Corey Gouker's Machine Inside the Mind

So I finally caved and decided to try out the always on instant status craze. Now I pretty much update my Live Messenger PSM all the time, especially when my Now Playing is turned on. However, I used to only update Facebook once in a while. Never updated MySpace. That was it, I didn’t (and still don’t really) care about any of the other sites, which frankly seem like a fad.

Like I said, I caved, logged into my Twitter account that I apparently opened a year ago, set it up so that Facebook and Twitter would communicate. Then I added the Messenger application to Facebook so those two could talk. I then updated my status in the Live Messenger dogfood, saw it updated Facebook and was amused, but looking at Twitter… saw nothing. How very lame.

Then I remembered reading this article on TechCrunch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/31/pingfm-centralizes-status-updates-but-is-it-enough/

Hoping that maybe, possibly, someone would’ve managed to have the services in place to spread a status message across all services regardless of origin. This concept while simple and something that has been touted as the future for some time still eludes us… None the less within 30 seconds I was registered at HelloTxt, yet another website with yet another login to manage.

I then gave my login details to the 4 other social services that I have accounts with. This seems odd considering how much phishing is going on. Heck I bet there’s a lot of money and data to be had if someone were to create a cute Web 2.0 site that gathered account data like HelloTxt does then just sell it to the highest bidder.

After some additional reading and browsing I found this blog which discusses differences between HelloTxt and Ping.fm:
http://masontechbeat.blogspot.com/2008/07/title-fight-pingfm-vs-hellotxt.html

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this reinvigorated interest in the web, if anything it seems geek is now chic, can’t go wrong there. But seriously? How on Earth do the 21 networks that HelloTxt communicates with manage to attract and keep users using their services? What value do any of them really have or add? Where’s all this VC coming from and can I have some please?

Now the point of all this is that it seems like there’s a lot of cool stuff going on, but the key issue to really making everything work is a central service for which all services communicate. There’s no central standard like RSS to make it all take off. In my mind all it’s going to take is Google, Yahoo, Facebook, or whoever to release a true framework that will be the platform for future services to grow. Google seems like the obvious candidate here with their ad platform and fingers dipped into everything you can think of.

It would seem like now is the prime time to make a move leverage the hundreds of millions of Live Hotmail and Messenger users and create an open platform for these Personal Status Message(PSM) sites to communicate. I’m sure that most people already have a Live ID so that won’t even be a major caveat. I tried finding a plugin for HelloTxt or Twitter for Messenger, the best I could find was this:
http://www.msgplus.com/scripts/search/?q=twitter
Sadly this will only update Twitter and since HelloTxt doesn’t seem to pull from Twitter the rest of the sites I’m on won’t get updated. FAIL.

If Microsoft has 300 million active Live Messenger users there must be at least half a billion or more PSM’s set every day. I’m going to guess if Microsoft had the open platform it would get used. Update your status on Windows Live, have it updated everywhere. Simple concept. This seems like a much better use of resources than changing bitmaps, adding more winks, and confusing users with design changes. Microsoft has Live Spaces, Live Messenger, and Live Mobile, what more is needed? Not to mention the close ties with Facebook. That’s a pretty fine start imho. Get tied to Twitter build some momentum and you’ve got the workings for real added value to Windows Live.

Now considering my PSM in Live Messenger doesn’t update my status on Zune or Xbox despite using the same Live ID. I’m just a little nervous that Microsoft may be latecomer to the conversation it should have started. Are there any conversations going on like this in Windows Live right now?

We shall see…

I was using something else before, Feedburner I guess, I suppose I could keep using it, but it seemed limited. While using Redfin today I noticed they had the Share on Facebook with the down arrow and that it was using the AddThis.com service. Registered real quick grabbed the generated code and popped it in. Had to refer to the macro definitions for dasBlog but it seems to be working right now, the code looks like this:

<!-- ADDTHIS BUTTON BEGIN -->
<script type="text/javascript">
addthis_pub = 'YOUR USER NAME';
</script><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php" onMouseOver="return addthis_open(this, '', '<%PermalinkUrlRaw%>', '<%itemTitleRaw%>')" onMouseOut="addthis_close()" onClick="return addthis_sendto()"><img src="http://s9.addthis.com/button1-addthis.gif" width="125" height="16" border="0" alt="" /></a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/152/addthis_widget.js"></script>           
<!-- ADDTHIS BUTTON BEGIN -->

This will work well for any dasBlog user just change the username, users of other services will need to figure out the permalink url and item title macro for their service.

Went to refresh my camera equipment listing on Expo and instead got this...   

Windows Live Expo will discontinue service on 31 July 2008. In preparation, the following features are no longer available:

• Create a new account.
• Post a new listing.
• Extend a listing.
• Upgrade a listing to a premium listing.

All current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire.

We thank you for your patronage and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
-The Windows Live Expo Team

Annoying, but not too unexpected. I've never actually seen anyone use Expo outside of the Seattle/Redmond area. Oh well. Back to Craigslist. Unless of course Microsoft buys them out and does a redirect :).

So I was Googling my Dad just now to see if I could find any of his eBay listings since I was curious. I ended up just searching for his name and Arizona. Sure enough it returned his phone book entry as the first result. Next I tried my Mom, now what's funny about this is that my Mom has always been kind of paranoid and so back in the days of me living at home she'd make sure our info was unlisted. I guess somehow that got reversed and now it's nicely published. Oh and be sure to check out her Stained Glass website at GoStainedGlass.com.

The funny thing to me is that besides having her home phone it also has her address. I checked it out to see if Google updated the satellite view, nope, Live Maps still has newer. But Google has done one better. They actually for some reason unbeknownst to me went through Joshua Tree with a street view car and photographed poor little Joshua Tree. I lived there for I don't know, 13 years, so I guess you can say I grew up there. Now there are only 3 reasons why people actually know of Joshua Tree, the first is U2, the second is because it's sort of near Palm Springs, and the third is because of the National Park. I'm sure if my Mom had her way it'd also be known for it bearing the gift of her stained glass and my amazing wit. Har har.

Hopefully pasting in this iframe will work, but if not, feel free to explore. It's just completely amusing to me. I mean I know based on examination of the view that both my Mom and sister were at home and most likely sleeping during the time the street view car drove by and took the photos. I also know it was likely a Tuesday because they left the trash out but it hasn't been taken yet. What's more amusing to me and something I'll have to call dear old Mom about... I didn't know she replaced the front door with what looks like a red one. Truly, Google, thank you, "nostalgia without the plane fare". Though by the looks of it she needs me to come visit, that mailbox is looking a little dilapidated and in need of me fixing it once more.

I think this is pretty cool considering the number of times I've accidentally clicked an AdSense ad during fast web browsing. Smaller clickable ad area is a good thing.

Through years of computer usage I've formed this habit of clicking in advance of object appearance on the screen. Back in the days of my 100Mhz Pentium with 8MB RAM, the system would take so long to do things that it got to the point where I was clicking on the Start menu, going to Shutdown, then clicking Reboot even before the Start Menu had time to come up. These days I find myself still doing the same thing but now in IE, when loading web pages and sometimes, I end up clicking a stupid Ad. Come to think of it though, with the speed of the PC and the efficiency of the OS and the apps, I don't seem to notice myself having to click ahead anymore.

Maybe it's a sign that computers for me have breached that point of price and performance where no matter what I buy above $500 will do me just fine. Well, okay, as long as it has two cores... What does any of this have to do with Google decreasing the size of the AdSense area? Absolutely nothing, but it's the back story to why I appreciate it regardless of what Google's intentions are.

I heart Boing Boing sometimes. It's my fav of the big 3 RSS feeds out there, sometimes I love it even more than Engadget, but whatever. They linked to this page showing how little nutrition is in most of the big fast food places burgers and fries. I'm still in shock over this:

"The Double Six Dollar Burger from Carl's Jr. contains an insane 1520 calories. That's not a typo. One sandwich contains more calories than some smaller females need... PER DAY."

I do miss In-N-Out though, there was always something nice about the way the bun was just a bit crispy around the edge from the grill. On the plus side I've gotten pretty good at a home made burger in the last couple of weeks and the grill I was given is pretty sweet too. Now if only I didn't live so far away from everyone I know, I'd have people over to join in .

Okay, I'm probably not being stalked, but sometimes I find some of the searches done that lead people to my site kinda weird. For the past week I've gotten multiple hits for the same "corey gouker" search done by the same IP around the same time. If it were coming from England, I'd think it were my crazy ex, but it's not. Plus I think I did a pretty good job making it clear that I didn't really want to hear from her again unless it was through PayPal returning the cash I paid out for a plane ticket. Dom's Zero Contact Procedure sorta worked I guess.

But seriously, when there's more information about you online than ever before how do you really control it? Sometimes I think people don't realize how easy it is to cross reference IP's, usernames, emails, locations, nick names, and any other one or two bit piece of information. With the right amount of digging and guessing it really isn't all that hard to find out just about anything you wanted to know about someone who lives a good portion of their life on the net.

Well, where does one start? First off the Internet really is endless. By the time I finish writing this diatribe there'll be another 1000 pages of content out there. There'll be a billion more forum posts, and trillions of instant messages sent. At which point does it become too much? At which point is the value added go down so greatly it becomes useless?

We've got Google, we've got Desktop Search, but what we don't all seem to have is an endless supply of brain capacity for all this information. At one time I remember this conversation with my gramps. He really didn't understand what I meant when I said I wanted to store everything and anything and never delete anything off the computer. I explained that because of the way I can do stuff on the computer I can access anything I want at any given time, it'd be a bit like Data in ST:TNG but just without the immediate access after thinking about it.

The problem I've encountered though is that through the desire to have all this information (for what reason I don't know), to have all this music and multimedia content (I don't even get through all of it); I've totally lost any real meaning in all of it. I've got emails since my days of dial up, chat logs since before chat logs even existed or MSN IM even existed for that matter, pictures from just about every point of my life, and more music and movies than anyone could possibly care to watch. But in all this "stuff", the one problem I see is that I lately I spend more time organizing, categorizing, and filtering the content than I do consuming it.

Desktop Search and Google has helped find what I'm looking for, but my personal content still needs to be tagged, this is especially true with music.

Maintaining this archive of information isn't cheap either. I've got over 1.3TB of data just sitting, collecting random magnetic waves in a server in a closet. This server is probably consuming at least $12/mo in electricity, if not more since during the summer months it can get to 99° in the office so it needs to be cooled. To keep this blog and all my information on the web I spend another $100/mo on a second Internet connection to have a static unfiltered IP.

It's also a huge headache and burden, someone like me tends to over complicate it as well. I need to make sure the data is secure so I do RAID-5 and have it all centrally stored. To save on multiple servers I have one to do everything, so this server acts as my file server, media hub, domain controller, active directory master, Exchange front and back end, SQL server, you name it this server does it.

I'm not sure if it's a total anal retentiveness or what, but this stuff just ends up taking up too much time and getting it all working is a big pain in the ass.

So I spend even less time enjoying everything, less time getting out doing stuff outside the apartment, and find my days are never long enough.

The one catch-22 in all this though. I've found that today nearly all my friends, almost every one of them except for the few I work with, I've met through the Internet. So it's probably like 98% of everyone I communicate with about life on a regular basis at this point I've either neither met in person or only met them in person after communicating for some time over the web. A part of me finds this interesting since well that's the way things are now. Another part finds it disturbing, though I guess it wouldn't be so bad if more of the people I considered close friends online lived in the same neck of the woods physically. Sadly it even seems like people I know who are local, well, I end up communicating with them more online than I do face to face.

I guess I've lost my point in all this. I suppose my main thought was, what has this all gotten me? How much of all this technology do I really use, how much do I really need? How would I really feel if I just gave it all up?

Despite the fact that Boing Boing is the only RSS feed that seems to ever get hundreds of dupe posts in Outlook, I stay subscribed. It's all for posts like this.

Last night around 3AM I was browsing the web and listening to Dark Side pretty loudly. I suddenly heard a really loud gunshot come from my speakers that literally made my heart skip a beat. I look a bit lower on the page and notice a really annoying Flash movie ad that just starts playing without me doing a thing. That's when I said enough is enough and decided to do something about it since it's obvious people who create Flash will continually use sound without user interaction. Flash really needs to remember sound levels across sessions to prevent someone from giving themselves a heart attack. To prevent Flash ads from loading and playing sound as well taking over the top layer of a page I created FlashBang.

FlashBang is a very simple application. Upon installation it adds an icon to your standard toolbar in Internet Explorer. Clicking the icon then toggles Flash on and off. The application accomplishes this by simply adding or removing a registry key. This is pretty much the same thing the new Manage Add-ons does in Internet Explorer with SP2 except it requires that you refresh the page for the changes to take affect. The plus is that it doesn't require more than two clicks so enabling and disabling Flash is quick and easy. When you disable Flash you'll see an icon in the lower right hand corner of the window as seen here.

The system requirements are that you are running XP with Service Pack 2 OR Vista and have the .NET Framework 1.1 or later installed and of course that you're using Internet Explorer. The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal.

Download: FlashBang (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

UPDATE: Renamed from TorchFlash to FlashBang thanks to Dylan Greene.

Also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you're installing FlashBang the icon won't be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing FlashBang. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang to the toolbar.

If you've uninstalled FlashBang you can still Disable and Enable Flash using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. You may need to visit a site which normally has Flash to see Flash pop into the list. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block Flash ads. Sadly it means disabling all other Flash and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

UPDATE: I'm releasing a minor update to FlashBang which will fix any issues regarding installation on a machine with only the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. At this point if you have 1.1.4322, 2.0.50727.0, or later installed, FlashBang should work without any issues. To check which version of the .NET Framework that you have installed run the following at a command prompt " reg query hklm\software\microsoft\asp.net ".

UPDATE: Now installing on Windows Vista! I had to update the Visual Studio installer to recognize Windows v6, aka Vista. FlashBang will now install on Vista without any known issues... well, other than the UAC stuff. I do NOT have $125 to get a cert to code sign these free apps since well, I've only had $5 donated thus far. Until I can get the app code signed anyone running UAC will be bugged while installing FlashBang, and bugged again when they go to toggle Flash on and off in IE. On the plus side, there is a check box in the Protected Mode prompt in IE to quit prompting about the app in the future. I suggest people check that box till I can get a cert and code sign my apps.

To coincide with the release of the Vista installable FlashBang, I'm also releasing an app to complement it. Even though WPF/E has yet to really take off, I'm sure Silverlight will start gaining some momentum. In advance of that I'm releasing LightSwitch, which oddly enough does the same exact thing FlashBang does for Flash, but for Silverlight content. The system requirements are the same as FlashBang, and they are that you'll be running XP with Service Pack 2 OR Windows Vista and have the .NET Framework 1.1 or later installed and of course that you're using Internet Explorer.

The application is provided on a free of charge and free to distribute basis. I will gladly accept donations of any amount via PayPal, and please note I do need the donations as both LightSwitch and FlashBang are both unsigned apps users of Vista will see unwarranted and nasty messages till I can afford a cert and get the apps code signed. So any funds that I receive will go towards the $125/yr that's required to maintain the cert.

Download: LightSwitch (updated 4/27/2007 12:01AM, please uninstall previous versions first)

If you have any questions or comments feel free.

Note also, it looks like there is a minor bug in that if you have IE open while you're installing FlashBang or LightSwitch the icon won't be activated in IE by default. Please be sure to close all IE windows before installing either app. If you run into this little bug go to View then Toolbars then Customize, scroll the list and Add FlashBang / LightSwitch to the toolbar.

If you've uninstalled either of the apps you can still Disable and Enable Flash  and Silverlight using the Manage Add-ons feature of Internet Explorer found under the Tools menu. Really though, this is all the app actually does to block the content. Sadly it means disabling all other good content and not just the ads. Other options include a nice big hosts file, or also use FireFox which has some other ways of blocking ads through CSS and such.

I just got back from my local QFC/Starbucks and sadly that free Vista/T-Mobile Hotspot access wasn't working today though according to the Vista blog it should've been. I'm going to go back tomorrow and again on the 30th to test for sure. But apparently whatever new access site that should've gone live hasn't as the gateway page didn't look any different and there was nothing special that said, "hey look you're using Vista here's some free wifi". To verify things I logged in using another account and checked skysurprise.com. Nothing really special other than that very fine print that says starting from the 30th. So either the Vista blog is lying or T-Mobile are just getting lazy and waiting till the 30th.

So why bother walking the 400 yards or so to the Starbucks when I've got perfectly good WiFi at home. Well, Dom, Jon, and I all thought that they're probably be lazy and determine the Vistaness of any given laptop by just checking the user-agent. So I went with my Vista PC in hand with the user-agent set to spoof MSIE 6.0 and NT 5.1 thinking that even though I was running Vista it should think I'm running XP. If it worked then obviously running a XP machine and spoofing your user-agent to something like this:

Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+ MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0; +SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+InfoPath.2;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322)

Should also work to get you free acess on a XP machine because they've got no other way (other than to use some ActiveX control or client-side app) to determine whether the client is XP or Vista. I kinda doubt their hardware is going to be determining it. That would be too much work.

So anyway if any of you get bored just pop open regedt32 and go for it:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
"Version"="MSIE 7.0"
"Platform"="Windows NT 6.0"

I'm also curious if they'll be good and let Firefox on Vista users in for their free WiFi or if they'll have to spoof their user-agent as well.

UPDATE: Looks like Engadget got the same idea. However contrary to the earlier idea and what Engadget claim, just changing your user-agent doesn't get you free WiFi. It seems that a key is generated after you install the required tmobile.cab ActiveX control. When viewing the properties for this add-on you find that it's actually netdiag Class. Here's a little code snip from the accountLogon page:

<body onload="checkit()">
<object classid="clsid:A448E34F-EC78-4277-BDC5-DFA68C83C401" id="tmvista" codebase="https://service1.hotspot.t-mobile.com/vista/pages/tmobile.cab" ></object>

<script language="javascript">
<!--
 function checkit() {
  var result = tmvista.CheckSpeed('hardcd');
  window.location.replace("checkVista.jsp?ticket=" + result);
 }
-->
</script>

I'm a bit surprised they actually thought of the user-agent hack. But using an ActiveX control is a bit predictable. I've not had a chance to see what the tmobile.dll actually does.

All that being said. When you have your user-agent set to NT 5.1 (XP) it does indeed redirect you from the /vista page to an awareness page. If you switch to NT 6.0 and IE 7.0 you instead get redirected to this page to create your trial account. Once your trial account has been created you're then redirected back to the login page. After you login it sends you to a page to install the ActiveX control above. Once that is done it creates a ticket which is then passed to whatever proxy gateway they have which enables your untethered access to the Internet whether that be in Firefox or IE7. If you do not install the ActiveX control (say for example by spoofing in Firefox) you get a message like the following: "You are trying to log in with an operating system that is incompatible with your account. Please try again with the Windows Vista operating system installed on your laptop."

Now I'm going to guess that it's probably pretty easy to see what's going on with that ActiveX control and just pass your own ticket. But I'll leave that to someone else.

If you want to download the 655KB ActiveX control click here and have fun.

UPDATE: Again people this DOES NOT WORK. It's not a question of just downloading the ActiveX control it has to run and it has to pass on a Vista machine before T-Mobile allow you fully onto the Internet. Even if you switch your user-agent and create the trial account (which you can do on a Mac, PC, or Linux, and in IE or Firefox or whatever) by changing your user-agent to NT 6.0 and IE7.0 you still won't get onto the Internet until you validate your Vista install by installing the ActiveX control. Think of the Windows Genuine Advantage stuff on downloads.microsoft.com.

UPDATE: After talking to Jon and someone else who has far greater will than I (wtbw) for all things related to debugging and disassembling there are some more details to provide. From what can be seen it looks like the ActiveX control is simply using the value of  _time64 which is the number of seconds since midnight 1/1/1970 dividing that by 300 prefixing that string with hardcdPadded then making it a nice hex MD5 token for the /vista/pages/checkVista.jsp page.

It's possible that the ActiveX control is looking for the referral from TMO's own servers but it would be worth a shot to write a standalone app to do the above then send the request and token over to this page. You could do this from a web page however you'd have to host that locally since well, you can't really get to the net until you bypass the ActiveX control anyway. So a quick non-complete example in one line of semi C# would be:

System.Cryptography.Thingy.MD5Hash.HashThisThing("hardcdPadded" + (DateTime.Now.ToSeconds/300).ToString())

Obviously you'd want this to be cross platform or whatever. But I'll leave that to the reader...

Dom sent me this link to a Flash demo of Y! Messenger for Vista. Three things I notice right away:

1. It's got glass.
2. It's got tabs.
3. It makes use of the Sidebar.

I really don't get why the WLM team got lazy and didn't bother doing anything special for Vista with glass and the Sidebar, makes no sense considering the amount of time they knew they'd have before Vista shipped. I suppose they had other priorities though like adding more winks and other things that they can charge for.

Oh and the way Yahoo has done the tabs, from first impressions, they've got it down just right. Being able to drag and drop them seems really nice.

The last few times Jon and I have met with the MSN/WLM folks they seem to dislike the fact that so many people use Plus! Live despite the fact that many of the same people on those teams use the app themselves. Now what I don't understand is that if they were so against the add-on app then why don't they just start taking some of the features that clearly people want and add them in? It's like half the work has already been done. Features that if done would make me drop Plus! Live for WLM are:

1. Tabs
2. Logging that works as well as Plus, including an option for plain text.
3. Larger text buffer so I can send at least 1100 characters (and yes this isn't just a geek thing, my grandma likes to type whole letters out in IM form).

Finally get moving and implement glass! And as a final suggestion, never ever say "good suggestion, thanks" ever again.

Was randomly trying to find out how old Jem was when I noticed that the results at the top of Google were actually for their Music search service. Quite cool really. Not quite the same amount of information as AMG's results as the example here shows, so really Google should do something with AMG to create some partnership there. At any rate the point is that the search works really well, not just for artist but albums and songs as well. Instantly blowing WMIS's search right out of the water for just pure search. Maybe MS should drop the current search algorithm and start taking a better look at integrating MSN Search with MSN Music and then creating a nice synergy with WMIS.

The Register say that IE7 breaks the Yahoo and Google toolbar. I personally haven't seen that as I use Google's toolbar on my second machine here, not sure about Yahoo since I've never found a benefit from any of its features. Looks like Scoble has posted about this as well. Things seem to be working just fine as seen in this screenshot, even so it's a beta, these things are sort of expected. Despite The Register's claims the only thing that seems to be nuked is their article.

UPDATE: Emailed Andrew Orlowski with a link to my blog and the simple question "did you actually verify this before posting?" here's the response:

"Yes, it's broken on many installations. It works on more. If you paste your story into an email replay it might even get read. a"

So I'm not sure what he's actually trying to say. Your guess is as good as mine?

Installed the IE7 beta. Loving my tabs and such. Tested out everything I could including FlashBang to make sure it would work with IE7. Did want to post about this nice FLAC filter for Adobe Audition but noticed the rich text editor that's used by dasBlog 1.7 isn't IE7 ready. It should just work but my guess is that it's not recognizing the browser right. Suppose it's time to play and fix. There's no way I'm giving up tabs now :).

UPDATE: Did just notice this, which has a bit more info. Looks like it should be a simple fix/update.

Ego++ with MSN Search today... Turns out I'm #2 at the moment for just plain Corey. Oddly I've moved down quite a bit from #12 to #38 on Google for Corey.

At any rate, the beta search is looking quite sexy. Will it ever make me stop using Google though? Not a clue just yet. Definitely not if MSN doesn't add some of the hidden uses of Google, like UPS, FedEx quick tracking links, Calculator, etc.

Well not exactly free, but $4.99 a month for an unlimited number of calls is quite incredible. How am I managing this exactly? Well it’s not some magical telepathy; it’s thanks to the most popular VoIP service out there, Vonage. Yes, that wonderfully unknown and never seen company, the one without a single advert anywhere.

So my stint with Vonage started back in August when I moved to San Jose for yet more college and decided that I just couldn’t stand old telecoms. I decided that I was going to do without them. I signed up two days early for SpeakEasy’s OneLink service, a whopping 6000/768K service that takes $115 worth of agony out of me every month and doesn't require an existing phone line. Oh and wow, they're the best ISP ever!!! The day after that I signed up with Vonage on their Premium Unlimited service which cost $29.99 at the time. The modem was free (well free if you count the fact that they should give you back the $29.99 activation fee should you cancel). So in that first month it was $73.23, not bad considering that SBC wanted $36 out of me to activate plus $76 a month for the same unlimited calling to the US and Canada. I really couldn’t justify that cost and having to deal with the phone company.

The modem came a few days later while I was still on my DSL Extreme (also a pretty good ISP, but nothing compared to SpeakEasy) account in Joshua Tree. Initial impressions were quite good, quality was good, and I had no complains. Luckily I timed the SpeakEasy service just right so that it was activated the morning after I got up here. I had the Motorola modem Vonage provided plugged in and had my 408 number up and working again (without a handset though ). The service with the extra bandwidth seemed even better with literally no realization that it was going through the net. My comms set up basically has the DSL modem, then the Linksys router, the Moto VoIP modem plugged into the router along with the GigE hub and other PC’s. So I’m not relying on what I’ve been told is crappy Moto routing in the VoIP modem.

I won’t really get into the back end stuff that Vonage has in terms of extra features, needless to say CID works great, along with the little message waiting light I have on the Vtech phone, call waiting, the works. Only real minor issue that sometimes crops up is with three way call disconnects; once had a third party still on after switching. I haven’t had any hidden fees or anything to complain about, I don’t consider the $1.80 and $1.50 crap tax to be anything major, expected really.

The real test I had with Vonage was when I was up on Slashdot, not only did my DSL service and server survive, I was able to test out the VoIP service as well. Amazingly I made and held a good quality conversion with Jon in Canada and even managed a three way call with the UK (which btw only costs like $.03 a minute, or $.28 for a mobile). It never disconnected and only garbled once or twice, pretty sweet.

I’m not too sure when they added these UK virtual phone numbers but I just noticed them the other day. Which is what these free calls from the UK are all about. Basically since all these VoIP services allow you to be anywhere with that has an Internet connection, you can pretty much choose a phone number in any area code they have allocated. I can have a number in 760, 408, 425, 310, whatever, all ring here, all would be local calls for anyone in that area code. In addition they’ve got these virtual numbers in addition to the primary, which is basically the same but is receiving only and costs $4.99 a month more. I added a London virtual number to my account and now because I’ve got unlimited calls and it rings me here basically I can have anyone in the UK call me for free. At least on my end. At the other end of course it’s the cost of a call from wherever in England to London. For BT and NTL lines it’s usually 1p - 3p a minute, on mobiles it’s usually included for free with the inclusive minutes on various plans. It’s actually rather scary. I still can’t figure out how Vonage is able to make money on this. And it’s definitely free, I’ve had 4 people in random UK locations call me.

Last but not least, you can have Vonage ring a second number at the same time as your primary home phone before it sends the call to voicemail. I’ve got it going to my mobile. So in a way I’ve kind of got a incoming UK mobile. Very scary indeed. But damn, why did Americans ever allow themselves to be screwed by the providers here and let themselves be charged for incoming calls on mobiles!? Probably that 51% that figured it was okay because it was “air time”. Bastards!

Hello Auntie Linda... enjoyed our chat on the phone. Since you were randomly coming to my site and discovered my blog, trying to find photos I've taken I figured I'd introduce you to DeviantArt rather than just giving you a link to my portfolio. If you go to this link here, you'll get to see the first photo I took using the Kodak T-Max 100 B&W film for the photography class, it's also the first actual print I made after developing the film by hand and doing the print as well. I've got a small selection of prints up there now but should be adding more soon. Once you get your cable Internet working you'll probably want to add DA to your favorites and check it out, it's really quite cool.

While searching for reviews about various VoIP services such as Vonage, I stumbled upon this one WashingtonPost.com article linked on Broadband Reports. One of the people in the thread linked to this other site called BugMeNot. What's so cool about it? It provides you with login details for various sites out there that require registration or some other ridiculous login just to read an entire article. Sites like the NYTimes.com, LATimes.com, WashingtonPost.com. It's really cool, totally on par with the coolness of tinyurl.com. Give it a try

I should explain how that entire McDonald's thing came about... It started off with this link that Jon sent me. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but with all the recent crap about iTunes and Pepsi, and McDonald's pondering WiFi access, etc etc... It all just got to be a bit much.

While I enjoy the idea of sitting down in a Starbucks with my laptop chatting with Dom and Jon on Messenger about how sexy the G5 case design might be, taking all the time in the world sipping my delicious mocha. I can't stand the idea of McDonald's doing WiFi, especially when doing it with all those kids yelling and screaming, playing with their happy meal twenty minute toys and the throwing of plastic balls in the Ronald McDonald play area is even worse.

Then there is this entire Adult Happy Meal with the stepometer. That's just sad. Hmm I'm McDonald's marketing, “oh we're sorry we got you super fat with our Big Mac's, how about a bacon ranch salad instead? we'll throw in this stepometer too... just to remind you to take that extra step to burn off the calories and fat from that Big Mac you'll just have to give in to because the salad wasn't enough”.

So after all that... now get a free music downloads with your meal!? WTH is going on with these nuts!?

Oh and while browsing their site... yet another example. I-Am-Asian.com. Now I'm not Asian, which you can mostly likely gather from my webcam, but is this not offensive? I'm not even Asian yet I find this to be somewhat offensive, and no, I'm really not the type to be easily offended or sickened. But geez, could it get any worse, “sipping green tea or enjoying a Big Mac sandwich, we're helping make the magic mix called America become even richer”. If that Big Mac didn't make me puke, their marketing sure will. What in the world is with the AIMesque teeny messages in the background? Subliminal messages to go to McDonald's?

Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of marketing departments are as in touch with their targeted demographic about as much as Bush is with the American and global population?

The year is 2004, the great empire of iTunes and Napster are delivery more and more <finger-quotes>legal</finger-quotes> music, the house of Starbucks has had a lasting trade agreement with T-Mobile to delivery weapons through the air for quite some time now. But the evil Borg still rule the Delta quadrant. The last hope for the Alpha quadrant is the Federation of McDonald's, they alone hold the key to resisting and destroying that which previously seemed impossible. Giving people hope and dreams that their prior attempts weren't totally futile. By slowly and infectiously planting a command in the Borg collective they believe they can overcome that which was unstoppable. By reducing the Borg to their primal needs, the need to feed! And with the knowledge that the Borg's vast supply of caffeine in the form of Mt. Dew, Coke, Vanilla Coke, and for the weak of heart assorted flavors of fruit juice, is dwindling and could soon meet its end. The Federation of McDonald's has taken the offensive. Witness the evidence for yourself! Love it!

Well I just woke up after falling asleep at 9PM, figured I should undress and take my contacts out, brush my teeth, save the shower for the morning since obviously it would just wake me up anyway. As I came back in my room and turned off the lights save the XP Lava Lamp and read my final IM's from deviantDan.

I also checked Outlook, but what's this? That piece of crap Outlook stops responding again. What's worse is that this isn't on my laptop which has loads upon loads of beta's installed this is on my relatively new installation of XP MCE. I know Outlook runs fine on my Mom's machine and never ever stops responding so my guess is that it's NewsGator since I've only got it on this MCE and the laptop. I've checked the NewsGator forums and even Googled to no avail (though it was nice to see my site in the top ten rofl). Obviously I'm special because no one else in the whole wide web has this issue...

In any case I've had enough. Outlook is open (and never closed) on my systems, so as long as the computer is on, it's open, so on the laptop Outlook has been open for 15 days 6 hours and 37 minutes minus of course the times I had to use the Office Application Recovery tool. It really really pisses me off when I go to pull up Outlook from the system tray and it's not immediately available when I'm on the phone trying to pull up some info. So I've totally canned NewsGator for a while, I'm going to see how life used to be without it. Till then I've exported my OPML (wonder if the presidential candidates know what that is ) and imported it into Bloglines. It's just a quick solution till I go back to using NewsGator (if it's not what was causing the problem) or another RSS reader.

So far though I must say that Bloglines isn't half bad for reading everything, the only thing I'm bummed about is that in order for me to really figure out the problem I've lost track of what's been read and what hasn't, not to mention the organization I had already done... I wonder if Bloglines will export folder structure in OPML? Is that even possible in OPML? If not, why isn't it?

In the words of Kansas, “carry on my wayward son”.

Yes the rumors are true, I know this because ever since the Microsoftrix video was released on my website I've been disseminating information, truth and lies surrounding the next release of Windows XP. I've used all of my Borg like abilities to assimilate information from all of my inside sources at Microsoft and slowly but surely used my ESP to tip Paul Thurrott off so he could write this article Windows XP Reloaded. I deliberated for ages over who deserved the exclusive more, Mary Joe Foley or Paul Thurrott. In the end I sent my telepathic messages to both of them so as to not break my NDA by revealing the information via normal forms of communication. Paul just received them quicker so obviously he got the exclusive. But now you know. It's all one big lie, there never was or will be a Reloaded, you have all been caught up in the Microsoftrix!