Category → Technology
Back On My Router
I wanted to give an update on my Internet problems. You may remember that I posted on February 6, 2010 about how Cox came out to my house and worked to get my persistent Internet drop outs fixed. In the end, it was determined that my brand new expensive router was failing me. They brought me out a cheaper Linksys router and my Internet worked flawlessly for over a week. Yesterday we went back to the store and exchanged the router for a new one pictured above. Our Internet has been working on the new router for about 24 hours with no problems. My other router also worked great for two days before failing. Cox was willing to sell me the Linksys router and that is fine but I paid good money for the D-Link router. I am not opposed to Cox’s router so much as I am opposed to buying a new router and not using it.
I am hopeful that my router will continue to work long term and then I can let Cox have their router back. They worked with me diligently to find the problem. I do want to thank them for the assistance they gave me. That being said, I do think that when we are paying $50.00 a month for Internet, I do think it should be expected to have dependable service. Let’s hope that it continues to work.
At a Complete Loss
I have posted about my Internet connection problems several times and nothing seems to fix the problems. Over the last several years I have been plagued with losing Internet connection repeatedly. In some cases I would not lose connection completely but I would lose connection to the web. All other Internet applications would remain connected while the web would lose connectivity. My wife and I with frustration have changed Internet providers from Cable to DSL and then back to Cable. We have been through four routers and six computers. There has been eight computers if you count the laptops. The problem is the same in every configuration. I am becoming convinced that my problems are infrastructure. I live in a house that is 60 years old and in a neighborhood that has many large trees that have grown out of control into the above ground power lines. Both Cable and phone lines are on these same power poles that are among trees. We live in an area that consistently has high winds most of the time. I am beginning to think that many of our connectivity issues are a direct result of these aging power, cable, and phone lines being exposed to large trees and high winds.
I have a moderate level of experience in trouble shooting computers and the Internet. When Internet is lost, most technical support will encourage you to turn off your router, modem, and all connected computers. They will have you turn on the modem, then then router, and then the connected computers. This is good advice and almost always works as most people that have had this problem will attest. Our problem is intermittent in nature but consistent in its repetitiveness. Over the last few years, we have changed modems, routers, and providers and the problem is never ending. I am hopeful that our move next year will help to alleviate these connection issues. Right now we are using a brand new cable modem and router. My router, D-Link DIR-825 802.11(n) Gigabit, is not even a week old. Our modem is a Motorola SBV-5222 and we have only had it for six months.The one noticeable improvement this router has resulted in is the auto reset. The Internet still loses connection but no longer seems to need us to restart the modem and router. It seems to restart itself within two minutes. When I am streaming video, the lost Internet is very annoying.
There are many reasons why I believe our problems are infrastructure. Over the years we have lost electric power many many times because trees have grown into the power lines and the wind has blown them into the wires. I have lost a monitor from a power surge that was a result of a loose ground wire on the power line behind my house. The local power company came to my house and narrowed the issue to that connection. To give you an idea of how this works I will explain. When that wire comes loose it is akin to turning on the water faucet and putting your thumb over the hose. When you take your thumb off the hose you will get a sudden surge of water pressure that shoots the water with a higher force. The same can be said of your power lines. The voltage is the pressure that pushes the electricity through the wires. The actual electrons (current) flowing through the wire is like the water going through the hose. When the current is slowed, it increases pressure (voltage). This sudden surge of voltage can be reduced with surge protectors but those do not work in our old neighborhood. Surge protectors rely on using the home’s ground. These old homes only have the old two wire power wires in the home and do not have a good ground for the surge protector to use.
I may be way off on my assumption but this is what I have narrowed it down to. We have changed every piece of hardware in the home network. The only thing left is infrastructure. I really hope that when we move, it can fix this problem. I talk to others and find I am the only one that has these problems, at least to this extent. If anyone can think of other issues that I failed to think of, please, by all means, let me know. We have had this problem intermittently over the last ten years that we have lived in this house. I am not too proud to accept assistance that can fix this problem.
Google Wave Disappointment
For those of you that are sitting around on pins and needles waiting for an invite to Google Wave, do not waste your time. I was doing the same thing from May until October until some nice gentleman sent me an invite. This invite came in October, over a month ago and so far there is still no one on it. Of the more than 200 people on my Gmail account, only five people are on Google Wave. Of those five people, I have only seen one of them online in a month. I sent messages to all of them and got one response. I am not blaming these people because they are likely doing the same thing as I am… sitting waiting for someone to get online. Google Wave is supposedly opening up their system slowly so that it does not overwhelm them. Unfortunately they have disabled inviting friends and family so you are left with no one to test it on.
The five people on my list are acquaintances that I really do not know that well except for an occasional conversation on Twitter. My heart ache that I have is that after having it for a month, I STILL cannot even test it because I cannot try it out on anyone. Secondly, many people on social networks talk about this as though they are some elitist snob because they have an invite and others do not. They are better people because they have access to this disappointment of a program.
Honestly, Google Wave does not even look that impressive to me. If it has any special functionality, I cannot tell because there is no way to use it. It is so exciting being able to sit in a room with a toy when you cannot show it to anyone. How fun it is to go on a vacation by yourself. I think many of the stories about this program are similar to those that follow and worship celebrities. If it came from Google then it must be angelic and have supernatural powers. If it came from Google then it is automatically good without even trying it. We know that is not true, just look at Google Talk. That program has been out for several years and it still cannot compete with the worst instant messenger out there. I am not trying to bash Google but rather trying to put some perspective in the discussion. Right now, if someone were to ask me how I like Google Wave after having it for a month, I would have to return the question of how they like their girlfriend that they have never spoken to or seen a picture of. It is the same thing here. I have a Google Wave account but cannot do anything on it.
I would say the program is a huge disappointment. I would say the great Google has disappointed us with this system. What is the purpose in opening up a program for testing if you are not going to allow the people to test it? You cannot test a program that you cannot use. After reading hundreds of articles about this great system that will revolutionize the world and replace email, I have to say it is not going to happen. This is sort of like when a new movie comes out and has thousands of commercials and stories about it and then when it finally comes out, it is a disappointment. I will predict from what I can see of Google Wave that it will not replace email like they advertise.
There will be the Google worshippers that will be ‘ga ga’ about it and talk about how Google has saved the world again, but outside of that crowd, it will not become mainstream. I watched the video online about it and I know people. Those that are not Google worshippers will say it is too complicated. Heck, I cannot even get people to try Skype and it is the easiest program around. People want the ‘big button’ to push and do not want to think beyond that. For this reason, Linux will never be mainstream because these people cannot figure this out. This is part of the Apple craze. Their minute 10% market share goes after this crowd that wants to use big buttons. Remember the old America Online commercials? They would say “It is so easy, it is no wonder we’re number one.” Their target audience was those that knew nothing but how to click the big button. This audience is larger than people think. For this reason, I think that Google Wave will not become as big as the prophets proclaim. The Google worshippers will kneel before the Google throne. Many will try it on a short term basis but the vast majority of the people will yawn and go about their way.
This article is not just ‘sour grapes’ as you may think. I’ll admit that I am completely disappointed in Google’s policy of forbidding us from even adding our family on there but that is not what is driving my entire opinion. I just know human nature. I will say that Google does have some pretty good toys but this one will not be a long term success. After looking at it for a month, I have changed my opinion of the system. With my own experiences dealing with those the do not even try new programs, I have to change my prediction that this program will not become mainstream. That is just my opinion but I am VERY certain that it is correct in this case.
Google Wave
Last week I finally received my invite to Google Wave and I have not been able to test it the way I wanted to. The problem is that Google has stopped allowing new invitees to be able to send out invites to others. I think they are on a limited basis with some people but for the most part they are not. A while back, I followed Steph Hannon on Twitter, one of the project managers for Google Wave. On October 9th, 2009 she Tweeted the following message…
Recent invitees do not get to invite others. We will grow from sign-ups and the invite queue. Active users might get invite wave later …
Unfortunately, I received my invite after this date so I am unable to send any invites. In fact, I have been disappointed that I cannot even invite my own family or friends so that I can effectively test it. I do have five contacts that are members as well so I can use it a little. For the record, I do understand this is a limited beta that is not open to the public so I do not want to come across as whining.
So far, I am very satisfied with the functions such as dragging and dropping pictures, Word documents, pdf files, etc directly into the Wave. It does run pretty fast with immediate updates character by character when the other person types. It is sort of impressive considering it is just in beta status. By definition, being in beta testing, it is supposed to have some flakiness and random crashes. By limiting the users, the proliferation of this beta version is slowly rolled out. If they did not do this, it would likely be overwhelmed by the massive number people due to the massive amount of hype it has received.
My first observation of the service is mixed because it has tons of potential while if you have many people in the conversation, it can be overwhelming. I think this service will be wonderful if you are communicating with five or less people simultaneously. If you have more people than this in a single Wave, it could become so busy that you get lost. My negative feelings are solidly outweighed by the positive.
The incredible amount of attention this service has received can be good or bad. Let’s just hope that all the attention stays until the service becomes open to the public. There has been so much attention that many people forget that it is a beta service. People may hear about it so much that they get impatient waiting for an invite. I will have to be honest that I have become impatient myself. Ever since Google Wave announced this upcoming service in May 2009, I signed up for an invite. It took until October for me to get one. This is not a bad thing on Google as much as it is on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.
These social sites, have been buzzing for so long in almost an elitist fashion. If you have been a bystander in all this, it seemed as though many people were boasting in a way that seemed like they were better human beings just because they had an invite. Now we know this is not true, but the atmosphere surrounding it, made me become a little frustrated to the point that I was bashing the service in these social networking sites. For this reason, I think it may be a good idea to not release the news of new services to the public until they are closer to release date. Is it possible that people can become so overwhelmed with the hype that it can never live up to it? I think it can.
I hope they can finish up their beta testing very soon before this happens because all the excitement can be lost if too much time elapses. I am very excited for this service while I am also frustrated that my family and friends do not have it. It is sort of like someone buys you a brand new car that you can only drive by yourself in the desert when no one else is around. The future of this service could be very good because the way I hear it, Google plans on making it open source so that other companies can use it in their own systems. this sounds very promising. The reality of this optimism has yet to be seen. I will keep you up to date as this system evolves.
Internet Issues
In an all too familiar game, I am stuck playing the card that I do not wish to play. This morning I called in a work order to have my Internet service provider (ISP) changed from AT&T Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to Cox Cable. Before you get too excited that I have finally seen the light and come over to the cool side I should explain this is not the first time I have been with Cox. I have been around the Internet since I was on bulletin boards back in the early 90’s. My first direct Internet experience was through Telnet in 1994 when we were stationed at Luke AFB in Phoenix, Arizona.
You may be asking yourself why I switched in the first place. Well as you all know we have very few choices when it comes to broadband Internet. We have our phone company or our cable company and that is it. If one of them makes you mad, you only have one other place to go. I live in an older neighborhood where the infrastructure is crumbling beneath us. Our phone lines are 50+ years old and our cable lines date back to the 1980’s. This is just another reason we plan on moving in the next two years. Back to the subject. When we moved to the Oklahoma City area in 1999 we had then Southwestern Bell DSL. The service was decent most of the time but then when they would go down, we could never get in touch with technical support because of their terrible automated phone system. A person wants to scream about 15 minutes into the circle of death pressing 1 for English and 2 for Spanish and so on…
What is a person to do? Switch to the competitor, Cox Cable. I did this around 2002 and again I was pleased for a while before we have the same failures. Again, we have some very old infrastructure both inside the house and outside. After losing connections over and over again, we switched back to AT&T in 2006 knowing what we were getting ourselves into. I must say this time the service was much better than before and hey! My old phone number was available that I had when I was a kid so I chose it. The service was outstanding up until a couple months ago and now we are losing service left and right. Before you say anything, I know the problem is outside my house because I disconnected all wiring from inside the house and then connected the modem directly to the box outside the house.
Once again, what is a person to do? Go to the competitor Cox Cable. This is the only recourse that we have when the system is not working. I know many of you are saying… Why would you ever go to DSL when you could have cable? Cable is faster than DSL in almost every case! Well, this may be true in theory but for the average user, you cannot tell the difference in performance.
I have six computers on my network and one of them streams audio 24 hours a day. There are three hard wired desktops and three laptops. Heck there are seven if you count my phone that also uses wifi for my unlicensed mobile access (UMA). My son uses Bit Torrent (legally) because he has a band with his friends. In addition I have tested my network running Skype video on two computers, and streaming video on Ustream.com at the same time.
With all this running simultaneously, our network runs flawlessly on the AT&T Elite DSL. This Elite plan is supposed to supply up to 6 mega bits per second (Mbps) and I have tested around 5.4 Mbps at the best. The cable plan that I am subscribing too is a 12 Mbps and I have had the 10 Mbps before. My dad already has the 12 Mbps cable and it is very good. One thing that is worthy of pointing out, it does not matter if you have 8,000 Gbps fiber optic cable going to your house, if the web site on the other end is bogged down, the page is not going to load any faster. This is something that some people do not understand. If you are sharing files (legally) and 100 people are downloading the same file, you are going to get a slow download even if you have broadband. The point in all this is that for the average user, the difference between DSL and Cable is negligible. I came to this realization years ago so the supposed improved performance of cable is barely even noticeable to the average user.
There was another reason this time for the switch. The telephone number that I now have is the same number that my parents had when I was a kid. Unfortunately these numbers are assigned a three digit prefix that are assigned to AT&T for Del City. If I were to move to another suburb in the Oklahoma City metro, I could not take this number with me. By porting it over to Cox telephone, then I can take it with me as long as I stay within the 405 area code. This means if I move to Midwest City, Moore, Oklahoma City or anywhere else in the metro, I can keep my childhood phone number.
And finally there is one more reason for changing. In December 2007 we had an incredible ice storm as you may remember in my post on December 11, 2007. This storm damages power lines all over the metro including cable lines. The last couple of months I have noticed Cox cable running brand new lines in my neighborhood. I am not sure if this has anything to do with repairing the old and damaged lines or if there is an actual upgrade that would enhance the performance. In either case, it is certain to be new infrastructure that will help eliminate connection drops. The old lines were silver, likely aluminum lines while now there are black thick lines.
I hope this helps to explain my reasoning for the switch this time. The change will not actually happen until next week. This is one of the reasons that I use my own domain and a web based email as my email account. This way, if I change, it is transparent to those on the outside. I never give or even use the email given to me by my ISP. I am anxious to see how well the new service will work. I am pretty sure that it will be more dependable if for no other reason the new cable lines being installed. They have already upgraded the ones behind my house. I look forward to trying some bandwidth tests with some of you online.
Update August 18, 2009
View Larger Map
I just tried Google Maps for the first time in a while and it is really nice. I was amazed at how well I could see our home in England when we were in the Air Force. The above address it 34 Adastral Close, Felixstowe, Suffolk, England. It is phenomenal how clear and close you can zoom. I am not talking about Google Earth, but rather http://maps.google.com. It lets you save your own maps publicly and private as well as trips. If you make them public, others can search and find your own maps. Also I have been playing around with Google Reader, and Friendfeed since there has been so much hype about the Facebook takeover of Friendfeed.
It is interesting that despite my many railings against Google Fanboys, I have become one. It seems that every time I turn around there is another free toy that I can play with. In fact I am typing this using the Google Chrome browser. My phone has a Google sync application that syncs my Gmail address book, and calendar. Anything that I put on the web, suddenly comes to my phone. This pains me to become a fanboy because I have always had a soft spot for Yahoo since I have been with them from the beginning. It seems that Yahoo has decided to join forces with Microsoft’s Bing.com. Bing is also pretty good at search. I do like to have all of them succeed because I believe competition is always good for the consumer. If you have one dominant player then creativity can suffer. This is funny that I talk about creativity when I am the least creative person on the face of the earth. I am hoping that Bing and Yahoo can finally get to a point where they are competitive again soon.
This morning it rained as I went to work but as usual it was clear and sunny when I got off work. I really hoped that it would stay around until I got off work so I could enjoy it. Our lawn mower broke down or maybe I should say it was purposely destroyed this weekend. I will not elaborate on here as to not embarrass the person that did it. Now we need a new mower just so we can mow the lawn and it is getting tall. I am just hoping that we do not get a fine before we can get the mower replaced.
UPDATE: 19 Aug 2009
I owe this person an apology. No one broke the lawn mower but rather it vibrated some screws out. Since the drive shaft is slightly bent, the mower runs out of balance and vibrates as it runs. I tightened that bolt and mowed three strips and the bolt came back out. So I just wanted to say that I was wrong.
I will be going to Illinois in a couple weeks on a personal trip. I will only be spending the night and then heading back the next day since I need to get back to work. I was supposed to be going to San Antonio on a work related trip this week but I was cut from the list due to financial concerns. I am actually glad I was this time because there are things going on at home that need to be dealt with.
My work has been so overwhelming lately because there are so many things going on as well as having new trainees. It is interesting that I am supposed to be training them and I am a trainee myself. I guess on the bright side, it shows that my supervisor has confidence in me. I will think the glass is half full 
. With so many things going on at work I often forget where I was. I am the kind of person that likes to take notes and do things in an orderly way. Unfortunately I work in an environment where we put out fires through email and the phone. There is always a crisis going on somewhere in the world that needs our immediate attention. My orderly notes and to do list has degenerated into a pile of yellow sticky notes all over my desk. I hate disorder and confusion. I like to complete a task before starting another but that is impossible in my office. It is amazing how a letter from a General can get our whole office in an uproar. It is similar to stepping on a red ant bed and then watching the swarm. Everyone stop what you are doing and focus on this hang nail the General has. I say this with some humor but there is some truth to it as I guess it should be in this type of environment. Despite my talk about being outside of my comfort zone, I love my job. I feel that what I do is important and I try to do my best. I just wish everyone could be as blessed as I am. I will be in class the next two days so I should be able to see some calm before returning the hyper crazed zoo that is my office.
Well I thought I would post a few words since I have not posted much lately. I love blogging just for the heck of it. Sometimes I vent like a crazed lunatic and sometimes I just want to tell the world about my day. It is funny how I come across people that are polar opposites. Some people are so private and think I am crazy for posting my personal thoughts online. I have people that tell me that “Big Brother” is listening it so you should not post online. I got over that long ago when I found that you could search for ham radio call signs online. Also the County Assessor’s office has pictures of everyone’s home online. There is just too much going on in the world to worry about “Big Brother”. Others think it is cool and wish they could do it themselves. I considered taking the blog down a few days ago but I think I will leave it up. If nothing else, it can be used as comedy when I get into one of my rants. For those that do read, I appreciate it.
Bing.com
Today was the official launch of Bing.com, Microsoft’s new search engine. This is the successor to MSN.com’s search and I must say that I like it. Probably what piqued my curiosity was the fact that it was from Microsoft. I am not a huge Microsoft fan by any stretch but I tend to give them a the benefit of the doubt because of all the irrational cult following of Google. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Google but I have found that Many Google worshippers also tend to be Apple Macintosh worshippers. There again, I have nothing against Apple either except that their products are way over priced for what you get. Their followers act as though they are a higher being for owning one when they should be embarrassed for paying so much for such a proprietary product. Anyway, I have drifted off topic. Talking about Google and Apple worshippers tends to do that to me. Back to Bing.com
This new search engine is pretty sharp looking. Not only does it have some pretty impressive search results but it has some cool assistance tools. When you search for something, the results have a dot on the right side. If you hover your mouse over the dot, it shows some highlights of the page so you can see what it is about before you click on the links. They have kept some of the other tools they used before such as the Windows Live maps renamed Bing Maps. It shows related links on the left side of the page. It is integrated with Windows Live tools on the top and if you are signed in, it keeps a running log of your searches just like Google. This log is clearable so you do not have to keep the record if you do not want to. The Windows Live tools includes the improved Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Windows Live Writer, and Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, and calendar, all of which are free.
Bing has links to videos on the top where you can watch many of your favorite network television shows. You can search for images, videos, maps, and shopping. This search engine seems to be more graphic oriented allowing the user to search and see what they are searching for before they click on the results. Many searches even include a point of contact, email, or phone number. I really like the appearance and performance and not just because it is not Google though that is an extra benefit . Just kidding . I don’t mean to gush over it but I would encourage you to give it a try and not just ‘dis’ them because they are Microsoft or not Google. Give them a real chance for a while and see if they do not grow on you. I think I will see how they are over time. I like to try things all the time and I love it when there are new choices.
Any time there are more choices, the consumer/user benefits. Competition is a great thing because it brings out the best inventions. I do use Google, but I also use Yahoo and now Bing. I do not think it is ever a great idea to just follow the crowd because I have found that many in the Tech community are just followers. The create Twitter pages, Facebook pages, Myspace pages and all tout the greatness of one company and bash other companies without any merit. I have found that many Google worshippers will bash Yahoo relentlessly for no reason. Yahoo is a pioneer on the Internet and still have some great tools even now. I think that Bing and Windows Live do as well though many people discount them because they are not Google which is sad. So give Bing a try and see if they are worth the time. From my first impressions I would have to say yes. I like the feel, the results, and the appearance and I think you will too.
Twitter “OFF”
I have been one of the greatest advocates of using Twitter. I use them every day for two years and loving it. Lately they have been getting on my nerves to a point that I am yelling at them. One of the major attractions to using Twitter is the ability to update via short messaging service (SMS), or text. It is so convenient to send a text message and know that it is updating my Twitter page, my Facebook page, and my personal web site all at the same time.
From my cell phone I can send a text message “on” or “off” to turn notifications on or off to my cell phone. This way if I have to be in a meeting I can just send “off” and the notifications stop until I turn them back on. Lately I have been sending “off” and it has not been taking effect right away. In fact in some cases it does not take effect for more than four hours. This is completely unacceptable. Even putting my phone on vibrate does not help when I am getting continuous flows of messages when I am in a meeting.
Another thing that it does is keeps me from getting the messages from those that I do want to talk to. When I am in a meeting for an hour and a half and I come out with 20+ Twitter messages on my phone, I tend to ignore them. When someone in my family sends me a text message it gets ignored because of the endless messages coming in after I told it to stop. A couple nights ago it was doing this and I got so mad that I sent “off” over and over and over again where I probably sent “off 20+ times. The messages kept coming. When I got up for work in the morning I had 40+ messages from Twitter and most of them were my “off” confirmations that I sent telling it to stop.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see this would get old fast. Tonight it is doing it again. I have already sent “off” a dozen times and I am STILL getting messages. Am I the only one that is having this problem? Unlike many people I use the “on” and “off” commands regularly because I have to work or sleep. I leave my phone on 24 hours a day because most people I talk to call me on it. If there is an emergency, that is the number that people will likely call me on so turning off the phone when I go to bed is not an option.
I just submitted a troubleshooting request with Twitter to see if they can find out what is going on. I hate to cancel my service but if this is what it comes to then I guess I have no choice. I am approaching 7,000 Twitter messages at this time so I use them quite heavily. Twitter, fix this problem!
T-Mobile’s 3G
We have been pretty loyal to T-Mobile over the years, in fact we have been with them since they entered the U.S. Market when they acquired Voicestream around 2000. We have great service where we go and all at a reasonable price. The one place they seem to be lacking is their 3G, or third generation service. This term refers to the capability to get Internet on your device at a pretty good speed. I have been patiently waiting for this to arrive where we live with no sign of it coming any time soon. T-Mobile did begin their rollout of 3G service back in May 2008 and expanded to 27 cities by October 2008. To date, we have not seen any additions since then and I am beginning to get impatient. Our contract runs out in June 2009 and I would like to stay with them out of loyalty but without any guarantees that 3G is coming any time soon, we may be forced to look elsewhere.
I did read an article on Tmonews.com that T-Mobile plans on increasing from 100 million people with 3G capability to 200 million in the year 2009. They just will not say which cities those will be. I really wish they would at least let us have a hint so we can make some plans.
Also I am a big fan of Blackberries but so far T-Mobile does not offer any blackberries with 3G capability even if it was available in Oklahoma City. I do take a lot of heat from my friends for staying with T-Mobile but loyalty means something to me. I know they will get 3G service here eventually but I am becoming impatient. I know there is a lot of infrastructure to change to get this service but I believe we have a large enough market to justify the expense.
Another thing that I have always loved about T-Mobile was their street level coverage map. This map is a clickable map that allows you to browse right up to your house and see how good their signal is right at your home. Just today I logged into their site and they have changed it a bit like Verizon’s map making it more difficult to make a distinction of where the tower is. This may sound trivial to most people but I have strange hobbies and one of those is finding antennas. As a ham radio operator I have always taken an interest in antennas or towers. With T-Mobile’s map, I could tell exactly where the tower was. This way I could know which ones were T-Mobiles and not another carrier. Well just this morning they changed this to make it not as easy to find the towers. Now they make it look like if there is any signal at all, it is dark green. I am not sure I like this although it is not a deal breaker for me.
I just want to tell T-Mobile if you are listening, I have four phones in Oklahoma City and I want 3G service. I want to stay with you but if you cannot guarantee service in a city/metro with more than a million people, then I may have to shop around. Please make us one of the next cities to roll out 3G service because I work in a place that blocks access to virtually every web site around. I cannot check my personal email, go to any social networking sites, or even check the scores to last night’s Thunder game. If I could get 3G service on my phone, then I would not need their service. Remember, Oklahoma City was one of the original Voicestream cities and when T-Mobile took them over, they were still one of the few that had great coverage and a great customer base. Let us know where the next deployments will be so we do not worry about it.
I will stay with T-Mobile if they can get 3G service. I live and work in the city so we should be able to have access when it is deployed. I am checking the web site every day sitting on the edge of my seat anxiously awaiting that announcement … Just kidding. I hope to hear great news soon.
I’m STILL a PC!
I know a rant on this subject many times but if there is anything in the world that bothers me is to watch a bunch of followers. Over the last couple years I have been noticing the tech (follower) community such as Leo Laporte, and his groupies singing the praises of the Mac. First let me say that I have nothing against Apple or Leo Laporte but sometimes I see people shamelessly promoting a product in the spirit of “I’m cooler than you are”. To be a Mac owner means you are better than everyone else. I do not buy this and an I think most people are beginning to agree.
One thing that is certain in the world is that if it has the Apple brand name it is going to be over priced and that is undisputable. In some cases the Apple product is actually better but good enough to equal the disproportionate pricing for their products. The Apple Mac crowd has been emboldened by Microsoft’s poor release numbers of Windows Vista. Vista has been plagued by so many negative press stories relating to the slow release, to security issues to even “it’s just to darn big”. Despite this negative press, Microsoft Windows’ market share dwarfs anything that Apple can produce even with all the free press they get by appearing in almost every Hollywood film produced since 2000.
We have listened to the virtues of Apple Macintosh to a point where it is nauseating over the last couple of years. I must admit that I am a little stubborn and tend to be motivated by going against the crowd. With that I have gone out of my way to avoid anything Apple such as the iPod, iPhone, and especially the Mac. I just see these products as being over priced and embarrassing to be seen with. To be seen with any of these products tells the world that I am proud to be gouged and that I knowingly allow people to overcharge me all in the name of a perceived “coolness” factor.
Lately Microsoft has been running an ad campaign called “I’m a PC” to combat all the pro Mac press.
Microsoft is going to be releasing the much anticipated Windows 7 later this year to put the nightmares of Vista behind them. For the record I have Vista on four of our computers and it works very nice. In the beginning it did seem to be a little flaky but has since become very stable and has some nice features. In fact this very post is being posted using Microsoft Vista. For those that are about to accuse me of being a hypocrite for paying for four computers I will explain. As most people have probably noticed the depreciation value of a computer is as bad as a car. When your computer ages, you will never get enough money for it to equal what it is worth to you. So we have decided to keep them and pass them down into our family instead of throwing them out. My children could make better use of them than the dumpster. Now I will get back on topic.
In recent days their appears to be evidence that “I’m a PC” may be working. I stumbled on this story from Boy Genius about Apple sales declining while PC’s are increasing. I do not find pleasure in Apple declining. My point in this post is that I sometimes think that all the hysteria over Apple is not proportional to their market share. With a company that has less than ten percent of all computer sales, you would think you would hear less than ten percent of all praising. Instead I find that with every tech blog, movie, celebrity known to mankind singing the praises of Apple Mac as the best computer ever built. Again, I am not saying their products are not any good but just pointing out that it seems that you have a crowd that is putting a lot of energy into praising this company’s products while not pointing out the over priced factor in all this. To use an Apple computer, you have to have their hardware and their software.
Apple is way more proprietary than Microsoft ever was. At least on a PC you can use Microsoft Windows or Linux but certainly not Mac operating system (OS). You cannot even legally put anyone else’s OS on an Apple computer. I fin it hard to find value in this from the consumer’s perspective. At least on a PC, I can choose any number of hardware manufacturers and choose the better buy. Not with an Apple! You must by their over priced hardware and their over prices operating system. This is just one of the reasons that I refuse to buy any Apple products. I can get an mp3 player for a cheaper price from ANYONE! There are dozens of manufacturers that make mp3 players and every one of them is cheaper than the iPod. I do not even want to get started on the iPhone because I think it has faults that speak for itself and those begin with AT&T.
Although I am not necessarily a Microsoft fan, I do think the PC hardware is better for the consumer. You can buy hardware piece by piece from virtually any electronics store in America. You can buy disposable Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway, Acer, or any other brand name. You can choose to install Windows, or any variant of Linux for a fraction of the cost. Maybe that Macintosh is better than my PC but it is not good enough to justify the price. It is not good enough to justify my being locked into one manufacturer for my piece parts. It is not good enough to sit on my desk either. You can keep your Mac, iPod, iPhones. I will go with something that will not have me being in the crowd that asks the government to buy out their mortgages. So with that I will just reaffirm that “I’m a PC”.