South Bruce Peninsular - Internet - Comments

Rank 'em all

garym — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:25:40 -0400

Hot damn this is one fun little toy -- I have no idea what it might mean by that dollar value, but it does give you a pretty good overview of who links to the page and why, and that in itself can be both useful and humbling.

For those who dig this sort of thing, here's a further bit of fun: bookmark this link and then, when you are on any page, click the bookmark and bam, there's the site's SmartPageRank!

as for the bit of swampland, you put a hotel on that and we'll talk ;) -- for woodlot, it need only be a sturdy farmhouse. Within range of the wireless, of course.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

I'm considering

Dan O. — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:29:35 -0400

It might be easier if I just traded you for a nice piece of local bush/swamplands. We'll have to see if any other locals wish to contribute to the deal.

Dan O.

For you, Dan, special price ...

garym — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:06:00 -0400

Eighteen even, Dan, and its yours! Way better deal than I quoted that guy 'carl' who pinged me on my cellphone ... Limited time offer! Act now! Our operators are standing by!

Smart
PageRank
Values this site at
$18,939

This was just too much fun to pass up: any metric, Einstein tells us, has no meaning without being in relation to some other data point, so it just seemed logical to test the topology of the warps in our local SPR-spacetime:

saublebeach.com:	$1,830
southbrucepeninsula.blogspot.com:	$1,444
southbrucepeninsula.com:	$1,285
brucepeninsula.com:	$465
sbp.teledyn.com:	$18,939
blog.teledyn.com:	$24,795
www.teledyn.com:	$52,350

hee hee -- now who's yo web-daddy? ...

Not bad for a budget of $40/month, eh? -- Perchance to dream, we've been pondering a purchase fantasy on some really nice local semi-bushlands; do you suppose the Royal will take the website on collateral?

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Clarify

dcbour — Sun, 06 May 2007 03:23:49 -0400

I guess I should clarify...
I'm looking for terminations, ie, that is local numbers to dial into a sip/iax voip service which I can then connect to my existing pbx. This will let my family and cottage renters get free calling then off my pbx which is already configured for everything. They won't have laptops and my wireless service travels with me, hence no computer for skype, etc stays at the cottage.
Second, if I work from the cottage this summer, I wouldn't mind picking up some business there hence have a local dial-in number for people to reach me. The pbx can handle it, and with my wireless anywhere service, a phone there will be live with my business extension too.
Today, I've got a little trick where you call a number, it intentionally fails, gets a fast busy so you don't get billed but as soon as you hang up, my pbx calls you back (if it's from a validated number) then you simply dial the number you want...
As for onebox, it reads like the feature list of Asterisk, the do it yourself open source pbx, same as I'm running, which is some of the consulting I do to put these in for individuals and small business. Asterisk does all that and much more. If you have a decent web speed, you can host it yourself, as most of my clients do.
As for the Skype, already integrated into the pbx. Easy enough using a product called ChanSkype. I can even send instructions if you're game to set up your own asterisk box and want to integrate chanskype.
Vonage...mixed reviews, but the bottom line is it is it's own voip calling service, needing high speed at the cottage (which only exists when I'm there). If the high speed is there already, I can do it now.
On another note, what's availability and rates for DSL or radio based internet into the French Bay area between Sauble and Southampton. When I lasted checked, they wouldn't do DSL to my cottage and radio based internet ran about $600 for installation and $80 a month for seasonal service. Has this improved, any suggestions?

agreed

bub — Sat, 05 May 2007 23:11:41 -0400

I agree about skype..it works just great from a usb thumb drive, and can be used almost with any modern puter with a usb port.Yes, Vonage is in deep doo doo with patent violations..don't know where that is going, perhaps its a real violation, or one of those things Blackberry ran into, where old patents are bought out by law firms who go in for the quick kill and mega bucks.
Does anyone remember 1996-1997 a program called freetel(it actually asked if your soundcard was full or half duplex..not even an issue for years) or dialpad? Long time ago..

*************************************************************************
"How does one "Seem to think". Either you did or you didn't. "
-ZenGary

Name your Poison

garym — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:11:00 -0400

"Are there any??? -- the problem is how do you choose!! Personally, I use Skype, it's portable, works on my laptop (even my laptop), works fine under all the major operating systems, and very often runs nice free LD promotions such as the one coming up next weekend for Mother's day -- best of all, you can try it out for free for as long as you like, and even pay as you go for fancy stuff like land-line calling (inbound or outbound).

Now PBX, that's something else entirely, and the service we use at work is the oldest and most established (onebox.com) but it is also (for the same reasons) the clunkiest and most technologically backward. For example, the only way you can re-assign the on-call schedule is to login and fight with an inane HTML form page from Hell, whereas a truly enlightned PBX would know about things like webservices and 'business process integration' -- to be fair to onebox, though, I did contact a half dozen other PBX services about this sort of feature, and while Onebox is kind enough to give me a blank stare, 100% of the others did not even bother to return my email.

But what OneBox does give us is exactly what you describe, I have my extension forwarded to my (stupid) blackberry and can re-assign that as I wish, with fail-over alternates, voice mail and fax both relayed to me by email. Our company is 100% 'virtual' with members in NYC, LA, Toronto, St. Catherines and Hamilton, and where the thing works, the whole thing works very well.

And then there's Vonage, who recently, iirc, had some sort of stay put on their creditors while they tried to find a business plan, but don't quote me on that, I don't really follow the world of VoIP-wannabees that carefully. I do know, though, that the boss likes his Vonage enough to carry the box with him on business trips giving him seamless access to his phonelines from hotel rooms just about anywhere in the western world.

What I do follow is the worrisome trend to centralized services controlled by single corporations, and that's the only feature that really bugs me about Skype -- they had promised to open up their network as a public protocol, but that move has yet to materialize ... and until they do, the VoIP industry must live under a spectre of backing the wrong horse at peril of certain death.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

local web cam links

bub — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:32:39 -0400

Here is a few links of local web cams:

Kincardine: http://www.kyc.ca/netcam/netcam.html

Neustadt: http://www.floatingbear.ca

Keady(!!!): http://www3.sympatico.ca/gene.mcdonald/capture1.jpg

..and what I think Greenhorns should have ;) http://www.hogsbreath.com/hogcam/index.htm

(and if you want to fight other users for control of a beach camera help yourself here: http://www.liveeyenet.com/Page_Display.aspx?appletid=3 )

**************************************************************
"How does one "Seem to think". Either you did or you didn't. "
-ZenGary

Motion Cams for Naturalists

garym — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:12:03 -0400

Limited use? I think not, especially after reading about this ... Imagine if you will, a quiet stretch of trail, maybe the view from your deck, out a window at a bird-feeder or out across your lawn ... now, in a place like here in the SBP, just imagine who you might snapshot in your lens ...

Such is the often dramatic and surprising result out of an Alberta forestry project which used motion-detection kits just like these to monitor animal and human land-use in some backcountry forests southwest of Calgary:

"Presence-absence: an exhibition of Livingstone Study images" explores the relationship between people, wildlife and landscapes in 1000-square-kilometres of provincial forest reserve at the headwaters of the Oldman River. The exhibition features a variety of color and black-and-white images captured during the last three years, along with facts and preliminary findings from the study.

"We thought a gallery display would be valuable because these images are unique from a photographic point of view and they also help to explain the research we are doing ...They really show people what's going on in their backyard." [ Cameras catch candid images of Canadian wilderness ]

Indeed. I can only speculate what goes on under the midnight moon in my yard! So thanks for those links, Bub -- no, I haven't forgotten the SBP Webcam Project, in fact I have accumulated a donated laptop (thanks Richard!), a viable O/S (PuppyLinux!), a linux-friendly camera and a wifi card (thanks to me) and now here I have a line on some camera software that could ensure the pictures are also interesting ... assuming folks like midnight racoon trashfests and watching monster skunks dig grubs ...

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

web cam security

mxyzptlk — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:57:41 -0400

hi bub, i think this would be of limited use. the cheap cameras wouldn't provide much of a viewing area so an intruder could come in from some unexpected location; most likely not the front door. if you could somehow construct a network of cameras, one for each room for example and the software supported it, then it might make sense. a different or coincidental idea might be to use the motion detection to trigger an alarm to scare off an intruder. or maybe the sound of a mean german shepherd upstairs . for real security, i would prefer to rely on a service such as aderick to install motion and heat sensors and an monitored alarm. our local opp respond very rapidly.
mxy

3 Free Ubuntus

garym — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:31:44 -0500

I have here now three copies left of the official Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS release, and although I haven't had the chance to really try it out, I've had a lot of people tell me that it is astounding in its ability to find the right drivers for even odd computer bits like printers, cameras and wireless network cards.

But it requires more diskspace and CPU than I have spare: they ask for 3GB of diskspace, 256M of ram, which was way too rich for the laptop I'd hoped to use to try it out. I did get their LiveCD option running on an old old Dell, and it didn't do too badly at that, but it refused to install, probably just running into memory limits.

But anyway, I have three copies left; to get one, you just have to figure out a way to get out to see me and it's yours for the having (while supplies last, after that, I'll just burn copies of my copy)

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Thanks Sabrinus!

bub — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 22:13:42 -0400

Thanks to Sabrinus for replying to this..the answer is at:
http://flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm
Muchly appreciated :)
I had emailed this to MIP but maybe he never got it for some reason,,thanks sabrinus.

**********************************************************************
"Did A.J.Krapper organize a mass walk-out of latrines?"
-zenGary

and while your at it..

bub — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:34:54 -0400

Enjoy some free music from Radio Free Sauble

Here's yet another compelling reason ...

garym — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 17:51:58 -0500

I normally get people interested in Firefox by saying "no more pop-ups" and that's enough to get them curious, but if you want really compelling reason to sail into Mozilla.org for the painless download, consider this:

Firefox on its own can monitor any webpage for you and flash an icon if there's been an update, but with plugins like InfoRSS you can finally put all those orange RSS chicklets to work for you!

For example, I knew about the recent Sauble Community Warming Center and Water Refill Station because of the scrolling marquee along the bottom of my browser, and I knew within the hour. Now that is information technology I can use.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

It's been recommended to me

garym — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 23:30:32 -0500

Seems to be the new darling distro of the young twenty-somethings, I 've had several recommend Ubuntu to me. These are the same people who a year ago would have recommended Gentoo as the in distro, and prior to that, I suppose they'd all be into Debian.

and it's that pattern that makes me wary if it ;)

I use a lot of esoteric software for things like turning my vinyl LPs into CDs I can take in the car and put my home videos on DVDs, so I tend to stick with the same distributions that the people who write my fave software are willing to support, and that pretty much leaves me in Mandrake and RedHat land. I was intrigued by Gentoo claims of a simple one-disk install and then fetch only what you need so you don't have umpteen text editors installed, but when I tried it, I couldn't get it up to any sort of capability I needed, so I moved on.

That said, it's about time someone came along to spice up the landscape. I've changed my distro several times since my first Linux machine in 1993, each time prompted by not getting what I need with what I had and having some say, Well, just try this one ...

All the dirty politics and obscene profiteering aside, I don't know how the Windows users cope with having only one one size fits all package and then being nickle and dimed in a Death by 1001 distinct vendors for everything else they need. For me, I just add the recommended Easy-URPMI catalogs once, and then just ask for what Ineed and wait while all the required parts are dutifully fetched and installed.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

Morphix: Take the Red Pill

garym — Thu, 19 May 2005 12:34:44 -0400

I'm not a big fan of Mandrake/Mandrive Move for a novice; it's clunky, bloated and while it does work on really fast and large modern computers, it can be a painful creeping experience on P3's and lesser; hardly a compelling introduction for the newcommer!

Instead, I recommend the Morphix live-CDs; fast efficient and focussed, you can get a general Morphix to kick the tires, or get a repackaged Morphix in any of a thousand customized special-purpose flavours such as Morphix for Musicians, or Morphix for Linguistic Analysis, or a trade-show kiosk, or a milking machine monitor or ... there's more new and wonderful custom morphix morphs announced almost daily!

For me, that's real power: A plunk and play complete tailor made computing solution for some specific itch, not some glut of 'everything cool' thrown together by some caring-less geeks in an bored cubic'd office tower, but lovingly crafted by people who really need this thing to work for them ... and with full and easy instructions and community support to help you craft your very own.

If anyone would like to try the generic Morphix, I have CDs ...

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever