brian schettler

I’m testing out Google Analytics. I just installed it, so there’s not too much data gathered yet. It looks to be interesting, and if it proves itself I’ll post more about it.

Tags: google, metrics, website

The past several days I’ve been having severe trouble with my cell phone at my new place in Bartlesville. It’s probably been this way the entire time, I just haven’t used my phone enough to notice it until a few days ago. AT&T will flat out not keep a connection longer than 10 minutes. What makes it worse is that I’m using my Bluetooth headset and the disconnect “tones” are ear piercing despite the caller being at normal volume. It makes me wrench my headset out of my ear every time.

I couldn’t stand it and I did something I don’t normally do…I made an impulse buy.

I logged on to skype.com and took a look at their SkypeOut options to let me call regular landlines using Skype. Their SkypeOut subscription is $2.95/month with a buy two get one free special. So for $5.90, I have unlimited calling while I’m trapped in sucky cell service land. I sign in on the Skype website and check out using PayPal. Not even ten seconds later, I’m calling Sarah’s cell phone from Skype. The whole process took about 3 minutes. Any longer and I probably would have had second thoughts and just stuck with the cell phone for the summer. But the experience (cringe…hate to use that word) was a positive, hassle-free one. And the voice quality is phenomenal. I may just use SkypeOut from now on.

Tags: cellphone, positive, service, skype

Well, I’ve been at it a week now interning for ConocoPhillips in Bartlesville, OK. So far it’s been a very positive experience. I’m working in the “Commercial Unix Services” group—it’s my understanding that we’ll be working on security and maintenance scripts for the hundreds of servers they have here. I hope I can get up to speed and contribute something of value by the time the summer is over. Next week I get to go to Houston to meet with some other members of the team working on this project, so I’m excited about that.

The office environment is quite different from school. I really see how that it’s not what you know that’s important, but how you know and learn it that is important. Especially starting out, the past week has been so mentally taxing, trying to get up to speed on all the systems and software.

It’s definitely difficult being so far away from home, however. I was able to go home over Memorial Day weekend, but the drive back was horrible because I ran into some very heavy storms. It’s odd having free time in the evenings after work…I almost don’t know what to do. Luckily, I made a todo list. Unluckily, GTA4 needs to be beaten. We’ll see how that plays out.

I will say that one of my favorite things is playing jokes on people since I’m working in the oil industry. So far these have been my running jokes with various effects:

1. We get employee discounts on gas and we only pay cost: $1.15/gal (it’s currently $3.75/gal).
2. Dick Cheney welcomed us to the oil industry in our orientation. He ensured us several times that we “will be taken care of.”
3. There is a strong motivation to vote Republican. Some of my Democratic friends had more taxes taken out of their paycheck than my Republican friends…coincidence?
4. Employees can get full use of the company’s fleet of Rolls-Royces any time we please.
5. When oil got over $100/barrel, they gold plated the toilet seats. They said if oil got over $150/barrel, they’d give us gold plated keyboards and mice.
6. The office is not the typical white walls and cubicals. Everything is very lavish with Victorian decorations and crown molding, etc. There’s even a butler to give you warm towels to relieve stress from typing.

It’s amazing how many people would fall for this.

Tags: bartlesville, conocophillips, internship, summer

One thing I don’t understand about some hotels is that they feel they must charge for internet access, even though it costs more to implement the pay services than to just offer it for free. From an old (2003) article about businesses and wifi access:

Now that competitors have started to offer free wired Internet service, Pierce has raised the ante by rolling out free Wi-Fi throughout the chain, with all 100-plus properties expected to offer the service by the start of next year.

Pierce says he didn’t even consider paid Wi-Fi service, saying his research shows that going the paid route isn’t worth the effort. Under the paid model, Pierce calculated that a typical property would have roughly two paid Wi-Fi users a day. After splitting the revenue with a Wi-Fi operator, Pierce says this would return only about $7.50 a day to the franchisee.

The hotel did have a computer available in the lobby, but the internet was heavily filtered. I couldn’t get on many websites (facebook, twitter, etc) and sometimes the filter was just plain stupid. For example, when I tried to access my Oklahoma State email, it told me that the website was “prohibited for the following reasons: Organizational Email.” But below that it gave me the option to either continue to the site “for work-related purposes” or I could go back to the previous page. Do they really think people will say, “Oh, I typed in this address expecting to visit this website, but now I think I’ll turn back because of this message” ?

But all in all, I will say it is good to get away from constant connectivity for a while.

Tags: filter, hotel, internet, wifi

With the release of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron a week or two ago, I thought I’d try it out. I’ve been casually playing around with Linux for quite some time. I think the first version I installed was Mandrake Linux 8.0, back in 2001. Anyways, I like to see what’s new and how much Linux distributions have improved over the years.

With the latest version of Ubuntu, I’m floored.

When I first booted using the Live CD on my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad, I was amazed that everything just worked right out of the box. I had sound, the screen resolution was correctly set to the native resolution, my trackpad and touchpad worked fine, I had wireless access, and even my laptop’s volume controls worked flawlessly with controlling the volume in Ubuntu (complete with a translucent volume meter on screen display!). My desktop has taken a bit more work because it’s running older hardware, but it still runs it fine. I ended up using the Wubi installer for both machines. Wubi is pretty neat if you’re not sure you want to dive head first into Linux. It installs Ubuntu to a folder inside Windows XP and changes your boot configuration to give you the option to boot from Windows or Ubuntu when you start your computer. From what I’ve read, there is a slight hard drive performance hit, but to me everything seems fine. Wubi also places a regular “Uninstall Ubuntu” in your Add/Remove Programs list, so you can uninstall it just like a normal application, and your system returns to normal.

I’ve been using Ubuntu for about a week now on different machines and thought I’d share some likes and dislikes of it.

Likes:

1. The “extra” visual effects. On both my laptop and desktop, I was able to turn on the “Extra” visual effects, which simply blew me away. Windows become gooey blobs that flawlessly mesh and distort when dragged around the screen. When minimizing and maximizing, windows act like they’re made of elastic and “pop” into place. Things fade in and fade out in a way similar to Vista. But I must say I like it, because usually I turn that stuff off (I even have the minimizing/maximizing animations disabled in XP).
2. Exposé. This probably falls under the previous point, but it’s so great to me that it needs a separate point. I love the Mac’s Exposé feature. Exposé is a feature that shows you all windows laid out at once on your screen, then you can click the window to focus in on (see example). Well, Ubuntu can do this as well, and it does it beautifully. It’s very helpful and I often find myself trying to hit the key combination when I’m in Windows to do the same thing.
3. Multiple desktops. I never really used multiple desktops in the past, but after playing with it for some time I find it extremely useful. This is probably more so on my laptop where I have just one screen, but it’s still good on my desktop. Using Ctrl+Alt+[Arrow key left or right] I can switch between desktops. It’s useful because I’ll put all my “distractions” on one desktop (twitter, gmail, facebook, IM, email) and whatever I’m working on on the other desktop. I think the tiny detail that makes me like this feature more now than in the past is the subtle, quick animation that “moves” you to your next desktop. In past versions that I’ve played with multiple desktops (both on Linux and Windows), you click a button or hotkey and BAM! Instantly you’re taken to your new desktop with all the different windows. It can be a little disorienting. But with Ubuntu, there is a quick, smooth panning animation that shows you moving back and forth between desktops. It really helps you orient yourself to which desktop you’re using.
4. The cost. Ubuntu is free, which means I don’t have to worry about license keys or product activation. I can install it on as many machines as I want to, which is very good because Windows was starting to become a problem when I wanted to have a desktop, laptop, SVN server, media server, etc.
5. Apt-Get Repositories. I had forgotten how useful this is. I am still learning Linux and I don’t exactly know how to download an application, compile it, and put it into the file system, with appropriate links to the “Start” menu. But with apt-get repositories, I don’t have to. In the terminal, it works like this:
   sudo apt-get install [application_name]
   And a few seconds later, the latest version of the application is downloaded from one of many servers, and installed on your system. I’ve never installed an application that made me restart, either, I could just start using it. This has solved multiple problems where I was trying to run an application that didn’t have all the components it needed, and I was able to quickly find and install what I needed.
   Ubuntu goes one step ahead and puts this in GUI form. It’s an easy to use list of applications divided into categories that you just select as many applications as you want and hit the install button.

Dislikes:

1. Hardware/driver incompatibility. This isn’t really Ubuntu’s fault, but more so hardware manufacturer’s not getting out Linux drivers. It’s also not really a problem on my laptop (kudos to Lenovo), but more on my desktop. Specifically, my Creative SoundBlaster sound card, which (from what I’ve heard) has a horrible track record of supporting Linux. I have sound working on my desktop, but it uses an older, basic-functionality-only driver. And it is very basic…I can’t even control the volume in Ubuntu. It’s really a hassle.
2. I need some Windows applications. Again, I don’t think this is really Ubuntu’s fault. There are some programs that I really need and I would like to use: Visual Studio, Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop. I can run them in WINE (a Windows emulator), but that is finicky. I will probably have to set up a dual-boot system or maybe some kind of virtualization.
3. Games. Ubuntu comes with/can install a ton of small games, but my first person shooters must reside on Windows. Not really Ubuntu’s fault.
4. Problems with WEP. I’ve run into some problems connecting wirelessly to WEP-encrypted hotspots with Ubuntu. I’m not sure why.

There really aren’t too many dislikes, and mainly it’s just problems with moving from Windows. I have been searching for software to replace what I use in Windows.

• Internet Browsing: Firefox -> Firefox
  I was already using Firefox, so it’s not big deal. It’s great that all my settings and plugins will transfer just fine.
• Email: Outlook -> Thunderbird
  A big deal for me was being able to access Hotmail from an email client. I’ve had a Hotmail for a long time, and when they threatened to cut off Outlook access because people were using it for sending spam, I was able to keep mine since I had it for so long. Using the Thunderbird extension WebMail, I’m able to use Hotmail.
• Calendar: Outlook -> Lightning for Thunderbird / Google Calendar
  I haven’t really played too much. I think I’m just going to move to Google Calendar and have it sync with Thunderbird, so I can access my calendar anywhere. The only wildcard here is my Palm Treo, which I’m not sure if it will sync with Thunderbird yet. Ubuntu does seem to have support for Palm devices though, because there is an application in the menu.
• Launcher: Launchy for Windows -> Gnome-Do
  It’s pretty much the same thing. These launchers save me immense amounts of time.
• Word Processing/Spreadsheets/Presentations: Microsoft Office -> Google Docs / OpenOffice.org
  I’ve been using Google Docs almost exclusively for the past two semesters and it works great. My favorite thing is the ability to work on something on my desktop, close the window, go to class and open up my laptop and start right where I left off. For some of the things that are not support by Google Docs, there is always Open Office which works very well.

All in all, I think it’s very usable, and I’ve had no major problems the past week. I enjoy it and think everyone should try it out. Go here and download the ISO file, burn it to a CD and reboot your system with the CD in the drive to try out the Live CD. You might like it.

Tags: free, linux, opensource, software, ubuntu, windows

About this time of year, I search OSU’s site for websites of the classes I’ll take next semester. Why? Because when the classes are finished, hopefully professors will have posted review material, homework solutions, exam solutions, guides, etc. Usually classes change and previous semester’s data may be irrelevant, but it’s still useful to have something for reference, or at the very least, to know what kind of projects are coming down the pipe.

Here’s how to find your classes:

1. You can look up your classes using the online course listing found here.
2. Now go to Google and use the “site:okstate.edu” modifier to limit your search to just OSU’s website. See an example. Here are some possible search terms to use:
   • Class Name (example) [note: it’s always helpful to put search terms in quotes to match the term exactly if the term is more than one word]
   • Professor Name (example)
   • Class call number (CS-4343) (example)
3. When you’ve found a site, right click > save as to save as much info as possible. Or use a site mirroring tool such as HTTrack Website Copier to save all the site data.

That’s it!

Tags: class, osu, School, semester

If you have a broadband connection, you can probably watch TV over the internet. I have a media PC set up in my living room that runs Joost. While the programming may not be *quite* prime time just yet, it does provide some good entertainment. When I first joined about a year ago, Joost only ran small, 4-5 second ads and some small overlay ads in the corner occasionally. Now they have full 30-sec commercials (which often repeat…argh!). They also have overlay ads that (sadly) take up almost a quarter of the screen now. But even so, it is free.

There are many channels to explore on Joost. They have a few mainstream shows and clips of shows. There some old stuff too that’s nice such as the original Star Trek, Twilight Zone, and MacGuyver. They even have the old Transformers cartoons. I’ve found myself watching some of the poker and cooking channels (yes I know, they go hand in hand!). Until you don’t have cable, you don’t realize how unnerving it is to not have a TV in the background. This helps fill the gap.

One of my biggest gripes is that the keyboard controls are not very good. I have a wireless keyboard so I’d like to be able to completely navigate Joost sans mouse. It is somewhat usable, but it seems switching shows is near random. I’d also really like to see the ability to change the text size, since the show info is unreadable on my standard-def TV.

All in all, Joost is pretty cool to play around with. It’s open-beta now, so anyone can join. I’ve never really noticed too much of a slowdown while using Joost, but you probably better make sure you’re not using any other bandwidth-intensive programs. The internet is the future of TV.

Tags: internet, joost, tv

Today I got to see Steven Levitt (co-author of Freakonomics) speak at OSU today. His talk was very good and  he didn’t give a total synopsis of the book. He talked a little bit about his next book, Superfreakonomics. I’m glad I crammed my schedule to see him, and best of all…I got my book signed!

Tags: book, freakonomics, speech, talk

The wedding site is up! There’s lots of information about our wedding here.

Tags: launch, project, site, wedding

I think with my generation, you can do anything with the original Super Mario theme and it’s automatically awesome.

Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles – Watch more free videos

Tags: cool, mario, video