Changes in the air....

Well it has been a very long time (almost a year) since my last blog post. That being said this blog hasn't been forgotten. I've been very tied up with my career and home stuff.

That being said for the last couple weeks I've been working on a side project...a wiki page. A place that I am going to dump as much of my knowledge as possible. It will focus primarily at this time the telecommunications side of things...specifically IP PBX's, IP Phones, and all the stuff that goes with them. Specific manufacturers I am going to be posting information on will be Cisco, Adtran, Ipitomy, Allworx, and Asterisk.

Reason for this decision is that some changes in my career are coming about and I may not be doing some of the stuff I have been doing for the last couple of years but I wanted to actually share some of the knowledge I have with the rest of you out there that may stumble upon it or need it.

What that specifically means for this blog is that I am planning on posting any major updates about the wiki on this blog in the interim period. I also am planning on changing the look of both this blog and http://www.telecom-and-it.com

Right now I'm not giving out the wiki just yet because it is right now just at the point of completing its structural view and hasn't been filled with much content yet but as soon as I get to a point where I feel it is worthy of public view I'll be sure to post that information.

Reminiscing of an older age of computer games - Part II

Well....I thought I'd moved on from this subject that I posted back in April but something in me this morning made me just do a quick Google for Kings Quest. Let me just say I came back with much more then I had planned on.....

For starters I found a website named Sarien.net- Instant adventure gaming. Let me just say that this is flippin' sweet. They have the following classic adventure games all available to play right on their website:

• Gold Rush
• Kings Quest I, II, III
• Leisure Suit Larry I
• Police Quest I & II
• The Black Cauldron
• Sarien Studio

I've already tried out Police Quest for a little to long today. It is just out right amazing. I did run in to a couple small bugs but nothing that disturbed game play. Heck from what I've read on their website there is even multiplayer they've added to these old games so that you can see other players playing the game and talk to each other. Plus you can change to different avatars. The people over at Q42 (the makers of Sarien.net) did an amazing job porting these games to the web. I definitely give my kudos and recommend any of my readers to take some time and read the "about" section of their site and how these ports came to be. Sounds like a really awesome company.

Also, I just found another site that is dedicated in taking the old Sierra classics and remaking them with a change to graphics & sounds/speech: AGDInteractive Studios.

From what I've seen so far they have Kings Quest I & II, and also Quest for Glory II. They also have an in house title named Al Emmo and The Lost Dutchmans Mine. I only had a few minutes to try Kings Quest I but it seemed very nicely done. I'm looking forward to digging more in to their ports as well.

I just cannot express how happy I am to see these classics sticking around so many years later and am very appreciative of all the hard work the people of these companies have done to keep them alive.

Let me know what you think of these....maybe we'll meet up on some online Police Quest or something :)

Telecom & IT....the North vs. the South...

A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago why I hadn't been posting any new blogs. The answer came to me fairly quickly...."I don't feel like I've got anything to really offer readers that hasn't already been said somewhere else". Well after a short discussion and some questions from his side about some telecom information I began to realize that there is actually plenty I can give to readers. Most is likely out there somewhere but hopefully I can give a side to it that perhaps will help people.

I have a unique presence in today's telecom and IT world. I literally work in both of these worlds on an every day basis. I don't necessarily believe I'm an expert in either field but I do believe that I have a moderately strong amount of knowledge. I've been working with computers in some sort of way since the late 1980's and in 2000 I started working for a wireless internet provider. In 2003 I moved on to a CLEC where I was lucky enough to be trained in the world of Bell Standards by some really great old Ma Bell techs. Over the years I've taken that training they provided and applied it to different positions I've held from being a field tech, to a lead trouble screener, and now to an engineering position.

Even though with SIP, IP-PBX's, etc the IT and Telecom fields have been merged together for quite some time I've come to see that there is still a thin gap. A North vs. South so to say. Many times I will hear fellow telecom workers tell me "well you can tell that system was designed by a computer guy". And then I've heard the other side as well. Problem is that many times though both sides are trying to accomplish the same thing there is still a cultural gab between the two that sometimes creates issues in how things should really work.

Now with many IT administrators in today's world also being requested to take care of telecom equipment things just get that much more complicated.

So.....the point going forward on my front. I am going to try and get a post out weekly that has to do with things that I believe are necessary to be known both on a telecommunications side of things and the IT as well. Things going from simple cabling guidelines to deeper explanations of things like QoS on data networks and how they apply to voice IP networks.

I don't have a full schedule of things I'm going to get posted but I'd love to hear any feed back you the readers have on this subject and even better things that maybe you'd like to have addressed. I know I don't have a large amount of readers at this point but please...pass the word along if you know someone in a situation where maybe they've been thrown telecom equipment they have to figure out or maybe are just looking for some general information and I'll do what I can to assist in answering any questions you all have.

Plus I'm going to work on getting a couple of past Bell technicians to possibly write up some small blogs to help get some of their infinite knowledge out on the web.

Reminiscing of an older age of computer games

I was reminiscing the other day again about the "good old days". I still remember drooling when 16 color games came out. Heck, I was plenty happy with my Tandy Color Computer 3 - TRS 80 on my black and white TV :)

Back in 2008 I wrote a blog on my personal page talking about old adventure games that I favored back in the late 80's/early 90's. I thought I would copy that blog and bring it over here for discussion.

Games on the top of my list that come to mind are:

Kings Quest





















Space Quest




















Police Quest


















Hero's Quest / Quest for Glory series




















Leisure Suit Larry










Loom:




















Monkey Island:

There are so many games I used to play back in those days. I still play some games a little these days but I just never get the feel like I did back then. It seems to me looking back that about the time 16 color games came out was the time that I really was taking off with computer gaming.

Sometimes I feel that way about computers in general. It was a different time back then. A lot less people dabbling around in the IT field.

So what's your thoughts on games from this time period compared to the past? Any others that really ring a bell to you when you look back?

Otterbox MOT4-DROID Commuter Series Case

As stated in my prior blog I recently purchased the new Commuter Series case by Otterbox for my Motorola Droid.

So far my experience has been good. With the Commuter Series you get a descent level of protection while not giving me such a large case that I cannot fit my phone in my pocket.

Below are some pics I took once I received the case:

Below is a pic of the bottom part of the case showing its size compared to a pencil:

And the following is a pic of the top of the case:

I compared the Otterbox case to the case my wife got for hers from the Verizon store (I don't have the exact model in front of me) but the Otterbox was much thinner. When possible I will try to take a picture of the two phones next to each other to show the size difference.

My phone can still easily fit in my pockets of my jeans, shirt pocket, etc.

The case seems to give a good amount of protection from small drops or bumps but I still wouldn't want to hit on it to hard. It would be nice eventually for something like their Defender Series to come out for the Droid but with the slide out keyboard that may be difficult.

Below are a full list of specs:

Motorola Droid:

Weight: 6oz
Size: 2.4 x 4.6 x 5 in

Otterbox MOT4-Droid:

Weight: 1.06oz

Size: 4.77 x 2.63 x .75 in

Drop a line if you have further questions or any opinions on this case. There's not many reviews out on it yet and I'm sure many people will be interested in hearing what you've got to say. Otterbox has been my brand of choice when it comes to cases for cell phones, and other misc. cases for a couple years now.

Below are references where I obtained the specs:

Motorola Droid: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.Motorola-DROID-US-EN.alt

Otterbox: http://www.otterbox.com/motorola-cases/droid-by-motorola-cases/droid-by-motorola-commuter-series-case/

April 1st....how I love this day

In the IT/Telecom world I feel that sometimes things can get a little blaw... And when I need a little excitement I sometimes feel the need for a prank on fellow co-workers. Nothing to harmful...usually :) but just something to get a rise out of people to remind us that we are still alive.

I personally believe April 1st is a day that we all should celebrate in some small way.

For instance, I've got a co-worker who still has a tendency to look at his keys while typing. So a simple swap of the letter "M" and the letter "N" created some confusion this morning. The conversation went something like "Hey AJ what is wrong with this database, I keep typing in the password and it's not working. Looks like someone changed it". I responded "hmmm...let me try here. Nope working fine here, you must not know what you're doing". After some harder typing for a minute I laughed, advised what I'd done, and that was that.

Over the years I've pulled my share of pranks. That was a simpler one. What kind of pranks have you pulled? Maybe we should compile a list of pranks that we've all pulled throughout the years!

P.S. I told my wife last night that I was planning some pranks today for April fools...then of course I wake up completely forgetting April fools and she got me right off the bat with the classic "I'm pregnant". She had me good to. Though I advised she'd better watch out on that one, things have a way of coming back on you :)

Motorola Droid - Android 2.1 Update

Looks like the Android 2.1 update is finally starting to hit the Motorola Droid's! Personally I have been fine with 2.0 though some of the features & graphical changes in 2.1 should be nice. I've not yet gotten the update and have no plans on manually installing till the update hits my phone automatically.

Below is a release schedule per the droid geet [dot] com:

-At noon on 03/30, 1,000 users will receive notification of the update.
-At 11:59 PM on 03/30, 9,000 more users will receive the update notification.
After the first 10,000 users receive the update on 03/30, there will be a 24-hour period when no additional upgrades will be delivered.
-On Day 3 (04/01), 200,000 users will receive the update notification at 11:59 PM. This schedule will continue each day thereafter until the update has been delivered to all users.

A full list of features and changes in 2.1 are listed from Verizon Wireless:
http://support.vzw.com/pdf/system_update/moto_droid.pdf