Yannblog

The personal website of Ian Littman

Google Voice Draws Nigh…for me…

Mar 24

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

Just received this e-mail from Google about my account conversion from GrandCentral to Google Voice. I’ve had GrandCentral for awhile but have never really used it. Google Voice looks to be amazing, from the five minutes I played around with it on someone else’s account. Now it’s finally my turn, albeit with a reservation or two, as outlined in the e-mail below…guess this is why my account took so long to convert:

Hello

We’re happy to announce that your GrandCentral account can now be upgraded to Google Voice. In addition to the great GrandCentral features you already know, Google Voice gives you free transcription of all your voicemail, conference calling, and more. You can also use your Google Voice account to make low cost international calls and free calls to anywhere in the United States.

Unfortunately, there is a group of about 891 phone numbers for which we are not able to enable the new SMS feature. Your phone numbers is one of these that won’t support SMS, so we would like to offer you two upgrade options:

  1. You can upgrade your current GrandCentral number to Google Voice. You will get all new Google Voice features, except SMS.
  2. You can select a brand new Google Voice number that will support SMS. You can also keep your existing GrandCentral number working for the next 3 months while you tell people your new number, and you can still check voicemails to that number in your GrandCentral account.

Let us know which option you prefer here (link removed) and we will upgrade your account accordingly.

Thanks,

The Google Voice Team

Once the account converts, rest assured I’ll at least be blogging about it, if not writing a full-blown newspaper article about the service. Looking forward to getting some free calling in…

In case you’re wondering, I’m switching my number. Nobody knows my old number so it’s no great loss, and I really want the texting feature 🙂

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Speaking of servers…

Mar 23

Posted by Ian Littman in General | 1 Comment

…I actually have a few spread around the world, for various purposes. Most are going dead as soon as the money runs out, but a few will stick around. This includes web hosts…here are the names, packages and reasons, in order of when I got them:

  1. 1&1 ($5 Microsoft and Linux packages, for personal site, I’ll let them expire but will keep them as a domain registrar…their stuff is just plain slow)
  2. LiquidWeb (low-end VPS with all the upgrades, paid $4100 in advance so I now have to pay just $40 per month for what I’m getting, which is a decent deal, used for a push e-mail project that isn’t working right currently)
  3. SuperSeedbox (seedbox, on an OVH server, gets decent speeds and costs $20 per month)
  4. Seedbox.fr (seedbox which was cheap but is lousy speed-wise, also at OVH)
  5. Seedplace.eu (dedicated server with low-end specs and network storage, 17 Euros per month, will let this one expire…based in OVH, used as a seedbox)
  6. PruHosting (99 cents per year, 50 MB of storage, 1GB of bandwidth and a server that works)

So I’ll be down to three different servers at the end of the month: LiquidWeb, SuperSeedbox and MDDHosting. May cut out SuperSeedbox as well. Whew, I’m spending a bit of dough on servers…but most were experiments anyhow.

What’s funny is how each seedbox has a different BitTorrent client on it. The SuperSeedbox has µtorrent, the seedplace.eu system has rtorrent/wtorrent, and the Seedbox.fr unit uses Transmission. All are decent clients when configured correctly on decent servers, but I’d recommend µtorrent on SuperSeedbox at this point.

As to my choice of VPS and shared servers, I stand behind what I bought; LiquidWeb and MDDHosting are both good companies, and they do what I pay them for quite well.

Oh, and PruHosting…it’s 99 cents per year, what can I say? It works quite well, so if someone wants to set up a basic WordPress blog, that’s where to host it; just grab a domain from Domain.com and forward it over there (why Domain.com? They’re cheap…$7.50 per year after the promo code TEK1, as in TekZilla).

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New Server!

Mar 23

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No, really. No sooner did I move to my new host, then they decided to switch all their shared hosting accounts to a new server. This is a good thing…though server load went up for a few hours, there was zero downtime, I didn’t have to do anything, and the new server is configured a bit beefier than the old one, so my site will run even faster. Woohoo!

On a more negative note, due to DNS propagation delays, I had to post this twice, once on the old server, once on the new one.

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New Web Host!

Mar 22

Posted by Ian Littman in General | 1 Comment

I got an amzing deal from MDDHosting, which rocks anyway, so I’ve converted my personal site to them, though I still host my domains with 1&1. I must say, it’s lovely to be on a server that responds quickly to what you want it to do, and which is prety much in the center of the internet, rather than being over in Kansas City…

NOTE: The above link to MDDHosting was an affiliate link. Still, they’re awesome. I used them for my college newspaper before I used them myself, and the service is rock-solid.

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Plus-Minus

Feb 24

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

At roughly 3:30 p.m. today, a barely-quorum of Mines faculty senators passed 6-1 a resolution for a Fall 2012 implementation of an A thru D- plus-minus system. This was effectively a compromise on a compromise, passed by a body where, in theory, the motion could have been overturned if all faculty had attended.

There are a few reasons for the passing of this motion in that form, which I’ll outline below, as well as an explanation of what may happen from here, and the opinion of a faculty member (Dr. Eberhart) about the situation, as well as a question for the seniors…

One more thing: pass this note on to everyone at Mines you know. I’d be writing this in the Oredigger, but it’s a bit too vitriolic for that. Read the rest of this entry »

Now 18

Jan 28

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

You know that birthday I was talking about. Well, it’s today :). Yay for being, in most senses of the word, an adult!

Wishlist

Jan 20

Posted by Ian Littman in General | No Comments

So my birthday is coming up in about a week (Jan 28). 18th birthday to be exact. And it seems as though I’m hard to buy for, gift-wise. Hope this helps/is unpretentious…if you’re in the area hanging out is appreciated 🙂

Gift Cards:

Cash (if you’re nearby)
Newegg
Chipotle
Lala

Small Stuff:

Sanyo Eneloop Batteries (AA) – Yes, I want good batteries, and these seem to fit the bill.
MicroSDHC 8GB w\USB reader (2x is even better!)
Wii Component Cable, Nunchuck (up to 3), Classic controller (up to 3)

More expensive stuff:

Jabra BT3030 or here
Shure SE110 Earbuds
Western Digital 2TB hard drive (internal or external, when it comes out)
WD TV

Also:

Searching for God Knows What

If you’re really sure I’d like something, go ahead and get it. If you want to get somethig bigger, that’s cool too…oh, and if you want to donate to a worthy cause in my memory, that’s freaking awesome!