Category Archives: Technology

Scratching The Surface of A Glass Ceiling

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Fuck AT&T

Fuck off, AT&T!

It seems like the phrase “bandwidth caps” is quickly becoming synonymous with internet service providers here in the United States. Once a term that we celebrated and often times saw as the buzz word for whether or not we bought a company’s services, “unlimited” is quickly being phased out in favor of limitation. While a good amount of users won’t be affected by the caps, there is a much larger impact than on the personal level alone.

I’m currently an AT&T DSL user and have been fairly happy with the service. I recently upgraded from 3 to 6MB (6 wasn’t available for a while) and have seen a big difference in my download speeds. My friends and acquaintances know that I am by no means your average internet user. I’m constantly streaming, downloading or connected in one way or another. Whether it’s on Xbox LIVE, MLB TV or via wifi on my HTC G2, I’m connected. Metered internet service raises a red flag for me on multiple levels. If I were to begin with the personal level, I would say that it will indeed hinder my internet use considerably. I’ll have to throttle back my downloads and reconsider my streaming services. I’ve almost reached 150GB of transfer for a month that hasn’t even ended yet. What these large corporations don’t realize is that it has an adverse effect on the internet as a whole.

An aspect that I think most people overlook, myself included (until I read CrackerJoe’s Reddit post on the matter), is that web developers and programmers now have to re-think data delivery strategies for their web applications and media formats. If Hulu and Netflix want to stay afloat they’ll need to entertain the idea of having to optimize their data even further, or even redesign their websites to be more lightweight; in an effort to offset the load. Streaming websites such as Netflix, Hulu and Grooveshark transfer large amounts of data on a daily basis and have become hugely popular. It’s quickly becoming a slippery slope that only benefits the ISPs implementing caps. Don’t you worry though. I’m sure in the wake of negative backlash that such ludicrous limitations receive, these companies are conjuring up new names for the same old networks and services (U-Verse, LTE, 4G, 3G, etc.). A glossy new marketing campaign always does the trick, right?

A Dash of Conspiracy Theory

One would say that “conspiracy theory” is a bit of a stretch when labeling this but I’m at a loss for a better phrase. Broadband internet providers are conspiring to shut down streaming services (remember, we’re still on a theoretical level here). AT&T wouldn’t want Netflix to impose a threat on their beloved U-Verse now, would they? For those that are not familiar with U-Verse, it is a pay-TV service that AT&T provides via DSL. Essentially the same concept as Netflix and Hulu. Of course if you give into the beast that is AT&T and you have their U-Verse service, you get an extra 100GB per month of extra bandwidth (standard AT&T DSL users like myself will get a 150GB cap while U-Verse offers 250GB).

It’s obvious that caps are coming into play to protect company interests. Streaming services means more and more users are abandoning satellite and cable television, in favor of the leaner, more streamlined approach of entertainment delivery. So if companies like AT&T can hinder these providers while pushing their own streaming services, it’s a worthwhile business plan. What better way to stay alive than to eliminate the competition altogether? It’s been apparent for decades that corporations only care about one thing and that one thing is not the end user–it’s the bottom line.

Speak your mind by canceling your service in favor of one that does not impose bandwidth caps. If they see a large influx of service cancellations it’s possible they’ll change their tune. I’d love to hear the Google team’s thoughts on caps, especially with Google TV in the wild.

Update

Today I learned why nobody is interfering with AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile. Here’s an excerpt from the site included in the Reddit post:

News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, plus a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of their telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the U.S. Constitution.

Wow, I feel so much safer knowing that my once T-Mobile network will now be under surveillance by the NSA. So what are your recommendations? How’s Verizon? Sprint? There’s no way in hell I’m sticking with T-Mo…. AT&T.

Oh, I nearly forgot. To make things even better, T-Mobile 3G devices will have to be replaced over time. So basically that means the HTC G2 sitting on my desk is virtually worthless. That’s right. The phone I’ve had less than 6 months is essentially a paperweight. I can’t even sell it.

So here’s to monopolies and government surveillance. I hope you all rot.

Carol Zara Featured on G4TV’s Women of The Web

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Carol Zara in her undies

Wait, what was I talking about?

My sexy Brazillian blogger pal Carol Zara was featured on G4TV‘s Women of The Web today. If you’re into video games, blogging, pop culture and other things that some might refer to as vices, she’s you’re girl. I help her out with her website from time to time and frequent it for a laugh.

Check her out on G4TV’s Women of The Web. You won’t regret it. You can also follow her on Twitter or checkout her website DigitallyBlonde.com.

Reviewing The Kramer Mod – Improve Those Cheap Headphones

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Per the request of my friend JasonN I’m going to review a headphone mod that has been around for quite a while now: the Kramer mod. Because I’ve found it to be impossible to find one definitive source for clear steps and a written tutorial from the mod author themselves, I’ve resorted to a forum post that gives a brief explanation – Head-Fi.org.

Let’s get started

The materials list is short and sweet and the steps are as well. Don’t worry, your margin of error is pretty slim.

Materials:

  1. Foam – soft foam similar to what you find on headphone covers or a microphone cover. For this I used a piece of foam cut from the cover on your standard Xbox 360 headset.
  2. Scissors – Your everyday household pair will do. You’ll only be using these to cut the foam, which is soft.
  3. JVC Marshmallow In-Ear Headphones – You can pick these up for about $19.99 but they’ve been around a while so I’m sure you can find them cheaper now. Don’t worry. They’re available in more colors than just pink. That just happens to be the sample I’m using for this post.
  4. Tweezers – You’ll be using these to get the rubber sheaths off of the earphone tubes.
  5. A Needle – You’ll need a needle to get the paper screen off the top of each earphone tube. You could probably use tweezers for this instead if you don’t have access to a needle.

Instructions:

  1. Slide off the memory foam covers around the tube of each earphone so that the rubber sheath around the earphone tube is exposed.
  2. Grab your tweezers and pull the rubber sheath upwards so that it comes off. You might have to give these a small tug because they are initially stuck on. Be careful not to rip the sheaths.
  3. Once you’ve got the rubber sheaths pulled off, you should see a thin paper disc over the top of each earphone’s tube. These paper discs have a small hole in the center of them. Grab your needle and put it in the center of the disc so that you can pry these discs off. Don’t worry if you damage these. You will not be using them again.
  4. Take the foam you’ve acquired and cut a small cube for each earphone. The purpose of this foam is to act as a damper inside of the tube in each earphone. The depth of the foam cube inside of each earphone tube will affect the sound, so you may have to mess with this part to get it to your liking. Depending on your preference (whether you prefer your highs more crisp or your lows deeper), you might have to cut a couple different sizes to get it right. Fortunately for me, the first try was the perfect balance for my ears.
  5. Once you’ve got your cubes cut and ready to go, insert them into each earphone tube. I wasn’t exactly sure how deep down they should be pushed but I don’t think it makes a great deal of difference. I pressed them in so that they are slightly exposed past the edge of each earphone tube. Don’t worry about using glue to secure these pieces of foam in or adhering them in any other way. They should remain where they need to be.
  6. Once you’ve got (1) piece of foam pushed down into each earphone tube, take the rubber sheaths we removed on step 2 and slide them back down over the earphone tube. Make sure they’re snug in place.
  7. Take the memory foam earphone tube covers that we removed on step 1 and slide them back down over the earphones tubes as they were before. Now it’s time to try them out.

Before you give them a try, make sure to roll the memory foam earpieces in between your fingers. This loosens the foam up a little and makes it more flexible to seat nicely within your ear canal. If the sound is not what you are looking for, then repeat the steps and try playing with the size of each foam piece you put into the earphone tube.

The end result should be a day and night difference between the default paper screens that come with the headphones, and the foam cubes we replace them with. This mod made me love these headphones 100x more and this mod was actually my entire reason for even purchasing these headphones.

Update: I forgot to mention that this mod has been used for various headphone models and not just the Marshmallows. If you find a set of in-ear headphones that have a similar setup, you can perform this mod.

Another Twitter Scam Website

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Scammers never sleep. There’s a new website out on the net that strives to do one thing and one thing alone: steal your Twitter account credentials. Thanks to an RT of @wakooz’s post from @RR5280, I was able to make sure I steer clear of it I’m now making sure to pass it along. I wrote a previous post that talked about another website that did basically the same thing.

The moral of the story

Be weary of the URL of the website you’re signing into. I once had a Rapidshare account stolen from me because I failed to check the URL I was signing into while downloading a file. I had to purchase a new one to replace it. Be careful!

There’s a New URL Shortener In Town

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That’s right. And it’s URL is bloq.in. I like to experiment with the scripts that other developers create and PHPurl is an awesome one. Written by Nile Flores, it’s a simple script that does exactly what you need it to do: shorten your URL. It also has the nice feature of allowing you to set a keyword for the URL you are shortening. For example, if the link is about the late Michael Jackson (we miss you, MJ), then your URL would be something like “http://bloq.in/michaeljackson“. If a keyword has already been used, you will be prompted to enter something else. Simple and awesome.

The other beauty of Bloq.in and PHPurl is that instead of using a random 3 or 4 characters as the URL, it goes by single digits counting up from 1. So until it reaches the 1,000′s, the URL is gonna be short and sweet (unless you use some /longobnoxioustaginstead).

The admin panel is also fantastic. It shows the amount of hits for each link users have added, which IP each link was posted from and you can also create new links and edit existing ones.

Making it all look purdy

I’m the type that likes to redesign everything to my liking and PHPurl wasn’t going to escape from my web developer clutches. So I took it upon myself to redesign the administrator panel, as well as the front-end so that everything matched Bloqhead.com.

Redesigned PHPurl admin panel

Redesigned PHPurl admin panel

So there you have it. A plug for my new URL shortener Bloq.in and a small review for PHPurl.

Quality vs. Quantity – You Are Not A Guru

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How´s My Blogging?

I'm vulgar. Call someone who cares.

With the huge rise in social networking popularity across the web, “social media” and whatever other bullshit buzz word the next “guru” has coined; comes the huge influx of people hopping on the bandwagon as the next self-proclaimed savior to the mediasphere-addicted masses. I’m really at my wit’s end with the amount of “professionals” bombarding me on Twitter with crap like:

“10,000 followers in one month!”

“How to make money with Twitter!”

“Make money at home!”

Ugh, just shut the fuck up already (sorry, late warning but this post has vulgarity). We get it. You’re some elite genius who has risen from the ashes of MySpace and other half-assed, master-minded, millionaire-making mounds of shit – otherwise known as social networks. Alright, fair enough. Everyone has to have an angle, right? Sure, whatever. You’ll tell me anything if you think it will sell me.

Okay, you’re burnt out at your bland desk job. Like a lot of savvy web users, you’re always using things like Facebook, Twitter, Brightkite, etc. You think to yourself,

“Man, I’m pretty snazzy when it comes to this social networking stuff. Look at all the people I’ve got following me on Twitter! I must be on to something…”

That’s when it hits you. You’re going to write a book and then build a website, maybe even start doing videos promoting your new techniques and start holding seminars. It’s going to be AWESOME! YOU’LL BE A MILLIONAIRE IN NO TIME! There’s a huge flaw in this idea though: 10 million other annoying people have thought of the same exact idea. Those same 10 million people are currently shoving their idea in peoples faces in the form of tweets on Twitter or whatever the hell else there is out there.

YTMND

The one that annoys me the most are the ones that are always talking about how you can gain 10,000 followers in a week or whatever insane time frame they lay down. Of course you know if the first guy said a month, the next guy with the same brilliant, original idea is going to say 1 week. Whatever happened to quality over quantity? I really have respect for the Twitter users that have built up their following by putting in the sweat and tears required. More power to them. They’re obviously interesting people and thus others want to hear what they have to say.

Quality vs. Quantity

But then there’s those users that do absolutely nothing but push theirs and other peoples “make money fast” products, and rehash links/material/etc that someone else put hard work into creating. The ones that just RT (ReTweet) the crap out of anything they think people will read. There’s no originality in any of it. It makes sense on some degree. For example, if you’re selling a product that you’ve really put your heart and soul into and people really love it, then sure, bombard us about it. But if you’re some self-proclaimed social media guru who just goes around tooting his/her own horn, posting crap people have read 300 times over from another source, then please go away. Find a new angle (there’s that word again!) and GTFOH (you’ll have to figure this abbreviation out on your own).

Complete US Guide to Update Your G1 to Cupcake

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Via @IamLugo on Twitter, I was able to update my T-Mobile G1 to the new Cupcake firmware without having to wait for T-Mobile to release it to my corner of the US. It was dead simple and does not require your G1 to be rooted. I’ve compiled these steps from Android Central and I’m also including a link to the US OTA link for Cupcake. I’ve also included a couple steps that weren’t outlined in the things I’ve read. Here goes!

  1. Grab the US Cupcake update from here. I suggest you have a USB cable to connect your phone to your computer to transfer the update file.
  2. Rename the downloaded zip file to “update.zip”. The phone will not recognize the file if it is named something else (I learned this myself).
  3. Connect your G1 to your computer and throw the update.zip file onto your SD card. Do not place it any folder. Throw it on the root (outside of all folders you see on your SD card.)
  4. Disconnect your phone from your computer (make sure to eject it if you’re on a Mac!).
  5. Turn your phone off like you normally would.
  6. Reboot your phone while holding the home key. Make sure to continue holding the home key until you see a triangle icon with an exclamation point in it. You don’t have to continue holding the power button. Just tap it to start the reboot process.
  7. When you see the triangle icon press ALT+L on your G1 keyboard to bring up a system screen that shows some options.
  8. Press ALT+S to update your phone using the update.zip file that it will automatically locate on your SD card. Let the update run. You’ll see it following through with the installation and you’ll see a progress bar.
  9. When prompted press home and back at the same time to reboot your phone. You only have to tap them, not hold them. You will see the phone reboot a couple of times, which is completely normal. When you see the new Android boot screen logo, you’ll know that your phone is running Cupcake.

Voilá! Your phone is now running the official OTA US release of Cupcake, thanks to Android Central and @IamLugo! One thing I noticed is that the update erased all the icons I dragged onto my G1 desktop. No big deal but at first when I saw no icons loading, I thought something was wrong. There’s nothing wrong though. Just drag them all back to where you desire. I found this to be a tiny issue to get the awesome new Cupcake update (which I must say really is awesome, especiall the video recorder and the global interface appearance and effects updates).

A New URL Registration Scam

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Soldier´s goodbye & Bobbie the cat, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood

This picture is completely irrelevant.

We received an email the other day at work from someone trying to sell a URL for a bloated price. It’s a pretty common practice and I’m sure any web designer reading this has encountered it at least once or twice in their career. Companies or individuals that solely make a living off of buying and selling domain names. Fair enough.

This latest method was kind of comical and at the same time it was clever; in a dirty, annoying care salesman kind of way. It starts off like you would expect. “I see that you are the owner of [DOMAINNAME].org…” blah, blah, blah, and then it goes on to the sender talking about how they have ownership of the same domain but in .com format. “Sounds awesome! How much are you sel….50 bucks??” (well, it didn’t really go down like that but I had to make this less boring). To be fair, $50 was a whole lot lower than what I expected the “seller” to want for it. Usually they get greedy.

Out of curiousity, my colleague decided to open up Terminal and run a whois on the domain, just to see if we could get some insight on this “company”. This is the kicker: the domain was available for purchase. So what happened next? I’m sure you’ve already figured it out for yourself, smarty pants. My colleague purchased the domain for 8 bucks. He even had a discount code! Following his victory, he proceeded to send back a response to the aforementioned email. It went something like:

“Thanks for the heads up on the domain”, “We’ve purchased it…”

Hilarity ensued. We never received a reply (wow, shocker) but between me and him we found it to be pretty hilarious in a nerdy kind of web guy way.

In your face!

How to Conserve Battery Life On Your T-Mobile G1

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T-Mobile G1

T-Mobile G1

As some of you may know, I got a white T-Mobile G1 not long ago and have loved it all along. Android and the G1 are awesome at pretty much everything… well, with the exception of battery life. I’ve found a few things that when disabled or configured differently, conserve a vast amount of battery life on the G1. I’m sure a lot of you G1 users out there have found these things already but I figured I’d compile them for those of you who are still dealing with constant recharging.

1. Don’t leave messaging services logged in all day

I learned this within my first week of owning the G1. I found that when I left my Google Talk account logged in all day, my battery was taxed by mid day and was nearly dead. Unless you’re a messenger fiend who has his/her fingers glued to the slide-out keyboard all day long when you should be finishing that TPS report, keep it logged out.

2. Turn off Bluetooth

Nobody out there needs Bluetooth enabled for the entire day except those annoying business people you see in supermarkets and on busy city sidewalks, blabbing away on their bluetooth earpiece about nothing and misleading you into thinking they’ve set aside a second of their “busy life” to talk to you. If you’re like myself, you don’t use Bluetooth at all. Obviously having it enabled serves no purpose other than to eat battery life. I turned this off almost immediately. If I don’t use it, I don’t need it on.

3. Turn off data roaming

While reading around on the web, someone had mentioned that they turned off data roaming. Apparently when data roaming is enabled, your phone will search out all and any towers in order to be able to deliver data to and from your phone. I turned this off and it was also a slight help to conserving battery life. I haven’t really found a use for this setting to begin with. Also, turning off data roaming might save you from some hefty charges.

Here’s how to turn off data roaming on your G1:

  1. Go to “Settings”
  2. Go to “Wireless controls”
  3. Go to “Mobile networks”
  4. Click on “Data roaming” to uncheck it

There is a “bug” in the Android OS that baffles a lot of people as to why Google and/or T-Mobile would allow this. Despite your efforts to avoid data roaming charges, some third party Android applications will still access the network, unbeknowst to you and thus earning you some hefty charges in data roaming. I’ll never understand who’s idea it was to allow applications to override a user-defined setting. If I shut something off, NOTHING ELSE SHOULD ENABLE IT.

4. Assess third party applications’ abilities as you download them

I’m sure you’ve been to the Market application on the G1 and have already downloaded cool apps. If that’s the case then I’m sure you remember the little yellow warning messages that follow the click of the “Install” button prior to actually installing the application. Make sure you read these. Some applications like to access the network even when you’ve closed them, so that they can update things in the background. Twidroid (an awesome Twitter mobile application) is one of the apps that has the option to access and update your timeline even when it’s closed. Make sure to disable this. Leaving applications on in the background can also tax your G1 battery considerably. Make sure you read those warnings prior to downloading that cool app you found. Those are one of the fantastic features of the Android Market and they’re there for your safety.

So if you’re a G1 owner and you’ve got some secrets on saving some of that precious G1 juice, make sure to share them in the comments below. I am currently getting 2 days worth out of my G1 battery and I think that’s pretty good. I hope you find this helpful and thanks for reading.