Chad Things

Yesterday I upgraded my macbook pro to Leopard, the latest OS X operating system, over a year after Apple released it.  Whew.  It took me 4 days to organize, clean and backup my stuff (over 200GB), about a day to figure out how to install leopard without a bootable DVD (see leopard dmg install), and less than an hour to do the actual install.  Why now?  Not because of all the new features, but because I wanted to develop an iPhone app. Stay tuned for more on that.  Yay.

After a fresh install, here’s what I add/customize:

• Firefox 3 [Free] - fast, but I love that it remembers all URLS and you just type any part of the URL or Page Title and it shows you dropdown of possible matches.  Also love these firefox add-ons/plugins: greasemonkey, web developer, firebug, live HTTP Headers, more.
• iLife ‘08 [$$] - new iTunes (love the Genius), new iPhoto (love the auto-grouping of events), and more.
• Adobe CS4 [$$] - gotta have Photoshop, Acrobat, Indesign, etc.
• VLC [Free] - best media player out there - avi, mpg, mp3, mov, wav, etc - i love “hot keys” -† its FREE
• Xee [Free] - Excellent gif/jpg viewer (don’t *need* this in leopard)
• iSquint [Free] - convert digital camera movies from big file sizes to smaller for upload, sharing, ipod, or iphone.
• Transmission [Free] - bit torrent client, so you can download movies, tv, games
• Handbrake [Free] - Rip DVDs - in one-step, create .avi movies for ipod, iphone, etc.
• iStumbler [Free] - helps you find a good wifi signal when you’re not home or office.
• SuperDuper [Free] - easy way to back up your entire laptop to external drive or network.
• Chicken of the VNC [Free] - if you have a windows or linux box, put vnc server on it, then install this vnc client on your mac, and now you can control your windows from mac!

How to install Leopard from a .dmg file - My Constraints:

• Leopard not on DVD, only 7GB .dmg file
• Tiger is available on bootable DVD
• Cannot boot on USB or Firewire drive

I am providing this because some of the more popular methods did not work for me.  If the following does not make sense, read this original guide and the digg comments on it.  Here’s an overview followed by notes:

1. Prepare.  Backup all your important files, docs, iTunes library (split itunes library), iPhoto library (split iPhoto library), etc on an external drive or network drive. Make sure you 7GB leopard install .dmg is handy (on your backup drive is fine).
2. Create a 2nd partition, 8GB or larger, where we’ll put the leopard install .dmg, then we’ll boot from that and install leopard onto big partition, see NOTE below.
3. Prepare 2nd partition as a bootable Leopard Install option, see NOTE below.
4. Reboot, hold down ALT, pick leopard install boot option, Install leopard on 1st partition - I recommend erase and install, but you can also upgrade.
5. Optional: Merge 2 partitions together - Caveat: I have not done this - delete 2nd partition then resize partition.

NOTE: Creating 2nd Partition in Tiger

Tiger’s “Disk Utility” application creates Apple Partition when I re-partitioned it, with no option for creating a GUID partition.  On Intel mac’s, you need GUID partition in order to boot the drive and to install tiger. However, http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1600 said to “erase” partition and it would be given GUID paritition - This also did not work.  What did work is using the command line program diskutil, which you can run from the terminal application.  Example of what I did


% diskutil partitionDisk disk0 2 GPTFormat HFS+ Big_Daddy 224GB HFS+ leopard_install 8GB


NOTE: Preparing 2nd Partition

Many web pages said to use “Disk Utility” to restore .dmg as source and the newly created 2nd partition as destination.  This did not work for me, and as apple support states, sometimes disks cannot be dragged to destination in “Disk Utility” from Tiger DVD.  So I installed tiger on the first partition (erasing it first) in order to get a working “Disk Utility”.  Now dragging disks worked but whenever I clicked on “restore”, “Disk Utility” gave error 2, 16, or some other number. What did work is mounting .dmg file (use hdiutil or just double click it), then using the command line program “asr” from terminal.  Example:


sudo hdiutil attach leopard_install.dmg
sudo asr restore --source "/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD" --target /dev/disk0s3 --erase


In hindsight, this should all work from terminal app from Tiger DVD right at boot - you should not need to reinstall tiger.

A few days ago I mentioned I upgraded wordpress and picked a new theme. Today I am reporting the last piece - getting the latest and greatest plugins. I scanned some of the most popular ones and did some digging on my own. I must say i’m disappointed in the wordpress guys for making it so hard to find plugins. You can only search for plugins based on tags, but when there’s thousands of plugins to review, I would want to be able sort different ways. For example, I would love to see plugins in the top 10% in number of downloads, that have been updated in the last year, have at least 3 stars, at least 20 reviews, and match xxx tag. That would be great.

These are the plugins I found and liked.

• Akismet comment spam - comes by default, keeps spammers out of comments.  Great.
• Add To Any - lets people bookmark, email, digg, or do something with your post in a good way.
• flickrRSS - puts thumbnails of my flickr pics tagged “best of” on my sidebar.  Who doesn’t like pictures?
• Viper’s Video Quicktags - make it easy to embed video in a blog post, supports youtube, vimeo, flickr video, google video, dailymotion, metacafe, etc.
• Ultimate Google Analytics - This puts the GA code on every page, a must for detailed info on your site.
• Google XML Sitemaps - creates a sitemap.xml file to help search engines, scripts, and what nots find everything on the site.
• All In One SEO Pack - make it easier for people using google to find your posts and web pages.
• Search Everything - like it says, covers everything when user does a search from your site
• WP-Cumulus - makes a cool sphere of words, which are my categories on my site.  just fun
• WP-PageNavi - makes a nice page navigation at bottom.  For example, if somebody searches for iPhone and there 10 pages of results (about 10 per page), this lets users jump to page 10 right away.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) - Best of the “related posts” plugins.  Intelligent algorithm and more configurable than most.  Basically lists similar posts at the end of a post page.
• PageMash - reorder pages as they appear at the top of the blog, including parents (My Page Order doesn’t do parents)
• Search Results Summary - OK, not a plugin, but code I wrote to simply list results at top so you don’t have to scroll down to see what the results are. Works well with PageNavi.

There’s a few more I’m evaluating (like statpress vs statpress-reloaded vs wassup … last.fm .. podpress, etc) so expect an update in a week or two.

A few I tried but deactivated

• Slimbox - cool javascript that lets user see a nice big picture when a thumbnail on your blog is clicked.  Problem is when user clicks a thumbnail, I think it should act like a link and goto picture page.
• Twitter Tools -Doesn’t allow you display tweets from certain people, this mainly lets you update your own twitter account
• Wordpress Gravatars - My theme, Inove, does avatars better (matches theme)
• Wordpress Related Posts - Not as intelligent or as configurable as YARPP above.
• WPVideo, Youtube Favorites - Not as good as Viper’s Video Quicktags (Vipers does youtube and more).

As mentioned in my previous post, I upgraded wordpress and am using the Inove theme. I chose it because it looks clean and has basic functionality (most wordpress themes do not). When I say clean, I mean I like the use of black, white, and grey colors, I like the fonts, I like having posts be black on white with the background of the page being grey (anything but white, helps focus attention to the posts). I also like the simple search box in the header, I like the small simple icons like green dots for lists, calendar icon, categories icon, tags icon, comments icon, etc. I like how how tables are done, pre format is done, and a few other things.  However, it is not perfect for me.  So …

Things I changed included

1. Fixing bug where tag icon appears even if a post has no tag
2. Moving categories and tags to the top of posts - I prefer having all the meta information in one place.
3. Moving RSS code from top of sidebar.php to bottom
4. Removing non-widget code from sidebar.php - If a widget is not chosen for N, S, E, W, defaults are shown like archives and categories.  I don’t want 2 categories, as esserd said. If I want something, I will use widgets.
5. Tweaked styles.css to add padding to bottom of lists (.post .content ul,   .post .content ol)
6. Changed header on search results and archive (tags, categories) from 2 lines to 1 line.

Overall great theme.  Thanks mg12!!!  Also, check inove forum for other issues.
UPDATE: You can find my changes in inove-1.0.5.diff.tgz, preview the readme or diff.

Geek Warning…

I’ve been wanting to update chadnorwood.com for a while, so over the weekend I upgraded wordpress from version 2.3.x to 2.6.3 and picked out a new theme.  First I did a wordpress export of my blog as a backup.  Then the upgrade was done using hostmonster’s fantastico deluxe, an automated installing system in cpanel.  Some don’t like fantastico, but it took me 10 seconds to do the upgrade with no problems.  Success.

After the upgrade it took me almost 4 hours to figure out why my category links were broken.  WTF? Basically under 2.3 I had my permalinks setup so if the URL was http://chadnorwood.com/tag/travel/ wordpress would show posts under the tech category.  So I upgrade to 2.6, and Settings-Permalinks show “tag” as the “Category Base” but /tag/travel is broken - no longer works in 2.6.  Of course I didn’t think about changing this till I examined the mysql database tables, dug through thousands of lines of terrible wordpress code, and googled every phrase combination related to this I could think of.  In the end, I reverted back to the basics and it all worked.  I still had to resolve the 404 issue of the old tag links, which I did using template_redirect.

Picking the theme took even longer - but that was more fun.  I basically viewed about 50 of the most popular wordpress themes, downloaded and installed 10 of them, activating one at a time and testing them for functionality and style.  Only 4 seem to have all the basic functionality working correctly, and even tho I liked the wood in State of Mind, I went with the Inove theme. Inove is more clean and shayna thought the wood one was too academic.  I also tweaked Inove .. but thats in the next post.

Overall the wordpress 2.6 is not much different.  The admin pages look cleaner and are better organized for the most part, but the db has changed and some stuff is broken so I would only recommend upgrading if there was a specific theme or plugin that needs 2.6.  I really love the plugins and themes - the number of great choices makes wordpress much better than all the other blogging platforms. It’s not perfect, and the documentation could improve alot, but these wordpress guys are still actively working on making a better blogging software which is a very good thing.

Before I upgraded to wordpress 2.6, I had URLs using tags like this:
http://chadnorwood.com/tag/travel/

After I upgraded I realized I liked categories better (they can have parent categories).  So no more tags, all categories, but the problem was that google (and others) still link to /tag/travel/ which ended on a 404 page. Since I had no tags, I decided to redirect all my  /tag/xxxx to /cat/xxxx - I also prefer /cat/xxx to /category/xxx, which I changed in Settings-Permalinks.  Here’s how I did the redirect exactly:

Add the following to the end of ../wp-content/themes/<current_theme>/functions.php file

// added at the end of functions.php file, in my current theme's directory
add_action ('template_redirect', 'check_for_tag_404');

// custom function to redirect old tag links to new cat links
function check_for_tag_404()
{
$pat = '/^\/tag\/(.*)$/';

// return if this URL does not begin with "/tag/"
if (!preg_match( $pat, $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])) return;

$uri = $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
$uri = preg_replace( $pat, '/cat/$1', $uri);
$location = "http://" . $_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] .  $uri;
header("Location: $location");
exit;
}

Big Ups to this template_redirect dude for giving me a clue.

This summer the 2.0 version of iPhone software came out, and lots more apps with it. It had some problems, so I waited till 2.1 was released. Overall the OS doesn’t seem much different (some new features, but also new bugs and a bit slower running things, at least on my non-3G non-GPS original 16GB iphone). However, there are ton more apps in 2.x, which is why you should get it. None are as cool as the basic features of the iPhone - phone, internet, ipod, and maps - but the apps are definitely worth checking out. I tried to make my list practical and useful for today, avoiding apps that would be great if only something somewhere did something also as well.

2008/12 UPDATE:  I upgraded to 2.2 and its not much difference.  I do love the new voice search on the google app - best ever - including easter eggs. I’ve also slightly changed the list below from the original post.

So forget my old list of free iphone applications, here’s my new favorites, best ones first:

1. Shazaam (MUSIC) - AWESOME. Ever heard music and wish you knew then name or artist? This app can listen and identify most any song in less than 20 seconds - from radio, your friend’s CD, or that one track on that hour dance mix you downloaded. Midomi is a similar app that tries to do more but needs to work on errors.
2. Nuevasync (CALENDAR) - OK, Not an app, just awesome for those who use Google calendar. Using iPhone’s Microsoft Exchange support and the default calendar app, setup a instant 2-way auto sync with Google calendar. Changes made to Google calendar can be seen minutes or seconds later on the iPhone calendar app, no manual synchronizing required. Likewise, edits in iPhone calendar show up seconds later on your google calendar. How to setup Nuevasync.
3. Google Mobile (SEARCH) - At first, I had mixed feelings with this one, mainly because its slow (you type 5 characters but it can take 3-10 seconds for them to appear, since the app starts to search for matches after 1 or 2 characters). However, it definitely saves time. In addition to being a shortcut to google results page on safari, its a shortcut to google maps, remembers previous searches, suggestions, and you can search iphone contacts. Google made a nice overview video. I love voice search in newer version.
4. Movies (ENTERTAINMENT) - If you like the box office, going to theaters, or just getting info on movies, Get This. This would be my favorite app if I still went to the movies - they are just too expensive. Best feature is finding showtimes for theaters near you using iPhone’s location, as well as remembering your favorite theater.  But I also love watching the trailers, finding out the biggest box office hit, and connecting to IMDB. Showtimes is a similar app.
5. Evernote (PRODUCTIVITY) - Ever wanted to record a voice memo? you know by talking not typing? Get this. Not only is this great for audio notes (up to 5 mins), but it also does picture (with text recognition ability) and text notes, rounding it off with a very advanced search. Picture notes are perfect for receipts, wine labels, or anything else with text that you’ll want to have later. Major problem is that it does not cache notes on the iphone - so if you are on an airplane or in a dead zone, you’re screwed. review.
6. reQall (PRODUCTIVITY) - Similar to Evernote, it lets you write text notes and record audio notes (up to 30 secs), no pictures, but will translate audio to text (can take a few mins). ReQall focuses on organizing notes (almost to the point of confusion), but - here comes the best part - it stores notes on both iphone and the web! (it appears to have 2k limit on text note, about 30-40 lines). No more worries about dead zones, which makes this app better for me. Still, took me a few tries to figure out how to use it. Also see Zenbe below. review and quick-start guide.
7. Facebook (SOCIAL) - Best interface to Facebook, I especially love the simple list of friends, news feeds, inbox, and update status.  Get this is you wanna give great facebook.
8. UrbanSpoon (MAPS/FOOD) - Find restaurant near you. Very fun, fast, and easy (cities covered)
9. Where (MAPS) - Brings up a map of where you are, then plots the closest starbucks, places from eventful, places with yelp ratings, gas stations, zipcar, local search, buddy beacon (like loopt) and more. I just wished their map zoom in/out/drag was as fast as google maps.  It also times out alot.
10. Loopt (MAPS/SOCIAL) - If you have friends with iPhones and want to share your location with them, get this. It’s great when you’re out on the town. works with GPS and non-GPS iPhones
11. Weatherbug (WEATHER) - More details than the default Weather app, including wind, chance of rain, and the ability to have more than one source for a city. For example, find highs/lows for SF downtown and the airport (which can vary by ten degrees).
12. Stanza/eReader (BOOKS) - Both are good if you want to read books on your iPhone, nailing down the basics like easy access to books you’ve downloaded, turning pages while you’re reading, jumping to a certain chapter or page, searching for text, tweaking color/font. Both have tons of books, all the classics, but could impove ways to search for books. I like Stanza slightly better because… you don’t need a login, a few more settings to tweak, more books available even tho eReader has DRM (copy-protected) books and stanza does not. Check out stanza - review1, review2.
13. ESPN Cameraman (FUN) - Picture game - find 5 differences between 2 similar pics, like that bar game “Photo Hunt”
14. Brain Toot (FUN) - Simple but fun game that tests memory, eye coordination, thinking, etc.  Also check out Brain Blaze for more brain exercises.
15. Aurora Feint (FUN) - Game similar to tetris or jewel quest.
16. Klick (PICS) - Flickr app. Does a good job of allowing you to upload a new or old photo to flickr, giving it title, description, tags, and location/geocode info.  In addition to upload, you can view your recent sets, tags, recents from contacts, search, etc.

Below are ones I tried and kept, but don’t use very much

1. Remote (MUSIC) - Apple’s way of controlling your computer’s iTunes from your iPhone. It’s great if your computer’s iTunes is less accessible than your iPhone, but when i’m listening to iTunes on my computer, my computer is more accessible.
2. Banner Free (FUN) -Scroll a message LED style across your iPhone.
3. Scribble (FUN) - Turn iPhone into a blank canvas and your finger into a pen and scribble. Or, instead of a blank canvas, scribble on top of a picture from your photo album. Kid Friendly.
4. Tap Tap Revenge (FUN) - Simple game where you tap to the music, kinda fun with two players, but gets old.
5. MazeFinger (FUN) - arcade style game, cool sounds and graphics, but simple and kinda boring.
6. RJDJ Single (FUN) - plug in headphones, and RjDj will tweak what it hears for you. Make it fun to walk down the street. faq. The free version comes with only one scene, and it sux - it basically echos then environment, but even with headphones at full volume you can’t hear much. Paid version seems more interesting. youtube.
7. NYTimes (NEWS) - read NY Times articles. Nice UI, I like browsing news categories, but crashes alot
8. NetNewsWire (NEWS) - read RSS feeds on iPhone, including blogs and major news feeds. I prefer Google Reader on the PC.
9. WritingPad (PRODUCTIVITY) - new way of typing. Instead of tapping each letter, you draw words, going from the first letter of the word on the key layout to the second to … the last. It works pretty well, but you can only use this interface to take notes, you can’t use it anywhere else. Why learn a new way to write when most of the time you have to write the old way?
10. Jott (PRODUCTIVITY) - Once setup, it will turn 1 to 15 second audio memo into text and email it to you. Not always accurate, but accurate enough to make it great when you need to quickly jott stuff down when you’re driving or don’t want to type. I will prolly remove Jott since ReQall also translates audio to text, but reQall is also not always accurate (and slower at translating than jott), so I’m holding on to this for now.
11. nxtb.us (MAPS/TRANSPORTATION) - bart/muni arrival predictions in SF, check out flash video on http://nxtb.us/
12. Trapster (MAPS/DRIVING) - alerts you to speed traps. Useful to locate speed traps on regular driving routes like a commute, but not something you would leave on while just driving around.
13. Twinkle - Twitter for iPhone but with location - find out what people are doing within 5 miles of you. Cool in theory, but i barely twitter and know nobody in chicago. setup could improve.
14. Shozu (PICS/SOCIAL) - shozu is the uber social app - talks to 50+ sites, sharing info back and forth.   If you spend lots of time updating various social sites, definitely check it out.  review. I don’t use it cuz it often has errors talking to flickr or facebook, my two most used apps.

Below are ones I tried and uninstalled.

1. VoiceNotes (PRODUCTIVITY) - Just records audio notes, but had no timestamp. Evernote does and offers much more.
2. Zenbe (PRODUCTIVITY) - Simple list manager - sync’s with web, which i love, but reQall does everything Zenbe does plus has voice to text translation. Sorry, you get the boot!
3. Rember The Milk RTM (PRODUCTIVITY) - Another list manager, similar to reQall, and tho its free to download you got to pay to use some web service. You get the boot!
4. YouNote (PRODUCTIVITY) - Similar to Evernote, but its not easy to backup notes or sync with the web. Dealbreaker for me. However, if you use notepad alot, this is a nice upgrade. review.
5. Exposure (PICS) - another flickr app, Similar to Klick but no uploading. Free version has ads (Boo).  Latest version (November 2008) crashes alot when i try to login to flickr (I login to yahoo, authorize app on flickr.com, then tap ‘done’ on iphone and Exposure crashes).

Need To Spend TIme On These

• Pandora (MUSIC) - stream music
• last.fm (MUSIC) - stream music
• Fring (SOCIAL) - chat with friends on Google Talk, AIM, Skype, MSN, Twitter, etc. And make phonecalls for free using wifi/VOIP (prolly great if you travel internationally).
• IM+ (SOCIAL) - another IM client
• linkedin (SOCIAL) -

NON-FREE Noteworthy Apps

• Air Sharing $5 (UTILITY) - Turn your iPhone into a wireless USB drive using wifi. Also a image/document viewer. I have this and have geek friends who love this.
• Things $10 (PRODUCTIVITY) - list manager (Todo, etc)
• Notebook $5 (PRODUCTIVITY) - todo list manager
• Syncbook $4 (PRODUCTIVITY) - another note sync manager
• Byline $4 - RSS Reader, syncs with Google Reader, better than NetNewsWire.

References

• http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/mowi/article.php/3773366/Top+Ten+Free+iPhone+Apps.htm
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/10/iphone-application-overview-and-demo-videos/
• http://mashable.com/2008/10/24/iphone-apps-revisited/
• http://www.didigetthingsdone.com/2008/10/21/top-5-iphone-applications-for-productivity/
• http://www.lifehacker.com.au/tips/2008/11/07/battle_of_the_iphone_task_managers-2.html

If you use Firefox and Google (which should be everybody reading this), then here’s your chance to geek up yo google search.  Install greasemonkey and my “Google Search: Keep Date Dropdown” script.   If you’ve used advanced search on google, you know you can search for stuff based on date - like show healthcare results only from the last week/month/year.  It takes several steps to get to that advanced page, but then you get a nice date dropdown box. However, if you pick “anytime” on that date dropdown box, the box disappears.  Then you gotta go do a bunch of steps to bring it back. That’s where my script comes in - that date dropdown box is always there. Here’s a picture of the dropdown box followed by my official description.

On Google Search, you can search the last week/month/year from advanced search, which creates a date dropdown box on the search results page. Once you search “anytime”, the dropdown box goes away. This script keeps that dropdown from disappearing (when as_qdr=all)

I know, I’m a geek.  I save so much time with little shortcuts like this.  Enough time to write a blog about it. Weeee!!!  Here’s more cool greasemonkey scripts.

Did you know Caller ID can be faked, legally?  For example, Annoying dude can call your mom and fake it so your mom thinks the call is coming from you.   There are even businesses that exist to serve this annoyingly evil purpose.  Relief is in sight - there are bills (not yet laws) outlawing “any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information” - more at wikipedia.

My iPhone has recently been receiving harassing calls from one number - 904-954-3072 - up to 4 times a day, for like 10 days now.  I’ve only answered a couple times and I hear nobody on the other side.  I’m not the only one - some say it’s Citicards debt collectors but most think it’s a scam. My guess is caller id spoofing.

UPDATE 10/14/2008 - It probably was Citicards.  I recently moved, and didn’t update one of my credit cards with my new address.  I talked to citibank and she said they do have a service that automatically calls if bills are not payed.  I asked why they don’t talk when you answer the phone or leave voicemail messages.  She said they don’t leave messages in case phone number was changed, and as far as not talking when you actually answer and say hello .. well, she said there’s a problem with the system.  I told her it was annoying to get the calls and she agreed, but they would stop in the next few days.  CITIBANK IS LAME.

I recently moved to Chicago from San Francisco and, of course, had to figure out how I was going to get me some internets from my new pad.  In SF we found free wifi from the neighbors, but in Chicago we had no such luck - all the neighbor wifi signals were secure (encrypted).  That was fine by me, I was ready to have my own fat pipe at home - both shayna and I would get annoyed in SF when our free wifi wasn’t working or forcing us to sit by the windows.

I was also interested in getting HD cable or HD satellite TV. I haven’t had anything besides over-the-air since 2003, but i bought a nice HDTV from a friend that needed some HD content.  Plus Shayna wanted to get a landline so she could do some work over the phone without eating too many minutes on her cell.  So off i went to find internet, cable/satellite, and phone.

I first looked at comcast, the most popular around here, and they offer all 3 - internet, HD cable, and phone.  But I wanted quality HDTV, and I know comcast HD is not as good as others (comcast quality march 2008).  Also, I was pleased with Dish Network when i had it in 2003.  Some sports nuts like Direct TV better, but that ain’t me.  So now i just need to find me some internets.

Finding a Internet service provider was a bit more challenging.  According to dslreports, there were many offerings in my zip.  However, many said they did not offer service at my address - including RCN, verizon, etc.  Covad was available, but starting at like $100/month. Ouch.  Speakeasy was a good choice, one of the most reliable and best customer service, for about $55/month for 1.5/384 or $95/month for 3.0/768.  Ok, also high but more doable, but i figured i should also consider comcast.

Comcast had many options, but here’s a quick summary of the triple play i considered.  All these have the same cable options, about 200 or so cable channels, including 40 or so HD channels, a HD DVR (like tivo), which was $4/month more than normal DVR, and internet.  Total was $132 for 6.0/384 internet plus cable and HD DVR, or $140 for 8.0/384 internet, or $159/month for 16/768 Internet.  I also read many horor stories about comcast changing the price on their customers .. one guy got a $30 increase on his monthly bill.  Comcast?  I don’t think so.

In the end I went with AT&T.  At first their website said they did not offer service at my address, but some blogger said that you should call to double-check.  I did, and they did have ‘manual’ service at my apt.  The nice lady at ATT had many deals, including combos not on their website, so i’ll just list what i ended up getting - cheaper than comcast and they even partner with DISH for my area (U-Verse, their new TV over internet option, was not available for my location).

Notes: $5/month off DISH cuz AT&T deal, $10/month off internet cuz i got a phone line.

Initial costs were .. -$110.  Yep, I walk away with $110.  Breaks down like this: $40 for phone (would be free if i got $30/month free long-distance phone), plus $50 for internet modem.  Dish equipment and installation are free.  Thats $90 in costs, but i also get $200 cash back - $100 for internet/phone, and $100 for DISH.  So $90 costs - $200 cashback = -110.

My contract is for 24 months, but only DISH charges anything if i cancel early - $10/month.  So if i cancel at 14 months, 10 months before contract, i pay $100 to Dish.  If i want to move at 12 months, DISH will install my same setup at new spot for free (DISH offers one free installation per 12 months).  Pretty sweeeeet !!!

UPDATE - 6 November 2008:

I got .. misled on initial costs.  I only got $100 cash back, not $200 ($50, not $100 for each check), and costs were $70 for internet ($50 modem, $13 shipping, $7 tax), $47 for phone ($64 first bill minus $17 monthly), putting my initial costs at about $17 (still not bad, but $127 less than I was told.).

But what i’m really pissed at is the billing chaos.  More important than the errors and confusion, was the amount of time it takes to sort this out.  I spent about 4 hours total on 4 different occassions dealing with AT&T customer service.  Their managers seem competent, but do not trust anyone else.

The first billing confusion was based on the fact that I was told that I get free outgoing calls within 15 miles.  A manager at AT&T Customer Service assures me there is no such thing, and tried to sell me an outgoing call package deal.  No Thank You, Ma’am. Secondly, DISH is all sorts of messed up .. took 3 calls to sort of straighten it out.  See this picture with details on DISH Bill.  Basically they give you lots of credit on first bill to cover first and second bill, and the third bill should look normal. Did you look at that Bill?  what’s so hard about saying “TOP 200″, “Local HD”, “HD Silver” ???  One thing nobody mentioned is that they charge you $5/month if you don’t connect your DISH receiver to phone or wifi - “ADDL RECEIVER ACCESS FEE”.  What?   .

Overall the monthly is not far off - hopefully it will stay that way:

Related - I found a nice comparison of HD channels available nationwide.