*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

 Listen To This Episode 

http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-20-windows-azure-the-overlord-in-the-cloud/

It isn’t everyday you get to talk to an Overlord but in this episode we did!  In this episode we talked to the Overlord of Windows Azure, Steve Marx.  Steve gives us the scoop on Windows Azure which we renamed to the Overlord in the Cloud.  We found it much more fitting. 

In this episode we break down Azure and discuss what it is, why you might want to use it, cost, availability and much more.

Enjoy.

How To Listen To The Show

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

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2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

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The new Xbox Experience launched yesterday.  I got up early in the morning to update the system and play before walking to work.  Overall I like the new experience, it definitely has a more social appeal to it and things are more discoverable.   

Last night, Ellen and I sat down to make our avatars.  This turned out to be tougher than expected because, honestly, there weren’t enough basic options.  For example, there was only one page of noses and only a few mouths.  Ellen and I went through every option on the menus and this is the best we could come up with for me.  My picture is at the top of this blog, so I’ll let you be the judge as to how close we were able to get.

We  then started working on Ellen’s and I think we were able to get a better resemblance with her.  Here is hers. 

If you are curious as how to get your full body avatar here is the secret.  You go to this link:

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/{YOURNAME}/avatar-body.png

By the way, my Xbox handle is “Z0rka” (that is a zero not an oh) and Ellen’s is “Sonata109”.  Friend up with us if you like.

AT&T recently announced they were going to support tethering for the iPhone.  I am sure a lot of users are happy about this move, I know I am as that has been the one thing that has stopped me from not getting an iPhone and to this day is why I continue to use my Blackjack II.  This announcement, coupled with a reader commenting on a previous article about whether I would recommend tethering the Blackjack II if someone traveled 70% of the time, got my curiosity up.  Thus I started to dig in. 

To answer the comment from the reader, in my opinion, that much travel would warrant more of a dedicated device.  Curious I went over to the AT&T web site to check out the AT&T USBConnect Mercury device they’ve been advertising for months now.  You know the one, the one that Bill Kurtis finds the Internet with?

Right now the device is free after mail-in rebate. Here is a screen shot for posterity sakes.

If you walk through the shopping cart the next thing you have to do is add a data plan.  Currently only one plan is available and the monthly cost today is $60 / month which gives you 5GB of data. 

Currently AT&T offers a tethering option for phones like the Blackjack II and others.  Both the tethering data plan and the USBConnect Mercury use the same calculations, 5GB to start with and then so much for additional data.

Pay Attention!

Ok, here is the kicker to this that a lot of people probably won’t pay attention to.  The additional data cost is:

$0.00048/KB

Here’s a snapshot of the value from AT&T’s web site (for posterity):

Someone may read this and go, cool, that sounds really cheap.  There are a lot of zeros in there.  But don’t be fooled!

The key here is they measure cost in terms of KB (kilobytes).  For those that don’t know how this works, there are 1,024 bytes in a Kilobyte.  To put this into perspective, if you visit the home page of http://www.amazon.com, you will download roughly 300KB to load the page.  As you can see, this is a really low level of measurement, really we can only go one step lower and that is to just measure bytes.  

There are 1024KB in a Megabyte and 1024MB in a Gigabyte.  Thus our formula for calculating how much it would cost a consumer that downloaded an extra GB (gigabyte) of data during the month by either tethering an iPhone or using the USBConnect Mercury is as follows:

1024(KB) = 1MB
1024(MB) = 1GB
Cost per KB:  $0.00048

1024 * 1024 * .00048 = $503.31

$12/GB for First 5GB, and then $503/GB After That

Can you just say wow?  I couldn’t believe this when I added this up.  I was in so much disbelief I had a few programmer buddies calculate this as well. 

It would make more sense logically speaking for AT&T to say they gave you 5GB at $60.00, and then if you use another GB, then it is going to be $11.99.  But that would be too easy to calculate.  For some reason AT&T thinks they can justify charging $503 for one GB of wireless data, yet sell you others at $12 a GB. 

For those that are thinking they can use their iPhone any and everywhere as much as they want, seriously, be careful!  These words of wisdom aren’t just for iPhone users, but for anyone tethering a device to AT&T’s network like the USBConnect Mercury or other mobile phones that is a heavy user and traveler. 

 Listen To This Episode 

http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-19-looking-into-the-c-crystal-ball-with-charlie-calvert-and-bill-wagner/

This show continues our PDC 2008 run and includes two interviews.  One with Jason McConnell, the Product Marketing Manager for Surface, and the second interview with Charlie Calvert and Bill Wagner about C# 4.0. 

Enjoy.

There are several ways to listen to Deep Fried Bytes.

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

When you visit the site look for this:

Clicking the triangle will launch the Yahoo! media player and automatically start playing the show for you. As long as you leave the browser window open the player will stay open. Clicking off the page WILL stop the player!

2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

3. Subscribe to RSS Feed

To stay current and up to date with the show, subscribe to the site’s RSS Feed. If you don’t know about RSS feeds you can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

If you already have an RSS reader installed and setup, click the feed icon below to grab our news feed.

 Listen To This Episode 

http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-18-pdc-2008-podcaster-roundtable-with-stackoverflow-and-herding-code/

PDC 2008 was a blast and as previous noted Deep Fried Bytes was there onsite recording live!  We talked about meeting up with fellow podcasters before PDC and finally on Thursday we were able to put together a podcaster round table session together to recap all the events from PDC. 

Joining us on this show is Jeff Atwood of Stackoverflow and Jon Gallow, Scott Koon and Kevin Dente of Herding Code.  We are doing something a little different with this episode.  To help everyone cross pollinate listeners, we posted the first part of this conversation to Deep Fried, and Herding Code is posting the second part of the show on their site.  It is a great show, we cover lots of announcements from PDC and everyone weighs in with their own special take on the events.  Enjoy.

There are several ways to listen to Deep Fried Bytes.

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

When you visit the site look for this:

Clicking the triangle will launch the Yahoo! media player and automatically start playing the show for you. As long as you leave the browser window open the player will stay open. Clicking off the page WILL stop the player!

2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

3. Subscribe to RSS Feed

To stay current and up to date with the show, subscribe to the site’s RSS Feed. If you don’t know about RSS feeds you can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

If you already have an RSS reader installed and setup, click the feed icon below to grab our news feed.