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Come on AT&T! Seriously!?

So, it’s summer. News to everyone, I know… Like the rest of you, we will be traveling a bit. As most of you know, I have a hard time cutting my digital cord, so I was researching option for mobile Internet. I looked at a pc card, $60.00/month, of course, I’d only use it one month. But the best option to me, seemed to be adding the tethering option to my iPhone data plan. For those who don’t know, tethering is using your cell phone’s data connection to get your computer online. Like a cell modem, of sorts. So, instead of an extra $60, I would just add $20 for the month. Well, not so fast. And for those of you who think you can just enable that feature, you can’t. AT&T has to turn it on (unless you jailbreak your phone, that’s another post)… So, I called.

“Hey, I need to add tethering to my iPhone data package.”

“No problem ma’am (yeah…) I can help you with that.”
“That will be the 2GB data plan for $25 + $20 for tethering, pro-rated…” blah blah blah

“whoa, sir (pretty sure it was a lady), I have an unlimited data plan. Will I lose the unlimited plan if I add tethering?”

“yes sir (I must sound more manly when I’m irritated)”

Insert-we don’t really want people making any meaningful use of our services.

“well, that doesn’t really seem fair. That I have to give up my unlimited plan jut to add tethering.”

“well, it isn’t fair that you get to tether with unlimited usage for the same price (referring to the $20).”

“it’s perfectly fair, I’ve been a customer for almost a decade now, and I’ve had my plan for 3 years. If they wanted unlimited data, they should have got on the boat sooner.”

“sorry.”

“thanks.”

Why is the 2GB package a big deal, you ask? That seems like plenty of data you say… Well, consider the overage charges on 7.8GB of data on a 2GB plan. That’s how much data I used last month I haven’t done the math, but I’m sure the bill would be over $500.00. No happening. I’m a heavy user. Not just for fun, either. A lot of my data is from remote accessing my servers at work. That’s a big chunk of my usage.

So, now I’m back at square one… I can still jailbreak and enable it myself… It looks the same to AT&T. They can’t tell if it’s my phone or my computer connected through my phone. Or just live without. I’m sure I’ll figure something out, I love a good fight with “the man” (or woman, it hard to tell over the phone…)

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Two weeks with my iPhone 4…

Ah, that new phone smell...

Well, here it is.  My review of the iPhone 4.  Let’s start is good inverted pyramid style and tell you I’m going to keep it.  It’s really great in most areas, the resolution of the LCD, the addition of the front facing camera, the upgrade of the rear camera (now with flash), battery life,  and several other things.  The cons, however, are not just little cons. They are very annoying cons.  Most of which you have probably either witnessed yourself or heard about.  The anntennea problem, the proximity senor problem, and my lagging operating system issues.  These are very annoying! 

Let’s start with the pros.  I love the new smaller size of the phone. The only downside to having a completely flat back is when the phone is laying on a flat surface, i.e. my desk, it is more difficult to pickup than the 3G or 3GS.  But seriously, you can’t beat the look of this phone.  It is beautiful.  The front and rear glass are stunning.  The front glass is “gorilla glass”, reportedly very hard to scratch.  I can testify to its toughness. My youngest has already dropped it on concrete and chipped the plastic (or ceramic) edge around the glass front.  No damage to the glass, however.  The chip stops abruptly at the glass.  It appears to be very tough indeed.  The back glass is not so tough, as I did manage to put a small scratch on it with my wedding ring.  Oh well.  Welcome to being Adam’s phone.  It’s a tough life. 
The next thing you really notice about this phone is the brightness and clarity of its LCD.  It is CRAZY clear.  I put my old 3GS and the iphone 4 side by side under a magnifier and it was truly amazing how many more pixels the iphone 4 has.  I was and am very impressed with the LCD’s quality.  I picked up my 3GS the other day and it was painful to try to use with that nasty old LCD.  No matter how annoying the cons may be, I will never switch phones because of this display.   Did I mention the battery lasting longer.  It is very nice indeed.  I probably get at least 2-3 hours more usage than I did with my 3GS. 
I did some FaceTime (the iPhone 4’s video calling service) with a few other iphone 4 owners.  It was fun and pretty usefull for IT work.  I had a guy who was able to show me his screen with his phone and I was able to show him what to do with mine.  Pretty handy, if not extremely geeky. 
I’m also having a load of fun with the new rear camera and flash.  I tweeted a few days ago that someone should write and app that just turns the LED flash on and off to use as a flashlight.  I had a few developers tweet back almost immediatly that they were on it.  AWESOME!  It’s nice to be able to take pictures in all sorts of lighting and the camera auto adjustments are pretty spot on.  Verdict: It takes really good pictures.  The video is awesome too.  It’s HD quality video!  I mean, that’s crazy!  My phone now takes better video that my full on VIDEO CAMERA!!!  Really?! 
I’m enjoying the iOS4, but I’m not sure if I care for the multitasking so much.  I wish there was a way to close all the programs at once.  Even restarting the phone doesn’t do it.  Also it seems alittle laggy when a call is coming in.  It goes like this: Phone lights up, Then it vibrates, the the caller ID comes on, then the phone rings…  That all takes about 5-10 seconds.  That’s a pretty long time!  And when I swipe to answer there is also a delay.  I’m getting used to it, but I can’t help thinking that I never had this problem on the 3GS.  Shouldn’t new products be at least as good as the old ones?  Again, not a huge thing, but come on…  That shouldn’t been fixed.
Ok, looks like I’ve already started on the cons, so here are some more.  The anntennea.  Now, I can’t say for sure that I have dropped any calls.  I can’t say it for sure due to the second con, the proximity senors.  I’m not sure if I’m dropping them due to signal loss or if my face is hanging up because the phone hasn’t turned off the screen.  It is suppossed to turn off the screen when the phone goes up to your ear.  There are sensors around the ear-speaker that detect your head (or anything else in front of them) and turn off the screen so you don’t press buttons with your face.  Again, never had this problem before this phone.  I’m put people on speaker phone, muted them, even tried to facetime call landlines.  It’s no fun.  That is probably my biggest annoyance with this phone.  But again, I LOVE THIS LCD!!!  Those are my big three, if order: Proximity Sensors, Laggy OS, Anntenna issues.
Summary:  I’m going to keep my phone.  I enjoy it alot.  The upgraded hardware could be much faster I have a feeling, if the OS were to be tweaked abit.  But I’m complaining.  I think it is still the top of the smartphone market.  Can’t wait to see what they do for the iPhone 5!!!  I’ll try to update this with more pictures later, for now… Back to work!
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Carson gave me a job…

So… Carson decided I needed to take the dashboard out of the Honda today. He stuck two coins into the CD player. No biggy. I just took the dashboard apart and took out the cd player, then took it apart. I have one left over spring from the cd player, but it still works. Oh well. Guess it was a spare!

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My sleep cycles…

UPDATE: I completely forgot to mention the purpose of this app!  It’s an alarm clock!  By monitoring your sleep cycles, or your relative state of deep sleep, it will attempt to wake you up when you are at your lightest sleep state the closest to your requested wake time.  Make sense?  Well, it works.  When I use this app, I wake up more rested because I’m not dragging myself out of a deep sleep, but a relatively light one.  Neat, huh?

One of my favorite apps is the Sleep Cycle app. I’ve talked about before, but I thought I’d mention it again. It’s not really “scientific”, but it’s pretty clever. Making use of the iphone’s built in accelerometer, the app detects movement throughout the night and translates that into your sleep state. Clever, right? It’s pretty accurate if you can get the placement if the phone correct. Check out my sleep cycles this week, along with some screen shots of the app. Here is the link to sleep cycle in the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217?mt=8

Below are my cycles starting Monday-Tuesday. You’ll notice some have almost flat lines in the middle of the night where I appear to be awake. That’s pretty much true. Those are the times when one (or both) of the boys joined us. Not my best sleep.

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Good Day!

Well I’ve had a busy day. Between getting my new iPhone (which could’ve eaten up my whole day on its own), music camp, AC repairman at home, network issues at work, remodeling at work, and a billion other little things all on top of my regular duties, I’m wore out! I’ve been working with some of the ministers on remodeling going on in their ministry areas to make sure the electricians get the power to places they will need it, whether they know they will yet or not. It’s a part of my job I enjoy. I’ve learned a lot in my 7 years about construction and building. It’s fun. I can read some blueprints! I’ve got to install some 46 inch TVs when the remodel is done and get satellite hooked to them. All fun things!
What’s nor fun is the 78 degree temps our house had been reaching. It’s so hot!! The AC guy came today and got it working much better. Yeah for Dawson & Dawson!
Parkers head wound is healing well. I won’t post a picture. Believe me. Be glad.
There’s a network switch dying at work. Fun times. We are loosing a port every few days.
And the best part of my week… My iPhone 4 arrived today. I didn’t think it would since the fedex tracking was showing it in Memphis. But as Kayce was leaving the truck pulled up. Woo hoo. I’ve spent a good hunk of my day playing with this thing, I won’t lie. It’s so nice! Crystal clear screen. I had a hard time seeing the pixels under magnification!! Not like the 3GS. I could count then with my naked eye! I’m still playing around with it. But more than anything… I’m so happy to have a working power/hold button again. Mine hasn’t worked since my leap into the lake about a year ago. I shorted the motherboard when I turned it off while it was wet. Oh well.
But the best part if my week… As always coming home to stuff like this…

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The Lucky Few…

I am one of the lucky few who recieved an email this morning that my iPhone 4 will be arriving a day early.  That is to say, I will have my iPhone 4 the day BEFORE launch day!!  Excited…  That’s an understatement.  Tomorrow is going to be a great day!  Well, every day is a great day, but tomorrow will be fun and great, too!  WOO HOO!  Ok, enough bragging. 

I installed iPhone iOS4 yestarday.  It took awhile, I had several issues.  The upgrade hung just as it was about to finish and I then my phone went into restore mode, and I couldn’t get it to restore either.  I tried several times, but it kept getting hung up.  It was a 1002 error, if I remember correctly.  After reading Apple’s help documentation, I followed their reccomendations and it worked.  It turned out hooking my iPhone into the Dock for Dell Latitude instead of into the laptop itself was causing some issue.  I just un-docked my laptop so that the iPhone was the only USB device attached and voila!  It worked fine.  iOS4 is running pretty well on my 3GS.  I’m enjoying the multitaksing with Pandora.  I really haven’t hit upon anything else that impresses me about the multitasking.  Of course, apps launch alitle faster, but nothing all that great.  The folders are awesome!!  Although, I’m having issue catagorizing all of my apps.  I’ve found I have a lot more kids games on my phone than I previously thought.  But at least I’m down to 4 pages instead of 9!! 

Again, can’t wait to get my hands on the new iPhone 4.  I already know I’m going to need a tiny torex driver to take it apart, but that shouldn’t slow me down too much!  If I can make through the first week with it and NOT jump in a lake with it in my pocket, I’ll be happy!

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Random Weekend Thoughts…

This weekend has been interesting to say the least.  I worked late on Thursday and Friday getting ready for VBS on Monday.  Friday, while I’m finishing up, I get a call from Kayce that our neighbors dog has gotten out and has them trapped in the house.  So, I leave and come home to find the dog wandering around our yard.  Our neighbor happened to hear her barking at my car as I pulled in, and came out to check on her.  So, crisis averted.  Althought, smokey, our cat, was alittle shaken by the whole thing. 

Saturday, Parker had teeball at one had to have been the hottest part of the day.  We were all dying.  Later than evening we enjoyed seeing The Roxy’s Beauty and the Beast Jr..  The kids all did a fantastic job.  Parker really enjoyed it.  Unfortunetly, our evening didn’t end so well.  As soon as we left the theatre Parker goes running down the side walk and into an intersection.  Thanksfully, downtown roads are too crazy busy in the evenings, so no harm…  Well, no physical harm.  Parker was punished for that little stunt, but more so for his general disobieence that evening.  He was quite cranky and very disrespectful.  Which is usually a sign he’s too tired.  We should’ve known something was wrong. 

Because in the middle of the night, he starts getting sick.  He’s had an “upset stomach” all night, and most of the day today.  It’s been a grand time.  Kayce and I got very little sleep, plus, I had planned on being at FBC all morning to help out and to finish the VBS setup for Monday morning.  Crazy day.  I didn’t get home until after 3pm this afternoon.  Parker is still sick.  We are all tired.  Such is life, I guess.

On the upside…  WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference) is tomorrow.  This is the day when Apple announces, among other things, THE NEW iPHONE!!!  I’m pumped!  I don’t think they have it setup yet, but http://www.engadget.com/ has the best live blog from these events.  I love the comments they throw in.  So, check out tomorrow’s announcements at 12pm CDT.  I will be!

Also, this is the week I’ll be teaching a workshop on Microsoft Publisher over at APSU.  This is going to be interesting.  It’s been a long, LONG, time since I’ve taught anything like this. I’ll be sure to let everyone know how it goes.  Hopefully, I won’t crash and burn. 

So, that was our weekend, and some of our upcoming week.  All I can say is, I can’t for vacation this year!!  HA!

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You want the traffic… You Can’t Handle The Traffic!!

Steve Job's at D8 (from engadget.com)

I was reading through engadget’s live blog of Steve Job’s interview from D8 and something caught my attention.  Check out this excerpt:

6:54PM Steve: Well it wasn’t like this. Now it’s huge. And also, when you bought a phone the carrier dictated what you had on the phone. iPhone was the first phone where we said you worry about the network, we’ll worry about the phone/.

Walt: How are they doing on that network?

6:54PM Steve: Pretty good actually. Remember, they’re handling WAY MORE data traffic than all of their other competitors combined.
 
(excerpt from engadget’s live blog of Steve Job’s interview from D8)
Did you catch that?  “…they’re handling WAY MORE data traffic than all of their other competitors combined.”  I’m pointing this out for all of you whiner babies who complain about AT&T’s network or gripe about how much better Verizon would do with the iPhone… Blah, Blah, Blah…  There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth!  AT&T has more traffic than all of their competitors and does pretty well with it.  They are improving their service as quickly as they can.  I dare say, it is probably ALOT harder to upgrade a network where every city is different, than it is to create one new device and make a billion copies.  So the phones, tablets, netbooks, etc… are going to advance far faster than ANYONE (Verizon included) can upgrade their network. 
 
So for now…  I’m happy to be on AT&T, just like I have been for almost a decade.  Boom!
 
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My Dell Studio Hybrid – Unboxed… Finally!

 

Dell Studio Hybrid

My search for a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) began almost as soon we purchased our 32 inch LCD TV for the family room.  I loved having the ability to plug my laptop into our TV and have, what was basically, a huge computer monitor.  That was a few years ago.  Since then, we have done away with our monthly TV service bills and gone the route of free “over-the-air” HD service.  This is complimented by hulu.com, netflix.com, and the like.  We do subscribe to Netflix and thus have the instant play feature, but you can read more about all that in my Life Without A TV Bill posts. 

After a couple of years of hooking up and unhooking our laptops, I finally found a deal for a PC that I liked.  I’ve looked at a Mac Mini ($599), an ASUS Eee Top ($375.00), and a Dell Studio Hybrid ($499).  

Mac Mini

The Mac is the choice of a lot of people I know, but having all PCs at home, it just didn’t make sense.  The ASUS was the front runner, but didn’t have an optical drive, which I needed since my DVD player had recently died.  Plus, the ASUS is slightly under-powered since it is basically a netbook without a screen.  The Dell was the best choice, but I just didn’t want to lay down $500.  Then…  EARTH DAY!!!  

ASUS eee Box
ASUS eee Box

Dell covertly offered $200 instant savings during the week following Earth Day on its “Earth Friendly-Power Sipping” Studio Hybrid.  It was hard to find, but I stumbled across the link while reading a tech forum.  That’s was the deal I was looking for.  A dual-core CPU, 2GB of Ram, and optical drive, and best of all ROOM TO UPGRADE!  Since the Studio Hybrid is basically a laptop crammed into a tiny space, parts would be easy to get.  So that’s what I ordered.  

IOGEAR Keyboard

 

I was none to happy when I received my first, second, or third delay notice from Dell.  I still don’t know what the issue was, but it took over a month to get my HTPC.  I’ve never this sort of problem ordering from Dell’s Small Business Division, with whom I do business weekly at FBC.  I suppose it is just the curse of dealing with Dell’s Home Division. It was well worth the wait, however.  I’m loving this little computer.  It sits perfectly on our entertainment center, and paired with a wireless keyboard with builtin trackball from IOGEAR, and a Logitech Webcam with builtin Microphone, I’m loving this setup. 

Logitech C250

 

We’ve used it mostly for Hulu and Netflix, but with the addition of the webcam, and the family being home for the summer, I’ve been skype calling home just about every day from work.  We also skype my parents every now and then.  It’s a lot more fun to do it on the big TV than on our desktop computer.  This little camera works really well for us, even in low light, and its microphone pics up very well, even sitting on the sofa 5-7 feet away.  

If you’re looking for a HTPC to help you cut the chains of Cable or Satellite TV, I would highly recommend the Dell Studio Hybrid.  Just wait for Earth Day to roll around again…  

 Unboxing Picture Below: 

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