I'm Baaaaaaack!!!!!

[Time to Paws]

Well I got my first WU in 6 months... You wouldn't believe how happy that made me...

For those that don't remember, up until last october my wife and I lived on our boat down in the Tampa Florida area.. Well, a company offered me a position up in Connecticut. It meant moving the boat to a marina that was not wired for phone or cable, so no internet. Well a couple of weeks ago I broke down and got one of the GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA cell modem services.

They say it can get speeds up to 1 Mb/s. Cause of living on the water and not near the cell towers, I'm lucky if I see 60Kb/s. Oh well.. It is enough just to be able to send work packages.

BTW I am running 5.04Beta on a SUSE 10.0 box.....

[Got EpOx]

Do you have any pictures of your house boat?

[Gizmo]

Hey TTP! Good to see ya!

[dabaerman]

welcome baaaaaaack. we need the extra folding power.

Ron

[chrisbard]

Is great to have you back, how are you guys/gals doing?

[alexkerhead]

Originally Posted by Time to Paws

They say it can get speeds up to 1 Mb/s. Cause of living on the water and not near the cell towers, I'm lucky if I see 60Kb/s. Oh well.. It is enough just to be able to send work packages.

BTW I am running 5.04Beta on a SUSE 10.0 box.....

Fold on!
Have you had a chance to try the newest version of ubuntu linux?

[Allan]

Welcome back, TTP! It is great to have you back with us, I bet you're quite happy about having Internet again. Must have been torture living without for so long.

Fold on, champ.

[Time to Paws]

Originally Posted by Got EpOx

Do you have any pictures of your house boat?

Actually it is a 1978 Endeavour sailboat (A ketch), it is 43' on deck, 14' beam and 20 tons.

Here is a pic of when we had it hauled last and one sitting at the dock this winter. Tell you after 6 years in Florida the snow was a rude awakening... They have to shrink wrap the boats up here or take them out of the water. Not many live-aboards (on their boats ) up here...

[MONKEYMAN]

Cool, whats it like living on a boat?

[danrok]

Nice yacht! I remember you syaing you were moving up north a while back.

I once helped someone rig their mast after the winter. My job was very simple, just steady the main mast and ensure that no rope gets trapped under it. So, we got it all sorted and I looked down at my feet and sure enough the rope was trapped under the mast!

[Time to Paws]

Originally Posted by alexkerhead

Fold on!
Have you had a chance to try the newest version of ubuntu linux?

Haven't had a chance to look at it. I've been running Suse since the 7.1 days and I found that I really like the way that they do things. I've got my desktop and laptop really tweaked. Changing to Ubuntu to would get me in a lot of trouble. My wife hates it when I even update the system

In the other OS forum, as soon as I get the time I'll post the info about using an aircard under Linux.

BTW Since I still have a problem with heat, which when I redo the nav station will get it out of the box, I still run the interrupt program to get the 50% CPU usage from folding. Don't know if the FAQ on Folding & Linux I wrote long, long time ago, is till around, but other then upgrading various packages (e.g. Suse 10.0, Folding 5.04) nothing is different from what I wrote (I think).

[Time to Paws]

Originally Posted by MONKEYMAN

Cool, whats it like living on a boat?

It's great... We don't plan on ever moving back to land. When we get to old for sail handling then we'll move to a trawler type of power boat.

There are some trade-offs though. can't get a server farm up and running. I'm not allowed to have computer stuff all over the place like I did on land. Having a phone line at the dock or cable is hit or miss depending on the marina. So internet access is a chance thing. But with the cell modem it's better the nothing. I am waiting for a pigtail to attach to the card that will allow me to attach to an antenna that, when the mizzen mast (shorter mast in back) gets put up will give me 40 feet height on the antenna. Hopefully this will give a much stronger signal strength.

You are also much more aware of things like power. We have 2 thirty amp power cords (in port of course), so on the house cord if the hot water heater, coffee pot and microwave are on at the same time.... At sea we'll have an inverter to run the computer

BUT I don't have to yard work!!!!!!!

[Daniel ~]

Great to have you back TTP!

How do you like your new job? What is your new job? ":O}

In 5 years you'll have full access mid ocean at bandwidth we'd all envy today...I bet cha! ":O}

[Toro]

eeeeeyyyy, welcome back to the fold TTP

[Time to Paws]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Great to have you back TTP!

How do you like your new job? What is your new job? ":O}

For a job it's great... I am a computer engineer for Electric Boat, working on the control systems for submarines. Kinda cool, as I spent almost all of the 20 years I spent in the Navy serving on subs. So this was kinda like coming home. Except it is own the other side of the fence and I don't have to go to sea on them for 3 months at time anymore and with signifcantly more money

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

In 5 years you'll full access mid ocean at bandwidth we'd all envy today...I bet cha! ":O}

It can't come fast enough...

I still have to go to my daughters to do OS upgrades..

I was looking at the specs on a cell phone booster that along with an antenna high enough can give you cell phone access out 45 miles or so. Which would give me access to the internet out to the Bahamas. Satellite phones are also availble if you got the money, and I here the speeds aren't really good. BUT they are good anywhere I would ever go...

[Got EpOx]

What kind of satelite speeds are available do you think?

[robbie]

Originally Posted by Time to Paws

BTW I am running 5.04Beta on a SUSE 10.0 box.....

So am I!!!
Welcome home my friend!! Welcome home.

[Time to Paws]

Originally Posted by Got EpOx

What kind of satelite speeds are available do you think?

That depends on how much money you got

The Inmarsat BGAN network is 384 Kb/s but the box to make it run is around $1900 then you have the per minute charges:
Voice and background internet is $40 a month and $6.95 per MB. According to one website background internet is no guarentees on speed or Qos

So I think it will be awhile before I can do this type of service.

For land based use there are a few (Hughes, Blue..Something) that offer internet on a dish like you'd get for TV signal. They run about $300 for the equipment, $80 a month for service of ~1.5Mb/s. The problem with them is since they are on a shared bandwidth systems they all have some form of caps (either speed or data per month).

That's why I ended up using the GPRS type of cell service. As they improve the service areas the speed should improve with no caps.

As soon as you get "off the grid' things get more difficult and your options are not as plentiful. But it's worth it to not live on land!!!!