The Insomniac Coder

This 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: 1. Must follow the same standards in place for WRITTEN communications. 2. Spell check the damn thing, please. It is embarrassing to all parties when an email has unnecessary typos. 3. Be concise. Be specific. Write in full sentences. 4. Check your tone. 5. Check the stupid carbon copy and blind copy lists! Then do it again! 6. If you are complaining about an error, make sure the error isn't yours. It makes you look stupid and somebody will eventually dig out the email to use it against you. 7. Provide relevant information. If you are sending a screen capture, also send the URL of the page, so others can replicate it. 8. Don't hit the send button if you are upset. I am sure 99.99% of all email clients in use have a draft feature. 9. Don't hey people, it's rude. Don't dude people, it's st...

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 fi...

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 ...

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Is 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...

Sony NEX-C3 with Helios 44-2 2/58 M42 (Photo credit: pvera ) Or "Adventures in Gear Acquisition Syndrome." As of a week ago, I started using what would be my fourth camera of the calendar year, fifth if you take into account the previous 12 months: Sony DSC-HX9V - Bought somewhere in May 2011, a fantastic camera but lacking manual controls and it has a Sony G lens instead of a Carl Zeiss lens, which to me is the quality standard for Sony cameras. I still own this camera, but it is being "evaluated" and will probably find a happy new home really soon. If you want to shoot HD video , and you don't care about manual control over video, this is your camera.  Nikon 1 J1 - Bought around December 27, 2011. This one I call the "expensive mistake." Too little, too early for too much money. Nikon really dropped the ball with this one, since Sony, Fuji and Canon all issued  Compact System Cameras (CSC) with APS-C sensors. Sold it at a loss but...

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