asty.org – Page 2 – the homepage of Chris Allegretta

Spectrum’s 10 channel ‘TV Choice’ is the Real Deal (if you can get it)

Posted on March 3, 2018March 4, 2018 by chrisa

Click here to skip my Doofenshmirtz-level backstory and right to the review

Let’s be clear: there is no better feeling than the day you break up with your Internet/TV/Phone provider and cut the cord. Every cord cutter knows what their breaking point was. Mine came when I called Verizon this summer to try and get a better price than the $120+ I was paying for (to be honest, decently fast and pretty reliable) FiOS Internet along with an assortment of cable channels we almost never used. But I started to wonder more and more as the bills came rolling in: is that reliability worth such a mark-up, when Verizon was recently offering Internet-only plans for $40 for new customers (and …

New site

Posted on January 22, 2018January 24, 2018 by chrisa

Decided to add some throwback graphics (circa 2002 – who needs transparent images!) to the new site, and moved providers. Thanks for the great and fast setup DigitalOcean!

I also re-posted one of my more famous (or at least notorious) articles on the PINE license from 2001, When Non-Free is “Free Enough”…

What’s up with nano?

Posted on June 23, 2016January 24, 2018 by chrisa

As expected, the recent state of events where nano transitioned maintainership to Benno Schulenberg, and the project left GNU, has a lot of people speculating about what happened, and more disappointingly, making some pretty nasty assertions about motivations. I want to try and give a brief update on them to hopefully calm things down.

I was mandating copyright assignment from Benno. False. What happened: In an effort to transition maintainership to Benno, as he was clearly far more capable and available than I have been for some time, I tried to get him added to the GNU maintainers list to peacefuly transition the project to him. A private thread ensued between myself, GNU, and Benno, and what came out

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A/UX 2K14 Notes

Posted on February 17, 2014February 8, 2018 by chrisa

Since AUX Penelope has been shut down, I’m going to jot down some details about where you can get A/UX software and commands you need to get going with your shiny old A/UX system.

Hardware:

At this point you want a full 68040 Mac like the Quadra 650, 700, 800, or 9xx, they can still be had on eBay relatively easily. If you want to use a luggable you’re stuck with an SE/30 which is B&W. Get yourself a decent amount of RAM and a supported CD-ROM.
KB/Mouse: Any ADB KB & mouse you can find should work like a champ. Im toying with picking up the GeeThree PS/2->ADB adapter so I can eliminate the old physical mouse as my

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MVNOs Part 2: For you Sprint and Verizon users

Posted on January 4, 2014January 25, 2018 by chrisa

In my original article I let you know what options there are for those of you who wanted to switch to discounted phone provider (also known as an MVNO) in the US to save some moolah, but I focused mainly on carriers who operated on the AT&T and T-mobile GSM networks. Since then I’ve gotten some good experiences with two other MVNOs and wanted to share my findings; one for all those of you who think you HAVE to be on Verizon’s network (and if you live outside a major Metro area you’re probably right). And another which seems to be redefining low-cost quality cell service and combining cellular and wifi calling working on your cell phone amazingly well. So …

Contract-Free Unlimited Android for $50. Time to move to an MVNO!

Posted on October 15, 2012January 24, 2018 by chrisa

Update 2013.02.21 – I recently ported back to Straight Talk and have found that I can no longer seem to successfully make the forwarding call required to use GVoice for my voicemail. Lame! One less reason to pick them I guess. The carrier table should be updated accordingly. For those interested, I also signed up the the Republic Wireless $19/mo unlimited program today, and I’ll put up an article about this service once I’ve had the chance to kick the tires.

I recently read JR Raphael’s excellent article Android off-contract: My prepaid journey, 3 months later and thought to myself “self, we definitely need more prepaid customers. But the described setup only gets you 100 minutes a month!” Normal humans …