blog.antonywilliams.com

How are tech savvy people unemployed?

Antony — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:44:50 +0000

I called my ISP today.
First, I asked if they supported ipv6. The woman didn’t know what that was, and put my on hold while she asked someone else. Seriously, someone working at an ISP doesn’t know what ipv6 is!!!

Second, I asked if there was a way to monitor my bandwidth. My ISP sent me a letter telling me that they had increased the bandwidth cap to 350GB a month, but would fine you for going over. You can actually log into the ISP’s website to see your invoice etc.., and there is an icon called “view bandwidth usage,” though it doesn’t work.
The response I got was “We don’t have a way to monitor that.”
To which I replied, “Then how can you charge someone for going over, when you won’t let them monitor it. Doesn’t that sound shady to you?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have a way to do that.” She said.
So I said, “Then why do you have a button on your site called ‘view bandwidth usage’?”
“Um…….I’m sorry sir, that’s all I know…”

Seriously? Every year we’re more and more reliant on the internet, and this is who runs it behind the scenes?

The Iron Lady

Antony — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:00:10 +0000

Like many Britons, I have a huge amount of respect for Margaret Thatcher. She was certainly one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Not only was she the first female leader of a western country, but she served as Prime Minister for over 10 years. She didn’t always do what was popular, and wasn’t afraid of doing what she thought was best for Britain, regardless of whether other political leaders disagreed.

I saw this film recently. While it had its good bits, and Meryl Streep did a very good job, its focus was completely incorrect.
[spoiler]
Why on earth, with a total runtime of 105 mins, would you spend an hour dealing with an elderly Thatcher suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Her suffering as an elderly woman has absolutely nothing to do with what made her influential, famous, and the first female Prime Minister.

So – while Meryl Streep did a great job – how the script writers decided that it was more important to focus on Thatcher’s Alzheimer’s than on her 10 years in office was very disappointing.

New router

Antony — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:55:37 +0000

Since I got my new server, I realized I’d have to upgrade my internal network to make the most of it. I’d had my current 100Mb network with 802.11g for about 6 years and it was time to upgrade. All of my media streaming is done over Ethernet, so I was in no immediate rush to upgrade to a new router (100Mb is plenty for streaming even HD content), but now that I have a server, I really wanted gigabit. I’ve spent a long, long time looking for the perfect router. Until the last year or so, you couldn’t get a router with everything I wanted.

My requirements:

Gigabit on both LAN and WAN ports.
802.11g/n (real n, not draft n.)
Dual Radio (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz)
Dual Band (Means you can do 2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz at the same time)
MIMO
No fan
Guest network
Static DHCP
Port forwarding
Broadcom SoC (usually means it’s compatible with unofficial Linux firmware).
A large ROM (32MB) and lots of RAM (256MB)
User replaceable antennas.

I was originally considering the Linksys e4200, but that doesn’t have the last two items on my list. Then Linksys released the e4200v2. It seems great, but has a Marvell SoC, which means it will probably never run an unofficial Linux firmware.
So, I finally found what I was looking for: The Asus RT-N66U (codenamed ‘Dark Knight’ no, really)

The official firmware is apparently already based on Tomato firmware, which means with a few tweaks, you can run stock Tomato firmware!

New server

Antony — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:09:37 +0000

I’ve always disliked the idea of having a server in my own home. Real server hardware is big, loud, hot and expensive. The alternative is to use consumer (desktop) hardware, which usually isn’t very redundant. Hardware has a tendency to break at the worst possible time, like when you have a big deadline at work, of when you’re taking your university finals. If my website goes down, I don’t lose money, but I still want it up all the time. I had a friend who had an email server in his house. His server broke during his university finals and he calmly said “I don’t have time to fix it right now, so I guess I just won’t get email for 4-5 days.” This is precisely why I haven’t wanted a server in my house. Once you start relying on it, it becomes really painful when you have issues.
I’ve had my own website for years, and I’ve always paid for it to be hosted. It’s not that expensive, and then your hosting company worries about keeping your site up. If my webhost has a hardware failure at 3AM, they’re responsible to fix the issue, and if necessary restore a backup.
Those of you who follow my blog know I’m a big Linux user. Pretty much all computers in my house use the Linux kernel. My desktop, laptop, mobile phone, media streamer and even router (though each one of them is a different distribution with a different version of the Linux kernel ) use Linux.
Because of this, I’ve always been able to take advantage of enterprise level open source software, such as NFS. NFS is an extremely hardened Network FileSystem. Since all of my machines are Linux, within a matter of 15 mins, I was able to stream music and video from my desktop to my TV. The only downside to this is that I need to leave my desktop on for this to work. While this is obvious, I don’t really like it. My desktop is a reasonably fast (though 3 year old) quad core Intel i7 920. It sucks quite a bit of power. That got me to thinking. Why don’t I build or buy a very small, efficient low power server that I could leave on 24/7 (that of course runs Linux) to use for file storage. I could use it store to all my music/video, and automatically back up by desktop to it. I could even host my website on it if I wanted. I started looking for one, and came across the HP ProLiant N40L (disclosure, I’m an HP employee). It seemed like exactly what I was looking for. It’s small, very energy efficient, quiet, has gigabit Ethernet and can hold 4-5 internal 3.5″ hard drives (and even has 6 USB ports and an eSATA port). This sounded perfect, and the price is brilliant. You can buy one for around $200 (I bought mine for even less during a heavily discounted sale). Of course the price doesn’t include an Operating System (so windows users beware), but for me this is perfect. This way I don’t get charged for an OS that I wouldn’t use, and can instead just download Linux for free!
One of the reasons I like it so much is that is uses an AMD dual core 1.5GHz 64-bit CPU. It’s far better than Intel’s equivalent low power Atom CPU (which isn’t even 64-bit)

It comes with 2GB of RAM, but upgrading it is pretty easy. You just have to pull out all the cables, and slide out the motherboard. Since RAM is so cheap these days I got 8GB of ECC RAM for around $50. So, for a little over $200 you can have a pretty decent server. The hardware on this thing is pretty impressive. Another thing I like about it is the internal USB port. That means you can install your operating system on a flash drive, and use all the hard drives for data. I bought two flash drives, and can quickly switch out operating systems. That way I can switch between Debian 6 and CentOS 6 with just a reboot.
You can of course install windows on it, or pretty much anything else that supports x86_64.

Of course, this set up takes some time. You can alternatively buy a ready out-of-the-box NAS. A device that is already set up for file storage and media streaming. The downside is that they’re usually severely limited. Companies will often deliberately limit features in the hopes that you buy a more expensive version. They’re also limited to being just a NAS, have week hardware, and aren’t upgradeble. With this machine, providing you’re willing to do the work, you get a highly flexible machine that can do almost anything. If a new app comes out that has new functionality, you can just install it. Same goes for the Operating System. When Debian 7 comes out, I can just install it and get all of those improvements for free. I like that kind of flexibility!

2nd Bangalore trip.

Antony — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:42:48 +0000

Unlike last year’s rushed trip to Bangalore, this time I went for a week. The flight is 3 legs and takes around 24 hours excluding layovers (depending on your root). So, with layovers, you’re looking at around 30 hours. Not fun. Especially when you’re cramped in Economy. I went Utah-Chicago-Paris-Bangalore. On my outgoing flight I was upgraded to first class. Unfortunately it was the 3 hour Utah-Chicago flight. From there it was two 10+ hour economy flights . Even though there’s a 12½ hour time change, it wasn’t that bad. I’ve never really been too affected by jet lag. The first day we got to take a tour around the city. The main attraction was the Shiva Temple. One of the priests there saw us and made us participate in all of the different rituals which ranged from chanting to burning certain symbolic objects.

The rest of the days were of course full days at the office, and then even more work from the hotel afterwards. Of course, the food was great, of which I ate a lot . The trip was very productive, and I got to meet the rest of my team.
On the way back they’d overbooked the Paris-Chicago flight. Good news for me, as I got upgraded to Business-Elite on the 10 return hour flight. It was great. There’s so much room, I was able to put my seat almost completely flat, and sleep. I still don’t think I’d pay the upgrade difference myself, but I definitely understand why some people do.

Harlem Globetrotters

Antony — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 03:21:25 +0000

I’m not really a big basketball fan, but when the Harlem Globetrotters come to town, I pay attention. Watching them mess around and do trick after trick was great fun, even if some of their jokes were a little childish.

They started out by introducing the team, and then they brought on a fictional team to destroy. Sure, the game was rigged, but it had to be, or they couldn’t get away with messing around so much. It definitely made it more fun though.

If they come to your city, I highly recommend getting tickets.

Buying a piano

Antony — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:04:05 +0000

You’d think that buying a piano would be a really great experience. You get to try dozens of pianos ranging from used uprights to new 9 foot grands worth $150,000. You simply pick the one you want, and buy it. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Most of the dealerships (at least where I live) are the exclusive dealers for several brands. That means if you want to compare a Yamaha to a Kawai, you can’t. No store sells them both. To make matters worse, the Kawai salesmen are prepped to criticize Yamaha and vice-verse….. A lot. I kept telling the salesmen “I don’t care what you think, stop telling me all other pianos suck. I’m a pianist, I’ll decide which one I prefer.” This worked for the most part, but they’d still jab occasionally. Also, while I’d play through my repertoire, some of the salesmen would just wait. Rather than wait for me to finish, ti discuss details, some of them would follow me around the shop. I found this a little annoying, and I’d tell them “Don’t mind me, I’m going to play all your pianos, and then when I know which one I like, we talk talk numbers.” The good salesmen left me alone. The bad ones would follow me around, and makes comments in between my playing.

Side note, I went to one dealership, and told them my approximate price range. They showed me their pianos, but I didn’t like them. They then blamed it on my budget and said “You aren’t going to find anything that’s as good as you want for your budget. You should settle for a Kohler and Campbell and upgrade later.” He really acted as though I was being unreasonable.
That made me furious. I’d already found pianos that I liked, and that were in my budget (Brodmann, Pramberger and May Berlin). The dealer just didn’t stock those, and therefore criticized them.

After testing dozens of grands I ended up buying a Brodmann PE187 (6’2″) grand. It’s amazing. Finally, after spending two years without a piano, I now have one. Now I can practice again

How not to buy through Craigslist

Antony — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:00:44 +0000

Before buying anything on Craigslist, everyone should know one important thing.
If the item you’re buying is used, then it’s obvious that you’re going to want to inspect the item in person before you buy. And, depending on the condition, you may want to negotiate the price.
However, if the item is brand new and sealed, and you know exactly what the retail price should be, negotiating should happen before agreeing to meet. You do not agree to purchase, arrange to meet up, and at the last minute try to get the item for less.

This exact thing happened to me yesterday. At my company Christmas party I won a Playstation 3 in the raffle. Great I thought, I’ll just sell this on Craigslist. It’s worth $250 new (plus tax), so I put it up for $230. I thought it was reasonable, as it’s brand new, and Playstations have a fixed priced, and are rarely discounted.

So, here is the conversation when she calls me.
Buyer: “How much are you selling your PS3 for?”
Me: “It’s listed on the ad I placed.”
Buyer: “I know, but I don’t have that in front of me.”
Me: “Then where did you get my number from?”
Buyer “Um…..”
Me: “It’s $250″
Buyer: “I though you were only asking for $230″
Me: “Then why did you ask?”
Buyer: “Um….”
Me: “Do you want to buy it for $230, or not?”
Buyer: “Yes, I want it. Can we meet in an hour at X place?”
Me: “Yes, see you there.”

I then arrive, and we meet. I show her the Playstation, and she puts her hands in her pockets looking for money.

Buyer: “Um… I was wondering if you’d take $215 for it.”
Me: “No. We already agreed to a price. You can’t change it now.”
Buyer: “But I was just wondering if you would take less.”
Me: “No. We already agreed to $230.”
Buyer: “But I only have $215.”
Me: “We already agreed on the price, and you’re banking on me just caving and dropping the price because I already drove out here. I’m leaving.”
Buyer: “Oh wait, I think I have an extra $15 dollars.”

ARGH!!!!

The importance of having a web presence

Antony — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:27:40 +0000

I have a neighbour who emailed me the other day. His email signature said “John Smith – JSmith Insurance. 801-123-1234.” I was curious, so I googled his name. Nothing came up. I googled his name and business. Nothing. No matter what I typed, I couldn’t get any information on Google about him. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Designing and putting up a basic website wouldn’t take more than about an hour. Sure, designing custom graphics or animations might take more time, but to design something basic with business and contact info would be simple, and would probably greatly increase his number of potential clients. So, honestly, if 1 hour of my time would help his business, why don’t people do it? I’m not really sure why actually. Maybe he doesn’t realize just how easy it is. Or, maybe he doesn’t see the value a website might offer. Maybe he’s in the yellow pages . Who knows, I haven’t opened a yellow pages in probably 10 years.

Sure, I actually work in the tech field, so I’ve coded lots of websites, including multiple revisions of my own, along with my brother’s, and father’s, but I’m not what you’d call a real web designer. I just know how to hack some code together. I’ve never really studied HTML, PHP or other web languages, I usually just learn how to do what I want to do on the fly. It’s different when you don’t know how anything works on the web, or when you don’t have either a techy friend, or the money to pay someone to do it. I get that your average Joe Schmoe wouldn’t make the effort, but when you have an actual business that your family’s income depends on, having a website should not be optional.

(yet another) new phone.

Antony — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:16:39 +0000

HP wanted to compete with Apple and Google. Rather than just make hardware and license Windows, they wanted to own the complete product, both hardware and software. Rather than create this all from scratch, they decided to buy Palm for $1.2B. They of course then used this technology to create the HP Touchpad, and we all know what happened there…… Because things didn’t go as planned, they decided to stop making webOS hardware, and focus on just the software (Palm’s webOS). webOS’s future is now uncertain. HP has mentioned either licensing it or selling it, but with Android being free, and doing really well, they’ve probably struggled.
Of course, when HP manufactured their own phones, they required that all employees with a company phone have an HP phone. This makes sense. They’re not going to buy their own employees a competitors device. But, just in the last week, HP decided that since they were no longer making their own devices, they’d approve non HP phones. That means I now have a Samsung Galaxy S2, and it’s amazing!

I love it. Being a lover of Linux, open source, and most things Google, this is the perfect device. I was a longtime Android fan before joining HP, and it was something I missed over the last 18 months.. Sure, with Android there are so many devices coming out that soon this won’t be super high end, but right now it’s pretty much the best Android device available. It has a great screen (4.3″ 800×480), 1GB of RAM, and probably the best SoC available (similar overall to the A5. Better CPU, worse GPU). It uses a 1.2 Ghz dual core ARM A9 CPU with a 4 core ARM Mali GPU.

Sure, the new Galaxy Nexus will probably be a little nicer phone overall when it comes out next month, but mostly just because of the software and screen. The SoC (TI OMAP 4460) in the Galaxy Nexus is actually inferior to the Samsung Exynos 4210. I’m fairly certain that Google picked the TI OMAP as the Android 4.0 lead hardware because it would be fairer for other device manufacturers (especially their newly acquired Motorola Mobility). TI doesn’t make their own phones, so all their OMAP chips ship to other companies like Motorola and Nokia. Samsung will sell their chips to other companies, but the bulk of their chips go in their own devices.
Regardless of what may or may not come out in the future, I couldn’t be happier. My work approved and paid for the exact device I would have chosen for myself anyway! The only downside is that I had to switch from Verizon to AT&T to get it

It’s crazy, but in just the last two years this is my 7th smartphone (all company bought!).

At my last company I had an HTG G1. We then switched to Verizon and I got the original Droid. Then when I switched jobs to HP and got an HP windows mobile phone. Then, HP bought Palm, so I got a Palm Pre plus. Then They upgraded me to the Palm Pre 2. Then I requested to switch from Verizon to AT&T (so that I could use my phone in India), so I got an identical Palm Pre 2 for AT&T. And now finally, I upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S2!
All’s Well That Ends Well