Yannblog

The personal website of Ian Littman

Common CricKet Misconceptions, Debunked

Oct 30

Posted by Ian Littman in Tech | No Comments

This evening I and a few friends were hanging out in front of the miniature apartment complex next to my school (I have no pretense of privacy). One had his Verizon iPhone 4 out. The discussion for a minute or two turned to how much he was paying for his cellular service ($40 per month plus change for an add-a-line on a family plan), after which he mentioned that, once his Verizon contract was, up, he’d switch his phone to CricKet and pay a little more, but in return get unlimited everything without the need to be on his parents’ family plan. “it’s the same network as Verizon anyway,” he said.

Wrong.

The above misconception is surprisingly common, so I don’t blame anyone for espousing it Read the rest of this entry »

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Magic Trackpad on a non-Apple computer

Jun 13

Posted by Ian Littman in Tech | 1 Comment

I’m sitting at an AMD Fusion-powered nettop, writing this post. The computer sips power, yet is still respectable enough to drive light workstation tasks on my 24-inch, 1080p monitor. I’m confident enough about this rig’s performance that I’ll be ordering another LCD soon…but I digress. The topic of this post revolves around the fact that, in addition to a trusty lowish-end Logitech mouse, I’m using Apple’s much-hyped Magic Trackpad as a fully functional pointing device for a computer that’s never seen an Apple logo. Read the rest of this entry »

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T-Mobile Rocket 3.0

May 27

Posted by Ian Littman in Tech | No Comments

So today, after dropping by the Colorado Mills Which Wich, I picked up a T-Mobile webConnect Rocket 3.0 (or ZTE MF683, if you’re going by device manufacturer and model number) , currently the only 42Mbps HSPA+ device available in the US. I’ll be writing a full review of the device, along with a head-to-head comparison versus T-Mobile’s original webConnect Rocket, here. Read the rest of this entry »

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Halfway Through Grad School

May 11

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

I haven’t posted here nearly enough lately, and (more importantly) I want to be semi-productive without actually being productive this evening. So adding a post to my personal blog (rather than updating my Facebook status or tweeting) seemed like a good idea at the time…  Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Industry Representatives!

Feb 8

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

To whoever visits this page as result of me handing out my resumé on the Colorado School of Mines Spring 2011 Career Day, greetings! To other potential employers who found this page in another manner, I extend the same greeting. You can find my contact information on my About page. You can also download my single-page resumé, or view my Google profile for a more in-depth description of myself.

Windstream Soundbytes

Aug 2

Posted by Ian Littman in Tech | No Comments

So I talked with someone who should know what they’re talking about with regard to Windstream. Not naming names because it isn’t important to do so anyway. Here are are some of the more interesting (though predictable) things that he mentioned:

1. Windstream’s biggest customers are AT&T and Verizon
Telcos buy backhaul from other telcos when it comes to providing cellular service. As long as Verizon and AT&T continue to rule the roost in the wireless biz, Windstream will continue to get a fair chunk of change per month for T1s and fiber Ethernet connections to cell sites in their footprint. In many cases other cellular providers also have to use Windstream for backhauling their cell sites, which generates even more revenue for Windstream, which isn’t particularly forgiving when it comes to T1 pricing either. Read the rest of this entry »

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Picasa Slideshow -> YouTube? Not so fast…

Aug 1

Posted by Ian Littman in Tech | No Comments

You’d think that going from one Google product (Picasa) to another (YouTube) would be quick and painless. However when it comes to exporting slideshows to YouTube, I must say, Au Contraire…at least from the Mac version of the desktop photo manager, which by the way is 100% awesome. There is a fix, however…

The problem in my case had to do with embedding videos into the slideshow. You see, when Picasa exports a slideshow it takes advantage of some of the more esoteric specs of the MPEG-4 container, saving video clips, unmodified, with their accompanying audio alongside the photo slideshow, which includes your music track, captions, etc. So you get multiple video and audio streams “neatly” packaged into a single MPEG-4 container. Cool, right?

Right…as long as you have something that won’t roll over and die when it sees a multi-stream, multi-resolution container file coming down the pike. Read the rest of this entry »

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