Sweet! It looks like my old team over at Microsoft finally got the first beta of MSN Mobile out the door! I worked on testing the underlying web services that run the site. It was quite a challenge in December all the way through when I quit Microsoft. We had to do a bunch of load tests that just didn't want to work right. Finally we realized that our load generation tool was just funky and didn't give us the right sort of load characteristics that the operations folks wanted to see. Anyway, I worked up until about 7:30pm on my last day to help them get over this hump and it looks like they finally pulled it off.

Well, don't just sit there, go check it out:. MSN Mobile Device homepage

If you wanna be fancy, just go to beta.mobile.msn.com and it will redirect you depending on fi you're a PC or mobile phone...I know, I know...oooo, aaaaah. But seriously, there are two pages geared towards different purposes. The PC homepage kinda gives you the gist of what you're getting yourself into, while the mobile page is where the meat of the whole thing is.

Other nice features: the site knows what kind of device you are visiting on and tries to resize images, and change the layout depending on your device's screen size. A good example of this is if you have a Pocket PC with flip out keyboard. You'll see that if you visit the site on portrait mode versus landscape mode, you'll see a slightly different layout.

Anyway, I want to give a shout out to my old team for getting this done and going from having the msn mobile project dropped in our laps to to a fully functioning site in pretty short amount of time (considering all of the msn specific hoops we had to jump through).

Looks like EVDO Rev A is right around the corner and while I won't be picking one up anytime soon (I'm 1 year into a 2 year contract with Sprint), I think as soon as my contract is fulfilled, I'm going to be on the prowl once again for this bad boy. Basically, it's like my current PPC6700 but it uses the fancy schmancy EVDO Rev A network. What's Rev A you say?

Rev A is basically true DSL speeds anywhere (well, anywhere your little Rev A compatible device can grab a Rev A signal). Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm enamored with my PPC6700 and the ability it gives me to get stuff done on my two hours of railway captivity each day. But I think I'll wait until next Xmas to pick this bad boy up with a Microsoft discount. Or maybe Windows CE 6 (and thus Windows Mobile 6) will be happily boxed and ready to go inside something like this puppy by then and we'll all have a very merry EVDO Rev A, Windows Mobile 6 Xmas 2007.

You can read more about this guy over at the very weird EVDO-coverage site. (This site is the most bizarrely blog/shop hybrid I've seen. It gives a lot of good info and hawks some of the most tech-drool inspiring products, but just be warned...you'll get lost in the forest of fonts, product nav bars, and cool EVDO info).

Whoa...sucks to be a Verizon customer...

New Oreleans to offer free WiFi! Ummm...WiFi? That's what the mayor of New Orleans thinks is going to bring people back to the big easy? How about levy system that doesn't flood?

See for Yourself.

Not to geek out too much, but I'm posting this on my MSNTV2 box using a Junxion EVDO to Ethernet bridge device. Talk about cool. I could just pack up the TV, MSNTV2, and the Junxion box I'm testing out right now and boom...road trip :) BTW, I'm streaming some Yahoo launch radio at the same time. No drop outs so far. Kudos to Verizon for their kickass EVDO solution (we've even been able to stream 300kbps video over this thing!). Ok, enough geeking out for now...

Anyway, back to your originally scheduled post... Last night Hongyun's parents headed to he US consulate in Beijing to try for a visitor visa to the US. They were able to get one without any problems! I was amazed since we've heard some horror stories. Anyway, we're brainstorming on ideas when would be a good time to bring them over and we're thinking maybe the holiday season would be good. Right after Hongyun finishes Fall 2005 at De Anza and we move into the holiday season I think would be a great time for them. First, it's going to be fa-reezing in China in the winter so being here will be much better or them. Also after this quarter, Hongyun should have more time to spend with them and take them around. We're thinking they can stay for 6 months so that'd mean they would be here until May or so which is nice.

Another option is to have them come here in Spring 2006 so they can spend the spring quarter with us which should be a very unstressful quarter for Hongyun since she will know her college situation for next year and won't have very many classes to take. Also, she'll be off all summer and we'll have a chance to move up to whereever she's planning to go to school so her folks will get to enjoy living in two different parts of the Bay Area. Anyway, we're both excited to have them come over...it'll be fun I think.

Remember the StompBox I really REALLY want to build. Popular Science drops their own version with battery pack! Just gotta carry it in a backpack. I should make it run off of a spare car battery in my trunk that gets solar/alternator charged. Oh to live the geek dream of having my very own roving hotspot...not until the money stops roving out of my banking account, of course.