Norbert's blog

Curacao REEF Diving Trip

2009-12-20T23:18:23Z

April and I thoroughly enjoyed the February St. Lucia dive trip arranged through REEF, so we signed up for another REEF trip to Curacao in October. We initially were booked into the Sunset Waters Beach Resort, which went out of business in Augus...

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UCS Climate 2030 Blueprint

2009-08-05T03:25:17Z

Union of Concerned Scientists members have the opportunity to participate in conference calls and webinars on topical issues. A webinar on July 22nd presented Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy which "shows how the U.S....

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Union of Concerned Scientists: Science Idol

2009-07-26T17:07:35Z

UCS is running the 2009 Science Idol: The Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest, a humorous look at the serious issue of political interference in science. You can vote for your favorite cartoon, enter to win a free calendar, sign-up for...

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Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - SheevaPlug

2009-07-26T03:35:36Z

The two SheevaPlug 'plug computers' I described in Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - Automation arrived last week. The good news is that both are working fine and detected the 3G modem. The bad news is that the pre-installed Ubuntu 9.04 sy...

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Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - Voice over IP

2009-06-16T17:29:38Z

I had signed up for a Voice over IP (VoIP) service from IGONET while still on the satellite Internet service. Although I was able to dial out and receive inbound calls, the high latency impacted voice quality. An attempt to set up a three-way ca...

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Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - A Lesson in Assumptions

2009-06-15T23:54:51Z

USB extension cables are limited to 15', due to the nature of the USB protocol. The Cables Unlimited USB to CAT5 extension cable theoretically allows me to locate the 3G modem 150' away. However, Linux was periodically reporting the error: hub...

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Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - Automation

2009-06-12T02:54:45Z

Both the Novatel and ZTE modems suffer from periodic connection loss, either because the modem disconnects or Internet servers do not respond. In most cases, the Linux wvdial command automatically detects this condition and re-establishes the con...

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Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service - Multi-PC Setup

2009-06-08T20:21:05Z

The RocketStick is a USB 3G wireless modem intended to connect a single PC to the Rogers Mobile Internet Service. I could have set up a Windows PC as an Internet gateway, but the software provided with the modem would have made it difficult to de...

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Rural Internet - Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Service

2009-05-29T19:25:03Z

One of the joys of living in a rural area are the limited options for high speed Internet. I have no access to cable or DSL. Bell and Rogers provide Internet over microwave (WiMax) from towers in the Newmarket area, but the signal peters about t...

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Simply Good Service

2009-04-08T22:44:50Z

I have recently had some less than positive experiences with 'customer service', recently another way of 'adding insult to injury'. Letters go unanswered and staff are often poorly trained, unaware of their company's products or services and unab...

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