Endless Weather Is Scott’s Blog

Ok I have been a notorious AT&T hater for years. Back in the TDMA days I loved their service. About 5 years ago we tried their GSM service and it sucked, did not work in the house, the car or even a wide open field!

I had been wanting a iPhone for some time now the only thing holding me back was AT&T.   Well thanks mainly to Alltel adding roaming all over Nebraska the phone seems to work almost anywhere my CDMA phones were. Yesterday I even found some spots where EDGE was working and CDMA data was completely out of service.

The phone is truely the best piece consumer technology I have ever owned and I have owned everything.

I love my Blackberry don’t get me wrong but this thing just works and it’s fast! Doing anything on the bb is a trial of waiting….and waiting, sure it does most of what a iPhone will but how long can you wait? Also the applications on the bb never seem that refined, to start slacker on the iPhone is like a 1 click 5 second to music starting… The Blackberry is a good 45sec-1min to load then about 4 clicks to start the music.

I had REALLY tried to hold out for the Tour to get released but it just was not coming, seeing others Iphones I made the plunge.

Here are my pros and cons over my Blackberry Device…

Pros:

• Push exchange server without BES!
• There is a app for everything and they all load SUPER fast
• It’s a beautiful device you can’t ignore that
• Obviously it’s an ipod
• Video/Youtube
• Pictures are simple to take
• WiFi
• Everything I can do on my BB, Facebook, Slacker, TWC just more refined.
• IM+ does everything BB messenger did for me with my Gtalk account, something even google could not do on the BB

  Cons

• This device was obviously not built for Email, unlike Blackberry I can’t get a single screen with all the email from all my accounts on it, I really like that about Blackberry.
• Getting to my email accounts is not a fun task, way too many clicks to get to the inbox.
• You can’t customize the email notification sound!
• The battery life SUCKS
• I can’t say the keyboard is a plus, but I don’t HATE it. I wrote most of this blog post on it.
• Only one app at a time can be used
• No way to know if you got a new email without the process of opening the email box (IE Notification light)

Now lets talk about that one app at a time thing, I think this is to intentionally cripple the device from all the power it COULD be.

Apple has introduced “Push” technology in this version of iPhone software so you can still receive IM’s even if you don’t have the IM software open, this helps.  Personally I think the iPhone can only do one thing at a time to keep it from being EVERYTHING you need.  Obviously Henry and I both started playing with SIP clients immediately after taking them out of the box, but you can’t leave it running so no softphone for you!

You can load clients like GVOICE (the google voice app) to get free SMS from Google however it only works… WHEN THE APP IS RUNNING!

The Facebook app does all kinds of toys however once again no notification of new “Posts”

It seems all the apps play well on their own but don’t have enough hooks to the OS to truely be cool, for example if you take a picture on a BB it gives the option to send to Facebook.   To do this on the iPhone you will need to take the picture FROM the facebook app, or open it after you take the picture.    I don’t know if this is Apple locking the developer out of the hooks to make apps work with each other, or a simple oversight on Facebooks part.

In ending I love my iPhone 3GS right now… It’s a great little device and so far has not black holed me any worse than my CDMA curve, if your thinking about picking one up give it a shot!

So I have been getting some questions about “Server 31″ for ChaserTV
Thought I would shed some light on it, what in the heck would prompt us to post a picture in the rain with a server?

I’m not going to completely let the cat out of the bag on this one… lets just say there are some things you can’t do in the “Cloud” one of these being render video.
As everyone knows you need serious power to quickly render video, dual quad cores and more memory than all my PC’s combined should get the job done.
Something cool is coming real soon… STAY TUNED!

TARGET: Beatrice, NE Early Show - Kearney, NE Late Show
AUCTUAL LOCATION: Aurora, NE
MILES DRIVEN: UNK GPG: $2.59
CHASE VEHICLE: DBT MPG: 17!
IN THE CAR: Scott
CHASERS WE RAN INTO: Brandon Sullivan

Started the day with the pre-game target of Beatrice after lunch.  Ben Holcomb interrupted lunch with a “Get South!” phone call so I took off.
Aurora MIGHT have been Tornado #2 this day as I had a POSSIBLE intercept south of Wymore too.  You be the judge the Topeka NWS called to ask, there were multiple reports but I am not convinced…

Chased this tor warned cell into Kansas and into the only complete 100% data hole I have ever seen… Verizon and Sprint datacards both offline with amp even the Blackberry would not load a webpage!   Also I think I saw the TIV more than my family this week.  Although originally the storm had some of the best structure I had ever seen it was ugly as hell to the eye by the time it was at Seneca, KS so I bailed and headed to Kearney.

As I got to Lincoln and got stuck by a train the storm by Gibbon was looking NICE on radar… but could I get there in time?

I intercepted it around Wood River and another beautiful storm!   It lowered a few times and spun up nicely.  


Last thing I wanted to do was chase thru Grand Island so I stayed behind it on 30 taking the south route to Locust street.  At locust I noticed a report from Scott Weberpal and the rotation was crazy.  The rain was coming down good so I decided to avoid it by going to I-80.   Enjoy the video from I-80…

After chasing with Ben Holcomb on Friday in western Nebraska and seeing how well his Verizon card performed I was motivated to make the switch. Although the price of my Sprint card can’t be beat I am sick of seeing my Blackberry on EVDO while the datacard is still 1x.

Verizon had a new product called the MiFi router $99 after MIR, it’s made by Novatel wireless just like a typical aircard.
The purchase went pretty quick the Alltel/Verizon rep in training was having some problems getting the proper barcode scanned and us out the door, I was reminded about the 5GB data cap and how it was “more than enough” ha.

As we were leaving for what would end up as a cap bust I was excited to get it running, got it out of the box and a couple of instruction sheets included, “For activation see the quick start guide”… there was no such guide in the box.
The activation process was a complete cluster fu*k, made to be 10x harder than it should have been. The device is WiFi however you still need to tether it to the PC to activate it, the Verizon connection manager software was stored on the device so that was a bonus, the down side… A proprietary USB cable! WHY!!!

Come on everyone has 10+ of the typical USB cables around and yet they use this flat one, this is officially the 4th USB cable type in my collection now.

The device has a battery that seems to be able to easily power it for at least 4 hours, downside is there is no DC power supply. With the silly port you can’t even use a cell phone charger, only the USB or AC brick.
As an added bonus I could not leave my Sprint software on my machine with the Verizon, this really irked me since the Verizon card is WiFi and once activated it I would have zero use for the Verizon connection manager. Of course the device would not activate and took about a hour before we could get data flowing.

Performance:
There is no external antenna port! I knew this going in but I hoped it would all be good, it was not.
In well populated areas the device worked well, on a trip to southern KS I found myself resetting the device every hour to gain a connection, this is without streaming and only using GR3 and Spotterchat. My Spint card I can easily stream OMA to OKC without a drop so this was unimpressive.

The device can only WiFi 5 computers and would be ok for in a car, prob not for your house with devices like Tivo and so on there are no wired ports. The range is good as I can get most places in my house and use the WiFi.

In closing:
What I was really looking for was a all in one device that did not require a PC reboot every time it crashed, I achived that however the performance was so lackluster I have to say stay away.

Pick up a device such as the Cradlepoint router and a standard USB EVDO card, I think you will be much happier.
It’s going back to Verizon, and why the plastic is still on the device.

Pros:
Very small device, about the size of 1/2 a deck of cards
All in one
Wifi
Battery Powered

Cons:
No external antenna jack
Activation was far to hard
USB port is non standard
No DC powersupply (and as of this writing none offered)

TARGET: Ogallala, NE
AUCTUAL LOCATION: Kimball, NE
MILES DRIVEN: UNK GPG: $2.59 WTF?
CHASE VEHICLE: DBT MPG: BAD
IN THE CAR: Scott & Ben Holcomb
CHASERS WE RAN INTO: Too many to count

I wanted to get this video up ASAP, I have a ton of cool funnels in HD I will get up later!

[playlist id=1]

TARGET:  Red Oak, IA
AUCTUAL LOCATION: Marryville, MO
MILES DRIVEN: UNK   GPG: $2.10
CHASE VEHICLE: DBT   MPG: Unknown
IN THE CAR: Scott & Justin Tallmon
CHASERS WE RAN INTO: William Downs

Interesting chase!
Was not supposed to be interesting day however stuff started popping on the NE/IA line and it was about 4pm at work, called Justin since he lives down in that area and we both took off from Omaha to meet in Glenwood, IA.   Plan was to beat that storm to Red Oak and wait, we had time.

Got to Glenwood exit and it went tornado warned, we caught the storm and got some great shots.  This was Justin’s first chase where we did not only find blue sky!

We both enjoyed the trip, although no Tornado we did see some nice wall clouds, rotation and had a good meal thanks to a recommendation from William on a place to dine in Marryville.

TARGET:  Shamrock, TX
AUCTUAL LOCATION: All Over The Place
MILES DRIVEN: 60-ish   GPG: $1.89
CHASE VEHICLE: DBT   MPG: Unknown
IN THE CAR:Scott then rode with Ben Holcomb Day 1, Hans Schroeder, Steve Miller OK, Aaron Tuttle Day 2
CHASERS WE RAN INTO:Andy Gabrielson, David Drummond, Jesse Risley, Shane Adams and Bridget, Nathan Truinger… Convergence, you know the drill.

First off I want to thank all of my chaser friends for helping me out of a bad situation, the fuel pump in the DBT (New official name of the Bravada thanks to my son Nick) on I-40 not only did people like Nathan come to aid with a AAA membership but Ben Holcomb and David Drummond for letting me spend the day with them, and SMOK and team day 2.   Thank You!

There was a small victory in this chase as we did see a tornado on day 1, a very loose use of the term but it did meet the criteria.     Sitting in a cell phone data hole and it’s 30 second life span I don’t think it was ever reported.   Here is the video, note the pissed off cows and my cameo in the truck in the last few seconds.
[playlist id=0]

I did snap off some stills and Ben has my dash cam video so I bet he will publish some of that when he gets home.

Now why was this the Weekend Of Hell™?
I was going to go into this long rant about my weekend and decided on a cliff notes list, it’s one thing to total a vehicle, break a arm, windshield you name it…   this was not like that but a constant torture to me any anyone who came in contact with me for 4 straight days!

1. Caught speeding in Belleville, KS and not even chasing anything.
2. Found the nastiest Econolodge they have to offer (IE Wichita, KS Airport FYI)
3. Got to Waffle House in OKC just as everyone got DONE eating.
4. Had the fuel pump fail on DBT in El Reno, OK
5. Aircard on my laptop in Bens truck located in such a way data was basically impossible.
6. Broke the Firewire port off inside my laptop
7. Hat flew off under hell of a circulation with Oakleys on it.
8. Ben Holcomb tried to recover (Ironically I was holding the cam with the TVN stream on it at the time), skinned his arms up BAD when he fell.
9. Lost said Oakleys.
10. Next Day rode with Hans Schroeder , Steve Miller OK and Aaron Tuttle (THANKS!)
11. Had a phone system break at work in the heat of the chase.
12. Forgot the power supply to my laptop in Hans truck.
13. Had to take a PTO day to wait for a truck, no chase.
14. Fuel pump repair first price $962, then $890, final $559.
15. Had another phone system die on the way back to Omaha and no way to fix it, had to stop in Lincoln for yet another 2 hours to fix.
16. Leaving Lincoln for what should have been a uneventful last 45min drive, I-80 eastbound was closed at Waverly to Gretna and HWY6 was backed up.

So I am back in Omaha, here are some picks and others video, I will get mine up one of these days!
Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

There are not many shows I will go out of my way to see anymore but Monday nights are reserved for Chuck.

If this show has escaped your radar give it a shot, I don’t really know what to say makes it so good but it’s worth a chance in the world of non stop reality television.
My favorite part of the show lately has been the writers obvious obsession with one of my favorite 80’s movies, 1985’s Spies Like Us.

On SPU Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd play “Fake Spies” and via their haplessness save the day, much like Chuck does in this show.
A little know how and some good luck pull thru.
The writers seem to find a way to write exerpts into the show from SPU this week had 2 such scenes and next week is sure to hit dead on too.
If you have seen Spies Like Us, look for these throughout the series I will not give up last nights to avoid spoilers.

• Bug’s are called GLG-20, the rank that Chevy and Dan held in the movie
• The assistant manager at the Buy More is named Emmet Milbarge, a combination of Chevy and Dan’s characters names in the movie.
• The “Test Scene” is taken from the movie and used in the Buy More

I am betting you can find all the back episodes on www.Hulu.com please don’t let Chuck go the way of Firefly!

I figured I would open up a space on my blog for email I get, today’s submission is from an unknown party on my other website…

This is an enquiry e-mail
from: Your Conscience <wow@ctv.com>

Scott,
You are a Class Act… Keep up the originality! Thumbnails now huh? Where did you get that idea? I can’t wait to see that, nobody has ever done that before. Keep writing that code man!

I love your advertising campaign too!
The most advanced streaming system available to storm chasers PERIOD.

Wait, You forgot to put in disclaimer text that says: “All ideas and intellectual property stolen from SevereStudios.com”

How do you sleep at night? Honestly?

Sincerely,
Your Conscience

Wow, for the record I sleep well!
But serriously lets get to the facts, let me try and find the questions in this letter…

1. Thumbnails now huh? Where did you get that idea?
   I have seen this as long as I have been alive, you name it the best way to show many large items in one place is to use smaller pictures.
   I would guess Sears Roebuck And Company probabaly would get credit with their first catalog in aprox 1895.
2. I love your advertising campaign too!   The most advanced streaming system available to storm chasers PERIOD.
   Thank you!   I’m glad you agree, it is simply the best.    Has yet to crash, even in beta.
3. Wait, You forgot to put in disclaimer text that says: “All ideas and intellectual property stolen from SevereStudios.com”
   Ok I am a tad lost on this one, did SevereStudios invent streaming video?  
   Wonder what Mogulus, UStream, Justin.TV, TVN, every NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX affiliate on the planet did before Severe Studios showed them the way…
   Sounds like they should get with their lawyers and get them all shut down, ours will be waiting just incase!  (Ok not really)

Anyway time to close the mailbag so I can get back to work.
Do you have something for the mailbag?   Send it in!  scott@endlessweather.com
Make sure to leave your name so we can give proper credit!
If I use your letter you may just win a free T-Shirt!

I was getting a little crazy tonight since I almost have the website done for ChaserTV.com

Had a little sneak peak for those in the chat room, figured the least I could do is share with all 5 of you who read my blog.

So here you go, a nice screen capture of me in the office testing the new player and making sure all my code is up to snuff!    This is an example of a chaser profile page, you can use the WYSIWYG editor or be creative and put some HTML in, embed some YouTube, heck it’s your page!

Yes we will be up for streaming this weekend, but I will be out too so make sure to let me know if you want to stream!