MacBook here I come!

Over the past year I have mulled over my next PC purchase. I had never considered going to a Mac because they just seemed too expensive to risk. So what has changed?

First, I am older and make more money than in my Win Intel hobbyist days. Second, the switch to Intel chips and the subsequent advent of Boot Camp, Parallels, and Fusion mitigated much of the “risk.” I don’t have to abandon Windows completely. Third, I now have a wife and three children. I don’t have the time to do incremental hardware upgrades to my computers anymore, nor spend a lot of time troubleshooting problems. I just want it to work and I want photo and video editing to be as easy as possible. The biggest reason I am moving to a Mac is for iLife. Editing video using MovieMaker and/or Pinnacle is painful. The easiest thing I have found is iMovie/iDVD.

Finally, I got an iPod! I was blow away when I first opened the box. The packaging was as beautiful as the device and the user interface. The iPod lead me to podcasts. I have become addicted to podcasts and videocasts and from those have heard a lot about Macs and OSX. I have to admit that most podcasters have taken up residence in the Steve Jobs distortion field and drink the Apple Kool-Aid by the gallon. However, I think that I have with your help maintained an objective opinion of Apple up to this point. Suffice to say this experience, if nothing else served to educate me about Apple, Mac, and OSX.

I was fortunate to come into the market for a PC when Leopard was delayed last spring and the Vista problems were at there worst. I figured I would wait and see what Leopard would bring to Apple and how Vista would shake out. While I was waiting new iMacs came out and I learned more about Leopard. I also got my first experience with Vista when I helped setup my brother-in-law’s new Vista machine. It was not a bad experience. However, I almost ordered an iMac the day it came out but my wife reminded me how much I had been talking about a laptop. So I waited for a Leopard and a MacBook update.

Yesterday, I ordered my new 2.2Ghz Santa Rosa MacBook. I will keep my Windows XP desktop for my wife and will move all of my stuff onto the Mac. I don’t plan on installing XP or Vista immediately but it is nice to know that I have that option as a safety net. For work all I need is Citrix and VNC. The one thing I am not overly happy about with the MacBook is the white…200 bucks for a black case is crazy.

There are a few things that make me apprehensive about moving to Mac. First, I don’t think that AppleTV is going to be the IPTV device I was hoping for and a Windows Media Center/Extender may have been a better choice from a media perspective. Second, I really think the Zune2 is attractive now that it supports podcasts and wi-fi synching. However, next year when I am ready to retire my iPod for an iPod touch this may be a wash. Also since I still have a perfectly good XP machine I could still get Zune2. Thankfully when I ripped all my CDs I did it in mp3 format and I have resisted the temptation to by music through iTunes so all of my music is portable to another platform or will work just fine with the Apple universe.

FiOS TV 2.0 hits Northern Virginia!

Well I now have the new Interactive Media Guide (aka FiOS TV 2.0). My inital impressions are that it looks great but is basically the same interface as before just a little prettier. It appears that they used a "blade" style interface a la the XBox 360. The interface is definately one of the nicest DVR interfaces, outside the TiVo. However, it does suffer from some rather annoying deficiencies. Ironically many of these are things lost from the old Interactive Media Guide (1.0).

1. No way to limit the Channels in the Guide: With Tivo and IMG 1.0 you could turn of channels you don't want to see in the channel listing. I typically turn off the foreign language channels, shopping channels, and music channels I don't care for. However, I have not been able to find out how to remove channels. There are some nice pre-defined filters: All Channels, HD Channels, and Favorites. Removing u nwanted channels also helps shrink the database and makes searching much faster and reduces mistakes when selecting programs to records. Its much harder to accidentally record the spanish version of the Discovery channel.

2. The filters are crippled: You can not modify the filters and the HD Channels filter is broken. When you select the HD Channel filter it does not show the local channels.

3. The Favorites feature is now annoying and not useful. When I first realized that I couldn't turn a channel off my first instinct was to just make all the channels I want my favorites and they always use the Favorites filter. Heck there is even a "Favorites" button one the remote. However I eventually figured out that if you pick the english TLC as a favorite you automatically get the spanish TLC as a favorite. I don't speak spanish, so I don't want to have to scroll through those channels in my guide!

4. HD Channel and Favorites Filter jump you to the beginning: Another annoying thing about the "Favorites" Filter is that it jumps you to the beginning of the guide and not the channel you are on! The HD Channel Filter also suffers from this problem but since there aren't that many channels its not as annoying.

5. HD Channel and Favorites Filter don't wrap around. Since these filters jump you to the beginning of the guide, ie lowest channel number, you would think that you could just go up and the channels will wrap around and you will be at the highest number but ohhh no! That would make way to much since.

I have only had the new IMG 2.0 for a few days so I'm sure I'll find more to like and dislike so I will continue to post on this topic. In this post I have focused on what I don't like. In my next post I will try and focus on what I do. There is a lot to the new IMG 2.0 and much of the good stuff is pretty deep in the UI. I personally think that the UI is too deep an needs to be simplified. In my opinion that is the key to TiVo's success.

Google Moving into Healthcare

I recieved my masters degree in Health Systems Management, specializing in IT, from George Mason University last year. During my studies I spent a considerable amout of time studying Electronic Health Records, Electronic Medical Records, and the proposed "National Health Record."

Lets just say the problem is how do we effectively gather, protect, and distribute electronic healthcare information that is useful to clinicians, public health officials, scientists, and patients. At the same time insuring that the most personal of all our information is protected and used against us by the government, corporations, insurance carriers, and society. And, please don't get me started on the potiential "nanny state" implications around electronic health information.

While I was a Mason I heard rumors about Google getting into health care. Soon after I graduated I read and digged an article in eWeek about google getting into the health care space.

The latest which I found on ValleyWag is some screen shots of Google Health, code named Weaver. The interesting thing is that Googles greatest asset in this space is also its greatest weakness. If anyone can lick the electronic health information portability problem Google can. However most people are not real keen on the idea of Google having access to their health information, in addition to our email, browsing history, and shopping habits.

Googles stated goal of indexing the worlds information will come up squarely against there mission to "do no evil." With this much information about individuals the tempation to take advantage of all of that data will be impossible to resist. The results range from the horrorifyingly scarry to the humorously scarry. I have heard fears range from Google putting health information to potential employeers and insurance carriers to a person with Herpes getting Adsense adds for medication during a presentation using Google docs.

On the positive side the benefits to healthcare and science are also staggering. Giving scientists "agregated" data stripped of Personally Health Information (PHI) in a large scale along with the aggregated browsing, shopping, and email habits would be enormous. Think of the connections that could be made: "Porn site visitors have an 80% increase risk of suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." Turns out it isn't the keyboards at work that is the problem its the porn on the computer!

Then I read another Valley Wag post by, Owen Thomas, that brought me a completely new perspective. His theory is that Microsoft and Google's entry into healthcare is just a expensive busy work project for executives they can not afford to get rid of. Though I tend to agree with one of the commenter's who said that Google and Microsoft's entry is great if nothing else they will shake up the establishment.

If you think Google and Microsoft are errogant in their business practices you haven't seen the heavy weights of healthcare IT. Nothing says closed, proprietary, legacy like GE, Phillips, 3M, and Siemens. Google and Microsoft will be a big threat to them and that will be a battle of biblical proportions that might actually do some good once the dust settles. The scarry thing again is, this is healthcare and thus human lives that are at risk.

FiOS is Kryponite for DirectTV and Cable

In the first 90 days of the FiOS availability 34 Massachusetts towns, this is how the losses stack up:1. Comcast lost 5,216 subscribers across a base of 204,160, a drop of 2.6%.2. RCN lost 1,813 subscribers, or 7% off its base of 25,895 subscribers.3. 4.5k FiOS TV subscribers came from DirecTV/DISH, or about 40% of their total subscriber4. Verizon’s gain was 11,982 subscribers.I guess that explains why Massachusetts is getting FiOS TV 2.0 next!

read more | digg story

Diagram of FiOS Network

I thought it might be helpful for those considering Verizon FiOS to know what the topology might look like. The diagram shows my current topology.

Two things I am curious about.
1. The STBs show up in the router as Coax IP connections.
2. The internet connection comes into the router through the coax same splitter that connects the STBs.
3. The home media option allows me to access music and photos from my primary workstation.

I suspect that this allows the STB to get OnDemand via IP without going through the router. However, it also means that for the Home Media option to work the STBs have to be punched through the firewall in the router since they are technically connected to the WAN port.

It is also possible that the STBs have wireless capabilities that may get them "inside" the firewall. If this is the case then what happens if I try and change from WEP to WPA? WEP is configured by default and the "key" is etched on the bottom of the Router. I definately plan on moving to WPA so I'll learn pretty quick if the STBs are wireless or coax?

Also the HD DVR STB has an ethernet jack on the back however the installer told me that it wasn't necessary to use.

I will post some screen shots of the router. It has a very polished and slick GUI that I like quite a bit. However, I do want to do some port scans and traffic analysis on both my internal network and from the internet to see how the data is flowing.

FiOS TV 2.0 Update - Verizon Planning Q4 role out!

The update to Verizon's interactive media guide is coming soon. It has been piloted in Connecticut and New Jersey and is headed to Massachusetts very soon. Also, later in 2008 their may be a role out of "games and the ability to program the DVR remotely."

I guess I'll have to wait a little longer. : (

There is also a link on the Engadget page to Verizon's Blog. I believe this is the source of the engadget post.

read more | digg story

FiOS Install Pictures

This is a picture of the FiOS Termination that is mounted to the outside of my house. The installer did a good job of mounting the box as well as enlarging the pentration that was sealed with silicon claulk.
















Here you can see the POT phone line connection as well as the coax connection. The coax carries both TV and Internet access. I will post pictures of my closet in future posts.











This the bottom of the FiOS Termination Box. Unfortuantly I wasn't able to get a picture of the "craft" side of the box on the left. I believe one of the two wires on the left side connects to a UPS mounted inside my house.












This is the box near the street where the fibre from my house connects to the trunk.

Finally: Verizon Wirless to release 5 new phones in August! [PIC]

Models include: Motorola Z6tv, Motorola RAZR 2 Q9M (iPhone Killer), Samsung i760, UTStarcom XV6800. There a link in the comments to a less blurry version of the image.Since my contract with Verizon Wireless runs out in August this is perfect timing!

read more | digg story

FiOS Installation - Smooth as broken glass!

I had visions yesterday moring as I drank my coffee waiting for the installer of posting a fancy demo on YouTube and pretty post with screen shots on JstJmpN, but alais, those dreams were dashed at 11:30am yesterday. I am working on a detailed post for later but I would like to post a quick update:

1. The installation went from 9:00am until sometime after 8:00pm.
2. Telephone service was out from 3:00pm until 7:30pm.
3. Verizons Activation servers were down from 11:30am until 3:00pm.
4. I don't have the latest "Interactive Media Guide" as promised on when I signed up and when I received a reminder courtesy call on Tuesday.

I did have a chance to play around with the box in the bedroom last night. I had a go-live at work until midnight so it was a very busy day.

FiOS Anticipation

I'm sorry it has been a while since my last post.

Tomorrow is the big day. My wife and I have our Tivo intervention hosted by big bad Verizon. It is going to be a hard breakup. I have had Tivo since 1999, when it was only sold on an infomercial. My wife learned about and became addictted to Tivo when we started dating. It is the one piece of technology we agree on. She has hardly noticed to 20" wide screen monitor. We went to DirectTV specifically to get the integrated DirectTivo when they first came out. We now have two.

Last night, we were getting ready for bed, and my wife exclaimed, "Oh my God, we have to watch all of our shows...'they' are going to take the Tivos!" I assured her that no one is taking the Tivos, that we own them, and I will hook them up after the FiOS install so that we can watch the recorded shows we have not seen. She exhaled and was much more relaxed.

I am trying to be the strong one and hide my fears from my my wife. The scariest thing is that we signed a 2 year agreement with Verizon. If we want to break that contract they are going to want our first born child. I know that if this does not go well she is going to take it out on me.

I'm scared! :P

There is hope with the release of the new HD Tivo. However, it may be a while before you can get a cable card out of Verizon.

FiOS Update - Interactive Media Guide Roll Out

Story at Engadget

The role out of the Interactive Media Guide is beginning! Its apparently starting in Rhode Island, parts of New Jersey, and beyond. The upgrade will be automatically installed so no user intervention is necessary.I think that Springfield, Virginia will be a part of "beyond." I was promised during my calls to Verizon to order FiOS that I would be getting the Interactive Media Guide with my installation or very soon their after.

read more | digg story

Ins and Outs: Does YouTube fit on the boob tube?

Story at Engadget

I agree with this article 100%. YouTube videos are too short and too low quality for them to be accepted on the TV. A couple of models might improve adoption:

1. What about a TV show called "YouTube's Funniest Videos." It could feature the weeks most popular clips that are appropriate for primetime TV. This would expose YouTube to a larger audience and further drag television into the reality TV black hole! The networks would love it because it would cost next to nothing to produce! Genius Pure Geninus

2. Use a thumbs up thumbs down, a la TiVo, approach to a the YouTube Channels idea discussed in the article.

read more | digg story

First Corner Cuisine Meal

Tonight we had our first Corner Cuisine meal. Tonight was "Shrimp Tacos." My wife and I realized another great benefit of the service. The portion sized are nutritionally correct and they are balanced meals. This is a really nice way to help my wife and I enforce our diet and set a good example for our kids.

The shrimp tacos were quite tasty. My wife and I each got good sized taco and the third taco was divided between my wife and I and our two year old. Sophia calls shrimp "pony tails" and she LOVES pony tails.

Samsung 205BW Update

Well I got the Samsung 205BW this evening at Costco. It cost me $199, with $30 off coupon. So far so good! The picture is beautiful, however, I have not watched any video yet. With the 6ms response time its not the fastest but I think it is going to be plenty fast for my purposes.

I still think that 2 x 17" monitors is better for most desktop purposes. Tomorrow I'll boot to Fiesty and get the resolution set there. Wish me luck I may have to run x.org!

Discovery: Corner Cuisine!

This morning my wife and her friend went to "Corner Cuisine." In an hour and a half, my wife made dinners for the next 24 nights. Corner Cuisine is a local version of a chain called "Let's Dish." My wife and her friend decided to go to Corner Cuisine instead of Let's Dish because it is A)Closer to our house, B)Cheaper, and C)Local Small Business.

In case you have not heard of the concept of these types of places, let me explain. First you select your menu, then you schedule your day, then you take a cooler to the company's location. Next, you go from station to station preparing your meals. At each station are the ingredents, instructions, and packaging for the meal. Ingredients are already prepared so the onions are already diced, garlic minced, etc.

The cost for my wife's visit was about 200 dollars and 1 hour and a half. The best part. There is no extra ingredients to go bad, no dishes or clean up to do, and its fast. With a two year old and a twin infants my wife said, "I could NOT have completed the grocery shopping for this many meals in a hour and a half."

One additional point:
Corner Cuisine also allows you to call ahead hand have them prepare individual meals that you can pickup on your way home from work.

I'll let you know how the food is at the end of the 24 days.

The Twins 1st Week of Daycare

...and my wife's first week back to work is over! The twins are now 3 months old and my wife's maternity leave is over. I think she is pretty happy to be back to work. Our biggest concern was getting them to take a bottle at daycare. My wife has been very successful breast feeding the twins. Which is no easy accomplishment, believe me. Twins must be feed at the same time otherwise there is zero chance of parents getting any sleep, at all, ever! Picture that in your head! My wife and I get asked all the time how she does it. I'll post a review of the gadget that allows double breast feeding soon.

The girls took to the bottle on their Thursday, their second day of daycare. We were really stressed about that. Meghan, did not like the bottle when we tried to prepare them for daycare. Believe me, saying that Meghan didn't like the bottle is being gentle. She would scream if she saw a bottle on a counter or table. She would scream if my wife or I said the word "bottle" while holding her. Reilly, we call stone face, because most of the time she has the same some what angry somewhat apathetice look on her face, would take a bottle begrudgingly until she heard Meghan!

The daycare center, the pediatrician, and my mother all said that it could take both girls a while before they will take to the bottle. By "a while" our pediatrician clarified by saying weeks. This caused my wife to almost pass out!

My wife took the twins and our two year old daughter Sophia daycare this week. This, however, will not be the norm. This was so that she could breast feed them when they are dropped off and picked up.

Starting next week I get the put on my bus driver hat! I have been taking Sophia to daycare her entire life so I'm used the the process. However, I don't know how I am going to get myself ready, all three of them ready, out to the care, and dropped off by myself. My wife has been home, on maternity leave, with the twins three days a week and with the twins and Sophia two days a week. She has managed to get herself, and the girls all up and out the door in a hour and a half!

If I can get the same done in two hours on Tuesday I will be so lucky! I'm going to pick my wife's brain this weekend to figure out how she did it.

During that time she has made it a point to get out of the house every day.

Monitor 19" vs 20"

I've been looking at getting a new monitor. My old 20" CRT is getting a bit tired and I swear it appears to get larger every day!

I've looked at alot of options. Click here to see my spreadsheet.

I narrowed my choices down to the 20" Samsung 205BW and the 19" Samsung 906BW. Both are available for the same price on line. The real question dilemma is, do I buy a smaller monitor with great specs or a larger monitor with good specs. Online they both can be found for the exact same price.

Unfortunately, there are few reviews on either model. I made a trip to my local MicroCenter and was able to see the 906BW and it looked really nice. The glossy screen and fast response time (2ms) were very impressive. A few days later I was able to find a 205BW at a Costco that I could see. Though it didn't have the glossy screen the 6ms response time was plenty fast.

I have decided to go with the 20" for the extra screen real estate. Also I really don't do any gaming any more so the extra fast response would offer me little benefit. Also, Costco I have a coupon for $30 off the 205BW starting on Monday. This discount actually makes the 20" cheaper than the 19".

JmpN to Verizon FiOS

Today I jmpd into Verizon FiOS. I am super excited about I am getting Telephone, TV, and Internet over fibre. FiOS has been in my neighborhood for quite a while now. I think we were one of the first areas to get FiOS and then later FiOS TV.

The biggest thing I had to overcome was my addition to Tivo. I am currently a DirectTivo subscriber. We have two in the house. However, I have had a Tivo since it was advertised on an infomercial back in the late 90’s. I do really hate breaking up with Tivo, even though its really Direct Tivo.

What convinced me was seeing a demo of Verizons on Interactive Media Guide . I also read a review about it on engadget.

Another factor is HD. The DirectTV HD DVR is still getting thrashed all over the internet. I have zero confidence in it and moving to it would still require that I breakup with by longtime love, Tivo. I have a Samsung HD receiver that I have to reboot every two days and my OTA reception is spotty at best.

I spent a lot of time online chatting with Verizon and also calling their customer service. I was able to get them to confirm that the STBs I will receive are capable of the new IMG, if not already installed. I hope that the IMG gets my wife and I over our Tivo addition. If not its going to be a very painful process.

Sign-up Process:

I would have signed up for FiOS online, but, there is no easy way to sign up for the triple play. You have to sign up for the TV/Internet @118.00/month (in my case) and then call or go to another verizon site to transfer the voice package and the hope and pray that you will be able to get the discounted $99.99 price.

So I called the Customer Service Center and had them set me up with the Triple Play. They were able to do the whole thing and quote me a price of $125.00 plus tax. This price gets me 5/2 Internet, TV w/HBO and two STB, and caries over my existing Freedom Essentials voice package. They have confirmed and installation date of July 25.

Gulp! Wish me luck!

Just Jump In Already!

OK so I have been a geek for a while and have put off this whole web 2.0 thing because I wasn't sure what I had to say. This morning on my way to work I desided, "what the hell," I'm never going to get out there and do step one! So Step One: Create the damn thing! Thus my name "just jump in" or jstjmpn in Web 2.0 speak!

So here is what I am jmpn into right now:

1. I signed up for Verizon FiOS internet/phone/tv - the "triple play."

2. I started my gmail account. I have been using a MSN and Verizon account for email for the last two years.

However they are so filled up with mailing lists from Cnet, eweek, zdnet, etc that they are hardly usable. The sad thing is my handle bsavage3 going back to my AOL days is taken. Hell I probably had it at one time but for got the password and never used.

Besides it time to reinvent myself as a modern geek. So my new name is rbsavage3.