http://www.youtube.com/saxcase

I’ve used instant messaging (IM) for years and years now, since 1996 when ICQ was your internet pager and AOL was just opening AIM up to people outside of the AOL network. Then came Yahoo IM. Now I use IM inside of Gmail with Google-Talk and AIM buddies only. My phone uses BeeJive to connect to AIM, Yahoo and Google-Talk. I use Twitter to chat with people too, many of them I don’t know very well, and I think an advantage of Twitter is you’re not expected to keep a conversation going beyond a sentence or two to each other. Email has that same feel, no need to reply if you don’t have more to say. No need to say goodbye when you’re leaving your computer. I think Wave captures that. It’s fast when you’re both present, but it’s saved for you to get later if you’re away.

Anyway. I’m all for a unified text-based collaboration platform, so if Google Wave ends up being that, that will be excellent. If it becomes mostly video then hopefully it’s easy to write along with the video to supplement those of us who can’t hear video perfectly.

It’s in an invite-only “Preview” right now. I may have a few invites, so let me know if you are interested. I expect it to spread to more people pretty fast in the next few weeks and months.

If you’re already on wave, you can use the box below to say hi If you aren’t, then you’ll probably see part of Google’s page about it.

How does this relate to a business? There are many business-related software programs that now charge a monthly fee and provide their software. From an entrepreneurial view point I totally respect that business model. Subscriptions are the way to go. Especially if they auto-renew. They’re stable, and even if people aren’t using your service they have to remember or make an effort to stop paying you.

From a user standpoint, I don’t like subscriptions. I’d rather pay once and be done with it. Same reasons, just from the opposing view.

From a business point of view though, there is software that you generally must pay for. A Bookkeeping program, for example. Quickbooks costs $200 and gets upgraded probably every year. As a Mac user I haven’t heard many good things about the program so I was looking for alternatives.

Most of the Software-as-a-Service websites cost at least $20 a month. Some are as low as $8 a month. I would love to be able to use Freshbooks for invoicing, but their free version isn’t usable (limited to 3 customers), and their cheapest pay version is $19/month. I can’t afford that much just to send out invoices.

Lately I am using the free versions of Zoho.com’s CRM and Invoice programs. The CRM program lets me capture customer information from a web form and import it into the Invoice program. The Invoice program lets me automatically create the PDF version of the invoice, emailing it along with a link to pay through my Authorize.net Payment gateway (which costs too much, I may drop it and just use PayPal). I’m close to the limit on the free Zoho Invoice account (5 invoices per 30 days) and may try to find something I can host myself for free (or switch back to just PayPal’s built in Invoicing).

The best solution I have found from all this is the bookkeeping program I’m using now.  It’s called Outright.com and is similar to Mint.com in that it’s set up to import your expenses from other accounts.  The difference is it is business focused, so it has reports and tax information built in.  The best part?  It’s actually free.  (I think their business model is to partner with other SaaS solutions (which aren’t free) and make money that way.)

In order to get more customers, Outright is currently offering me $5 for each person who signs up and uses the service.  I’m only a fan of affiliate programs like this for products I actually do use and would right about anyway.  And since it’s free there really isn’t a reason not to try it out.

I wrote about my business before here: Slides In A Flash

I’d be curious if anyone has any great apps they’d like to share or stories about businesses, record keeping, etc.

Gallaudet Professors Josh and Sam Swiller received their cochlear implants…

Seriously, music sounds great now (5 months from activation).  The CI adds a whole new layer of sounds that I couldn’t hear before.  It helps bring out the lyrics.  It adds the higher frequency percussion, cymbals, drums besides bass, harmonicas, all kinds of things.  Yes, more cow-bell!

I’ve been learning to “play” the drums in The Beatles: Rock Band.  My second attempt at a “rhythm game”, the first was DDR which I had trouble with because beats weren’t always apparent to me.  I also tried the Wii Music game but the only instrument I could hear well was the tuba!  Rock Band, at least with Beatles music, is very fun.  I’ve played through every song on drums on easy and even tried to sing a bit.  The Wii says I sing pretty well, but nobody’s ever told me that in person!  I guess hitting pitches doesn’t equate having a pleasant quality to your voice.  I’ll stick to sax.

When I play my saxophone, wearing both the CI and a hearing aid in the other ear (call this bimodal) it can sound like I’m hearing double.  The CI has a different quality than the hearing aid, even though they now sound like the same note and both sound good.  With more complex music I notice that the CI picks up some things and the hearing aid picks up others (and with a subwoofer my residual hearing picks up the bass).  All together they make music sound very good, but separately it doesn’t sound right to me.  The hearing aid alone sounds very quiet still and the CI alone is still a bit thin sounding and sometimes squeaky.  I will say that vocals have improved from having a chipmunk quality to having a Beatles quality (squeaky).  Not sure if listening to Beatles music will improve that…….

I’m very glad that the time period when I couldn’t hear half steps when I was playing my saxophone is over.  For the non-musical people, a half step is the space between a white key and a black key on a piano. If you play something a half step off from what it should be it sounds very wrong.  The guy sitting next to you will probably hit you if you mess up too many times because with normal hearing it only takes once to get it in your head that all the upcoming Bs are flat (for example).

Hearing the percussion also helps me stay on track in band.  It helps me hear a beat when out dancing. Salsa is still a weird beat, but when all you can hear is the bass you can’t figure out how they get 5,6,7,8 out of that.

Speaking of band, I’m hearing the director much easier lately.  I used to have to focus 100% and guess 50% to hear him.  Now I’m just understanding.  This is in a large room with excellent acoustics, but probably from 15 feet away.

I also took a class (review for the PE exam) and I think I was understanding quite a bit more than before.  It wasn’t a great room, and it wasn’t easy to just listen.  Several of the teachers (we had 4 or 5 teachers over 6 days) had accents, beards, or just spoke fairly quietly.  They also wore a mic, so the amplification would normally have messed with my understanding.  Louder means an echo so doesn’t help the signal to noise ratio at all.  My biggest conclusion from class was that I’d definitely want bilateral CIs if I was a student.  Socializing during breaks was easier than normal, but still not that easy if a conversation started up between me and the person I was trying to talk to.

With the advent of the Nucleus 5 from Cochlear, some have asked how slim and light the new processor really is and how does it compare with the other brands.

To that end, a tally, from the manufacturer’s specifications, of the latest models of the 3 US FDA approved brands.

With all shaped a bit differently, I only compared the maximum thickness, seemingly the most important consideration, along with weight.

All compared with the lightest rechargeable battery option.

Advanced Bionics Harmony: 13mm thick 12.9 gm ( PowerCell Slim)

Cochlear Nucleus 5 (CP110): 9mm thick 10.9 gm ( Compact Rechargeable)

MED-EL Opus 2: 8.7mm thick 10.1 gm ( Standard DaCapo Rechargeable)

I love the talks at TED.com.  Not only do they have subtitles in multiple languages on I think ALL videos, they are recorded in such a perfectly clear and high quality way that I can understand them without the subtitles.  Even on my tiny laptop speakers I understood a large part of this talk just now.

I wish I had watched this when I first found the link to it a few weeks ago, but I’m glad I watched it now. The part that starts around 15 minutes talks about ROWE – a results only work environment.  It’s a very quick summary but very effective in the example he calls out.

I’d love it if I could get my company to adopt some of the freedoms seen here.  80% of my job is done on the computer (reports, CAD, reports, planning tests) and I can work on it anywhere.  But I’m not allowed to.  Once I even got yelled at for working from home for an afternoon.  The reasoning? “That isn’t allowed because then everyone would want to do it.”

I tend to get “PMS” about my job, but overall I enjoy the work a lot.  I just know I’d be a lot more efficient if I didn’t feel trapped in a cubicle all day long (not to mention constant interruptions).

1. 4 months with CI

That’s right.  I was activated way back on May 4th.  I’ve been in for just 3 mappings since then at 2 weeks, 1 month and 3 months (though all were a bit late).

My audiogram has remained hovering around 25-35 all the way across.  I think it is low because my maps are still getting a bit louder each time and they do the test Before I get a new map.

I still prefer the Med-El FSP (Fine Structure Processing) versus the HD-CIS program.  My audiologists still insist that I keep trying both.  So one of my program slots is still HD.  They both sound good to me, so it’s just a matter of what I am used to.  Music sounds more musical in FSP.  FSP may also work better with background noise.

On being bimodal (that’s CI + hearing aid), at my 1 month map my audiologist said I could start wearing my hearing aid again whenever I wanted to, but suggested I decide one way or the other and stick with it.  So I have been wearing both all of the time. Thankfully my CI and HA are working together now.  Originally the CI was canceling the HA out and I couldn’t hear anything at all through it.  It was strange and scary that even with the CI turned off my HA didn’t sound “right” after the implant.

One thing this has really reinforced for me is that Ear Molds Suck!  My unimplanted ear with the hearing aid is always going through a cycle of scabby, sore, gooey, sore, dried out, scabby, etc.  I think this is worse because I have been swimming at the gym once a week.  My implanted ear is perfectly normal. No ear mold is a nice thing.

At my 3 month mapping I was tested wearing both the HA and the CI in noise.  I scored in the 90s.  With just the CI I scored in the 70s.  So it’s helping in noise, or maybe the second set of sentences was easier.  It seemed a lot easier.

When making my next mapping appointment (6 months, in November) they suggested I see my ENT just in case I want to talk about implanting my other ear.  I agreed to this because there are monetary insurance related reasons for doing it in 2009.  I’m trying not to let that influence my decision too much.

2. CI #2?  2 CIs versus 1 CI and 1 HA versus bilateral EAS

I’ve seen a lot of articles claiming that a CI + a hearing aid gives you the best of both worlds when it comes to sound, especially music.  I’ll agree that this has been my experience.

We went out dancing at a club in Washington, DC last weekend.  Instead of the normal bass that sounds the same with or without my hearing aids, the CI was adding the rhythm section to it.  It was a nice effect and helped me appreciate the faster beat that’s on top of that boom boom boom of the bass.

I asked my audi about CI+HA versus 2 CIs and she suggested I contact a researcher.  Small world, he was someone I had emailed with last spring.  I owed him an updated.

His answer was that you can’t make any kind of decision without knowing exactly how well you’re doing right now.  Just CI, CI + HA, HA in implanted ear + CI + HA.  But his gut feeling was that Two CIs are great for localizing sounds, but One CI and One HA are better for lower tone quality and hearing in noise.  He also said that they have been very impressed with  CI + bilateral hearing aids.  But that 25% of people who preserve residual hearing after implantation are still losing it later on.

In the end he asked if I’d be itnerested in visiting the Mayo clinic for some research at some point, so I’m waiting to see if that gets set up.

My own feelings, the CI provides SO MUCH sound, and it does not sound bad at all.  It sounds very normal apart from the timbre of music sounding different than before.  If I can get use from a hearing aid in the implanted ears that would be the best of both worlds… but we will see.  Technology is always changing too.

3. Music lately

With bimodal hearing music sounds better than ever.  My hearing aid ear picks up the sounds I’m used to hearing and the CI adds the higher sounds I’ve not heard in years.

Some singing voices still have a bit of a chipmunk-like tinge to them – not in pitch, just in quality.

The sound “Oooooooo” never sounds right.

Some instruments have a harmonica-like tinge, or a squeaky violin timbre.

Sometimes listening to a single instrument, or playing my saxophone alone, I will hear double.  The HA and the CI have different qualities and in some frequencies my brain doesn’t automatically blend them into the same single sound.

For a while I couldn’t hear the difference between two notes that were a half-step apart when I was playing.  This resulted in many jabs from the people sitting next to me.  I seem to have gotten over that now.  I need to do a listening test to see how my pitch recognition has improved.

I also bought a pair of t-coil headphones of the type that stick behind your ears.  I think the quality of the sound on these is better than the sound that comes through my Med-El direct input cable. Not sure.  Maybe a richer sound.

10. Using the phone, for work, for home, CapTel

I’ve never been a fan of the phone.  At some point I will probably decide that it makes my life at work easier to use it… but the way things are now, my boss loves to make phone calls and so he does that all day while I type reports on the computer (something he “can’t” do, he writes things by hand and the secretary types them (even though she isn’t really a secretary)).

I still call the Cochlear listening line to see how things are sounding.  This week one of the lists was impossible.  Ought, It, Ash, Own… yikes.

At work I have an old school CapTel phone set up with 2 lines, but the ringer is turned off and I don’t take incoming calls.  If someone leaves a voice mail I will call in to see what it is.  If I could get the new CapTel that works with our digital phone lines and the internet I might be able to see caller ID and that would be excellent.  I hate not knowing who is calling – it makes it impossible to predict the conversation.

On another note, I love my Google Voice line.  The transcription doesn’t work perfectly, but it highlights the text as it plays the recording so you can try to follow along.