Category: Tech

So I’ve been very annoyed with our speed of our internet lately. It seems to have slowed, so I called Comcast. They came out and told me everything was great. And the guy pinged a server in Vegas as a test. Well I was getting 4Mbps (megabytes per second) and we pay for 8Mbps.. he said it was b/c of the router I was seeing 4 not 8 (not true), so later I took the router out of the loop and still was getting 4 to the server in Vegas. So James comes today and says everything is normal, and that the server in Vegas was the problem, and that Adam was incorrect in stating the router was definitely limiting, but actually windows was probably the one limiting. James also said I should try using a tool on speedguide.net called the broadband optimizer. This lil app tweaks your windows xp settings to make sure your network card is allowing the proper amount through. So I said ok whatever I’ll try it when I get home. Well I grabbed it here at work to see what it did. I didn’t need a speed boost here at the Novell campus, I get 25Mbps, but I thought, heck I’ll ramp this thing up as high as it goes. Well, I ran a speed test at speedtest.net and I now instead of 25Mbps I got 100Mbps, with a 10Mbps upload… THAT’S INSANE!

Here is the proof. So now I can’t wait to get home and see what I get at home after I run this thing. So far I highly recommend running this thing!

So I just got this email today…

An owner of a Wii Console is asking permission
to register you as a Wii Friend to exchange
e-mail with you. This individual’s Wii e-mail address is
w7583882439278465@wii.com

While I don’t find this to be a problem, I find it to be pretty darn funny. I know 3 people with Wii’s and I enjoy talking with all three of them… but I didn’t happen to memorize each of their 32 digit Wii Console ID numbers…. so who sent this to me? As soon as I know I will accept the mail, otherwise it’s a very clever way to get people to accept spam.

Oops, researchers just unveiled a pretty serious security vulnerability in the iPhone. More specifically, it’s Apple’s Safari web browser which exhibits the vulnerability. Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators have used the vulnerability to take malicious control of the iPhone from rogue websites loaded with the exploit. Once in, researchers have full administrative access over the phone allowing them to listen in on room audio or snatch the SMS log, address book, call history, email passwords and more — we’re talking full access to your phone. Researchers note that the only way to stay safe is to check those URLs and only visit sites that you trust (which isn’t very reassuring) and “may or may not be exploitable” from Mac and PC versions of Safari

See the site

Ever wonder what's better? Shut down all the time, or let it hibernate? This computer question was answered best by the tech guy

Ok so if you live in America, I don’t know how you wouldn’t know the iPhone is coming out tom. I’m sick and tired of hearing about this phone. If WWII was allowed to have as much propaganda as this phone, women and children would have wanted to join up. So anyway, if you’ve ever been tempted at all to think about buying one, good you should have, but NOT NOW! WAIT FOR THE SECOND VERSION! If you think about it, buying an iPhone tom, or soon, is over a $3000 commitment! You commit to be on the worst network in cell phones for 2 years, at $60 a month for voice and $40 a month for data, PLUS $600 for the phone itself. Before that contract is over, a second model, probably with fewer bugs, better features and prob a lil cheaper will come out.

Now I’m not hating the iPhone, actually I love the fact that most phones that will come out after will have similar features, I love that it’s a widescreen video iPod. I love that it has a feature rich internet browser. What I want to point out, are the things I don’t love about it, that maybe you haven’t thought about. So what do you think? What do you like about this revolutionary phone? What don’t you like?

We’d like to welcome those of you who have joined the blogosphere this year. And are excited to see what comes out of the latest venture, Rachel T’s Blizog. If you haven’t joined the fun and new alternative to calling everyone you know… you should jump on the bandwagon. I’d recommend WordPress, but some people like Blogger… bleh.

So I’ve recently fallen in love with Google. I’ve been using the new document and spreadsheet functions. It’s so sweet you can create and share and co-edit spreadsheets + docs, plus the Calander is SWEEeeet! I do like how everything ties together as well, ie. Someone emailed me about a meeting on Friday and Gmail asked if I wanted to add it to my calander, then I got an email reminder that I’m playing disc golf with Z at lunch. And then I fell in love with this video:
ARCHIVED

This place was announced today, it’s a series of man made islands that when completed will be in the shape of the world. The differences between island world and the real world? This one will be made by man, prob won’t be ready for anyone to live there within our lifetime, and everything will be named very oddly. For example the first island scheduled to be completed is called: OQYANA. Which I’m pretty sure isn’t a word in ANY language. (feel free to correct me) The same company that built this luxury hotel I saw on the travel channel is in charge of creating the new island world, we’ll see how they do.

What do you think? Would you live there? What if you were born there and never knew any other place besides oqyana?

So iTunes 7.2 is now available for download. It offers three new options apparent on the store homescreen. iTunes U, iTunes Plus, and Complete My Album… lets click on each one…iTunes U, hmm ok not what I was expecting.. it’s classes sold over iTunes (Is that Mom T rejoicing?) check out more info on Apple’s site. iTunes Plus is the DRM free central station. They also claim it’s “our highest quality”.. wait, they weren’t already selling us their highest quality!? If you click on anything on this screen you have to click that you love iTuens plus and you will be loyal to that, (you can change this setting in pref after). Afterwards you can browse the DRM free music if iTunes responds… there is also an option to “upgrade my library” this will convert all your purchased music and videos to DRM free copies, for a price! The 6 songs in my library that I haven’t converted myself yet, would cost me $1.80.. Cotton, what’s yours say? (he has over 3 gigs of purchased music). Complete My Album is a marketing tactic to get you to buy the rest of the album you didn’t want when you purchased the singular song in the first place. They discount the rest of the album for “a limited time” in case you want all the crappy songs left over.

So all in all, if you are hitting the limit of your shared music, or burnt cd’s then you better jump on board with this DRM free stuff, if they are selling the DRM free version of your song that is… Also, I thought the point of DRM free music was to cut some costs of distribution… why do we have to pay 30 cents more to upgrade a song.. taking the price of one song to 1.29. Shouldn’t they be giving us 30 cents to convert… what do you think? Is it worth the money to have your songs converted? Will you start taking classes at iTunes U?

another post FMBM… 🙂 … who said they don’t like Walmart? Well shame on you! Walmart is the first big box to employ hybrid technology to save the world… and lots of money. Peterbilt is making four trucks that are diesel/electric hybrids. Hopefully more and more truckers will switch to hybrids, causing more and more mechanics to learn how to service hybrids, increasing the demand for hybrids, increasing the production of hybrids, lowering the prices of hybrids.

Now when is my hybrid motorcycle coming!?