A very Busy week!

This was a rather odd busy week. Classes started at Pace and I only have one this semester, "AIT381: Emerging Broadband Technologies", basically IPTV and VoIP. I am familiar with VoIP as I wrote a chapter on the subject in my book (but that doesn't mean I know a lot about it). I also have another slight advantage as I build Cisco networks to properly handle these protocols and my office-mate does VoIP (not just the routers but the call management servers and a lot more). It's very complicated stuff! I think this will be an interesting course.

I also picked up a smart phone (a Pantech Duo+) with my AT&T wireless service. My wife got the Palm 750 (boy did that get bad reviews but she loves the phone). While my phone is great (it eliminates my older Palm III and Nokia phone) IE is terrible! I've replaced it with Opera. Having the Internet access can be useful though I doubt that it will work in the NJ Pine Barrens where I like to ride my bicycle. ;-) I'll have to learn HTML/CSS for mobile devices. This will be interesting.

Still working on my HA presentations. I've picked up the doll house and it's smaller than I thought (not a bad thing). I'll need to build some kind of a travel case for it as that is it's purpose. I'll probably reinforce the base and the wall joints. This has to be sturdy enough for showing.

Lastly my new weather station is active but just at home. I've mounted the wind vane and anomometer on a ten foot pole and I'm currently testing it at ground level. Everything is working though getting information from the wireless is slow (it takes about a full minute to poll the unit). I discovered that I prefer the cups based anomometer as any wind in any direction gets it spinning. The fan based unit only starts recording the speed when it switches to the correct direction where the wind is blowing. The last few days have been calm w! ith ligh t gusts so the fan stops a great deal of the time. I've been visiting WX Forum adn I've found a whole bunch of useful scripts and information such as Fire Danger scripts. I'm hoping to have full information about things that affect my bike rides such as air quality conditions, Fire, tide, phase of the moon (yes I need that) along with the weather. I can then post the information to the web and when I lead rides I'll have the information available on my phone to fill in on the ride sheets.