Sep 2009
Clear WiMax Internet Service
Sep 20 2009 12:14 PM Filed in: Personal
I switched internet service providers when I moved
into my new loft. It wasn't something I set out to
do, but in the end I am glad I did it.
I've been using Comcast for my ISP for the past 3 years. I never had any issues, the service was usually always there, maybe dying during a storm; and the speeds were great. I never had a bad word to say about them, but I think that has to do with the fact that I never had to deal with their customer service.
When I moved to my new place, I had it set up so that in the morning, my old service would be shut off; and in the evening, my new service would be turned on. A technician showed up in the morning at my old place, and shut off the service. That evening a technician showed up at my new place to turn on the new service. I used my old cable modem, and the technician had everything hooked up; but I was not authenticating in their system. Of course the technician did his job, now it came time for me to sit on the phone with customer service trying to get my service hooked up. Long story short, I went back and forth between customer service telling me there had to be something wrong on my side; and technicians saying everything was fine on my side (which it was, I was hitting the internet fine, just couldn't authenticate so that I could use the service). After a couple weeks of this I said screw it.
I had heard of a new service in Atlanta called Clear. Unlike your usual options of DSL, FIOS or Cable, clear uses WiMax. The best way to think of this is to compare it to cellular phone service. Clear is sending out their signal, and my WiMax modem is picking it up. I signed up for the 6MB service, and so far any time I run a speed test I am getting up in the 5+ MB speed range. Clear also offers a mobile service, where you can plug in a USB modem to your laptop and have their internet service on the go, but I'm just not that big a geek. I can't think of any time I would need that, so I opted not to do it.
I'll admit that it's not as super fast as my cable modem service, but it's fast enough that I can surf, stream and upload photos with no problem. So far I am very happy with the service, and hopefully it continues.
I've been using Comcast for my ISP for the past 3 years. I never had any issues, the service was usually always there, maybe dying during a storm; and the speeds were great. I never had a bad word to say about them, but I think that has to do with the fact that I never had to deal with their customer service.
When I moved to my new place, I had it set up so that in the morning, my old service would be shut off; and in the evening, my new service would be turned on. A technician showed up in the morning at my old place, and shut off the service. That evening a technician showed up at my new place to turn on the new service. I used my old cable modem, and the technician had everything hooked up; but I was not authenticating in their system. Of course the technician did his job, now it came time for me to sit on the phone with customer service trying to get my service hooked up. Long story short, I went back and forth between customer service telling me there had to be something wrong on my side; and technicians saying everything was fine on my side (which it was, I was hitting the internet fine, just couldn't authenticate so that I could use the service). After a couple weeks of this I said screw it.
I had heard of a new service in Atlanta called Clear. Unlike your usual options of DSL, FIOS or Cable, clear uses WiMax. The best way to think of this is to compare it to cellular phone service. Clear is sending out their signal, and my WiMax modem is picking it up. I signed up for the 6MB service, and so far any time I run a speed test I am getting up in the 5+ MB speed range. Clear also offers a mobile service, where you can plug in a USB modem to your laptop and have their internet service on the go, but I'm just not that big a geek. I can't think of any time I would need that, so I opted not to do it.
I'll admit that it's not as super fast as my cable modem service, but it's fast enough that I can surf, stream and upload photos with no problem. So far I am very happy with the service, and hopefully it continues.
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Snow Leopard
Sep 17 2009 09:39 PM Filed in: Apple
I've upgraded one of my Macs, the MacBook, to the
newest Apple OS, Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard. I still
have to upgrade my Mac Mini. Snow Leopard isn't as
drastic a change as the previous OS, Leopard, was.
This is labeled as a release where Apple refined the
OS. Instead of concentrating on adding a ton of new
features, Apple has made the existing OS better. Some
people have been calling it what Microsoft would term
a Service Pack, but it's a bit more than that. Even
though there aren't many visible changes, there has
been a lot of work done to refine the OS.
Smaller Footprint
One of the more interesting features of Snow Leopard is that you will actually gain back hard drive space once the OS is installed. This may seem weird, but once you understand one of the main refinements of Snow Leopard it totally makes sense. Back in the day Apple ran with the Power PC (PPC) architecture. A few years back Apple switched over to Intel. To allow their software to work on both architectures, they implemented a technology called Rosetta, that allowed for universal binaries. What this allowed was for a developer to compile their software against both PPC and Intel, and the resulting binary had the smarts that allowed for it to run on both architectures. This was great, but the downside was all these programs had a lot of extra baggage that was unneeded. With Snow Leopard, Apple is no longer supporting PPC. While this sucks for users that have the older Macs, this is great news for everyone on Intel, because there is no longer the need for the wasted space. Another space saving feature is that Apple is no longer bundling a butt-load of printer drivers. Now, when you hook up a printer, Snow Leopard will download the needed driver from the web. Before installing Snow Leopard I had 55GB of available space on my MacBook. After the install I had 68GB. The amount of space you get back varies per user, I believe the average is around 6 - 8 GB.
64 Bit
Apple has been in the process of converting all of the applications in their OS to 64 Bit, from 32 Bit for a while, and with the release of Snow Leopard they are mostly complete. Whereas with Microsoft Windows you would have to purchase a specific version of the OS depending on if your machine was 64 Bit or 32 Bit, Mac OS X was always smart enough to run a mixture depending on your set up. Finder, the file explorer on the Mac, has been rewritten using the Cocoa Framework from the previous Carbon Framework to allow access to all the new features.
New Expose' and Stacks
Stacks, where folders in the Dock expand, has been enhanced to allow for scrolling in grid view, and also allow drilling down in directories. Expose' has been enhanced to show minimized windows. You can also click and hold on an application icon in the dock and all associated open windows will Expose' themselves.
Quicktime X
There's a new version of Quicktime, which has a new look-and-feel, along with the ability to share directly to YouTube or FaceBook.
Grand Central Dispatch
This is something great for developers. Programming to take advantage of the new multi-processor machines available today isn't an easy task. With Grand Central, a developer just adds a couple lines of code around a section in their application that they feel would benefit from multi-processing, and Grand Central will take care of handling the rest.
Exchange Support
This feature to me is just crazy. Out of the box, as long as your company isn't in the stone age and still running Exchange 2003 like some company I now **cough** Tuner **cough**, you can use the built in Mail.app and iCal.app to connect to your companies Exchange server. This is a welcome addition, seeing as Microsoft doesn't currently produce Outlook for the Mac. This isn't native in Windows, you have to spend money on Microsoft Office to get that functionality, which can cost a pretty penny. Snow Leopard costs $30, or $49 for the family pack, which allows for installing on up to 5 machines.
A couple other features I've seen is support for up to 512 x 512 for icons, and you can play videos directly in the icon for a quick preview.
Overall I feel that Snow Leopard is a nice update, and you can't beat the price. The OS is snappier, and boot up, shut down is super fast.
Smaller Footprint
One of the more interesting features of Snow Leopard is that you will actually gain back hard drive space once the OS is installed. This may seem weird, but once you understand one of the main refinements of Snow Leopard it totally makes sense. Back in the day Apple ran with the Power PC (PPC) architecture. A few years back Apple switched over to Intel. To allow their software to work on both architectures, they implemented a technology called Rosetta, that allowed for universal binaries. What this allowed was for a developer to compile their software against both PPC and Intel, and the resulting binary had the smarts that allowed for it to run on both architectures. This was great, but the downside was all these programs had a lot of extra baggage that was unneeded. With Snow Leopard, Apple is no longer supporting PPC. While this sucks for users that have the older Macs, this is great news for everyone on Intel, because there is no longer the need for the wasted space. Another space saving feature is that Apple is no longer bundling a butt-load of printer drivers. Now, when you hook up a printer, Snow Leopard will download the needed driver from the web. Before installing Snow Leopard I had 55GB of available space on my MacBook. After the install I had 68GB. The amount of space you get back varies per user, I believe the average is around 6 - 8 GB.
64 Bit
Apple has been in the process of converting all of the applications in their OS to 64 Bit, from 32 Bit for a while, and with the release of Snow Leopard they are mostly complete. Whereas with Microsoft Windows you would have to purchase a specific version of the OS depending on if your machine was 64 Bit or 32 Bit, Mac OS X was always smart enough to run a mixture depending on your set up. Finder, the file explorer on the Mac, has been rewritten using the Cocoa Framework from the previous Carbon Framework to allow access to all the new features.
New Expose' and Stacks
Stacks, where folders in the Dock expand, has been enhanced to allow for scrolling in grid view, and also allow drilling down in directories. Expose' has been enhanced to show minimized windows. You can also click and hold on an application icon in the dock and all associated open windows will Expose' themselves.
Quicktime X
There's a new version of Quicktime, which has a new look-and-feel, along with the ability to share directly to YouTube or FaceBook.
Grand Central Dispatch
This is something great for developers. Programming to take advantage of the new multi-processor machines available today isn't an easy task. With Grand Central, a developer just adds a couple lines of code around a section in their application that they feel would benefit from multi-processing, and Grand Central will take care of handling the rest.
Exchange Support
This feature to me is just crazy. Out of the box, as long as your company isn't in the stone age and still running Exchange 2003 like some company I now **cough** Tuner **cough**, you can use the built in Mail.app and iCal.app to connect to your companies Exchange server. This is a welcome addition, seeing as Microsoft doesn't currently produce Outlook for the Mac. This isn't native in Windows, you have to spend money on Microsoft Office to get that functionality, which can cost a pretty penny. Snow Leopard costs $30, or $49 for the family pack, which allows for installing on up to 5 machines.
A couple other features I've seen is support for up to 512 x 512 for icons, and you can play videos directly in the icon for a quick preview.
Overall I feel that Snow Leopard is a nice update, and you can't beat the price. The OS is snappier, and boot up, shut down is super fast.
I've Moved
Sep 17 2009 09:25 PM Filed in: Personal
I've moved out of the house I was renting. This is
actually pretty old news, seeing as I moved into my
new loft back at the end of June. I'm living in a one
bedroom 1400 sq ft loft in a place called The
Warehouse. This is the same loft complex that my
friend Paige lives in. At first I was hesitant to
move into the same complex, seeing as there's no
better way to ruin a good friendship than to invade
each others space; but I think we both enjoy our time
to ourselves so much, that this hasn't really been a
problem. Even though I live up the hall and around
the corner from Paige, we can go days without
actually seeing each other. It's also great for the
times that we do want to hang out, because I can just
walk over and have a drink or two, and then leave.
Before I would have to drive 6 miles over to hang
out, and then drive back, after drinking.
My place is pretty nice. It's basically like you would think a real loft is. It's one big room, with an upstairs area that's become my office. I have windows upstairs, and a sky light in the bedroom, otherwise my unit is on the interior, so I have no windows on the first level. I have a laundry room, a bathroom, and a decent sized kitchen. My dishwasher is one of those units you wheel over near the sink, hook the hose up to the faucet, and plug in. I was a little scared the first time I used it, because I didn't know if I would hook everything up to where there wasn't water shooting out all over the place, but it was painless and worked like a champ. It's not the greatest place, but it's good enough for a single guy that wanted to cut some expenses and move out of the house I was renting. I'm saving around $600 a month with the move, once you take into account the lower rent, no yard service, pest service or security monitoring service. I also live within walking distance of MARTA, which I take to work, so I'm not really spending any money on gas, and when the weather gets cooler I can walk to the station.
My place is pretty nice. It's basically like you would think a real loft is. It's one big room, with an upstairs area that's become my office. I have windows upstairs, and a sky light in the bedroom, otherwise my unit is on the interior, so I have no windows on the first level. I have a laundry room, a bathroom, and a decent sized kitchen. My dishwasher is one of those units you wheel over near the sink, hook the hose up to the faucet, and plug in. I was a little scared the first time I used it, because I didn't know if I would hook everything up to where there wasn't water shooting out all over the place, but it was painless and worked like a champ. It's not the greatest place, but it's good enough for a single guy that wanted to cut some expenses and move out of the house I was renting. I'm saving around $600 a month with the move, once you take into account the lower rent, no yard service, pest service or security monitoring service. I also live within walking distance of MARTA, which I take to work, so I'm not really spending any money on gas, and when the weather gets cooler I can walk to the station.
Time To Revive the Blog
Sep 17 2009 09:21 PM Filed in: Personal
I've been ignoring my blog for too long. Even if no
one except a couple friends read this blog, and maybe
the occassional developer stumbling across a post;
I've still found that when I am blogging I get
interested in side projects, which give me my fodder
to blog about. I've been ignoring my blog for too
long, and my site in general, and it's time to get
back into it.