Greetings from Dania Beach. Or Hollywood. Somewhere around there. 
I have been in Boca Raton (north of Miami) at the Community Associations Institute conference. My first one… And very interesting. Very good sessions, lots of networking… And a great excuse to finally see the southern parts of Florida.
I am about to head to Fort Lauderdale airport to head home. Off to New Brunswick on Friday… A jet setter I am.
As of this week the Canadian area code numbering authority has ruled that Saskatchewan is in jeopardy (PDF) and regular reviews of available numbers will be held. Within a couple of years, that means we’ll have a second area code in Saskatchewan, likely 474, in addition to the existing area code 306.
Whether we’ll do a split (where northern Saskatchewan gets one area code and southern gets another, for example) or an overlay (where everybody keeps their existing numbers but new phone numbers will all be in area code 474) is to be determined. An overlay is far simpler to implement (no one’s phone number changes), but it makes figuring out which numbers are local or long distance a little more complicated. (For example, someone in Regina on 306-949 might find that 306-244 is long distance but 474-555 is not.)
This issue was silent for years while other provinces needed new area codes. I think the sudden change in thinking is good evidence of the growth of the population of Saskatchewan. More people need more phone numbers.
I’m one of these stubborn people that still buys all my music on compact discs. I want a nice, archival original to use if I want. The only downside to this tenacity is that I have to go to a store to buy them, or have to buy them by mail. Since I have plenty of music to listen to already, the instant gratification of a digital download isn’t all that necessary.
Years ago I converted all of my CDs to MP3 files so that I could play them on my iPod (and later iPad). As you likely know, MP3s are lossily compressed. They are of lower quality than the original. Sometimes the difference in quality is not particularly noticeable, but at times it is. (As my brother-in-law likes to say, if you have a high noise floor – i.e. you’re in a noisy environment – the lossiness of MP3s is not likely to bother you.)
As hard disks have gotten bigger, and I’ve been able to have more space on my server, the idea of ripping my CDs again into a lossless format grew on me. FLAC is a common, open source alternative – FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Compression. It does exactly what it says it does; it stores audio files in a format that is significantly smaller than the original (about 1/3 the size of a WAV file for most music), but sounds identical. In fact, if you rip a table of contents for your CDs, you can use that plus the FLAC files to burn a precise copy of the CD.
I figured these rips would be great for archival purposes (in case CDs got damaged or lost), but I discovered something fun recently. As part of our A/V system upgrade, I purchased a Yamaha RX-A1000 audio/video receiver. As one of its nice features, it has a network port so you can hook it up to your wired network.
Install some UPnP file serving software (ushare for Linux is free and works well; I’ve installed it right on my server) and this server can play the MP3s off my server. Not only that… it plays FLAC too! (I also tried it with OGG Vorbis – an open source alternative to MP3s – and they work too.) Apparently not many network streaming devices support OGG Vorbis and FLAC, but this Yamaha receiver does.
So… every CD I own is on the server and I can play it on the receiver with just a few button presses. Very cool and very convenient.
The grass certainly isn’t riz.
The yard is still full of snow despite the efforts of the calendar publishers to convince me of spring’s arrival.
The temperatures are still cool but when the sun shines, snow does melt, if slowly. I suppose that it’s a good sign.
Spring will inevitably come…
We’re starting to plan our Nova Scotia trip for June. I’ll be away twice before then, most likely (Florida and New Brunswick appear on the itinerary).
A long day… Thanks to the university break week, a simple trip to San Diego is taking 15 hours. In Denver now…
Good news: by gate B82 is the New Belgium Hub brew pub. Fat Tire on tap… Yum!
I’m a loyal user of the local cable TV company for my Internet and cable television needs. (Phone too, actually.) The service I get is good and the options reasonable, and I’m not a big fan of satellite dishes on the roof. I’ll certainly endure one if I have to (like at the cottage) but in the city I’m happy to let them pipe a piece of cable straight into my house.
Digital/personal video recording boxes have become a godsend. They have changed the way I watch TV. However, I have a busy schedule and we often get behind our regular TV watching. We used to use VCRs to record all our programming (don’t laugh, but we had three – two would record stuff and we’d watch on the third). Truthfully if not for HDTV they would still work reasonably well – although we tended to tape stuff on EP so that we could cram a bunch of stuff on a tape. Still, we had to remember to change the tapes when they were full.
A PVR box fixes that. Record stuff at will (even two at once on our boxes). Watch at will, even if you’re recording already or haven’t finished recording the event. Rewind and pause live television. You’ve all seen the commercials. It’s super convenient. The only real disadvantage is that the content is tied to the box on which you recorded it. (Soon my cable company will have multi-room PVRs which will help, but I still won’t easily be able to take what I recorded somewhere outside the building. Still, it’s very livable.)
The hard disks in these boxes are surprisingly small (160 GB) and now that we’re recording so much television in HD format, the disks fill up fast. No matter – the boxes have an eSATA port for an external drive.
Well, problem. The cable box had a weird issue when an external drive was attached. It would pause for several seconds every few minutes. The recording was complete (although every few pauses there would be a dropout of a few seconds because the box seemed to have lost its buffering). The pauses would not occur in the same places necessarily – you could play back the event and the pauses would be at different locations. They happened on live television too, although less often. It was very annoying. A faster drive in a new enclosure with a new eSATA cord didn’t help.
A few days ago I bought a second box from a friend. The price was good and I thought it would be nice to use in the bedroom. After changing the disk on the main box, I put the old external disk on the used box – and it worked perfectly.
We’ve now swapped the boxes. The living room has the old used box with the first external drive and it’s working perfectly. The original rented box is in the bedroom with no external drive and it’s working perfectly. (It seems to only have an issue when eSATA is in use.)
These are Motorola DCT3416s. I’m guessing there is some issue with the eSATA port on the rented box. Clearly the system works fine on my purchased used box.
The annoyances of technology…
Since we don’t need the extra capacity in the bedroom I think I’ll live with things for now. Once our provider has multiroom PVR boxes available (in a few months I hope) I’ll change hardware then.
Seems I haven’t posted much lately!
It was a busy fall. I taught a couple of courses, I did a business trip to Toronto (and went to Buffalo, New York for a couple of days before the meetings), and survived another Christmas. (Christmas is fun – but it always seems to go by so fast.)
Buffalo was a lot of fun – I’d like to go again. I discovered a couple of good microbrews, a few good restaurants, had actual Buffalo wings at Duff’s in Amherst, NY, and got an AT&T SIM card for my iPad. (I felt lost without my iPad in New York… and there isn’t always WiFi to use.) Secret: Canadians can get AT&T iPad plans by using a Canadian American Express card. Canadian MasterCards don’t work (I didn’t have a VISA card to try but I understand it has the same problem.) (I read on a web forum the other day that Americans can do the same trick to get Rogers iPad or prepaid service here in Canada – by using an American American Express card.)
We got a new home theatre system as our mutual Christmas present. My Yamaha VX-495a receiver is now semi-retired in the bedroom (it still works great, it just doesn’t do high-def video switching) and has been replaced by a new Yamaha RX-A1000 receiver. Attached to it are our existing LG BD390C Blu-Ray player that also does network streaming, and a new Panasonic 46″ 1080P plasma television. The 27″ Sony Trinitron Wega flatscreen CRT is now in the bedroom, still an awesome TV (especially for standard definition content). New speakers complete the system (the old ones are still in use on the old receiver). Very happy!
I’ve been off work since the 24th (aside from starting two more classes last week). Back to work on Monday.
Saskatchewan is but a stone’s throw from South Dakota but until last week, I had never been. It’s just far enough to be a nuisance!
However, I was off work last week and decided I wanted a little escape so I went to Rapid City and to Badlands National Park. The primary purpose was to do some photography.
The drive from Regina takes about 9 1/2 hours, essentially straight south on US 85 (you drive to Weyburn, SK and then south; Saskatchewan Highway 35 turns into US 85 at Fortuna, ND). Almost all of the highway is undivided blacktop, but it’s not insanely busy so it’s not a big issue. There is not a lot of scenery, but you do get to pass close to North Dakota\’s highest point.
Rapid City is a pretty enough city, about half the size of Regina by population. It’s easy to get around and rush hour doesn’t seem to last very long. Interstate 90 passes right through the city which makes getting in and out pretty easy.
I spent a full day at Badlands National Park and I can highly recommend it. (Take lots of water – it is very dry there.) I shot lots of photos and really enjoyed myself.
I also went to Deadwood in the Black Hills. It’s historic and interesting but I found the highway to nearby Spearfish to be much more interesting. (It begs for a manual transmission and a well-performing car!)
I brought back some microbrews, something I always like to do when I head stateside.
Overall – good time. I’ll be back.
… when my lovely new iPhone 4, untainted by carrier locking, arrives in a beautiful FedEx box directly from the Apple factory in Shenzhen, China.
My first legitimately-unlocked iPhone… and I already have a microSIM for it so I’m ready to go.
I will probably be too busy playing with it to post for a few days
Yesterday, SaskTel launched its 3G+ HSPA+ network in Saskatchewan.
This is of minimal significance to a lot of people, but as a person who likes GSM and its 3G successors, it’s music to my ears. You see, until now I’ve had two choices for data connectivity at the cottage: dialup Internet at about 45kbps (not bad for data from a rural location, really), or 2G Rogers coverage. Well, 2.5G because it’s EDGE… but that’s still limited to about 100kbps most of the time . At times (when the fictitious Becky that my brother-and-law and I talk about, across the lake in Regina Beach, is on the phone) I get about 15-20kbps. And the latency is pretty bad.
So today, I signed up for SaskTel’s 3G data service (I already have an unlocked data stick) and I’ll give it a try at the cottage. $25 a month plus service charges (about $33 all in) for a gigabyte of data. Not as attractive as my Rogers flex plan, but not bad. I suspect that a gigabyte should be plenty for most purposes.
iPad plans are apparently coming (they call them “tablet” plans because Apple presumably won’t let them use the word “iPad” yet). I ordered this on their web page… we’ll see what comes of it. Actually, 2.5G EDGE isn’t terrible on the iPad, but for some applications the extra speed of 3G is pretty noticeable. Plus, in a few months the SaskTel network will have a much larger footprint than Rogers’ network. (Right now SaskTel’s is a little smaller than Rogers’, at least in the GSM arena.)
Rogers, if you read this… if you would upgrade all of Saskatchewan to 3G and add a few towers in targeted areas (Waskesiu, Kenosee, Cypress Hills Provincial park… that would be a nice start) you would be a lot more competitive. You’ve had a hardware advantage on SaskTel for a few years now, since you switched to GSM, but now you’ve lost it. With the economy booming year, the last couple of years would have been a great time to be upgrading your network, and I hope you haven’t lost your window of opportunity. Upgrades please!
My iPhone plan is up in a year… if we don’t see some upgrades on Rogers here in that span I might well move it. SaskTel has an interesting plan that includes US roaming at a very reasonable rate…