Technology

New Switch

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We just upgraded our network in my companies call center office. We put in a new Cisco blade switch. it will act as our primary core. We did some reconfiguration on the old core’s and will use them as backup. this is phase 1 of our expansion plans.

When I say “we” did the work. I mean we hired a contractor, and told them what to do. We then looked over the configs and did testing. It is nice to leave the heavy lifting to others.

The upgrade actually went well. I am always hesitant to say that because I am fearful that something out of the blue will go wrong. But actually it went as good as to be expected. no major problems. I was back to the hotel and in bed by 3AM. I would have been in bed sooner but I had some cell phone problems I had to play with to fix.

Friday it is back to my normal office. I miss my chair:(

More Fixation On The Treo

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So for the next few days I will be writing about the Treo 650. I get fixated on nice new tech. So far this little device has not let me down. A few quirky issues with bluetooth syncing but otherwise all looks good. even the bluetooth issues are kind of minor. The dam thing still sync’s. I had problems with the built in DUN, but after installing PDAnet my laptop connects via bluetooth to the phone just fine. And it is just in time too. I am packing to go away for 2 days. The train ride is allot better when I can check my mail on my laptop and not rely on my Blackberry. And yes I have a Blackberry and a Treo. I was “given” the Blackberry for work. It is for email and direct connect. I am stuck with it until I can get the Blackberry software for my Treo.

I also got my USB sync cable in the mail today. I am glad it arrived before my trip, but for the amount I paid for shipping they should have driven it over here. I also got a little exoskeleton case for the Treo, and a screen cover. The cover is one that I had on the 600, but this one applied like crap. it has some blemishes. you cannot tell when the device is on, but when it is off it looks like crap. All the accessories are from Boxwave. They are a great PDA accessory site.

Other cool software I tried (i had it for my Treo 600 but never tried it) is Tussh. it is a free-ware SSH client for the Palm. I was able to remotely connect to and reboot a linux server jayson was playing with. it was nice.

I will have more real world opinions after my road trip tomorrow.

Treo 650 Is In

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I got my Treo 650 today. Finally after months of waiting for it, I got it! First impressions of it are good. It seems like a solid phone. The screen is fantastic. Bluetooth works. I was able to get my Sony Ericsson headset to pair up in a few minutes. It was sending and recieving calls without a problem. More impressive was after about 30 minutes of tinkering I got my 3Com Bluetooth PCMCIA card to sync with my Treo. the problems I had were actually related to the 3Com software, and once I figured out the issue, I was able to sync with no problems. I just did it twice and it worked!

Next up is the big task. I need to get DUN (dial up networking) to work with the Treo. I have done it before with other Bluetooth phones so I am hopeful I can get it to work. I am off to play with that, but first a few pictures I took this afternoon.

2005-02-14_treo_650_07 2005-02-14_treo_650_06 2005-02-14_treo_650_05 2005-02-14_treo_650_04 2005-02-14_treo_650_03 2005-02-14_treo_650_02 2005-02-14_treo_650_01

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New Cell Phones

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We are expanding the team. That means we need more cell phones. We figure if we want people to be available all the time (on call) then we need to provide a cell phone. We like Nextel. Direct connect is addictive. We can add a phone to our account for like 10 bucks a month (plus tax). Not bad. One emergency and it pays for 6 months or more of service. That is my opinion at least.

We picked up 2 Motorola flip phones for some of the guys who don’t need Blackberry’s. Our sales department is also interested in Blackberry’s so we may get them some on our account. many of them have Blackberrys from different carriers already, but new people would get the nextel’s.

Why can’t Palm or Microsoft make a product as good or better than RIM? I have been waiting over a year for Blackberry software on my Treo. I am still waiting…

Free Space On Treo

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Since my 650 is on order I need to make sure that I have free space in order to upgrade to it. The 650 basically uses more space for the same amount of data. So I need to make sure I have at least 33% free space than I already have, or else I will run out of memory. I am currently syncing my Avantgo Channels onto my memory card. I am also seeing what else I can offload to the memory card. The problem with that is that the dam memory card access is slow.

So basically I bought a $600 device with virtually no memory. I can buy a 32 meg memory card for like $30 or less but I spend $600 and only get 32 megs of memory (only 24 megs of usable space).

I gotta say I thought the Treo 650 would be my perfect phone. now I am thinking I will use it until HP gets their act together and comes out with a smaller GSM Pocket PC phone. Some company always has to take the perfect device and mess it up somehow. Thanks Palmone!

Vindigo Vs. Zagats

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I have had both Zagats and Vindigo over the years. I have bought yearly subscriptions to both systems. When Zagats was actually featured on Vindigo all was well with the universe. Now I pay for Zagats (since it is no longer on Vindigo) but I miss some features. the other day I wanted to check movie listings. Rich and I were out and wanted to see what was playing near him. it took me 15 minutes to find a site that I could browse to on my Treo. if I had Vindigo I would have downloaded all my listings already. The question is whether or not Vindigo’s restaurant review is anywhere as good or as comprehensive as Zagats? Or is the movie section of the free Vindigo good enough for me to keep paying for Zagats and just use the free Vindigo?

Once I get my Treo 650 I will download the Vindigo trial and give it a whirl.

A Server of My Own?

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Jayson has been playing with Linux in VMware. He was going to make a good virtual machine and run a website off of it at him apartment. He has been having problems with it and called me up to take me up on my free computer offer. I have 2 old Dell’s P3 700’s. I got one from an old company I helped out that went out of business and the other is my dad’s old machine. Neither are good for a desktop but as a linux server they would be perfect. All we need to do is put it together (i had to cannibalize both when I was working on my Tivo, long story) and bring it over to his place.

Once built I can host my website and hopefully mail on it. I could get by with Miguel’s server, but I like to have admin access to box’s I host stuff on. I feel more in control. So if this box works, I will put my mail and website on it. this blog will remain at Typepad, but my photo site and other stuff would go on that server. I am still pissed with RCN that I cannot host the website in my apartment without paying $20 extra a month.

Lets see if this project actually gets done, or if it is just another pipe dream.

Unlocked Treo 650 Price Increase?

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What the f–k is up with this? Palmone made a “mistake” about pricing? Sure for weeks they allowed rumors go around that the price of the unlocked version would be $599. They announced it and left the price on the site for over a day, but they made a mistake and the price really was $699. How f–king stupid do they think we are? Thankfully I put my order in on Wednesday. News.com reports that they will not raise the price if you already had an order in before price increase. If they screwed me I would never have bought another PDA from them again. I am still skeptical until I actually get my Treo and see the credit card bill.

This whole ordeal is very frustrating. The bigger problem is why the hell is no other company making a device close to this form factor that actually competes with the Treo? They have had over a year to do it, but the best people can come up with is this? I have used Gus’ it is huge compared with the Treo. So I am pissed at Palmone for being dicks, and I am pissed at everyone else for not making some real competition.

I am using a bit of expletives in this post, but I was a bit pissed that I almost got charged an extra $100 for something because some large company decided to be a bunch of ass’.

Treo 650 Is Ordered, No Its On Backorder

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The day finally came and I ordered my Treo 650 this morning.  Now it is on back-order for 1-2 weeks.  Or in Palmone speak whenever the hell they dam well feel like shipping me something.  Why take orders for something that won’t ship for weeks?  Why don’t they start taking orders for a product when they have them in stock and ready to ship?  The small things I wonder out loud about.

Now I have to prepare my old Treo for sale.  I also need to begin getting all the applications I plan on installing ready.  Many of my current apps won’t work on the new Treo, yet.  I mentioned that last week.  Now I need to do some verification on what will be installed.  I love that I need to verify what get installed on my phone.  Sometimes I think the old days were good.  Pick up phone, have dial tone.  Simple!!!

The Queue Of OS Demo’s

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I have a list of OS & utilities that I want to demo. I have downloaded or want to download a bunch of stuff. I never will have enough time to try everything out.

I downloaded and installed the Novell Linux Desktop. It didn’t work in VMware so I had to put it on a physical box. It is basically SuSE 9.1 with some new logo’s. I will go back to SuSE 9.1 sometime soon.

Jayson got and suggested Knoppix for troubleshooting disabled desktops and servers. it is a self contained bootable Linux CD that allows you to boot from and run the OS from a CD. Also lets you mount hard drives to get data off even if the OS is not working right. I downloaded the ISO, but I can’t seem to remember where I put it on my hard drive. I am searching for it now. Once I find it I will burn a copy and try it out. Sounds great.

Running with the same (or similar concept of Knoppix, I found UBCD4Win. It looks like a mini windows environment with a ton of utilities on a self booting CD. I am going to try that out when I get some time also.

Last on my list (for now) is building a Smoothwall firewall. It is a free (at least for the express version) Linux based firewall. I have been interested in this ever since I saw a demo of it on TechTV. I have no real need for it at home. Interesting maybe for work? I don’t know. But it is interesting enough idea that I want to try it out.

This list is enough to keep me busy for a year or so, but I want to at least browse this stuff sometime soon. So many cool items out there, and not enough free time to look at them.