free phone calls

I remember Roy showing me he could make phone calls from his ipod touch.

I didn't remember how he did it, but looking at this chat session to me on google, evidently he does it with talkatone.com.

It doesn't work over the computer though, it works with your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.


From the faq:

What is Talkatone? How do I use it?

Talkatone gives you free calls, text messages and real-time location sharing on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad via 3G or WiFi connection. Talkatone uses Google Talk and Google Voice services and bridges the gap between instant messaging on your computer and regular cellular calls on your mobile device.

Basic Talkatone product is free. Wherever you can find data connection you can make a call or send a text message. In order to get most out of Talkatone you need to have Google Voice Account and setup Google services.

Another reason to get an iPad or iPod Touch.

[7/26/12] And still another reason! Turn your iPhone into a 1960's Star Trek Communicator. Pretty cool!

Also now available for Android.

***

[7/26/12] Hmm..  Maybe if I get a Clear Spot, it could replace my cell phone, my regular phone, my DSL, and (somewhat) my cable.

If I want to use a computer (or laptop), I guess I could use it in conjunction with Magic Jack.  But then I'd have to carry around a telephone to plug into my computer.

turn your laptop into a dvr?

Can you do it?  Apparently it's easy according to this page.

Apparently all you need is a HDTV tuner stick. 

The thing is that they say to connect the cable directly to the tuner stick.  Which would mean it can record only unscrambled channels.  What I'd like to be able to do is record the output from my HD cable box since it unscrambles the HD channels then feed that to the computer.  Then play back from the computer.

I guess one could connect the coax cable from the cable box to the stick.  But then you'd only be able to record SD.

They have a link to this HDTV stick from Amazon.com.  It's the Hauppauge 01200 WinTV-HVR-850.  However, it gets mixed reviews.  The reviews are better for the Avertv Hybrid Volar Max TV Tuner, though it still gets a fair number of poor reviews.  Even cheaper is the Diamond TVW750USB ATI Theater HD 750 USB TV Tuner (on the box I see it says ATI TV Wonder HD 750).  Strangely I don't see a coax connector.  But a lot of negative reviews here too.

another computer scam

My cousin and my neighbor got hit by this scam.

A person cold calls you to tell you that there is something wrong with your computer.  They tell you to type something in and they tell you yeah that's the information they're seeing at their end.

Not to worry though, for a modest fee they will fix the problem for you and ask for your credit card info.

More information here and here.  The second link mentions logmein which I recall was on my neighbors computer.  I uninstalled it the last time I was there just to be safe.  But she told me they called again.  I told her to hang up.

Googled logmein scam and came up with these links

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/257822,how-the-microsoftlogmein-support-scam-works.aspx

http://community.logmein.com/t5/Rescue/SCAM-artists-using-LogMeIn-for-nefarious-ends/td-p/65824

http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailscams/a/Your-Pc-Is-Infected-Phone-Scam.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCFlR-YNdc

[12/26/12] The Click Chick writes about the scam.

[7/15/15] Bob Jones writes about the scammers (Midweek article to be archived later?)

Compaq Presario 5000 and DVD drive

My dentist wanted a computer just to put a slide show of his photos for his waiting patients.  He got a long VGA cable to connect the computer to the flat sceen TV (Dynex 32").  The problem is that it wouldn't fit.  One connector was male and the other was female.  But then it turned out that there was included adapter to turn the female into male, so no problem.

So I hooked up his new Windows 7 computer which I had set up at home on my LCD monitor (instead of using the picture screensaver I used Windows 7's feature of rotating the desktop background).

All seemed well as it was booting up.  But then the picture went blank.  It seemed the the Windows 7 was kicking into a video mode that the TV couldn't handle.  It's definitely a problem with the computer.  As I hooked up and old laptop and even his DOS computer running his dental software and the picture appeared.

One possible solution would be update the video driver.  But why waste a new computer for such a routine task.

Hey let me try this old Compaq Presario 5000 that my uncle gave me since they were going to throw it away.  They removed the hard drive, so I put in an old 3 GB hard drive.  And what do you know, the thing booted up Windows ME and installed most of the drivers.  Even the video driver and network adapter.

I hooked it up to my router and could connect to the internet.  But Internet Explorer kept crashing with an error.  Maybe because it's version 5.  Well, it's not supposed to be an internet computer anyway.

Luckily Windows ME supports flash drives.  So I put in the flash drive with the photos.  At first it didn't seem to recognize it. Uh oh.  But a few minutes later, suddenly the drive started installing.  And I was able to copy the pictures over.  And the slideshow was working.

I even hooked it up to my 42" plasma and it seems to be OK.  Disappointingly the picture on my 720p screen didn't turn out as crisp as I would like it to be with the VGA connection.  But I guess it's ok for video at a distance.

Next I wondered if I could watch DVDs on it.  Unfortunately the DVD drive (and the CD drive) doesn't open.  So let me see if I can replace it.

The problem is how to get them out.  The Compaq Presario 5000 has an oddball case that is tricky to open up.

I finally found this website that gave me the answer.  You have to open the lower front panel (just push it in and it should open).  Then pop off the upper front panel.  Then you can just pull out the drive from the front.

Unfortunately I didn't have any spare DVD drives lying around.  (Though I might have one or two in an old computer lying around.)  So I opened up the DVD case to see if there was a DVD in there before throwing away the drive.

Sure enough there was a broken belt.  I wondered how difficult it would be to replace the belt.  And looking at this video, I was suprised to see you can replace the belt with out opening the inside mechanism of the drive.

Now how do I get a replacement belt?  This site says you can use an o-ring, but they even tried a rubber band.  OK I got plenty of them.  Now let's see if this guy works.

Put in the drive and a new mouse (I want to keep the good mouse).  Power up.  Nope drive don't open.  And now not getting any video :(

ripping a DVD

[5/22/12] Believe it or not, I've never ripped a DVD.  I've never had a reason to do so as I believe in buying rather than copying DVDs (the rationale being that the people who created the movie deserve to be paid -- I guess that attitude comes from my long-ago aspirations of making money by creating software).

But now I'm thinking of ripping DVDs of TV shows I recorded from TV (hey they're generally not for sale anyway -- at a reasonable price anyway..).  So I can watch them on my computer.  And possibly uploading them to youtube (or whatever) so they can be viewed on the internet.

Here's one possible solution I might try: WinX DVD Ripper.

[6/10/12]
Here's a tutorial using Hand Brake.

And you can even do it with VLC!

[4/16/13] I tried VLC using this tutorial on youtube (created by a 12 year old).

It was only a like a 5 minute video (a bonus featurette on the Dog Whisperer Season 3 DVD set).  It worked.  The file was automatically saved to the videos folder.  It was a MPG file 300 MB in size.  That's quite big. I see some of my videos of hour shows that are smaller than that.

I assume there's a way to make it smaller.  (But don't see it.)

How about converting the VOB file to supported video format?  I found this utility called Convert VOB to AVI.  Looks simple enough.

OK, it's going.  The file I converting is 1.04 GB.  The created MP4 file turned out to be 556 MB.  But the file plays horribly in VLC.  Very blocky and stretched horizontally.  Actually playing a VOB file from VLC is also very blocky and choppy.  But playing the DVD is fine.  What gives?

Forget it.  Let's try ripping a DVD.  I note the VLC is also supposed to be able to rip a DVD (instead of recording it as above).  Let's try.  This tutorial looks fairly straightforward.  It's going, but it looks like it takes a long to rip the DVD as to play it.  Whereas I don't think that's the case with other software.

[4/27/13]  Hey VLC worked!  I ripped my first DVD, or part of it anyway.  The Dog Whisperer bonus features.  However it takes as long to rip as it does to play.  And it didn't do well with my Chop Socky DVD-R which I recorded on my DVD recorder.  Maybe I'll try another DVD-R or try another program.

[4/27/13] Here's a list of five DVD ripping tools.  Still want to try Hand Brake and I guess DVD Shrink since I've heard so many people use it (or used to use it).

[2/22/14] here's an easy guide using Handbrake [via Roy]

electric car reviews

The Nissan Leaf is a fun car that accelerates impressively, handles curves and turns smoothly, and just drives bigger than it looks.

As is the case with other drivers I've spoken to, it all comes down to "range anxiety," that fear that you will run out of electrical juice and not be able to find someplace to recharge, the worry about the time it will take make a charge, or both.

Until there are more charging stations in public areas and the technology advances to the point that a full charge can be completed quickly, it's going to be difficult for my wife and I, and likely many other households, to view a 100 percent electrical vehicle as a viable, full-time option.

The Leaf, at full charge, is supposed to go 100 miles. But that depends on how and where you drive it. The range gauge, which I affectionately dubbed "The Estimator," estimates how long you have left to drive on the current charge. But its estimates fluctuate wildly during a drive. Go up a hill and it will drop a few miles. Take your foot off the pedal as you cruise down a hill and it will rise back one or two miles.

The charge time is also a problem. Using the standard 110-volt outlet in my garage, some nights I plugged it in for 12 hours, and it was still not completely full.

Fortunately, the two 220-volt recharging stations at Ewa Town Center have been open each time I've been there, and that's helped immensely.

I would totally recommend a Leaf — which sells for $27,700 after a $7,500 federal rebate — for a family that lives and works in the same 10-mile radius and that has a pretty set daily routine.

***

After a week of test-driving a Chevrolet Volt — and with the deadline for this story fast approaching — I knew I would have to be able to answer the question of whether I would be willing to give up my gas-powered car and join the roughly 1 percent of Hawaii motorists who have made the switch to EVs.

Conceptually the answer is yes. I loved the freedom of cruising past gas stations and not having to check whether the price of gas had gone up or down from the day before. It was also satisfying to know that even though most of the electricity used to charge the battery was generated by oil, the EV was using fuel much more efficiently than a typical internal combustion engine.

The Volt's 40- to 45-mile range on a single charge was more than enough for my 28-mile round-trip daily commute. And roughly 90 percent of the electricity I used in the car came from free 240-volt charging stations in town. The rest of the electricity I used was from a 120-volt home charger at an estimated cost of 8 to 9 cents a kilowatt-hour, about half the fuel cost for a standard car getting 25 miles per gallon.

 

Realistically, however, there are a few hurdles in my particular case that will keep me in my Nissan Versa for the forseeable future. First and foremost, I have no place to plug in the car at my townhouse complex. The one time I used a "home charger" was actually at my father's house about a mile away.

The other thing holding me back? Financial considerations. Even after the $7,500 federal rebate for EVs, the Volt would set me back $31,165 — more than the household budget could bear at this point.

***

After I put up my first blog post at evlife.staradvertiserblogs.com, I heard back from a six-month owner of a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, who said, "Enjoy your week with the Miev and smile as you drive knowing that you are not contributing to the air pollution on Oahu!"

At that moment I wasn't smiling. What was to have liberated me from frequent treks to pay parking meters during my workday was taking up more time in a near-daily search for an open battery-charging station and more energy calculating how much power I needed to get through my day. All of us are accustomed to jumping in our cars and going, and not being able to do that became one more source of daily stress.

But on Friday, day five, when I was asked whether I was giving up the car that day, I said, "No, I'm going to be like the Hawaii News Now people and return it Sunday."  

I have to say, the car had grown on me.  The car is zippy and fun to drive.  Its small size makes it easy to slip zippy and fund to drive. Its small size makes it easy to slip through spaces where other cars can't fit. Free parking at metered spaces is a plus and makes you feel as if you're getting away with something, so much so that you think you can get away with other things, like illegal U-turns. It feels like a toy rather than a "serious vehicle." Getting accustomed to the car was just a matter of learning its quirks, and I found, in just one week, it was changing my driving habits.

The main cause of stress in the beginning was a miles-to-go meter that, like an hourglass, counts down the miles until your battery charge is depleted. I left the Cutter/Mitsubishi dealership with 67 miles, but by the time I got to work, it was down to 30. Because the meter "predicts" future mileage based on your current driving modes, simply turning on the air conditioner immediately wiped out 10 miles.

The main challenge had been the hunt for open charging stations. There's a lot of competition for the few stations, where you must typically plant your car four hours for a full charge at a 240-volt station. I learned the EV/hybrid crowd is still a small, helpful and courteous community who will call the next person waiting for a charge.

There are not nearly enough stations to serve all EV drivers. I considered going to Kahala Mall on Saturday but didn't because I had no guarantee the charging station would be available.

During a workday, recharging is generally no problem, because I have eight hours to leave the car. On the weekends I'm not likely to linger in one place that long.

This should be no problem for car owners who can charge up their cars on their home electricity for 12 hours or install a faster-charging unit.

For me the cost of the EV cars — the i-MiEV sells for $21,625 after a $7,500 federal rebate — is still a factor in whether I would own one. My current BMW?Z4 cost $11,000, paid in cash, two years ago. My Chinese parents didn't raise me to be a financial fool, and the cost difference between running an EV car and gasoline-engine car is negligible when you consider that any savings in gas will, in the long run, go toward buying a new battery.

***

Visit HawaiiNewsNow.com for reviews on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt by Dan Cooke, Steve Uyehara and Tannya Joaquin.

For video reviews on each car, visit the following sites: Dan Cooke's Mitsubishi i-MiEV: goo.gl/cgNZs; Steve Uyehara's Nissan Leaf: goo.gl/TqjJW; Tannya Joaquin's Chevy Volt: goo.gl/sWl8e

*** [5/22/12]

On a somewhat related note, I was always kind of interested in getting an electric scooter.  Ever since I saw some a few years ago at the 99 Ranch shopping mall.  They had it discounted to $100, probably because the store was going out of business.  But I didn't know that and while I was mulling it over the store had sold out and/or closed.

Now I see an ad in the December 14, 2011 MidWeek about a place called Aloha E-Bikes.  Their website is alohaebike.com.  I see they have an electric scooter for $300.  Might be fun to try out.  No mention of charging time or range (unlike the $800 and $850 models).  Their top of the line is their electric motorcycle which will run you $7600.

*** [5/30/13] The LA Times reviews the Nissan Leaf, Fiat 500e, Honda Fit EV

Antenna TV

Now see a new channel when I plug the cable direct to the TV.  Channel 122-13.  Can't quite figure out what channel it is.  There's a KHNL logo on the bottom left and it's playing an old movie with James Coburn.  OK, now I saw a brief blurb as it cut to commercial.  It's Antenna TV.  Apparently available only if you plug in the cable directly into the TV.  Don't see it on my cable box.  And what's playing doesn't match this schedule.  I guess I'll keep watching it to see what happens after the movie.  Maybe KHNL is using it as a partial feed.

Saw the credits at the end.  The name of the movie was Duffy.  And now they're playing Valley of the Head Hunters starring Johnny Weismuller.  Looking like they're using the Eastern Time Zone schedule.  And the movie now is supposed to be Jungle Jim according to the schedule.  Looking it up Valley of the Head Hunters was a series of movies in which Weismuller played Jungle Jim.

OK, did a google search.  "Statewide, on or about May 16, 2012, Antenna TV (KHNL Multi-cast) will be added to digital Ch. 541, QAM Ch. 122.1" [actually it's on 122.13]

And more..

Statewide, on or about May 16, 2012, the following HD channels will be added: Hallmark Channel to digital CPST HD Tier Ch. 1452, Fox Soccer to DVP HD Tier Ch. 1230, HBO2 to digital Premium HD Tier Ch. 1612, HBO Family to digital Premium HD Tier Ch. 1614, Showtime Too to digital Premium HD Tier Ch. 1634, Encore to Movie Pass HD Tier Ch. 1666, Cooking Channel to DVP HD Tier Ch. 1322, and National Geographic Wild to digital DVP Tier Ch. 1561 [all right!  Dog Whisperer in hi-def.]

Statewide, on or about May 16, 2012, MGM HD will move from digital Ch. 1561 to digital Ch. 1564.

Statewide, on or about June 7, 2012, ESPNews Ch. 23 will be removed from the analog lineup. ESPNews digital Ch. 225 and HD Ch. 1225 will move from CPST to DVP and will only be viewable with digital equipment such as a digital set-top box.

Statewide, on or about June 7, 2012, Oxygen Ch. 62 will be removed from the analog lineup. Oxygen digital Ch. 558 will be available on CPST-Digital format only and will only be viewable with digital equipment such as a digital set-top box.

Don't know what CPST and DVP is.  Cable Programming Services Tier?  And DVP must be the Digital Variety Pak.

Google's Self-Driving Car

Google has managed to get its self-driving car licensed in Nevada, though someone must still be in the car at all times. Essentially, the automobile was not given a license, but rather a learner's permit. It's a start.

Google's whole robocar idea has been overlooked in general. This is probably one of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years and people are fairly ho-hum about it. In fact, it addresses numerous transportation issues and is simply revolutionary. Google is poised to make more money with this device someday than it ever has with search.

I predict that at some point in the future, nobody will drive cars. We'll get into these things and program (or tell) the car where we want to go. Fleets of cars could actually be shared the way limousines are shared. You could have your car drop you off at the airport and go home, then return to pick you up at a later date.

-- via libertarians_2000

Hawaiiantel DSL

My DSL was running slow for a while (like a month or two).  I had been getting about 1.4 Mbps, but then it dropped to like 500 kpbs.  I called them and they told me to change the phone cord.

It didn't do anything, but somehow I got back to to 1.4 Mbps.

Then it dropped again and for awhile I was getting like 400 Mbps.  I finally called them a couple of nights ago and they had be connect to the main phone jack.  Same thing.  So they're going to send me another modem.

And in the meantime, it dropped to like 200 Mbps.

The modem came yesterday and I hooked it up last night.  The speed improved to 800-900 kbps.  Which I guess is good in comparison, but not as fast as it used to be.

So call Hawaiitel again.  The guy checked and said the blockage (or whatever was slowing down my connection) was fixed with the new modem, but they had to upgrade my connection (which was downgraded for connection problems or something).  I asked him what speed I was supposed to be getting.  He said I had standard (I have the cheapest possible) and it's rated for 3-6 mpbs and I might be able to get 4.

He did his thing and told me to run another test.  Hey 3.5 mbps!  I'll take it.

Thanks.

***

Looking at the website, Hawaiiantel.com can now go up to 50 mbps.  And I see the price for the basic speed is down to $22.95.

***

testing later in the night (at 11:42 PM), speed now down to 2.9 mbps.  We'll see if it starts spiraling down from here.

*** [5/3/12]

unplugged the modem and the computer last night.  plugged it back in this morning.  Now getting 2.89 mbps.  Well, that's still twice my former peak speed.  I can live with that.

*** [7/17/12]

tested my internet speed last night (or was it the night before).  Was getting 5+ mbps from San Francisco and Los Angeles.  But dropped off from New York for example.

tested today.  Getting a more consistent 5+ across the board.  However New York first got only like 0.9, but then 5+ on the second try.  It seems the 5+ is the peak speed, but there could be more congestion when testing from more far away sites.  (On the other hand, when I tested Sue's speed on Sunday, she was getting only like 0.7.)