Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Or maybe it was water this time. Either way, I’ve killed *two* laptop hard drives since I deployed. One met its death due to extreme heat, this one seems to have gone the way of the dodo when KBR cleaned our A/C. They got water all over the damn thing, and apparently it made it to the platter. I don’t know if I can even attempt to RMA it, but I will anyway, at least I didn’t have any data I really needed on it this time.
It’s been a few days now, and I’m still impressed with Inphonex. I have only two gripes, and they’re with the softphone client I use. I’ve got to killall esd before I open the client, and then reconfigure the audio settings before I make any calls. I’m not too torn up about that, it happens. The other thing is how long the client registers with Inphonex for – by default 30minutes. If you close it, and 5 minutes later decide to re-open and make a call, you’re out of luck. The solution? Go into the menu, advanced settings, SIP settings, and set the re-register time from 1800s to 200-300s.
There’s a bit of delay, and sometimes it flat just doesn’t work – but that’s my ISP/location at work there. I intend to try using my softphone from anywhere I can connect on my trip back to the States. That’s all for now.
When I deployed to Iraq, it was my intent to have my own VoIP service to be able to call my family and friends whenever I felt like it. My initial choice was Vonage, their lack of support for users wanting to use VoIP with a softphone – say on a PDA or Laptop – without paying extra got under my skin. Couple that with the fact I was unable to complete calls over my lagtastic satellite connection here in Iraq and you have a no-go at this station.
Enter Inphonex, and you have a sane – and global – VoIP provider. This sanity comes in the form of options, the things that make users feel warm and fuzzy inside. They don’t care if you want to use a softphone, in fact they suggest 3 different softphones along with configuration guides. Their top choice just so happens to have clients for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. I couldn’t honestly give two cares in the world for the other two OSes, but Linux support that just works OOTB!? Hell. Yes.
It gets better. There is no extra fee for softphone use, in fact if you just want to use their service for SIP and nothing more – there is no charge period. Just sign up, and you can call any Inphonex user’s SIP number for free. If you want to use your Cisco VoIP phone, go right on ahead. Have an ATA and a regular phone? Cool deal, use it.
way cool
For the first month or two of my PSP ownership I was pretty opposed to using it for anything beyond gaming. My logic was that if I had the best compact laptop on the planet, why would I want to view pictures or watch movies on the PSP? I went on like that for a while, at least up to the point my Mom sent me Hostage on UMD Video for PSP. What the hell I say – I’ll watch it. The quality was quite impressive on such a tiny screen, the audio was rather acceptable as well. Sin City is also coming out on UMD Video for PSP, and I’m gonna have to buy it.
For the last few days my Sony PSP has kept me occupied during the most mindnumbing hours of my TOC shift. FIFA Soccer, and Coded Arms getting the most playtime. I also have Dynasty Warriors, and Tony Hawk but they aren’t really played very much. Games aren’t the only reason the PSP rocks though, I keep some pictures of family and friends on it too. Back to my PSP.
…and destroy the internet. Every other browser I’ve tried, or had other people try, renders this page just fine. Try loading it in Internet Exploder, and BLAMO you’ll get a mangled heap of dog excriment on your screen, and likely wish to gouge your eyes out with toilet snake. If you are so afflicted, do yourself a favor – Get Firefox.
Technical stuff will go here. Before too long I’ll put together a page on using the Debian Installer to install Sarge on a Soekris net4801. Also expect a quick and dirty how-to for installing Ubuntu Hoary on the Intel Pentium-M based Fujitsu P-Series Lifebooks (the short version is: boot, and hit enter a few times.) More to follow.