chuma.org

Category: my ramblings

  • This I Believe: Penn Jillette

    Pretty much sums it up for me.

  • Collecting more information about my security system

    I’ve amassed a whole lot of information about my security system over the last few days. I’m starting to feel better and better about switching to VoIP and ensuring that my system will be able to communicate.

    First off. my “ADT Focus 32” system is really a close of the DSC Power832, which is very commonly deployed. After scouring some websites for a while I managed to snag the Programming Worksheets and the Installation Manual for this unit, which I’m going to need if I want to program the thing myself.

    Secondly, I finally found good information about what protocols exist for security system communication and what will work for VoIP.

    This report from the Canadian Alarm and Security Association (Google cache) shows that they did a little test of what protocols will work with VoIP. Here’s the Coles Notes edition:

    • The Contact ID protocol sucks, it won’t work with VoIP. DTMF Express didn’t work either. There’s too much echo coming back to the security system for it to receive signals from the monitoring station. In the case of Contact ID, your system won’t be able to receive the “OK” from the monitoring station, so it will keep on retransmitting until a counter is reached, and then your panel will display an error.
    • Pulse formats like 10, 20, or 40 pps should work fine. 4×2 and 1400Hz handshake seems to be the “standard”. However pulse is the slowest of all formats.
    • SIA format will work as well. Apparently this is because the VoIP hardware thinks that it sounds like a fax transmission, and switches the protocol for the VoIP signal to a type specifically for modem/fax type transmission. SIA is basicially bursts of modem transmission, so it works.

    This posts on dslreports is where I got some good info as well.

    So now from here, I’m going to call ADT and see if I can get them to program my panel remotely to use the SIA protocol. Then we should be hunky-dory when the VoIP switch happens.

  • Simpler Security Solution: dump ADT, get NextAlarm

    I’ve discovered NextAlarm.com. They can monitor virtually any existing security system, via phone OR internet, for $14.95/month or $8.95/month if you pay a year up front. Even though those prices are in US dollars, it sure beats the utter living crap out of my bloody ADT contract.

    Next step: find out whether or not I “own” my ADT system yet, and how I can get out of my monitoring contract with them.

    Sandy and I watched CBC’s Marketplace last night, which was entitled “Underdogs” and was all about consumers trying to get things fixed from big corporations. They focused on four people:

    • One couple had signed up for some all-in-one insurance company and were told their premiums wouldn’t increase for 10 years, and then had their premiums doubled after four months. They phoned and mailed the company and eventually CBC flew them to Toronto to speak with them, but instead of resolving the issue, the company’s lawyer contact them and told them their premiums wouldn’t go down, too bad.
    • One man was paying Bell Expressvu for satellite service yet Bell couldn’t find his payments, so they kept on cutting off his satellite TV. This happened for four months until they finally figured out the payments were going to the wrong Bell division. He didn’t get compensated. The phrase “super-pissed” doesn’t even begin to describe this guy either.
    • One woman had the transmission in her 1999 Dodge Caravan blow up, costing her $2200. Chrysler wouldn’t admit over the phone that they were aware of the problem, but with help from the CBC they discovered that Chrysler had since redesigned the part that had failed and literally blew a hole in the side of her transmission casing. They visited Chrysler in Windsor only to be told that Chrysler had made a corporate decision not to help out 1999 Caravan owners – in essence, her van was too old.
    • The final case was a couple whose Dodge truck caught fire due to a faulty headlight. They took Chrysler to court and won the cost of their truck plus $25,000 in damages because Chrysler was aware of the problem and did nothing. However Chrysler dragged them through the court system for seven years until the couple finally appealed to the Supreme Court, who ruled in their favour.

    I came out of that program with two thoughts:

    1. Don’t buy Chrysler.
    2. It might be one hell of an upward battle to break my contract with ADT.

  • Modchip Status: Good

    This weekend – Saturday actually – was a whirlwind of activity. Besides changing the oil in the car, a mundane affair, I also had to somehow figure out how to flash my Xbox modchip with someone else’s Xbox so it would work with my Xbox. Luckily, I was able to borrow Josh’s Xbox, which he didn’t mind me opening at all, swap my chip in, and flash it. There was a lot of fiddly wiring and CD burning as well but I won’t bore anyone with the details. Long story short: my Xbox is now an Xbox Media Center and therefore kicks ass. XBMC is one really slick piece of code. Unfortunately I couldn’t flash the other modchip for some reason, and ran out of time to work on it.

    So now I can use XBMC to play all the media files on my home server, instead of having to use my downstairs PC and the slow-as-heck Java VNC client on the Pepper – sweet! This also means I don’t have to use the A/V panels in my wall anymore to go from PC -> TV, so I spent 5 minutes and used some RCA Y cables I had lying around and rewired it to go from TV -> PC. Meaning I can now record TV with my All-In-Wonder again. I think I’ve made my VCR obsolete again finally.

  • Getting rid of Bell: still a head-spinning exercise

    The debate at home about going VoIP with Vonage for our main phone line heated back up at home yesterday. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for months, and according to our calculations we’d save $40 a month – but it has two main impediments:

    1. We use DSL for our internet connection and are not willing to switch to cable. “Dry” DSL is now an option (DSL service without local phone service on the same line) but it’s so new no one seems to know about it.
    2. Our security system requires that we have phone line monitoring. Nevermind the fact that we get reamed out the ass paying for it. And we’re locked into our contract until the summer of 2007.

    (1) is no longer an issue, now that “dry” DSL is available – DSL without Bell phone service. #2 is still an issue, though it might be possible to get it to work over VoIP.

    I called up my ISP to ask them abou dry DSL and they didn’t have a lot of answers for me unfortunately. They said to switch my line I’d have to fight Bell tooth and nail, and also that Bell still requires that you pay for using their wires even when they’re not providing service on it.

    I poked around online and found another provider – TekSavvy out of Chatham, Ontario. They mention dry DSL right on their website so I figured I’d call them up to talk about it. Well, I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with a fellow named Bill who answered all my questions and generally impressed the hell out of me with his candor and straightforward facts. Here’s what I learned:

    1. Yes, Bell still charges your DSL provider for using their copper when Bell isn’t charging you for phone service. In most places, that’s $16.99 a month. HOWEVER, that fee is currently unregulated (Bell set it themselves) and the CRTC is expected to set this fee in the next few months. It’s likely that the CRTC will force Bell to lower it. Right now, for my dry DSL, it would be $16.99/month on top of the DSL service.
    2. It is really hard to get Bell to convert a currently active phone line with DSL to “dry” DSL. They will fight and bitch and complain. Also you might be without any service for two or three weeks. BUT, if you have another free line running to your house (and you probably do – they always run lots of extra copper for future service), it’s much easier to get them to bring up dry DSL on that unallocated line. The wait time is still 2-3 weeks but since they’re not losing any money out of the workorder, there’s less crap to cut through. Once you get DSL up on the other pair, you can cancel your phone service and the other DSL service. You might have some overlap for a while though, but it sounds like less of a mess.
    3. If I wanted Vonage to keep my existing phone number, I’d have to ask Vonage to take it over when I activate their service. Yet another reason to do point #2 (get a second DSL service temporarially) first, because if I cancelled my phone number without Vonage taking it over, I’d never get it back.

    4. I even picked the guy’s brain about running my security system over VoIP. I’ve read about some people doing it but he said there are two main problems:

      the reason the security companies are so dead-set against internet monitoring is because of insurance and possible outages. If your internet went down say four or five times a year, that’s considered a lot of times. They are very slow to change their tune because they’re afraid of not being able to provide reliable enough service, and of losing their insurance coverage. And insurance policies take forever to catch up to technological advances.

      the reason that you will have problems trying to trick your security system into running over VoIP is because VoIP is asynchronous – only one side transmits at a time. Normal phone service it, by definition, synchronous – both ends of the line can talk and hear each other simultaneously. Security systems talk like this and need a synchronous connection. Your VoIP provider would have to be able to switch very fast between the two ends of the link while your security system is talking in order for the connection to work. I think this is what I have read about where people phone up Vonage and get them to change some setting on their line which improves the security system communication

    What I would kill for is for my security provider to just install and support a dialer capture module like this one. It tricks your existing system into thinking it’s talking to a phone line, while retransmitting the data over the internet using TCP/IP. Boy, would I.

    So that’s a lot to think about, but it’s also more information than I’ve ever gotten on the subject. Many thanks to TekSavvy, I might just be calling them up for my new DSL service if I can solve issue #2.

  • Where u been dog?

    I been around. You know. Stuff goin’ on. Many Xmas-related tasks to take care of. I was recently holed up at home for two weeks while some major renovations were done at the office. Let’s just say I’m halfway through Paper Mario after that little sabbatical. And also Paper Mario is a great, GREAT game.

    Sandy’s been working twice as hard as I these past weeks, with two jobs on the go. I was a judge at the First LEGO League Canada Ontario finals, which was some great fun with hundreds of great kids. Watched all our favourite shows go on holiday hiatus, had a great holiday lunch at work, and relaxed as much as possible of course.

    Been following the election news as well. Last night we went to the opening of our local NDP candidate’s campaign office, and got to speak with her and pick up a lawn sign.

  • A Rickin’ good time

    On Friday evening we attended a taping of Rick Mercer Report down at CBC Television in downtown Toronto. It was a blast and an interesting experience. I’d never been in a real television studio before, so I was interested to go just to see what the inside of the building looked like. Both of us were stoked to see Rick Mercer live though. The show was great, and hilarious – even funnier than just watching the show, because half of the fun is Rick and the production crew keeping the audience amused while they change set pieces, setup new shots, etc etc. I’d never seen unionized stagehands move large glass desks to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance before. Also we got to see the full taped segments before they were edited for time. Many Sony cube monitors, namely PVM-2030s, were hung over the audience area. And boy do they pack’em into Studio 46 – the studio is much smaller than I thought it was. And the icing on the cake was that Sandy got Rick’s autograph at the end.

    We’d go again in a second – but tickets are already all gone for the entire season! So the rest of you will have to tune in to CBC, Tuesday night at 8. See that bald guy in the blue sweater in the audience, on the left side, second row? That’s me.

  • The garbage that is the ticketmaster system

    From: chuma@chuma.org
To: CSEast@ticketmaster.ca, sales@ticketmaster.ca, info@coldplay.com
Subject: The garbage that is the ticketmaster system

    When I sit on the toilet in the morning, I crap out better web systems than your pathetic piece of garbage which I have been suffering through as a member of the ticket buying public for years now. I’m talking about ticketmaster.com and ticketmaster.ca of course.

    I want to throw up when I think about how after 4+ years of online ticket sales you still come up with ways to screw up people’s transactions. The latest effort being the “word verification” garbage currently coming down the pipe. When this system (wt.ticketmaster.com) obviously blew up around 10:15 AM EST today and stopped responding, and I was in the middle of purchasing Coldplay tickets – great tickets, I might add (Thu, Mar 23, 2006, sec 121 row 20 seats 16 & 17) – and suddenly I couldn’t load this stupid verification image – even though you already had my credit card number, via my account, and I had already solved one of these pieces of garbage – no, you couldn’t generate a 290×80 pixel image in THREE MINUTES, the timeout for my transaction.

    Haven’t you people learned how to plan for a major traffic surge? Don’t you know how to run lean, optimized code so people can USE YOUR BLOODY SERVICE?!!

    Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t care because you can make so much more dirty money by running auctions to inflate ticket prices, and besides, someone will buy all the tickets anyways and you’ll get your extortionist $9.75/ticket service fee and put it in your pocket and never actually improve your service. Bands are forced to enter into evil contracts with you because you run around North America bribing venue owners with envelopes of money, and when someone does try to do business without you you go out of your way to discredit and muscle them out of business.

    Your monopoly on ticket sales across North America is disgusting. I hope that your sickening business practices cause you fester under the boiling hot sun of public opinion until you wither into a pile of dust and the wind blows you away into history.

  • What giving $300 to Microsoft gets you, more or less

    The Xbox 360 motherboard in all its glory. Click image for full-size version. From AnandTech.

  • Steven F’s phonecam photos are great.

    StevenF’s mobile phone pics never fail to amuse. Here’s two of the most recent hilarious ones: