Our goal to walk more this year has not been overly successful. Still we are trying, and yesterday, with some much warmer weather to enjoy, we managed to walk about two and half miles. Just south of the Overland Park apartment there is a golf course, and wrapped around two sides of it a paved nature trail that the city maintains. The accumulated snow from the past few week was melting so parts of the path were covered in slush, other parts water. Despite having wet feet by the time we returned home, our walk was very enjoyable.
After just a few minutes of usage from my work location, I can say that EV-DO rocks. The mobile broadband card I received yesterday is outstanding. The speed test over at InternetFrog consistently gives me numbers in the 650 kbps range. No, it isn’t as fast as my cable modem at home, but it is unrestricted, unfettered, and unlimited access.
Hot diggity dog.
The best waste of time on the Internet these days is Line Rider. The video below is the best Line Rider video I’ve seen. Wow.
Wanting to have the freedom of wireless Internet connectivity regardless of location, access points, or corporate policy I decided to reward my self with a mobile broadband card. It should come as no surprise that I am already on my second card, just a week after taking the initial plunge.
Cingular Data Option GT Max 3.6 My meager understanding of the alphabet soup surrounding the mobile broadband card tells me that there are at least two, if not three, competing connectivity protocols: Edge, 3G, and EV-DO. The GT Max card supports 3G and Edge. To say that it was slow would be a kind understatement. From my desk at work, the primary location where the card will be put to use, I barely managed to get speeds of 29.9 kbps. For those of you who don’t remember your kilobytes per second this is no faster than dial-up speed. Bandwidth through a straw (and a flat one at that) rather than a hose.
Sprint Pantech PX-500 After just one day of 29.9 crawl I went back to the Internet and ordered this EV-DO card from Sprint. EV-DO (Extra vigorous data option?) promises to be 4 to 5 times faster than 3G or Edge. And since the monthly price is the same (something new, last time I looked several months ago they were $20 a month more expensive) I might as well have as fast as I can get.
The new card arrived today, just a day after I ordered it. Removing the Cingular software only took a few minutes and a reboot. The Sprint connection software installed smoothly, and after its reboot I was ready to try the card. Only it wouldn’t connect. Apparently it needed to be activated first. The ensuing phone call to Sprint service lasted an hour.
It seems that the ESN (equipment serial number?) assigned to my card belonged to another account. The first customer service representative patiently worked through the process of trying to contact the other account holder and, when he hung up on her, she determined that his account would be suspended and that I’d get a new phone number tonight so I could use my card tonight.
Once the card was up and running she transfered me to a second CSR to cancel the original phone number assigned to the card. This actually was the longest part of the evening, taking a good 25 minutes. I have to see the first month’s bill to know for sure that the cancelation worked.
EV-DO Speed My initial test tonight resulted in a speed of 400 kbps. The CSR indicated that I could see speeds as high as 750 or 800 kbps. Tomorrow at work I’ll get to test the card from where I’ll use it the most. My hopes are high. Stay tuned for an update.
Yesterday, on my way into the grocery store, I discovered a cell phone laying on the ground just inside the outer doors. There was no one nearby, so I picked it up. After failing to find any identifying information in the phone about who the owner might be I tried calling several numbers from the contact list, hoping that their caller id would identify the owner. If that ploy had worked I was going to have them contact the owner and tell them where they could get their phone back. Only none of the contacts I tried answered the phone. I got one voice mailbox after another.
Eventually it occurred to me to call 611, the universal cellular phone service number. Once I got the T-Mobile customer service representative on the line I explained that I needed him to contact the phone’s owner and tell them that their phone could be picked up at the grocery store service desk. The woman at the desk said, “Well, aren’t you swell” when I explained about the phone and asked her to hold it until the owner came to claim it.
It felt good to play the good Samaritan and even better to figure how to notify the phone’s owner. My phone has my contact information in it, including my home phone, but even then I’m not sure some one finding it on the ground would know to call me and not one of the entries in the list. I suppose that once you realized you’d lost your phone you could start calling it hoping the finder would answer.
I have reached a milestone in my effort to lose some weight. This morning the bathroom scale read 199.8. Less than two hundred pounds. I honestly can’t remember when it was that I crossed two hundred going the other direction, but I think it was while I was still active with martial arts in the mid-1990s. It took me ten years to put fifty pounds on, and only seven months to take it back off.
The rate of loss has slowed considerably from the first couple of months when I was losing about ten pounds a month, but I was working out twice a week in extreme heat then too. I hope to lose another ten or fifteen pounds before I stop actively trying to lose weight. I also want to incorporate some regular physical exercise, which will impact my eating lifestyle.
I don’t feel that what I did was that difficult, mostly I eliminated snacking between meals and added some exercise to my weekly routine. I don’t consider what I’ve done to be a diet, either, rather it is a change in my eating lifestyle. I still enjoy a soda or a pizza out. Diets too often are an aberration in ones eating habits, something so far removed from the normal eating habit that once the desired weight is reached, a return to normal eating will only result in regaining weight. By eliminating snacks between meals, and trying to exercise more, I’ve built new habits - a new lifestyle - that will maintain my weight going forward as there is no diet to stop.
In the last couple of weeks the amount of trackback spam my site has been subject to has skyrocketed. In all the time I’ve been using MoveableType to manage the site I’ve only had a handful of trackback pings that were spam. In the last ten days I’ve had hundreds at a time.
Not wanting to open every single entry to undo the ‘allow trackback pings’ option I did an end run around the bastards. Since I don’t display the pings, and since I don’t want them at all anymore (no one has ever legitimately linked to me via the mechanism) I simply renamed the CGI script. Now the script-kiddies mindless robot code no longer sees my site as vulnerable.
I’ll wait a few days before I relax my vigilance, but I think this ultimate measure will end the problem once and for all. I just wish I’d thought of it sooner.
As I transition from being a consultant to being an employee again there are some obvious changes occurring, and some that aren’t obvious. The best analogy I can think of is the difference between high school and college. In high school you are told what to do, where to go, and made to toe the line at every turn. You can’t even wander in the hallway during class without a pass.
In college you are entirely on your own. Some professors may take an interest in their best students, but it is possible to drift along unseen and unmonitored. As an employee you have policy and procedures to follow. Lines and boxes. It’s a good thing, mostly; it results in a safety net of sorts. Consulting is operating without that net. You agree to a riskier way of working and in return you get a higher reward.
I’ve been without the net for a decade. It feels good to have one in place again.
Molly Ivins, a shinning light in journalism, has died from breast cancer.
As a part of my new employee orientation today the various methods of receiving pay were presented. The usual suspects were offered: paycheck by mail and direct deposit. The wrinkle was an option to get a “total pay” Visa card. This functions like a debt card only the money in the account is your paycheck. (Or some portion you designate.) No bank account? No worries - we’ll just put your pay into the account behind that little piece of plastic and away you go.
I recognize that for some, who might not have a bank account, that this is an attractive option. In a society that increasingly places importance on using electronic means to purchase goods and services not having access to “plastic” can be a tremendous obstacle to overcome. Still, it seems to me, that just having your paycheck in a debt card sets one up for a spiral of debt. Worse with no chance for savings.