Archive for August, 2005

Being roughly 1683 miles away from Jenny kind of sucks sometimes. Talking on the phone goes only so far and sometimes I just want to see her do her silly antics -=)

So being the tech whore that I am, I convinced myself to buy an iSight for myself and a Logitech QuickCam® for Notebooks Pro for Jenny.

We’ve spent most of yesterday playing with different video conferencing software. With both of us being behind a router, it wasn’t easy finding a good solution without having her learn how to port forward.

Here’s a list of the free clients (with some pros and cons) we’ve tried.

Ichat AV/Aim 5.9
– This worked great for me and some of my other buddies but, for whatever reason I could not get this to work with Jenny’s computer. This was probally the most preferable solution for me since I could use my Powerbook instead of having to jump on my PC to chat with her.

After about an hour of fiddling around with our router settings, I gave up and tried the iSight with Windows XP. Windows definately detects the iSight as a Firewire Camera but, due to the lack of driver I could not get sound with it. This was fine as I’ve been using my Plantronics DSP-500 for sound since I haven’t hooked up the speakers to my computer in a while.

These next clients were for Windows Only.

Skype with the Video4IM Plugin

– Although the iSight was detected using a generic driver, this also meant that you couldn’t adjust any of the settings. The default brightness on the generic driver was way too bright. I had to download a program called Iccapture to play around with the settings as Video4IM lacked any sort of adjustment. The quality was very good after the iccapture adjustments and it even used our Skype logins! The program was very painless and used Skypes methods to break through firewalls (which was what we wanted).

Eyeball Chat
– This is currently our favorite client. It has adjustability for the webcam, which was great since Iccapture was a 3rd party pay program. The video quality was actually better than Video4IM and had the same break through firewall idea. It also allows you to log into AIM, MSN, and Yahoo just like GAIM.

The two webcams we’ve used are much better than the old school logitechs that most of us probally used in the past. I believe they are using CCD instead of the crappy CMOS sensors and the quality definately shows. Until bandwith increases or someone develops some crazy new compression algorithm, I’m not sure if the quality that we’re seeing will get any better. I can’t wait until Skype unveils their video conferencing solution. I hope they can do the same for video conferencing as what they have done for voice communication.

Looks like Comcast in Philadelphia isn’t as saturated as I thought. I’m averaging about 5 mbps and have hit up to 7.3 mbps a few times during peak hours (wow!). Not too bad for $29.99/month.

Since I finally configured my network again, I’ll probally upload the Cali pictures real soon. I saw an iphoto gallery plugin that I really want to test out. Keep posted!

Speaking of networks, I finally bought a network printer (Dell 1600n). The cool thing is that you can scan, print, and fax through the network. No more carrying my printer from computer to computer (j/k!). The cheaper printing costs are also very welcomed.

Previously I was paying $40/month for 1.5/384 and 5 static IPs from DCA.net, but Verizon had a killer deal for $30/month after the promotion for up to 3.0/768. I signed up with Verizon on the 1st (canceling DCA on the 20th or something like that), and they gave me an activation date for the 8th. Come the 12th, i get an email saying that my new turn up date was the 15th. Then on the 12th i get another email stating a turn up date on the 22nd.

Ummm….3 weeks of false turn-up dates?! I proceeded to call up Comcast on the 13th and ask for the best price they can give me. The CSR told me $19.99 for 6 months and then $57.00 after that. I told her fine I’d like the service for 6 months and to have it canceled after the promotion. She then told me that if I call her on the 5th month and tried to cancel, she’d give me the retention rate of ‘$29.99′ for 12 months. I guess it never hurts to ask for a lower rate -=)

Of course I canceled with Verizon after the Comcast call. Well apparently there was some sort of technical mishap (yeah right) and they offered me some lower rate. I pretty much told them Comcast is giving me the same rate plus it’s faster. Well after talking with the CSR for 20 mins or so, he told me that Philadelphia should be almost done with their FIOS rollout! The ETA of completion should be 4q05, which is nearing.

Gotta love Philadelphia! I remember when we were one of the firsts to get broadband in the nation and we’ll again be one of the firsts to get fiber!

So no internet at home for me until tommorow (it’s been over 2 weeks now). I’ll have pictures of the California trip up as soon as I get everything working at home again.

A couple of haikus for recent events…

Vacation I go
California I stay
See ya next Thursday

tweety’s mercedes
black on black with no nice rims
she needs new chrome dubs

spaderman i’ll find
so long i have been looking
soon you will be mines