Broadband for Everyone

Broadband in America:

From Business Week, stimulus package broadband expansion funds are not going to cities.

Broadband Stimulus and the Underserved

I was curious about the situation around the world, so I asked Google. He showed me Internet World Stats. They showed me a table of broadband penetration, but, unfortunately, it was ranked by total broadband subscribers. U.S. has the most. China is second. That is pointless.

How do we compare, penetration per capita. U.S.: 21.9%. China: 3.7%.

Open Office:

Internet World Stats does not, unfortunately, provide a spreadsheet version of its data for download. I needed their data sorted by penetration. Briefly considered retyping into a spreadsheet, but decided to try for an easy alternative.

I swept my mouse over Internet World Stats whole table. Pressed ^C. Went to my text editor and pressed ^V. Scrambled data eggs.

I opened an OO spreadsheet. Pressed ^V in cell A1. Absolutely amazing! A very nice spreadsheet appeared. Even the report and column headers were sensibly laid out.

I selected column D and asked for a descending sort. Ooops. That sorted column D. Selected all the data and asked for a sort. It asked, "What column(s) and up or down, please?" Click, click, done. Just what I wanted to know. U.S. is seventh in the world behind some countries you might have guessed (Sweden) and some you might not (France).

I'd show you the whole table, but that might be hard. I'll try, anyway.

Whole Table:

Back to OO. Save as HTML. Open HTML in text editor, copy the parts from "<TABLE>" through "</TABLE>" tags. (Sorry to see that OO still uses capital letters.)

Pasted the HTML into the Blogger "Edit HTML" tab. Here's the result:

TOP COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF WORLD INTERNET BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS IN 2007
#	Country or Region	Broadband Subscribers	Broadband Penetration (%)	Population ( 2007 Est. )	Source and Date of Usage Data
12	Netherlands	5388000	32.80%	16447682	ECTA - Mar./07
5	Korea, South	14042728	27.40%	51300989	OECD - Dec./06
20	Sweden	2478003	27.20%	9107795	ECTA - March/07
9	Canada	7675533	23.70%	32440970	OECD - Dec/06
6	United Kingdom	13957111	23.10%	60363602	ECTA - Mar./07
7	France	13677000	22.30%	61350009	Teleco - Mar/07
1	United States	66213257	21.90%	301967681	OECD - June/07
4	Germany	17472000	21.20%	82509367	OECD - June/07
3	Japan	27152349	21.10%	128646345	OEDC - June/07
13	Taiwan	4505800	19.60%	23001442	ITU - Sept/07
14	Australia	3939288	18.80%	20984595	OECD - Sept/06
10	Spain	7505456	16.70%	45003663	CMT - July/07
8	Italy	9427300	15.80%	59546696	ECTA - Mar/07
18	Poland	2640000	6.90%	38109499	OECD - Dec./06
16	Turkey	3632700	4.80%	75863600	ECTA - Mar/07
2	China	48500000	3.70%	1317431495	MII - Sept./06
15	Mexico	3728150	3.50%	106457446	OECD - Sept/06
11	Brazil	6417000	3.40%	186771161	Teleco - June/07
17	Russia	2900000	2.00%	143406042	ITU - Sept./07
19	India	2520000	0.20%	1129667528	TRAI - June/07
TOP 20 Countries		268150077	6.90%	3890377607	IWS - Nov.14/07
Rest of the World		36321302	1.40%	2684288810	IWS - Nov.14/07
Total World Subscribers		304471379	4.60%	6574666417	IWS - Nov.14/07

Today's News:

Let's get to the really critical issue of the day: Will Windows 7 or Snow Leopard have better wallpaper? They're really on top of things at Fortune.


Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7: The War of the Wallpapers

The article's link to MSFT's wallpapers got you to its financial results, not its wallpaper. Use this one, instead.

I recommend that you get a camera and make some of your own. Here are a couple of mine: Catskills in Winter, Fall Scene from Kayak. (Big, fat files. Sorry.) The secret to good amateur photos? Take lots and lots. Then throw most of them, almost all of them, out.

Linux Desktops

Linux has two graphical front ends, GNOME and KDE. Free software champion Richard Stallman created a Unix workalike, naming it GNU (GNU is Not Unix). GNOME, (originally GNU Object Model Environment), and KDE (originally Kool Desktop Environment) are both excellent desktops. Both disavow their original acronyms.

I started with, and still use, KDE for the simple reason that it came preinstalled, as Windows typically comes. The computer was so cheap that I bought it just to satisfy my curiousity about Linux. Was it really as reliable as people said? Would the learning curve be steep?

Yes, it works for months at a time and no, there was almost no learning curve. I turned it on and started using it. A big button labelled "Launch" looked like it would be similar to MSFT's "Start" and it was. I was soon in familiar software: Firefox and Open Office. Then I found the Konqueror browser/explorer replacement. Firefox is maybe five years behind and Windows Explorer is utterly primitive by comparison.

I have learned to open a command window and use a handful of the original Unix commands, but this is no more necessary than using the DOS window in Windows.

What I have learned to love most, and even sort of simulate when I have to go back to Windows, is the multiple desktop feature. More on that, soon.

Open Office

Are you still paying Microsoft for its Office software? Why? It will not be long before you are asked this question by one of your directors whose own organization has switched successfully. The only acceptable answer is, "We're in transition right now. We'll be fully converted before the current licenses expire."