Category: Web Services

Queue is up to 27 77 82 84, though the first three have already shipped.

We caught the Netflix bug today.

We went from zero to 17 in the queue in just under 10 minutes.

Rawk!

Yep, I get to increment my age today!

You should have Weird Al’s version of Happy Birthday stuck in your head too.

Spooks Series 1 showed up today.  Minirant to follow.

Reuters via Yahoo News (link rot warning):

U.S. television network NBC won Vivendi Universal’s marathon show-business auction on Tuesday with a proposed merger to create a new entertainment industry giant valued at more than $40 billion.

This sets the scene for Godzilla XXI: MSNBCVivendiUniversal vs. Clear Channel.

This scares the crap out of me, what about you?

Ack.  I didn’t know my machine’s IP for a few days.  Blogging should resume tonight or tomorrow.

Ack! Thunder storms suck!

Wi-Fi Networking News relays the news that on September 25th, Intel is footing the bill for Wi-Fi pretty much across the United States:

The list of participants includes AT&T plain and AT&T Wireless, Boingo Wireless, Cometa, iPass, Sprint, STSN (iBahn), Toshiba, Verizon Wireless, and Wayport.

So that’s pretty much every Starbucks, hotel lobby, resturant, and airport in the US that has Wi-Fi connectivity.

Some background: I signed up with T-Mobile a couple of months ago after many unhappy years with Sprint PCS.  I snagged a Nokia 3650 for free after rebates through Amazon.  I pay about $40/mo for service (600 anytime, unlimited nights and weekends) and about $10 for GPRS service, an additional $3 for 500 text messages, plus various taxes.

I called T-Mobile’s customer service the other day to enable international roaming ($.99/min in the UK), and while I had the very helpful service rep on the phone, I asked if I could switch my $9.99/mo 10MB GPRS plan to the current $9.99/mo unlimited plan.  It took her a few minutes of computer wrangling, but she switched it over without a problem.

I also asked her how much GPRS roaming in the UK would be.  She put me on hold for a minute or two, and came back with the wonderful information that GPRS roaming costs $0.99/MB in the UK.

That’s actually cheaper than some GPRS plans for people that live in the UK.

The difference that a world phone makes is amazing.  It can go almost anywhere.  T-Mobile’s GPRS coverage is spotty in the midwest and away from major urban/suburban areas, but it works everywhere that I’ve been around the US and all over Europe.  Try that with your CDMA phone.

I’m back after a network outage at home.  I have a few things to post, but they will probably wait until tomorrow.

Wi-Fi Networking News:

A wireless technology that works in the same band as 2.4 GHz, is proprietary (apparently) to one maker, offers lower speeds than Bluetooth, and isn’t interoperable with anything?

Canon really does have something up their sleeve, a 6.3 megapixel Digital Rebel, estimated to come in at an $899 street price, $999 with an 18-55mm (28-90mm in 35mm terms) lens.

El Reg:

AMD will shortly ship a new low-end processor, codenamed ‘Appalbred’, the successor to the Duron.

CNet:

In preparation for its split into two separate companies, Palm has come up with a name for its new, hardware-only self: PalmOne.

It looks a lot more like pa1mOne from here.  And Russ had me thinking that they might have actually come up with something good…

I think it’s awesome that Scoble and other Microsoft employees are volunteering to help out at call centers in order to help customers get patched and protected from MSBlast.

Talk about above and beyond.  Rock on.

I can’t classify this as an official rumor, and I can reveal my source, but there are rumblings out there that Canon is going to announce internally that they are aiming for a Digital Rebel, a consumer-level (or prosumer) digital SLR camera targeting the sub-$1000 price range.

If this is true, it could rock the camera industry.  I don’t know any more, but if I find anything out, you know that I’ll post it.  No, my information didn’t come from a website somewhere, but a person.  I just hope that they’re right.

Infoworld:

Microsoft Corp. has pulled the WindowsUpdate.com Internet address in an effort to thwart an attack on its systems by computers infected with the Blaster worm, the company said Friday.

MS: We’ll show that worm that we can beat it.  Let’s take our site down.

Worm: Mission accomplished.

My colo box has been down for most of the afternoon.

It’s definately not my box, as www.coloco.com has been unreachable most of the afternoon.

I might swing by in the morning to see what’s up if it’s not fixed by then.

Mail is bouncing, but at least I don’t have any production stuff on that box yet.

Hopefully it’s a network outage and not a power outage, as I’d rather not loose my 70 or so days of uptime.

PocketFeed got a nice writeup at Pocket PC Thoughts.