JOkazaki.com » JOkazaki

Canon PowerShot G12 – Test Shots

JOkazaki — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:22:17 +0000

Purchased a Canon PowerShot G12 about a week ago, messing around with some test shots.

2700 : Radio – Is Now Free Of The Firewall!

JOkazaki — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:53:13 +0000

I’ve obtained another IP from our hosting provider to run the stream over port 80! Now that we’ve provided the access, it’s on you as to where and how you listen! 2700 – Radio is now free of the firewall! Listen Now!!!

Comcast to Verizon FIOS

JOkazaki — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:46:55 +0000

Here we are one year later and I’m out of my Comcast promotion. I had their preferred internet package and preferred digital cable package with HD DVR for $94/month. (Including all taxes and fees.) I realize that was a steal considering what I’ve seen advertised and what I’ve had in the past. Before I moved to Arlington, VA I was paying roughly $130 for the same thing in Montgomery County, MD. The best Comcast would do now is $114, still not too bad but I started looking around at my options again.

Comcast has overall been VERY reliable here in Crystal City (Arlington, VA). However, here’s my gripe! Arlington, VA is on a old legacy equipment manufactured by Scientific Atlantic which is now owned by Cisco. Comcast for the most part, has left their SA/Cisco markets behind in new services. No XFINITY iPhone Remote App and our HD channel lineup is VERY LIMITING compared to neighboring counties! While Comcast has transitioned Motorola areas to digital only services, doing away with expanded basic analog channels to make way for more bandwidth to provide additional HD and DOCSIS 3.0 internet tiers, SA/Cisco markets have not seen any of this.

Now for Verizon….

I’ve had an absolute HORRIBLE experience with anything to do with Verizon in the past, from DSL, to Wireless, and even FIOS. I had Verizon FIOS over 2yrs ago at my old apartment, my building was an early FIOS deployment for an apartment complex in Montgomery County. Verizon only offered internet service and phone, no TV. Verizon used existing copper telephone lines to provide a vDSL service. They had all the ONTs and battery backup equipment in the basement that terminated to copper. I’ll just leave it at that and spare you the details… I had such a horrible experience I ended up taking a hammer to the vDSL modem and mocca enabled FIOS gateway. (I got pictures somewhere…)

Even with all that, I’ve decided to give FIOS another shot. I went through the order process online, so hopefully they stick to their 24 month promotional pricing structure. At the lowest my new plan is $96/month and goes up to $120/month from month 7 to 24. Their claim is roughly 250 HD channels and I’ll be getting two HD receivers. Internet will be a symmetrical 25Mbps down/up. Overall I’ll be getting more for the money. I don’t agree with Verizon still blocking port 80 on residential accounts but that’s something I can live with.

For those interested, check out this post over at ARLnow.com regarding Comcast and Verizon in Arlington.

Verizon FIOS install date is this coming Wednesday, so we’ll see how that goes…

Apple iPhone4 No Match for Moving Cars and Pavement, Huge Thank You to Apple!

JOkazaki — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:47:14 +0000

Earlier today I was headed home from my parents, to be dropped off at the nearest Metro train station. As we pull out onto the main road from the neighborhood, we hear a thump. Turned out to be my Dads fairly new iPhone 4, which he left on the roof! By the time we figured out what it was and were able to turn back around, the phone / case was in a few pieces spread across a lane that had probably been ran over a few times, not sure. The Otterbox Defender case and iPhone 4 was no match for moving cars and pavement!

Surprisingly the phone ‘somewhat’ survived! The rear glass was in shards as you can see in the pics below. The front glass had a few hairline cracks and some chipped areas around the edges. The metal band around the edge of the iPhone 4 was bowed. Although the front glass was not fully damaged, I guess the pressure from being ran over damaged the underlying LCD touch screen, it had a multi-colored football shaped pattern at first and went away over time until nothing was visible at all. I was able to call the phone, while I got no sound from the speaker, it did still vibrate but I could not answer the call due to the damaged LCD. Surprisingly iTunes was able to see the phone and complete a backup in its damaged condition.

None of the local AT&T stores had iPhone 4′s in stock (thankfully). My parents ended up meeting up with me to head over to the nearest Apple retail store, just around the corner from me. I was able to make a Genius bar appointment 2hrs out before they arrived. We ended up heading over to the store early as they were already on their way here when I made the appointment.

Arriving at the store, Apple was very understanding of the situation. With a fairly small Genius bar in this store and no earlier appointments available, Apple accommodated us early to resolve the situation. For the record, I knew Apple has an employee discretion policy for warranties and repairs but I didn’t think they would come through on this one! Boy was I surprised when the guy said we’ll replace your phone free of charge! He was so intrigued over the story and that the phone ‘somewhat’ survived, he must have felt bad for us, as it was a fairly new phone.

Understand Apple may not be able to accommodate everyone in an accidental damage case like this but if you walk in the door with a good calm collected attitude and just be honest, you may be surprised what can happen!

Huge Thank You Apple!

Recoupment of Montgomery County Charge – AT&T

JOkazaki — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:10:12 +0000

UPDATE: I apologize for the lack of update to this post over the past few months. I did still want to update everyone on the outcome, immediately after this post and a tweet on Twitter, I was contacted by the AT&T Social Media Team. If you move to another county or state keep in mind that updating your billing address does not update your ‘primary address of usage’. If you call support, tell them you moved and would like to update your ‘primary address of usage’. In my case doing so lowered by bill considerably! I commend AT&T’s Social Media team for promptly taking care of my issue and reaching out, it’s still unfortunate I had to reach out to them in this manner to get a resolution to something so trivial.

Hopefully someone out there knows what this charge is…? I haven’t lived in Montgomery County MD for eight months now and AT&T is still charging me this recoupment charge for Montgomery County and the MD state telecom tax. I’m neither in Montgomery County or the state of MD anymore, what gives!

Just got off the phone with AT&T. After calling into business premium care, I was supposedly transferred to ‘relocation services’. A very rude women answered ‘hello, is anyone there…?’. Before I could even finish what my issue was, she rudely interrupted, ‘well… let me explain a few things to you…’. She went on to explain that because I’m in the same region these fees would remain the same. Now, I don’t know about you but I’m calling BS on that! Just maybe if she was a little more polite, she may have been a bit more believable but I’m still calling BS on these fees. Would they really be the same, even moving to a different state and county, come on now?!?! If that’s the case, these fees / charges really are bogus!

I’m curious to know whether Arlington, VA account holders are getting a recoupment charge of $3.50 per line and a state tax of $0.91.

Sprint 4G OverDrive = FAIL!!!

JOkazaki — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:48:25 +0000

It’s been a long eight months with the Sprint OverDrive 4G mobile hotspot. I have finally decided to downgrade to a plain old MiFi 3G mobile hotspot for the time being until Sprint and Sierra Wireless get their act together! Neither company wants to admit there’s anything wrong with this product but that’s not what users are experiencing. I’ve been patient enough, trying to give them time to release another firmware update but my patience has ran out! I’ve been through TWO replacement OverDrive’s from Sprint with nothing but issues with both replacements. My original OverDrive decided to brick itself during bootup.

Recently I’ve tried to contact Sprint and Sierra Wireless, who both are wanting to point the finger at the other guy! I’ve tried referring every tech I’ve contacted to this thread on Sprints support forum to no avail. Even with the June firmware update, there’s still numerous issues being reported on EVDO Forums with the OverDrive as well.

The last firmware update was June 9th 2010, prior to that update in June Sierra Wireless was pretty good with firmware updates and keeping their early adopter user community informed. Not sure if they are re-focusing on newer products or what but this is crazy! I basically have a product which is unusable at this point!

The thread I linked to on the Sprint support forum outlines my current issue exactly to the T, even to the comments about to lack of customer support from either company! Go figure!

I can’t wait until my eBay purchased used 3G MiFi gets here! I had hopes for the Sprint 4G OverDrive but I’ve had one issue to many!

At this point in time, if you are looking at the Sprint / Sierra Wireless 4G OverDrive, don’t even both with such an unreliable product!

DIYWebserver Revamp – Just The Beginning

JOkazaki — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:44:34 +0000

Under some unfortunate circumstances it looks like we have lost DIYWebserver.com to domain squatters! On a more positive note, DIYWebserver is now totally under my ownership and being revamped and branded into http://DIYWS.net.

This is a BIG step forward for the Do-It-Yourself Web Server community. I have been in the process of getting all the content moved over into a content management system. DIYWebserver used to be a mostly HTML with a little Java script has now been transformed into a rich user experience with better navigation and more community integrated features. It’s been a long time coming and a very tiring process getting content updated but once complete I hope to get things rolling again and bring back the community aspect of the site. Which should be better than ever before!

I will try to keep updates for DIYWebserver cross-pollinated between this site (my personal blog), @DIYWS on Twitter, and on the DIYWS Forums.

If you are a previous member of the DIYWebserver community, feel free to post a comment here or head on over to the DIYWS Forums and say hi!

Mid-Year 2010 New Years Resolutions Update

JOkazaki — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:36:12 +0000

So, it’s more than half way through 2010, how are you doing with your new years resolutions? Here my mid-year status.

1. ~~Find a cheap apartment walkable to Metro.~~ (DONE, I’ve moved)
2. Further my education, IT certifications. (NO: Haven’t progressed as far as I would like.)
3. Take More Pictures around our great city! (Need to lean my 50D) (NO: Been to busy with other things.)
4. Drink more water! (NO: Not as much as I would like)
5. Put a 3 day a week exercise plan together. (NO: Yeah sure… That was gonna happen…. )
6. Check out ‘hole in the wall’ and ‘under the radar’ restaurants in our great city of DC. (DONE: Been exploring a little.)

Twitter Digest Posts & Blog Maintenance

JOkazaki — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:23:32 +0000

After finally getting around to upgrading my WordPress installation to 3.0 this evening, I decided to clean house. I have dumped my past two years worth of Twitter digest posts. Hate to do it for archival purposes but it was interesting going back two years seeing what I was up to. (For better or for worse…)

As for the blog, as mentioned above I’ve upgraded WordPress to the current version, updated all plugins, and changed the theme. WordPress did an awesome job on the default theme this time around, love the easy customization features. (Big win in my book!) Doesn’t look so generic like the previous default WP theme. Yay!

Hopefully I’ll start to post more often.

Sprint OverDrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot Firmware Update To Version 2.06.06

JOkazaki — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:13:33 +0000

Here’s a snip from the release notes, I’ll post an update as to my experience within the next few days.

—

A new firmware update (version 2.06.06), launching June 9, has significant improvements in store for Overdrive customers. Many of these improvements resolve issues presented by customers. Below is a summary of the improvements.

• Improved device stability, eliminating all known freeze-ups and lock-ups • Wi-Fi enhancements that improve Wi-Fi stability and eliminate Wi-Fi
disconnects and crashes
• Significant improvement in 3G & 4G WAN stability, eliminating most 3G and 4G disconnects
• Some improvement (?10%) in overall battery life and battery life in poor coverage. For more information on how to improve battery life, see the “Overdrive Battery Tips” at http://www.sierrawireless.com/en/sitecore/content/Sierra%20Wireless/Su pport/Downloads/AirCard/Mobile_Hotspots/Overdrive_3G- 4G_Mobile_Hotspot_for_Sprint.aspx
• Faster boot-up time (?20%, or 10-12 seconds faster)
• Improved response time when changing the WAN Mode setting – time savings of approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds; no reboot required (includes switching from 3G to 4G and vice versa)
• ToolTips added to GPS settings screen to help the users understand the GPS settings
• Faster response time after canceling an operation on the Advanced Settings screen (device reset is no longer required; offline time decreased by ?1.5 minutes)
• For Enterprise customers, customization (enable/disable the micro SD card and the TRU-installTM feature) and DataLink support have been added. The Enterprise tool kit to disable the SD card slot and TRU-Install (automatic driver installation) is now available on Sierra Wireless’ Enterprise IT site at www.sierrawireless.com/enterprise. Please note:
? To access this link, you will have to register and log in. ? To use the tool kit, you must have the Overdrive tethered to a laptop.