Saturday, January 31, 2009

good place for a snack!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

ie7 vs. firefox, part 2

I redid the test at home and the results for the two browsers were virtually identical, and about 10 times slower.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

speed test: ie7 vs. firefox

Try this at home, I will.  Results from speedtest.net using my corporate connection at Microsoft behind a proxy.  I did this after getting annoyed at how slow comScore was loading in Firefox.

 

IE7 pass 1 – 85997kbps download / 5846kbps upload

IE7 pass 2 – 81569kbps download / 5465kbps upload / 4ms ping

IE7 pass 3 – 81569kbps download / 5465kbps upload / 4ms ping

 

Firefox 3.0.5 pass 1 – 29946kbps download / 10747kbps upload / 14ms ping

Firefox 3.0.5 pass 2 – 24268kbps download / 6734kbps upload / 11ms ping

Firefox 3.0.5 pass 3 – 35298kbps download / 10221kbps upload / 10ms ping

 

IE7 has much lower latency (4ms vs. 10+ms) and much higher download speeds (2-3x faster), but much slower upload speeds.

 

 

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

comcast, it's over

OK…  It’s not totally over, but no more Comcast cable.  No more putting up with the crappy Motorola DVR.  No more having to switch between multiple devices to watch stuff on TV.

 

Instead, I’ll be paying $45 for internet, eventually $60, and using my PC to listen to music, watch and record TV, and watch movies.


Savings?  $100 over the first 4 months, then nothing for the 8 months after.  The reason is they offered to give me cable + internet for the regular price of internet.  I declined.  Maybe we can have this conversation 4 months from now when my promo rate for internet ends, but for now I’ll be happy to save my $25 a month.  That should be enough to cover the TV card that I’m going to buy and the part of the extra keyboard and mouse I got as well.

 

So I didn’t save a ton of money, but based on what I’ve been doing the past week with my PC+TV setup, I’ll be happier with my new arrangement.  The Comcast/Motorola DVR really sucks.

Friday, January 16, 2009

update

It feels like it's been a while since I've actually written anything
on my blog. I am still alive (no surprises there, right?).

I was thinking about boring you with the details of the two computers
I'm about to make, but I get this sense that no one cares. Two
computers for under $1100. I'll leave it at that.

So aside from that important announcement, what else has been going
on? It's winter. That means I've been enjoying winter sports I went
sledding in December and I've also been skiing a few times. The
conditions here take some getting used to, but that's just a reason to
get out there more. I'm also teaching myself how to maintainmy skis. I
figure if I can fix my car, I should be able to handle skis. It's not
really hard, it just requires some precision and it's a bit messy. I
guess if I fixed my car in my apartment it would be messy too, but I
don't feel like driving to some parking lot to repair and wax my skis.

I've also been pretty busy with work. I'm not going into any detail,
but it's interesting and challenging. All the joys and challenges of
working with really smart people. (-:

And lastly, in case you're wondering how I'm dealing with the Seattle
winter, it's not that bad. I have a high tolerance for what most
people consider crappy weather. (-:

Friday, January 09, 2009

fraking iphone

During the 40 minutes I've been trying to see what I'll do tonight
while I ride the bus home. During that time safari has crashed 6
times, the phone ignored an incoming call, and the e-mail app
corrupted a message. The only thing preventing it from failing more is
it's slowness. I need to invest a few minutes trying to download a web
page before it can crash.

Joy.