Pedro’s Rules of Email Etiquette (2013 edition)
Posted on February 1st, 2013 at 1:55 am by pveraThis is an update to an article I wrote a couple of years ago, I thought it was time for a refresher.
Pedro’s Rules of Business Email:
19. Always make sure your emails have a proper subject line that makes sense. Don’t type the whole email into the subject line. Don’t use PLEASE HELP as your subject in every stupid email. Yes, people still do it in business emails.
Adventures in crappy engineering: The FIOS ONT won’t power up if its backup battery is dead, even if AC is fine
Posted on January 21st, 2013 at 12:55 am by pvera
Now that’s a handful for a title, but that’s about what just happened to me: the Verizon FIOS ONT has a built-in battery that it uses as a backup for its phone lines. If there is a power outage, this makes sure that you will be able to use the phone for about 8 hours.
It doesn’t help the TV and Internet signals, it is simply used for the phones. And if the battery goes bad, or the ONT “thinks” that the battery is bad, the ONT will refuse to power up even if the AC current source is healthy.
So there I was, being held hostage by a device that relies on a battery, for a service I don’t subscribe to, with healthy AC power and no way to keep my Internet connection up for more than two minutes in a row, and every 5 minutes or so it would drop completely dead until I reset the ONT.
And of course, the perfect time of the day for neither of our cell phones to get a decent 3G connection so we could Google it.
After about a long miserable hour I was able to find troubleshooting threads that suggested that the problem was the battery itself, so I tried to Google THAT and see where I could find one. No luck there. If I wanted that exact battery I would need to order it and wait days, or pay a ton of money to have it shipped overnight. Verizon’s own price was much higher than what others were quoting, but their shipping fees were much more reasonable so I was able to order it with some kind of next-day upgrade for about $52 including tax. Other sources would quote me $20-$30 for the battery then turn around and quote $50 or more to overnight it.
Assholes.
As I was making my order, I did one more desperate thing: unplugged the ONT, unplugged the battery and let the unit sit for a few minutes. That was three hours ago and it hasn’t blinked once, so I don’t know if the fix was in disconnecting both items or if it was Karma screwing with me for ordering the battery.
It could be worse, at least I got it working before PJ went into a full-blast meltdown.
I am not even annoyed at the battery going bad, things like that are to be expected. But it annoys me that the unit can’t run without it, even if it is only using systems that can’t benefit from it. Verizon could also have sent me an automatic email on the date that warranty coverage expired to either upsell me to whatever service plan they got to cover this, or to warn me about the battery and how to order one if this one died.
Adventures in crappy engineering: The FIOS ONT won’t power up if its backup battery is dead, even if AC is fine
Posted on January 21st, 2013 at 12:55 am by pveraNow that’s a handful for a title, but that’s about what just happened to me: the Verizon FIOS ONT has a built-in battery that it uses as a backup for its phone lines. If there is a power outage, this makes sure that you will be able to use the phone for about 8 hours.
It doesn’t help the TV and Internet signals, it is simply used for the phones. And if the battery goes bad, or the ONT “thinks” that the battery is bad, the ONT will refuse to power up even if the AC current source is healthy.
So there I was, being held hostage by a device that relies on a battery, for a service I don’t subscribe to, with healthy AC power and no way to keep my Internet connection up for more than two minutes in a row, and every 5 minutes or so it would drop completely dead until I reset the ONT.
And of course, the perfect time of the day for neither of our cell phones to get a decent 3G connection so we could Google it.
After about a long miserable hour I was able to find troubleshooting threads that suggested that the problem was the battery itself, so I tried to Google THAT and see where I could find one. No luck there. If I wanted that exact battery I would need to order it and wait days, or pay a ton of money to have it shipped overnight. Verizon’s own price was much higher than what others were quoting, but their shipping fees were much more reasonable so I was able to order it with some kind of next-day upgrade for about $52 including tax. Other sources would quote me $20-$30 for the battery then turn around and quote $50 or more to overnight it.
Assholes.
As I was making my order, I did one more desperate thing: unplugged the ONT, unplugged the battery and let the unit sit for a few minutes. That was three hours ago and it hasn’t blinked once, so I don’t know if the fix was in disconnecting both items or if it was Karma screwing with me for ordering the battery.
It could be worse, at least I got it working before PJ went into a full-blast meltdown.
I am not even annoyed at the battery going bad, things like that are to be expected. But it annoys me that the unit can’t run without it, even if it is only using systems that can’t benefit from it. Verizon could also have sent me an automatic email on the date that warranty coverage expired to either upsell me to whatever service plan they got to cover this, or to warn me about the battery and how to order one if this one died.
Adventures in crappy engineering: The FIOS ONT won’t power up if its backup battery is dead, even if AC is fine
Posted on January 21st, 2013 at 12:55 am by pveraNow that’s a handful for a title, but that’s about what just happened to me: the Verizon FIOS ONT has a built-in battery that it uses as a backup for its phone lines. If there is a power outage, this makes sure that you will be able to use the phone for about 8 hours.
It doesn’t help the TV and Internet signals, it is simply used for the phones. And if the battery goes bad, or the ONT “thinks” that the battery is bad, the ONT will refuse to power up even if the AC current source is healthy.
So there I was, being held hostage by a device that relies on a battery, for a service I don’t subscribe to, with healthy AC power and no way to keep my Internet connection up for more than two minutes in a row, and every 5 minutes or so it would drop completely dead until I reset the ONT.
And of course, the perfect time of the day for neither of our cell phones to get a decent 3G connection so we could Google it.
After about a long miserable hour I was able to find troubleshooting threads that suggested that the problem was the battery itself, so I tried to Google THAT and see where I could find one. No luck there. If I wanted that exact battery I would need to order it and wait days, or pay a ton of money to have it shipped overnight. Verizon’s own price was much higher than what others were quoting, but their shipping fees were much more reasonable so I was able to order it with some kind of next-day upgrade for about $52 including tax. Other sources would quote me $20-$30 for the battery then turn around and quote $50 or more to overnight it.
Assholes.
As I was making my order, I did one more desperate thing: unplugged the ONT, unplugged the battery and let the unit sit for a few minutes. That was three hours ago and it hasn’t blinked once, so I don’t know if the fix was in disconnecting both items or if it was Karma screwing with me for ordering the battery.
It could be worse, at least I got it working before PJ went into a full-blast meltdown.
I am not even annoyed at the battery going bad, things like that are to be expected. But it annoys me that the unit can’t run without it, even if it is only using systems that can’t benefit from it. Verizon could also have sent me an automatic email on the date that warranty coverage expired to either upsell me to whatever service plan they got to cover this, or to warn me about the battery and how to order one if this one died.
Kindle Fire HD 7", 16GB, with special offers
Posted on November 11th, 2012 at 5:08 pm by pvera
 |
| 310: 5 O’clock (Photo credit: pvera) |
Background: I have owned multiple copies of the first three generations of the Amazon Kindle, and the first generation of the $79 Kindle with offers. I have also owned three copies of the first generation Kindle Fire for about a year.
The good: Almost everything that was changed in the Kindle Fire was an improvement. The screen is much better, the battery life is much better, and the device is faster. The OS changed a tiny little bit, which is of no concern to users that haven’t experienced the first generation. The speakers are a lot better. The wireless wakes up much faster.
If you put the device down it will go to sleep on its own unless you are playing video or audio. Pick it up and it wakes up again. The charging port is now on the side, which sucks if you want to prop it up in landscape mode with the official case. You can flip it of course, but then you lose the benefit of using the case as a prop stand.
The ads are not intrusive. You get an ad instead of a screen saver, and whatever is the active element in the carousel will attempt to display a row of related items for purchase on the bottom row of the screen. The favorites auto-hide to show the related items row.
Reading: Because the screen density is so much higher, it is more pleasant to read than the first generation device. I hated reading on the first Kindle Fire because it felt just like reading off my laptop’s screen. With the second generation device it feels less like an LCD. If I was a reader and didn’t care for the extra functionality, I would pick either the cheapest e-ink Kindle available, or the PaperWhite. I have read five books on the new device and I am very happy about the reading experience. PDFs depend a lot on the quality of the file itself, if the PDF is built properly then the fonts scale up very nicely regardless of how much you zoom.
Media: The wireless works a lot better whenever streaming video or audio. Video looks a lot better, but in landscape mode the controls are fixed on the right side of the screen, which sucks if you are a lefty. Except for that minor annoyance, it works perfectly.
 |
| 314: Small (Photo credit: pvera) |
Case: I have the official leather case, which is basically a molded plastic bumper that protects the edges and back, and a soft-lined screen cover. Both sides of the case are lined in leather. The leather looks really damn nice.
The plastic bumper has the proper holes to allow the microphone, micro USB and video ports to work. It also has built-in buttons to activate the power and volume buttons. This is the only part of the case I am not 100% happy with, since it is hard as hell to distinguish these three buttons by touch. When you close the lid it puts the device to sleep, open it up and it wakes up immediately. The lid has a magnetic clasp.
The bad: not much. There is no longer a charging LED, so there is no way to know if the device is charged simply by plugging it in. There is no default camera application, and none of the apps I have found for free in the marketplace wants to work with it, except for Skype.
There is no AC charger, all you get is microUSB and a pitch to buy the fast charger (I did). If you buy it at the same time Amazon will give you a 50% discount, so it is only $10. I received one of those fast chargers as a warranty replacement for the dead charger on one of my first generation Kindle Fires, but I haven’t tested it yet. So yes, I got two of those but haven’t had the need to use them yet.
Except for what I outlined above, the experience between the old and new devices is pretty much identical.
Would I buy another one? Absolutely, Ivette actually wanted a PaperWhite until she saw this one. Now she decided that she would rather have a Fire HD. PJ is going to have to use his until he runs out of warranty coverage and/or uses up his three accidental damage insurance claims (2 still unused with a year to go on the coverage). If you have one of these devices you really need to buy that warranty extension just because of the built-in accidental damage coverage. I have had to return our Kindle Fires more than a few times, but only once due to accidental damage (shattered screen, covered at no extra cost to us), the others either had broken microUSB ports, or had a fried board.
Kindle Fire HD math:
As of right now, you can buy a Kindle Fire HD 7″ 16GB, the leather case, a fast charger, and the two-year warranty extension AND two year accidental damage insurance (3 incidents) for $10 than what it costs to buy the cheapest iPad Mini.
Read "Pulling Strings" and all of my other books for FREE, November 12-16
Posted on November 10th, 2012 at 5:49 pm by pveraWould you like to read my books but don’t have Amazon Prime? From November 12 at 12 AM until November 16 at Midnight you will be able to grab all four of my books for FREE.
Amazon only allows this kind of promotion for five days every 90 days, so this is your last chance this year to grab them.
Read "Pulling Strings" and all of my other books for FREE, November 12-16
Posted on November 10th, 2012 at 5:49 pm by pveraWould you like to read my books but don’t have Amazon Prime? From November 12 at 12 AM until November 16 at Midnight you will be able to grab all four of my books for FREE.
Amazon only allows this kind of promotion for five days every 90 days, so this is your last chance this year to grab them.
Is The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features? | Fstoppers
Posted on September 14th, 2012 at 10:38 am by pveraIs The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features? | Fstoppers:
Is The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features?
If there was one thing that people are unanimously saying about Nikon’s new D600 “budget” full frame camera, it’s that the price is entirely too high. No matter which blog you read, it seems everyone cannot believe the MSRP of $2,099.95. But are these claims valid? Does Nikon’s smallest full frame DSLR really lack the features that professionals desire? In the full post I’ll tell you why I just bought two of these cameras and why the price seems just right.
Not really. The damn thing is $1,000 cheaper than the D800, what else do you want? You are getting a strong, light body with a full frame sensor, a proper optical viewfinder, strong auto focus and internal auto focus motor. Basically they are selling you a stronger D7000 body with a full frame sensor inside. The price is right, especially if you take into account this is basically an entry-level professional camera, it is not a premium prosumer product.
Is The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features? | Fstoppers
Posted on September 14th, 2012 at 10:38 am by pveraIs The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features? | Fstoppers:
Is The Nikon D600 Priced Too High For Its Features?
If there was one thing that people are unanimously saying about Nikon’s new D600 “budget” full frame camera, it’s that the price is entirely too high. No matter which blog you read, it seems everyone cannot believe the MSRP of $2,099.95. But are these claims valid? Does Nikon’s smallest full frame DSLR really lack the features that professionals desire? In the full post I’ll tell you why I just bought two of these cameras and why the price seems just right.
Not really. The damn thing is $1,000 cheaper than the D800, what else do you want? You are getting a strong, light body with a full frame sensor, a proper optical viewfinder, strong auto focus and internal auto focus motor. Basically they are selling you a stronger D7000 body with a full frame sensor inside. The price is right, especially if you take into account this is basically an entry-level professional camera, it is not a premium prosumer product.
Photographic Waffling
Posted on September 13th, 2012 at 8:34 pm by pvera |
| Sony NEX-C3 with Helios 44-2 2/58 M42 (Photo credit: pvera) |
Or “Adventures in Gear Acquisition Syndrome.”
Sony DSC-HX100V – Bought somewhere in the first quarter of 2012. Imagine the innards of the Sony DSC-HX9V in a DSLR-like body, with a monster Carl Zeiss 30X zoom. This was one hell of a camera, but it had a fixed lens and eventually we parted ways. Taking into account depreciation, I think I broke even on this one when I sold it. And yes, it helped fund the next camera …
Nikon D5100 – My first DSLR since the Nikon D50. This is one hell of a camera, but Nikon over-represented its video capabilities. The autofocus hunts like crazy during video shooting, which is infuriating. If you are a creative type, and you use manual focus, you can take cinema-like video with it. If on the other hand you want to take videos of your kid playing then you are basically screwed. I got this camera refurbished, extremely inexpensive and I still own it. I don’t want to sell it unless it is to somebody I know that will enjoy it since it is almost about to be declared obsolete. This is the camera that got me bored about autofocus (what’s the point if the camera does everything for you?) so I started shooting with legacy lenses. While hoarding lenses I realized that the Nikon had a terrible weak spot: it can’t meter on non-CPU lenses, which means it can’t do aperture priority. This means that you have to set aperture, shutter and ISO by hand or by using a light meter.
Screw that.
I also discovered that there was an insane amount of activity from people using CSCs with adapters and legacy lenses, especially with Sony NEX. This happened right in the middle of the Photokina rumors season, so I had to sit tight and wait to see what came out. The NEX-5R is an awesome camera, but I really don’t need a touch screen, and the new auto focus pixels are going to waste if all I do is shoot manually. The NEX-6 and NEX-7 are still too far from my budget, so that left either the NEX-5N or maybe a NEX-3F.
Then I ran into a guy running what by all means was a fire sale on eBay and immediately bought his NEX-C3, which came bundled with a Pentax 50mm f2 lens. The cost? Less than if you subtract the current street value of the 18-55mm kit lens from either the NEX-C3 or the NEX-F3. And I had just sold my 35mm f.1.8 Nikkor DX, so out of pocket it cost me $200 to move on to this camera.
I also picked up adapters for my Minolta Rokkor primes, my two Soviet-era M42 thread lenses and a Carl Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 I borrowed from a friend. It cost me $48 to adapt all of those lenses to work on the NEX-C3. And this is with full matrix metering and with aperture priority available!
I’ve been shooting it with the Pentax pretty much nonstop since it arrived, and I am really pleased. It is tiny, it is simple to use, and except for the shutter being so damn loud, it is perfect. Today I started shooting with my other lenses and everything works perfectly, even the Soviet lenses.
And I am exhausted from all of this camera switching. I think I need to put a moratorium on camera body buying until at least December 26, where if I am lucky I should be able to poach me some ungrateful rich people on eBay ditching their unwanted gifts.
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