Jason Golod Blogs » Reviews

Review Paggi House Austin, TX

Jason — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:21:23 +0000

Original post from Review Paggi House Austin, TX.

So, you have to be good or lucky to find a nice place to eat two weeks before Valentine’s Day. This year, I may have had a little bit of an excuse as we just moved 1,700 miles to Austin, TX a few weeks ago. Well, I think we got lucky. I found a table available at Paggi House on Open Table at 7pm on Valentine’s Day…with less than 2 weeks notice. I immediately check out Paggi House on Yelp before making the reservation and it seemed like everyone had good things to say about it. Lastly, I went to Paggi House’s website, checked out some photos, the menu and most importantly, the wine list. Danielle and I enjoy many Italian reds (namely Sangiovese and their Tuscan siblings), and I spied a bottle (2004 vintage) that we enjoyed on our honeymoon there and the deal was sealed. One strange thing did happen a few days later when I received a call from a very nice young lady from Paggi House. She explained that we would be seated in a tent outside (and here is the strange part) because I made the reservation so late. Now, I am not sure if she wanted me to feel bad about making the reservation less than two weeks from the big day, or if she really didn’t meant to tell me that part, but I don’t think that information was necessarily something she should have conveyed. I would rather her simply ask if sitting outside in a heated tent would have been a deal breaker for me. No harm, no foul, let’s move on.

We showed up right at 7pm on a very windy, dry and cold evening. Paggi House is a block off of Lake Austin (aka the Colorado River) and it was pretty darn cold. We walked up the stairs from the parking lot after the Valet (complimentary) took the car and noticed that the tent to our left was dark end empty. We walked inside and found the hostess who asked our name and then checked the computer which was located outside the front door. We waited inside because it was freezing out there. A minute later, she came back in, grabbed a couple of menus, headed inside the restaurant and said, “follow me.” We both shrugged and followed her into a lovely room with a fireplace to the left and then were seated at, what I would consider to be, one of the best seats on that side of the restaurant looking out a window and 5 feet from the fireplace. Disco! There must have been a bunch of cancellations as the 7/7:30p seating left one or two open tables. On to the important stuff.

Beverages

Danielle started with a “Red Bud” cocktail…some kind of Tito’s Vodka based drink that reminded both of us of Gazpacho. Not my cup of tea, but Danielle loved it. I fired up a glass of the Long Boat Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough. I think it was sitting open a big long (in the bottle), but I took it down. I am not sure it was a great representation of what Marlborough has to offer, but it worked. We then splurged on a bottle of the 2004 “Tenuta Nova” Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino. This is a special bottle of wine and while I did not enjoy it as much as the 1999 or 2001 vintages, it was still great.

Appetizers

The Valentine’s Day offering was a set menu, but it had many things right up our alley. Danielle opted for a salad of Arugula, Pears and Asparagus and I man’d up and went for the Wagyu Beef Tartare. Danielle loved hers, but I was clearly the victor. The tartare was a standout topped with a raw yolk over beef with some capers mixed in. The beef was amazing and it was reminiscent of poke tuna in its texture…amazingly good. Served with a long crostini and some pepper sauce that I sopped up in short order.

Entrees

Round two started with Danielle’s Sea Bass that I believe was poached in Sake. I knew Danielle was excited as it sounded similar to a dish she loved at Three Seasons in San Francisco. She really enjoyed the bass and it was a very large portion. I opted for the mushroom Risotto. The portion was very nice, and while the flavor was dead on, it came out a bit runny. I am not sure if the chef intended it to sit and setup for a few minutes first or if it just came off a little too quickly. By the end of my 2nd course, it was in perfect shape. I would order it again if I found it on the menu, but I would probably mention my experience to see how it came out this time.

Dessert

Score another victory for me this round with my deconstructed cheese cake. The cheese component was a liquid, there were two graham cracker/smap type cookies, some graham cracker dust and some (what I think) cranberry raisins. Delicious. Danielle opted for the chocolate fondant. While not her favorite (she is the molten chocolate cake type), she took it down happily.

Overall, we were very happy with our dinner at Paggi House and will definitely be returning soon. I just learned that they offer half-priced appetizers and glasses of wine daily from 5 to 7. They also have a great deck (where the tent was situated, that would be a great place to eat outside and look at the lake and downtown skyline, weather permitting.

Austin BBQ Review – Rudy’s BBQ

Time Warner Cable – Digital Cablecard Install Part 3

Jason — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:43:15 +0000

Original post from Time Warner Cable – Digital Cablecard Install Part 3.

My Time Warner Cable Experience in Austin, TX

My Time Warner Cable Experience in Austin

I have been delinquent in posting parts one and two of my quest for digital cablecards with Time Warner Cable here in Austin, TX…but, they weren’t very exciting anyway. Then again, part three really wasn’t very exciting, but things are looking better.

Cablecard Install Part I

Part One was actually an eye opener for me. I arrived in town on a Tuesday (I think, it is all a blur right now). I called TWC on Wednesday and ordered the triple-play (or whatever they call it here) bundle. The dude on the phone said they could have someone out some time the following week. I asked him if there was a way to do it sooner and he said he could have someone out tomorrow probably if I paid the first month with a credit card over the phone…DISCO.

Cablecard Install Part II

Part Two was the next day when a very nice, name undisclosed, installer showed up at the house. He is a super nice guy, but I am not sure he is playing with a full deck…and that is not to say that he was crazy, just that he might only be working with 4 of 8 cylinders. He only had multi-stream cards with him and my Hitachi plasma needs a single stream card and the ATI DCT (Digital Cable Tuner) that I have needs a single stream card as well.

It was cool because the reality is, the only piece of equipment I had was the plasma…the rest was scheduled to arrive the next day. I followed up with “the installer dude” the following week and that is when it got kind of crazy. I don’t want to disclose exactly what happened over a series of 4 phone calls, but suffice it to say that I was seriously considering calling up the main shop and telling them about what had transpired with “the installer dude.” Fortunately for us, he is on vacation now and I was re-scheduled for the following Tuesday (today) because as it turns out, they were out of single stream cablecards.

Cablecard Install Part III

Part Three kicks off with my phone call into TWC this morning to find out what my window was for the installer. It turns out they don’t use windows, they just give you a one hour “heads up” before the installer is going to be at your house. Well, I get a call from “the 2nd installer dude” today around 11:30am and he tells me that he is going to have to reschedule the install appointment until tomorrow because the only tuning adapters they have in the warehouse are refurbished and according to him, “they never seem to work right.” So, yeah, I don’t want those. We’ll see in Part 4 (aka: tomorrow) if they are going to have all of the equipment needed to make this install happen after 3 weeks.

Austin BBQ Review – Rudy’s BBQ

Jason — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:53:40 +0000

Original post from Austin BBQ Review – Rudy’s BBQ.

Rudy's BBQ is the Real Deal

Installment number one, of what will hopefully be a long, drawn out, series of reviews spanning decades (because there are so many bbq joints to hit in TX) reviewing BBQ spots in Texas. This really should be installment number two, Green Mesquite, being number one, but Rudy’s is fresh on my mind so it goes first.

Rudy’s on 360, Austin, TX

Seeing how we live very close to Rudy’s on Loop 360 it got the nod today for our family BBQ outing. We had planned on heading out to the famous Salt Lick, but seeing how it was 35 degrees at 1:30, we opted for something closer and that we knew had indoor seating. I did a quick peek at some reviews of Rudy’s on Yelp and I quickly became very excited about our choice. Rudy’s has some 27 locations spread across Texas, and from what I understand, they all have gas stations attached to them….clearly something that probably wouldn’t fly back in Cali. We walked in and were greeted with a “welcome y’all” from one of the girls behind the cash register and while extremely friendly, it threw us off a bit. You see, there are cash registers to the left as you walk in, but there is an ordering corral (like the security line at the airport) weaving back and forth up to a counter manned by 5 or 6 people. Danielle blurted out, “this is our first time here.” The girl told us to head up threw the line to our right and they will take care of us…she also mentioned that we should tell the person helping us that it was our first time.

The Order

Fast forward 4 minutes, we walked up to one of the expediters/cashiers and told him it was our first time.

Nice Rudy’s dude: “Where y’all from?”

Danielle: “San Francisco”

Nice Rudy’s dude: “We got two newbies from SAN FRANCISCOOOOOOO!”

I joined in to the whooping and hollerin’ that ensued. After the theatrics were over, he told us he was going to walk us threw the whole ordering process and bring us samples of whatever we wanted. We sampled the Extra Moist Brisket (da bomb), the Extra Lean Brisket (surprisingly moist considering it had no fat visible), the Smoked Turkey, and I sampled the sausage and jalapeno sausage. The meats are sold by weight, most coming in 1/2lb increments, but they will break it down to 1/4lb if you are a weenie. We fired up a 1/2lb of the Extra Moist Brisket, 1lb of the Pork Ribs, 1/2lb of the jalapeno sausage, some creamed corn, pinto beans and slaw. They throw in white bread for you and have pickles and onions available next to the fountain drink area.

The Feast

They cut all of the meats to order, so if there is a specific part you are looking for, they will do their best to accomodate you. We just took what they gave us and we were not to be disappointed. We sat down and covered the table with the pieces of butcher paper they give you to keep your spot tidy.

Pork Ribs

We started in on the pork ribs first. One pound is about 8 ribs and man were they good. From what I have seen on television (yeah, yeah, don’t laugh too hard) most Texas BBQ does not come with sauce on it. These ribs were very moist and had a nice, peppery rub on them (a little peppery for Danielle’s liking). They were fall-off-the-bone cooked and the first words I muttered were, “man, these are really good” and they were REALLY good. Great flavor, extemely moist, light smoke flavor, and just good. Will definitely be ordering these again. These are flat out a 10.

Extra Moist Brisket

First of all, let’s appreciate how Rudy’s has gone out on a limb with the name of this selection of brisket. Now, if you are going to put something like “Extra Moist” next to your brisket, and you are in the middle of briskettown, you better have some f-ing moist brisket…and they do. Man, this stuff is really good too. Very moist, on the verge of falling apart goodness. Did not really get a lot of external rub/seasoning flavor, they just let the quality of the meat shine through. Very good, I will definitely order this again. 9.5 to 10 on a 10 point scale.

Jalapeno Sausage

Seeing how I have a passion for encased meats, I had to order some kind of sausage. The regular sausage was very nice, sweet and well flavored. I would order that, if they didn’t have something with Jalapeno in the name right next to it. Yoly and I split the sausage and it was great. Very moist, good flavor and a little jalapeno kick at the end…not heavy at all. The casing was nice too, with a very nice snap. All around, I would give it an 8 on the sausage scale of 1 to 10.

Sides

The creamed corn was a stand-out. I will definitely order this again. This is a signature item and probably a must order when you go.

The beans were also very nice. Good Pinto flavor with a whole bunch of pepper…a very nice compliment and something I really enjoyed as well.

The slaw was good and fresh. I don’t really dig on cole slaw that much, so I won’t bother ranking it. It was very fresh tasting though and not all mushy. So, I have to give Rudy’s props for that.

I should also mention that I threw some of their sauce (aka: sause) on the ribs. It was nice and sweet, not too thick and not too runny….pretty nice if you are a sauce freak like some people I know. But, the stuff is just not needed at this place, the meat is really moist and tasty.

Conclusion

Overall, I was extremely impressed with Rudy’s food (if you can’t tell). To make things even better, the whole experience was great. Friendly staff, very clean dining area (impressive considering the number of kids and the lack of plates), and great food. Rudy’s definitely falls into the 9 to 10 range on a 10 point scale and tops my (very short) list of Austin BBQ joints. Be sure to visit Rudy’s next time you make it to Texas.

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Tabbed SSH Client for Windows (NOT SecureCRT)

Jason — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:12:09 +0000

Original post from Tabbed SSH Client for Windows (NOT SecureCRT).

Well, I have had one thing go my way so far today…I just discovered (I am slow) that there is an alternative to SecureCRT when it comes to an SSH client for Windows that has tab capabilites…Putty Connection Manager. I have been using Putty now for a year or two because it is free (I have bought SecureCRT before, but they don’t allow you to use your key on newer versions and you need the executible for the version you have the key for….and they don’t have them on their site for download). Anwyay, I now have a free, windows, tabbed ssh client. Suckit VanDyke.

Time Warner Cable Tuning Adapter – Austin, TX

Jason — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:06:01 +0000

Original post from Time Warner Cable Tuning Adapter – Austin, TX.

In anticipation of Project “A” (you’ll never guess), I have been looking into who provides cable service in Austin….drumroll…..Time Warner Cable. That is good news for me as I have been dealing with Comcast ever since I moved up to the Bay Area from San Diego…I never had any issues with TWC in San Diego…knock on wood. Now, I am ready to jump back onto the MCE train after a number of years cooling off. For those of you who have been messing with MCE since the beginning, you know my frustration. Anyway, since it looks like things are all good (kinda) I found the order form page where you can supposedly request a tuning adapter for your ATI cablecard tuner MCE box (at the bottom of the page, right below where it says the ATI digital cable tuner is SUPPORTED). Enjoy.

Using the Audiovox 5600 as a Modem Via USB Cable

Boxee on Apple TV…First Impressions

Jason — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:21:48 +0000

Original post from Boxee on Apple TV…First Impressions.

About a week ago, when all of the Boxee hooplah was going on, I bought an Apple TV to install XBMC (XBox Media Center)/Boxee on. I have hacked a few things like the Linksys NSLU2 (aka The Slug) and I have to say, this was by far the easiest install I have ever done. I am not sure the directions are easy enough for my sister to follow, but the work is. After I put the bootloader onto a USB “stick” I popped it into the Apple TV (ATV from here on out), plugged the power cord in, and the installation went off without a hitch. It actually took me longer to figure out what I had to do to boot into Boxee than it did to install everything. I was a bit paranoid as Apple had just released a new firmware update for the ATV and had read on the Boxee forums that it would prevent XBMC and Boxee from working…so, stayed away from the “Update” selection in the menu. Well, once I clicked it, it downloaded the latest version of Boxee and we were off and running in a few minutes. I would say total install time from downloading of the bootloader to booting into Boxee was less than 15 minutes. This really only takes about 5 minutes to do.

1st Boxee ATV Setup

I first setup the ATV out in the living room, connected to a Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT. This router is running in Client-Bridge mode which means that it am connected to the main Access Point router as a bridge when a cable is plugged into the router (wireless connection is possible, you just get 1/2 the bandwidth available). I logged in (you will need a Boxee account to use Boxee) and added two shares on my network…one to a box running Windows Media Center Edition and the other is the SLUG which has all of our music.

Setting up the shares is very easy and intuitive. There is a separate area in settings for you to hard code in an SMB username and password to use by default for any SMB shares. Boxee played nicely with the Windows and Linux box right from the start. The people who built the scraping scripts for XBMC/Boxee did an awesome job. Boxee immediately started adding video files to the library…which means that you see a thumbnail of the DVD box, it pulls IMDB information about the movie including an actor list and a trailer if it can find one…nice. The music began updating, but this is part of where I think things went a bit awry. We have a lot of music. Much of it is live and not have Meta data available for it in the usual places. But, there is plenty of music in there (read A LOT) that does have Meta data. I think it might be a week long project for Boxee to retrieve everything it needs for our music.

So, I fired up a video from the Windows box….great. Boxee let’s you change aspect ratios right from the video screen to adjust fit on the fly…very nice. Boxee is also smart enough to play multi-part video files provided you use one of many (that I have found) naming schemes….basically CD1, CD2 will work…I am now using Part.x.of.x as a scheme and it works perfectly. It is nearly seamless how it goes from file one to file 2. This is something that Windows MCE would never do, score Boxee/XBMC.

Next I try to play something via the Hulu interface. Hulu is an internet video site that has some deals with a lot of television publishers. They will play advertisements at the regular commercial breaks, but here is the thing, you have access to every episode of every show that they carry series of. For instance, my favorite show, Three Sheets (Mojo Network), has every episode aired to date…very nice. Hulu worked, but then the video died, rather it crashed Boxee. I then started having intermittent problems with Boxee crashing, necessitating an unplugging of the unit. I gave it a rest, and moved it upstairs the next day.

Boxee Setup Round 2

Setup two was upstairs in the bedroom with the 42″ plasma. The bedroom is located almost directly over the wireless AP downstairs and the wifi hardware in the ATV is quite good. All of the issues we were having with the living room setup were gone. One thing to note is that I removed the music share to the linux box. I don’t really have a need to play music via the ATV…and to be honest, I have never really understood the appeal of having video of what I am listening to. I have two Audiotrons in the living room and am creating a little web app for my iphone to control them (someday). Anyway, the video playback is great for all of my divx movies. I did try to play back an HD movie the other night and it was jerky….I just don’t think the ATV has the hardware to play HD video and audio well. I will test this again, but I am confident that even with a wired gigabit setup, it would be the same.

Thoughts

So, do I like the Boxee/ATV combination? Yes, more than I thought I would. I am not really into the whole social networking aspects of Boxee, but I do like the interface and the functionality…a lot. I have been waiting for a real network video playback option. The ATV is great because it is small, silent and looks pretty cool. The remote is one of those standard iPod remotes and actually works pretty well. I would still like to have a no-nonsense all video file playback box…not sure this is it. But, will I be getting rid of this setup, definitely not. I think the next project will be to build a high horsepower, silent box to run Ubuntu and Boxee/XBMC so that I can play anything I want and have no issues…I think that setup might provide it.

iPhone Exchange Integration – Review

Jason — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:53:50 +0000

Original post from iPhone Exchange Integration – Review.

Some of you may have read my post on troubleshooting iPhone and Exchange 2003 I wrote up a couple of weeks ago. In case you still don’t know, the iPhone will only work with Exchange 2003 SP2 and Exchange 2007. 2003 NEEDS SP2 to be installed and there is a not so intuitive procedure for finding out what version of Exchange you are running…so check out the post if you are still having problems with your iPhone and Exchange 2003.

I wanted to write up a little review of my first impressions of how well the iPhone integrates with Microsoft Exchange as there is a lot of hype on both sides of this issue out there. First, a little background. I have been using the Cingular 8125 for three or four years now (also known in some circles as the HTC Wizard). The 8125 is a Windows Mobile 5 phone that has a slide out keyboard, large touch screen and uses Cingular’s/AT&T’s EDGE data network. This phone, while pretty bulky, has served me very well for a long time. I could never give it up because the touch screen made using the windows features so much easier and faster. Plus, I had one of the best products Microsoft has going called Voice Commander. If you have a Windows Mobile phone, you will want to see if this thing works on your phone model…it is truly incredible. Combined, this was a winning combination for a long time.

While in New Orleans for Jazz Festival this year, I used a friend’s iPhone and was pretty impressed with the user interface. But, they still had not released anything allowing for Exchange to integrate. Then comes the announcement that Apple was planning on releasing the 2.0 software for both the 1st and (yet to be released) 2nd generation, aka 3G, iPhones which will provide Exchange/ActiveSync integration. I have learned my lesson many times about being an early adopter of technology and using it on something as mission critical as a cell phone or main computer. This time however, I purchased a mint condition 1st generation iPhone a few weeks after the 2.0 software came out.

Exchange With the iPhone

So, how does it work? Amazingly well. After figuring out that I was not running SP2 on my Exchange 2003 installation, everything worked perfectly out of the box so to speak. I left all of the default settings in the Exchange setup on the iPhone. This means that I am setup to sync email, my contacts, and calendar between my iPhone and Exchange server. Plus, push email works flawlessly.

Sub Mailboxes

I have access to all of my “sub” mailboxes quickly and easily…it simply takes a few seconds to download messages from a sub-mailbox. With Windows Mobile, I would have to dive into the ActiveSync options and configure it to fully sync each mailbox next time it sync’d with Exchange….less than ideal, but it worked. On the iPhone they are right where they should be….accessible.

Layout

Given that the iPhone screen is bigger than my Cingular 8125′s, the amount of real estate Apple can use to display email information is bigger. But, as usual, they seemed to have spent more time designing the layout including font, color, size, etc. The end result is that the information displayed is easy to read, names of senders bolded in large print, subject line bold in smaller print and then the first few lines (how I have it configured) of the email are shown in regular text that is slightly smaller still.

Attachments

This is something that I expect the Apple team will tweak a bit more. All email attachments are found at the bottom of the email, no matter how many replies there are in between. This is slightly annoying if you have a long email thread and someone decided to attach a file to the last one. But, it is not that big of a deal. The bigger item is that I cannot double-click to zoom in on PDF files…making most not readable. In comparison, my 8125 used an application called ClearVue to view PDF files. This application, while allowing for zooming in and out, was buggy, slow and almost useless (because of the speed). ClearVue could not open many PDF files I received for some reason and was not something I spent any time trying to figure out.

I had heard somewhere that iPhones could not read Microsoft Word files…that is not the case. While you cannot modify them, you can read them, zoom etc. The Excel file reading will display individual sheets of a multi-worksheet file, formatting (bold, lines, highlighting) as well as zooming in and out. For me, this is all I really would want.

Contact Integration

Contact integration is pretty good as well. The alphabet runs vertically in small print along the right side of the screen. If you want to jump to a certain letter, you click on it, or close to it, and you then jump to that letter. This takes a little longer than I would like, but then again, I have about 400 contacts. Surprisingly, it is very good at detecting what letter you are selecting even though your fingertip covers about 4 letters. This will probably get some tweaking along the way, but is more than usable in its current form. More importantly however is what you get when you click on a contact. All phone numbers and addresses are displayed, plus a picture at the top, and two buttons to text or add the contact to your “favorites” list. The favorites list is a great way to have fast access to people you call and is accessible from the phone button. You can also easily select a ringtone for a contact via a button. As with most of the iPhone GUIs, you can slide your finger up and down on the contact list to quickly run up or down the list. Tapping or holding your finger on the screen will stop it…cool and functional.

Calendar

Lastly, the calendar function. I don’t really use the calendar function to add things to my calendar from my phone…usually. I typically use these functions when I add appointments to my desktop calendar with alarms. This has been one of the most important reasons for Outlook/Exchange integration on cell phones for me since day one…alarms for events and appointments. The iPhone handles them well. The display of calendar events is decent. It was better on my Cingular 8125 as events and times were displayed on the main screen in a list. You can view your calendar by Month (default), Day or List. The Month display is nice for seeing when you have “free” days. If you have a day with an appointment, it shows up with a dark dot…free days do not. The Day display gives you a nice clean hour-by-hour display of your day…showing any appointments. The List display gives you all of your upcoming appointments listed by day and time…pretty nice.

All-in-all, I give the Apple team and A for their Exchange integration. IMHO, it is better overall than the one found on Windows Mobile phones…and this is coming from a guy who walked away from the Macintosh 15 years ago. While the keyboard takes a little getting used to, I think Apple has the best solution out there right now, especially when you add in the rest of the features and usability of the phone.

[tags]iPhone, Exchange, Exchange 2003, Review[/tags]

Last.fm is the Shizzy

Jason — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:12:24 +0000

Original post from Last.fm is the Shizzy.

I like when I find things online that actually work. Most things are usually someone’s blatant attempt to monetize on someone coming to their site or using their service…which is fine by me. But, it just makes me take notice when I find something that I actually go back and use on my own because I find utility in it or I like it. Last.fm is one of those services. Last.fm is a music service that allows you to setup any number of “stations” based around one musical artist. I only have one Last.fm station, and it is based on The Smiths. From that their engine uses data from my own play preferences on my radio station (you can favorite or skip songs in their web based player), songs I listen to in Windows Media Player (with their plugin I have installed) and the preferences of other people on last.fm who listen to the same artists. It is akin to the Pandora service that I found a while back and then became a paid service (not sure if this is related or not). The cool thing is that last.fm is amazingly accurate and has introduced me to a number of artists who I have not stopped playing since I first heard them on last.fm…which is the point. You can check out my last.fm radio station (if you like the Smiths =P ) and take it for a spin.

The service is free. But, after a month or two it hit me up for a $25 annual donation (or something like that)….which is honestly money well spent in my book.

[tags]Music, Internet, Cool, Last.fm[/tags]

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Server Beach Coupon Code -> Save $100 on a Dedicated Server

Jason — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:15:14 +0000

Original post from Server Beach Coupon Code -> Save $100 on a Dedicated Server.

For the impatient types that are looking for their $100 off coupon code for Server Beach, the code is NWX3DCU3BW and my name is Jason Golod (if you need it). If you stay signed up with ServerBeach’s rock solid dedicated hosting for 90 days, you get a $100 credit. Pretty sweet deal considering their level of service.

About a month ago, I got serious about finding a new hosting company for our dedicated servers. Right now we have a couple of FreeBSD boxes with a company called Dedicated Now and while they offer a really good value on their base prices as well as their add-ons, they are less than helpful and informative when something goes wrong. And, it seems that something goes wrong every couple of months or so. Plus, I am not so great on FreeBSD and Debian makes life so much easier for rookies like me that I was on the look for something Debian and something on this side of the country. It didn’t take long for me to read a lot of good things about Server Beach. Server beach is based in Texas (I think) but has a NOC out here in Los Angeles (I think…sorry, not much into fact checking today). I was checking out a site that lists Debian dedicated server hosts around the world (great resource) and Server Beach was at the top (and it seems like for good reason). I actually ran down the entire list. There are some great values on there, especially if you are looking for a box in Europe somewhere, which is on the list for another day. I ended up going onto the Server Beach website and clicking on the Live Chat button. I am sure most of you know that these usually say “nobody available” for most smaller companies these days, but they had someone available.

I started chatting with a guy named Roger Gonzales, who it turns out is their Sales Manager. He was very knowledgeable and up-front….two qualities I am not used to with my current host. We chatted for about 10 to 15 minutes and discussed what I have now and what SB might be able to offer. I told him I would sign up for a Debian box and try them out. I was not disappointed.

I ordered the box at 4:59pm and received a call from someone at ServerBeach to confirm my order and go over the configuration details and billing information. He was very nice as well, and I got the feeling quickly that everyone was on the same page over there…good. We ended the call and by 7:10pm I had my server up and running and had received a few emails with the details and login information. I logged in and and was super fast. The new Debian release, Etch, was installed and up to date.

Since then, I have run a few sites on there to give it a whirl and I have absolutely no complaints. Uptime has been 100%, no network issues and I am back on Debian. I will continue to update this post on progress and the service levels at Server Beach, but I can honestly say that I don’t think there will be any issues that are not resolved quickly and where I am kept in the dark.

Oh yeah, here is the kicker. Server Beach has a coupon code that allows current customers to earn rewards of up to $250 per person they refer. The pricing is exactly the same for referrals, and the person signing up gets $100 off, just for using my code. If the referrer stays signed up for 90 days, everyone gets their money….pretty nice gig, especially from a rock solid host.

My coupon code is NWX3DCU3BW and my name is Jason Golod if you need it…not sure. You can click here to make it all happen

[tags]Server Beach, Debian, Hosting, Dedicated Server, Coupon[/tags]

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Unlock Your iPhone

Jason — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:19:39 +0000

Original post from Unlock Your iPhone.

Most of the geeks have seen the YouTube video of the kid that unlocked his iPhone. He, however, did not give out the nitty gritty details on how to unlock your Apple iPhone…all of that has changed now. Apparently Collin Mulliner unlocked a phone today and it works on T-Mobile now. I don’t own an iPhone and I am not sure I will. But, for the iMasses have a day.

[tags]iPhone, Unlock, Hack[/tags]