AT&T Coverage Still Stinks

June 10th, 2009 | 9:17 pm cdt

About 9 months ago I wrote about the terrible AT&T coverage at my house. In that time nothing has changed and tonight I finally decided to contact them about it. My first step was going to be email, then escalate to phone calls when the email yields a canned response.

Well, I can’t even email them. Logging into my account this evening is impossible. It’s one error message after another as these screens show:

AT∓T Loading...

AT∓T Gateway Timeout

AT∓T Functionality Unavailable

At one point I was logged in for about 2 minutes. When I clicked the contact link, the resulting page informed me my session had timed out.

Continued Reception Woes
This is the coverage map. Looks like I’m stuck between two towers.

AT∓T coverage Map

According to AT&T I’m in the GOOD area.

GOOD: The areas shown in the medium orange should be sufficient for on-street or in-the-open coverage, most in-vehicle coverage and possibly some in-building coverage.

SOME in-building coverage. At my house, ‘Some’ equals about 1 bar on the EDGE network. 1 bar on EDGE equals no data connection. It also means missed calls and dropped calls. ‘Some’ times it means no service. It always means no 3G, even though the map says the opposite.

AT∓T 1 bar EDGE

AT∓T No Service

If I can ever contact AT&T, I want them to know that coverage in this area stinks. Ideally they have a database of people who have complained about coverage in this area and it’s only going to take one more (my) complaint for them to come out to the tower and boost the signal, build a new tower, whatever. 13 more months to go…


Clapp, our first iPhone app

June 10th, 2009 | 7:54 pm cdt

Jimmy and I have published our first iPhone app called Clapp. It’s super simple. Clapp plays 3 different types of clapping noises for use at any event that warrants a hardy clap.

It’s about as minimal as it gets, but we wanted to get something published just to go through the process. Now it’s on to something bigger and better! Ideas are welcome. ;)

iTunes link to Clapp

Clapp


Late Night All Over Again

May 30th, 2009 | 9:48 pm cdt

The “Late Night” shows have always been my favorite TV shows to watch. As a kid I’d watch Carson and Letterman, and after Carson retired it was Letterman and Conan.

Leno did a good job but I was always a Letterman fan.

I always felt Letterman got a bad deal not getting the Tonight Show after Carson left. Letterman was obviously Carson’s favorite.

Conan is great, because like Letterman, is able to come to the celebrity guests as a more of an outsider who doesn’t mind calling them out on their obsurdities.

So with Letterman and Conan coming on at the same time, it’s really going to be unfortunate to have to split my time between the two.

Jimmy Fallon has been on for a few months now. He’s getting better and it’s great how he involves the audience in the studio and viewers at home through the internet. And what he’s doing with Twitter is great. Friday night, after Leno’s final show, Fallon Twittered along with his show, kind of like a director’s commentary. It was quite dynamic and very interesting. There are some brutally awkward moments, though. Especially between him and his announcer. But his show is still very new, and has a lot of time to develop.

Here are some classic clips of Letterman on Carson. Letterman was really fired up back in the day.


Letterman on Carson talking about NBC choosing Leno for the Tonight Show. (Part 1)


Letterman on Carson talking about NBC choosing Leno for the Tonight Show. (Part 2)


#followfriday is out of control

April 16th, 2009 | 8:45 pm cdt

In 4 short months, Follow Friday on Twitter has morphed from a great way to showcase interesting people, to a gluttonous spamfest now resulting in people jamming as many screennames as possible into 140 characters over and over again all day long.

#followfriday

Follow Friday needs to get back to its roots. Choose ONE interesting person, post their name, and explain WHY they are worth following. That’s it.

Remember: ONE interesting person per Friday and explain WHY.

P.S. Also, as an aside, rambling about your personal health problems is the quickest way to garner an unfollow. No one wants to read that. No one.


Murfreesboro Tornado

April 10th, 2009 | 1:35 pm cdt

We’ve had a very active weather event today in the Middle Tennessee area. Using the traffic widget we happened to watch the Murfreesboro tornado pass over I-24 in real time. We hope everyone is safe this afternoon.

Update: Just wanted to add this clip from WKRN as the tornado passed over I-24. It’s a devastating situation down there. Pay attention to the local news if you have to be down there or are looking for ways to help.

Murfreesboro Tornado

Murfreesboro Tornado

Murfreesboro Tornado Radar


It pays to buy local

April 2nd, 2009 | 12:25 pm cdt

This story starts with a terrible experience using Amazon.com, and ends with a wonderful outcome at the local record store.

I was making an Amazon purchase and decided to throw in the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. Well, after everything was all said and done I was going to end up paying $10.50 in shipping for a $9.99 CD. This was after I had to call into customer service on the phone to have my password reset. (Another rant for another day.)

So I knew anyone local could beat $20.49 for a CD. I went down to Grimeys, paid $14 with tax and ended up with an EP that came with it.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz with EP


1 Year Time Lapse of Weather Alerts

March 9th, 2009 | 6:32 pm cdt

For over a year now my server has been pulling down an hourly snapshot of the current NOAA weather alerts.

This is a one year time lapse compiled from these images from March 2008 to March 2009. A snapshot of alerts was taken every hour. At 24 frames per second: 1 second = 1 day.


Projects

Candor Gallery
Candor Gallery
Candor Gallery is an OS X Widget and Google Gadget that displays user submitted art.
Litter Cam
Litter Cam
Big Fat Molly Cat Live streaming litter cam with Twitter motion alerts.
Tennessee Traffic Cams
Tennessee Traffic Cams
Tennessee Traffic Cams is a widget that displays traffic camera feeds from across the state of Tennessee.
Language Design Group
Language Design Group
Language Design Group is a translation agency for all your foreign language needs.
Portfolio
Portfolio
My personal portfolio
Older Projects
Crissy's Roommate
PenceBook
Crissy's Roommate was a daily cartoon strip produced for the Daily Beacon from 2000-2002.
Hess Hall Webcam
Hess Hall Webcam
The Hess Hall Webcam captured the daily activities of Hess Hall.
Etc.
Browser Dream

The Ubuntu Counter Project - user number # 783

FeedBurner Count