Kevin M Mullins » Internet

Two Books Worth Reading – Daemon and Freedom

kevinmmullins — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:45:57 +0000

Two books that I would highly recommend are Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez. Freedom is the sequel to Daemon and after finishing Daemon this past week I had to get Freedom. The story line is a Techno – Virtual – Sifi world that appears threatening our real world but many twists bring you to the edge and then leave you there. Then, Freedom picks up exactly where Daemon left you and the ending was much better than I anticipated.

Thanks to audible.com, I was able to push thru both books in a week however both Titles were double audio books where Daemon was 16 hour of listening while Freedom was only 11 hour of listening. I started on a Saturday and listened all weekend. I did not watch any television during the weekend and just tried to push thru Daemon. Everyday last week I went for a walk at work so I could listen at lunch time and not be interrupted and when at home I listened the majority of the time.

You do not have to be a techie gamer to enjoy these books. The background is the world today with many real-time events woven into the plot. I would highly recommend both books as I found them very enjoyable.

Internet TV

kevinmmullins — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:49:07 +0000

The internet has take over our lives and now it is moving to the television. I recent got a Sony Blueray player with Internet capability and the Internet content is good but it could be so much better. It’s very much like another channel on the TV with access to the Internet but with restricted content. It’s the Sony’s channel where you can stream music and video from Services like Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, BlipTV and another 20 or so online provider.

However you do not get the same access to the internet that you would get from a PC connected to the internet, so I started to consider buying a small PC for my living room and connecting it to my big screen tv. That would give me full access to the internet from my living room PC.

If you would like to bring the Internet to you your TV but feel that setting up a new PC in your living room is too ambitious, then you could consider one of these options:

Apple TV
Xbox 360
Playstation 3
Wii
ROKU
Vudu
BlueRay and TV’s with internet access

All of these boxes are either setup boxes for select internet access or gaming or blueray devices that include some sort of internet connection, again with select internet connectivity. From my perspective, internet is moving to your television and it will not be long before someone designs an easy set top box or some sort of integrated capabilities that are easy for everyday users and allow full access to the internet from you television.

Home Router Upgrade

kevinmmullins — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:40:19 +0000

I replaced my old Linksys Befsr81 Router today after weeks of problems. I have had this router for about four years and this router has been powered on and running for the entire four years. Over the past few weeks, connectivity to the internet would hang from one computer or all computers and would require powering off the Linksys Befsr81 and restarting the router. This was happening on a daily basis and occasionally would not resolve the connectivity issue so I had to reset the router, which resulted in loosing my customized password and log file settings. This was getting annoying and my family was complaining so I decided to replace my old Linksys with a new one.

Most of the computers in my office have Gigabyte Nic cards however the older Linksys router was a 10/100Mbps router and that may have been causing the problem. I decided to move to a Linksys RVS4000 router which includes a four port built in Gigabyte switch that allows connections from 10/100/1000Mbps network cards. I also added a five port Gigabyte switch to the configuration, however I should have purchased the eight port switch as I am already out of ports. Setup was easy as the new router had the ability to clone my old mac address so I did not have to call Comcast, and this router is VPN capable which will gives me the flexibility to connect to my home network remotely. After a half-day of use, our home network has been up all day and performance appears to be better.

Having a gigabyte router at home sets the stage to connect a computer to our TV in the family room. I am considering a Mac Mini because of the cost and footprint. I want something, functional, quiet and small for my TV cabinet and want the functionality to be able to move files to it easily and quickly. More on the Mac Mini and TV project later …

Right now I am happy with our move and I will let you know if I have any problems with the Linksys RVS4000.

Windows 7 RC Network Issue

kevinmmullins — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:25:52 +0000

Both of my Windows 7 RC PC’s were having network problems this morning. Both PC’s were on however network connectivity to the internet kept dropping and reconnecting. At first I thought it was just my new PC however when my wife told me that she had a problem I was skeptical. What was odd was my work laptop running Windows XP was on and did not have a problem, however both Windows 7 RC PC’s could not connect to the internet.

I rebooted both boxes and swapped out the ethernet cable on my PC but that did not work. I rebooted my Linksys router but that did not work so I rebooted my cable modem and then rebooted both PC’s again and that resolved the problem. I really do not know what happened but I will investigate later tonight.

Non-Work Projects

kevinmmullins — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:36:40 +0000

Going back to work tomorrow after a week at home. The week really flew by but Cathie is back on her feet and doing very well. Cathie’s sister Barbra also went in for surgery last week so I spent most of the week in two different hospitals. I have a lot of work related projects pending, however I spent most of my free time this past week on projects for me.

Kevin’s Projects:

I upgraded our group laptop from Vista to Windows 7 and it really made a difference. The laptop is a Dell 430 which is not a netbook but it is a small Laptop with a small slow drive and 1.5 gig of ram. Vista really dragged it down so I wiped the drive and installed Windows 7 Beta. After installing Windows 7 everything worked. I did not have to go to Dell to get the drivers because everything just worked and worked well. Now that is a change for Microsoft.

My second project was to move my Techmgr.net and Syadmin.net blogs off of Typepad onto WordPress. I chose Dreamhost as a hosting provider and moved my Sys Admin blog with little trouble. Next I spent a couple of nights looking for the right theme that would work for my Techmgr.net blog and eventually found one that I liked and could customize. I move my Techmgr.net blog this morning and everything looks great.

I have not finished my third project which is to update my Open Web and the Enterprise SlideShare presentation with new thoughts and perspective. This is still in process but coming soon.

So, it’s back to work tomorrow …

Twitter’s Election Page

kevinmmullins — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:50:31 +0000

I am not a big fan of Politics but how can you avoid it at this point in the campaign ? Anyway, if you are a fan of politics and you want to see what real people are saying about both Obama and McCain, then you should check out Twitter’s Election Page.

There are so many folks commenting that each tweet just scrolls of the page within 30 seconds. This will be a good test for Twitter with the debate tonight and folks commenting about each candidate.

Check it out.

Cole’s Blog

kevinmmullins — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:42:38 +0000

I wanted to point out a blog of a friend that I think is worth following. The blog is called "Cole" and the author is Cole Jolley. I have know Cole for about 8 years and it’s obvious that he has caught the blogging bug.

What’s great about Cole’s blog is that it is a little more diverse than my blogs. Where my blogs are mostly about technology and my favorite interests, Cole writes about Technology, the Environment and Politics in a thorough and articulate manner.

Check it out …… http://colejolley.blogspot.com/.

Annoying Vista & Firefox 3 Problem

kevinmmullins — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:18:28 +0000

I ran into a little problem with Vista SP1 and Firefox 3. The Adobe Flash Player will not run on Vista in the Firefox 3 browser, however it runs just fine in IE and older versions of Firefox.

I received the “Additional plugins are required to display all media on this page” in the browser and there was a link to download the plugin.

However, after downloading the plugin and restarting Firefox, I still have the problem.

Podcasting in Plain English

kevinmmullins — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:50:43 +0000

The folks at Commoncraft.com continue to release great little videos that help to explain Technology. They just released a new 3 minute video called Podcasting in Plain English. Check it out ….

50 Influential Bloggers

kevinmmullins — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:51:09 +0000

Here is the top tier of bloggers and influencers. Check out the list, I bet that you already have about 25% of these blogs in your RSS reader, and you will add another 25% of these after looking at the list.

clipped from northxeast.com

NxE’s Fifty Most Influential Bloggers

There are literally millions of bloggers out there, each of them with their own voice and style, and yet in the blogging world, a handful stand out. These are the movers and shakers. When they speak, the blogging world listens. These are our Fifty Most Influential Bloggers, and if you don’t know them, you need to.