Category Archives: Geek

Surfin’ on the go

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I’ve heard reports that iPhone web surfing traffic is orders of magnitude more than other smartphones. Given that it’s not a crippled browser like on my previous Sony Ericsson or Blackberry it’s not surprising.

Checking the usage counters on my (second) iPhone, I’ve used 466M down and 74M up via the EDGE network since I got it 6 months ago. It doesn’t monitor WiFi traffic. While it does check mail, it only gets headers unless I pull up a message so most of that is web traffic. Nothing spectacular, but I find it pretty interesting.

Do yourself a favor and watch this (No-Tech Hacking)

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I’ve worked in IT since I graduated from college in 1992. When you’ve worked in technology that long, you tend to pick up a decent understanding on how it all works, where the weaknesses are, and when reliance on technology can be a mistake. A colleague at work shared this link of a presentation of No-Tech Hacking at DEF CON 15 last year and I think that anyone who works with computers and even those that don’t should take the time to watch it. It’ll give you a better understanding of the world as it really is and not just what you think it is.

The video is about an hour, but I think you’ll be sufficiently entertained and informed and will be appreciative of the time used to watch it.

I’m glad I could help, Jason

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Jason O’Grady is a tech columnist, blogger, and podcaster that I’ve been following for years (I think back to his MacWeek days). I was listening to his podcast a few weeks ago and he had mentioned having trouble finding a suitable media keyboard to use with a media center Mac. 

As I went through the same trouble with my setup and was very pleased with the Logitech MediaBoard Pro, I dropped him a quick note with my suggestion. After providing some additional information on how to re-map the modifier keys, he let me know today that he wrote the whole thing up for his Apple Core blog over at ZDNet. He was even kind enough to link back here.

In reading the comments on his post, one person complained that such a large keyboard would be lousy to use when watching a movie. That is a true statement which is why I use the bundled Apple Remote with RemoteBuddy by IOSPIRIT. That works much better when we watch shows in EyeTV.

Just waiting until tomorrow

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As you well know, I’m an iPhone owner and fan. While it has been the best phone I’ve ever owned, it isn’t perfect. I’m writing this as I sit waiting for a meeting that isn’t going to happen (I got stood up), I decided to write this little post on my iPhone* about my thoughts on tomorrow’s iPhone SDK announcement by Apple. There are many questions about what will and will not be possible for 3rd party developers, but I’ll go ahead and make my predictions:

  1. Delivery will be done only by the iTunes music store
  2. Software will be signed by Apple making small developers mad (and many users)
  3. Signed apps will be approved by Apple but they’ll claim they will be fully supportive (time will tell)
  4. There will be options for free apps
  5. There will be some apps available immediately
  6. There will be a Blackberry-like service to push corporate email to iPhones
  7. There will be a lightweight iWork suite announced
  8. There will be Bluetooth keyboard support
  9. Developers will have more access to the hardware than feared but less than hoped
  10. I’ll go out on a limb that they’ll also announce a small tablet device with the touch interface but that may be further out (6 months)
  11. I’ll be buying around $20-30 of software that is immediately available

I admit I’m taking the shotgun approach. My money is on 1-6. We’ll see what the future holds for us.

* The draft was on the iPhone, but links and final was done on my desktop

It doesn’t have to be painful

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This morning I went in to the local DMV office to renew my driver’s license. Fortunately, all that was needed was an eye exam so I wasn’t anxious about the prospect. I did have the forethought to make an appointment several weeks ago as I didn’t want to worry about finding a good time to go and how long it might take.

My appointment was for 10:10 AM. I walked in at 10:08 and saw about a dozen people lined up just to be given a number by the "what are you here for" lady. The adjacent counter had a "Appointments" sign hanging over it and only a single person being helped. I walked up behind him and then was shortly assisted. She checked the list of appointments (I didn’t see an Abe Froman, btw), gave me a slip of paper with a number (F012) and suggested I take a seat. I saw about 50 people waiting all together in several different seating locations. I found an empty one and proceeded to check Google Reader with my iPhone.

No more than 8-10 minutes later, my number was called and a walked over to window 4 which was fortunately only about 15 feet from where I was sitting. I had a nice little exchange with the woman assisting me (two of her four boys are serving over in Iraq though she’d switch them with the other two if she could {huh?}), took the eye test, paid my fee and was directed to another window for my photograph which took all of 3 minutes.

From walking in the door to walking out was 18 minutes. By comparison I overheard a man complaining to his neighbor that he had been waiting 90 minutes already.

Just a tip, if you know you’re going to the DMV, make an appointment. If you can’t, bring a book.

Operators are standing by

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 I’ve heard about GrandCentral a few times, but never had the chance to take a look. I’m impressed. The service which was acquired last summer by Google, has a very interesting concept of a single phone number for life.

How it works is this, you pick a phone number in any area code you wish (not necessarily where you live or work), and then register your other phones (e.g., home, mobile, and work). When somebody calls your new number, all of your registered numbers ring simultaneously. You can limit which phones ring based on the designation of the caller (family, friend, work or unknown). You can even register a SIP phone like Gizmo Project or an Asterix service. Now, you can hand out a single number for all folks and not worry about giving a more private number and they can still get a hold of you. If you don’t answer, GrandCentral will take a voicemail and can email and/or SMS you with the notification and link to get the message. You can also customize the greeting for each caller which certainly make it more personable.

A cool feature is you can switch between any of your registered phones by pressing ‘*’ just like if you switched extensions in your home.

Lastly, and perhaps the geekiest feature, is the WebCall button you’ll find on the home page of my blog. You click the "Call Me" graphic, enter your name, and the number you can be reached at and click "Call Me." What happens next, is your call-back number will ring and when you answer, my extensions will ring and connect us when I pick up.

I hope I’ve given a reasonable description of the service. For me, I plan on using it specifically for work for a single contact number when our network operations center needs to get a hold of me and for those occasions I need to give a number to somebody but don’t want to worry about staying at a number or leaving the line open.

If you’re game, give me a call at 760-444-0399. I’m planning on using it from now on.

Perhaps the classiest 404 page I’ve seen

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While finding the EyeTV link for my last post, I discovered that El Gato has, in my opinion, the best take on a 404 page (the one that comes up when you request an invalid URL). Sure, generally everyone has a "we’re sorry we couldn’t find the page you’re looking for."  They go a step further and give you a 10% off coupon in their store "to make things right".

That’s pretty cool.

Macworld Expo, Day 2

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Today was all about the South hall. Obviously, Apple’s booth was the largest and in the middle of the floor. Most people were interested in fondling the MacBook Air but the other products got plenty of interest as well. They were smart to have empty MBA shells at the sides of the booth so people could marvel at the new design. Time will tell how durable it is as the form certainly makes you want to slip it in a backpack or bag. The recessed USB ports look cool, but I’m sure owners are going to have to carry a USB extension for those things that won’t fit.

The coolest product I saw was Eye-Fi which is a 2G SD memory card that also has WiFi circuitry that is independent of the camera. In practice, it allows you to take a picture and have it automatically upload it to your computer (in local mode) or to Flick via their servers. If there isn’t a known network available, it stays on the card just like normal. I asked if they were thinking about a MemoryStick version and he said they are talking to Sony but it’s too early to know. I hope they do.

I also talked with the Omni Group booth about their new OmniFocus which I’ve been using for a bit. I wanted to make sure I was using it properly as I started while it was in public beta and developed habits before some features were implemented.

The funniest thing was the fact there were iPod/iPhone case vendors everywhere including two that were across the isle from each other (awkward). Becky‘s in the market for one so I’ll have to try and find out what she wants and see who has a good show special.

I’m very happy that El Gato released a new version of EyeTV. They addressed several complaints I had since switching from my MythTV last year. They add a smart listing (e.g., smart playlist) based on multiple categories and can optionally record any matching episode. They also improved the on-screen menu which will make it easier to use on our TV.

How can you tell your router is having issues?

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Becky and I have both been noticing that our Internet connection slows down whenever a significant amount of output data is moving through the pipe. Officially, our DSL is supposed to be 3000/768 kbps but any time I run a speed test, I get around 2500 kbps down which is acceptable but only get around 165 kbps up. Normally this isn’t a big deal as there isn’t normally much upstream data going on, but when Becky’s mother comes online, my systems start backing up to her system via CrashPlan. Even running "full out" I only get 165 kbps up which is far short from the expected 768 that I should be getting.

In trying to isolate this, I disconnected my entire home setup (eight devices connected via three routers) and hooked a laptop up directly to the modem. A repeat of the test gave me spec’d performance and restoring my setup (after resetting the router) gave me a good test as well, but any subsequent one was poor. I am nearly 100% certain it isn’t due to another device filling the pipe (I monitor all my systems via Cacti). Even if one was, it still is capped out at 165 kbps. I’ll need to repeat a few tests to try and isolate and identify the cause.

Everything else works as expected. I get frustrated with strange problems like this.

Update: Based on Matthew’s comment, I made sure that each of the three inside instances of CrashPlan are throttled (only one was connecting to an outside server). That made no difference. Tonight, I tried swapping out my main router with another Linksys and got the same results. I then connected my laptop directly to the modem which also had the same results. I reset the modem and am having good performance, but as I did that in the past, I’m expecting the outgoing to become poor again based on past tests.