Core Dump

Sometimes I have to just stop and be amazed at the things we can do these days – things that would have seemed like futuristic science fiction when I was a kid (or even when I was in college).

For example, just this weekend I was doing some cleaning around the house (cleaning up the bunnies area) and I wanted to have some relaxing, chillout music on while I worked.

For me, the easiest way to accomplish this was to boot up my netbook, hook it into my livingroom stereo (via the same cable I use to hook up my iPod), and just play some streaming music from Shoutcast (the Digitally Imported Chillout Dreams stream, to be exact).

So that is exactly what I did.

Simple, easy, and straightforward – and it doesn’t take a whole bunch of complicated steps to get going, nor does it take very long (just long enough for my netbook to boot up – which is pretty fast – and to load the radio stream).

It is just amazing to me that this little computer can sit there, pulling music literally from thin air. And of course, the fact that streaming Internet radio gives me an almost unlimited library of music to pull from doesn’t hurt, either.

Now, while this was pretty darned cool, it did make me think of something that was… not so cool.

I have a Windows Media Center Extender right there, just to the right of the Wii in the picture. And the whole point of the Media Center Extender is to do exactly this sort of thing. So why wasn’t I using it?

Well, the short answer is because it’s too slow, too hard, and it doesn’t work with the streaming radio stations I like. The Media Center Extender takes a long time to boot up (longer than my netbook), the interface is slow and clunky, the remote control is awful, trying to enter text is an exercise in frustration, and getting streaming radio to work on it is… well let’s just say “not easy” and leave it at that. You need to add special add-ins to the Media Center PC (not the Extender), which of course must be downloaded, installed, set up in advance, etc. In the end, it’s just not worth the effort.

(In it’s defense, I don’t think the Media Center Extender was ever meant to work with streaming radio from the Internet – it was meant to stream music from a local Media Center PC instead… but really, if it can do that, it should be able to do both. But I digress…)

Anyway, despite the failings of the Windows Media Center Extender, listening to streaming music in my home while I clean is pretty darned neat.

The future is pretty awesome. I love living in the future!

It might come as a surprise to some people to hear me say that I am not a slave to technology – after all, I’m a self-described “computer geek.” You’d think, therefore, that I walk around with an iPhone or Blackberry (or both!) strapped to my chest at all times, checking email and looking up information on-line everywhere I go.

However, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.

While it’s true that I am a major computer geek, and I would love to have (say) a nice little netbook for looking up information, sending email, writing blog posts, etc., the fact of the matter is that it’s because I’m a computer geek that I’m not a slave to technology.

Because I’m confident about it, I don’t allow it to control me – I control it.

For example, I know many people with mobile email who are, quite frankly, addicted to it (think: crackberry). They’re always checking email – all the time – no matter where they are. Even if I had a mobile email device (which I don’t), I wouldn’t be checking email all the time. As it is, I don’t check email often, even when I’m at my computer. I’m confident enough with the technology to know that I don’t need to answer every single email at the moment it comes in – that I don’t need to be “on-line” all the time. I control the technology – I use it when I want to, not the other way around.

Another example is when the power goes out – for people who are slaves to technology, to computers, the Internet, email, Twitter, social networking, what have you, the power going out is like having their “fix” cut off – they don’t know what to do. Without email, chat, or whatever, they’re lost. They’re so badly enslaved that they don’t know what to do when they are “freed” from it, for whatever reason.

As for me, even though I spend my entire day at the computer (and often much of the evening, too), writing code, answering emails, being online, writing blog posts like this one and so on – when the power goes out, I just shrug, grab a book from my bookshelf, and go read. Or, if it’s dark, I’ll go for a drive, or a walk, or just plain go to bed.

I control the technology around me – it doesn’t control me.

For many people today, the opposite is true. It’s worth it to sit and really take a look at yourself and see whether you are one of those people – whether you’re a slave to technology. Even in today’s connected world, it’s important to be able to just leave it all behind sometimes, to just “let go.” It’s the difference between being controlled and being in control.

I’ve had a Motorola V3 RAZR phone for a while now, and being the geek that I am, I’ve always been interested in the more technical aspects of the phone, such as file transfers, Bluetooth connectivity, and custom-made ring tones (not the ones you buy, but the ones you can make yourself).

I’ve always known that this phone supports that sort of stuff, but it’s been hard to find information on it. For instance, it turns out that although you can find the USB cable needed to hook the phone up to your computer, you cannot transfer pictures, movies, music, or contacts to/from the phone without special software from Motorola (the “Motorola Phone Tools” suite or some such nonsense). And of course, that software is not available for free – you have to buy it (along with the cable) from Motorola.

I got a chance to check out that software once, but it seemed awfully buggy – the program would hang at times when accessing the phone, and you’d have to reboot the entire computer to get the connection to work again. It just seemed like a half-complete piece of software – something that needed a bit more polish (and a whole lot of QA testing) before releasing it for sale. (If it was a free download I could possibly excuse the poor performance.) So needless to say, I never forked out the cash for that program (or the cable), and therefore was never able to do some neat things with my phone.

Now, not too long ago I finally picked up a Bluetooth dongle for my PC. I had intended to just use it as a way to get more use out of my Bluetooth headset – using it for both my cell phone and my Internet telephony on my computer. Although that did work (mostly – the connection was full of static at times), I discovered something called “OBEX File Transfer,” which is apparently a way of connecting with Bluetooth-enabled phones.

Much to my surprise, it worked surprisingly well! Better, in fact, than Motorola’s own phone software! I could now transfer the pictures I’d taken on my phone to my computer in a few seconds, and upload short MP3 files to my phone to use as ring tones. After looking around a bit more, I even discovered that I could send contact items directly to my phone – neat!

So, long story short, it turns out that if you want to connect to a Motorola V3 RAZR phone (and probably the entire RAZR line, but the V3 is all I have), use Bluetooth, not USB.

Go figure!

I was downloading a file in Windows Vista today – I would say it was a “medium-sized” file that took no time at all on my super-fast cable modem connection to download.

However, once it was done, this popped up:

This new dialog took longer to calculate the time remaining to copy the file from whatever insane temp folder Internet Explorer had used to its actual user-selected destination than it did to download the original file (which was not that small).

I just don’t understand why this takes so long! It literally took less time to download the file from the Internet than it did to put it in its final destination. Shouldn’t the reverse be true?

Yet another reason why I am not upgrading to Vista. With any luck, by the time I’m forced to upgrade, Microsoft will have come out with Vista’s successor – which I hope will be, y’know, better than its predecessor (unlike Vista itself).

Yesterday I found that the Belkin Wireless Router I’d been using as a wireless access point had completely died on me. It simply would not power on – I don’t know if the problem was in the device itself or in its power adapter, but in either case – I had no wireless in my house. While this isn’t a problem for me personally (my computer is hard-wired into the network), it is a problem for Amanda, who often works from her laptop at home – and that connects wirelessly.

With a snow storm (supposedly) on the way, and thus the possibility that she’d be working from home, I needed to get wireless access working again.

First though, a little background.

I’ve been using a Netgear RT314 4-port 10/100 Ethernet Router since around 1997, and I’d never had any problems with it. Being that a router is generally a solid-state electronic component, I had always assumed all routers (and switches and hubs) were just the same – they’d die when their electronics shorted out, but if that didn’t happen they’d last basically forever.

About 2 years ago a good friend of mine got me the Belkin wireless router – I don’t now recall what model (it’s in the trash). Ironically, it didn’t work well as a router – in fact, it didn’t work at all as a router. I never had a high regard for the Belkin brand (as far as routers go, anyway) so I just switched it to “wireless access point mode,” a feature that was very handy. In this mode, all the “router” features were turned off, and it functioned just like a simple wireless access point. Perfect!

So when the Belkin died, I was in no rush to buy another of the same brand – and given the choice between the other 2 leaders (Netgear and Linksys), I’d personally go with Netgear – so that’s what I did.

Given that I had no problems with my current router, I was hesitant to go out and buy a whole new router – why buy what I don’t need, right? But to my surprise, simple, dumb wireless access points cost more than a similar wireless router! So, given the choice between paying more for less, or paying less and getting more, I opted for the latter and picked up a Netgear WGR614 Wireless-G Router. I suppose you could call it the spiritual decedent of my venerable old RT314.

Now, I could have used the new router as a wireless access point and not given up my old RT314 – it would’ve been a little weird, but it would have worked. However, after much consideration, I finally decided to retire the RT313 and let the new kid on the block take on the leading role.

Whatever anyone else says, the setup for the Netgear is quite simple. (Simpler than the Belkin’s setup – which was awful, that’s for sure!) I of course skipped the whole “insert this CD before attaching your router” instructions – I’m a professional IT-type person; I know how these things work.

My old Netgear used the 192.168.0.x IP address range- unlike the dominant Linksys, which always used 192.168.1.x. (I know this because I’ve set up VPN access for people before, and having the right subnet makes a difference.) I was therefore surprised when I noticed the new router used the 192.168.1.x range – I guess they decided to jump on the bandwagon with that one. Still, I like being different (and I have other reasons), so I switched it back – fortunately they still let you do this.

After that, it was just a simple task of entering all my settings from the old router – port forwarding mostly, and of course the whole reason for doing all this – wireless! The web-based configuration for Netgear has gotten a bit “flashy” compared to the old RT314, but that’s to be expected, I suppose. Still, it worked well, no problems and no surprises.

So now, the job of my Internet gateway (starkeith-gw.starkeith.net) and my wireless access point (Aether) are being performed by one device.

As time goes by, we’ll see how well this new router holds up. I’ve heard stories of routers that need to be reset every few days, or that die out after a certain amount of data/packets are sent, or other such nonsense. I think many of these problems come from newer routers and devices trying to do too much, or being made with firmware that was rushed into production, without proper testing.

My old RT314 never had to be reset. Ever.

Oh, I’d had to reset modems before – cable modems (back when cable Internet was still very new) and DSL modems (from time to time) – but never the router.

We’ll see if this new one holds up to the high standard set by its predecessor. Here’s hoping!

Icon courtesy of the Crystal Icon Set.

UPDATE: The Saga Continues