Wireless Internet Sticks

If you are looking at getting the Rogers RocketStick or Bell/Telus versions of the same thing(Wireless Internet) here is some helpfull stuff I have found...

1. Rogers is by far fastest. I tested Bell and Telus sticks(latest) against Rogers HSPA(7.1mb) from the same computer in the same house using several web based speed testers. Rogers was consistently 10+ times faster then Bell and at least 8 times faster than Telus. Rogers has since gotten even faster with HSPA+(21mb)

2. DON'T GET YOUR STICK FROM ROGERS! If you go to Futureshop right now you can get a free netbook($299) if you sign up with the 2 year plan.

3. Make sure you get the HSPA+ stick even if service is not available in your area yet. It s a better quality stick. Model MF668... I think the old one is MF638.

4.If you don't watch video on the web you probably can get away with 500mb plan. You can always upgrade later without problem but you are penalized if you downgrade. You can get a real idea of your usage in first 2 months when downloads are "free"... Be careful, that is not quite true... They don't tell you that they will charge you if you go over 5gb(so I heard).

I got my HSPA+ stick from Rogers on Sunday only to find the deal at Futureshop on Tuesday. Deal only on for short time so if your interested go now. This might get more convoluted when I take the stick I bought on Sunday back to rogers today. Update you if there are any issues.

Avening Cleanup 2010

After picking up 2 full bags of garbage at Glencarin I went to Avening park on Thursday  to check it out and found it to be very nice and exceptionally well maintained. I could see that at least a few people take care of it already but it looked like a spring cleaning had not been done so I decided to do a cleanup. This park is much larger than Glencairn with a lot more public area. It even has a covered pick nick area.

In a few hours I covered most common areas of the park. What a difference between this and Glencairn park. There was only one tire found throughout the park and NONE in the water. The only "wierd" thing was the truck seat(pic below) but it looked like it was used at one time. Virtually no cigarette butts or beer caps. Most garbage is cans, bottles, plastic, paper and cloth. Not the funky stuff encountered at Glencairn. However, since this is the first time cleaning Avening it is possible I may find funky stuff in future visits.

In total there was approximately 5 bags of garbage, one tire, one plastic bucket, one rust metal piece, and one truck seat. I consider that extremely clean for a first cleaning. Especially considering the size of the park. Glencairn has more garbage than this every month. What a surprising pleasure Avening park was.
 
If you are passing through Avening I recommend you check out this park(just north of bridge on west side). Avening is located on Airport Road 2-3k south of CR#9.    
Below are pics of the park and garbage collected at Avening...

Sign with park name out front

This was all the garbage I picked up. Relatively nothing.

Here is the truck seat found in the woods

Dirt road into the park

Covered pick-nick area and my bike ;)

Park area

River looking north

River looking south

Park area

Nice large tree just starting to bud.

More park

There is much more park here than the pics show.The only way to know is to check it out yourself.

Glencairn spring cleaning 2010

Well I am back from Florida and one of the first things I did was get my motorcycle out and went and cleaned Glencairn park. After keeping it clean last year until I left for Florida(see other "cleanup" posts) it was actually quite easy to clean it up this spring. There were very few large items this year with most stuff smaller than a pop can(lot's of those). As you can see by the pics below there were only a few bags or garbage this spring. However there are now 2 new tires in the river(not in pics) plus another one cleared from the woods. I will have to remove them later in the year when water warms up. There does not appear to be anything else in the water at this time. Not sure why everyone throws tires in the water. It would be much easier on me if they just threw them in the woods. On top of everything you can dispose of tires for free now. Anyway, right now it is hard to find a cigarette butt in the park again... clean again... except the 2 tires  ;)
I am going to look at cleaning Avening and/or EdenVale parks in next few weeks. Anyway here are picks of the garbage and Glencairn park after cleanup. This only took 2-3 hours. You could probably clean your local park in the same amount of time... Give it a try, you might be surprised by how good YOU will feel. Screw every one else... THINK OF YOURSELF ;)

Florida - Winter 2009-2010

In a nutshell... IT SUCKED!!!... But still better than weather up north ;)

One of the coldest winters ever. Numerous broken records related to cold. When it was warm it rained and it was windy the entire winter. March was the 2nd coldest on record at Saint Pete, broke the previous longest cold spell(temps do not reach 60F) of 7 days by a long shot reaching 13 consecutive days this winter, numerous individual day records, January and February were also among coldest on record. There was a lot of crop damage and many plants and animals died due to cold. I personally saw numerous dead fish and plants in my travels. Even the manatee stayed in their winter areas much longer than usual.

To top it off it was actually WARMER at the winter games in B.C. than Saint Petersburg Florida.

Of course in the last 2 weeks the weather has been fantastic. Sunny and warm(75-85F) but not too hot. Water has warmed up to at least tolerable temps(70F+). Usually it gets very hot here(90+) around this time but this year it is much more pleasant. To bad I am going home on Sunday.

Business has really suffered here this year as there has been less vacationers. As if they needed this with the problems they already have. Virtually all resorts/hotels had vacancies all year with a very few filling up during spring break. At least the last few weeks have picked up and maybe there will be enough late comers for them to salvage at least something. I expect there may be a lot of businesses failing this summer into next winter.

House prices are back down to a reasonable value and there are some really good buys. I have heard of discounts of 40%++ off already discounted prices on foreclosures. There are still some that price their houses high but there are many more that are willing to take anything they can get. Common to see 50% off "boom time" asking price. In the complex I am staying houses were selling for $450-550k like hot cakes during the boom now they are listed for $200-300k and not selling. A huge number of vacant properties.

On the positive side...We never had snow ;)... STILL MUCH BETTER THAN -40 :) Canadian dollar makes it worth while coming down for even short trips. If you have been thinking of coming here come on down! They need the business and you can get cheap accomodations(look in CraigsList).

Hopefully next year will be more accomodating... The things I suffer with ;)

Outdated Information

Lately I have been doing a fair bit of research on the web and I really notice that a lot of content is old and outdated. Particularly when it comes to coding. What was the cool solution 2 years ago is integrated into IDE's and done in a couple of clicks today. You could spend hours implementing this "cool" function only to find another newer article telling you it is really simple to do now with a few mouse clicks.
As time goes on I think the date of creation and last updated date are becoming much more important in search results. So, now I am starting to perform a lot of advanced searches with date filters set. You might want to try it to reduce the crap in search results. For that matter using any other filter also gives you a little better results.  

MagicJack is worth the money

I bought a MagicJack in 2009-09 and it has definitely been worth the value. In case you don't know what a MagicJack is here is a simple explanation. This little device allows you to use your computer with Internet to make phone calls anywhere in Canada/USA. Plus it gives all types of features like call display, conference calls, 3 way calling and more... OK, this is starting to sound like a sales pitch... Lets break it down...
Benefits:

1. All phone calls within Canada/USA for $20 PER YEAR!!! That should be enough. It cost more per month for long distance and then there is the basic line charges and additions like call waiting and call answer. If you can get away with $50 per month that is cheap... $50x12=$600 per year!
2. Call quality is usually as good as land lines but periodically works more like a cell phone(may  not be perfect).
3. Simple to install. If you can connect a phone and use a computer you can do it.
4. You can register the phone number in most cities within USA(I registered mine in St.Pete, Florida.
5. Comes with lots of accessories for free. Things like call waiting, forwarding, display, answer, 3way, even your own hosted conference calls are free.
6. You can send a MagicJack to someone in another country and they can use it like a local area phone... Example: I, a Canadian living in Ontario, registered my MagicJack phone number(727-827-8295) in St.Pete, Florida. Now, no matter where the MajicJack is physically located it acts as if it is in St.Pete. Anyone that calls my MagicJack is billed as if they called me in St.Pete(it may be in Canada physically). I could send my MagicJack to Japan and it still works like it is in St.Pete.
7. Can send you an email when any voice message is left. Email will include the actual voice mail.   
8. You can use a regular phone or computer headset.
9. Disconnect your current service and you can plug MagicJack into any phone jack and all phones in your house will work.

Disadvantages:

1. If you are looking for 100% quality on every call this unit is not for you. I would think of it more of a cell phone. Once in a while call quality is less than perfect. Try the call again.
2. When I registered I could not register a Canadian phone number. Only USA cities are allowed.
3. Once in a while there seems to be an echo. 
4. While calling out seems to work well sometimes people calling in have problems.
5. Requires high-speed Internet and could get costly if you pay for your downloads.
6. A certain degree of nagging to buy other items when registering.
7. 911 services are only available in USA.

Summary:
If you already have high-speed Internet then this unit is definitely worth it. You will probably save the money it cost in the first month. Do not disconnect your current phone service until you have fully tested the MajicJack. Excellent as a second line(ensures you have 911 services(not an issue in USA)).

Installation Tips:
Just plug the phone into the unit then plug the unit into your computer. It will automatically configure for you but be careful when reading the prompts. There are constant little things trying to get you to buy additional services. This was one of my dislikes.

Do NOT save passwords if using Google Chrome

If you are using Google Chrome as your personal browser(which I have recommended and am questioning now) DO NOT ALLOW GOOGLE CHROME TO SAVE ANY PASSWORDS!!! Why you ask? Simple. In their infinite wisdom Google decided that anyone that has access to the device can look up ALL the passwords you have saved in it.
This is CRAZY!!!!! Wasn't anyone thinking of security....AGAIN! I found this by fluke but if you  choose "Options" from menu, then choose the "Personal Stuff" tab, there is a button called "Show saved passwords" that like it says shows a list of the sites, the userid AND password you entered. Talk about giving away the farm. Why would you ever allow ANYONE to see the password!!! Defeats the whole idea of security.
Now you know why I m quickly taking back my recommendation of Google Chrome. These bimbo's don't seem to understand the first thing about security. Anyone I know with a couple of years experience could see all types of problems allowing this... And they want to replace Microsoft??? Things are not looking good folks ;(