January Bandwidth

In	56.50 GB
Out	6.46 GB
Total	62.97 GB

Here we are, in Month 16 of capped internet usage (incidentally, Comcast's alleged bandwidth monitor is still absent from my account page). January, apparently, was a heavier use month, although off the top of my head, I'm not sure why. Aside from what looks like a couple of big movie days (although one on a Thursday is unusual — did I download something that day?), the overall usage seems to have increased a bit.

It could have something to do with my getting a new Zune media player and subscribing to several audio and video podcasts. The added bandwidth might be enough to cause an uptick in general activity.

It's interesting that I can't seem to identify a single definite cause, though, and yet data consumption has definitely increased. It could be evidence that, as we become more dependent on the internet generally, usage will just keep going up without even realizing it, and what seems like a reasonable cap today may be restricting tomorrow. Or it could be that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation that my geezerly brain just can't recall. Or it could be just a fluke. We'll see.…

Total Bandwidth for 2009

In	396.21 GB
Out	67.38 GB
Total	463.57 GB

I thought it'd be fun to get a yearly total for bandwidth, since I had the numbers available. The total is less than two months' worth of data allowed by Comcast's 250GB/month cap. It looks like all the HD video streaming in November definitely had a noticeable effect, though.

Bandwidth for December

In	34.09 GB
Out	5.93 GB
Total	40.02 GB

Numbers dropped way down this month, in no small part due to the lack of streaming a lot of HD movies on Netflix. In fact, one of the TV series I was watching had some episodes not available for streaming, and so I used my one-disc-at-a-time DVD plan to get the actual disc from Netflix.

The end-of-year spike comes from something new. I have been getting a "Zune newsletter" in my email, either as a result of playing with the Zune software a while back or the change of the Xbox 360 music and video marketplace to use the Zune marketplace. In this newsletter, they mention the occasional free song or TV show episode to download, and I decided I'd go ahead and check it out.

So, I installed the Zune software (which, while I've derided as a media player, is needed for marketplace browsing) and downloaded a few shows, like the Mythbusters holiday episode and a cartoon or two.

I also checked out their podcast section, and I found not only the two podcasts from GeezerGamers.com (one of which I actually co-host) and a couple other gaming-related podcasts, but a handful of audio and video podcasts from my church! So I subscribed to a bunch of feeds, which downloaded a few extra bytes. I just hope I can find time to listen to them in addition to the audiobooks I get from my Audible.com subscription.

31 flavors of Windows

I bought my wife an upgrade to Windows 7 for Christmas. There was a deal on the upgrade package to Windows 7 Professional when I placed the order for the laptop she was getting me. Now, according to what I've seen on the intertubes, and even according to the instructions that came with the upgrade, if you're upgrading from Windows XP, you have to do what amounts to a new installation, wiping out your existing XP software and creating a new Windows 7 system. However, if you're upgrading from Vista, you can do a simple in-place upgrade. Just click "Ok" a few times, and soon you'll have a working Windows 7 system, with all programs and software installed.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the installation process moved forward a couple screens and then informed us that you cannot do an in-place upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional.

Why do they confuse the whole issue? As far as I can tell, there are no real differences between the OS versions, just later versions have some additional features. Theoretically, they could sell just one OS and the extra features as separate products. But then I guess they'd have to put their other features (like BitLocker, one of the features in Ultimate lacking in the "lesser" versions) out on the market to compete with other similar products (like the free and arugably superior TrueCrypt), instead of trying to hook people in by bundling it with the OS. (Isn't this the same behavior that landed them in court in the 1900s over Internet Explorer? Maybe it's not an issue now because it's only "bundled" if you pay extra for the extra software.)

Choking on this particular upgrade path doesn't even make sense to me. Isn't Professional supposed to be a superset of Home Premium? Why couldn't the upgrade disc add features that weren't there before?

But choke it did, and now my wife is in the process of collecting the installation files and a list of all software she will need to reinstall, because Windows does not work as advertised or documented; Windows 7 will not upgrade in-place over Vista, if it is "uncomfortable" with the mix of flavors.

Indoor plumbing is not a new thing

Sometimes, I'm in the bathroom at work for more than a fleeting moment (I'll spare you the details of why), long enough to hear a few people (presumably co-workers, and tenants and guests of other offices on our floor) come in to do their business. It never ceases to amaze me how often I'll hear someone come in, relieve himself, and leave — without either washing his hands or so much as flushing.

I wonder what goes through their minds that causes them to not flush. Are they so proud of what they've accomplished, that they want to leave their creation for the next person to appreciate? Do they think they are just so important or in just so much of a hurry that the half-second it takes to push the little flusher handle is too much of a burden? And worse, is this how they behave at home, too? Are their home toilets full of their bodies' waste processes? Do they only flush once a day, or weekly, or at all?

And what of the lack of the washing of the hands? I had hoped that with the whole "swine flu" hype (which I think is probably way overblown anyway), people might be a little more conscious of wanting to stay healthy and keeping clean; and yet, here are people throwing cleanliness to the wind. This is even more annoying, considering that their lack of hand-washing is going to spread germs around, starting with the same door handle I'm going to be using soon to exit the bathroom myself, after I've already gone through the trouble of washing my own hands.

Seriously. Flush toilet, wash hands. These are not new concepts. These are not hard things to do.

Bandwidth for November

In	75.58 GB
Out	5.70 GB
Total	81.27 GB

This was a big month. Netflix had the Star Trek Original Series Season 1 collection available for streaming in HD. At the start of the month, they said it would only be available until around the 24^th, so I tried to make sure I watched all of it by then. (It was only after I managed to finish the series that they removed the deadline, of course.) So, November shows the effect of watching twenty-nine 50-minute episodes of streaming high-definition video (in addition to a handful of standard-def videos and movies here and there).

Managed to hit about a third of the cap.

Bandwidth for October

Received:	41.31 GB
Sent:	5.87 GB
Total:	47.18 GB

The first weekend was another General Conference broadcast from our church. We're making more use of Netflix as well. Sundays, since I don't play video games, I usually spend the night catching a couple episodes of old TV shows or movies. The kids like watching episodes of Mythbusters, too; and sometimes my wife will put on a Thomas the Tank Engine movie during the day for the toddler.

Most of it so far has been standard-definition video, though. As it happens, the first season of the original Star Trek is on Netflix streaming in HD video, but I noticed it is not going to be available after a date in late November. (Why the limited time, I wonder?) So I've been trying to watch as much as I can while it's available. We'll see what effect close to 20 hours of HD video has on bandwidth next month, and how close that comes to the ever-looming cap. Stay tuned!

Little of interest

Interest rates are at an all-time low. According to the little dancing ads that surround my Hotmail account, they are so low that President Obama is begging me to refinance my home mortgage. (He's also begging me to get an education loan to go back to school, and to lose weight by OBEYING ONE RULE.)

I actually find this annoying. I've already refinanced my home, so it's about as low as it's going to get for a fixed-rate mortgage. My vehicles are paid off (one, I paid cash for; the other was financed at 0% and was paid off last year). I am currently not in a position where I am borrowing money, but trying to save it. In addition to money withheld from my paycheck for my IRA, I have money automatically transferred each paycheck to savings accounts for myself (short- and long-term), and one for each of my kids.

Each of those savings accounts earn less than 1%.

I do have a brokerage account, but I try not to do too much with it, because any time I fiddle with it, I end up losing more money.

It is extremely frustrating when I'm trying to be financially responsible and saving money, yet the interest rates are so low, it's not worth saving any money. I might as well line my mattress with the cash.

Except, here's the funny part. As I'm going through my mail, I notice letters from my credit card providers, saying that they are raising my interest rates. These rates, that are allegedly tied to the federal prime interest rate, are already over 20%, and they're the only interest rates going up.

I suppose it's a good thing that I don't carry a balance and therefore don't pay interest (except for those rare occasions when they don't let me pay my bill and penalize me for "my" failure).

Maybe what I need to do is start my own credit card. Then I can earn interest that's actually worth something.