Sunday, October 6, 2002

The .NET Guy relates a tale of trying out Lindows 2.0. It sounds pretty nice. I've been slowly downloading Redhat 8.0 over the past week or so (mirrors willing), since I've been interested to see if the user interface has improved much, as some folks are reporting. I'll have to take a look at Lindows as well... 7:09:28 PM

I opened the Sunday paper to read that the Best Buy in Warwick is offering the Sony Ericsson T68i for $25 after rebates. Well, I couldn't resist, even though I've heard that AT&T's coverage is not as great as T-Mobile's. However, this recent entry from Boing Boing gave me comfort that some things about AT&T might be better than T-Mobile. My rationale was sound: the T68m from T-Mobile is $300, compared to $25 for the newer T68i. Plus, in my analysis, AT&T and T-Mobile are neck and neck for the kind of usage I expect: Carrier Phone Price Data Price Per Month MB Data Price Per MB Over Voice Price Per Month Minutes Total Monthly Bill at 10MB Total Monthly Bill if I hit 20MB Total Monthly Bill if I hit 100MB T-Mobile $300.00 $19.99 5 $5.00 $39.99 600 $84.98 $134.98 $534.98 ATT $25.00 $19.99 8 $6.14 $39.99 1000 $72.27 $133.71 $625.23 ATT $25.00 $12.99 2 $8.19 $39.99 1000 $118.52 $200.44 $855.80 Even though I'd previously expressed concern about AT&T's coverage in Rhode Island, I figured I'd take the plunge. After looking again at the map, I saw that the places I tend to travel are well-served: San Jose, Santa Rosa, Boston, Seattle, and Atlanta (where I seem to spend hours and hours sitting around a certain airport). And even if it didn't work out, AT&T has a 15-day trial period, so if it totally sucks, I can bring it back. BTW, I went with the $39.99 voice plain plus the $19.99 data (8MB) plan. The verdict after a couple of hours: so far, so good. With the help of some great instructions, I was able to connect my iBook to the GPRS network with no hassle at all. iSync put my calendar, contacts, and todo list onto the phone. I'll be taking this phone and my iBook on a couple of trips this month, and I'll be sure to report how it goes! 4:34:45 PM

Sam Gentile: "We got to talk about all sorts of things and I am looking forward to the DevCon where we can properly dissect Rotor in the hotel room -)" I'm looking forward to the DevCon as well. Rotor dissection sounds like a lot of fun. I'm trying to plot a course on public transportation (we have to put our backup car in the shop while I'm away) between Kingston, RI and Bedford, MA. So far, I'm thinking of: RIPTA from Kingston to Providence (1 hour, $1.25) The T from Providence to South Station (1 hour, ~ $5) Commuter rail to get as close to Bedford as possible ($?) A cab to the hotel (~ $5) If I get lazy, I might replace 1) and 2) with Amtrak, which zips me from Kingston to South Station in only an hour, but is (ouch) $26 each way. Any suggestions are welcome; it seems that the commuter rail is optimized around bringing people into the city center, but at the same time, a lot of the businesses and events seem to be well outside that center. 11:00:15 AM