The Mandelbear's Musings

Somehow I appear to have missed posting last week. We've moved. (Looking at the notes for last Sunday, I'm guessing that the reason I missed posting was sheer exhaustion -- that was a busy day, and I'd done more lifting than is good for me.)

We moved into the new house on Wednesday. The movers, from Two Men And a Truck, were fast and efficient - we were out of the apartment in an hour and a half. Highly recommended.

My new phone, on the other hand, is not highly recommended. It's a great phone, except that because it was factory unlocked it doesn't support HD Voice and, hence, WiFi Calling. That's bad, because the cell signal here is rather spotty. It could be worse, except that I actually have a signal in the house, albeit a weak one at times.

I spent hours on chat with AT&T's tech support, and hours in their store, and a little while in the T-Mobile store, trying to get the damned thing recognized by the network. No dice. Now it won't even work as a WiFi hotspot, which sucks. I'll have to swap it again. I hate phones. I hate phone companies. H8 H8 H8. (Basingstoke.)

We are mostly moved in, except that our beds are in the second pod, which isn't arriving until next week. Oops. So we're still on the sofabed, which is in the living room because we didn't want to try to deal with moving it out of the bedroom. It's not merely heavy, it's huge, and won't fit vertically through a doorway.

The house is going to take some getting used to. The kitchen is lovely and open, but doesn't have as much storage as we expected -- in particular, there's only one rather narrow set of drawers. So that will take some refactoring.

The biggest problem, though, is the cats. Ticia is no longer being aggressive toward Cricket, but she's curious. Cricket, however, is terrified, and just hides. That's going to take some work -- it's not the usual case where one cat is being aggressive, so the usual procedures for reintroducing cats don't really apply.

Other than that, though, I like it here. There are a few other assorted inconveniences, but the place itself is lovely -- calm and quiet.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Tuesday I moved nova, the printers, and the starport (inside) router to the computer desk; moved polaris (the outside router) to the corner of the kitchen where the phone jack lives; and set up (linux desktop) algol and (mac mini) whitewood. Everything works! Much better signal from the routers, though there is still the occasional glitching from starport which I suspect is due to 802-11G/N issues.

Tip: it helps if you turn the printer on before trying to print a test page.

I did quite a lot of re-organizing, which resulted in a usable amount of space around the desk and several other items going to useful places. Decided to use Elfa "easyhang" shelving on the long livingroom wall -- it'll be fairly expensive, but a lot less than the price of even freestanding bookcases.

My copy of Cat Faber's new CD, The King's Lute, arrived in the mail. It's wonderful -- go get one. Cat is an absolutely brilliant songwriter. There are several songs on there that I need to learn.

Wednesday I got a confirmation of my COBRA health plan selections. WTF? I didn't recall making any. Thursday I got a letter dated the 5th saying that they couldn't contact me. WTF? Five phone calls later, on Friday, I determined that they had my area code wrong -- I might conceivably have messed up when I updated my profile, but they had my email address and never sent anything to it. The last person I called, Susan, was extremely helpful and pleasant to talk to. This was Friday morning, and may have been due to my already having decided what to do.

After determining that I had already received more from my FSA than I'd put in so far I dropped it, saving myself at least $860. (There was another $430 payment due, but I had already determined that I wasn't going to continue my COBRA coverage after my coverage from $K kicks in in December.) I also dropped my vision plan.

Friday I also (finally!) followed up on my house, car, and renter's insurance. And saved quite a lot. I should have done that months ago, of course. I don't know where my brain was between June and September. Well, job-hunting and moving and unpacking ate up a lot of it, I'm sure. Anxiety, apathy, and depression probably ate up the rest.

Colleen and I visited the Northshore Senior Center in Bothell -- it was only $50/year for a couple membership. If she can get transportation it'll be a great place for her to hang out, especially the quilting group.

I made several tasty meals, including a great corned beef hash using the potatoes that had been cooked in the slow cooker with the beast. Details, along with the usual links, in the notes.

Much of the afternoon was eaten up by Colleen's phone. Yesterday evening it fell into her recliner and got pinched in the mechanism. It mostly worked, but a sensor was broken that caused it to turn the screen off when you made a call, and not turn it back on. We ordered a new one via insurance (which required a phone call -- the web interface didn't work), then proceeded to the AT&T store to get a GoPhone to tide us over in the interim. And back to the store, when we found out that her contacts hadn't gotten transfered. So I spent most of Earth Day making two trips in my car. Right.

The fact that smartphones and dumb phones use different size SIM cards is stupid and sucky. Also the fact that smartphones aren't available cheaply. *sigh*

When I first realized that the contacts hadn't transfered and that I was going to have to make a second trip, I had a brief screaming meltdown. Apparently I'm closer to the edge than I thought. I guess it's not surprising -- I am under a lot of perfectly understandable stress right now. I just hadn't realized it.

I need to pay more attention to self care, don't I? I always have a lot of trouble with that -- walks and music are about the only things I know of that I can do to relieve stress, and I never make the time for them when I have "important" things to do. :P

Silly old bear!

'One Day on Earth': The Most International Movie Premiere Ever looks pretty amazing; I hope it comes out on DVD sometime soon. FORTUNE Magazine's Top 100 Employers to Work For was interesting, but not as useful as one might hope -- there are only two or three with IT-type jobs in the Seattle area (though, oddly, Google's Seattle-area offices aren't mentioned).

Not a very good day, on the whole, despite a couple of good practice sessions. Worry? Empathy? Yeah, probably empathy. I guess I cut myself off from my emotions for a reason, all those years ago.

The YD's phone is broken. Again. This time one of the pins on the charging connector is broken. The insurance we've been paying for has a $50 deductible, and would take a couple of days to replace it -- you can't just walk into an AT&T store and do a swap. (Cell phone companies are second only to cable companies in customer dissatisfaction.)

So what I am going to do is buy a "go phone", which is a dirt-cheap refurbished phone with a prepaid SIM, and just plop her SIM into it.

The other alternative would be upgrading my phone (her contract still has a month and a half to run), but I don't want to do that until I can get one with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in it, which won't be until next year sometime.

Between the phone hassle, assorted frustrations, and a bad smell something like laundry detergent (apparently coming through the AC vents near my office), I left work a little before 5pm feeling drained, depressed, and discouraged. I still felt down after dinner, so it wasn't just low blood sugar. (Mostly better now.)

I've been enjoying Mimi and Eunice's archives.

Yesterday was a good day. Relaxed, contented, even happy much of the time. A lot better than "ok". It had very little to do with anything I actually did, as far as I can tell, and more to do with bad things not happening, a long walk, and a talk with a friend. I'll take it.

I even figured out, by observation, why my bluetooth headset keeps disconnecting from my phone -- it turns out to be shielding from my hand when I'm holding the headset. It also helps to have the headset on the same side of my body as the phone. It seems to be most comfortable in my left ear, so the best place for the phone is my shirt pocket.

We went to dinner at Arya. The YD, when asked, requested the Elephant Bar, but the two local instances were maxed out and Colleen and I were hungry. Arya worked.

For my Father's Day dinner tonight I asked for something I didn't have to cook or use a credit card for.

When we came home for a bathroom break (and to drop off the YD) before going for a drive, Colleen walked (with the walker) from the car to the back bedroom and back. It's about 75ft each way.

But the best part was the walk. It took me a long while -- half an hour or so -- to work myself up to leaving the last verse and chorus of "The Mary Ellen Carter" on cflute's voicemail, but I was rewarded a little while later with a good, long talk. Win.

A little better at noting emotions today, though I see that I totally failed to note my walk, which included a phone call to cflute, at the time. Not slowing down helps. It also included a second call, to AT&T's technical support, to see what could be done about telling the phone to favor the edge network over 3G, which has crappy coverage.

I was delighted to find out that both pocketnaomi and cflute liked The Owl and the Mountain Goat, my first song of the year. A bit lightweight and far too full of in-jokes for general consumption, but a lot of fun.

A couple of tiny steps.

1. I added a new tag to my to-do list. Along with "o" for "to do" and "*" for "done" (and "~" for abandoned), I've added "&" for "not a to-do item but added after completion". I'm going to try to use it for, um, tiny steps like this, in order to see whether I'm actually doing anything or just marking time.
2. I'm going to try to post the previous day's "done" items under the obvious tag, so you can either hold my feet to the fire, laugh over how little I've accomplished, or whack me with it the next time I post about not being able to do stuff. Or something.
3. Colleen just called and offered to offload the most difficult call, to AT&T about the cell phone bill. Not only am I most grateful for the help, but I think that she probably has the best chance of success: she's the one who was in the hospital running up most of the bill, and she can rightfully claim that her husband couldn't bring himself to call earlier because he's clinically depressed. Whether that carries any weight with the phone company is anybody's guess.
4. I'm about to send email about theStarport's email and hopefully get something going to keep it from being dropped on the floor going forward.

(13:18) Called a friend (left message); took walk; sent email about theStarport's email. Progress?

(15:27) pointed at avoidant personality disorder. Likely part of it, but not all -- as defined in Wikipedia it appears to be basically extreme shyness. Which I have, in spades, but that doesn't seem to explain the other things I procrastinate.

So yesterday evening, rather than do anything actually useful like my sales taxes, I sat down and finished transpose.pl, which automagically transposes lead sheets with chords enclosed inline in [square brackets]. Based on the file extension it either uses "#" and "b", or "\sharp" and "\flat".

Of course, the sales taxes really have to get done this morning, along with paying any bills due at the end of the month (when I'll be out of town). And two phone calls, which still scare the hell out of me, to AT&T about my cell phone service and fiber. The cell phone call should have been made a month ago, and is probably too late now to help with my previous astronomical bill. Maybe even with the current one. My finances suck, and I suck at handling them.

(09:54) Sales taxes done.

Colleen's room at Kaiser has good cell phone reception, thankfully (number on the Starport web page, but no Wi-Fi.

I was thinking seriously about getting her an Amazon Kindle (using the money saved by not needing a second room for Loscon), but it doesn't appear to have a general-purpose web browser (you can download pages and email them...), and they quote a delivery time of 3-4 weeks. Scratch that idea.

A smartphone is really tempting. There are two possibilities there: add data to our current AT&T family plan -- really only an option if I'd be able to switch it from her number to mine after she's out of the hoosegow hospital. Or that G1 I've been lusting after... Still an expensive committment.

Actually, the price on a T-Mobile WiFi router looks really attractive. Except that as asavitzk points out, it's bridging in the wrong direction: VoIP-phone to DSL rather than a cell-to-WiFi bridge. Foo. I've seen the other kind, but neither T-Mobile nor AT&T is selling them.

So far today I have:

1. Bought and installed two Panasonic DECT 6 phone handsets, for Colleen's bedroom desk and livingroom chair.
2. Booked the chaoswolf's flight home from Vancouver on 09-20.
3. Given her 10 copies of Coffee, Computers, and Song! to sell on consignment. (Plus enough cash to make change.)
4. Posted about curmudgeons -- this one's been kicking around in my drafts directory for a couple of weeks.

There are excellent reasons why I prefer not to transact business by phone when I can possibly avoid it. Clearly, I am one of those people who should not even be permitted near a telephone, let alone call someone he doesn't know and attempt to get anything done.

Phones frustrate and infuriate me; voice-response menus frustrate and infuriate me even more. And if I reach voice mail rather than a human I'm better off hanging up, writing out a message in complete sentences, and going through the entire sorry process again to read it to the blasted machine rather than venting my rage on the spot.

Let's not even mention the fact that missed calls show up on my cell phone minutes or even hours before the corresponding message shows up in my voice mail. Let's not think about the fact that a phone has the worst user interface ever devised by a half-witted excuse for an engineer.

Note to companies: You want my business? Have a human standing by to answer your damned phone if your web page doesn't give me the information I need. And, I can assure you, it probably doesn't.

Note to self: insurance companies don't want to talk to customers. Only your own personal agent is equipped to talk to you. If he's out of town, you're hosed, so plan ahead.

Apparently cell phones are no longer immune to telemarketers. And of course we now have to pay for the privilege of being spammed. Lovely.

Time to update my entries in the National Do Not Call Registry.

And I'm putting potential contacts on notice now: if spam starts to be a problem, I'm going to be leaving my phone off when I'm not expecting a call.

Update: -- that number has been in the registry since 2004.

Today was marked by a surprising amount of press about Linux, leading off (at least for me) with a column by Larry Magid in the San Jose Mercury News with the title Another option to Apple/Microsoft duopoly: Linux PCs. Kind of surprising, actually. He mentions Dell, Wal-Mart's $200 Everex gPC, the ASUS Eee PC mini-laptop, and the OLPC XO. I may very well buy myself an Eee -- it's the right size and price. I'll have to see what the keyboard and display are like.

Magid didn't mention the day's other major announcement: Google's Android mobile-phone platform, but the New York Times does. Unlike Apple, whose iPhone is tied to a single carrier and locked down tight, the Google "Phone" is basically just a Linux distribution for mobile phones. Any handset maker can build it into a phone, it'll work with any carrier, and the customer can install software on it. There's a little more analysis here and here.

Say what you like about Linux not being "ready for the desktop"; it's just fine for the low-end user who only wants the web, email, music, and occasional word processing. People who want the darned thing to just plain work, and to keep working without needing an expensive upgrade every year or so.

I wonder how long it will take Linux's market share to double. Not long after Christmas, at a guess. And that's not even counting the millions of cell phone users who already have it in China and Japan, and the millions more who will get it when Android hits next year.

I can hear the screams of agony all the way from Redmond.

Neo Base -- everything the mobile application developer needs to enjoy the benefits of the first freed phone, the Neo 1973:

* Neo 1973 (GTA01B_v4)
* Battery
* Stylus
* Headset
* AC Charger
* Phone Pouch
* Lanyard
* SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card
* Mini USB Connectivity Cable

Neo Advanced -- everything the mobile device hacker wants to get down and dirty with the first freed phone, the Neo 1973:

* Neo 1973 (GTA01B_v4)
* Battery (2x)
* Stylus
* Headset
* AC Charger
* Phone Pouch
* Lanyard
* SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card (2x)
* Mini USB Connectivity Cable (2x)
* USB Host Mode Cable
* Debug Flex Cable
* Debug Board v2 (JTAG and serial console)
* Ruggedized Toolbox with shoulder strap
* Guitar Pick (for opening case)
* Torx T6 screwdriver
...
We're going to sell the Neo Base for $300. The Neo Advanced will be $450.

GTA02 (AKA: The Mass Market Neo 1973) is on schedule to go on sale in October. It will have the following new hardware components:

* 802.11 b/g WiFi
* Samsung 2442 SoC
* SMedia 3362 Graphics Accelerator
* 2 3D Accelerometers
* 256MB Flash

We will sell this device through multiple channels. Direct from openmoko.com, the price will be $450 for the Neo Base and $600 for Neo Advanced.

While all eyes may have been on San Francisco and the launch of the developer-unfriendly Apple iPhone, the real game changers were demonstrating their strategy at CES 2007, in Las Vegas.

While the hardware may be similar, the strategy is a complete reversal of Apple's closed platform and proprietary hardware. OpenMoko is an open Linux-based mobile application development platform that's designed to help operators and developers build innovative applications on top of a basic phone platform.

That platform is the FIC neo1973, an attractive curved device with a single large VGA touch screen, and a built in GPS. While it's only GPRS, this is a first cut at delivering open hardware, so we can expect future hardware to support faster data connections.

sbisson

The initial run of OpenMokos will be small and out soon, this month in fact. They are meant to be seeded to developers and those wanting to port apps before the mass market launch in January. If you are one of those wanting to get your feet wet, contact FIC for the details.

So there is now an open GPL phone that won't say no to you. It has GPS for location and is reasonably priced. OpenMoko could be good for all the players from users to carriers, and if it takes off, it's usefulness could grow exponentially. I want one.

It's been raining gently most of the day; no walkies. Just as well, since my left ankle has been bothering me a little this week, and it's good to give it a rest. Got my exercise, though, going up and down the garage attic stairs about a dozen times installing phone cable.

For a long time, the flower_cat has wanted a wired phone on her desk instead of the wireless one, which isn't doing very well. Don't know whether it's signal problems or a weak battery, but it doesn't matter. That was the easy one, though it did mean installing a new wall-mounted box for a two-position keystone plate, and drilling a new hole in the wall to run the cable through. I'm using Cat5, BTW, since I have most of a 1000-foot spool of it that I bought a decade or so ago.

The more challenging one was the phone in the bathroom: it's a waterproof, cordless phone, and not only was there no place to plug in a phone on that wall, there's no power outlet either. So what I did was to run the power in the phone cable, putting the wall wart upstairs in the garage with the ones for the 802-11 access point and the ethernet hub, and leaving the plug hanging out the bottom of the wall plate.

( for reference purposes )

And as if that wasn't enough, I then went to Fry's and bought chaoswolf's computer for her, since she's been tied up in the Baycon meeting all afternoon. It's a cute little HP s7410n; it came with a free-after-rebates Canon MP150 MFP, and I got her a Hyundai L72S 17" monitor as well. ( the damage )

While replacing the battery on my APC BackUPS 500 I noticed that, unlike the older ones I'm familiar with, it has a little switch next to the main switch labeled "test" on the top and bell on the bottom. The crossed-out bell icon does appear to mean that you can silence the alarm; you have to do it every time you unplug it.

The hardware cloth over the crawl-space vents will have to wait -- I can't find my tinsnips. Can I go to sleep yet? Oh wait, dinner. Right. Then I can sleep.