d00dism

Broadband Internet service has become commonplace across the United States. Whether it is a cable modem, dsl, satellite of some sort, or another kind of wireless high speed Internet access, increasing numbers of users are getting on the information superhighway with a Porsche instead of a moped.

A couple years back (but following my departure for school), I finally convinced my father to get a cable modem. My argument for it wasn’t just speed or the services that become accessible when one migrates (such as streaming media). It was in a large part based upon a monetary argument. It was cheaper to get a cable modem.

Well, that seems rather contradictory and wrong. You get more for less? What many people ignore are other costs involved with using a regular phone based modem. I am an Internet junkie (who me? couldn’t be. then who? yeah, I did it). I’d tie up the phone line for hours. What was and still is the answer for modem users? Get a separate phone line. This solution is very commonly used by modem users. It cost around $35 a month to have a second phone line in our house. Add in the cost of the service ($10), and we’re up to $45. The cost of high speed internet is $30 for DSL or cable (although, that price for DSL is contigent upon having at least one phone line in service and subscribing to some other services). High end cable costs $40. It’s cheaper and faster to have broadband.

Obviously, this isn’t the four fold speed increase I speak of. That was ten fold increase at the time. Well, up until last night, my family’s cable service was 768 Kbps. No slouch to be sure, but not nearly as fast as the 3 Mbps connection my brother had at his new apartment. I wanted the best on the block too. I looked at Charter’s web site and found that 3 Mbps service was available at our house for $40. I then examined our last bill and found out we were paying the exact same rate for 768 Kbps. This naturally prompted a phone call and within minutes, I was surfing at four times the speed.

What’s the lesson to be learned here? If you don’t have broadband service and it’s availble in your area, consider it. It may not be as expensive as you think. If you already have broadband, check with your supplier to see if speeds and costs have changed. If you currently don’t have high end access, see if you can upgrade for free. You might assume that your supplier would automatically upgrade you, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

Once of my favorite websites is RailHead Design. It’s become a daily stop because, well, it’s updated every day (at least during the week). I’m resolving myself to having the same discipline (though my entries tend to be a bit longer than Maury’s). Starting today and happening every day unless I go on vacation, I will be adding at least one new entry.

I’ll probably borrow (ok, steal) from sources such as Obscure Store, Fark, and Maccentral to fill the void on days when I have nothing good or interesting to say.

Oh, and a quick reminder, there is an RSS feed for my blog over on the right side of the page. Be sure to fire up your favorite RSS reader (or get NetNewsWire (regular or lite) if you’re on a Mac, Feedreader if you’re on Windows (I’ll suggest another one if some can suggest a really good Windows RSS client; I haven’t had much luck), or get Firebird’s RSS Extension) and add it to your list.

The first and most major news of this fine Monday is Apple’s preview of the next revision of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger. Apple’s introduced some very provocative new features, all of which are documented (albeit informally) at their Tiger preview site.

The first feature to catch my eye was Spotlight. Based upon Apple’s new Metadata-based search technology, Spotlight brings live search to not just the file system or Mail atomically, it allows for system wide searching of many services including Mail’s messages, contacts, calendar entries, the filesystem, etc. all at the same time. Very cool. However, following a disturbing trend that Apple is perpetuating, Spotlight also very closely resembles one of my favorite pieces of software, LaunchBar. Live searching across multiple data types is what LaunchBar excels at (especially the upcoming 4.0 version which has many, many file types and databases integrated into its own search engine).

Another interesting feature is Dashboard. I saw it and immediately thought, “This looks really familiar.” This is yet another instance of Apple’s new trend of ripping off developers, only this is even more blatant than Spotlight or say Watson. Spotlight has a resemblance to an existing product. Sherlock 3 was a rip-off of Watson, with a more flexible extensible implementation (using XML). Dashboard is a carbon copy, right down the fact that its components are called Widgets and are implemented in JavaScript, just like Konfabulator. This has incited Arlo Rose, one of its main developers to bash Apple for ripping him off. I feel this is completely justified and continued theft of shareware ideas will only completely alienate Mac OS X’s rich shareware community. There was a time when Apple integrated these products into the OS by hiring the developers (such as SuperClock’s developer). Apple set a dangerous precedent with Sherlock 3. It’s now just playing with fire.

Speaking of Watson, its creator, Dan Wood, has announced that Watson has been essentially bought out and all support will end October 5th. I hope the company offering the new product offer it with a huge discount (or possibly free) to existing Watson users because I bought Watson only a few months ago and getting less than a years with of maintenance support (Watson’s back end won’t be updated after Oct. 5th to reflect changes in source websites, effectively breaking modules) is beyond poor. It’s piss poor and unprofessional. Paid users deserve several years of support. Every major software company follows this practice and Dan Wood will remain small potatoes if he doesn’t follow suit.

That’s all for today!

Edit: Adding link to debate at Maccentral about Konfabulator and Dashboard.

I’ve always been a big fan of the TV show Sliders. It was immediate, starting with the debut on Friday night on Fox a long time ago. I tuned in as often as I could to watch their adventures (this was at a time in my life when I was still working until 9 every Friday and starting to develop a social life). Sure, it was geeky, but then again, if you look up at your location bar, there isn’t much denying.

The show quickly faded from view as most of Fox’s Friday night shows do. Does anyone else remember Millenium? The show resurfaced on the Sci-Fi channel some time later, with new episodes. Eventually, the show got canned.

I wasn’t even aware of the Sci-Fi episodes as I didn’t get cable for a long time and at first, it wasn’t included with our cable package. This past school year, I became aware of the fact that Sliders was back on Sci-Fi in rerun form at 10AM every morning. I started watching every morning and realized how much I missed the show.

Now that every show and its spinoff is going to DVD, I thought that I could get Sliders on DVD. Despite a lot of discussion and rumor about DVDs, none were actually for sale. I finally went back to check after a Macworld Forums thread reminded me. The first two seasons are available on DVD at Amazon.com for $62.99 (as of 6/28). Any respectable fan should be filling in their credit card information… now.

After making a semi snap decision about screen protection for the 12″ Powerbook, I ordered a Notebook ScreensavRz from RadTech. Wanting to maintain the color scheme of the Powerbook, I ordered the Titanium color with the Powerbook logo on it. The other colors and designs are cool, but not my taste. I ordered last Friday (at 8:26 PM).

My first compliment (of my series of many that will follow in this review) is that they processed and shipped my order that day. Most businesses close up shop at 5, but not RadTech apparently. They diligently processed and shipped my order only a couple hours later. Not only that, but my order arrived on yesterday (Monday). I can’t entirely give them credit for it coming here so quick through the mail system, but I can give them credit for actually shipping my order when they said they did.

The ScreensavRz itself came in a neat little tube. I’ll attach pictures later on if I can figure out how and I still have the motivation. Inside was the ScreensavRz itself, and a one time use alcohol wipe. My laptop is new, so I said that pad for later (even though I already have an iKlear Power Klean Kit). The tube is nice enough to reuse either to store the ScreensavRz later (though it’ll be with the Powerbook about 99% of the time) or other little things.

I pulled out the very soft ScreensavRz from the tube and, to be frank, it looked a bit smaller than I expected. Just to emphasize this point for potential buyers, it does not completely cover the surface of the Powerbook. It leaves a bit of a border (which again, I’ll take pictures of given time and motivation). However, this border is about the width of the border around the display or a little less, so your screen is, in fact, completely protected. I imagine this was done to avoid bending of the computer that would result from the cloth being pressed between the two sufaces (if it were larger). It is large enough to perform its task and stay put, so there are no worries there.

Thanks to the material RadTech decided to use (Optex), it doubles as a cleaning cloth. I can attest to this. I sneezed, getting some of my wonderful saliva on the screen, leaving some spots when it dried. I took the ScreensavRz and wiped the spots right off, even without wetting it. That won’t work for everything, and you can actually dampen it in order to get off more stubborn marks. The material is also washable, so using it to clean won’t permanently besmirch its appearance.

All in all, I’m wholly satisfied. For $13.95-$17.95 (dependent on size), you get quite a few things: an LCD cleaning cloth, LCD protection, a one-time use cleaning pad, a nice little carrying tube, and peace of mind. I’ve read testimonials about how it’s not possible for the keys to touch the screen and honestly, it’s not that I don’t believe them. Examining my own Powerbook has convinced me of that. However, with the extra functionality provided by the ScreensavRz, its low cost, and the reassurance that marks will never happen, I feel this is a worthy complement for any Powerbook and worth a look.

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