Clete’s Blog

I have no pity for those who cap bandwidth. It’s the norm in Europe, but intolerable here in the United States. A few companies here have been considering bandwidth caps for their users, but the public has opposed it so violently that they scrapped all of their capping plans — for now.

A small, local company named Connectivity U runs our internet connection here (served through Comcast). This wonderful company caps bandwidth per day, rather than per month. All I can say is that I hate it. It’s so inconvenient. I can’t even download a Linux ISO without going over my cap. Also, if I am uploading a fair amount of files VIA FTP, it will shut my internet connection off with a screen saying that I have exceeded my upload limit and my internet connection has been disabled (even if I have not exceeded my limit). Apparently, if I upload too much at one time, I am kicked off. I despise their pitiful attempt to disguise the fact that they do not own enough bandwidth to suffice for all users to conduct normal (and legal) internet activities.

By the way, they don’t even attempt to block the BitTorrent protocol. Wouldn’t that be a better solution?

I will end this very angry post with a little picture demonstrating just how little bandwidth I get per day. Please note that the upload limit is more than twice that of the download limit. Make sense to you?

RSS (”Really Simple Syndication”) is a kind of news feed created so that users could have more simplified access to their news. Most blogs, news organizations, and websites that are updated frequently contain RSS (or Atom, another kind of news syndication) feeds. RSS feeds are also referred to as live bookmarks in Firefox. Basically, Firefox’s implementation lets you see a bookmark folder that updates with each new story that is released. See below for an example.

Here we see that it’s just a big list of news stories posted on my favorite website, Engadget.

This works well, except for when you have 10-15 feeds that you subscribe to. It becomes very tedious to click on each feed and then go into the main website and view every new story. It’s quite a pain to click on each site individually, go back a few pages, and pick up where you left off. That’s when Google Reader comes into play. Google Reader is a RSS feed tool, where you add all of your favorite feeds and Google keeps track of them for you. It will do much more than Firefox’s Live Bookmarks. It actually shows the content of each post, saving you from having to visit the website. Below is a screenshot of Google Reader in action (click to enlarge).

Here, I can sort all of my websites in to folders. See “Geek News,” “Comics,” etc. Also note that I have one new post. Google keeps track of what I have read. I can also star items, just like in GMail. It will save that item for me later. If I click on an individual story, it will expand into a view similar to that of what an actual visitor would see if they were to visit the website, images and all.

Google Reader is a great tool for you to keep up with a lot of websites — all at once. It’s a great news reader and I would recommend it to anyone who reads even just two websites per day.

“A 62-year-old man had a mental breakdown and ran off after grabbing several bottles of pills from his house. The cops asked Verizon to help trace the man using his cellphone, but Verizon refused, saying that they couldn’t turn on his phone because he had an unpaid bill for $20. After an 11-hour search (during which time the sheriff’s department was trying to figure out how to pay the bill), the man was found, unconscious. ‘I was more concerned for the person’s life,’ Sheriff Dale Williams said. ‘It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill.’ Score another win for the Verizon Customer Service team.” (via Slashdot)

It was obviously a public relations issue. Obviously, Verizon will realize that this was a mistake of the representatives that the police spoke to and this is obviously not the outcome that Verizon would have preferred.

Over the past two years or so, Vizio has managed to create quite a buzz in the television industry. Vizio describes themselves on their “The Vizio Story” page:

In only a few short years, VIZIO quickly skyrocketed to the top by becoming the #1 selling brand of flat panel HDTV’s in North America and became the first American brand in over a decade to lead major categories in 2007 U.S. TV sales. VIZIO has sold more than 5-Million flat panel televisions in the U.S. alone.

Vizio creates bargain televisions that are comprable to Sylvania and Panasonic televisions. Vizio’s televisions generally do not have many advanced technologies and they do not have the more advanced features included with pricier televisions. Vizio televisions are a great deal for the price they are listed for. However, Vizio televisions are not the best televisions on the market; not even close.

A while back, I worked in the electronics department of Sears. I was a commissioned salesman and I had to learn everything that I could about televisions to sell them with confidence. Some of the major dividing factors of TVs are (for me): contrast ratio, color accuracy, and dependability.

While working at Sears, I had a lot of time to walk around and compare televisions based on many different factors. Vizio televisions are claimed by many to be the best TVs out there. They aren’t even close. The contrast ratio on Vizio TVs is much, much lower than any of the middle to high end TVs. The blacks are not nearly as black. The color accuracy on Vizio TVs doesn’t even begin to compare to that of a Sony or a Samsung or a LG.

After looking at hundreds of TVs day in and day out, I don’t understand how the general body of consumers could even begin to think that Vizio TVs actually come close to any of the high-end brands. I have had many customers tell me that Sony will go bankrupt because Vizio makes a better TV at a better price.

Let me end by saying that Vizio TVs are definitely worth their price. They are great entry TVs. However, they cannot even touch a high-end TV.

By the way, I just ordered a new TV (and it’s not a Vizio):

Sony Bravia KDL-32S5100 32-inch 1080p 60hz HDTV

Please note that this post has nothing to do with the fact that I ordered a Sony TV. This topic has been on my mind ever since I worked at Sears.

After a very long time of disappearing, clete2.com is back! Something happened to the old website (I think my account was deleted) and I could not get a hold of Nathan (my host) to remedy the situation, so the website disappeared for a while.

Well, it’s back now! I would like to thank Professor Phillips of the Computer Science department at Mansfield University for his generosity in hosting clete2.com again! Thanks!

I should be back up and running soon; I have a lot on my mind right now, but I can’t remember any of it.

I’m packing up and getting ready to go home. In a few weeks, I’ll be in Illinois for my internship with State Farm!

I’m experimenting with some new themes right now. I’m sick of seeing that default Wordpress theme, but I’m not talented enough to create my own. The theme may change a bit in the next few days. Right now, I’m using one called “Azul.” I think it’s pretty nice.

I really have no updates on life. I’m working on my next photography project and getting ready to go back to school.

One of my all-time favorite (and one of my most used) applications for the iPhone is Road Trip. It is developed soley by Darren Stone. Darren has done a great job polishing this application. One of my largest complaints about most applications is that they are not polished and they do not feel like they are native iPhone apps. This app is not that way; it has a very clean and easy-to-use interface and it has all of the features that I need.

Let me bein by showing the home page. After you add your first vehicle, this page shows up to show you all of your data. I currently have 6 fill-ups entered into the application:

This menu shows all of the statistics for your trip. It’s great for a quick glance to see how much money I spend a day on gas and what the average price of gas is. Here is a picture showing the graph that was previously covered up:

So we can see that the minimum price for gas is $1.49 and the maximum is $1.87. I have ranged between 18.3 and 32.4 mpg (although I’m not sure how I managed 18.3; maybe it was an input error). I can also glance and see how much I have spent on maintenance. Also, the paid version of this application allows me to specify certain time ranges and road trips, so that I can see how much I spent in a month or on a specific road trip. It is a really nice feature.

In the fuel tab, I can see (and edit) each individual fuel entry. If you click on the “+” symbol, it brings you to a menu where you can add more fuel. This is the best part of the application. You put in the cost of the fuel, your odometer reading, and how much fuel (in gallons or liters) you pumped and it does the rest. Optionally, you can specify a location for the gas pump and whether you were driving in city conditions, highway conditions, or mixed conditions. This is great for keeping city/highway meters.

The preferences panel:

Here you can set all of your preferences, but I want to draw your attention to some extra features. In the notes section, you can enter additional information that you may need, such as your license plate number, VIN, insurance name (and details). Also, the Export Data button is extremely helpful. You can export your data (and import it into other iPhones/iPod Touches) and then import it into Microsoft Excel or equivalent.

Road Trip is a great iPhone/iPod Touch application and I highly recommend it. A “Road Trip Lite” version is available for free from the App store. Road Trip is currently $4.99 and is well worth its price.

College is going well recently. I’m keeping my grades up and I’m having a ton of fun this semester. So far, I have done a lot of floor programs and I have really become more involved with my floor this semester. I picked up StarCraft and I have been playing with a few of my residents. It is actually a really great game; contrary to what some may say. I have had a lot of floor programs so far and I’m looking forward to partnering up with one of the other RA’s floors to have some competitions between our floors. We played volleyball and my floor lost to his floor horrendously. Next up will be a cake or doughnut eating contest, which should be a lot of fun.

I went skiing today, which was a lot of fun. It was really warm today, the snow was not preferable, and the ski place was really small, but I had a ton of fun. I haven’t been skiing in a long time and it was amazing to finally get back out on the slopes. I hope to go again before the season is over. If I can’t, I can always look forward to next year. I had really missed skiing and I had been looking forward to this trip for the past week. It was really a ton of fun. I’ll leave this with the only picture that I took during the trip (ONLY PICTURE?!? SHOCKING!):

Oh and one other thing: Hi Meg and Mozart! You stalker, you! Haha.

Looks like the brilliant US government delayed the digital television switchover until June.

People in the computing field have known of talk of removing the analog television waves for at least four years. The official switchover was announced over two years ago. Coupons have been going out for a very long time. If you haven’t applied for one by now, you’re out of luck (well, in my opinion). Millions have been spent on advertising. I used to see those commercials at least once every 30 minutes no matter what channel I was watching. Everyone knows about this; even if they don’t understand what it is. I had tons of customers come into Sears asking for them (back when I worked at Sears); maybe only a handful actually understood what it was. The rest came in due to the commercials. The commercials work and those who actually pay attention to what is going on already have these boxes or understand the consequences of not having one.

More fundamentally, why should the government even spend millions of dollars on this? If the government saved that money and deducted it off of everyone’s taxes, that would be just fine. Why should we allocate millions of dollars to spend on coupons when its not the government’s job to provide for the people?

I’m distraught about this. Everyone in the computing industry is ready for the airwaves to be freed up so they can develop and deploy new technologies in the spectrum (namely, widespread internet access). Get it over with. Get it done. Remove analog television. Let’s move on.

Ammendment: Looks like the house killed the bill. A 2/3rds majority was not achieved. I’m sure that plans will be attemped in orde to pass the bill again. Slashdot article.

Second Ammendment: It passed. Slashdot article. A waste of money.

This semester, I am taking a photography course. So far, I am really enjoying the course. We are going over the basics (which I have already grasped), but we are also doing some fun projects. Our latest project is to photograph moving water. It is essentially a shutter speed tutorial. We are to shoot at the slowest shutter speed (besides bulb — keeping the shutter open for as long as you choose) and at the fastest shutter speed (my camera can shoot at 1/8000th of a second). I have included one picture of mine that I took about a year ago and the rest are named accordingly. Check out my work below. I am very impressed with the faucet pictures. I shot a ton and kept a lot of RAW images but most were just duplicates, so I formatted the best into JPEGs. These images were adjusted only for white balance.

Please give me some critique!