Month: September 2003

Phone Update

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According to a very reliable source (Howard) the Handspring Treo 600 is supposed to kick ass. Not his works mind you, but I am paraphrasing. He knows people who have test units and they swear by them. I am holding onto my Treo 270 until the GSM Treo 600 comes out and then I am switching. I hope it is as good as everyone says.

I saw Howard’s new Sony Ericsson T616 or 61 something. it is nice looking. The screen was nice and bright, and it had a built in camera. The problem is I heard bad things about the reception. Howard said he had good results so far, but I am not sold. If anything I am going with the Treo 600, and if I don’t like that, I probibly will go with the Motorola V600.

For now I wait.

Clothing

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So don’t normally look through clothing catalog’s. Actually I almost never do. So when I got the latest LL Bean catalog in the mail I was about to toss it when I noticed the thing was the size of a small book. Curiosity got me. Now I have like 6 pages folded over of stuff I want to get. The problem with mail order, and the internet is that you don’t know your size. I can tell you what paint or shirt size I wear, but a coat? that is more difficult.

I will probably order some stuff. Their was some great deals, and I need some fall/winter clothes. I need to contact some fashion help to make sure I don’t get bad stuff. I usually am good with what I buy, but you can never be too sure. For that task I will probably ask Amanda to help. She is good with that sort of stuff.

The Early Train

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I actually made the early train for the first time in a while. It is more crowded than it used to be. I have plans with mike later, so I hope to cut out early. Not sure what crazy think he has us doing. I am hoping to cut out at around 4-5PM. We will see how busy things are.

Another interesting note about the early train is that it is one of the LIRR’s new trains. The seats are comfy, and the automated lady tells you clearly what stop is next. It feels like the london underground. Over their they have automated alerts, and all the bells and whistles we are just now installing.

Service Observe And Phone Stuff

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Today I dealt with finalizing a solution for “service observe” in our new call center. We want the ability to listen in on our rep’s calls so we can QA them. Cisco’s VOIP solution does not offer that out of the box. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t. We have a company we are looking at, but we want to be sure things work correctly before we order it.

Also today I configured up 4 Cisco 7940 IP phones to use in our NYC office. We need some in case we are overwhelmed with calls on next monday. We should be able to have a total of 5 phones ready to go if needed.

Configuring the Cisco phones is really cool. They are programable via the Call Manager web site, and you can reboot the phone remotely. To get them to work, all you need to do is set the phone to DHCP and have the proper TFTP server config in the scope. It is not bad once you get the hang of it.

I was using my Cisco phone all day to talk to Joe, Justin, & David in our Kingston office.

We are planning a test of our T-1 redundancy on friday. The work to provide roll over and redundancy was completed and we will test it friday to make sure it works for mondays move of voice traffic. We need 3 voice T-1’s to work together so if calls come in and one T-1 is full, they roll over to the next one. This is also helpful in redundancy in case one circuit fails to work. We won’t need all 3 next week, but we will probably use up one and goto a little on the second one.

Poker Plus Me Equals Loser

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Tonight was another poker night. This time we went to Gus’ place to play. Molly’s sister April and her husband came over to play with Gus, Molly, Daniel, Dan, and myself. We played for a slightly smaller pot tonight. Unfortunately fortune did not smile on me like it did last time. In pre game hands I was doing good. To my dismay all the luck I had for the night ran dry before the actual game started. I ended up becoming the first victim to lose all their money. To my credit I went all in on a hand where the last card thrown down completed my flush. Gus unfortunately had a flush with a queen hight. That beat my 8 high. If I had a flush I had to play it to the end. I couldn’t have folded, so I stand behind my decision. In the last game, that is what created huge winnings for me. Taking the plunge and going with that gut instinct that say’s you have the better hand. Of course it just didn’t work tonight. Oh well.

I had a good time. I didn’t go into tonight planning to win. I didn’t go into the last game planning to win. And I won that one. I play, or try to play as if the money in chips is already lost.

As I left to catch the train (luck smiled on me there. The cab got me to penn station with 1 minute to spare.) Gus was up, but Molly and April were not doing so bad either. We shall see who the big winner turns out to be.

The Best Laptop(s) I Ever Had

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Technology is supposed to get better over time. You are supposed to have a “better” computer, PDA, Phone, etc. as time goes by. But is that always the case? Think about cars. My dad talks about some old car he had in the 70’s that was probably the best car he ever had. Tons of people like classic cars, and would go back to them in a flash. Does anyone really want to go back to a 286 computer and use DOS again? That old 10lbs laptop from 12 years ago cannot be dreamed about. I mean you can think back to the good old days with nostalgia, but do you really want that old equipment over what you have now?

I just thought of that when I declared (with Gus) that the IBM Thinkpad T40 I have is probably the best laptop I have ever had. But if it wasn’t wouldn’t we have a problem? It is of course the newest laptop I have. It should be the best. Shouldn’t it? Now my last laptop an IBM Thinkpad T31 or the Dell Latitude C400 I had before that were good solid machines, but the T40 is just rock solid awesome computer. The little things push it over the edge from company computer, to the best machine I ever had.

On that same note, I have to say things about my Powerbook 12″ that I have. You can and cannot compare it to a Thinkpad, or a Windows computer. They are the same, and different at the same time. I think that the powerbook is also one of the best computers I have ever had. I have had machines the size and capabilities of the Powerbook before. It is actually a bit bigger than my Latitude C400. It is just better. The keyboard is the best or one of the best I have ever used on a laptop or off of one. The DVD Burner is amazing. The port layout and other features make it fantastic.

The question is when these machines get a bit older and I upgrade, will I look back and wish I still used them? After all their is always something better just down the production line.

What Do You Do For A Living?

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So what do you do for a living? That is a question I get allot. Most people probably do when meeting new people. For some it is easy, and not so much for others. My brother in law, has it simple. He is a doctor (MD). My mom’s a teacher. Their are more complex answers to those questions, but you get the idea of what they do by that simple statement. Now I have a more difficult answer. I tell people I am a Network Engineer. Sounds good, sort of descriptive. Not really what I do anymore. I have found it is close enough for most purposes. If pressed for more information you have to figure out how much someone knows about computers and technology. For Mike, he is a doctor in emergency medicine. Still very descriptive. Technology jobs still have this stigma of oh, you do that. You must be a computer geek. Now I don’t deny the fact that I am into technology, but it is sort of a bad way to think.

These thoughts come to my mind now, since I am dating, or attempting to do so. That is one of the first topics of conversation. Now you don’t want to talk to a date about computers. Trust me you really don’t. But work is such a big part of someone’s life, especially mine. It is an interesting dilemma.

The next big question is “what does your company do”? Yet again, for me right now it is a difficult question to answer. I have not been able to give a one sentence answer to that question yet, that accurately explains what my company does. We just had a meeting last friday at our presidents house. We discussed that same problem. We got a laugh about it. It is just one of those things that can be difficult to answer, but be a really simple question.

Poker Tomorrow

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Well, we are planning another poker night tomorrow night. Gus, Dan, Molly, myself and 2 unsuspecting people will sit down for poker. What this really means is that I can talk trash about being the big winner for another 24 hours. After that I will have lost tomorrow and will be unable to do so. I truly don’t think lightning strikes twice, so I don’t think I will win. Their is also the aspect of me not thinking I will win gives me what I call the “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. With that attitude I tend to to OK! Yes I have a twisted mind…

Dinner With The Family

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My family is meeting at my sisters tonight for dinner. As much as I want to go, I am not sure if I will get to them by the meeting time. I am also tired from working today. I do want to play with morgan. Thinking of her just now I can’t help but smiling:)

Update. So I wrote this when I was on the train. Turns out I didn’t go to dinner, since I was tired and it was late. I will catch them next time, when I am not traveling.

The Different Ways To Communicate

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Going up to Kingston gets me thinking about how I use the communication tools at my disposal. If you ask anyone, I have too many gadgets. The problem is sometimes none of them work the way I need them to. Right now my blackberry’s screen is all screwed up so I have a hard time reading it. I need to replace that. On a good day the screen sucks, so I would like to get my mail another way. The Treo Mail program requires you to pay $50 a year. I don’t know if the mail function on the new Treo will be the same as the old one, so I don’t want to buy the Treo Mail if I plan on upgrading to the new Treo 600 in 2-3 months when it comes out. Eudora Mail for the Palm sucks, so I can’t check mail that way. The problem is I want to send and receive email on the road, but I don’t want to pay the crazy hotel charges for a phone call. I am thinking of getting software that will allow me to use my Treo’s GPRS data service on my laptop. the problem is the same as with the Treo Mail. Can I still use it when I get the new Treo 600? If so I am sold. If not, I don’t want to fork over 50 bucks.

Another problem with the blackberry is I use it for alerts all the time. If I start forwarding all my mail to it, I will get duplicate emails when I get an alert. (Alerts goto my mailbox and the blackberry, so sending my mailbox to the blackberry will duplicate some mail.) the other problem is if I turn on forwarding, I have to turn it off. It becomes a pain. I never know when I will need it or not. With the Treo, I can turn it on or off from the handheld.

It is crazy that I now have all these options, but still can’t make a decision on what to use. I want to get rid of one or two devices. Who needs a PDA/Phone, a pager, and a cell phone. It is too much to carry. In addition I have to carry around my thinkpad.