So up until now I’ve tested three of the four providers who have 3G service in Fredericksburg, TX: AT&T, Sprint and CricKet, listed in order of connection speed, descending. I was able to borrow a Verizon aircard from work (Novatel USB727) and check Verizon’s speed at my house. Here are the results: Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for category General
My experience with GVTC
Dec 22
So I’m headed down to South Padre Island for some downtime with the family before Christmas. We made a pit stop at the Flagstop Café and my mom noticed that there was a big sign in the window advertising the availability of WiFi.
So naturally I pulled out my HTC Touch Pro, which has WiFi, to see what network they were running on. After registering for an account on the hotspot provider (Less Networks, never heard of them) I checked whatismyip.com to see who I was on. Sure enough, the connection there was GVTC, registered as “Guadalupe Valley Telephone”. Right before we pulled out of the place I opened up my laptop, logged into the WiFi network that way and did some tests. Read the rest of this entry »
So I bought an AT&T data plan earlier today. SIM-only, no contract. Pretty cool, since their less-than-a-month-old 3G network around here is still pretty speedy. I didn’t need an aircard as I purchased a Sierra Wireless USBConnect 881 back during the days of “unlimited” GoPhone data for $20. The card lay dormant after “unlimited” became 100MB (big difference) but today it meant the difference between signing a contract (aka not getting service) and not signing one.
One problem arose when I got home: my aircard kept switching to EDGE during the middle of a data session. Not a good thing for a $60 + taxes and fees data plan. So I needed to force 3G on the card. The problem there was that only the Windows Sierra and AT&T clients allow forced 3G. So (not knowing that settings are stored on the modem and thus once I set 3G-only on my Windows computer it would be 3G-only on my Mac) I scrounged around and found this page. I followed those instructions and was able to make sure my aircard was 3G-only.
If you don’t want to read through a (relatively short) page on how to kick your aircard into high gear, you’re in luck. Here’s what you’d do on a Mac to force-3G a Sierra aircard. Note that this procedure was performed on OS X 10.6.1 and with the Apple “native” driver installed (a tiny download from here). This is also with the latest modem firmware, which I had to use the Sierra driver (vs. the native one) to upgrade to.
- Go to Terminal (Applications > Utilities)
- Type in screen /dev/tty.wwanCMD 115200 and hit enter.
- Type in AT!band? and hit enter.
- If you see the number 02, you’re already locked into 3G-only mode. Otherwise, type in AT!band=02 and hit enter to set the mode. If you wanted to go 2G-only, the code would be 04 instead of 02. AUtoselect is 00.
Hope this helps! Now I’m cooking along with 2-3 bars of signal (-87 dBm right now) and pulling down these speeds:
Though connection quality is quite a bit more variable than Sprint’s (slower, particularly on uploads) connection at my place…
In comparison, SPrint usually pulls down 1.3 Mbps down, 300-500 kbps up and gets a B on connection quality.
My Bank Failed
Sep 3
Earlier this year I moved a sizeable amount of my cash (low five figures at the time) from Guaranty Bank to Broadway Bank. BankRate was looking slim for Guaranty at the time, and I didn’t want to be caught trying to collect FDIC insurance on my own. Looks like I made the right decision.
A couple of weeks ago Guaranty Bank failed. It wasn’t the only bank failure on that Friday (the 21st of August), but it was the largest. Guaranty’s demise was the second largest bank failure of the year, next to Colonial Bank in Alabama.
Previously on yanntx.info, I found the shocking deal of a $54.99 1TB hard disk. Well, that deal is gone however that same drive, coupled with a new Newegg promotion, is nearly as good…better for folks who want to buy more than a single drive.
The super deal this time: Windows Live…er…Bing Cash Back. It’s how I got my Vizio VS42LF TV for about $490 (after $198 in cash back, a 10% PayPal discount and a few bucks in credit card rewards) and it’s how you can nab magnetic storage for under 5¢ per GB. In order to get this discount, just go here (a Bing search for “newegg”) and click the link next to the Bing Cashback icon.
Now you’re locked into a session that will give you 10% cashback (via Bing; you’ll have to get a Bing cashback account there but it’s not a huge deal) on pretty much whatever you buy on Newegg. You can now mosey on over here and grab up to five drives at the net price (once the limit-five-per-household rebate and the up-to-sixty-days Bing cash back are in) of just $57.49 apiece, or roughly 5.75¢ per GB. Solid.
Just remember to claim your cash back, to mail in your rebate(s) before the end of September and to grab the drives either by the end of this month or before they sell out again, whichever comes first!
So Jason Calacanis wrote a newsletter/blog post yesterday about how Apple is becoming big, bad, evil, etc. He had some questions at the end. I emailed him my thoughts, but they probably won’t get published that way. So here they are, in reworked form.
Preliminary Notes
Verizon doesn’t use SIM cards. Neither does Sprint. While I think it’d be awesome to see a dual-radio network-agnostic iPhone (like the Blackberry Storm and some new HTC units) I don’t foresee that happening. As for a dual CDMA radio setup that would “bond” two networks together for fast downloads, not gonna happen. The engineering and billing logistics just don’t work out. The best that’ll realistically happen is either an LTE iPhone (I doubt it’ll come out for WiMAX unfortunately) or *possibly* an iPhone “world phone” with CDMA and GSM/HSPA a la the Blackberry Storm if Verizon gets the new exclusive.
Now that that’s off my, and Mike Rundle’s, chest…
Q: Do you think Apple would be more, or less, successful if they adopted a more open strategy (i.e. allowing other MP3 players in iTunes)?
A: At worst, they’d be just as successful. They might be forced to compete a little more on features, especially on the Mac side (where there’s no Windows Media Player and thus no simple way to sync music with a non-iTunes-supported player). However the influx of people using third-party devices on iTunes would make up for any people who might pick a $30 other-brand MP3 player over Apple’s own. Not like those people would buy an iPod in the first place…
Mission Trip 2009
Jul 22
UPDATE: So far the soul count appeas to be eighteen from that trip. God == awesome.
So I did a lot more than configure wireless networks the week of July 5th. You know, like helping run sound for a Vacation Bible School program that brought twelve fifteen kids to Chirst (about half of the local people who attended). We also reached out to the adults in the community, with a hamburger supper, an ice cream social/worship night and even a bounce castle at the end of the week. The sponsor church for our dead-church-turned-church-plant even brought down a Sno Cone machine and a popcorn machine for the occasion (though you’re right in thinking the bounce castle was the bigger achievement).
