I feel the need … the need for Internet speed…

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I get a little antsy about my home Internet speed when I spend any amount of time planning out home server stuff, and considering my little purchase of 50 TB of hard drives the other day…

In a way, it seems only natural – my next steps are to migrate the storage part of my media server into a rackmount NAS to go alongside the other rackmount server I acquired earlier this year that now houses the rest of Plex and the tools that I use to download content.

I’ve already picked out some new Ubiquiti rackmount network gear that I want to replace the router from my ISP with…

…and today I was even looking into the option of running 10 Gbps connections between my servers because, well, the only thing cooler than moving files around at 125 MB/s is moving files around at 1.25 GB/s!!!

So yeah, when we’re talking about internal network speeds in excess of one gigabit, it’s hard not to glance at the weak link in the chain that is my Internet connection and wonder, “Why can’t you keep up, little guy?!”

And don’t get me wrong – I totally get that only 25% of the country currently even has access to fiber Internet and a lot of people are stuck with cable or even DSL … but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow that the line currently running into my garage could be chugging along at a crisp and refreshing 1 Gbps, but instead here I am scrapping by with a mere 200 Mbps like a chump out of the stone age…

Truth be told, I just moved up from 150 Mbps to 200 Mbps this fall, but before that I’ve been sitting at 150 Mbps for almost 4 years now. In fact, I upgraded just before Verizon sold FiOS in Florida off to Frontier because I was afraid they’d make it a lot harder to upgrade in the future…

Foreshadowing!

To be honest, I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Frontier because the FiOS network itself is wonderful … it’s just that Frontier themselves isn’t a very smart company to be running it. Their customer service is typically awful, their pricing isn’t competitive, and lest we not forget, this was the fiber company previously ran by the CEO who thought that gigabit was a fad and consumers don’t really need it.

Sure, maybe not now, but what kind of a technology company doesn’t anticipate their customers’ needs well into the future?!

Anyways, I’ve been going back and forth with Frontier on various social media channels about how it isn’t fair that they only offer promotional pricing to new customers. They’ve actually argued back that it’s an industry standard and everyone does it … as if that makes it ok … and maybe it would, if only they didn’t charge half again as much for existing customers once those crazy promotions run out!

Seriously – I currently pay $75/month for a plan that a new subscriber can get for $50/month.

…and they can’t find any way to incentivize me sticking around for seven years now?!

I think what bugs me the most is the disparity for upgrading to the tiers above me because $10-20/month extra would be understandable, but that’s not what Frontier’s fee structure looks like…

  • 200 Mbps – $75/month
  • 300 Mbps – $125/month
  • 500 Mbps – $175/month
  • 1 Gbps – $225/month

Another fifty bucks for each leap is excessive, particularly when the likes of Verizon and AT&T and Comcast all selling gigabit access in their markets for around $100.

Even Spectrum, our local cable alternative, offers gigabit for $100, although the argument there is that they don’t support symmetrical speeds yet, so the upload is still way lower than the downstream … at least for now.

I told the account manager I was emailing with earlier today that I’d be happy to pay an extra twenty bucks to go up to 500 Mbps or $125 … hell, I’d even do $150/month for gigabit, despite it being almost double what Verizon is charging for the same service!

But when did we get to the point where $50 upgrades were the norm … unless Frontier simply doesn’t really want to sell these highest tiers and they figure if people want them badly enough, they’ll pay through the nose for them.

I suppose this is technically offering gigabit service, but not at a price where it will ever get widely adopted, that’s for sure…

It just makes me wish that Verizon had never sold us off, or that Frontier would hurry up and go bankrupt already so that someone else could swoop in and buy all of the assets from them. It’s sad that broadband rollout hasn’t been far more aggressive in the United States because it’s not like these companies don’t have the money to do it, and we’ve a million times over proven the value of high speed Internet access in our daily lives.

I really don’t like this direction we’re heading where Verizon is convinced that wireless is what we need for broadband – mostly because of how they love to charge by the GB for it – and right now they’ve got their stooge heading the FCC that’s dedicated to gutting any and all regulations holding them back from maximizing Internet profits for shareholder benefit.

Amidst all of my frustrations this evening, I actually found myself pondering if it would be worthwhile to try load balancing between two ISPs … for the same $175/month that Frontier wants for 500 Mbps, I could keep the 200 Mbps line that I have with them and buy a second, gigabit connection from Spectrum to try them out as an ISP and enjoy the benefits of that extreme download speed!

The thing is, as much as Frontier insists that I’m a valued customer, even though they won’t offer me a dime to stick around despite not having to pay the acquisition cost to earn me back again as a new subscriber already, you would think that they would be quick to stop an existing customer from testing the waters with the competition. You’d think that an extra $75/month would still be far better than negative $75/month for a lost customer…

…but Frontier doesn’t think. That’s the problem!

I know that I’ll get gigabit Internet here at home eventually … hell, it has me wondering if we’ll see 10 Gbps home connections still in my lifetime! But much like Veruca Salt, I want it now! 😉

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 6 – It’s About Freakin’ Time…

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TWO YEARS, I WAITED!!!

I stalked the Amazon, and Target, and Walmart websites.

I randomly showed up at stores when I heard that shipments were due in.

I even got the inside track from a stockman at Toys ‘R Us, who basically hinted that regular customers have no chance at getting coveted items when they show up six at a time and there are at least six employees who are even moderately interested in buying one.

Eventually I gave in like many others and built a RetroPie instead, and it still works great day!

And then I come across an entire stack of the things in the Nintendo aisle at Best Buy like they’re a part of some big holiday promotion or something!

So yeah, I bought one.

I don’t really need it because my RetroPie has all the games on it already, but I have the Super NES Classic and it’s a cute, little option for playing games in the bedroom late at night, so if nothing else I can set it up alongside that and recreate the nostalgic combo that got me through elementary and middle school!

Let’s be honest – I’d play The Legend of Zelda on a shiny rock if Nintendo released it; plus, all of the knock-offs … at least the ones that are bold enough to be sold at the freaking mall … kind of drive me nuts.

I still think it makes a cute way for my generation to relive the classics – especially if they’re not necessarily geeks and don’t want to jump through hoops and whatnot.

Inspiration From Liberia

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So this is a really cool story…

Guy gets contacted online by someone in Liberia who he assumes is just another scammer, but decides to give him a chance and offers him a job taking photos of his homeland. He ends up sending the guy a cheap camera and spends a couple of months coaching him on photography, then self publishes a small book of the photos so that he can pay him as promised. And they sold enough that the budding photographer was not only able to turn his life around, pay off his debts, and put a new roof on his home, but they also bought school supplies and book bags for kids in five local schools.

And if that’s not enough, check out this special video where these two new business partners plan to give the children of Liberia a Christmas to remember … which ends up being much different than the Christmas we’ve come to expect here in America…

I picked up a couple of copies of their books to give away as Christmas presents. It’s just a really fun, engaging, and also heartwarming story to watch from the very beginning if you’ve got some time to kill watching YouTube videos tonight. 😉

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 5 – The Gift of Water Safety

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Swim lessons are expensive for three kids, but it’s nights like tonight when I’m beyond satisfied with the investment we’re making in these crazy, little swimmers.

The swim school that we’ve taken the boys to basically since Christopher was born does this program twice a year called Water Safety Week – during which instead of their usual lessons, every kid wears their normal clothes into the pool and gets taught at their level about the core basics of keeping themselves safe around around water. They spend some time in the pool so that they’re not foreign to the shock of being in the water with their clothes on, and then they all try on life jackets and float around the pool in the most adorable choo-choo train formation you’ve ever seen in your life!

They also take a few minutes to talk to us parents about the importance of using safety features with our pools at home and having designated watchdogs when attending or hosting a party where kids will be in or around the water. Some of the statistics shared are just terrifying – apparently in Florida alone, we’ve lost 86 kids to drowning this year … which is the equivalent of four preschool classes of drownings on average each year.

Fortunately, they say that swim lessons reduces the risk of a child drowning by 88%, so that’s something to help us sleep even just a little better at night.

Plus, the kids all just absolutely love their swim lessons, and it’s always fun to watch them trying out the new things that they’ve learned and being pushed towards new skills in an area that I myself very much struggled with growing up, and honestly still kind of do!

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 4 – The Great Hot Chocolate Quest

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I’m on a quest this year to find the perfect hot chocolate.

Or at least a really, really good one!

I’ve since graduated from relying on Swiss Miss as my go to hot chocolate mix, with my current favorite being this Hershey’s hot chocolate that my wife picked up at Target around Thanksgiving.

I was looking forward to trying this fancy Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate that I came across at Publix that just sounded fantastic, but apparently when you make your name peddling coffee, everything else that you make ends up tasting at least a little like coffee, too … which very much didn’t work for me!

That said, my new curiosity is this Oreo Hot Chocolate mix that I found at Walmart and am keeping set aside for our Christmas vacation next week – I figured it might be a good option back in the hotel room at night to sip on once the kids are finally (hopefully!) all asleep in their beds…

And it’s too bad because Disney themselves has a set of flavored hot chocolate mixes that you can also buy around this time of year, but we’ve already tried them and I actually remember them being a step below Swiss Miss … so no good there!

What do you think? Is there a great hot chocolate out there that you think I should try?

Epcot sometimes has some interesting ones with shots of liquor in them that I’ve enjoyed while walking around World Showcase, so maybe we’ll have to stumble over there in the name of my hot chocolate quest, too!

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 3 – A Funko Pop Christmas

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According to my Amazon account history, I’ve officially been collecting Funko Pops for about a year and a half now.

Side note: Do we really need for Amazon to store our purchase histories for all time?! I’m not sure that my consumer profile needs to include a 1998 purchase of Top Gun on DVD…

That said, it’s true that the very first Pop that I ever purchased was that Clark Griswold figure from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. At the time I bought it because I thought it was pretty unique and would be a good cornerstone if I were only to get a select few of these things.

Well, a year and a half later, now I have … more … and so recently I decided to splurge on a few of the Christmas ones to round out a bit of my Funko holiday display, if you will!

I think the one I was most surprised to get a hold of was the Darth Vader glow-in-the-dark Chase figure. Believe it or not, the Amazon seller I got that from was actually selling a bundle where you got two Pops – the Chase and then the regular version, too.

Well, it turns out that before I got home, Christopher got into the box that they came in and was “playing with them” … something he knows he’s not supposed to do with “Dad’s toys.” 😉

Sara warned me in advance that one of the boxes had gotten pretty torn up, so I was worried that the limited edition one was the victim, but when I got home, thankfully glowing Darth had been spared!

I ended up putting the regular one in Christopher’s stocking for him to play with, but he brought it to me and told me it was mine because he recognized it from the dozens of others in my office, so at least he’s learning … sort of! 😯

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 2 – Merry Plex-Mas!

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Plex has become a mainstay in our home over the last couple of years, expanding from only housing our movies and TV shows to also include educational programs and songs for the kids, series I’ve enjoyed and wanted to archive off of YouTube, and now … Christmas movies, too!

This is a little project that I’ve wanted to do for a while because previously all of our holiday shows were scattered throughout the regular movie and TV libraries, which are then separated by adult and kid content, whereas I always thought it would be nice around the holidays to have a dedicated library where you could look through only the Christmas stuff when you were sipping hot chocolate and looking to get all jolly and bright and whatnot.

There are a couple of different ways you can do it…

  • Create a separate folder and copy all of your holiday movies and shows into it, then add it to a new library dedicated to holiday shows … but this takes up twice as much space.
  • Create separate TV and movie folders for Christmas movies, then add them to both your existing libraries as well as your new holiday library.
  • (my choice) Create a new folder for Christmas shows and point your new library at it, then create symlinks to all of the media in their original locations.

This last option ended up working out well for me because it saved me from shuffling a bunch of files around, plus it gave me a fix for an unexpected problem that arose from certain Christmas specials that are normally organized under TV shows…

See, with the main Christmas library in Plex defined as a Movie library, it doesn’t find a metadata lookup for Garfield – S00E06 – A Garfield Christmas.mkv. The nice thing about symlinks, though, is that the linked name doesn’t need to equal the source name, and so I’m able to turn the TV-friendly filename into something that the IMDB can actually recognize like this – A Garfield Christmas Special (1987).mkv.

The command I used in Linux to create these links looks like this (executed in my new Christmas movies library folder):

ln -s "/path/to/TV Shows/Garfield & Friends/Specials/Garfield - S00E06 - A 
Garfield Christmas.mkv" "A Garfield Christmas Special (1987).mkv"

I’d say it took me maybe a couple of hours spread out over several sessions of searching through each library for the shows & movies I wanted, then copy & pasting the links into a Terminal window to create each symlink. The result is a nice, clean library with nothing but Christmas, and if I need to hide it away come January 1st until next season, that’s easy enough to do, too. 😉

2018 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 1 – Look at the Christmas!

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Tonight we put up our Christmas tree, as people often do when the calendar slips over into December and the official countdown is finally upon us.

Also tonight, Christopher ended up going to bed underneath the Christmas tree, so here’s to hoping he doesn’t wake up in the morning wondering where all of his presents are!

I think this is going to be a really fun year for celebrating Christmas.

Money has been pretty tight this year, so we’re not exactly splurging like we tend to do around the holidays (or in general, really), but the spirit of the kids seems to hold a unique promise of joy all on its own. Earlier this week as we were leaving swim class, Christopher saw a bunch of lights across the street and exclaimed, “Deeda! Deeda! Look at the Christmas!”

And it was absolutely adorable. 😉

So tonight we started decorating the house and got the tree put up. The boys then proceeded to decorate the tree with their cars, after which we had a fake snowball fight and listened to Christmas music and they jumped around like crazy people until bed.

We’ve already started threatening that they need to be extra good if they want to get something under the tree from Santa … so we’ll see how that pans out!

And tomorrow, in theory, we’re putting lights up outside … because several of our other neighbors already have and I feel awful that we’ve got young kids and haven’t even put up our lights for them to gasp at every time they come home yet.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find it in me to blog all of the fun this year. I know that I’ve kind of slacked with my advent blogs in recent years, but I’d really like to get back into them, and besides, I’m soooo close to hitting 1,000,000 words on this blog that I figure if I can advent blog the entire month, I should just about hit it!

These kids aren’t going to be little, adorable toddlers forever – better blog these holidays while I can… 😉

What I Want Out of the Internet in 2018…

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Sometimes it’s both fascinating and a little sad to see how the Internet has evolved in the last 25 years since I first logged on as a teenager.

Lately I’ve found myself doing a lot of soul searching because while there are parts that I absolutely love, I also recognize that there are parts which have grown to be a bit unhealthy and I need to find better ways to deal with them going forward.

Social media is obviously one of the biggest ones. I love staying connected to friends and family, and I still maintain friendships online with people who I’ve never met before in real life. That said, social media has some unsettling qualities as well…

  • It’s addictive.
  • Sometimes it leads to senseless arguing with complete strangers via comments.

Frankly, I’m kind of done even arguing with non-strangers simply because at 38 years old, you’re not going to change my mind about most of the political beliefs that I hold. I may be open to better understanding some of the nuances around them, but let’s be honest – that kind of discussion is much more likely to happen in person than it is on Facebook.

On top of that, I hate coming to realize just how much time I’ve been sinking into social media!

The latest iOS release has screen time tracking to help measure how you’re using your device. The first week I used it, it said I’d been on my phone an average of 92 minutes a day, with a whopping 65% of that time using social media!!!

Now I’m ok with some of that time – the parts when I’m sharing photos of the kids or making new connections on LinkedIn (something I did a lot of last week because I finally updated my profile for the first time in years), but when I’m just aimlessly scrolling to see if anything new is going on … and I’m seeing the same posts over and over again?

That’s time that I’d rather be spending creating new content, or promoting my work, or lately even putting my phone down altogether and actually spending time with my kids!!!

😯

Bad content is also becoming a sore subject for me online because although in theory it’s great how more people are publishing content online than ever, a growing percentage of it is either misleading or false information, or barely useful information created merely to promote something else or snag low-hanging ad dollars.

If I look back to when I first started using the Internet, circa 1994-ish, it was still vast, but also much more limited. Now there are a lot more trade-offs…

  • 1994 – Niche content was limited at best … you maybe had a few hacked together sites for specialty content, but mainstream got the focus.
  • 2018 – Niche content is becoming popular, but to the point where it’s also super easy to exploit it by farming out micro articles for pennies that rise to the top of search engines.
  • Also 2018 – Wikipedia has pretty good articles for almost everything – something the old, 26-volume encyclopedias could never touch!
  • 1994 – Online gaming was new and hip, and technologically it was amazing that it worked at all. I spent most of my time exploring text-only worlds.
  • 2018 – The options are vast, but technology has made it very easy for kids to learn terrible etiquette while they play. Also, micro-transactions have made lots of games that are more about spending 99 cents at a time than actually playing a full-fledged game.
  • 1994 – Online shopping was just getting started! I remember buying my first DVDs and books from online vendors, and it was incredible!
  • 2018 – With more choices than ever, buyers need to be ever-vigilant about scammers and people selling counterfeit merchandise … even if we’re talking about toy cars for your kids.

On more than one occasion lately, I’ve definitely found myself realizing all too clear when I use certain websites that users are often the products of these innovative sites, which is frustrating when I’m trying to use a site like LinkedIn and it has painfully obvious UI issues, yet there are opportunities for them to mine my data and promote things to me at every turn.

And to some extent I’m ok with that, but I want a balance.

The other day I ordered something for Christmas from ThinkGeek, and two days later I found that they’d subscribed me to their mailing list without asking me first.

I’m currently browsing a lot of job sites and my inbox is inundated with emails generated by random searches and profiles I’ve read with no intention of triggering a subscription.

Facebook sends me notifications several times a day about promoting the various pages I’ve created for my projects over the years, even when they’ve denied my advertising in the past for one reason or another.

The company that I’ve used for my home phone for several years keeps sending emails about increasing their rates, but encouraging me to lock in my existing rate now … a message they’ve sent more than half a dozen times just trying to get people to renew over the last couple of years.

Tying back to a post that I wrote about greed earlier this summer, I know that people need to pay their bills and keep the lights on, but I hate seeing the Internet become just another place where profit takes priority over quality. And no, not every website would be able to make an honest living – that’s absolutely why some of these places stoop so low … but I don’t want to waste my time with those sites, either.

Is it ironic that despite loathing the earliest iterations of “The Mobile Web” where ISPs like Sprint and Verizon would give users dumbed down versions of only certain websites and not full access – mostly because devices couldn’t yet support them, today I kind of want a curated Internet where I can search for something and get reliable results that have been selected based on the quality of each site and not those that I’m most likely to click through on to drive ad revenue???