Digital Stress Has Moved!

So I just wanted post something up real quick for my 3 followers; I have moved my blog to http://digitalstress.wordpress.com. Wordpress has many other features that work a lot better for myself than blogger/blogspot does. Not to mention it's just easier that than the later. Please update your Reader Subscriptions, or you just join my new feed at my new home.

Sorry for the sad news, but in the end it will all work the same! Make sure you check out my lastest post/read "One Pasword to Rule them All"!

Addendum to the afore mentioned

So I just wanted to post a small little addendum/rant to the previous post about how bad AT&T is really going to “Bend over” their new customers when they go to the new data plans. My wife and I happen to be talking about her cell phone and AT&T when we decided to look at her usage.. (She is currently a $30 unlimited data user who will be allowed to keep this plan when the new plans role out.) However, I had to take a double take when I realized her usage was 2171.28 MB! Yes, do the math 1 GB = 1024 MB, so she used 2.1 GB of Data service! Now some perspective: lets say she was on the LAME 200MB “DataPlus” plan for $15 per month; This means she would have been charged $163.37 for data usage; because you are charged $15 more for every 200 MB over you use. And well 2,171.28 MB divided by 200 MB = 10.89 x $15 = $163.37. So now we take our DataPlus charge of $163.37 + $20 for unlimited text messaging + $48 phone plan you got a sweet little iPhone bill of: $203.37. Um dude, I was paying a little less than this for 2 iPhones 3 months ago!

AT&T Sticks it to new customers!!

Well, it was only a matter of time before AT&T decided to start metering their customer data usage. It appears that that AT&T will be providing new data plans for new customers as of June 7, 2010. Existing customers and “Re-ups” will not be affected by this change, however new folks will get with stuck with “DatPlus” and “DataPro” packages.

“DataPlus ($15 per month): Up to 200MB of data in a monthly billing cycle. According to AT&T, this plan is "designed for people who primarily like to surf the web, send email and use social networking apps." If you exceed your 200MB limit during the billing cycle, you'll be charged only $15 for each additional 200MB of data.

DataPro ($25 per month): Up to 2GB of data in a monthly billing cycle. If you exceed your 2GB limit during the billing cycle, you'll be charged only $10 for each additional 1GB of data.” Yahoo News

Of course AT&T will be providing the long awaited option of “Tethering” (Tethering provides the ability to connect your iPhone/BlackBerry/(Supported)SmartPhone to your computer/laptop/netbook and use it as a wireless modem for internet access)when the new 4.0 OS and next Gen Device are released sometime this month. No one knows for sure, if existing customers (like me) who already have an unlimited data plan will also be able to take advantage of tethering, however I’m willing to be that I’m not that lucky.

Update on my life

So I just wanted to take some time to update a few folks, on what’s been going on around the Entrekin household as of lately.  My wife an I will be closing on our house Monday March 15, 2010!  We’re super excited about it, and I’m looking forward to some future projects that have already been laid out for me. 

While in the midst of getting things handled with the house, the company I work for has also recently completed a new third floor expansion!!  That’s right, I’m now supporting two floors of users!  While we have brought a few (3 total) new folks on, it’s not a huge deal.  However, adjusting to the fact that I know must utilize a central stair way to move between floors has become a serious wakeup call!! (I’m fat..stairs = fail)  Why use the stair way v. the elevator? While it would be convenient to just ride a single flight down, it would also getting pretty annoying for other tenants in our building who work on floors 5-13.  Plus, I’d rather not be “That-Guy” who caused someone to be late because I was to lazy to take the stairs (it’s on after hours though!).  Our new renovation was included in the Women's Fund tour of “Jackson’s Downtown Spaces, Hip New Places of 2010”.

As weird as it might be, I’m actually looking forward to being the part of our Jackson office’s growth and expansion.  I’m learning a lot, as everyday something new unfolds for me.  While I’m pretty sure the staff is coping with the separation of colleagues between the floors, it’s only a matter of time before they acclimate and accept the changes.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave me a message!

“Optimization”

So I’m not really sure if any of you saw the commercial over the new year break, but Best Buy is now providing “Optimization” with the purchase of new PC’s and laptops.  It cost 40 bucks, and really doesn’t optimize anything! 

Best Buy's computer optimization service costs $40 and promises to double the speed of your computer. They push it hard, so hard that you're often forced to get it against your wishes. The trouble? It makes computers slower. (Gizmodo.com)

Holidays!

The Holidays are drawing to a close, and the end of very tough year is upon us.  I just wanted to write to all of you and wish you all a very happy new year, and I’m looking forward to seeing what 2010 has in-store for us.  A couple of things I would like to point out to you in regards to 2010:

• I will most likely be changing my focus on digital-stress, from a technical-ish blog, to a more normal and daily lifestyle oriented blog
• I will try to start posting at least once a week…
• I don’t want to have to close this blog, I've enjoyed sharing my time with the 3 or 4 readers I do have.
• I will still post some tech/geek things at random, and I will try to explain it in laymen terms to the best of my
• abilities for you.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

 

Have you ever wondered what Bandwidth is? The best way that bandwidth can be explained is by comparing it to a highway. Thus the more lanes you have, the more traffic (Bandwidth) you can allow through. As we all have seen in the technology industry, information from previous years and predictions for the future, are both telling us that data rates are doubling every 18 months.



Cable Introduction

Applications that have been deployed today with a 1GB backbone are now driving the limits of CAT5e. These limits will continue to be driven to their maximum capacities as media applications such as streaming & on-demand video and audio become daily use. As the demands for more bandwidth are met, this will spawn new products that will benefit from the use of CAT6. Take the mid 90’s for example where CAT5 cabling was introduced, and replaced the CAT3, this happened because CAT5 provided the necessary bandwidth that network applications were benefitting from, and it was also very cost effective.

The Difference Between CAT5e and CAT6

The basic differences between CAT5e and CAT6 are: the increase in data transmission performance, and the enlargement of the available bandwidth (CAT5e - 100MHz, CAT6 - 200MHz).
Why does my business need CAT6 instead of CAT5?
Systems running on CAT6 cabling will have fewer corrupted data packets, as the data is transmitted from one end of the segment to the other. What makes this possible is the immunity that CAT6 cabling has from external noise, if far greater than that of CAT5e.

Will CAT6 become the leader/standard in cabling over CAT5

Absolutely, it’s only a matter of time. Cabling analyst state that 80 -90 percent of their installations are cabled with CAT6, and because CAT6 is backwards compatible with CATE5e requirements, this makes for an easy and sound decision for companies to move to CAT6