In the months since then, we’d been having trouble with our high-speed Internet service. It’d shut down / cut out several times a day, mostly at inappropriate times especially during important videophone conversations. At other times, it’d slow down to a trickle and our pages would l-o-a-d o-h s-o s-l-o-w-l-y … I kept trying different things to fix this problem — calling Verizon, paying $$ for a new wifi router, paying more $$ for an all-in-one modem/router from Verizon, shortening the phone / cable lines, tweaking router settings, etc etc etc. Nothing seemed to remedy the DSL service problems, which was quite embarassing to me — after all, I’m a Proud Geek who prides myself on my ability to solve computer and network problems!

Then I had a brain fart, ahem, notion: what if the alarm system was indeed interfering with our high-speed Internet service? After all, it was installed without a DSL filter. So, I emailed Scott and asked him to come and install a DSL filter (that we already had from Verizon) between the alarm system and the phone line. Despite protestations that the alarm system is NOT interfering with our DSL service, he came the next day, charged us $85 (sigh), installed the DSL filter in minutes, and left.

And behold and lo, our Internet service has (miraculously?) improved! It has not shut down even once in the week since Scott’s visit — even during ultra-important and lengthy videophone conversations. Connection stays swimmingly high, and our pages load quickly and consistently. YAY! My Proud Geek reputation stays untarnished!

Moral of the story? Don’t listen when alarm technicians tell you that alarm systems don’t need a DSL filter. If you get DSL high-speed Internet service, insist that alarm technicians do plug alarm systems into a DSL filter then into the phone system.

What are DSL filters, and why do we need them? High-speed DSL service uses the same phone line we use. These phone lines (mostly) have 4 “wires” within each phone cable. (Office phone lines often have six wires for additional phone functions like intercom, conferencing, etc — that’s why office phone lines are sometimes thicker.) DSL service uses two of these wires and voice service uses the other two wires. But when regular telephones are plugged into a phone line that is being shared with DSL service, users can hear an electronic “hiss.” In addition, DSL Internet service users may see interruptions. DSL filters are used in between telephones and phone lines to make sure that telephones use the two wires that aren’t being used by the DSL high-speed Internet service.

As an aside: we had our Monitronics alarm system installed for free, including numerous wireless window sensors, a motion detector, two strobe lights, and an alarm console. We pay $38 a month. If we get several referrals (maybe 2? maybe 4?) of people who then use Monitronic’s alarm system, our first year’s payments are waived. If we get a few more referrals (2 more? 4 more?) after that, then payments for the following year are also waived. If you’re interested in getting the same deal and would like to be one of my referrals (and then you could work on getting your own referrals), email me at josh@proud-geek.com with “Monitronics” in the subject. I don’t get paid nor get advertising dollars for doing this blog, so I’d consider this semi-payment! :-)

Here’s what a half mil buys you:

• 617 hp @ 6,500 rpm (will someone tell me what that means?)
• Top speed of 206 mph (who-ah, that’s like breaking the law several times over!)
• Swing-wing door design (good for swingers out there)
• Fully retractable semi-automatic soft top (handy for lazy folks trying to look cool)
• Bi-xenon twin headlights (as if just being gay or straight isn’t enough)
• 7-speaker Bose sound system (making for more than 3 speakers per seat and a higher proportion of late-deafened Mercedes drivers)
• Flip-top start button (just don’t go crazy thinking it’s a missile launch thing)
• Carbon filter bucket leather seatings (oooh-la, what a feeling)

• 0-60 seconds in under 3.8 seconds (don’t you ever want to be first when the light turns green?)
• 6 airbags with 8-way protection (you can’t be too careful nowadays)
• Ultra-light, ultra-rigid carbon filter frame can absorb 4 times more energy than steel in the event of a crash (but still, ow, bye bye $500k)
• Intelligent design makes commanding control within easy reach (but I thought Intelligent Design was a cover story for teaching of biblical creationism in school)
• Dry-sump lubrication system allows for a low center of gravity (I’m sorry, maybe it’s me, but this sounds vaguely pornographic)

Honeybear, I want one. I don’t care how much it breaks our bank account, and I don’t care that there are no backseats for our young daughters (even though I know they’d LOVE this car).

I. Simply. Want. One.

This is a Japanese Toto toilet. Google has these installed in some of its bathrooms. It has settings for cleaning your (ahem) rear and your (double-ahem) front. It can even dry your bottom. The warmth and pressure of the cleansing water can be regulated with the rear-cleansing option receiving (triple-ahem) stronger pressure than the front-cleansing option. Vibrating and pulsating jets of water (raising eyebrows here) can be added as options. The seat can be heated, the lid can be automatically raised or lowered (a boon for women everywhere!) with proximity sensors that can tell whether the person is facing forward or facing away (I wonder if it’d clam shut before my cat could get in to drink?), music can be played to relax the user, deodorizing spray can be released, etc.

My question is thus: what’s the (quad-ahem) wand cleaning function for? And dammit, how do you flush?

(Thanks, TechCrunch and SFist!)

Philadelphia is using smart technology to keep track of how much each household is recycling.  A computer chip (more accurately, a RFID chip) and bar code is embedded into each recycling container.  As a “smart truck” empties each container, it also scans the chip and weights the container.  Residents can then check an Internet website to see how much they’ve been recycling.  As an added bonus, they get Recycle Bank Dollars that they can then redeem for coupons on Starbucks coffee, groceries, gas, clothes, and more.

This “carrot approach” has gotten Philadelphia residents so fired up that the recycling rate zoomed up from 6 percent (one of the worst in the nation) to an incredible 90 percent.  Talk about giving an incentive to recycle and how this actually produces results!

I’d love to see this come to my hometown as well.  Anything for more Starbucks coffee!

Well, no longer. I can no longer recommend Wisp Flameless Candles.

Why?

Ah, the glass containers break much too easily. They shatter into huge shards, and when they shatter, they don’t just shatter. They jump all over the place!  I dropped one a month or two ago, and it shattered on the tile floor so explosively that a shard jumped up higher than me and then hit my head.  I’m bald, and thank goodness the shard must’ve hit me on its dull side. And last night, I cut my finger while cleaning up glass shards from another one that my daughters broke.

I can only imagine what would’ve happened had one of my young daughters tried to clean up.

So, I can no longer recommend those flameless candles.

Just be careful when you dispose of yours. And leave a comment if you know of a safer flameless candle.

Plus, it provides minutes of entertainment for our daughters.  Any minute that our daughters are kept occupied is a minute of peace and blessings, indeed.  Until they try to go Roomba-surfing, that is.

Easy life, huh?  I thought we had it made.

Until last night, that is.  Yesterday, I saw my neighbor’s Husqvarna Auto Mower mowing the grass on its own.

According to its webpage, the Auto Mower is weather-proof, theft-proof, mulches your lawn, silent enough to run during the night, mows up-hill, and is pet-friendly.

Dammit.  I gotta keep up with the Joneses.  I’m going to buy one, even if it breaks our bank account.

Here’s a photo of the Auto Mower at work on our neighbor’s lawn.  (Click for a larger version.)  Double-dammit.

These televisions would use a special box to send HD-quality video to flat-screen televisions.  Nice being able to mount these televisions on the wall without worrying about cables.  But then again, what about power?

I’ve blogged recently about razor-thin bendable televisions and bendable batteries.  I also wrote about the possibility of beaming electricity through the air instead of through wires.   So, putting all these together, perhaps in several years we’ll be rolling up our televisions and taking them with us for easy viewing at our local Starbucks (or, better yet, barista-equipped McDonalds with free WiFi service)?  Hmm.

Go pay time.gov a visit on your mobile device / smartphone / pager.

But what’s that? Time.gov’s Java-enabled functions doesn’t work on your smartphone? (These Java pages make it possible to see the time in real time on computers and Java-enabled phones – with the seconds running.) Don’t fret. Almost buried in a corner of many time.gov pages is a tiny link saying “Disable Java Animation” — clicking on this link allows you to see a non-Java version of that page. In fact, when you find your time zone and then get the non-Java version of that page, don’t forget to bookmark it on your smartphone’s web browser so you can quickly refer to it again. But keep in mind that, unlike Java versions of these pages, non-Java time.gov pages only show the time at the exact time the page was loaded onto your browser – that is, the time isn’t updated automatically unless you refresh the page.

I know many smartphones – including the Palm Treos – can automatically get the time and date from the network. But leaving this functionality on can be a huge power drain for the Palm Treos (and possibly other devices) – so that’s where having a bookmark to time.gov can come in handy if you leave this functionality off.

I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s a list of links to the non-Java pages of the various USA time zones. Gosh, ain’t it interesting how many time zones there really are in the USA and its territories? And remember when Alaska’s number of time zones changed from the previous four to just two now?

Happy times are indeed here! (And yes, I had previously blogged about checking time.gov from your computer.)

List of non-Java versions of time.gov time zone webpages:

• Atlantic time zone
• Eastern time zone
  
• Central time zone
• Mountain time zone
  
• Mountain time zone (Arizona, non-Navajo, no Daylight Saving)
• Pacific time zone
• Alaska time zone
• Hawaii / Aleutian time zone (Aleutian Islands, no Daylight Saving)
• Hawaii / Aleutian time zone
• Samoa and Midway time zone
• Marshall and Wake Islands time zone
• Kwajalein Island time zone
• Federated Islands of Micronesia (Caroline) time zone
• Chamorro time zone
• Palau time zone

Some features that I think we’ll all like:

• WiFi connectivity – that means we can take the VPAD to our local Starbucks, or on out-of-town trips to hotel rooms, or even to many McDonalds (which now provide free WiFi service).
• Touch-screen that’s 10.2″ wide.
• Optional keyboard via USB cable
• Light alerts along the top of the monitor
• Ability to hook the VPAD up to a larger TV, or even another electronic device (like gaming devices) to the VPAD
• A slot for SD memory cards (altho I wonder what this would be for — can we record conversations? Or only use the VPAD to display photos and possibly videos?)

The Viable’s VPAD webpage even has a 3D demo mini-video. Go check it out.

When can I get my grubby paws on one? However, it doesn’t look like there’s a sign-up list as of yet. No distribution date.

And while I’m at it: SnapVRS, I don’t even have an Ojo unit. When do I get one? Sorenson, I have one of the older VP-100’s and have yet to get a VP-200. Hint-hint-hint … :-P

EDIT: Amy Cohen Efron (who scooped me with her blog post earlier today about the unveiling of this VPAD – good going, Amy!) had several excellent questions about the VPAD. Go pay her blog post a visit, and I hope she gets these questions answered soon.

EDIT (1/7/08:): Amy Cohen Efron got a great response from Viable answering her questions and more.

I’m proud of telling people that I do not want my tombstone to say, “Here lies Josh / He was a good employee.” Rather, I want it to read, “Here lies Josh / He was a wonderful father.” But I don’t want that to be said in videos! I’d stick with a simple etching / carving of these words, thank you very much.

Ok, what is this gadget?

It’s the Serenity Panel, a video scrapbook made by Vidstone LLC that is buried into, ahem, built into your tombstone. It is powered by solar, and so the solar panels have to be faced in the right direction and the beloved can’t be buried under a thick tree. Pressing some control will show a 5-8 minute video of the dearly departed. I believe it would be built solid enough to last at least 15 years. There’s even a plan that ensures / insures replacement in case of vandalism (but not theft). There’s even a VidPet Memorial Panel to go on tombstones of cherished family pets. I kid thee not.

I do not mean to poke fun at what is surely a serious product for a serious time. But I just feel that this is a bit extravagent. Even normally somber CNN had a tongue-in-cheek article about this.

If anyone buries me with one of those on my tombstone, I’ll … I’ll … I’ll come back to life and chase you around and beat you silly!