Month: July 2008

Sprint vs. Verizon: Thoughts?

My Blackberry contract is due up for renewal here soon, and I’m considering transferring my number elsewhere. I’ve found myself using my phone for data use quite a bit more often than I originally thought, and wanted to get a phone that I could tether to my laptop for use on the road in a pinch (for when my employer decides they need something while I’m vacation). I also would like a Windows Mobile-based phone as software availability for the Blackberry isn’t nearly as plentiful, and usually costs more money for stuff I can get for free elsewhere.

I’ve narrowed it down to a couple of phones from Verizon and Sprint (the HTC Titan tops that list), but wanted to hear everybody’s experience with Verizon and Sprint locally. While I’ve heard great things about Verizon’s support and their network, I do like Sprint’s openness with their phones. Like with Sprint, the same phone has newer software and unlocked hardware (hardware GPS works with Sprint via an official update, while it requires an unsupported hack to get it to work on Verizon’s or US Cellular’s Titan. I’d rather not hack my phone if don’t have to. But I’ve heard really lousy things about Sprint’s support (but I don’t think I’ve dealt with support often in all my years of having a phone, really — I’d rather figure it out myself.) but their network is decent.

Any thoughts from the gallery?

(And you might notice that after yesterday’s discussion, all the links now open in new windows.)

July 31, 2008

Reader Survey: Links In New Window or Not?

I made a change a few weeks ago that reader Amanda was the first to point out: I changed external links I post in blog entries from links that opened in a new window to links that opened in the same window. She was the first to notice (or at least mention it). I personally preferred opening them in a new window as I use Firefox and had it set for external links (with target=”_blank” in the link code) to open in new tabs that I could browse later. I switched it recently because more and more blogs I saw seemed to post all links to open in the same window.

Lots of folks have discussed this same question, so I now’s the time for all you lurkers to come out of the woodwork: Which do you prefer? Links opening in new window or links I post opening in the same browser window? Comment below.

(Oh, and BTW: Amanda shared Knol, which is now public, and thought it was hilarious the length of an article on making pancakes is stupidly long.)

July 29, 2008

KPOV To Go “Full Power”, KWAX to Change Frequency

Bend community low-power radio station KPOV has been awarded a full-power FCC license. Congrats to them, as they’re a great bunch of folks and it’ll be great for them to get their station out there more. When they get everything all built up, they’ll be broadcasting on 88.9 FM instead of their current 106.7.

Why does 88.9 sound familiar? As I’ve mentioned before, 88.9 is used by KWAX — a University of Oregon-based classical music station — as a local translator. Since KPOV was awarded this license, KWAX has to quit broadcasting on that frequency when KPOV goes live on the new channel. KWAX already broadcasts locally on 88.5 out of Redmond and 90.1 out of Sunriver, but neither of those translators came in as good as the 88.9 out of Bend (I’m a classical music guy, and like KWAX’s programming).

So I e-mailed the folks at KWAX, and asked them what their plan was for the Bend translator. Their response:

We have one more application to get through the FCC and will then have permission to build the identical facility we have now, but on 98.9. You should notice no difference in the quality or coverage of the translator after the frequency change. We hope to have it completed by the end of the summer, well in advance of the new station beginning operation.

Good to hear they’ll still have a good solid Bend translator, and congrats to the KPOV folks!

July 29, 2008

Worried You’re Going To Go Over Your BendBroadband Bandwidth Usage?

July is the first month that BendBroadband is capping your Internet bandwidth at 100gb/month and will be billing for overages (read up on the whole mess that ensued after the announcement here). Since I don’t think the usage-based bills have been sent out quite yet, there hasn’t been any reaction quite yet (don’t think there will be much of one since they did raise their cap). But if you’re concerned about going over, and want to make sure you don’t, a local programmer has created a monitoring PHP script that will e-mail you your usage numbers whenever the script runs. You can read up on bbbUM here.

I really have an urge to make this a public service where people can submit their user/pass, it’d be encrypted and can then email them their usage on a daily basis, but I really don’t have that kind of free time on my hands.

July 28, 2008