Doug’s Blog

Fixed! Laptop waking from sleep
Doug posted in Uncategorized on December 6th, 2011
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I love my ThinkPad T420s (I love my MacBook Air as well, but that’s not important right now); however, the blasted thing kept coming out of sleep once I put it into my laptop bag. I find my laptop later just about to overheat, leaving me frustrated and wondering what unhealthy forces my battery or other computer bits have been subjected to while it was in there.

After looking in the Event Viewer, I was able to track down the wake event was the ethernet port (nice, unplugging the ethernet after putting it in standby woke it right back up – that’s smart). It finally hit me there should be some mechanism to find out what devices in Windows 7 have the ability to wake my computer, so I can go and kill these things before they disrupt my sleeping machine again.

And there is! Open a command-prompt and enter the following:
powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

Source: Powercfg Command-Line Options

I simply ran that command, then double-clicked on each device in Device Manager, and unchecked “Allow this device to wake the computer” on the Power Management tab. Re-ran the command just to verify nothing was present. (Turns out it was not just the LAN adapter, but the keyboard and mouse as well.)

A nice sigh of relief to not have to worry about that. In the meantime, my laptop is still a little hot to the touch, but getting cooler.

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Configuration tips for the ubee DDW3611
Doug posted in Uncategorized on May 10th, 2011
Comments: 32

If you upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0 through Time-Warner Cable, you may be interested in a few configuration settings that were required to get my modem/router to function as well as my previous setup (using a simple Linksys router).

Update: Please review the comments section – tons of people have contributed helpful tips which may help you out if my original post does not.

WPA2: Enable
As part of the default installation, the router only supports WEP 40-bit and 128-bit encryption – this can limit your connectivity options with other devices, is less secure, and more of a pain to deal with the hex keys required to keep for the password. However, through calling tech support they can update your router to support WPA or WPA2 encryption. For me, my previous router was using WPA2, so I requested to enable that.

IP Flood Protection: Off (helpful against DDoS attacks)
With this turned on (the default setting), each machine coming out of standby (phones and computers) had to wait roughly 3 minutes before being able to use the network. This was driving me crazy. All fixed with this turned off.

WAN blocking: Disable
Enable: UPNP
Bridge mode: Off

OK, for the three settings listed above, I can only tell you that this was the final configuration that worked to have my Apple Airport Express to consistently join my network and extend it. (I use this to give my XBOX 360 connectivity in another room as well as stream music to my stereo.) At one point we tried adding the Airport Express’s MAC address to the router and turned on bridge mode (off by default); however, this just prevented the airport express from ever staying connected or being assigned a valid IP. Frankly, I believe most of the trouble was caused by turning on bridge mode. We went around with a number of setting changes until bridge mode was finally turned off. Bottom line is that you may or may not need to make the setting changes above to get your own Airport Express to work.

If you have more to contribute on these settings, feel free to leave a comment below. But I felt I should at least share what worked for me – everything now works as it did previously (plus increased bandwidth of course), but only after about 2 hours on support. Speaking of support: Each of these configuration changes required the help of someone in the “Level 3 Support.” I spoke with Chris and Tim on two different days. Both were quite knowledgeable (and knew each other – it’s not a huge bunch). If I keep having experiences like this, it will become slightly more difficult to spread the hate toward TWC that I shared in my previous post.

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Actual Cell Towers in Cary, NC (FCC has duplicates)
Doug posted in Uncategorized on December 13th, 2010
Comments: 0

In the process of finding a new home in Cary, I found a number of spots where I have no cell coverage. To get an idea of the current state of coverage, I searched for and found a list of cell towers in Cary. The problem, however, is this list confuses and distorts the situation. I created a corrected list (and map) for you.

While I commend the FCC for putting together this list of 135 supposed cell towers listed in Cary, I felt like it was a little confusing to find multiple entries of the same geographic coordinate (duplicates) in the data. This is something I deal with at work, so I pulled out the latitude and longitude values and distilled it down to these 23 unique entries. The same page also mentions that the information here may not be complete, and that other towers may exist. I don’t know enough about radio waves and earth contours to know whether 23 is the right number, but I thought the list might be helpful to anyone wanting them. And I already figured it out for myself. But that’s not the point. The point is that I created a map with these plotted (they have one at the FCC link above, but you don’t have much room on the screen to work with it). I wanted a map I can use in full screen on most setups. So I created this:
Google Map: Cell Towers in Cary, NC

Once I put all these coordinates onto a map, it looks like there are only 16 “real” unique locations, as several of these are within only a few feet of each other. Maybe towers next to one another (perhaps serving different carriers?).

Here is the unique list:
Lat: 35.606389 Lon: -78.825833
Lat: 35.730694 Lon: -78.803333
Lat: 35.741667 Lon: -78.779444
Lat: 35.763611 Lon: -78.753611
Lat: 35.764611 Lon: -78.813806
Lat: 35.766111 Lon: -78.870833
Lat: 35.767778 Lon: -78.845278
Lat: 35.768028 Lon: -78.845361
Lat: 35.769167 Lon: -78.763889
Lat: 35.785917 Lon: -78.792389
Lat: 35.787139 Lon: -78.726917
Lat: 35.787222 Lon: -78.726667
Lat: 35.791639 Lon: -78.748028
Lat: 35.791917 Lon: -78.747972
Lat: 35.791944 Lon: -78.748056
Lat: 35.793889 Lon: -78.761389
Lat: 35.801111 Lon: -78.814167
Lat: 35.818056 Lon: -78.743889
Lat: 35.818083 Lon: -78.743833
Lat: 35.831611 Lon: -78.765917
Lat: 35.831667 Lon: -78.765833
Lat: 35.832444 Lon: -78.871750
Lat: 35.832500 Lon: -78.775278

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Raleigh ISP options suck (but there’s a bigger problem)
Doug posted in Rants, Tech on November 17th, 2010
Comments: 8

Update (3/18/2011):
My area has recently been upgraded to now utilize TWC’s “wideband” or “extreme” or “DOCSIS 3.0″ service, with promised speeds of 50MB down, and 5MB upstream speeds. My own speedtests have demonstrated at least 40MB down and 5MB upstream. My service changed from $50/mo. to $100/mo. While I am still frustrated with both TWC and many of the other issues described in my rant below, I must say that I have no reason to complain about the speed of my internet connection.

——- Original Post below ————-
One of the benefits of having a blog that no one reads (why would you? i never post to it.) is that you can just up and decide to make a complete rant about something you wouldn’t want to bother anyone with on Facebook or some other medium. But anyway, on to my point.

I recently moved out here to Raleigh from San Francisco. (I loved San Francisco, and I know I’ll miss it, but I was also ready for a change after 10 years.) So far, it has really been an easy transition with the exception of one thing: bandwidth, and more specifically, upload speed. In San Francisco, I received a 3MB upload data rate through Comcast. In a July report from the FCC, they defined “broadband” as having a minimum of 1MB upload. Here in Raleigh the best I can find is 0.5MB.

What is going on? This area is supposedly rich in technology, and home to Research Triangle Park, which is proclaims to be a “model for innovation.” I love thinking about all the possible innovation while I sit and wait for hours for files to transfer.

We have several options here in Raleigh, but they are all poor. I chose Time-Warner, but it really didn’t matter. I could have chosen any of three other vendors and I would have about the same download and upload speed as the other one, and pay about the same. Coincidence? I think not.

This also dovetails into a larger discussion of why America still lags so many other countries when it comes to available internet speeds. I also have tremendous faith in the free market. So something is clearly going wrong here. I think this story is a great example of just how wrong things are around here (and I mean the U.S., not just this area.) If that story doesn’t make you hate Time-Warner, then you didn’t read it. (I probably wouldn’t choose them had I read this article before I selected them.)

When you search around through forums, it’s easy to find people complaining about the speeds around here. Even moreso, there are people so very excited that Time-Warner has “plans” to roll-out DOCSIS 3.0 in this area by the end of the year, and even supported with a supposed email from someone internal at Time-Warner. If a better option existed, they would improve their speeds. And probably instantly. I can pay over $200/mo. for a “business plan” to get the speeds that I had in San Francisco and I don’t think I will be seeing a truck coming down the road laying new wires to my home. They are enjoying their position, and abuse their power to prevent others from competing with it… just like the Baby Bells did, and just like other bloated service providers will continue to do in the future.

Since no one is actually reading, I will continue my rant. The sad fact is that the supremely large corporate entities run this country, and the spineless elected leaders we have across both parties refuse to ensure the consumer wins. Ultimately, we all lose. It becomes a matter of power-to-the-government, or power-to-the-corporation, but never power-to-the-people, and that’s all a free market is anyway. Let real competition happen, let bloated companies fail, quit bailing people out, let people lose their jobs so they can join an efficient organization that is producing enough value for consumers to choose their services.

Our political system generates nothing but actors, and our selfish and mindless reality-tv focused heads just grab the prettiest thing at the moment, letting our short attention span move on to the next Facebook post. In return we have this government, this waste, this inefficiency, and a country that is dangerously weak relative to the rest of the world.

But I must be missing something, because I still choose to live here. But I feel like I’m on borrowed time.

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Rupert Howls at Siren
Doug posted in Pets on September 22nd, 2009
Comments: 0

Rupert always howls when the fire truck goes by, frequently matching pitch. May be an instinctive response, but I still love it. And I really need to stop posting pet videos – I might be addicted.

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Early video of Rupert
Doug posted in My Life, Pets on September 15th, 2009
Comments: 0

After putting up a video of Jax, I couldn’t help myself and went and found a video of Rupert when he was a puppy. Sadly, the video is out of focus for some reason, but the content outweighs the problems in this case, so I’m uploading it anyway.

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Early videos of Jax
Doug posted in Pets on August 28th, 2009
Comments: 0

Rupert’s best friend is a dog named Jax. He’s a super great dog, and now almost three. But I took this video shortly after Travis brought him home, and just thought I would share… unless Travis tells me this is inappropriate young dog footage… or Aki doesn’t like Travis’s patronizing (but humorous) tone.

Oh, found another one. This one is even cuter, in my opinion:

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Cool iPhone Bike Mount
Doug posted in Recommendations, Tech on August 25th, 2009
Comments: 0

So maybe I am crazy taking my iPhone to mount on my bike at Burning Man (which, OK, I may not do), but I will say that in the process I found a great thing that’s practically free. My iPhone mount arrived today and fits solidly on my bike, and cost just $7 total (shipping included):
http://www.fatyourwallet.com/universal-bike-mount-holder-iphone-iphone-ipod-touch-p-205.html

Yes, the English translation is weak, the guy is sending it from Hong Kong and hand writes the shipping label, and it takes like 12 days to get here. And truly, the mount can be used to hold any squarish and light device – not just the iPhone. The box reads “Bicycle Phone Holder.” But after mounting it on my bike, it feels quite solid, and I’m looking forward to a test ride. I’ll update this post with a track of my ride if it goes well. Which brings me to a related note.

If you’re ever wanting to track your rides around town using something like MotionX GPS, you’ve spent $3 on the app and $7 for a holder – pretty sweet bicycle GPS tracking tool for $10:
http://news.motionx.com/category/motionx-gps/

Anyway, good stuff.

Is this post really that exciting that it justifies a post after over a year of not writing anything at all on my blog? No, but at least I posted something. I plan to write more soon.

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So I guess dogs really can cry…
Doug posted in Uncategorized on August 11th, 2008
Comments: 1

So Karen and I woke up to an unpleasant surprise this weekend. Rupert decided to pee on the bed right between us. Needless to say, we were quite upset. After some scolding, I found myself taken by just how sorry the little guy seemed to be, and ended up taking a picture of it. So here he is, sitting on the bed now stripped of the sheets which must be cleaned. Shortly after this picture was taken, I realized something that I thought I had ruled-out after searching the web on this very topic… dogs can cry. His eyes were so glassy they were welling up full tears at the base of his eyes.

After realizing just how sad he seemed, we wondered if there was something else we missed. As it turned out, the left side of his body was soiled as well. It seems he went in his sleep. No wonder he was so sad – he didn’t even know it was happening. Poor little guy.

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New Rupert Pics
Doug posted in Uncategorized on June 11th, 2008
Comments: 0

Well, it’s been a significantly long time since I’ve posted anything here. Although I do tend to have some additional posts soon, before anything else, I thought I would post a link to some of my favorite pics of our puppy Rupert, by month.

Rupert – 2 Months

Rupert – 3 Months

Rupert – 4 Months

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