average admins

Originally found on Terminal23’s blog:
http://www.terminal23.net/2007/05/diggnation_news.html

Original site can be found here:
http://www.doubleviking.com/…/5215-p.html

You absolutely must visit the doubleviking site to read the comments. The first three are hilarious.

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HOLY CRAP!! I couldn’t believe it myself.  The list includes (in no particular order): Blackberry 7100g, Motorola Razr, Palm Treo 650(sold then traded back for), Nokia 6682, Cingular 8125, Cingular 3125, Cingular 8525, Samsung Blackjack, Motorola Slvr, Motorola Razr V3i, Blackberry 8700c (2 of these), Blackberry Pearl (2 of these too), Blackberry 8800, Samsung D807, Blackberry 7130c, Nokia E62, Palm Treo 680 (2 of these, because one crapped out), Kyocera Strobe, and Sony Ericsson w810i.  That’s only with Cingular since June 2005. 

I am now with Alltel and have a new phone, a Blackberry 8703e.  If we’re getting technical, I must count exactly 2 years back and count an old Motorola flip phone, which I think was a v800 something or other.  So, if you’re keeping track, that’s around 25 phones or so.  Give or take a few I can’t remember.  Crazy, huh?!  All in the name of talking to someone.  Geez!  After asking Jeff how to enter into the Tech career, he said, “are you willing to spend the time and money to get new gear to keep up to date?”  Uh. . .Yeah!! Guess so! 

jason

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on March 15th, 2007.

I stumbled upon this article the other day when I was reading through some of the blogs I monitor in Bloglines. The article is from O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter.com site and is about a patent filed by Apple in August of 1982 and granted in December of 1985 for a flip phone in the shape of an apple with a bite taken out of it. In other words, the phone is in the shape of the Apple logo.

If you review the patent through some nifty patent interface provided by Google, you’ll see 13 drawings (Fig. 1 - Fig. 13) of what the proposed phone would have looked like. This is pretty cool to know that Apple had an idea for a phone over 20 years ago. I am also very glad that this phone didn’t make it to market and that the iPhone will be their first cellular phone offering. If they had released this flip-phone back in the late 80’s or early 90s, they may not be around today to give us phone addicts the iPhone.

Until next time…

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on March 15th, 2007.

I am totally sold on hands-free communication when using a cell phone. I can not stand to hold a phone up to my dome and talk on it. It makes me feel all yucky inside. So, ever since I got my first Bluetooth® enabled phone, the Motorola RAZR V3, I have been sporting a Bluetooth® headset along with it. Before I go on about my latest adventure, let me give you a little history of where I’ve been.

Lately, I have been using a Plantronics Voyager 510 and a Motorola H700. Both of these headsets have their pros and cons, in my opinion. I have written a little bit of what I like and dislike about both of these units below.

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While perusing through UniqueDaily.com, I came across this website talking about the 10 most expensive phones in the world.  Go Here.  Of course, the Sony Ericsson Black Diamond is one the best looking phones I’ve seen in awhile.  Anyway, have fun, check it out!!

jason

For all of us who text message constantly, we might be getting a faster way to send them! Check this video out! (Chris, one guy uses a Treo) Anyway, as soon as this technology is available for my BB 8800, I will be hooking that up. So, anyway, I found this by playing around on the net through a place called UniqueDaily.com. Okay, Go have fun and watch the clip! Tell me what you think! It would sure work nice for me, Jeff, Chris, and especially Troy, who despite all the peer pressure applied by the rest of us, will not switch to a full qwerty! Dang you Troy! Dang you all to heck! Well, I guess I can’t say much, being that I sold him the phone!

Later,

Jason

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on February 22nd, 2007.

I recently posted an entry titled “Using a Nokia E61 for internet Access in OS X” that discussed, you’ll never guess, how I got my Nokia E61 working with my Apple MacBook for Internet access when no WLAN or LAN is available.

I think the combination of the Bluetooth® phone and the MacBook works pretty well. I mean, think about it, this isn’t your primary Internet connection. When you’re out and about and need access to something on the Internet like e-mail, directions to a location, etc., it works great. Of course, with my phone, I can access this type of information directly from the Symbian OS based web browser, but when you want to sit down and use something a little more comfortable and familiar, this setup is more acceptable.

So, I did some preliminary testing of the data speeds using Speakeasy’s Speedtest site to see what kinds of speeds I am getting when using my phone as a modem with my MacBook. I figured this information would come in handy for anyone looking to use their phone in a similar fashion. It will also help you decide if the speeds are enough to warrant the extra money you’ll be forking out each month for an unlimited data plan with your cellular carrier.

Also, keep in mind that these data speeds are based on the cellular service here in the greater Texarkana area. Your performance will vary based on the coverage available in your area and the compression and speed options available through your carrier. Here comes the data:

As you can see, based on the testing that I did today from the house during lunch, I averaged 116.2 kilobytes per second down and 78 kilobytes per second up. That’s not too bad. It’s better than dial-up. It’s pretty close to a bonded ISDN line. However, when I was working at that client site the other night, which is located in the center of Texarkana right off of the Interstate, I had downstream speeds up to 212 kbps and upstream speeds nearing 114 kbps.

I think it is all going to depend on where you are in relation to the cell towers, what type of equipment you have around you that might be interfering with the Bluetooth&reg connection and the cellular reception, where your phone is located in relation to your laptop, and what type of data quality your carrier provides.

As for me, this will be a great alternative for accessing the Internet when a decent broadband connection is not available. I also look forward to using this type of connection in hotels when traveling. You don’t know how many times I have tried to get a hotel’s “free wireless Internet” service to work and have been unsuccessful, left with no connection to the digital extension of myself that is the Internet. I have to stay connected!

Until next time…

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on February 21st, 2007.

Last night, while working at a client site, I started messing around with my Nokia E61 and my MacBook so I could get Internet access while working at the client’s office without having to jack in to their local network. My phone and laptop are both Bluetooth® enabled so I figured why not give it a shot.

I did some quick research and found that it would be extremely easy to set this up within Mac OS X. When I first paired my phone with my MacBook I remembered it asking me if i wanted to use my phone for Internet access. At the time I said no but last night I kind of changed my mind.

The first and last site I stumbled upon was Ross Barkman’s home page. This site has a number of mobile phone scripts available for use within the Internet Connect software but I was unable to get any of those to work in my situation. I used the built-in Nokia Infared script and it worked like a champ. I did use a section of Ross’ site, located here, that has a lot of information for different carriers in multiple countries for the connection settings to use when logging on to the Internet through my cell phone’s GPRS connection.

If you’re using a newer Bluetooth® enabled phone and want to set it up as a modem for your Mac laptop or other machine, I say just give it a try. Find your carrier’s information in the link provided above, or here, and go for it! I think you’ll be impressed with how easy and painless the setup is within Mac OS X.

Until next time…

Originally posted at cocoacrusty.com on Sunday, February 11th, 2007.

I used Apple’s iChat instant messaging application today. I have seen a lot of people singing the high praises of this chat client ever since I got my MacBook in October of 2006. I didn’t have any friends or otherwise who used a Mac so I haven’t had a chance to try it out until this morning.

I stumbled upon a previous reader of the average admins blog recently on Flickr and sent him a message, he added me as a Flickr Contact, I saw he used ICQ, added him to my Adium contact list, and then we started chatting. He (Jesús) lives in Spain so we were just kicking it, talking about “regalo whatnots” when he asked me if I had ever used iChat. Of course, being the honest person that I am, I said no.

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According to a new blog (terminal23) I’ve been reading, who keeps up with another blog (joatBlog) I read, the wi-spy is going to be twice the price starting Feb. 1st. That’s in 20 days for those of you that think math is hard (you know who you are, Jeff)

Ok, so what exactly is a Wi-Spy?

Wi-Spy™ is the world’s smallest 2.4 GHz spectrum analyzer*. Wi-Spy is perfect for troubleshooting interference from the following devices:

* Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n)
* Microwave Ovens
* Cordless Phones
* Zigbee
* Bluetooth

Who needs Wi-Spy?
You may need Wi-Spy if:

* You deploy and maintain Wi-Fi networks
* Your Wi-Fi has intermittent bandwidth problems
* The microwave interferes with your Wi-Fi network
* When the phone rings your network connection drops
* Your neighbors, family, and friends constantly call you for free tech support

Also, it looks like the guys over at MetaGeek (the makers of the Wi-Spy), are working on a new software release for this little device.

The screenshots for this little thing look amazing. Take a look at them here:
http://www.metageek.net/chanalyzer/screenshots.php