RasterWeb!

If you can only see one movie in the theater this year, make it The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. I say this because I only have seen one movie in the theater this year, but I also say this because it was just plain awesome.

I laughed, I cried, I laughed so hard I cried! The fact that I slept just a few hours on the weekend might have helped, but the sheer awesome-ness of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie cannot be denied! At least not by me or my gradeschool-aged daughter. This is one we definitely need to get on DVD…

SMS, Baby! Also known as text messaging…

The Nokia 2260 arrived. It’s an ok phone, nowhere near as nice as the diminutive Nokia 6585 that the female has, but it will suit me fine. (Did I mention I’m cheap?) Actually, the arrival was quite amusing. Seems we missed the Fedex guy while we were checking the status of the delivery in the basement by not hearing the front door, but as luck would have it, we saw the Fedex truck 20 minutes later at the Piggly Wiggly. But! Wrong Fedex guy… :( But! He sent a message to the other guy to swing back around and drop it off, so all was well, and I don’t have to complain about Fedex. ( Not today anyway.)

I’ve made like two calls, seems to work fine. I dunno, I don’t talk much. Like I said… SMS!

Yes, this text messaging thing has opened up a whole new world. I’ve hacked up a bit of perl, added some cron jobs, and we’re on our way. I get updates on the weather. I get notified if the server stops responding. I set up a form for the kids to send me messages. It’s just plain neato. I know, this stuff is old hat to people who have been using smartphones for years, or any teens in the audience, but it’s new to me, and it’s fun.

Here’s the part I like. This SMS stuff is free for incoming messages. I got a prepaid plan from AT&T Wireless, which means if I don’t make many calls, I could enjoy this wireless notification appliance for less than $4 per month. Pretty much every plan you see advertised is for 1000000 minutes each day for $39.99 per month (roughly) and I didn’t want to pay $39.99 per month or need 1000000 minutes, or even 1000.

I can see why Russell gets so jazzed about the mobile thing, and why Scoble shows off his phone.

I saw a post on some forum where some guy said “It would be cool if you could get a text message when your Google PageRank changed.” And you know what? While it might or might not be cool, it’s entirely possible, and pretty darn easy too! ;)

The Nokia 6585 (the female’s phone) is now fully charged and ready to go. I spent some time last night getting used to the interface, playing with the settings, and testing the games. (Or is that testing the settings and playing the games? ;)

Voicemail is set up, we’ve made calls, and received calls… All is well. Ah, I did think about making my own version of the form used to send text messages to it. Unfortunately US Cellular is not as nice as AT&T Wireless, which has the text message form, but also allows you to send text messages via email. (I may have to write an email-to-http-post gateway for US Cellular…)

I’ve not been too happy with either provider’s web sites. US Cellular is running SilverStream, which I’ve always disliked, though the site seems to work, and AT&T Wireless is running Sun-ONE. I seem to get error messages from the AT&T Wireless site every now and then, but it looks like they just switched to Sun-ONE so who knows.

I did try to check on my order with AT&T Wireless, and here’s my complaint: I order early on Thurs. Nov. 4th, and now on Fri. Nov. 5th it says it “will be shipped on or before Tuesday” which I guess would not bother me too much except for the fact that there is a link on the page that says “Order today and get your phone Monday.” I guess they don’t say what Monday. Oh, there is also a note saying “We ship 95% our orders the same day*” Yeah, see that asterisk? That points to the disclaimer disclaiming that from always being the case.

So far the customer experience isn’t stellar, but I’ll try to reserve further judgement until I actually have a phone.

They used to be called cell phones, but I think now they are called mobile phones, or wireless phones or something. Phones are the new thing. No, I’m not Russell Beattie, and I keep saying I’m not a phone dork, but we’ll see how things go…

First some history… We (meaning the female and I) got our first cell phone in 1996, we had crummy vehicles, and a child on the way, and I got a very good deal through my employer. (As you know, I’m cheap.) It worked for about 4 years before it didn’t seem to function properly. (Why is that?) It was an NEC phone, and it was nice at the time, had an alarm clock and such, nothing too fancy, it was 1996.

Then in 2000 we got a Motorola StarTac, which at the time was tiny. Size was one of the main factors in choosing it. Well, that and I got it through my employer for $20. (Again, I’m cheap.) It worked for a few years, though the battery went poo-poo, I replaced it and that one lasted about a year. (Ok, I found out that the old analog phones chew through batteries much faster.) The StarTac sort of sucked, no features at all (not even a clock!) but it was small. I’ll be glad to stop using it.

Now that it’s 2004 and everyone over the age of 13 10 has a phone, we figured it was time to get a new one. Actually the female needs one for her business, and well, I’ll be getting one for when the car we got in 1996 leaves me stranded in rural Wisconsin.

The female got the Nokia 6585. First impressions: Small! It’s seriously tiny! I don’t think people with bad eyesight and large fingers/hands could ever use this thing. Besides the size, there’s a lot to learn. It’s got a calendar, and holds contacts, and has a radio, and accepts text messages… She’s got one of those zillion minutes plans with free incoming calls and nights and weekends. It should suit her quite well.

I’m still working out the details of the phone I’ll be getting. I actually do not plan on making/taking a lot of calls, and I’m going with a pre-paid phone. It looks like it will accept text messages, and that incoming text messages are free.

Let me say that again: Incoming text messages are free, and can be sent via email. Let the hacking begin!

(To Be Contined… Obviously!)

As mentioned previously, I’ve installed Asterisk and started testing it out to see what it could do, and I now have a phone system in my home. You can call the basement office at 776, or the upstairs office at 777. Xten’s X-Lite is running as the softphone. (Though I think the little iMac in the upstairs office could use a bit more RAM.)

Right now it “works” and that’s all I’ll say. I haven’t done anything fancy yet. Performance isn’t great, but we’re running Asterisk on a medium-powered Linux box, and as mentioned the iMac is a little underpowered. The G4 seems to work well though, and I’ve also got Asterisk running on an old G3, though that box hasn’t been stressed much yet.

I told everyone in the house that they could call me, and leave a voicemail and I’d get it as an email. I don’t think they were terribly impressed, but then, it’s the mom and kids, not an O’Reilly conference.

It’s all so very exciting. If you’re into that whole computer, phone, VoIP, talking thing…