Earlier in the week I got a few message from my carrier (Rogers) that I should be upgrading.  I went to their upgrade eligibly web page to see what my situation is.  hmpf.  To pick up a 64GB iPhone 4s it will cost me $419.00 + $120.00 Early Upgrade Fee* + $35 Hardware Upgrade Administration Fee (what ever that is?) for a grand total of $574 just for the pleasure of getting into another 3 year contract with them for a piece of hardware that is locked to their network.

My other option is to go to the Apple Store and buy one outright.  $849 for the same model.  What does that extra $275 buy me?  I get an unlocked phone and I can let me contract run out.   In my opinion I think that it is worth it as when I travel to other countries I can just pick up a pay as you go SIM and not have to worry about getting boned by roaming fees.  It also allows me to move to a different carrier once my contract is done.  Not that my service has been bad with Rogers, but I do work for the competition and can get a good employee deal on a data plan.

5. Lost
4. Breaking Bad
3. Mad Men
2. Southland
1. Deadwood

Thoughts?

This is intersting.  The carriers now want to double dip.  Charge content providers to let the data onto their networks and then charge us to let it off.  This isn’t much different then what the Canadian banks do if you stray from one of their ATMs, you get charged at both ends.  Even if they only charged at the service provider end, most providers would simply raise the prices they charge to end users and as usual, the consumer gets it in the end.

If the carries want to charge Apple or Google or who ever then they could just do so by selling them shares.  In the end, the content providers will own the network.  Maybe that’s what Apple is saving their island of money for.

Normally I would cringe at the sounds of another Alien movie, but Ridley Scott’s involvement in it gives me some hope.   I am a little disappointed they are going to do it in 3d.  Let’s hope this 3d things is just a passing fad… again.

Let’s start out with what hardware I’m using. I have a late 2009 Mac Mini. It has a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 4 GB or RAM and the NVidia 9400 video hardware. My decision to use a Mac Mini was based upon several factors. One, I’m a bit of a Mac Bigot. I mentioned that I work in a Windows shop. We all have to pay the mortgage some how.

For software I’m currently running OS X 10.5 on the Mini along with XBMC for OS X. I tried a couple of other XBMC based programs, like Plex and Boxee. Each one of them has had a lot of hours of hard work put into it and does some cool things that XBMC it self doesn’t do very well. Ultimately, I chose XBMC as both of these were based upon XBMC’s code. What that means is the bug fixes and features will hit it first. Also those extra features didn’t mean all that much to me compared to the core functionality of playing ripped video.

As for storage, I currently have a a few USB drives attached to the Mini. The Mini is great for that in that it has 6 USB ports right on the back of it. I’m currently building a storage server so that I can move the disks out of the living room and stream the video over the network. More on that in another article.

That’s enough for now. Stay tuned.

It requires four folders, including your inbox, used as follows.

Inbox: Where all your new mail shows up. Should be empty most of the time.

Archive: Things you want to keep for what ever reason. Reference, CYA, etc.

FollowUp: Things that you can’t deal with in less then two minutes. It is kind of a To Do list.

Hold: Things that you need to follow up on, but are out of your control. i.e shipping notifications about your books from Amazon.

How does this work you ask? Well it’s simple. A new piece of mail shows up in your inbox. If you can deal with it in less then two minutes or so, deal with it then “file it”. By “file it” I mean either delete it or move it the Hold or Archive folders. If you can’t deal with it in less then two minutes then move it to the FollowUp folder.

If there is nothing in your inbox, you should be working your way through the things in your FollowUp folder.

Every once in a while, look through your Hold folder. If your package has arrived from Amazon either delete the notice or Archive it. It’s a great place to find reminders about that information, etc that you have been waiting for from someone.

A note about the Archive folder. Before you move something into it, stop and think. Ask yourself, “Do I really need to keep this?” Something like 95% of all archived e-mails are never referenced again. This is a big storage problem for a lot of companies. They always say “Disk is Cheap”, but not at the enterprise level. If you only need it short term then think about putting it in your hold folder instead.

Enjoy. Hope this helps.

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