our life

Absolutely brainless tv....hmmm

So this evening we watch the first 2 episodes of the Simple Life 3 on the Xbox. I love this TV torrent site. All the shows are recorded from widescreen HDTV sources, so the xbox adjusts the video to be 16:9 letterbox on the our 4:3 screen. So clear. Oh best of all - they remove all the commercials for ya!

We missed the first Simple Life series, but caught the 2nd season. This is great brainless tv. The kind you don't think much about, you just let it sink in and it de-stress's as you laugh at this pair of blondes basically break every social rule about work.

I could be missing something here, but I think the appeal of the show is that it is a combination of eye candy, and getting to watch somebody piss of the boss at work.

As I type Hang is watching Alias now, catching up. I'm doing what I've always done with Alias...I'm half watching as I play on the laptop. I look up every once in a while to see what Jennifer Gartner is wearing, thats about all the show is worth to me. I don't enjoy the plot much. I personally think the show is kinda shallow - lacking of depth. Hey its pop TV so yah, I know I'm not supposed to be super critical - I get that. However I want to see genre expanding stuff and this show didn't do it - it could have but didn't.

Shows that I think made an impact and set the bar:

• Law and Order - all of them - raised the bar on good story telling. No stupid camera tricks or violence used as gimmicks to lure viewers.
• Miami Vice - set fashion trends, and defined cool.
• Sienfield - comedy shows did not have to pander to stupid. Humor didn't need to be low brow, Jerry Sienfield found humor in the everyday.
• Friends - The ultimate Twixter show - I think a lot of people of my generation can relate to something in the show - including loving the idea of finding a impossibly cheap rent controled apartment in New York.
• X-files - ignoring the last few seasons, this show proved you didn't need to add Sex as a cheap gimmick to do character development with a female and a male for a show that would last for several seasons.

I could go on, but my point is that it entered a new nitch ( no other spy shows on TV right now ), and could have made its mark in pop culture, but it hasn't done anything to make it memorable. I can say that out of the people I know who watch it, grrls seem to dig it more, and I can at least understand that.

Missed a TV show?

So we realized that Alias has moved time slots a bit to late. Timeshifting on Bell means I have several options for when to see it, but when you realize it weeks later, that really doesn't help to much.

So its the internet again to the rescue, with BT sites that specialize in TV shows. This one UK site, allowed us to download the last 5 episodes of Alias, and the 1st 2 episodes of the Simple Life.

Cassern

I so love the internet.

I'm watching G4(crap)TV, and on TSS they were doing a thing on Hong Kong films. They did a best of 2004, and as they talked about the films, I looked them up on LokiTorrent, and stared DLing them.

I'm watching Cassern right now. This movie is much more innovative then the Matrix for example. I use this as an example since it attempts some of the same topics ( replace robots with a race of genetically engineered humans ). Its a shot all on green screen movie like 'Sky Captain', but instead of being blurry and ugly, this movie is incredibly beautiful. You could just ignore the subtitles and just watch this movie like a painting in motion. Superior wire-fu, anime inspired hair, and incredible CG - I really hope some of this rubs off on Hollywood.

So very recommended.

Hoping to find some time during the week to watch Ghost in the Shell 2 ( finally got the DVD ), and 2046.

Mp3 player

On monday I will be mailing out Tungsten E's to my Pilot project users. So now that I have the basics of the documentation done for the support staff, and I'm done doing R&D stuff with my Tungsten, I decided that it would be okay to play a bit with it.

I want to get back to jogging, and I wanted to have a MP3 player to listen to music while I did that, so I decided to setup the Real Audio player on the Tungsten. Its not a bad setup. It works as a plugin in Real audio on your PC. You use RA to rip and make playlists, and then you can dump them to an SD memory card ( in a card reader or in the SD slot in the Tungsten ).

So now I just need to get some winter jogging gear - gonna keep an eye out on Sportmart - they have sales online each week.

2005 - The year of PTT

Looks like this is going to be big.

In the states Nextel was bringing in big cash with its IDEN system with business users. A phone that also doubled as a walkie talkie - it was a big hit. For a business PTT meant dumping expensive trunked systems, and meant they had a system that would work all over North America and had agreements to interoperate with Canada ( Telus ), and in Mexico and South America. No trunk system could do this. Best of both worlds.

Then the consumers discovered them. PTT meant that you could get them for the family and instead of using FRS you had something that would work long range. It meant that you could broadcast to a group, or 1 to 1. It meant that you coud make short burst coversations, and not pay for airtime while nobody was talking - like looking up something while the other waited. The teen to 20 something market also decided it was kewl - and thats when it really took off. Didn't hurt that whenever you saw a Hollywood movie, 9 times out of 10, the phone was a Nextel phone.

So Nextel puts IDEN on the map, and PTT becomes mainstream. Now the other companies in the US want to copy it. Verizon and Sprint announce they will offer it for CDMA.

Meanwhile up in Canada Telus starts using a technology for CDMA called winphoria - they get it working and then put it on the shelf. Why? They are making a very good return on Mike, so why spoil a good thing - in fact Mike because of using IDEN means they can offer lower rates, and still get larger margins then CDMA - win win. They know Bell though is loosing customers on its trunked network to Mike and this can only go on for so long - Bell is experimenting with a technology called Kodiak. Again this is a addon to CDMA. So Telus has the initial plan of waiting on Bell and seeing how things go, and then releasing its system. Now they've decided to release it early. The idea is to diminish things when Bell does their announcement. Now Telus can claim that they offer two PTT systems.

Bell: We now offer a PTT system that works on CDMA.

Telus: We now offer a PTT system that works on CDMA and will interoperate with IDEN soon. So both our networks can communicate. Oh and our IDEN network can connect people from Canada, to the US, Mexico and South Amerca. So um....our network is bigger then yours nya nya.

The more I read things, the more it seems that the path is not as clear as it once was. The IDEN networks continue to grow. They are cheaper to operate, they work better then competing technologies, and they work today. It seem thats both Nextel/Sprint and Telus aren't so sure about killing off IDEN in the future. Telus puts out PTT on CDMA basically to finish things off. Mike's network is smaller then the CDMA network, so by offering PTT on CDMA it means that you can deploy PTT in non Mike area's - and when they interoperate with IDEN - it means that a company can keep its investment in IDEN, and offer CDMA handsets for users out of the Mike area. Here's the thing though, IDEN works better, and is cheaper to run, and with the different IDEN networks linking to each other ( new deals coming in the future )...Telus may have started with the plan to eventually replace IDEN once CDMA caught up in features, BUT now IDEN is a moving target, so this may cloud things a bit.

In the end though IDEN will get replaced. Sprint is going to be using the same Motorola system for CDMA that Telus will use. Motorola will make both PTT systems interoperate - this means customers don't have to dump the old network, and get to leverage the old network to give the new network a larger map.

Verizon is using Kodiak - and its not working well ( upto 40 seconds for the first PTT to find its target ). So Bell and Verizon will likely link in the near future, but they have a hard road ahead since they will have few handsets, and no base of users to start out with.

In the end of all of Motorola and the people who like Motorola phones/systems, will be the losers. Going with IDEN meant you had a working system, mainly because it was all from one vendor. It also meant your parts and accessories worked between phones. For Motorola, once things move to Winphoria, it means that instead of selling an entire system ( so lots of profit ), they are not only selling a CDMA add on, so they get left behind as Nextel and Telus ( and eventually all the other IDEN networks ), move to CDMA or GSM.

IDEN VS CDMA or GSM with VOIP PTT

PRO:

• Single vendor means interchangeable and lower priced parts, along with large third party parts availibility.
• Voicemail with no limit on messages, and can manage faxes, and can act as a text/numeric pager.
• Large installed base of users, and large existing network with roaming agreements and network linking agreements across North and South America - soon to be other parts of the world.
• Phones that range from consumer styled to commercial grade ( with military spec ) phones, along with base station and handset type phones.
• Lowest airtime, roaming, and data fees
• GPS and Java on most phones allowing for a great platform for commercial application development.
• Software tools that allow for quick phone deployment and maintenance. Phones settings / data can be imaged and quickly replicated.
• SIM chips.

CON:

• Motorola didn't inovate fast enough in some categories - MO SMS, camera phones, smart phones.
• Installed base of CDMA and GSM is larger.

Begining of...the end.

Its a sad day. Well for me at least, and all the other people out there who really dig Motorola IDEN technology. Its an old technology, and Motorola does not have a upgrade path for it. Instead CDMA and GSM will end up dominating the landscape. The japanese have another service called 'i-mode' which is very kewl, and pretty much unique to only japan.

Me and Hang have a 3 yr contract on Phone 40 EW. Today that plan and most of the others disappeared. From reading discussions on the cell phone forums like this one, this is all part of a plan to move people to PCS. CDMA and IDEN both had advantages and disadvantages both as technologies and price plans availible in Canada. But now CDMA ( and 1X ) are slowly having the technologies of IDEN integrated, thus paving the way for people to eventually move over.

Telus announced its new PTT service recently, and today they took away all the promotional Mike plans. Those plans gave you more minutes and features per dollar compared to the PCS accounts. Now the regular plans on Mike now are closer to the PCS price points. We are on a contract, so it doesn't affect us, but it does mean that by the time the contract ends, we will likely be moving to a GSM or CDMA based phones. Hopefully by then they will be decommissioning the IDEN network, so Telus can cut costs and pass on the savings to its users??? Not likely the latter, but the former will likely happen.

The new WORK plans are at least now beefed up. They are closer to what the promotional plans were, and since they are about on par with the PCS plans, it gives people a reason to look at the new PTT CDMA phones. So this at least provides a decent price while companies transition to PCS.

The downside is that the PTT for CDMA doesn't work well yet. 6 seconds to find the other party is pretty slow. People expect to hit the PTT button and start talking...not wait while the network 'finds' the other user. Also unlimited PTT was $5 before on WORK plans and now its $20 on Mike. This was done so that it would be the same price as PTT on CDMA.

In the end its pretty bitter sweet. I will eventually enjoy the extra coverage, but I will always be bitter that in the end all the cost savings that Telus gets out of this ( Iden technology got a lot cheaper as it aged - going to one network will save them money ), will not be passed onto users. I will miss the cheaper airtime, roaming, and LD rates of IDEN. I will also miss the commercial grade phones with features like GPS, Java, and best of all standard parts that were so plentiful and availible from many sources. Lastly I will miss having multiple air time plans that included pretty much all the digital features as standard. Best example of this is to compare my Phone 40 EW or my Phone 30 EW that I had before to what was offered then or is offered now on PCS. On every level the PCS side is more expensive. At the $40 and $30 price point these plans offered more minutes, more digital features as standard, roaming and LD cheaper much cheaper, and Mike then still offered deep discounts on the phones when you signed a contract.

I want phone plans that exist in the states. However with the mergers happening in the states, perhaps they will change. Nextel and Sprint ( IDEN and CDMA ) are merging....it will be the same as Telus ( drop IDEN, go all CDMA ) The US has agreesive price plans now compared to us, because they have competition. With the mergers happening, I believe the US will end up looking more like us - where you have only a few competitors left and they don't compete but rather silently agree on price points that offer fatter margins. With Fido disappearing as a competitor ( now owned by Rogers ), I fear we are going to get worse options in the future for Canada as well.

Skype

At first when I heard about this program I kept thinking what the hell is the big deal about this thing. I started reading about it and I seeing that it offers instant messenging, sending of files, and voice chat. So far this isn't any different then any of the IM's that have existed for years. It also offers the ability to call landlines - again this is a feature that has been incorporated into other IM's.

So it doesn't really do anything else that hasn't been before right?

Wrong.

Wouldn't blame ya for ignoring it thinking that it wasn't any big deal.

So I gave it a try. For Hangs friend in California, I've spent a fair bit of time trying to get MSN messenger, and Netmeeting to work to do voice chat. Its not actually that easy - I mean anyone can use the program, but trying to explain what ports need to be opened etc it the difficult part.

That is where Skype is different. It has so many different ways to automagically create a connection regardless of firewall configurations. Thats its thing - that is what makes it the next big thing. Its also cross platform as well, which is a nice bonus - the best port being the one for Pocket PC. So ya take a Pocket PC based PDA with either 802.11 something support or better yet GPRS or 1X ( some cellular internet connectivity ), and now you can make free phone calls ( between SkyPE clients ).

The landline gateways is actually another big feature as well. As I mentioned its been done before - but why its popular in this program is the price. 1.7 cents ( Euro's ) per minute as a flat world wide rate is pretty cheap.

At the geeky level this thing is really facinating. It comes from the same guys who make that adware infested Kazaa P2P file sharing program. This time the P2P technology is used for the good. Unlike other IM's, that depend on a centralized server to relay messages, and act as a central directory of all users, Skype isn't like this. When the program is running it joins the P2P network and like Kaaza you either become or join a supernode. The supernodes connect the multiple nodes and everyone can now see everyone and communicate with everyone. This design also enhances security. The program provides end to end encryption for all transactions ( no IM does this yet ). The packets are also scattered, so it makes it really hard to sniff the encrypted data.

Basically I'm just waiting for somebody in the US Gov to decide that this is a terrorist tool and ban it. Ya its that good.

Ebay ring update

So the ring finally arrived, but I'm afraid all we got to see of it was the large box it was in since its now has to go back to Canada Customs.

Why? Well they want us to pay a bit to much for the taxes and duty. $2119 is the total damage. Thats over double what we paid for the set of rings. Its all understandable though.

During the week it arrived, and I had it held at the post office. The papers for customs declared its value at $120 US. So it was a high enough value to open it and see. When they opened it and saw what it was and compared it to the value declared they got suspicious. So they held it to be appraised ( this is what took so long ). They decided its value was around $9000 canadian. Then the exise tax, along with GST and PST are applied to get the total fee owed. Since it was made in the US it becomes Duty free which was nice.

Customs explained the process to me, so hopefully it all goes as they explained. So I filled the paperwork to send it back to Customs and thats where its off to now. When it arrives they are supposed to contact me, and then I can supply them with the contact information of the shop in New York that sold us the ring via the Ebay Auction. They can verify our total payment, and then it will be retaxed at that price - not the appraisel price.

Hope this all goes well.

I'm almost regreting not deciding to just drive into the US to go pick it up. It was just far enough that I thought I'd risk having it come here, and paying the taxes.

Print your own stamps...

...and its legal too!

I signed up for this a bit ago.

Previously I was doing like most people do when needing to mail something with Canada post. I'd go to the post office, wait in line....wait and wait...then get the package weighed up, and I'd get to choose how to mail it - what service to use.

Now I do it all from home. I still have to visit the post office, but now I can skip the line, and just leave the package on the counter - since its prepaid. The bonus is that I get to save upto 25%. It varies on where your sending, and what service you used - but its always cheaper.

So now I send everything that I sell on ebay this way.

Bloggers voted People of the year: 2004

This link popped up pretty much everywhere, and eventually even landed on Slashdot ( the big time of blogging ).

So like your typical slashdot reader, I read the comments, developed my own opinions, but left reading the article till the end. I'm thinking the article will talk about all the incredible things that bloggers reported on before the media got a chance to pick them up - from the huge military hotspots to the more mundane local news in small town anywhere. The evidence of the growing community that only something like the internet could foster. How blogs play a role in getting real news in and out of countries that have 'truth' firewalls.

No.

When I finally get around to reading the article and its typical american media happy fluff. They talk about the safe things. Mention the cute 11 year old video blogger ( she is pretty kewl actually - in fact she really should be an apple commercial ). They talk about the all the boring political blogging that happened this year. I must admit they at least mentioned Iraq. But instead of mentioning all the blogs that exposed how the US military was fast getting good at killing civilians better then killing terrorists, they just mention something patriotic - bloggers taking pictures of the coffins of the dead American soldiers.