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I love the FiOS technology. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area that offers the service. When it came to my area, I jumped on the opportunity and believe it or not, I was able to shave a lot of money off my Cablevision bill. However, not long after I got the service, Cablevision came around, house-to-house, and offered a deal i couldn’t refuse – $99/month and they will pay for my 4 set top boxes. Even though I prefer the superior quality of FiOS, the Cablevision offer knocked another $50 off my entertainment bill. So I switched.

Well, that deal is coming to an end and so I started looking at FiOS again. Online, they have a great deal – $64.99/month. I configured my order with 1 multi-room DVR, 2 HD set top boxes (STB), and one standard STB — this put me at $99.98/month!

Awesome deal right? Better technology, about the same price — how can I not go back?! Easy – Verizon customer service is sorely lacking (and they still could not beat Cablevision’s pricing – not yet anyway.)

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Ahhh.. thought I forgot about you? No, no, my poor little blog, I haven’t forgotten. Look what I got. Yes, it’s new content. Yes, I know how much you like new content.

Seriously, it’s been some time since I’ve updated the blog. Shame on me, there were a number of opportunities that were perfect for the blog. I’ll start small and see if I can keep additional content coming. Out of the gate – I’d like to talk about my OS X 10.6.3 upgrade.

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Great! It’s finally here! IntelliType and IntelliPoint v7.01 is now 64-bit compatible with Snow Leopard. I can finally go back to my Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 setup.  

The only issue is that it took literally 30 minutes to find the software. Microsoft’s site kept pointing me to an older version (v6.x) of the software no matter what combination of keyboard/mouse/desktop options I selected. The first 50 websites I found on Google pointed me back to Microsoft’s site.

I was able to find it finally on softpedia’s site, and it was mis-labeled. Here is the link. The page is labeled as Microsoft IntelliType v7.01, but it contains the desktop programs. This means that both IntelliType Pro and IntelliPoint are included in the package.

-JT

Finally had to fix the Dell Mini 9 keyboard. If you’ve played with one of these netbooks or have one, you’ll know that the quote/apostrophe key is located in the wrong spot when compared to normal US keyboards. The key is located to the bottom row of keys and takes some getting use to.   

Well I thought I could get use to it. It started to become one of those minor irritants that you can’t seem to correct. Sort of like an itch you can’t scratch. The other night I had enough of that itch.

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Recently I changed from FIOS back to Cablevision and I found myself in a position of not having a modern wireless router. Yeah, I realized that as soon as I had order the re-installation of cable only 5 days before the install. FIOS had come with it’s own cable modem with built-in wireless router. Cablevision on the other hand, requires that you get your own. When I switched from Cablevision to FIOS I had given my Apple Extreme Base Station to my Dad as I thought that I didn’t need it any more. Now with the change back, I thought I had to go out and buy a new modem. Not that I mind – I’m jonesing for the NETGEAR WNDR3700-100NAS that just came out. However, at $180+ I think I’ll wait awhile for the price to come down.

In the meantime, I dug into the Pile of Tech (other wise known to my wife as the garbage pile in the basement) and found my old Linksys WRT54G. It’s actually a v1.1 model, so it’s going back some time – it’s ancient as far as tech goes. At the time that it came out, I believe that 802.11g was just ratified. So the router was top of the line, cutting edge at 54mbps. Compared to 802.11n, I thought using it would feel like going in reverse. Since I owned it already and I really needed to get online with a router after the cable guy had left, I thought I’d give it a chance.

I was fortunate enough that the router had retained it’s configuration from the last time it was used. Thus nothing really had to be change in the way of security. I was up and running in a matter of 10-15 minutes once I got the right cables pulled through the network cable nest I have in the basement. (Another project I haven’t had time to get to yet.)

But I couldn’t let it rest there… I had to improve it!

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