A Few Things Before I Go
I’m on vacation next week (until August 5th, actually) so I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of posting anywhere until then. Unless I can get to an internet café somewhere, and I’m not even really sure I’d post anything even if I could. Vacation is a break from work *and* the usual routine.
In the meantime, have a look at the Flickr photos, the del.icio.us links, or the GR shared links that are all listed in the header up there.
And if that’s not enough, I’ve come across a few posts in the last day or so that I thought I’d mention in case you needed anything else to peruse.
- Buzz Bishop almost got caught by the Cult of Mom. It’s a funny post, but the frightening thing is that it’s ALL TRUE.
- John Biehler posted his thoughts on his new Microsoft Zune. The conclusion? Some good, some bad, and some things that Apple could learn from Redmond.
- Tyler went and bought himself a new toy. A toy that takes some very cool photos.
Okay, so it’s not a huge linkfest or anything. That’s about it for me. See y’all in 10 days or so.
What Tech Do You Take On Vacation?
Seeing as how I’m going to be away next week, I thought I’d post about the tech stuff that I take with me when I’m on holidays. Being the sort who doesn’t own a laptop, I’m not sure I’d take it with me even if I did. Sometimes it’s good to take a break from the net.
Be warned that if there was any doubt in your mind that I’m not a geek, it’ll probably be erased after reading this list. So, in no particular order, the tech backpack gets filled with:
- Olympus E-10, 4 megapixel digital camera with a 1GB CF card. Images will go up on Flickr after my return.
- Icom T2H, 2m portable ham radio, with an Icom EM46 speaker mic, and a quarter-wave mag mount antenna. Cell coverage is non existent where I’m headed (grid square CO91) and for a fair bit of the drive as well, so it’s good to have access to emergency communications if necessary. I might also get a yagi antenna and see if I can do some satellite work.
- Realistic DX-360 - my old DX-440 shortwave radio is rather expensive to keep feeding batteries to, so I’m just taking the smaller 360 this time. Considering the destination, both shortwave and broadcast band (AM) should be fun, as it’ll be nice and quiet (no electricity where I’m headed).
What do you need to take on vacation, tech wise?
Evening Trip to Alouette Lake
Last night we decided to take a drive out to Alouette Lake in Maple Ridge, hoping that it wouldn’t be too crowded, as we were in the mood for a little peace and quiet.
As it turns out, it wasn’t busy at all, considering how hot the weather’s been lately. There weren’t even a whole lot of boats out on the lake, which really surprised me - usually it’s full of boats at this time of year, but there were just a couple, along with three or four jet skis.
Credit: rodtempleton on Flickr
The one beef that I had with the whole thing last night was the parking. Not that it’s pay parking - I’m resigned to that. Essentially the pay parking works out to $1 for the first hour, $2 for two hours, or $3 for all day. It was already 6:30, so we weren’t going to be all that long, but probably more than an hour, so I decided to pay for two.
The ticket machine is one of the older style ones were you put the money into the coin slots, push the lever in, and it spits out your ticket. There were slots for three loonies, or a loonie and a two dollar coin.
I put the twonie in, and pushed the lever. Nothing happened. Tried putting two loons in. Nothing. I hoped the answer wasn’t what I thought it was. I put a twonie and a loon in. That worked just fine. So essentially they’re saying that you’re going to pay the full day rate regardless of how long you’re going to stay. Not cool. I don’t remember if there was a phone number on the machine or not, but it wouldn’t have mattered much, because I don’t have cell service in the park anyway.
It’s like those great parking machines that BC Ferries put in that don’t give change. If you pay your $10 parking fee with a $20, you’ve just tipped them 10 bucks. Except this was like a machine that claimed, “Parking is 50 cents, but the machine doesn’t take coins, and doesn’t make change.”
Yeah, I know, it’s only a buck, but considering the number of people that visit Alouette Lake on a daily basis, it sure works out to a nice little profit for them.
Just something to be aware of. By all means, go to the park, it’s a great time. But make sure you don’t leave your change at home.
You’re going to need it.
iPhone Issues in Western Canada
No matter what happens with the release of the 3G iPhone today, some people are going to be happy, and some are going to be pissed off. It’s just the way it works. People at the Rogers flagship store in Toronto were a little less than thrilled to find out that the store only had 80 phones in stock. When the line is a couple of hundred people long, though, it’s not hard to figure out why.
To be honest, though, this isn’t really a new occurrence. I’d be willing to bet that by Monday or Tuesday you’ll be able to walk into any Rogers retailer in the country and pick up a 3G iPhone.
Regardless, though, it doesn’t sound like Rogers had a good morning. Their activation system went down (at least in the west) and customers were forced to stand around with their new purchase waiting for the system to come back up so that they could activate their new phone. Would have been a rough morning for the sales reps, without a doubt. I wonder if the problems seemed worse out west because those in the east were in the process of getting their phones activated as well and the whole country just overwhelmed the system.
If you’re looking for more updates on the whole thing, have a look at Buzz Bishop’s Cyberbuzz post, which seems to get updated when he gets new information on the whole thing.
Working On A New Theme
Anyone who’s been a regular follower of this blog over the years knows that I have a tendency to change themes at the drop of a hat. Something in a different theme will catch my eye and I’ll install that theme for awhile until one comes along with something else that’s "better".
I’m constantly telling Tyler that I don’t even think that I could go to a designer to get a custom one done because I don’t think that I could accurately describe to them what it is that I want. I have the design in my head, but I just can’t put it into words. Yeah, I’d be one of those customers from hell that web designers love *so* much. I don’t want to be, but I know that I would.
So, I’ve downloaded the Sandbox theme for Wordpress and I’m going to go to work on it, trying to design a theme that I’d be happy with. You won’t see much in changes around here for awhile, though, as I have a ’sandbox’ installation on both my home and work machines that allow me to test there before I go live with anything. This is something that I’ve done for a couple of years now, and even blogged about it before.
If nothing else, it’ll help me work on my CSS and PHP skills, too, so that won’t be a bad thing.
Rogers Unveils A Different Data Plan
I admit that I was rough on Rogers the other day when I heard about the data plan for the new 3G iPhone, set to go on sale this Friday. But I was hardly the only one to get P.O.’d about it.
It’s nice to see that Rogers was listening, and whether it was due to public outcry or something that they’d planned to do all along, they’ve now announced a 6GB data plan for just $30 per month, as long as you activate the phone on a 3-year contract by August 31st.
They’ve also announced that they’ll be limiting buyers to a maximum of two iPhones to help deal with the high demand. This isn’t that unusual, as they already do this in the U.S. - although that was primarily to deal with iPhones that wound up on eBay.
Review: Corsair Voyager 4GB USB Key
The other day I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Corsair Voyager 4GB USB key courtesy of my employer, so I thought I’d do a review of the device.
Right off the bat it was quite obvious that this was one tough USB key. The whole thing is rubber coated, meaning that you don’t have to panic if you happen to drop the thing. Working in the environment that I do is a definite plus.
Flash Voyager 4GB Key
This is a USB 2.0 key, but it’s also backward compatible with any USB 1.1 ports. If you wanted to use it with Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost, this key would work just fine. It’s also available in 4, 8, 16 or 32GB configurations, and comes with a lanyard and a USB extension cable. The actual reported capacity of the drive in XP SP3 is 3.74 GB.
In a performance test against my no-name 4GB USB key, I was able to copy a 1.1 GB folder (572 files) to the Corsair in 5 minutes and 15 seconds. The generic key was 6 minutes and 49 seconds for the same folder. Quite a significant difference. Using HDTach (thanks, Tyler), I ran a basic test, and found the transfer rate to be around 6 MB/s for the generic, but more than 5 times that for the Corsair. Guess which key I’m happier with?
If you’re looking for a good rugged USB key, you’d be hard pressed to top this statement from the Corsair site: "The Flash Voyager has been shown laundered, baked, frozen, boiled, dropped, and even run over by a SUV in many third party reviews. After all the punishment it receives, the drive continues to work."
Indeed. This is one tough key.
Disclosure: This is a completely independent review of the Corsair Voyager. The drive was not supplied by Corsair for purposes of review. I was just impressed with the device enough to want to do a review of it.
On The Hunt For A New Phone
Evidently my two year old cell phone has decided to take its toys and go home. It would appear that the mic is dead, because whether I make or receive a call, I can hear the person on the other end just fine, but they evidently can’t hear me.
Based on my post about the iPhone I won’t be looking at that, but I’m kind of limited in my options because I use Fido’s prepaid service, which means I don’t get any of the benefits of subsidization.
I don’t live on my phone like some do, and I haven’t had to spend more than $20 per month in probably the last 6 years or so, and I’ve been happy. If I don’t need the phone for awhile, I just don’t pick up a new card for a month or two and everything’s fine. No fees if I don’t use the phone.
But now it’s time to look at a new phone, I guess. Any recommendations for GSM phones that work on the Fido network? Anyone got a phone they’d like me to review for them here on RTdN?
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