Ryan J. Allen » geek

Tethering BlackBerry PlayBook to AT&T GoPhone

Ryan J. Allen — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:01:45 +0000

I was in the US last weekend for the NASCAR race and brought my trusty PlayBook with me. When I visit the US I use an AT&T GoPhone sim card to avoid the ridiculous roaming charges that the national carriers charge. I added 100 Mb of data to my pre-paid plan and used data on my BlackBerry Bold and my BlackBerry PlayBook. But native BlackBerry services weren’t available–I had to setup the GoPhone APN on the BlackBerry and could only use TCP services.

To tether I had to create a custom tethering profile on the PlayBook. When I tried to create a profile with the APN “wap.cingular” (the APN for AT&T GoPhone’s MediaNet) I got an error. At first I thought it was the “.” character, but other tethering profiles had the character. I gave up at first but later had the idea of just adding a space to the end of the profile.

That worked. Connecting to the APN “wap.cingular ” was successful. I didn’t bother to try to determine if spaces were ignored, or if the carrier simply compared only the first 12 bytes–I was just happy it worked. So I had tethered access to the Internet on PlayBook giving me blissful updates to the world outside of the track. Too bad the race was rained out.

Internet is a Scary Place

Ryan J. Allen — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:58:30 +0000

I just used the Internet without ClickToFlash or Flashblock installed. Wow. The Internet is a scary place. There are so many Flash advertisements its crazy.

Push Information

Ryan J. Allen — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:46:21 +0000

I love push information: e-mail, IM, RSS, tweets (these last two examples technically polling, but let’s not split hairs)–information sent directly to you, as soon as its available. It makes things much more efficient, allows for quick dissemination of information, and provides opportunity to easily discard information that isn’t of interest to you at the time. I would not want to return to a life that includes manual polling for the same.

I do, however, sometimes miss the search. That instinct to check your e-mail, or check a news site when you are bored. There are times when I feel desperate to check up on something even when I am certain there is no change. I suppose I should be thankful to have these moments, but I do sometimes miss filling them with that feeling of joy when you see something new.

Starbucks, PlayBook, Flickr, YouTube, White Mocha

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:21:48 +0000

This morning after church Adam, Kyla, and I went to Starbucks to enjoy a beverage and company. It was a nice day so we sat on the patio. I was showing Adam and Kyla some photos from Will and I’s east coast trip on a PlayBook when, simultaneously, two things happened: 1. Adam saw a photo of Will playing at an open mic night and asked about this; and, 2. a nearby patron noticed that we were sharing memories around a PlayBook. In response to (1), I multi-tasked over to the YouTube app to search for the short clip of Will performing in Charlottetown. This also served to showcase the PlayBook for the crowd of people that had grown in response to (2).

It was weird and hilarious.

It’s also worth mentioning that I had an Iced Grande two-pump white mocha light-ice latte. It was amazing.

October 23, 2001

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:15:29 +0000

You know what happened 9 years ago today? The iPod was first announced.

Happy anniversary, iPod!

In-wall Speakers in my Dining Room

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:31:13 +0000

I have installed in-wall speakers in my dining room!

You may recall that I bought a pair of JBL LS326W in-wall speakers for my dining room. A little over a month ago I bought a bunch of in-wall speaker wire, volume controls, distribution box, etc. to start wiring this up. Today I finally did it.

There was only one real snag, and it wasn’t much of a big deal. While cutting the whole for the first speaker I encountered a secret stud. It was strange, as it was back from the drywall a little bit. After this happened I just moved the speaker away from it. It does mean that I have a bit of a boo boo on the drywall that I will have to repair. Maybe when I decide it’s time to paint.

I was speaking to _dev_null about my plan to do this on Friday and he suggested that installing the distribution panel along the common wall with my neighbours would be a hassle. There would be two sheets of drywall and insulation to deal with. Based on this, I re-evaluated and moved the panel to a wall that is entirely in my own control. I thought it would be empty but was surprised to find a couple of gifts from the builders.

Yep, that’s caulking in my wall. I had actually knocked it over at one point which was annoying as I needed to drill up through the floor and run some wire. It would have gotten in the way, so I had to spend 20 minutes fishing for this tube so that I could stand it up right and get it out of the way. But, that wasn’t it! There was also a piece of duct!

Here’s what the finished volume control, speakers, and distribution panel look like. Tomorrow I will try to run a wire from the garage to the distribution panel for the garage setup. Someday in the distant future I’ll repeat the exercise for the outdoor speakers.

Boring

Ryan J. Allen — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 02:02:46 +0000

Want to read something boring that I think is pretty awesome? Here you go.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, Visualized

Ryan J. Allen — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:58:23 +0000

Last night I had the pleasure of attending “A Piano Celebration” at the NAC. It was a great performance–the first in the Signature Series for the 2010-2011 orchestra season. I enjoyed it so much that I have become even more upset that I will miss the orchestra’s performance of Mozart’s “Triple Crown”–symphonies 39, 40, and 41–tonight.

This afternoon I have been listening to the symphonies. I don’t have much better way than to just watch “videos” of performances on YouTube. I found a cool video that shows the first movement of Mozart’s 40th visually. You can see the video for yourself.

Wired for Sound

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 22 May 2010 03:44:55 +0000

I am really excited about some sound gear I have ordered. Allow me to take you on a tour. As valuable background information: I will be moving in a few weeks and will have some rooms that I don’t have speakers for.

My current surround sound setup will go in the basement with the TV. That leaves me without anything reasonable for the main floor. So I’ve come up with the following little arrangement.

Harman/Kardon 3490 stereo receiver in the living room. This receiver will power the living room and dining room. I expect the primary inputs to be auxilary and the an optical connection from an Apple Airport Express.

The living room will feature JBL L830 speakers. The pair of speakers will be accompanied by an Infinity PS212 subwoofer.

In the dining room I plan to mount a pair of JBL LS326W in-wall speakers. This took a while to come to. I decided to go with in-wall speakers that will mount low on the wall, for a nice background music setup. Final placement hasn’t been decided, but I am hopeful that I can come up with a setup whereby the number of guide holes I would have to punch in the basement ceiling are minimal.

For outside I have a pair of Infinity Outrigger speakers. I am not sure I will install these, but it’s a solid maybe. The back yard is not such that it facilitates loud gatherings so it may be a bit overkill in this initial setup.

And finally, for the garage, a pair of Infinity P152 speakers. Originally these speakers were selected for my living room, but at the 11th hour I decided to go with the aforementioned JBL speakers. The P152s are tried and true, and will most certainly be welcome in any room.

At the end of the day I’m really excited about the possibilities that these purchases offer. Placing them and installing them will be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to hear them.

Novelty E-mail Addresses

Ryan J. Allen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:56:25 +0000

There was a time when e-mail was new to all of us. If you are of my generation then the idea of your own personal e-mail address probably came at a time when the username part of the e-mail address was an opportunity for self-expression. As we’ve aged, most of us have outgrown our novelty e-mail addresses and exchanged them for something more straight-laced. (Some people haven’t, but it cannot take more than one job search for those people to be sorted out.)

Here are a few novelty e-mail address usernames and Internet handles of my own that I can recall. What are some of yours?

ryan_amazing
speedofpain
ocip