. Corvallis is a great place to hire talent and to attract talent. We heavily want to hire more talent from the university,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

That’s why the company, which is always on the lookout for new ideas, invites OSU students to submit theirs to ideas@musicstrands.com.

“If we like the idea, it is possible that the student comes to our offices to make it happen,” Aldamiz-echevarria said.

More information on MusicStrands is available at www.musicstrands.com

Riad Lemhachheche, staff writer
city@dailybarometer.com, 737-6376

NOTE: this is a reprint of a story for the Oct 14th OSU Daily Barometer. Original version The music you may like, recommended by ….YOU – The Daily Barometer

UPDATE: see the excellent review from Nicolas who call it a social itunes

Here could can see my interests with the weight of the font somewhat symbolizing the importance.

ACM AIFLA Collaboration Computer Corvallis Context

CPE Lyon Daily Barometer Data Capture CSCW Design E-Business Law

HCI Information Architecture Intel

Interaction Design Mobility Network Online Services

Oregon State University Phone Privacy

Project Management Research & Development RFID

San Francisco Search Engine Services

Student Ubiquity Ultimate Disc / Frisbee

Usability Engineering User Experience User Interface

Wi-Fi Wireless