Posts Tagged Technology
Bandwidth Concerns
With all the conversation around the FCC’s Broadband Plan, I decided to see what my bandwidth speeds were lately. My latest test shows my download and upload speeds to be quite good.
I think I can deal with 21 Mb/s down and 3.5 Mb/s up.
I also discovered someone linking to an image on my blog. Now, my concern is certainly not over the bandwidth consumption. The fine host I have–A2 Hosting–is quite generous with my bandwidth caps, and my blog is by no means famous. Still, it was the principle of it all. I made some edits to my .htaccess file, and the page linked above now has one of the more legendary images to make the rounds on the Internet.
Oh, Hello There!
It’s been a while since I have had a moment to sit down and compose a blog post. Thus, I am forced to update everyone in the most immediate way possible.
- Professionally, things are well yet busy. I would not have it any other day.
- After the end of snow and the coming onslaught of rain, I spent today cleaning my house from top to bottom. It needed it, and I actually feel like I accomplished something as a result.
- After some research, I decided to purchase a Blu-Ray DVD player. Specifically, I ordered a Samsung BD-P3600 from TigerDirect. TigerDirect was having a pretty good deal on the player, so I figured why not.
- Lately, there have been two songs that I have been unable to get out of my head.
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- The Filet-o-Fish Song
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- Even with a DVR, I cannot get this stupid ad jingle out of my head.
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- Shots, LMFAO featuring Lil Jon
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- Yet again, the music selection at my gym strikes again. In this case, as I was wrapping up my workout on Thursday morning, this little ditty became permanently ingrained into my brain. I have no idea who this other rap group is, but I am all too familiar with Lil Jon, thanks to Dave Chappelle. Damn you, Lil Jon!
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- Opening Day 2010 for the Baltimore Orioles will soon be upon us. I have yet to acquire a ticket, but I will begin that search soon enough.
- In the book-reading department, I finished reading The Quants. Expect a review of that book sometime this week. Also, I am almost finished reading SuperFreakonomics.
There you have it—a concise update.
Some Home Networking Activity
Today, I decided to look into the process it would take to connect my TV to my home network. I recently purchased an updated version of my old router, a Linksys WRT54GL, the Linux version of the venerable WRT54G family of wireless routers. I was using it to replace a Belkin router I had, primarily since I pined for a return to using the DD-WRT firmware. The Belkin will be relegated to a new home (with my girlfriend).
The other part of this little effort involved running some network cabling to my Samsung HDTV. My TV has an Ethernet port on the back of it, and it has the capability to run some widgets. My nerd curiosity has gotten the best of me, as I really want to see this TV is capable of when connected to the Internet. Personally, I am looking forward to using it to stream content. Now, there is a wireless adapter for my TV, as it also has a USB port, but the network admin in me says the best way to get streaming content is to make sure the connection is stable.
This project is going to take a bit more effort than I thought.
- I need to find out where some of the wiring in my home goes, but I need to get a flashlight.
- My house has structured wiring, as all the cable and phone wiring come to one central point in the basement. The problem here is that makes it a bit more difficult to trace wires.
- My wireless router is in my office, and my office is an addition to the original back of my house. Consequently, I need to find out how the cable and phone wiring was run to my office in the back of the house from the central point where all of my structured wiring resides.
- I need to figure out how I want to run the wire to the television from my basement. I would like to run it using one of the two conduits I see, but I have a feeling that idea will require more work.
The goal here is to run the cabling as neat as possible without damaging any walls. It’s possible, but it is a project that is going to take me the better part of a weekend afternoon.
Today’s WWDC News: It’s Got a COMPASS!!!
As most regular readers and acquaintances of mine know, my distaste for all things Apple knows no bounds. Today, of course, if you are an Apple fanboy, the rapture occurred in the form of Apple’s Worldide Developers Conference (WWDC). If, on the other hand, you are like me, then the very bane of your existence occurred today.
The big news at WWDC, of course, was the coming new version of the iPhone–or, as I call it, the JeebusPhone. Now, the iPhone will have all the following features :
- Cut, Copy, and Paste!
- Video!
- Voice Control!
- Improved Battery Life!
- MMS!
- Compass!
Now, mind you that a number of current smartphones on the market have had these features for some time. Heck, even my old Motorola e815 had these features before the iPhone. Admittedly, the compass is something most phones do not have, but I am struggling to come up with a true need-case where my phone must have a compass.
Of course, however, with the typical Apple upgrade comes the price one pays. All the fanboys are atwitter–literally–over the upgrade pricing fiasco. All of this reminds me of one of the better recent Simpsons parodies in some time.
Windows 7 RC
Just some quick thoughts on the Windows 7 RC that was released earlier this month.
I finally had time to install it last weekend, and, for the most part, it has been trouble-free. For the installation, I opted not to hack the installation to allow for an upgrade from the Beta. Instead, I took Ed Bott’s advice and backed up everything using the Windows Easy Transfer Utility. It backed up all of my documents and settings to an external drive, and then I performed a clean install of Windows 7 RC.
Admittedly, I had to spend some time reinstalling applications, but I am used to this from before. For the most part, that was easy since I have the installation media handy for most of my applications. For those items I download, I tend to save them in a place just for this purpose.
I have only had two problems. One is something I have had since the Beta, and the other was a strange one.
- BlackBerry Desktop Manager and Leaked BlackBerry OSs
- The desktop manager refuses to see the leaked version of the BlackBerry OS I want to install to my Storm. While not a show-stopper, I can easily boot into Windows XP for this purpose. Of course, I need to get my Windows XP partition working as expected, but I should be able to do that in no time (stupid boot menus). This problem has existed since the RC, though. The method one uses to install a new OS to their BlackBerry device is to download the package, install it locally, then connect the device and let it receive the update. When I connect the device, though, it fails to see the availability of a newer OS.
- Strange Blue Screen Crashes
- For two consecutive days, I noticed my machine had experienced a reboot shortly after it went into some sleep/power-save mode. I tend to keep my machine on, but this was downright annoying. I disabled the power-save settings in use, and the problem has not returned. I think the problem is probably driver related, so I am starting with a BIOS update, then going from there.
As with the Beta, I really like what I see in the RC. Everything is smooth and fast, and I have not had any hardware issues following the installation. For the most part, I look forward to the final release of Windows 7.
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