Author: Lee

Technology My Way

Two years ago, my wife and I signed a contract for cellular phones.  It was a basic contract with the only extra being a small texting plan for each of us that added $10 a month to our bill.  It soon became overwhelmingly apparent how much we (the US) doesn’t realize how much it is overcharged for cellular telephone service.  We were paying $75 a month for 2 phones that we didn’t use tremendously.  We didn’t feel like we were getting a good value.

We decided a few months into the contract that once it was over we would re-evaluate the situation, and decide to make a change.

My phone was a smart phone (Samsung Blackjack II), and I soon came to love all the bells and whistles having that phone provided me. I didn’t want to lose the “non phone” functionality I had with this device to save money.

Because of my chosen line of work, I have been privileged to  just about every kind of mobile device you can think of.  I’ve seen all Apple “i” devices, Google Android devices of all shapes and sizes, Amazon Kindles, Barnes & Noble Nook’s, and even some devices from overseas that aren’t sold in the states.

While I enjoy what technology has to bring us, I don’t enjoy the trend of being “connected” all the time.  What really boggles my mind about this trend are the costs.  Instead of just paying for cellular phone service, now for smart devices there are required data plans, and sometimes required texting plans.  The costs of these plans can be equal to or even more than just the basic calling service.

What I have done that has differentiated myself from the masses is by combining the capabilities of a smart phone, with the affordable qualities of a pre-paid cell phone, utilizing an Apple iPhone 3g.

There are many guides online, explaining how to do such a feat with the iPhone.  I found many to be informative and factual.  They all have at least 1 step incorrect however.  Many will tell you to purchase a SIM card and then activate it via AT&T’s website, which is impossible.  I found this out the hard way, but a SIM card is only a couple of bucks, so it wasn’t a huge deal.  Others tell you to purchase a “Go-Phone” and move the SIM card.  This isn’t a good idea either, as this option actually locks the SIM card to that Go-Phone for a period of 6 months.

I ended up going to an AT&T store with my old phone after our contract had expired, and requested to switch to pre-paid.  It was that simple.  I then just moved the SIM card to the iPhone and voila!

While I can’t access data services when most iPhone users can, that doesn’t bother me.  What makes me happy is knowing that I’m paying 8 times less for basically the same service as they are!

It’s been a little bit over a month since I went pre-paid, and I’ve only spent $11.30!  With VOIP options such as Skype and TextFree, I only need to  use my “paid” minutes when I don’t have a wireless connection.

And that, my friends, is how you have  your cake and eat it too!

Out of Sync

My first semester as a student at Indiana University was very hard on me.  So hard that I became “out of sync” with the world around me, and the normal activities I participated in (including this blog).

Too many events occurred to even begin to try to catch up with one blog post, so I won’t try.  Instead I’m going to mention current events.

This week was the first semester of the spring semester, for which I’ve decided to take some 100 level courses in an attempt to give my mind a break.

I’m also adjusting to some changes in my work schedule, as I now have some very long days.  I work from 7:30a until 10p two nights a week.  While this may sound horrible, it allows me some freedoms.  I don’t work on Wednesdays, and I only work 5 hours on Fridays.  It’s a trade off that I’m willing to pay for.

During the winter break, I was able to catch up on ROX.  I have edited 11 of 24 episodes for the season one DVD set.  I hope to finish editing by the end of the semester, and begin DVD authoring.

The plan is that I will be able to re-connect with my family, and more importantly, my life during this period.

Goodbye Old Friend

Many important events happened to me in 1999.  I officially moved out of my mothers apartment (if only for 6 months).  My first child was born.  I also built my first computer, with the help of the awesome guys at Edgewood Computers, based out of Ellettsville, IN; where I lived at the time.

It has some amazing specifications for the time.  A 450mhz AMD K6/2 processor, 96mb of PC133 ram, a 10gb hard drive, an ATI All-In-Wonder video card, which allowed you to record video directly from cable.  It has a 48x cd-rom drive, that’s right not even a burner.  I also installed the hard drive from my first computer, to be used as a secondary place to store my stuff, at 200mb it wasn’t large, but it was something.  In total I paid just under a cool grand for this computer, which wasn’t bad at the time.

This computer only had 2 problems.  First it had to be thoroughly cleaned with alcohol, as I used to smoke inside my home, which led to a residue buildup on the machine.  Then a few years ago, the power supply went out.  That’s it!

In 2005 I built a new computer, one that grossly outdated this one.  We ended up giving this one to my in-laws.  With 2 of their daughters a minimum of 2 hours away, we wanted to get them connected via email and able to get on the internet.

My in-laws had been complaining about it running slow, they thought it was their dial-up internet access, but in reality it was the aging computer.  Last night I booted it up to see what was going on and discovered the IDE (Hard drive) controller had went bad.  I knew then that it was time to find my in-laws a new machine.

We got them a Dell Optiplex 745 from Dell’s auction website.  I plan on acquiring them a flat panel monitor sometime soon as well.

Goodbye old friend, you’ve been the most reliable machine I’ve ever known of and you’ll be missed.

Sick and Tired

I just thought I’d leave a quick note, as I haven’t written in quite a long time:

I didn’t realize how much work my classes this semester would actually be.  It’s taken up much of my time as of recently.  I also had a bout of pneumonia to which I recovered and now am dealing with some serious sinus issues.

Most of the time working with computers is fun, when you’re sick it’s quite the opposite.

I’ll write again when I can.

Day Two

My “second” day of being a student wasn’t nearly as crazy as I thought it would be.  You see, I have 15 minutes between the time I leave my job to when my class starts on the opposite side of campus at Swain Hall East.

The trip wasn’t as stressful and energy sucking as I thought it would be.  As a matter of fact I made it to class with 5 minutes to spare!

The class on the other hand seems like it’s going to be one I have to pay close attention to, and keep up on.  It’s the first statistics course I’ve ever taken!  A few of my co-workers recommended the course and said it was “easy.”  With those kind of recommendations I couldn’t pass this one up.  A fellow co-worker is taking it this semester as well, so I’ll have him for any help I might need.

As soon as I’m done with class, I have a quick bike ride back to the IMU, where Rachel and Amelia should be on their way or waiting on me.  Not so bad.

Essentially I will be doing this “day one” and “day two” routine twice each week, with my Friday’s being split amongst Kelley and some study time at the library.

The one thing I have to change is the seat on my bicycle.  It’s never been comfortable in the 15 years I’ve owned it.  Now that I’m using it 4 times a week, it’s downright painful.  I ordered an awesome seat last night from amazon, and hope to have it installed this weekend.

Day One

My first day as a student at IU was exciting, exhausting and fulfilling.

I first worked my job at Technology Services at KSoB.  I then rushed over to McNutt for my other job with UITS/TCC.  When I arrived and started to settle in, I received a call asking me to go to Read due to some staffing issues.  So I rushed over to the other end of campus as quick as I could to fulfill this request.

When I arrived I was in shock.  Whomever had worked there last had left the supply cabinet unlocked, and all of it’s contents inside unlocked.  We keep a radio, laptop, hubs and other supplies in it.  Someone could have simply walked in and taken them without worry.

The consultant that should have been there arrived about 30 minutes late, he’s obviously a underclassmen, he didn’t show any sense of responsibility.  We had many tickets and a few appointments to go on as there are many people around campus having problems connecting to IU’s network.  We called many people and were able to resolve the issue on the phone, or close the ticket because the issue had been fixed.

Printing was also basically down across the whole campus.  The printing system was migrated to a new system without any time for testing that is normally done.  Basically what was once many was migrated to a few and all hell broke loose.  As I write this printing is down again.  I hope this issue gets resolved soon, as I genuinely feel bad for these students who rely on university printers.

It was a good, hard and hot shift, but we were productive.

I then rode my bike over to Ballantine Hall, where my American Studies class is.  I arrived almost an hour early, so I had time to relax from the fast paced day I had.

I was amazed to find that my class is very small, only about 10 students!  The topic of this class is how the computer changed history and culture.  I think it’s going to be a fun and interesting class.  Since I’m the geek that I am with regards to computers and history I think it’s the perfect fit for me.

After class I caught the Bloomington Transit, the city’s public bus system.  I get to ride it free since I’m a student at IU.  My bike and I rode over to Wal-Mart where Rachel and Amelia were waiting on me.  This is a better alternative than Rachel packing her up and driving back to campus to pick me up.  I haven’t rode the bus since I was in middle school!  The one thing I can say is bus design has changed significantly since then.

Once we got home, I basically crashed from the days’ activities.  I hope I can keep up the pace.

Today is going to be a whole new adventure that I will update you on tomorrow.

Capturing Complete

I honestly can’t count how many times I have captured all of the season 1 ROX episodes, but it’s been too many times.  Between all the issues I’ve had, there isn’t really an exact source to point the blame to.  I’ve had a hard drive crash, which put me to tears.  I have some tapes that CATS made for me which have been in bad shape since the day I got them.

The hard drive crash made me seriously look for backup solutions and I found one.  I created a backup server, which backs up my files to a mirrored raid.  Should 1 drive fail, I can simply replace it and lose no data.  The system has expandability for more hard drives in the future should I need them.  The only item I haven’t done is off site or cloud backup, mainly due to the file size of video files.

For a while I was transferring video using a USB device, which worked well for a while but now leaves a video frame in places where they shouldn’t be.  I think it’s a bandwidth issue.  Now I’m transferring with a capture card, and haven’t seen any of the issues I had with the USB device.

As of right now I have over 600 gigabytes of files solely dedicated to ROX.  Most of those are simply draft episodes which have been captured, but aren’t suitable for release.  They are either missing one piece here or there, or just need fade effects added to the beginning and end.

That’s what I do.  I’m not interpreting the original work, merely trying to make 1 good episode from a sea of bad ones.  It’s not easy work.  I go over each episode frame by frame and look for things such as heat damage (which has been the biggest issue thus far) y-axis video track issues and a plethora of audio issues.

Now the real work begins.  I’m hoping to edit and render 1 episode a night.  If I’m able to keep on this schedule I might be able to start DVD authoring within a month.

Busy Weekend Ahead

I’m going to be a busy bee this weekend.  Part preparing for school, part vehicle maintenance, part helping out a friend.

My hitch and bike rack were delivered yesterday and I need them to be on the car by Monday, when my classes start.  My bike lock should be delivered today, if FedEx doesn’t mess it up.

I need to replace the front brakes on our car, the rotors are warped – a common problem on Chevrolet HHR’s with factory brakes.

I’m also replacing the brakes on a friends mini-van.  I have another friend who wants me to do the brakes on his car as well.  Do you see a trend here?  Yes, I’m known for being a brake guy.  It’s one of the few tasks (along with changing your own oil) that you can do to maintain your vehicle that will save you thousands of dollars in your lifetime.  Most of the time it just requires a jack (which all automobiles come with) and a few simple hand tools.

After that I’ll have everything I need prepared for this new journey, education at Indiana University.  The only question I have remaining is if my mind is ready for this new endeavor.  I’m hopeful it will be a seamless transition, but I’m worried the content will be more academic than I’m used to.  I have a tendency to worry too much about these things though.  Everyone tells me that I’ll do well, but that little voice inside my head always tells me otherwise.

Just What I Needed

This fall is going to be interesting…

The schedule for my job with UITS came out over the weekend, which has me working at Briscoe, McNutt, Foster and the Information Commons.  While this is great where my working life is concerned, it’s horrible for my academic life.  I have classes at Ballantine Hall and in Swain East.  They are on the opposite side of campus.  For those of you that don’t know,  the IU campus is quite large.

To make matters worse, on two of those days I will get out of work 15 minutes before my class starts.

To try to expedite my travel I’m currently working on solutions to get my bike on campus.  With my bike on campus, I think I can cut down the travel time significantly.  Since I live a good trek away, biking to campus isn’t really an option.  I’ve got some options to figure out.  I’m going to either leave my bike on campus during the week and take it home on the weekend, or take it with me each day.  I’m going to test whether my bike will fit in our car tonight, if not we’ll have to order $300 worth of gear ( a hitch and hitch mounted bike rack).

I haven’t seriously rode my bike in about 10 years, which invokes something else, a more active lifestyle.  I’m sure I’ll be really sore for the first couple of weeks, but after that I’ll in much better shape.  Something I need to do.

I also need these items:

I’ve got my eye on particular ones, but I’m still trying to find the best item for the price.

I had thought about these last minute things coming up, I just never realized it would be so exhaustive and expensive.

Editing Schedule

I am currently between semesters, my last one at Ivy Tech and my first one at IU. In this downtime, I’m working in some editing of the “good” episodes of ROX that I have, which are a majority of season one.

On a good night I can crank out 2 episodes. Last night I was only able to complete one.

Most of these episodes are in pretty good shape, they still need a look over to make sure they meet my high standards before I’ll allow people to pay money for them.  The biggest issue seems to be with transitions between shots and the beginning and end of the show.  Luckily I have a ton of “stock” clips to use if one is bad.

If you look at all of my blog posts regarding ROX, you’ll see many ramblings about technical difficulties or just not having time.  I’m finished with giving excuses.  I’d like to get season one ready and launch it with my new LML Video Services website.

Once this “easy” process is over, I will start the tedious heavy editing process.  Dissecting each episode ensuring the audio and video tracks are synchronized and making sure there are no other transitional issues.

After the editing process is complete, DVD authoring and design begin.  This is where I actually create the look and feel of the DVD.  Then I design the case and labels.  Once the producers give their words of approval, it will be released.

The biggest difference between this time, and the last time is I have an active backup solution.  My computer is backed up every night, and those backups are backed up weekly.  If my hard drive fails, I haven’t lost any work.  That is what put me over a year behind.  I had to recapture everything and start from day one.

Wish me luck.