Tensai no Monogatari

Its funny because its true...

Except that I don't drink coffee, and I don't spend nearly that much time on facebook, none might be more accurate. But still, you get the point...

I got a text message from Verizon the other day. Apparently Erin and I are again up for the truly wonderful New every Two "deal". Its hard to say weather or not I'm happy about this. First, If you've ever really looked at the New every Two thing, only one of the phones on your plan is eligible for the upgrade. The other phone(s) must pay full price for any changes. Second, Verizon phones are kind of crappy. Verizon more than that any other cell phone company has gone above and beyond the call of duty in trying to force customers to use their network and services for anything and everything you might ever want to do with a cell phone.

One of the best examples I can think of... pictures. Suppose you use the stunning 1.3-2.0 MegaPixel camera built into your cell phone and capture a few photos you'd like to preserve for posterity. You might think to yourself, "I'll just use the bluetooth built into my phone to transfer it to my latptop which also has bluetootoh." FAIL! Verizon locks the bluetooth file transfer capabilities on nearly all of their cell phone to prevent that exact option. So, being the brilliant problem-solver that you are you think, "I'll use the 802.11 on my smart phone and just copy it directly to a computer on my home network." FAIL AGAIN! Verizon disables or pulls out the 802.11 features on all but the absolute most expensive phones they offer. With these options gone, you're forced to use PIX messaging, at a cost of $0.50 per message, just to open up your own photos on a computer from which you can print them or pay even more to develop them.

Pictures aren't the only example. Verizon does this with 3rd party applications (try installing a game that doesn't come from Get-It-Now), ringtones, etc. It gets really frustrating when you know your phone has the hardware capabilities to do everything you want, but the carrier has disabled all that functionality in the hopes that you'll give them an extra $2.

The sad thing is, the next largest carrier, ATT, does this too. Not quite to the same extent, but similar practices are going on.

Mostly because I like to be in control of the hardware I own, I've decided I'd like my next phone to be a smartphone. A true smartphone (the iPhone is only 80% smartphone in my humble opinion) has as much in common with a PC as it does with standard cell phones. You can install apps, remove apps, write your own apps, and configure/install hardware. I would like to be able to transfer files via SD Cards, 802.11, Bluetooth, or 3G cell. Crazy I know, but the hardware is already there, why not use it? I would also like to be able to RD or SSH into computers on the home network. Also crazy, but I did it with my pocket pc 3 1/2 years ago, so why not on a comparable cell phone, which by definition has better networking capabilities?

Meet Google's Android OS on the HTC Dream phone.

There is information all over the internet about this phone and the linux based OS that google is developing. Based on the hardware specs and the descriptions of android that I can find, this phone will have it all. The only questions remaining are which carriers will offer it, and will they lock up any of its capabilities? Only time will tell. But until it does, Verizon will just have to sit tight. If they don't have this phone, or something very similar by the time our contract expires, we may just go looking for someone who does.

It was strange moving here in January. We left blizzard conditions one day and arrived in Austin with temperatures in the mid-high 60's. There were a few days in February when the temperature dropped into the 40's early in the morning, but for the most part spring came and went again by early March. Its pretty much been summer since then. By the end of May (just when the last of the snow is disappearing in Wyoming) the afternoon temperatures were reaching 90s pretty regularly. And now, after 40 or 50 (or more) days with 100+ degree temperatures we (not to mention our air-conditioner) are ready for a break.

As luck would have it, the weather agrees with us. Its supposed to be pretty rainy for the next few days, which should cool things down nicely. And after that, the forecast calls for highs in the mid 90s. Isn't that great!? The temperature is coming down, and we all know what that means! Fall Soccer!

Erin and I are signed up, registered, and waiting. Our first game is on September 6th and we can't wait. More accurately, I can't wait. I'm sure Erin would rather wait for Austin to freeze over before starting another season, and while a 10 degree drop in highs doesn't constitute freezing over, she's agreed to join me anyway. That's why I love her! This fall we've moved up to division 3, as a result of our first place finish in the spring season. My friend Jeremy from Laramie will be joining the team and we're looking forward to months of fun and excitement.

Also, I probably never mentioned this before but the team name is the Red Devils. I think its kind of funny that my high school, who's sports teams also go by the "Red Devils" never had a soccer team while I was there. But now I play on the team anyway! That'll show them, mwa ha ha ha... or something.

PS: Two bonus points to mom for finding the name of the canyon.

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So, a lot of people use a lot of pictures in their blogs. I occasionally use one or two, but hardly enough to warrant any cool effects. Erin however, being the beginning photographist that she is posts many more pictures than I do. However, I believe that she would probably post many more pictures if it were easier to do. At the moment, the system requires you to manually resize them, upload them, and include them in your post.

At this very moment I am testing a system which will automatically resize the image, create links to the full size image, and then add some cool effects. Let's see how it goes...

Success! What do you think?

PS: Bonus points for anyone who can name the canyon in the picture.

If you're reading this, it means that I am a genius. Or, more likely, it means that I've learned a lot more about linux recently. erin.denson.cc, paul.denson.cc, and www.denson.cc are all running on the new and improved server. By new and improved I mean of course, that it is old and MUCH slower than the previous server. It does however run on only 30 watts of power! That includes the hard drive and one single solitary fan on the motherboard.

The old server was useful because it had an onboard IDE raid controller. However, I really wasn't using that functionality, and the fact that the machine drew 200+ watts all the time made it a bit expensive to run 24/7.

This new server is actually the original carpc. It is running on an old EPIA 800 (800MHz soldered CPU), with 256MB RAM, and a 250GB HDD. The operating system is Fedora 9 booted into runlevel 3. Pretty nice eh?

Don't expect me to ever host a video streaming service on this puppy, but for a few personal blogs and a picture gallery or two (I really am getting to those) it will do nicely.

PS: Just in case anyone was wondering about the title, the term milli is used to represent 1/1000th of something. For example, 1 milliwatt = 1/1000th of a watt. In other words 1000 milliwatts = 1 watt. Conversely, the term kilo represents 1000 of something. For example 1000 watts = 1 kilowatt. The term millibit is recurring joke at work, because a single bit is the smallest logical representation of digital data. You can have kilobits or even megabits, but you can never have a millibit. If anyone ever found a way to store data as millibits... wow, think of the possibilities...