My Sprint Novatel Merlin EX720 EVDO card has become nearly useless over the past year. It actually seems to work well — I clocked it at 1153 Kb/s down, 295 Kb/s up, ping: 84ms (to Los Angeles) today — but after a few minutes of use, it slows down to dial-up speeds.

Luckily, Roget works with these cards every day, and he recommended that I make sure my PRL (Preferred Roaming List) was current. I discovered that I was running PRL 20224, which is dated 09/18/2006 (!). Roget was surprised that my connection was even working properly, and said that I should be running a PRL in the 6-series instead of the 2-series. (read more »)

Example of a Smugmug gallery hosted within a Wordpress entry
(note Lightbox display of large image)

For some time now, I’ve been using Smugmug galleries combined with a hacked version of Adam Tow’s old WP-SmugMug plugin (hacked for Lightbox support) to show images within the Wordpress journal entries here on this site. Luckily, Adam has just updated his WP-SmugMug plugin to support Lightbox 2 and a bunch of other options. I upgraded my install and had it working within minutes. Give it a try — it’s really good.

Ever try to work on a ship that is listing starboard and being hit on the port beam by big swells?

I was inspired to make this video one night at around 4am while aboard the M/Y Steve Irwin on our way to Hobart from Antarctica.

Note for the non-mariner: we don’t use rolling chairs on boats.

Dinner at the Bursle residence in Sydney: Colin Jenkins, Don Kehoe, George Bursle, Ron Taylor, Valerie Taylor, Katie Elkington, Lachlan Bursle, Jayne Jenkins, Sharon, Sarah Bursle, Eric Cheng

Don Kehoe and I have finally made up to Sydney from Hobart, Tasmania after getting off the Steve Irwin. We spent the evening hanging out with friends, both old and new. Special thanks to all of the Bursles for the wonderful evening, to Ron and Valerie Taylor for hosting us, and to Jayne Jenkins for organizing dinner!