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Back on October 13 I posted about some Time-Warner/Roadrunner downtime. For about 10-11 days, service was spotty. Oftentimes we'd be online for 30 minutes, offline for 15-45, and back online again for maybe an hour before being knocked off again in a cycle. It made it tough to get any work done because you never knew when the service would crap out.

I wrote to a local engineer about two weeks ago. Today he responded.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I just got back from vacation yesterday. I hope the problems you described have gone away. We are about 85% complete of a whole-system upgrade. The workers have been in the Millcreek area for the past 4 weeks or so. I would assume the Internet issues you describe are due to the work being done.

Unfortunately, there is no graceful way to upgrade a cable system without interrupting the customers using it. We are expanding the bandwidth of the cable system from 550 MHz to 1 GHz, almost double the bandwidth. This means that certain cable lines and every single piece of electronic gear in the system must be replaced (including at the hubs). At the same time, the node size (homes passed per node) is being drastically reduced, which will virtually eliminate any network congestion. Once the equipment is replaced in a given neighborhood, other crews go through and "balance" the system for peak performance. The balancing process itself causes brief interruptions while they change "padding" at amplifiers to adjust for optimum system levels. The whole process can take 7 to 14 days. Attempts are made to minimize customer impact including doing a lot of the work during the overnight hours.

As I mentioned, we are also upgrading the equipment in the hubs. This includes the CMTS's used for high speed data. We have installed a new CMTS chassis in the Millcreek hub expanding the upstream ports available. This has allowed us to designate a single node to a single port, insuring a robust network.

I know I am painting a rosy picture. However, if the "picture" is still fuzzy, it should clear up very soon. Of course if you continue to experience ongoing problems we need to take a closer look. I feel confident that we can get these issues behind us. Please keep me updated.

My follow-up email asked him why, if I can get 14 Mbps (or 24 Mbps) down, I still only get 700 kbps up. Download speed isn't the only thing that matters. I'll be interested to hear his response.

"Effected" vs. "Affected" isn't quite on the same level as "their" vs. "there" (vs. "they're) or "its" vs. "it's," and I suppose I should be happy that they didn't write "your" in this promo:

Yes, that's Dr. Phil (and part of the sleeve of my shirt, I think).

Yet another reason to drink Coke. Ugh.

The Mountain Dew bottle isn't so bad, but the other bottles are being compared to male reproductive organs and the logo work, in the words of one commenter, looks as though it's the work of a designer trying to convince the higher-ups not to change the current design.

Happy Birthday!

You're my favorite older woman and the love of my life. 😉

Good thing this postcard isn't from the Council of Teachers of the English Language.

Keeping your eyesight and hearing are, to me, no-brainers. Smell and taste are so interlinked it's tough to pull them apart, so I'd almost consider them one and the same, except that tasting is done far less frequently than smelling. So between taste and touch, I might very well give up taste. It might even be good for me - I could eat purely for health and not worry about how great a steak tastes.

Even if forced to give up both smell and taste (to eliminate all taste), I still might. Touch is critically important to a lot of daily tasks - like typing, driving a car, etc. - and recreational activities like sports or even operating a camera.

Based on this article, which talks about the Cocoa Finder in Snow Leopard and a bit more, I've re-set my monitor to a gamma of 2.2.

I've resisted this change for quite awhile because, well, all it seems to do is make everything darker and a bit more contrasty. The dynamic range of my screen seems to be smaller, as if someone "upped the black point." Blech.

Apple also said that it has changed the default gamma display setting to help both consumers and professionals. The Cupertino-based company made adjusted the default settings to be closer to those used by Windows PCs and televisions. According to the latest Snow Leopard release notes, the default gamma setting has been changed from 1.8 to 2.2 - which is recommended by many professionals - and that applications that override the deftault and assume a gamma 1.8 setting may have different onscreen and printed output than they did in previous releases of Mac OS X. Although the 1.8 setting has been used as the default by Apple since its earliest monitors and laser printers, Apple already actually recommends on its website to re-calibrate monitors to the 2.2 setting for photographic work.

Those in the know: any changes I need to make in Aperture, Photoshop, or elsewhere? I changed the gamma by re-doing my display calibration in the Displays system preferences.

Anyone out there have a Windows laptop that meets these requirements:

• Windows XP SP2
• 800 MHz CPU
• 512 MB RAM
• 100 MB free disk space
• At least one USB 1.1 port
• 1024 x 768 resolution

Why? My wife wants to run this.

Willing to pay a little bit (some netbooks come close but many are often 1024 x 600, for example) or perhaps trade. Anyone need a snow dome AirPort base station? 🙂

With our win last night, the Tungsten Blades are above .500 for the first time in franchise history! Woot!

In this current season, we're also the only loss for one team and the only win for another. Uh hmmm.

How much does it cost - and what equipment is there to buy - in order to print photos at home?

I'm not looking to set up a print ship by any means, but if I do this, I'm not looking to print low-quality photos either. My wife scrapbooks and photography is an important part of our lives.

Nothing too big: 4x6 mostly, with some 5x7 and maybe some 8x10s at some point. I'm not all that concerned about color matching - "awfully close" will be good enough - but I am concerned about up-front costs.

What's the cost-per-print (4x6) once you factor in the non-reusables (ink, paper)? Is it even cost effective to print at home or will Wal-Mart's $0.19 printing still be awfully competitive?

I've read quite a few reviews of the Kodak Zi6, and nearly two weeks ago, I bought one for myself. It arrived shortly thereafter and I'm impressed. I've never had a Flip - never even seen one in person - but the Zi6 does two things that I wanted that the Flip doesn't do: HD and 60 FPS.

While I don't have time for a full review, but I do have time to write a list of likes and dislikes.

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I don't care for this sort of take on things:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

As I said in my last post on this election, I am undecided. That's saying a lot consider I tend to align with what have historically been more "Republican" ideals. Since that post some 17 or 18 days ago, I've been swayed slightly towards one side, but not a bunch, and not with any finality.

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Joe McNally talks at Google, where the audience misses 90% of the jokes and doesn't seem to remember people like Ozzie Smith. I'm only 30 and I feel old. 😛

PhotoSwap, a free photo-sharing app for the iPhone. You take a picture and the software does two things. First, it sends your picture to another random PhotoSwap user. Second, it sends you a photo from a random PhotoSwap user in return. Perhaps a later version will include the ability to save the pictures you take (and perhaps those you receive) in your iPhone's photo albums.

Bonus Link: http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/. Awesome. Played with that thing for ten minutes.

It's sweet to beat a previously unbeaten team, I've got to say.

P.S. Update.

I'm looking to start a small local digital photgraphy "club" in the Erie, PA area and am looking for someone to help run the thing. I've got what I think are some good ideas, but for various reasons I don't want to do this by myself.

There's a photography club in Erie right now, but from what I've heard they focus a bit too much on prints, birds, and aren't terribly technologically savvy. They're also mostly older photographers, and I'm looking to start up a group of people aged 18-50 or so with a strong tendency towards digital photgraphy, with a website, online contests, and more.

If you're interested in helping me do something of this sort, get ahold of me however you'd like.