Tonight’s story begins with a man. A nerdy man. A man who loves technology, gadgets, and telecommunications. A man who happens to be me. You see, for the past several years, this man had been living in “Cellular Hell.” Not because he didn’t have good coverage, no — in fact his coverage was very satisfactory. Not because he didn’t have access to some of the latest “smartphones” — he had the original iPhone and a BlackBerry Curve 8900. So, what could I possibly have to complain about? I’m glad you asked!

First, let me explain what happened. I was a customer with AT&T (evil). I was using my iPhone, but I wanted to drop my data plan. They wouldn’t let me (evil). They wouldn’t let me do with my BlackBerry, either. So I paid the $145 early termination (rape) fee, marched down to the T-Mobile store, and signed up for an Even More Plus plan – more minutes than I need, unlimited text messages (didn’t get that with AT&T), and $20/month less than I was paying with the iPhone ($30/month less than when I was using the BlackBerry). Granted, when I switched to T-Mobile, I didn’t get a data plan.

Now that that’s over with, there are three basic points I want to bring up in this post. My goal is to inspire hope in other nerds that may be in a similar position.

1. Cellular phones are expensive. Data plans make them even more expensive.

Now that I’m out of school and “living in reality,” I’ve come to realize that cellphones are stupid expensive. The monthly voice plans aren’t too bad, but once you add in text messaging (MAJOR rip-off — texting works by sending messages during idle time slots on the cellular network – costing carriers next to nothing), a data plan, taxes, the price of a handset, and the fact that you usually have to be locked into a 2-year contract, you quickly end up paying thousands of dollars over the life of your plan.

Since money is tight, I started looking for ways to cut my monthly bills. My cell phone was one of the first things that popped into my mind. Now, I’m every bit as much of a techno-junkie as everyone else from the Sector, but when I started thinking about it, I just couldn’t justify paying $20-30/month for a data plan on top of my $40/month voice plan. Why’s that? Well, both my BlackBerry and my iPhone have Wi-Fi built in. The majority of my life is spent at work, home, the parents’ house, or a friend’s house. All of these locations, with the exception of a few homes belonging to friends, have Wi-Fi that I can use to my heart’s content. Beyond that, I also carry a BlackBerry for work, which has unlimited 3G data (I can’t install apps, however).

Since I spend the vast majority of my time at one of these four Wi-Fi-enabled locations, I asked myself, “why the hell am I paying for a data connection that is slower than these Wi-Fi connections I already have access to?”

And thus, my first decision was made. I would drop the data plan from my account. This would result in savings of $240/year with the iPhone, and had I been using a BlackBerry data plan, this would have resulted in $360/year savings.

UH-OH! One problem with my brilliant plan. Evil-Bad-Corp AT&T would not let me, the customer, choose what I wanted. That never bodes well for a customer-corporation relationship with a freedom-loving, tin-foil hat-wearing guy like me. After arguing with AT&T for a while, I became enraged and told them they just lost a customer. But not before I called customer support the day earlier with a bullshit claim that I would soon be traveling internationally, and thus needed my BlackBerry 8900 unlocked. (It worked, by the way).

(For what its worth: I did the math, and even after paying $145 in early termination fees, by the end of my 17 month contract period remaining with AT&T, I will have saved $200 by switching to T-Mobile. The point being, while those early termination fees sound scary, you can actually save money by paying them and tossing your old, piece of shit provider.)

2. “Smartphones” are a distraction. Do you really need to be connected 24/7?

The answer is no! For quite some time, I wouldn’t have anything to do with a phone if I couldn’t get Facebook updates, push or near-instant delivery of e-mail, access to Google Maps, and all the other crap that you can do with a smartphone. That all changed when two things happened: first, I started having problems with my iPhone. The screen would light up on its own, killing the battery in a matter of hours. Nothing I tried would fix it. After dropping $350 on the phone (remember, it was the original, un-subsidized 2G iPhone), I had a bad taste in my mouth and was not about to drop hundreds more on a new smartphone. Shortly afterward, my cost-cutting, AT&T-ditching scenario described above occured. It was then I truly realized “smartphones” can be fun, but they are largely a distraction. I thought about it for a few weeks, and really started analyzing what I do with my “smartphone.” It didn’t take long for me to realize that they actually wasted more of my time than they saved, and they took away from my ability to focus on important tasks rather than help me get organized.

Granted, I am currently using my unlocked BlackBerry on T-Mobile but without a data plan. If anyone is familiar with the apps available for BlackBerry, you know that the entire Google suite, and most other apps, won’t run at all if you don’t have a data plan (rip-off!), regardless of Wi-Fi connection. So, I essentially have a phone that’s really good at text messaging and that I can occasionally use to browse the web or check the weather, but only when I’m in a Wi-Fi coverage area. While technically a “smartphone,” because of these limitations, I wouldn’t really say that I have true “smartphone” functionality.

All that aside, I made a decision that I won’t be buying another “smartphone” anytime soon. In fact, I bought a Motorola v60g phone for $20 on eBay, and am eagerly waiting its arrival. I had a TDMA (a now defunct cellular technology) version of the v60 back in the early 2000s. It was fairly rugged, extremely simple, and elegant. It is, by far, my favorite cellphone ever made. I’m hoping my reunion with this well-made device will not disappoint.

Motorola v60g Cellular Telephone

3. Cellular plans are a rip-off as it is. Contracts make them even worse.

The best part about switching to T-Mobile was the fact that I have no annual contract. I’ve always thought it something of a scam that cellular carriers in the United States almost universally force customers to buy a 2-year contract or pay out the ass for a handset. Even if you want to do the latter, most carriers don’t make it easy. The concept of locking customers into contracts might have made sense 10 years ago when the cellular infrastructure was being heavily built out, but I feel the infrastructure is at a point today where its time customers demand freedom of choice.

Luckily, T-Mobile is different than the rest. They freely and openly advertise their “Even More Plus” plans as sans-annual contract. You can even get a few phones for less than $100. Or, if you already have a GSM phone, you can bring your own device.

When I switched, I was in and out of the T-Mobile store in 5 minutes. It was the smoothest cellular phone-related transaction I’ve ever experienced. Even better, T-Mobile is simply happy to have my business. They don’t give a shit that I have a voice & text plan without a data plan on my BlackBerry.

I know I must sound like an promotional agent for T-Mobile, but in comparison to other carriers, they are like the Libertarian Party of cellular providers.

I really want to see the entire American industry move away from contract-oriented service plans. The only way that’s going to happen is if customers start demanding it. I figure I’m doing my part by supporting the only company that’s currently advertising no-contract monthly service plans.

Of course, no plan is perfect.

Now that I’ve covered the three points I felt I needed to make, I will say that there are a few drawbacks to my decision to ditch AT&T. First and foremost is coverage. I live in the woods, further from populated areas than most. AT&T has great coverage in my rural community, but T-Mobile does not. This is generally the case throughout the nation. T-Mobile is still very much growing, and its near fact that their rural coverage kind of sucks. But never fear – Google Voice to the rescue!

Since I maintain a copper pair (landline) telephone at home, I’ve told everyone to switch to my Google Voice number. This way, regardless of coverage quality in my home, I’ll get the call. This will also save me airtime minutes by allowing me to use my landline to make and receive all my calls while at home. Furthermore, it gave me an excuse to buy cool, what “kids these days” would call “vintage” telephones.

Western Electric Model 2500 Telephone

I’m really not concerned with the poorer coverage. I took another step back and evaluated my life and how a cell phone should play a part in it. I realized, “hey, you know what? I don’t need to be in constant contact with everybody all the time. I don’t need to be immediately answerable to someone who calls me.” As far as emergency and priority situations, in areas where T-Mobile doesn’t have coverage, it generally roams to AT&T’s network for “SOS” emergency calling. Not to mention I can use ham radio, my work cell, or a number of land-mobile radio networks to which I have access to make emergency or priority calls if need be.

And you know what? Not having instant access to your email 24/7 gives you something to look forward to when you get home – checking your email and having a whole inbox full of messages to go through!

All in all, I’ve been really happy with my decision to lead a simpler, less expensive cellular life. I’m no longer in Cellular Hell.

It was incredibly hard to actually find an easy method that works, but I finally did: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/46707-ms-dos-bootable-flash-drive-create.html

With the crappy economy taking its toll on many aspects of every day life these days, there’s one thing that it doesn’t have to affect: your ability to make delicious, fluffy pancakes on the cheap!

Here’s how:

1. Go to your local market and procure a box of “JIFFY” buttermilk biscuit mix. The average price for a box of this versatile goodness is typically $0.50-$0.65 — an incredible deal!
2. Follow the instructions for making pancake/waffle batter on the back of your box of “JIFFY,” except:
3. Instead of using 1 cup of water or milk as the directions suggest, use 1 cup of half-and-half.
4. Mix everything together in a bowl with a whisk, but don’t over-mix. As soon as everything is blended together, STOP mixing! (Credit goes to Alton Brown for this tip).
5. Cook in a pan on medium-low heat with a little olive oil.

That’s it! For the price of one egg, 2 tbsp. butter, a $0.65 box of batter mix, and a cup of half-and-half, you can make pancakes that actually taste substantially better than your run-of-the-mill Bisquick hotcakes. One box of “JIFFY” will yield enough pancakes for two people, on average.

Charlie’s Black-Eyed Peas

Ingredients:

Directions:

“That’s impossible!” you’re must be saying. “Not in this country!”

Folks, behold the power of Google! Some may argue that Google is becoming the new Microsoft, or worse, an even more powerful entity with access to unfathomable terabytes of the world’s personal information. But who cares, with a corporate motto like “don’t be evil,” how can you not trust them? Especially when they offer free text messaging!

Enough banter already — here’s what you need to get free unlimited SMS text messaging:

• A Google Voice account: http://www.google.com/voice/
• A Google Voice phone number (generally included with a Google Voice account)
• A smartphone, preferably one capable of running the Google Voice app (currently BlackBerry and Android only)
  • Note: Any smartphone that has a decent mobile web browser will work via the Google Voice web interface
  • Another note: A BlackBerry with a push email account is best suited for this setup. I’ll explain why later.

As you can see, the requirements are pretty basic. (It is assumed that if you’re nerdy enough to be reading this website, you’re going to have a smartphone and more than likely every type of Google account known to exist).

Now, if you’ve got a BlackBerry, this is how you can set it all up with minimal compromise:

1. Log into your Google Voice account. Set up a new forwarding phone with your cell phone’s number. (Settings > Phones)
2. Enable SMS to E-Mail forwarding. (Settings > Voicemail & SMS > “Forward messages to my email”)

At this point, SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number will now be automatically forwarded to your email. If you have a BlackBerry with an email account that supports push email, you even receive text messages instantly — just like a real text message. The problem is that your BlackBerry will not differentiate between SMS messages you get via email forwarding and all the other emails you get on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t instantly check my BlackBerry every time I get a routine email. This obviously creates a problem when you’re attempting to use a mode of communication where messages are expected to be delivered and read almost instantly. Step 3 addresses this issue.

3. Log into BlackBerry’s email configuration (older BlackBerries do this via the BIS web interface, newer BlackBerries have an app that works right from the phone) and set up a new email filter in whichever email account Google Voice is forwarding your SMS messages to.
4. When Google forwards an SMS message to your email, the subject line contains “[SMS]” followed by the sender’s name (if their name and number is entered into your contacts). Edit your new filter to catch any message with “[SMS]” in the subject. Then select “Forward messages to the device” and “Level 1 notification.” The key here is to set up a rule that grabs all email messages coming from Google Voice and forwards them to your BlackBerry as a “Level 1″ message. This allows you to differentiate your text messages and voicemail notifications coming from Google Voice from all the other emails that flood your inbox throughout the day.
5. Edit your BlackBerry profile settings to choose a distinct sound/alert/ringtone for Level 1 messages. Select something that you want to hear every time you get a new text message or voicemail notification.
6. Distribute your new Google Voice number to all your friends and family. Explain that they can keep calling you on your old number, or they can call you on your new Google Voice number (assuming you set up your cell as a forwarding phone), but if they want to text you, they’ll have to use your new Google number. This may confuse some non-technical types, so just tell them you got a new cell number and give them your Google Voice number if they’re confused.
7. Start receiving text messages free of charge! Reply in kind by simply replying to the SMS forwarding email, or launching your Google Voice app or the Google Voice web interface and replying.
8. Call up your cellular provider and tell them to shove their text messages where the sun don’t shine. If you don’t specifically tell them to block all incoming text messages, they’ll just cancel whatever texting plan you currently have (if you have one) and charge you per individual incoming/outgoing message.

I’ve been doing this for several months now, and it works without a hitch! Text messaging at the rates charged by commercial carriers is outrageously expensive. 160-character messages use almost no bandwidth — costing cellular providers next to nothing to route them — yet if you do the math, you are paying upwards of $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of communicating in such a way that actually frees up carrier capacity by keeping you off the phone. After all, a few bytes of data uses a lot less bandwidth and a lot less spectrum than a voice channel used during a cellular telephone call would.

So, give yourself the gift you’ve always wanted — and help show the cellular providers in this country that we are no longer willing to spend $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of sending text messages.

Ordinarily, I would consider this level of slacking somewhat unreasonable [emphasis being on somewhat]. However, today was my birthday. Yesterday, the day before my birthday — a Sunday — I was called into work at 03:00 AM. Running on a mere 3 hours of sleep, I suffered through about 6 or 7 hours of work Sunday morning. You think you have an annoying boss? Try putting up with an annoying boss at 03:00 AM. Wow – it sucks.

So anyway, after Sunday morning’s fun-fest, I was tired and annoyed that I was working on my birthday. So, back to driving around on the clock — I get a call. It’s my boss. Great. I could just see my plans to escape work a few hours early come tumbling down before my eyes.

“Charlie?” says the boss. “I’m having a staff meeting at my office, 2:30. I’ll see you then.”

“Damnit!”

I was pissed. Seriously, a staff meeting? My boss supervises two other individuals besides me. Great. So I head back to my office, address a quick issue, and then drive over to the boss’s place. I find a fellow ham-dork co-worker and talk for a while.

Aside: Said fellow ham-dork co-worker gave me a 400 Hz CW filter for my Icom 718 HF radio as a birthday gift. He even installed it for me! Nice guy.

After talking about radios for a few minutes, the boss finds me. “Come on, guys. Time for the meeting.”

“Ugh.”

I grumpily follow my boss to our designated meeting area….

“Surprise! Happy Birthday, Charlie!”

“D’oh! Er, I mean, Woo-hoo!”

I simultaneously felt relieved (no stupid staff meeting after all), yet annoyed (I totally played the fool).

Yep. They got me with their Faux Staff Meeting.

All in all, it could have been worse. I could have been suffering through a meeting — instead, I was just pressured into eating twice as much ice cream cake as I should have.

Despite being one year closer to death [insert ironic emoticon here], I had a pretty good day. Thanks to everyone!

Umm, yeah... I'm gonna need you to finish off that ice-cream cake.

Let me be the first to say “I’m sorry!” It’s been way too long since I contributed to this great publication (can we call ourselves that — a publication? Might be stretching it, but screw it). I have a great group of colleagues here at the Sector, and want to say that I have not intentionally been hiding in the shadows — life has just gotten in the way of things I would otherwise enjoy doing. So without rambling on much more about the sometimes depressing and otherwise dull realities, let me say I’m glad to be back!

“Who is this guy, we’ve never seen him here in the Sector before??!”

Well, in that case, let me take the opportunity to re-introduce myself. Think of it as something along the lines of your local supermarket having a grand re-opening after they recently completed renovations.

My name is Charlie, and to simultaneously borrow from and bastardize a classic George Jones line, I’m a high-tech, undercover redneck.

What the hell is a “high-tech, undercover redneck?”

The high-tech part is pretty straightforward. I’m a geek. Just like everyone else that writes here. I like technology. I find wireless telecommunications to be of particular interest (thus, you’ll encounter references to “HAM” from time to time — referring to ham radio), but I also enjoy dabbling in building electronics, voice over IP telephony, security systems, networking, and operating systems (FreeBSD is my favorite free OS, Mac OS X is my favorite commercial OS, and Haiku OS holds a special place in my heart because I used to mess around with the ahead-of-its-time BeOS way back in the day).

“OK, great. You’re a dork. Big deal. Is it possible for someone to be a dork AND a redneck simultaneously?! I thought the two were typically mutually exclusive…”

Ah, you see, that’s where the undercover qualifier plays its role. In the traditional sense of the word, I’m not a redneck. I grew up in a normal, suburban Virginia neighborhood near Washington, D.C. I’ve always been a nerd. I grew up accustomed to wasting away hours of my life in horrible traffic. I grew up in a house where I can see no less than 10 other houses when I look out of any given window. I didn’t play team sports (I was on a summer swim for a while, but that’s it), I spent hours at a time in front of the computer when my parents finally got one in 1995. I’ve never gone hunting. I know how to camp, but I couldn’t tell you what plants are edible, or what spiders and snakes are poisonous.

So, here we have just a few confessions from a guy who is clearly a technoid, but not much of a redneck. So how do I get away classifying myself as an undercover redneck? Well, I like many (not necessarily all) of the ideas practiced in redneckism. And I do actually meet some (but very few) qualifications for being a redneck.

For starters, I bought a house on 3 acres of land in a rural Virginia county about 65 miles away from Washington, D.C. My house is on a gravel road, and one of my neighbors drives around on his property (and sometimes on the gravel road) in an EZ-GO golf cart that sports a Confederate flag suspended on a fiberglass pole. Looking out my front window, I can only see one and a half houses. Looking out my bedroom window, I can’t see anything but the woods and the undeveloped 40 acre parcel of land next to mine. I frequently build large fires in my backyard. Gunshots originating both in the distance as well as across the street on my neighbor’s property are common — at least a few every hour or so, especially during hunting season. So, there you have it. My location alone is a pretty big redneck qualifier.

I enjoy firearms. Specifically, my right and the right of my fellow citizens to bear them. Shooting them is pretty fun, too. I think about and plan ahead for tactics involving the defense of my home. I recently discovered a free, public rifle range on some wildlife management area land nearby my house. It has inspired me to start shopping for a real rifle (suggestions, anyone? All I’ve got at the moment is a .22LR and a commie SKS that is in pieces).

How am I doing? I live in the sticks, and I like guns. Sounds pretty redneck to me. Well, that’s not all! I also enjoy documents such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence! I like “the man” to stay out of my business. In other words, limited government. I’m somewhere between a Conservative, Constitutionalist and a Libertarian. Your average run of the mill elected official who claims to be a “conservative” these days is just a tax-and-spend democrat in disguise. When I say conservative, I’m talking Founding Fathers, give or take a little here and there.

What else? Pickup trucks. I love pickup trucks. And although I just traded in my 2004 Ford Ranger for a 2010 Subaru, I recently purchased a 1992 Chevy C/K 1500 longbed pickup. At $1,000 with 97,000 miles, it was a steal. She’s a true-blue all-American beater-mobile. The truck is white, but when I bought it, it had been sitting around idle for a few years, so it developed some pretty bad surface rust. Being an undercover redneck, I took an electric sander, ground away the rust, and applied a spray-can based primer. As a result, the truck’s body is now comprised of about 80% white paint, 20% gray primer. Oh, and it features an after-market dual exhaust that is obscenely loud. Cruizin’ in style!

All that said, in general I prefer the country life over the city/suburban life. Mowing my 1.5 acre lawn while nursing a cold beer on my riding mower, running with the local all-volunteer fire department/rescue squad, and chilling out on a crisp fall night in my back yard under the moon by the campfire. People are friendly out in the sticks — they wave to you when they drive by, not knowing you from Adam. They stop and talk to you at the post office. Life is simpler.

So there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about me, why I’m a big nerd, and how deep down, I’ve got a little bit ‘o redneck in me.

Stay tuned for our next installment: How to get relatively* “high-speed” Internet when you live in the woods.

*Relative to a 56.6 Kbps dial-up connection.

The Trip
You might be wondering what I’m doing in South Dakota and how I came to be here. Well, I’m on a road trip. I worked a bunch of overtime and used all of my annual leave to take 6 days off from work to have 10 days free to drive from Virginia to Idaho and back. I’ve never been to this part of the country before, and I am very interested in possibly living out west some day, so when my friend Sean suggested we go out to Idaho, I said “sure, let’s do it!”

The trip started Friday, and after an early morning trip to Hertz to pick up the rental car, we spent several hours outfitting the car with all the mobile electronics supporting this expedition, we hit the road. Well, here it is over 1,400 miles and just over a day later, and we’re in Mitchell, South Dakota. We drove straight through the night, only stopping for a total of about 2 hours – once for dinner and once for a nap.

The Nerdery

My friend Sean and are both huge nerds. We’re not too proud to admit it. Therefore, this trip is “supported” by far too much technology. Currently installed in our rental car, we have 3 GPS recievers, a laptop acting as a GPS server (allows the GPS connected to it to be shared out over TCP/IP to pseudo-serial ports on client machines), a webcam mounted on the dash taking a time-lapse video of the entire trip, a APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) beacon that transmits our position via ham radio every 60 seconds. If the beacon’s signal is recieved by another ham’s station, the information is transfered to the Internet so our friends can see our location in “real time.” We’ve got a police scanner, radar detector, and VHF ham radio to keep tabs on the law and other local events. We’ve got a tablet running navigation software interfaced to the GPS server to give us turn-by-turn directions. And on top of it all, we’ve got a wireless access point which ties all of the equipment together and allows us to use our personal laptops on the “in-car” network seamlessly.
While all of this gear may seem pretty cool, it is really a pain in the ass to deal with during a 5,300 mile road trip – just in case you were wondering.

So Far

The trip has been awesome — I’m tired as hell, but who cares. I’m currently writing this post while sitting in a camp chair in front of my Motel 6 room and drinking a beer several beers. The weather is prefect, the air is fresh and clean, the town is small, the people are friendly, there’s a lot more freedom here, and I’m loving every second of it.

The west is really the best. The worst part so far was driving through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinios. Iowa and Minnesota were not as bad, and offered a lot better scenery. It doesn’t really start getting good until South Dakota, though. If you haven’t driven from the east coast out west, you really can’t appreciate how big this country really is — and I’ve only driven 1,400 miles so far!

I’ll be posting more as the trip progresses. The best is yet to come — Idaho and Wyoming.
Wall to wall and treetop tall, we’ll see ya on the flip side good buddy.

And what better topic to start with than that of antivirus solutions?

Like some of my comrades here, I am essentially a life-long Mac user. I started using the Mac OS back in the good-ole-days of System 7. Although my MacBook equipped with OS 10.5 is still my computing platform of choice, I still use/operate several other systems including Windows XP and FreeBSD.

And that, of course, is where antivirus comes into play.

It’s another Saturday night in nerdville…

I’m sitting in my basement, basking in the glow of 5 LCD screens, typing away on one of two IBM Model-M keyboards at my workstation. After installing VMware server on my quad-core PC, along with a new Windows 2000 virtual machine, I’m ready to download a high quality, free antivirus app for my new VM. Immediately my brain says, “Duh! To http://free.grisoft.com!” … And then I remember that AVG 8 is upon us. Woe is me.

I’ve always used AVG (free) for my Windows-based antivirus needs. Up through version 7.5, it has been a great solution. But Grisoft really blew it on version 8. Besides the Firefox browser plugin plauged with incompatibilities, and the option for an annoying toolbar, the interface is sluggish, ugly, and bloated. Sure, you can jump through a bunch of hoops to remove all the extra crap, but you’re still left with something that sucks more than its predecessor.

avast! to the rescue?

In a desperate search to find some kind of decent, free, and efficient antivirus solution, I’m biting the bullet and giving avast! antivirus a try. Beyond AVG and Norton/Symantec (barf), I am pretty much completely inexperienced when it comes to all the other AV apps on the market these days.

At this point, all I have done is install avast!, so I’m not quite ready to make any comments or dole out any criticism. We’ll save that for the next post. Until then,

73!