Random Thoughts On Getting Healthier

So, we're getting healthier. We joined the rec last week, and we're trying to take this as seriously as we can. On Sunday we went to Busch Gardens and walked around the park from 10:00 to about 4:00-ish, then we went to Williamsburg Pottery and walked around. They've remodeled, and it's really nice! They had this international foods section, so I picked up a mint Aero bar (or 3 [some were for co-workers!]), and some treacle syrup. They had these divine organic flavored waters, too! I know most of the stuff I bought was junk, but hey, I walked at least 5 miles! After our excursion on Sunday, Monday I wasn't feeling all too well, so I took the day off from work. Tuesday, we were back at the rec center and did a real work out! We did a warm up on these sit-down bike things for 10 minutes, then we did a full 25 minutes on the elliptical! I made sure to pace myself so I didn't feel overwhelmed and so I didn't have to quit halfway into the workout. This strategy worked well for me. Afterwords, Darrell wanted to do some weight training. I was a bit reluctant, but then came around, because once I do start losing weight, my midsection will need firming up, so I'll need to work my abs to not be flabby! Unfortunately, the equipment was taken, so we took a pass and felt great upon leaving the rec center. We also decided maybe we should look into a personal trainer for a session or two just to see what areas we should hone in on to maximize weight loss and overall physical fitness. We're going to be going to the rec 2-3 times a week, and we're going to try walking (weather permitting) on the other nights. Wish us luck!!

Random Thoughts On Joining The Rec Center

I’m out of shape. Doesn’t that usually come with the territory of being a geek? I’m also a bit of a foodie and just generally like to eat. A lot. Now mind you, I’m not a cow, I’m just a bit overweight. Feel free to peruse my Instagram feed to the right, and you’ll see what I look like if you don’t already know me. I also have a slew of health issues that I probably shouldn’t have at my age like high blood pressure, migraines, back problems, sleep apnea, seasonal asthma and insomnia. Most of these things would probably magically go away if I lost about 50 pounds. My doctor swears up and down that they wouldn’t, but I’m inclined to believe otherwise, and would it really kill me if I got in shape? I doubt it. Well, unless I just up and had a heart/asthma attack on the elliptical, but I digress. Now, I don’t want to be some sort of champion weight lifter, or look like a supermodel, although in my head I already do (look like a supermodel, that is). Darrell is very unhappy with the way he looks, although I think he’s beautiful the way he is, so it’s due to his suggestion that we’ve joined the Virginia Beach Recreation Center. What is the Rec Center, you ask? It’s a locals only gym that is partially subsidized by the city, so it’s much cheaper than going to a private gym. All-in-all, it’s $80-odd per year, and they have all of the standard gym equipment of your Bally’s, Gold’s, or what-have-you, plus they have a pool. They also offer classes for $4 each and they have personal trainers you can purchase for an additional cost. I think this is a good low-cost way for us to get into shape. We do eat sensibly (for the most part). We don’t eat a lot of fast food. The thought of most of it just turns my stomach, but we do eat out – a lot. And I have a huge soft spot for Chinese takeaway. I like to do that once a week. But other than that, it’s Kashi lunches, and Greek yogurt and Belvita breakfast biscuit for breakfast, and usually – usually we cook at home for dinner. We have to get better at that! Next step is to find a great way to curb that sweet tooth of mine, I’m thinking home made Captain Crunch frozen Greek yogurt, who’s with me?!

Random Thoughts on the Movie “Beastly”

We saw the movie “Beastly” this weekend, and I went into it without much thought. A co-worker of mine suggested it, based off of the book, but she said that the movie seemed like a big departure from the book, so no big expectations. The premise: beautiful rich boy Kyle (Alex Pettyfer – also from I Am Number Four) is way too cocky and pisses off the wrong person Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen). She casts a spell on him that transforms him into an ugly beast so that he appreciates his life more. The contingency of the curse is that he has to find love within 12 months or be this beast forever. While Kyle’s dad is also firmly based on beauty, he ships him out of the city and puts him in a house where he is out of the way and out of sight of everyone. He gets a tutor for him, Will (Neil Patrick Harris), who’s blind so that he can’t see the horror that is his son. While he is in a “woe-is-me” state of mind, his clock is ticking by and he hasn’t come close to finding someone to say “I love you” to him to break the spell, until he starts stalking (Vanessa Hudgens), and realizes that her home-life is less than perfect with a junkie father who has had a run-in with a gang. He offers to take her in to protect her and now she feels like his prisoner. After many angsty weeks of him trying to buy her affection, they manage to strike a friendship once he realizes that she’s “not that kind of girl” and when he finally reveals his face to her, she isn’t surprised at all by what she sees. They become friends very quickly and he falls in love with her, but she is only interested in him as a friend (typical, right). He takes this very hard, but in the end it all works out. It’s kind of a twist on “Beauty and the Beast,” but not really. What I didn’t understand is that in today’s society, the way he looked wasn’t really that bad, there are people who take body modification to new levels and with piercings and tattoos, he could have been much, MUCH worse! If you’re in the mood to see a romantic movie with the significant other, I’d definitely recommend this one for you and your sweetie to settle down with a bowl of popcorn! I give it 3 out of 5 stars total.

So Busy!

The past couple of months have been super busy for me. We moved into a much larger apartment and we had two different sets of family come visit us recently, so my free time has been sparse!

I did want to talk a little bit about the obstacles I ran into when setting up the network throughout the new apartment and ensuring that the Internet penetrated every room of the new place.

Our apartment complex was built back in the early 1960s and the construction materials used then were a lot less wireless friendly, so I got the Linksys E3000 in anticipation of this move, and it works perfectly, but the 802.11-N 5GHz spectrum that is the fastest doesn’t go all the way to the back of the apartment into my bedroom, and the slower 802.11-G 2.4GHz spectrum is in use by everyone else, so it is pretty slow when that far from the router (that is in the front of the apartment in the living room with my entertainment center), so my solution was to use my older Linksys WRT54G router as an access point in tandem with a Belkin A/V Homeplug adapter. Here’s what I did

Set up my Linksys E3000 router and plugged the Belkin A/V Homeplug adapter into an open ethernet port, then I plugged the Homeplug adapter into a naked wall outlet (not into a power strip/surge protector, the homeplug adapter doesn’t like the filtered power), then in my smallest bedroom that is doubling as an office, I plugged the second Homeplug adapter into the wall and I plugged it’s ethernet cable into an empty port on my WRT54G router (NOT into the Internet/WLAN port—that doesn’t work either), logged directly into the WRT54G and changed it from being the DHCP server (so it doesn’t assign IP addresses on its own), and put it into ROUTER mode. I gave it a different SSID so it doesn’t compete with the other router (that may be a nonessential step, but I wanted this to work with very little hassle), and VOILA, I have a solid blanket of wifi throughout the new apartment, and they all play nicely. Any computer connected to the router in the back of the house can fully see and access the Windows Home Server in the living room, and the wireless printers in the small room can be used anywhere in the house.

This was my solution, and it worked for me. If you have any ideas about how I might make it better (without voiding any warranties or without hacking firmware), let me know in the comments. If you have any questions, ask away!

Review of Cisco-Linksys E3000

**WARNING*** This is a TECHNICAL review of a device that I have  and this review speaks to MY experience with this device.

Ok, so this one might not be quite as exciting, but I wanted to let you guys know that I got the new Cisco-Linksys E3000 wireless router. I did a lot of research on this router before I decided to make the purchase, and I’m very glad that I got it. Let me give you the low down on the specs. It’s a wireless B/G/N dual band gigabit wired router. This means that all of my older equipment with the wireless G connectivity goes on one radio band (2.4 GHz), and my new wireless N devices go on the second radio band (5 GHz) so that they’re not competing with each other. With this router, my wireless N devices can actually achieve speeds of 300 Mbps (for those of you not so technical, wireless G devices can usually get 54 Mbps), and my wired devices that are gigabit capable will connect at gigabit speeds (~1000 Mbps). I decided to go with this one because of my Windows Home Server being connected to my network, I want to be able to stream HD video and music over the network without any hiccups, and this bad boy gives me the fattest pipes I can have to get the data through.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me go over some of the neat features that the E3000 has that some others don’t. Because of the dual wireless bands, I  have each band on their own SSID, one is labeled as 5GHz and the other is just the regular SSID. This avoids confusion for me when connecting the devices. The E3000 also has a separate “guest access” option that broadcasts a third SSID that allows guests to access your Internet connection, but not your other devices/files on the network. This is pretty sweet, and this SSID unencrypted so when guests connect, they’re met with a webpage asking for the guest access password. Kind of like when you go to hotels. This keeps the neighbors from stealing my bandwidth, but lets me give the access to people I want to. There’s also a USB port on the back of the E3000 for a media server function. I tried this with a 40GB external hard drive. The router recognized the drive and it was available on the network, but the file transfer speed was slower than if the drive were shared on another computer on the network.

For those of you who are not very technical, the router comes with the newly revamped Cisco connect software on a CD that allows for a very easy setup option. It doesn’t allow you to access all of the features of the router, but it’s a very simplified setup method. The usual web interface is available for more advanced settings.

There has been one major concern of mine with this router: it gets hot. I don’t mean a little warm, I mean hot. It’s concerned me more than once, I even considered turning the router upside down to allow it to dissipate heat a little better, but I nixed that idea because it was unsightly.

Over all, I’m very impressed with this router, and if you’re in need of a dual band router with gigabit Ethernet, I would recommend it in a heartbeat.

If you’d like to purchase this router, get it from my Amazon aStore here: http://astore.amazon.com/rathofage-20/detail/B003B48UQ8

If you’d like more detailed specifications, visit the Linksys-Cisco page at  http://home.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/linksys/

Ooma Telo

I’ve been on a gadget buying binge lately and I have a LOT of new toys to write about, but I thought I’d start with the Ooma Telo. I know, it sounds like a reference to Kill Bill, but it’s not, it’s actually a new-ish VoIP device that is actually pretty awesome. I first heard about the Ooma Telo from Cali Lewis at Geekbrief.TV, so I did some research and decided it might be for me. I had Vonage for several years as my phone of choice, partly because I’m a techie geek, but mostly because it was a heck of a lot cheaper than the alternatives for landline phone service. The quality was good, but their customer service was atrocious. I finally cancelled the service and thought I’d try MagicJack because it was cheap, and the bad reviews I had read on it, I thought it might be because of lack of Internet speed. I have a 20mbps down internet connection (which is really fast), and the connection sounded like I was talking on a Zach Morrison brick phone. There was static and an echo. The call quality was basically unusable, but it was only $30 for a year, so I wasn’t too upset. The final straw came when I tried to fax something to someone and the MagicJack wouldn’t allow my fax machine to dial out. I started doing the research on the Ooma Telo and everyone who has one loves it, but I had to psyche myself up to spend the money for it. If you buy it from Ooma directly, they want $250, but Amazon had it on sale for $200, so I bought it. The initial investment is quite steep, but the service is free for at least two years, after that, I’m hearing rumblings that it might be something like $12 a year afterward, which I have no qualms about, because landline service in my area costs around $50 a month.

I got my Ooma Telo and was very impressed with the packaging, it was very reminiscent of how Amazon had packaged the Kindle. I opened it up and followed the little quick start guide and had it up and running in about 10 minutes. I had their cute little dial tone that reminds me of the Owl City song “Fireflies” every time I pick up the phone. But that’s kind of trivial. The real question is: “How is the quality?” It’s exceptional. I am amazed at the clarity of the calls. I haven’t heard a single echo, everyone I’ve asked has said that they can’t tell I’m using VoIP. I think it even sounds better than my cell does. The Ooma Telo comes with all the standard features like call waiting, caller ID, and voicemail, but if you want anything beyond that, you have to get Ooma Premier for $10 per month. That gives you a bevy of features that you can check out here. The Ooma Telo has several buttons on the device that allow you to interact with it like an answering machine which I find quaint, but you can call into your voicemail just like any modern voicemail service. If you opt to get the Ooma Telo Handset, which I haven’t yet, but am seriously considering it, you get even more features because it gives you an instant second line, so if someone is already on phone, you just pick up the Ooma Telo Handset and you have a fresh dial tone to make your call, and a whole bunch of other features I’ve listed here.

While I have been immensely impressed with the overall quality of service I’ve had with the Ooma Telo, I did have one hiccup, which come to find out, was my fault. I added a “virtual number” to use with my fax machine (I’m a gadget guy, why wouldn’t I have a fax machine?), and I noticed a beta feature to incorporate the system with my Google Voice number, so I thought I’d see how that worked. It didn’t. For whatever reason the Ooma Telo kept picking up the calls to that number after 1/2 ring, and it was acting as a speakerphone. I called their technical support and immediately got to a live person (of course I did have to navigate a brief IVR). She did have an accent, but I cannot assume she was from overseas. She went into the system and immediately noticed that the Google Voice Extensions option was enabled in the system (even though it was not showing on their website), so she disabled it, had me power cycle my Ooma Telo, and she offered to call me back in 10 minutes on the virtual line to ensure it was working. She actually called me back (which was impressive in and of itself), and it worked. Now I have two numbers, one is dedicated to my fax, and the other is my main voice number.

Now, you might be wondering if the Ooma Telo will work with a fax machine. Yes, it will. You do have to do a few things if you use the service for voice, too, but it works. If you dial out using your main voice number, you have to dial *99 first, and then your number, if your main number is dedicated to faxing, you can enable fax mode in the account preferences area of your Ooma account online, and it will work without any issues. Since I have mine on its own line, I have to tell the machine to dial from the fax number (I hit **1, then dial the number), and it goes through with no problems!

One other thing that is kind of quaint with the Ooma system is that it requires you to dial “1” when you’re making a long distance call (which are free), and you can just dial the seven-digit numbers locally, so it works just like a traditional landline in that sense.

In summation, if you’re sick of being robbed by your telephone company, need/want a landline phone and have high speed internet, the Ooma Telo may be just the answer you were looking for. Despite the initial investment for the equipment, with no long-term commitments and excellent quality service, I don’t think I would have any issues recommending this to my friends!

Check out the Ooma Website at www.ooma.com for more information!

Random Thoughts on the Nexus One

I've put this review off for far too long. I didn't want to make any assumptions and I didn't want any preconceived notions sway my review, so I'm writing it now. On February 23, 2010 I got Google's Nexus One. I won't bore you with the specs or any of the other readily available information that clogs the tubes about the Nexus One, I'm just going to give you my thoughts on this phone.
Let me start by saying, I knew I was going to love this phone before I ever got it, so I took advantage of the free engraving Google offered. Not necessarily out of vanity purposes, but I took the opportunity to create kind of a calling card with my Nexus One. I put my Twitter information, my Google Voice number and my email address on it like so:

@Zephyr757 · 757-967-XXXX
Stephen.Condra@gmail.com

I received my new "superphone" the day after I ordered it. Even though the site said that the engraving would take 72 hours. I got the smallish package and was so excited. I actually recorded the unboxing with my webcam. I may upload it after some fine-tuning of the video. That also may never happen. But I digress, I opened the unassuming brown cardboard box that did not mention "Google," "HTC," or anything else that might have indicated that a $500+ phone was included in the slightly-larger-than-shoebox sized box. I opened it very carefully, not knowing what to expect on the inside. I found an even smaller white box with the trademark Google colors of blue, red, yellow and green along each of the four sides of the box. It was very reminiscent of the packaging that contained Darrell's Amazon Kindle. I very carefully opened the stark-white box to find the Nexus One very gingerly wrapped in a layer of protective plastic. I unwrapped my newest obsession and proceeded to the next layer in this small box. It included the battery and all of the accessories. Google was very generous with the included accessories (and rightfully so, for over $500). A micro USB cable was included, as was a wall charger, a neoprine pouch and a wired headphone/headset combo. I immediately noticed that the neoprine sleeve and the headset had my favorite green Android on them. He is on the right earphone and is also screen printed tone-on tone on the pouch. While traditionally he is green, in neither case is he green on the pouch or the headphones, which makes him look far more classy, while giving the user a very distinct Android feeling. The headphones have a control section with buttons for media navigation/playing, and the play button doubles as a call button for answering calls or presumably redialing the last number.
Needless to say I was impressed from the start with the way Google and HTC packaged the Nexus One, but once I powered on the superphone, the amazement kept coming. The feel of the phone is so sturdy, the menus fly in with ease, the touch-sensitive buttons along the bottom of the screen can be quirky, but overall once you get used to them, they are very responsive. The unlock/power button on the top can feel awkwardly placed at first, but again, once you get used to it, it becomes second nature. The responsiveness of the touch screen is phenomenal, and the accuracy is spot on. I believe the high resolution of the display helps the accuracy of the touch screen, but I'm no engineer, so I'm not sure of that. The camera takes excellent pictures, but the flash does leave something to be desired. It is very powerful, so sometimes the middle of the image you're capturing can be a bit blown out, but overall the images are very clear and are more than I expected for a 5 megapixel camera built-in to a phone.
Keep in mind that this not my first, but my third Android powered phone, so the operating system of the phone is very familiar to me, however Google has hit several home runs with Android 2.1. The new menu fly-in is very polished, and is a huge step forward from the menu "drawer" from Android pre-2.1. Since the phone has such a powerful processor, I have seen a lag only in a few places, and normally it's when several apps are running in the background. Remember Android is a multi-tasking operating system! I have downloaded more apps to this phone than I had on either my G1 or my MotoCLIQ combined, and have yet to run into any storage problems, so the added storage capacity has come in very handy. I've installed Google Earth and have amazed everyone who has seen the fluid animation of the globe spinning and flying in to our exact location via GPS. Speaking of GPS, the Car Home application that comes built-in to Android 2.x has enabled me to use this phone as my primary navigation system, rendering my Garmin Nuvi 200 obsolete. The turn-by-turn spoken navigation with spoken street names outperforms my Garmin in every way, plus it includes live traffic and because it's Google Navigation, guess what? It's FREE! Also, the Car Home application makes using the phone's speech search and dial system even better because if it knows exactly whom you're trying to call, it will give you a 10-second countdown to correct it, or it will automatically dial, thus enabling true hands-free dialing of the phone, which leads me to the next new feature of Android 2.1: speech input. This feature is AWESOME! You can literally text by speaking to the phone. Anywhere you would type, you can talk to it. And it is eerily accurate. I find myself using the speech-to-text more often every day. You can talk a heck of a lot faster than you can type, even on the much improved stock on screen keyboard.
You may find on the interwebs that a lot of people are giving the Nexus One a lot of flack over some of the phones having issues with the touch screen, or with the signal dropping out of you hold the phone a certain way. I haven't had any of these issues with my phone. I've TRIED to duplicate the problems people have had, and I've not been able to make it happen. Don't think that I would just write it off either. I had my MotoCLIQ for one day before I called T-Mobile and asked them to replace it due to a flaw I found with the phone. I had my G1 replaced 3 times within the year I used it due to one thing or another (once for a dead pixel), so I am very stringent what I consider to be a quality phone, and the Nexus One has met all of my requirements thus far.
In all, I give this phone a 4.8 stars out of 5. The reason I'm not giving it a full 5 stars is because of the quirks I mentioned before with some of the awkwardness of the placement of the power/unlock button and the strange behavior of the touch buttons along the bottom of the screen. Another quirk I'm not so fond of is the automatic brightness. It doesn't seem to do a very good job at determining when to adjust the backlight, so I manually adjust it. This is something that can be fixed with a software update, so I'm not too worried about it.
If you're thinking about getting a new phone, I would strongly recommend ANY Android device. All the major carriers have them now, and there are slated to be several new Android phones to be released this year. If you're able to get the Nexus One (will be on Verizon sometime within the next several weeks and is on T-Mobile or unlocked for AT&T), then by all means, get the Cadillac of Android phones, but if not, the Open Source Android OS is an excellent choice for any phone, no matter your needs. I've even convinced a friend of mine to give up his iPhone for a Nexus One. Yep, the Nexus One is better than the iPhone, and it's UNLOCKED, so you're not tied to any specific ANYTHING!!!