Just some Rambling...
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
The new small Apple keyboard
While drooling over the new iMac in the Apple Store today, I was a little perplexed when I noticed that all the display models had a small compact keyboard that looked like a Macbook keyboard, with no numeric keypad or separate arrow keys. The salesman confirmed my suspicions that this was indeed the way that Apple was now shipping them and not just the store display. My immediate thought was “how desparate is this company to save money?” [Read more...]
What happened to Fido’s 25c roaming plus 10c long distance when you are traveling in the US? Yesterday when I drove to Bellingham I received this text message:
Rogers welcomes you to the U.S.! $1.45/min voice roaming rate applies. To save up to 61%, get a Travel Pack @ http://www.rogers.com/wm/us (data fees apply)
I recently moved into a new apartment that included Internet service as part of the rental agreement. Of course, the landlord’s idea of included Internet amounted to my handing him my laptop while he surreptitiously typed his WEP password into my wireless connection settings in OS-X. I won’t even comment on how long it took me to open the KeyChain utility and find the key for use in my BlackBerry Bold, UMA enabled Nokia 6301 from Fido and so on, and all was well with my WiFi enabled electronics… except for one small problem…
For many years I have been a subcriber to Vonage’s VOIP service. I know there is much mixed feelings about Vonage out there, but they have served me incredibly well since I signed up in 2003. Vonage however, works though an ATA that only has an ethernet connector, so there was no way I could hook it to the landlord’s free Internet. Remembering that DD-WRT, the alternative firmware for the very common Broadcom and Atheros based WiFi routers that one can buy for about $40 – $50 at most consumer electronic stores today, can operate as a bridged client, I thought I would give it a try. [Read more...]
Note: Since writing this review, there have been a number of changes to this service by Telus. First, they renamed the product to “Optik TV”, and they also switched from the Minerva platform that they were using on their equipment, to equipment using Microsoft’s Media Room. Under the hood their have also been a number of changes to the service, including a 15Mbps ADSL2+/VDSL service only available with Optik TV to presumably address the slow Internet issues that manifested when Telus TV was in use.
This review relates to the original Telus TV Offering, and not the re-branded Optik TV offering with the Microsoft Media Room powered equipment. I will write a new review on Optik TV as soon as Telus install the new service for me.
A friend of mine recently had Telus TV installed, and after having a good look at her setup, I realized that Telus’ IPTV service may have finally come of age!
For those of you, who like me have been very skeptical about the effectiveness of an IPTV system based on Telus’ ADSL network, I can say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness and clarity of her TV service. Since Shaw end up being rather pricey, with their 3 tier pricing – for the channels that I actually like to watch, and I noticed that Telus TV seemed to have a more flexible approach to channel selection, I started to investigate further. Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding really good reviews of people’s experience with the product, so after deciding that the almost $50 I would potentially save with Telus TV over my current Shaw Cable and Internet Bundle, the saving based mainly on the more flexible pricing model of their TV service, and the fact that for a 1 year contract Telus would throw in an HD capable Scientific Atlanta IPTV Set Top Box, definitely made the taking the risk on the product worthwhile. [Read more...]