Farewell to Misty

Sadly on Thursday May the 4th 2006 one of our cats Misty, passed away.

Misty suffered Kidney failure in one of her kidneys early last year and since then she had been on borrowed time. We did everything we could for her. We gave her fluids at increasing intervals via a drip, fed her only kidney diet food and made sure she was always well hydrated. As time went on she went through patches of doing well, and patches of doing not so well. At one point we had to make the decision to have almost all of her teeth removed because they were all rotten and the germs were making her remaining kidney even worse, not to mention she couldn't eat.

After her dental work she once again perked up. A short time later her health started declining again. This time we found out that she was very anemic. The vet gave her a shot and we fed her the only food she would eat, tuna. Tuna of course isn't good for a failing kidney but that's all she would eat.

On Wednesday night we noticed that she wasn't eating or drinking at all and she was very weak. We were worried. The next morning we found her hiding under a piece of furniture which is a sign that a cat has found a place to die. She was really struggling to breath (not a blocked airway but the body trying to get enough oxygen into her blood).

Karen took her to the vet immediately and they told her that it would only get worse from then onwards. Her other kidney was now also shrivelled up and she was very dehydrated and anemic. We had to make the very difficult decision to euthanise her. It was really for her benefit because she was now really suffering. Up until that point she was never in pain, but now she was.

We think Misty was 15 years old but the vet said that it was more like 18 (126 cat years).

We got Misty from the ASPCA in 1995 and at the time they said she was 5 years old. She was probably 8 years old but because people almost never adopt older animals in favor of the cute kittens, they bend the truth a little. That day we adopted 2 cats. Misty and Sheba. We were living in Concord, California and Sheba was a stray while Misty was a cat that had been severely abused by her previous owners and brought to the ASPCA because the husband told the wife that she wasn't paying him enough attention so the cat had to go. One can also imagine that the husband was beating up the cat too.

We didn't name Misty, her previous owners did and we kept her name.

Misty had one eye that had a damaged cornea, possibly from a cat fight, but possibly from human abuse. She could see out of it but it was probably a bit blurry.

When we got Misty home, she was a very terrified cat. She cowered away when you went to stroke her. She literally ran up a wall to get away from us many times in pure terror because she was expecting the abusive treatment of her previous owners.
Eventually after many months, probably years, she came to trust us completely. She understood that not all humans are cruel to animals and we were there to love her and take care of her.

Misty had such a wonderful personality and character. She was definitely the head of our little cat colony and the others wouldn't cross her. She was full of spunk and life and turned out to be a very loving companion.

When we drove from Concord, California to New Jersey with the cats in the car, Misty had no fear. She sat on the dash board and watch the world zip by. She also sat on the center arm rest and enjoyed the blast from the air conditioner.

Misty's life may have started out with those disgusting humans among us who abuse animals, but we rescued her in 1995 and she enjoyed the last 11 years of her life in our loving care and we feel honored to have shared it with her.

Misty, we already miss you.

Another BlackBerry Book?

No I'm not writing another BlackBerry book, however I'm the Technical Editor on a new BlackBerry book called "Hacking BlackBerry" which is being written by Glenn Bachmann. This one is also being published by Wiley.

The new podcast is going well too and we just completed show number 002 last night. We interviewed Paul Dumais from Idokorro and chatted about the RIM/NTP settlement. Our intro was re-mastered by Derek "The Bandit" Richardson and so now it sounds ultra-cool (while before it was just very cool). Derek kept my voice but he did apply some compression.

I came across this funny video that I thought I'd share. It is The Simpsons intro done by live actors. Quite funny and worth a watch.

New podcast

I know, I know. I haven't posted anything for so long that you thought I'd abandoned this blog.
Well, I'm here to prove you wrong! I haven't abandoned it but was waiting for something noteworthy to post.

I have created a new podcast which will cover mobile computing. I feel that this growing sector of the market needs its own podcast and I'm the one to provide it.
The podcast is called "Mobile Computing Authority" and will hosted by myself, along with 3 other mobile computing experts, namely Bill Foust, Rob Kao, and Dante Sarigumba. Bill Foust is the author of the book Mobile Guide to BlackBerry, while Rob Kao and Dante Sarigumba both authored BlackBerry for Dummies.

I have chosen to use Libsyn as the host server for this podcast. They have excellent rates and unlimited bandwidth so you'll find the MCA home page at http://mca.libsyn.com/

You can subscribe to MCA in 2 ways:
If you use iTunes 4.9 or later, click here.
If you don't use iTunes, use this link.

I hope that people find this new podcast useful and that they'll remain subscribed for years to come.

Wish me luck!

How dumb can ISP technical people be?

The answer to the subject line is VERY DUMB. I'll explain.

As you know, I recently moved and had to switch from Cablevision (Optimum Online) to Comcast.
Cablevision was rock solid, and I only had problems when my aging 3COM cable modem bit the dust, but the Comcast picture isn't so rosy (well for me anyway).

I had it in for a few days and the upload speed was reduced to 50Kbps. I first noticed this because my Vonage calls became inaudible because they need at least 100 Kbps up (well 96Kbps but add a bit for overhead and latency). I called Comcast to report this and they told me that it was a problem on their end and that they would monitor it over a 48 hour period.

I called the next day because it was just too slow. This new "technical expert" had me power off the modem and my Linksys router for 1 minute and plug it all back in. I asked her why this was necessary and I was told something very similar to the following:

"Because I am using a non-Comcast router, it is causing the signal level to drop below the spec.". I told her that I have been doing networking since 1989 and that this explanation made no sense. I told her that the signal stops at the cable modem and fro mthe cable modem to the router is pure IP running over Ethernet. Nope she insisted. My router takes the signal and distributes it to all of my devices on the networks and this is what causes it to degrade.

I argued with her for a while, telling her that it is all IP over Ethernet and that the cable modem has absolutely no idea what is grabbing the IP. She disagreed.

Now, for those of you who know networking, can you believe that they put people like this on support lines to help people fix their problems. These people have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how networking works.

Anyway, so far, my upload speed has stayed above 360Kbps now, the down is around 3Mbps.

Enough about crappy ISP support lines and on to something that I thought I'd never watch on TV, Mad Money. I was on a trip somewhere and was channel surfing in the hotel when I stumbled across this program. I was riveted! Jim Cramer is very fascinating to watch. The Lightening Round is the best. He routinely ignores the commercial time slots to get in just a few more calls (he must have a really easy going Producer). I have seen a few comments on blogs that during the Lightening Round it is like watching a heart attack waiting to happen and I must agree. Jim really gets into it, but man does this make for excellent TV, plus it seems to be useful information. Do yourself a favor and watch it sometime. I think that this will be adding a Season Pass for this on my TiVo. And no, a DVR is only LIKE a TiVo, but as clever as one.

Now to Ford Mustangs and Cadillac's. Some of you may know that I was a proud owner of a 1998 Ford Mustang GT that I bought new in December 1997 and gave back at the end of the least in 2001. When the new 2005 Mustang came out I vowed that I would get one but this time I would get the convertible because after all, isn't that the coolest way to travel, top down, feeling the wind in your hair (as long as you have some that is), etc?

Well, I tried my very best to buy one but was faced with Ford dealerships bold, in your face, blatant, rip off schemes. First, every dealership adds $5,000.00 to the MSRP of the 2005 Mustang GT Convertible. Next, since Ford offers NO incentives of any kind of decent interest rate for this car, if you lease it, you end up having to pay about $800-$900 per month even with a few thousand down. I really tried to shop around. I called and called, and even called Malouf Ford that was close to my house, and who I took my old Mustang to for ALL services and repairs. I was met with VERY BAD ATTITUDES as soon as I said the words Mustang GT Convertible. They basically didn't want to speak to me, let alone further discuss the car.

I even went down to the Malouf dealership after I was told that they would wave the $5,000.00 if I ordered a 2006 model. When I got there, I was met by a belligerent sales person who was TOTALLY uninterested in discussing this car. He also told me that the previous offer of dropping the $5,000.00 was off (even though I was told this was done for me for being a loyal Malouf Ford customer and bringing my vehicle in there for 6 years). I called Ford about this but they just blew me of and told me that dealerships can do whatever they want.

I think that Ford is chasing away loyal (and I'm a VERY loyal Mustang customer) customers by allowing dealerships to screw people as hard as possible. Ford, if you are listening. You have now pissed me off so much (and I bet other Mustang loyalists who don't want to be screwed by dealers) that I now do not want another Ford vehicle. This has left such a bad taste in my mouth. You absolutely cannot treat people like dog shit a and expect them to come back.

So, on to what I ended up buying. In January we bought a 2005 Cadillac CTS for Karen. At the time, I was still dead set on buying my Mustang GT Convertible. When I couldn't, and GM started offering employee pricing, the Cadillac CTS-V came down to basically the same as what we paid for Karen's CTS. So, after much deliberation between a new BMW 3 series (which ended up to be too expensive with options that are offered on a CTS for free), I bought a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V. This vehicle is the same as the CTS, but has a Corvette engine in it. It is the LS6 and is 400 horse power (298 Kilowatts for you metric weenies). It is a 5.7 Liter V8. This is a step up from the 3.6 liter V6 in the regular CTS which pumps out 255 horse power (190 kilowatts).

Other feature differences on this car is that it has Brembo brakes, different exhaust pipes, and is only available in manual (stick shift). This proved to be challenging to me because the last time I drove a stick was in 1994 when I owned a BMW 316i. Since then it has been auto all the way. This stick shift has one extra "feature" which causes the transmission to force you into changing from 1st gear to 4th gear to save fuel. I wasn't actually aware of this when I bought the car (I didn't RTFM of course) and wondered why I couldn't get it from 1st to 2nd under certain conditions. Since RTFM'ing I now change more smoothly (expecting the 1-4 change).

This car is awesome to drive! Harder ride than the regular CTS, but that is only evident when hitting silly tar humps caused by people covering a trench without smoothing it out, or shrink humps caused by temperature differences, but otherwise on the highway, it is silky smooth.

I do like the extra displays that shows tire pressure on all tires, lateral g forces, etc. I like seeing how many lateral g's I can pull :-)

Instead of the real wood insert on the door handles, the CTS-V has brushed aluminum. The wood insert on the regular CTS steering wheel is absent on the CTS-V.

Book and Move

Book

While I have yet to see actual sales figure, I am guessing that my book is selling well.
It hangs in the Amazon Top Ten Handheld book sales and also in the Bookpool Top Ten Gadget book sales.

Today I received my complimentary author copies which I will be sending to family members. I am also hanging out at the Wrox P2P forum for my book to see if there are any questions or comments relating to it. So, pop by if you have a minute.

Move

The move to our new house was sort of traumatic because we were ripped off by the moving company. A Professional Movers gave me an email quote for $85 per hour and estimated that it would take about 7 hours to move. This is after I repeatedly asked if they didn't want to come to my house and do a more realistic estimate. Nope, they said, we can figure it all out.

The only other extra charge was for packing materials. Since we packed everything but the TV, we figured that the packing materials charge would be low. They had also bumped up the cost to $105 per hour without my knowledge.

Come the day of the move, I signed the packing materials list (how could I refuse at this point - it was move day) and noticed that the items were pricey, but still I thought, how much packing material could be used to pack my TV.

They loaded the truck and before unloading asked me to pay up. The packing material charge was $1,300.00!!!!!! Can you imagine someone spending $1,300.00 on bubble wrap, tape, and boxes? Well they had managed to. I watched them spend 2 hours wrapping up the TV. One guy just wasted as much tape as he could by unrolling a roll of tape right against the TV.

They also took 12 hours to move and had to make 2 trips, even though I stressed that I had a lot of stuff.

They apparently do this all the time because when I confronted the owner, he just shouted at me over the phone and told me that I couldn't do anything about it. I later came to find out that in New Jersey, moving companies are not regulated and so they can pull this kind of thing off without recourse. So, if you are contemplating a move in New Jersey, DO NOT call A Professional Movers unless you want to get the bait and switch.

BlackBerry Book Day

Yes, today is the day that my book, Professional BlackBerry, is officially released.

From a technical standpoint it has been released, however it won't be showing up in classic book stores for at least a few more weeks. It has been on pre-order for sometime now at places like Amazon, Wal-Mart, Book Pool, and Barnes and Noble (their on-line store that is).

It is likely that the status will change from pre-order to available in a few days. Those who pre-ordered it will probably receive it at around that same time.

I hope that this book helps many, many BlackBerry administrators, web masters, and developers.
I'll certainly consider a revised (or second) edition in the future if one is requested.

One a side note, I have found the book in rather a lot of interesting places.
For example, if you live in Japan, you can order it here. If you live in England, you can buy it in eBook form here or in print from here.

There is also nothing like seeing your work showing up in the Library of Congress.

Scared and Excited

Karen and I went to see "War of the Worlds" earlier this week. I forget now how I became aware of this story back in my childhood, but I distinctly remember that when my grandmother offered to buy me any record (yes that's vinyl for those of you born after 1985) I wanted, I insisted on the "War of the Worlds" audio story.

I can tell you that the story scared the crap out of me, even though it was audio only. I was totally unaware that a movie had been made of this story but I do remember staring at the vinyl record and dreaming up a machine that could one day play video from such discs. Of course when I eventually saw the Laser Disc, I wondered if someone had picked my brain.

When Karen and I eventually immigrated to the US, we learned of how Orson Welles scared the crap out of bits of New Jersey by broadcasting the story as if it was a real news broadcast. I applaud Orson for doing that. I would have loved to have experienced it myself actually.

Now, to the new "War of the Worlds" movie. Since I already knew how the story would end, I wondered if I would enjoy it. To my surprise I found myself enjoying it immensely!

This film is absolutely brilliant and tells the story in such a way that I didn't only experience the sudden scary moments, but found that I was kept in a state of panic for long periods of time. I can't remember when last a film had this effect on me, if ever.

I'm not sure if I had this experience because I had incessantly listened to the record in my youth, and it was helping to heighten the terror, or if my reactions were entirely based on the film, but nevertheless it was scary.

I had a strong reaction to the scene where Ray Ferrier is covered in white powder and later shakes it out of his hair and pats it off his clothes after first being stunned into silence by what he has seen. This brought back strong memories of what happened to me on September 11th 2001 when I too was covered in white powder which was the engulfing cloud of debris that billowed out after the first tower collapsed.

My final verdict. Go and see "War of the Worlds"!

So, what's the excitement bit then? Part of it is work related and part is personal.

On Tuesday July 12th, Onset Technology officially released the new legal version of METAmessage. As the product manager for METAmessage Legal, this is my baby. I'm very proud of how this product has turned out, and have a large sense of satisfaction. You can read the official press release here or the BBHub version here.

On Monday July the 18th, my book is officially released. I am excited to see how it will sell and how people will react to it. I haven't done anything like this before, and I am really "putting myself out there".
It was very gruelling writing this book because I could only work on it after hours and on weekends (even though some nasty people would have you believe that I worked on it during working hours - not true!). Most weekday evenings, the last thing I felt like doing was sitting down to write, but I just forced myself to do it.
The Wrox web site even has the index, contents, and chapter 1 up in PDF form if you want to take a sneak peak.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, we are moving into our house on August 1st. It will end the relentless renting years and take us into the home owners world.