This year, I made a New Year’s resolution to end as many contracts as possible. Many of the monthly contracts we had were around telephone service. The first one we was able to drop was home phone service. We already had dropped a physical land line service a while back by switching from Verizon to Vonage. I decided to make this move after Vonage decided to once again up its rates for 3 month service. By dropping Vonage Voice Over IP (VOIP) service and porting my home phone over to the OOMA telo service I was able to drop my monthly bill for home phone from $25/month down to $5 a month(basically just taxes and standard fees you always have to pay). There is an upfront router cost of $149 but after that you have $5 a month phone service for life with unlimited minutes to the Continental U.S.
The next contract I was able to cut was my cellphone one. We were paying $70 a month with Verizon for 500 minutes shared on a family plan with two dumb feature phones but had no data plan and were on a 2 year contract as well. We switched over to Virgin Mobile’s Beyond Talk plan and now have two smartphones and 300 minutes each phone for the same $70 a month including unlimited text messages and data(throttled at 2GB, but still unlimited). No major savings here, but we did get smartphones and unlimited text and data for the same price and also have no contract anymore.
The final telephone upgrade was not a drop of a contract, but an upgrade of cordless home phones. I picked up a VTech DS6522 3 handset system fro $45 at Costco(this model is no longer on their featured phones on their website but this one is similar DS6421). This system allows you to do a Bluetooth connection to your cellphone from your home phone – Connect2Cell feature. This allows your home cordless system to ring when your cellphone rings while at home. I am looking forward to not missing calls to my cellphone in the evenings when I usually put my phone in a corner and forget about it. Instead of just buzzing(since I keep mine on vibrate constantly) it will now ring the home phone. The other benefit is a synchronized address book list from your cellphone copied over to your home phones.
I recently entered a contest on http://filmfather.blogspot.com and won! The prize was two DVD’s of Alvin and the Chipmunk movies, a Fandango gift card to see the latest movie and a surprise red Alvin Hoodie(pictured)! Check out FilmFather’s blog he does a nice job of reviewing movies there both older and newer.
This is my review of the Atomic Tom – Halloween Weekend show at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, VA on 10-29-11. This was our (my wife and my) 3rd Atomic Tom concert at Jammin’ Java and each one has been a truly unique experience and completely worth the ticket price and more each time.
We got to the show around 9:00 to be sure to get a good spot on the floor. We had donned our Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers costumes as Luke had posted previously on Facebook that costumes were encouraged.
Atomic Tom acoustic sound check
Atomic Tom sound check
Each time we’ve seen Atomic Tom we’ve enjoyed a different opening act. The opening act for this particular show was Bronze Radio Return, a six member group out of Hartford, CT. I would probably describe their music as Indie Americana Roots Folk Rock. Their sound is a mix of Ray LaMontagne, Mumford & Sons, Vampire Weekend, John Fogerty, and The Byrds. Their full setlist included a few songs from each of their albums.
We really liked this band a lot – enough to buy their latest CD, Shake, Shake Shake, after the show and then picked up their first full length album, Old Time Speaker online when we got home.
Bronze Radio Return
The highlight of their performance was their eclectic garbage can assortment percussion intro and performance of their song “It’s OK Now”.
After a short break for Bronze Radio Return to break down their setup and reset the Atomic Tom stage the lights dimmed and by now the place had gotten packed. The guys made their way out on stage and gave us the first treat of this Halloween show – costumes! Phil (bassist) was dressed as a prince, Tobias (drums) was dressed in a beautiful full length single strap – diaphanous gown and wig, Eric (lead guitar) was ‘El Mustachio’ – the Indian Chief (I’ve nicknamed “Chief ImGonnaRockYaSoxOff”), and Luke (lead vocals+) was dressed as Eric? or Freddie Mercury? (maybe he’ll comment on what he envisioned his costume being). It was great.
Atomic Tom Performing in Costumes
The band opened with the title track off their similarly titled album “The Moment“. They moved on to their first release off their new EP In Parallel entitled “Break My Heart Around You”. If you haven’t seen the official video for this song, check out the NY love story of the lead character Mr. Paper Bag. Being Halloween Luke was tossing out candy between many of the songs into the audience. “You Always Get What You Want” was next, and by now the crowd was singing along and jumping. They moved directly into the iconic “Red Light Warning Sign”. The band started easing into an acoustic set with the next two songs “Play That Dirty Girl” and “We Were Never Meant To Be”. It seemed like the audience (as always at Jammin’ Java) knew most of the songs and were singing along to every one – I know we were.
The middle portion of the set was the next treat of the evening - slowed down acoustic set with my favorite song off The Moment – “Maybe I’m Wrong” and “Valerie”(a cover of late label mate Amy Winehouse).
The band kicked up the tempo again with my wife’s favorite song from The Moment – “Let, Let Go Tonight”. This rolled straight into the new song “Collide”. After some banter during which Tobias asked the audience if we thought he was a pretty the band played “I’m Coming After You”. The next song got everyone really moving – their cover of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” from the soundtrack for the movie “Take Me Home Tonight”.
The only trick of the evening was that the band did not close out with their typical finishing song “This is How We Like to End”. We pulled out our iPod lighter apps to sway along to this awesome ballad. From there they closed out with possibly their most well known song – “Take Me Out”(from their viral YouTube video using iPhones on the NY subway fame). They ended this one slowing it down to acoustic, then had a sing off between wo halves of the audience with our side singing “I don’t wanna go – I don’t wanna go home” and the other side singing “Oh oh Oh oh oh oh”. It was a great close to the show, or so we thought.
The final treat of the evening came after the audience called the band back on stage with a chorus of the “Oh oh Oh oh oh oh’s” and they band played a rare cover of Van Halen’s “Right Now”. I’ve included the video of that performance here.
It was a truly epic show and I was expecting the band to be a little tired from their recently concluded national tour with Switchfoot and Anberlin, but they killed this show and brought such energy to what Luke refers to as a ‘home’ crowd in Virginia. You can see some more photos from the show on their Facebook page here, including our picture with the band. The full setlist is also posted on setlist.fm as well.
Atomic Tom and Us (aka "Scott Pilgrim" and "Ramona Flowers")
Finally here is a Halloween greeting from the band (you may have to ‘Like’ Atomic Tom on Facebook to see this, but you were gonna do that anyway, right? ). We actually had to drive two hours through a snow storm to get to the show. It was totally worth it! Thanks, guys, for an awesome show and for hanging out with your fans after each show – you guys are the best!
After seeing this funny little cartoon I got an idea for another helpful tip post concerning power consumption by devices. Particularly ‘vampire’ power as it’s called(the juice that a power block draws even when nothing is plugged into it or the VCR uses just to display the time).
Tips for saving power:
Turn off devices you aren’t using(Well duh). The easiest of them all is to turn off devices you aren’t using. This sounds simple but can be even more meaningful if we turn off things like VCR’s if not being timed to record anymore(now that we have DVR and Tivo). Plug all your home theater equipment into one surge protector and turn it off overnight or when you’re not using it. Same goes for things like coffee makers that leach power to display the time for no one.
Get a programmable thermostat and set it correctly or just turn down or up the thermostat a few degrees depending on heating or cooling.
Replace your standard incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. You can even get non ice cream swirl ones that look more aesthetically pleasing if that’s a deterrent. You can save around 10% on your heating and cooling bills each year by adjusting the thermostat 10 – 15 degrees for eight hours each day. The best time do adjust the thermostat? At night while you’re asleep.
Setup power saving modes on your computer and sleep the computer and display when possible.
Use only cold water cycles in your washer where possible and line dry your clothes.
Heat your home through cooking in the winter and grill outside in the summer to keep the house cooler.
Invest in energy limiting devices like Enviroplug which switches off electric draw when your mobile phone is done charging.
Audit energy use of devices using a Kill-A-Watt and use this to select and swap out inefficient devices or turn off energy hogs.
Seal your home – Windows, doors, walls, electrical outlets can all be weather sealed to better keep heat or cold from leaving your house.
Insulate pipes and wrap hot water heaters. Also make sure your hot water heater is set well.
In closing here’s another video reminding us to power down every now and again. Enjoy!
I read the news of Steve Jobs death with a great deal of sadness. It wasn’t unexpected news given his health issues recently, just a little surprising with its timing. After seeing Facebook, Twitter and other social media and web news outlets postings about Steve Jobs and tributes to him I thought I’d write a post to compile some of the best items I ran across and also share my Apple product experience.
My first exposure to Apple products was in the early 80′s in 7th grade. Our school had a lab with Apple ][e's and I remember learning to program in LOGO and Apple BASIC on those computers using double 5-1/4" floppy drives(we've come a long way haven't we). I also remember playing the first fighting game Karateka and Oregon Trail (an educational gaming classic) on that machine. I didn't think that much of Apple at the time as it was what was available at school and we didn't have a computer at home at that time. Later in High school I wound up using mainly Windows PC's and shifted over to that sector fully for a very long time.
After that long hiatus of about 20 years(not quite that long since I did use a Mac on rare occasion to test cross browser functionality) during which I even spent time professionally as a Windows Server admin and installing and configuring Windows operating systems based
Yao Ming 12" Powerbook
machines for a living I got a Mac at work when cross browser testing became difficult to accomplish without a ‘side’ Mac for Safari browser testing of web pages. The Mac I got was the ‘Yao Ming’ 12″ Titanium 800 Mhz Powerbook G4. I was looking for something ultra portable for note taking and that wouldn’t take up too much room as it was going to be just a secondary machine that I would use on occasionally for testing. The only issues I ever had with that machine were its odd memory footprint(it maxed out at 768 MB of RAM) and the heat issues on your left hand palm rest(I dubbed that the coffee warmer effect). It’s odd quirkiness aside, I gained a new respect for the Mac as a machine and have been a fan of Apple products since 2003. That Mac wound up becoming my primary machine and I soon found myself switching over most of my desktop and laptop machines at work as well as my home computers. I now use primarily Macs with a side PC running Windows Server software for testing at work(talk about a 180 degree switch).
Since that first reintroduction to the Mac, I’ve had 3 other Macs and been very pleased with the aesthetics and the engineering detail put into the design of these machines. This is a testament to the post titled “Mac Daddy” or Daddy of the Mac Steve Jobs. His vision and artistry in guiding Apple’s resurgence as a company are what make me a continued fan of their products today. It was so sad to hear of his death but wonderful to hear the many stories of people’s lives touched by the products he designed and was responsible for bringing to market.
Steve Jobs Legacy Infographic by Column Five Media
Column Five Media created a great infographic when Steve stepped down as CEO a few months back that shows his legacy of products. All Things Digital’s Walt Mossberg wrote a great tribute story entitled “The Steve Jobs I Knew” . One of my favorite bands Atomic Tom did an iPhone app musical Thank You to Steve video(they received a huge break when their original subway video played on iPhone instrument apps went viral).
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” ~Steve Jobs
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”~Steve Jobs
Many thanks to Steve for the innovations and product that have helped make my life more enjoyable and my work a little bit easier and lot more fun over the years.
A friend recently asked me how hey could troubleshoot their internet speed at home, which prompted me to create this post.
How fast is your internet?
Using a site like http://www.speedtest.net (there’s also an app for that speedtest.net app)- you can check the realized speed that your computer is actually receiving from your internet service provider(ISP). This is done by uploading and downloading test files to and from area specific servers to determine how quickly your computer is sending and receiving data. You can sign up for a free account and even track this data over time(if you are uber nerdy and want a stat geek). They also provide national comparisons with other ISP’s and service types to give you an idea of the quality of your particular service.
If you are getting lower numbers than you’d expect here are several items to check:
Restart your equipment front to back. If you have a cable modem and wireless router, restart both and let the cable modem come up first then power off and on your wireless router. Sometimes this simple tip will clear any downstream issues and reset your internet and get you back up to speed.
Check your computer for malware / adware / viruses / trojans , etc… These annoying things can slow down your browser making your computer’s connection speed appear slower. This is not always the case for a slow connection but a good check to make nonetheless.
Are you using the best Domain Name Server(DNS) server? – Another product called NameBench checks name resolution speed. Your name resolution is what translates the name of your domain say google.com into its specific IP address on the internet. Many speed issues are related to slow name server resolution speeds. If this is your case you can add a faster DNS entry by using that product. Here’s a great article from LifeHacker on DNS.
Check to make sure your wireless router/cable modem/ and computer are up to date on patches, firmware updates etc. Sometimes there’s a problem with the software that the manufacturer will have updated and fixed and this can sometimes lead to better performance(NOTE: sometimes this can also cause problems to occur when you didn’t have some before – BE CAREFUL doing this).
Check for interference sources and limit those. I remember in our old house our cordless telephone and our microwave used to always interfere with our wireless internet signal and cause drops or slow downs. We remedied the phone situation by upgrading our phones from 2.4 GHZ to 5.8 and don’t run the microwave if we are needing full speed internet.
Similar to the last step, check for interference from your neighbors wireless routers. There are a limited number of channels for wireless signal. Your neighbors wi-fi setup may be conflicting with yours so check what channel your services is running on. These articles show you how to Determine your Wireless channel – HowtoGeek – eHow
I hope these tips are helpful. Send me some feedback and let me know if you have any other tips for improving wireless speed.
Also here are some sites I visit to find free apps(okay so these first three are really free game sites).
Freeappaday.com – This site has free daily apps starting around 8pm lasting 24 hours until the next day. Usually 2-3 new apps each day. One of the best sources of free apps. They have a tab for iPad specific apps too.
Freegameoftheday.com – Sponsored by OpenFeint the open social gaming network they also have an Android app tab on the Openfeint site.
Board Game specific listings of apps(I love board/card games especially strategy based ones so these next two are specifically targeted at others who like those too)
BoardGameGeek.com iOS Board Game listings and reviews are found here.
iBoardGame Blog – A blog with a searchable list of board games and iOS renditions of them.
Educational apps:
Momswithapps.com – This site gives away applications on Fridays. These are mostly educational kid friendly learning apps.
Last weekend(Sept 17, 2011) I had the pleasure of hearing Wes Swing perform at Old Town House Concert(notice there’s a space between town and house it’s not an old townhouse ). The performance was captivating, mesmerizing, and overall an amazing experience.
For starters some of you may be uninitiated to the concept of a house concert. These offer a fabulous way for musicians to perform in an intimate setting(literally someone’s house) where they can connect with the audience in a unique way(lots of dialog and interaction). I was first introduced to this concept through a good friend in my neighborhood. She has established Old Town House Concerts. Her house concert starts around 6:30pm with a shared potluck style meal, then between 7:30 and 8pm the artist of the evening opens the first set which lasts around an hour at which time an intermission is taken and dessert is usually served. Everyone in attendance brings a side dish to share and donates money to the ‘Love Bucket’ which goes directly to the musician(s).
Through a Fogged Glass album art
The latest performer at the Old Town House Concerts venue in Harrisonburg, VA was cellist/guitarist/whistler/singer Wes Swing. Wes is a master of stringed instruments and looped string arrangement. To try to classify his music into just one genre is limiting it, but I know people need to know what it sounds like and genre labels help folks figure out if they’ll like particular music. On iTunes, his music is classified as Alternative, but when I added the songs from CD they came in as Country/Folk.
His music is multi-faceted and multi-layered. Wes draws influence from areas such as folk, classical, alternative, and rock. He confesses an admiration for Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters and also an affinity for Icelandic artist Bjork. One only need listen to a few songs to hear the influence of minimalist, classical, and atonal composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Robert Schumann. He takes inspiration from these and other influences to produce an accessible and deeply layered rich sound wall through the use of a looping pedal that allows live recording of multiple cello tracks both pizzicato plucked and fully bowed. Many of Wes’ songs borrow lyrical influence or content from the many poets he has found influential. From a musical training standpoint Wes started on violin and also learned guitar as well then switched to his current instrument of choice cello later in college. As an amateur musician myself(having also followed in his same path of violin to cello) it was a special treat for me to be able to chat with Wes pre-concert, during intermission, and after the show. Wes was so approachable and sincere and I had a fantastic time talking with him about cello, musical influences and music in general.
His creativity doesn’t stop with just music. He took part in devising the video for his song “Sleeping Moon” which uses inventive stop-motion video techniques that is a pure artistic joy to watch.(see for yourself).
For our particular concert Wes was joined by several friends[Jeff Gregerson - upright bass, Brian Caputo - drums, Anna Matijasic Hennessy - violin]. They opened with what I will call Wes’ ‘Poetry Cycle’ – “All Other Love” – a T.S. Eliot poem forms the lyrical base to a multi-loop cello piece. There are two versions that Wes performs of this song. The opener was the live version which includes several looped cello parts that Wes starts building and layering and then the other instruments join in until there is a wall of sound that immerses the listener. Here’s a video of that performance so you can get a taste for how amazing this was.
From there we moved into “In a Station of the Metro” with lyrics from an Ezra Pound poem. This song made heavy use of violin ‘false harmonics’ – the haunting whistle like sounds produced by a partial fingering of the string. For the third piece Wes explained that his looping pedal could also invert a sound and gave us the appropriately mirror image looped song – “Through a Fogged Glass”.
Wes changed over to his guitar to give us a beautiful cover version of Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will” and explained that he had heard someone else cover this song and was inspired to perform it based on that cover. Next up was the originally titled(Wes shared that he[like many] doesn’t particularly enjoy coming up with song titles) “Instrumental 1″. This instrumental featured a nice mix of percussion bells with pizzicato cello. “Dilate” was next and was a nice showcase for the percussion of Brian Caputo as it featured a heavier drum sound.
At this point Wes pulled out the album version of “All Other Love” and invited us to sing along in a divided house left and right side sing along. One side sings “All other love finds speech” then the other half of the audience sings “This Love is silent, This Love is silent”. It was a completely moving experience as the ethereal strings played while we sang along. The first set was closed with the song “Ulysses”. I’d write more about this but I think I got lost in the moment and was still in awe over the sing along that I don’t remember that song as well. I would be remiss to not mention that we were using the streaming service Stageit.com to stream the concert online for some folks who couldn’t make it. It was at this point that session ended.
During intermission we chatted about music and enjoyed some great Apple Strudel.
Wes opened the second set on guitar again with “Middle of the Night/Sleeping Moon”. While this usually features a banjo on the album version this live offering was still fantastic. Wes described the process of the stop motion buttons in the Sleeping Moon video after this set.
Next up back on cello was appropriately titled “Ghosts(Part 2)” (the one without piano part) which featured overtones and undertones and a haunting overall vibe. The next piece was an unreleased song from his next CD called “And the Heart…”. It’s always a treat when an artist does some stuff from upcoming albums.
Wes then invited us to join in again and taught us “Song Twelve” or as Brian Caputo might call it the ooh song(Brian shared during intermission that he remembers most of the songs via their lyrics rather than their titles. This song once again filled the room and you could almost feel the buzz of voices and instruments to your core(it was fantastic).
Wes then talked about how he would like to meet a few artists namely Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Bjork. The next song was a cover of Bjork’s “Unravel”.
The closing song for the concert was the cryptic “Lullaby”. To me the lyrics remind me of The Killers murder trilogy of albums in tone as it sounds like the author is saying that he has murdered someone and can’t sleep because the police have discovered the body(at least that’s where I put my mind’s eye when listening to it). It has an upbeat cheery opening then a rather dark over toned chorus – which feeds into this vibe for me. This one also featured Wes’ great whistling. He has one of the best concert whistles I’ve ever heard.
If you haven’t heard him yet, go to Bandcamp where you can stream his album “Through a Fogged Glass” for free online. or pickup the CD on iTunes or Bandcamp – you won’t regret it – it is simply fantastic.
For those who missed this concert check out Wes and friends this Saturday Oct 1st, 2011 at The Garage in Charlottesville, VA or find out where he’ll be on Facebook or his website and catch him at a future show – you won’t regret it. NOTE: Wes will be performing another free show at The Southern Sat Oct 1st 2011.
InterfaceLIFT – Another great site for great wallpapers
Screensavers:
Red Pill - For the Mac only, A Matrix style falling green glyph screensaver
UselessCreations.com - A Win/Mac screensaver site. Several great free ones – Superman flying and some pay ones that are fantastic – Their Marine Aquarium is one of the definitive ones of that type. Space Wars is a great dog-fighting spaceships saver.
iScreensaver Designer – A tool for creating cross platform Mac/Win installable movie based screensavers.
Disney Oceans – A beautiful movie style screensaver with clips from the documentary
Tron Legacy – Light Cycle sequence from the movie.
Mac Only Screensavers:
Dradis – a Battlestar Galactica based radar screensaver for Mac.
LotsaEscher – Great Mac screensaver that displays moving versions of M.C. Escher artwork.
What are your favorites? Hit us up in the comment section.
). We actually had to drive two hours through a snow storm to get to the show. It was totally worth it! Thanks, guys, for an awesome show and for hanging out with your fans after each show – you guys are the best!
