I went and got an iPad
Since I have been doing a lot of traveling, I have seen a lot of people that use iPads for watching movies or playing games or keeping generally occupied while in flight. I have enjoyed having an iPod touch for such trips, but it was time to make an upgrade.
I decided on a 32gb iPad 2 with wifi only. I toyed with idea of getting a 3G version for ultimate portability, but it started adding up. I have been typing out is post on on the soft keyboard and have only made a few mistakes. The key is to take things slow when typing and pay attention to little mistakes.
Now, I have to update the firmware to 5.0 to get the iCloud features.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Review – Wouxun KG-UV3D
This is a review of the newest radio in my collection, the Wouxun KG-UV3D. This radio is sold exclusively by Powerwerx in the US. I purchased this radio as both an Amateur HT and for business use.
Overall: At first glance, this handheld looks like any other dual-bander amateur HT. It has a two-line display for showing frequencies in the A and B banks. It has backlit keys, and a red "MENU" button in contrast to the black keypad. The top has two knobs, one as a rotary encoder dial for selection and one for volume/power. Pretty standard when compared to my Yaesu FT-60R.
Audio: Initial reports have been of good audio quality. The speaker is exceptionally loud. Not a bad thing for a handheld. I can have the volume near halfway and that is plenty loud for indoor use. I will be testing it with a clip mic and be using it in a loud environment later on.
Battery Life: Not sure yet. It is powered by a 1700 mAh Li-Ion battery. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. I'm used to the NiMH and NiCd batteries found on my FT-60R and business-class Kenwood. The initial charge on the battery allowed for a cumulative 45 seconds on high power, which was nice. The rapid charger apparently filled the battery intelligently, as after 10 minutes in the charger it reports full. We'll see how full "full" really is.
Programming: Just get the programming cable! The software is free from Wouxun/Powerwerx site. I tried doing some minor changes on the menu system, and it clearly was overly complicated. Everything I've read online said to just bite the bullet and get the cable and software. I'm glad I did! I was able to get the radio out, plug the cable in, and after some "unlocking" (which I'll talk about below) it took the programming just fine. The software is a bit clunky, but it does work.
Band Coverage: This guy is best for transmitting, not necessarily for scanning. The scanner is slow, and the band coverage is really just VHF/UHF. There's no 800 MHz listening, or in-between bands like with the FT-60R. As far as TX, you can obtain software to legally open this guy up to other bands, obviously if you are licensed to transmit in those bands/frequencies. I am covered under a license for a business band UHF frequency, and unlocked my radio to transmit on this frequency. So far it has had good signal and audio reports.
Now, the cons:
- 128 Channels - kind of small compared to other HTs with 500 or 1000
- Programming software, as I said, is clunky. Very clunky.
- Don't yet know how smart the charger is. Seems to check the battery level before charging.
- No external DC jack - charger only
I will be adding on to this review as I own the radio. This is just a nice starting point.
Android goodness
I finally made the investment and got an Android-powered smartphone. It is the Samsung Intercept on Virgin Mobile. It works alright, though not flawlessly. I do think the price is right though.
I purchased a case and screen protector for it as well. I plan to switch to this phone fully in December when my Alltel contract can be broken.
FloodCheck update
Greetings, all! I've decided to post my "FloodCheck" application up on Google Code. It provides a nice source repository for version control, as well as a wiki and other features for project development. My goal is to bring more features to the application for a new release before springtime flooding. I haven't heard if we are going to have epic flooding in the F-M area again this year, but you never know.
Anyways, stay tuned to the Google Code page for more information!
Straightening Up
Being that this is my first weekend in a long time to get some stuff done around the house, I decided to finally move my server/home networking equipment to a new arrangement. About a month ago, I went down to the IKEA store in Minneapolis and picked up 3 of these LACK end tables. They were on sale for $8 each. They're nothing really that special looking, and are constructed of particle board. The kicker? They are actually the exact width to mount 19" network hardware in. I thought this would be great! Problem though: I don't own any 19" hardware. Dang. Well, I bought them anyway, and simply mounted all of my non-19" rackmount equipment onto it. And by mount, I mean set..
Here is a list of the hardware that I have here. And yes, they are all named after scientists.
- Volta - This is the WRT54Gv2 running DD-WRT (of course). It is acting as my router for the network. I was using a smaller HP with pfSense, but that starting having major issues, so I dumped it for the ol' hardware router. It is also my wifi access point.
- Coulomb - This is the large HP Compaq desktop that is acting as a server. It is running Debian 5.0 (Lenny) and serves file sharing, print sharing, VPN, and Teamspeak. Specs are a P4 @ 2.8GHz, 1GB DDR SDRAM, 2x 120GB IDE Hard Drives (7200RPM), Gigabit LAN.
- Marconi - This is the tall device in the back. It is a Cisco Network Media Hub (NMH410) with 1TB of network attached storage. I use this for all of my media storage at home. I plan on purchasing another 1TB drive to create redundancy.
- Trendnet TEG-S5g - It's not in the picture, because it's hiding underneath (as it's supposed to). It's a simple 5-port Gigabit switch that I got on sale at Newegg. Though I just noticed...I never got the gift card they said they mailed to me in May for the rebate. Crap.
I hope to eventually recable my desk and associated work area so that it looks like this. No wires showing, mounted power strips, and the like. I also want to create a spare set of cables, so that if I wanted to go to a LAN party, all I would need to do is disconnect the big components (monitor, PC, mouse, keyboard) and take them with, and I would have a fresh set of cables waiting for deployment.
BlogPress
I went ahead and bought another app. This one is called BlogPress, and allows me to post to my blog from the iPod touch.
-- Post From My iPhone
Location:14th Ave N,Fargo,United States
Designed by Apple in Cupertino
So I finally gave in and bought an iPod touch. This is the first Apple product I have ever purchased new. So far, I like it a lot. I'm finding that there is no shortage of applications, and that the ones I have downloaded aren't too bad.
One of the big things to get used to is the predictive text input. Basically you can get really close to what you want to type and it will make a decision based on what you typed. I have yet to put my faith in it yet fully.
Well, I know that this is a rather short post, but hats because I wrote it out using the wordpress application. Lots of little errors that I don't feel like going back to fix.
FloodCheck Application
My first real useful application, written in C#. It's a simple program that grabs the latest Red River level and displays it in your system tray. It just sits in the corner, only popping up every hour to notify you of the current level. It can also be shown in a larger display.
There really isn't much by the way of documentation. Just run the application, and click the "Send to systray" button to minimize the program.
The program is provided AS-IS, with no warranty of any kind. I guarantee nothing.
Download FloodCheck (399)
Latest Version: v1.0.3780.14180 (May 8, 2010)
Please post any feedback or feature requests into the comments!
UPDATE: From now on, FloodCheck will have its own page. Click here to redirect!
RIP Einstein (2003-2010)
Einstein in his final days
Einstein, my first desktop PC turned home server in the corner, has passed on to the great /dev/null in the sky.
When I first bought him, back in 2003, he was but a refurbished Dell Dimension 2350, with a mere 128MB of RAM. It was the fruit of a summer working for my parents. He arrived while I was at work, and I begged to go home and set him up to play with the then fun new features of Windows XP. That Christmas, I got my first real video game, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, along with a 256MB memory upgrade. Einstein could be called a gaming machine. We had great fun playing with the new Windows Movie Maker 2.0, too.
Einstein soon outgrew his integrated video adapter. I had been browsing the local computer stores for a PCI graphics card, for Einstein only had PCI, no AGP. I found a nice GeForce FX 5200 at OfficeMax for a reasonable price. I added it, and suddenly I could run games at 1024x768! It seriously brought Einstein up to current standards for the time.
Original Dimension 2350
The next great improvement was a new 120GB IDE HD and a 512MB stick of RAM, making the two slots add to 768MB, around 2006. It vastly improved storage over the 30GB stock HD that came with him. Now I could have all my games installed at once without swapping back and forth between the big ones. And, everything was much zippier.
When I purchased Galileo in 2007, Einstein started to move to a server role. He didn't play nice with the video card anymore, which I've now found to be defective. I installed Ubuntu Server edition, and Einstein had new life. It was my first home server experience. I installed VMWare Server and ran some virtual machines. I also installed TeamSpeak 2, and ran a voice chat server while in games.
In his last year, he has been my NAS/Print/Remote access server, as well as a TeamSpeak 2 and TS3 server that just sat in the corner and never bothered anyone. He had solid uptime, was quiet (comparatively), and never made a fuss about updates or errors. In his final days I was contemplating reinstalling the OS, but it was so rock solid that I didn't see the urgency. He's in a better place now.
I've already began working on ghostofeinstein, a virtual machine to take over the duties that Einstein has left behind.
About Me
Greetings! I'm an IT professional that decided to purchase his own domain name and website. Isn't that what everyone does?
- Just hanging out. (@ Sanford Hospital) http://t.co/w74fWte7
- I spent a couple of hours at a house fire tonite. Now to rest up for a long day tomorrow.
- Curling up in front of @RedZoneChannel and ready for some football!
- @Simply_A_Muse_D Was it you that knew the owner of Dickey's BBQ?
- @Simply_A_Muse_D sorry I was helping Nancy. And yes, this was sent from the iPad.
- @Simply_A_Muse_D got back on Friday. Was very warm, very busy, and I'm glad to be home!
- Watching @RedZoneChannel on my laptop. Football!
- Football. Sunday Ticket. Awesome.
- Signed up for @DIRECTV using their referral process and they didn't give me the referral deal. Gonna be a long 2-year contract...
- @phillyd You should consider giving to the Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services #SalvationArmy