Thursday, December 24, 2009
New Online video blog / show has started!
Hi guys,
Just wanted to announce that for the last 2 weeks or so, I've started a video blog / online tv show. I'm hoping it will be something I can improve on in time. It's something I'll use to get technical announcements on new advances and ideas I'm excited about and other personal, interesting things going on in my life out to my friends and viewers.
So far, I have 2 channels, Nerd-e-tech guy Online and Nerd-e-tech guy Miscellaneous.
The Online channel will surround mainly technical subjects while the Miscellaneous one will cover all my other events and interests.
Because of the narrow spec of the first channel, you'll find more entries on the latter.
In any case, I'm having a lot of fun posting up videos, live and recorded. I hope you'll enjoy them too.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
More ATT News, my response to article on Engadget
AT&T to offer 'incentives' to customers willing to limit data usage
http://bit.ly/4Psx00
I'm taking this question VERY seriously.
I have a suggestion for those who are like me who use ATT DSL as well as the mobile phone service. They should give those with DSL the DSL for free if we use wifi whenever at home or whenever we can.
There's probably no way to really track this unless they keep track of data usage on each customer's bill or some other way but every time I am at home I switch to Wifi because it's faster and when I am at friend's or cafes I use wifi as well because I know the Iphone will memorize the codes and places and my battery will last longer. It's a convenience for me since I only have to set it up once.
I have noticed though that I have used just over a gig of bandwidth since September to December the way I do things, but since I've been on vacation this week and had to switch exclusively to 3G to get all my podcasts, videos, music, etc, I am over 1.5 Gigs in 4 days (mostly twice a day to get all the new episodes in the morning and evening).
I see how ATT's system can get rocked now so easily when bandwidth like that is used up. It's so easy. I feel kinda bad about using so much but I am not at home and I'm where Wifi isn't available. That kinda thing is unavoidable sometimes though. I'd say, think of the bandwidth like electricity at home, just be conscious of it and turn it off when you're not using it (I mean go to wifi). I don't see that it's that hard.
I also want to +1 though for the idea that ATT spread their woes out with other companies, if they can't support us for everyday activities, they should let us switch companies for free.
When they talk about ways to get us to use less data, they have already broken their promise to us for unlimited data that we signed up for and they said they would (not could) provide. That means we honestly owe them nothing and they will probably screw us.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
My response to AT&T article in the Chicago Tribune
Response to article: http://bit.ly/92jdat
Tighter controls on wireless data usage coming for iPhones and other devices, AT&T exec warns
Their service is going downhill but it's not because of users, it's because of equipment they own.
In Chicago, I have gone from perfect crystal clear iphone service to (after November 18th for whatever reason) hit or miss, drop call, 3G loss all over the city. So far all the ATT technical support ppl have admitted that they have wide ranging tower problems right now and "degraded" service on all towers (whatever that means). They are also working on some kind of project that will keep a percentage of the towers offline until sometime in January.
On their behalf, I would say they assured me that they are getting more repeaters out there in Chicago to pick up the slack and they have already done that in San Francisco (confirmed). Service has been a lot better in the last week (going up from unusable) but still not what it was from before Nov 18th when I found every call I made dropped.
The Iphone and smart phones (most of them) were made for internet, music, AND video. I see "tighter controls on those who watch video" as a serious threat to business and what the phones were made for. I and many others keep up with news, stocks, and entertainment using internet AND video. It's the 21st century! Video is required and makes us better businessmen and knowledgeable ppl. Especially when on the road, driving or riding mass transit, it's much easier to listen and watch than to read.
I try to use Wifi whenever it's available and I think all users should look for that to lighten the load but AT&T, you need to shape up! If you keep selling devices you can't support, you should lower your service rates! You have the highest prices on mobile internet connectivity, you should be giving us the service to match!