Ice Cavern Studios

First, watch this:

Now, I love wikipedia. There are few sites that I love more. Only problem, it isn’t the most reliable source for information. I just wanted to post this because it really explains a lot of my relationship with the site. I love it as a place to pick up quick information or obssessive fan info on entertainment. I also hate that people use it as a reliable “source” given that it’s not really a reliably checked collection.

Technology, The Internet

1. Cingular has got to go. My reception up and down the east coast sucked. Hard. Seriously, when traveling from DC to Boston, I should always have perfectly clear reception. And dropped calls? Oh hells no. But what did I have on my trip? The same crappy service I get here in all the time. How is this possible? It’s the most populated area of the country. My patience with Cingular is growing shorter and shorter.

2. The T’s new Charlie Ticket machines? They’re beginning to win me over. Today, in about 60 seconds, I was able to purchase my monthly commuter rail pass. Seriously, if I went up to the ticket window, it would take like three to four minutes. It was awesome. Now if only all of the stations would move to them and get rid of the half and half situation we have now. Consider this my partial endorsement of the new system.

3. Why are my computers choosing now to die? Can anyone explain this to me? My powerbook’s network adapter is broken and my dvd-rom drive stopped working. My Windows box has become a weee bit unstable and randomly crashes, not to mention that it doesn’t always boot. And my raid array is having trouble sending data across the wire, and I think the machine is just in it’s dying days. I mean, i know my youngest machine is 2 years, but man, this is just not a good time for this to happen. Or maybe it is. I get replacing everything at once will at least let me have a unified solution, but still. This sucks. I don’t think I can afford to go to Kumori-con now since I have to buy a lot of computer equipment. Awesome.

Gadgets, Technology

So when I was in Seattle, a lot of my friends were on my case about my cell phone. All I kept hearing was how bad Verizon and it’s CDMA phones were. Mind you, a bunch of my friends worked for Windows Mobile and at the time, Verizon didn’t have any smartphones running our stuff. So, after my phone finally gave up the ghost, I switched to AT&T/Cingular and got myself my handy dandy smartphone. All was good. I had great reception. My phone was awesome. I had better mobile internet than anyone around. Life was grand.

Fast forward a year and switch up the locations. Now I’m on the east coast, where apparently, Cingular doesn’t care about anyone. My reception is bad everywhere. My calls are always dropping, and my phone is slowly dying. I wouldn’t mind so much about the phone, but I’m now hooked on having a smartphone, and Cingular refuses to insure my phone. Thus, they want me to buy one in full.

And oh yeah, Verizon now has mobile broadband. Super.

So…I’m going to be leaving my carrier when my phone dies. Given how much it would cost to get a smartphone; it’s a better deal for me to break my plan with Cingular, pay the fee, get a new smartphone from Verizon (which they will insure) and be done with it. Plus, the rate plan is better and costs me less money.

And the phone is better. The only thing holding me back is my desire to try and save a bit of cash. Plus my smartphone currently works…err..85% works. But I can feel it dying, so in the next couple of months, my wireless life will improve. Booo-yah. I can kiss Cingular and it’s awful service good-bye.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited about one of devices failing. But that should tell you how much I hate Cingular service. Love the phone, hate the GSM carriers. Oh well.

….

So I’m trying to post this and Cingular has dropped my data call. Seriously, I have full bars, and they dropped my connection. This is so incredibly dumb. This always happens, I have good service and then… BAM…call is gone. This is exactly the reason I need to switch.

Gadgets, Technology

I’d like to warn people that what I’m about to say wreaks of Kool-aid. Ok, so Groove is part of (Microsoft) Office; which means a lot of coordinating has to go on between us and the people in Redmond. So right now, I’m involved in a meeting in Redmond. How am I involved? We’re using Microsoft Live Meeting. No, seriously. We’re using Live Meeting. This program actually works. Mind you, we aren’t using Live Meeting’s audio stuff, but in terms of watching people do stuff and seeing demo’s, it’s pretty tight. Ok, that is all.

Software, Technology, The Internet

So I mentioned last week that I now have internet access from the train, and after a week of using it, I can only think just how bad dial-up speeds are. I mean, I know this is how half of the country accesses the internet; and man, it’s god awful.

I’ve been on broadband for close to eight years, now. Via my mobil phone is the first way I’ve made repeated uses of the internet on a connection slower than 386 k. After all this time, the modern internet…scratch that…the modern computer, isn’t even designed to be running at these speeds.

Just thinking about email, not the web, makes me shudder. Eight years ago, before broadband was common place (read in 40% of computer using households), people used to send just text only emails. Considering at the time that people also didn’t have digital cameras, this wasn’t a problem. But now, everyone wants to send HTML formatted emails with pictures and lord knows what else. The amount of time it takes to sync my email on this connection is crazy. On my cable connection, email is instantaneous. On the train, just getting the headers (base information, no body) takes about a minute, minute and a half.

Now add on Instant Messenger, and a web browser, maybe with multiple tabs open. My already full connection has been completely saturated with data. And this is how I routinely use my machine. Usually it’s at least 3/4 browser tabs. My email is constantly checking. And I have a bunch of IM windows.

And the web, well…I’ve already made that rant at least once before. Let’s just say that all the nifty stuff google does…not so friendly on a modem. And any page with more than two or three images, or flash? I don’t even bother. I just come back later at work. It’s really that bad.

I used to think just the web was not meant for modem connections. It’s really more than that. The typical digital lifestyle requires broadband. Or a lot more patience than I have.

Technology, The Internet