The coordinated blackout of several highly used websites, including Wikipedia, appears to be working. The NY Times reports that Republicans in the Senate, even ones with star power like Marco Rubio, have backed off their support of the bill, and even the House GOP is getting nervous.

Speaking of the House GOP, I don’t think Buck McKeon has ever had so many tweets pushed his way:

I don’t normally sign on to these types of campaigns, but it would have been fun to black out SCVTalk for a day.

Protecting legitimate copyright holders is one thing; allowing studio and music lawyers to break the internet (by killing DNS, which would then mean you’d need to know the IP address of a site like SCVTalk) is whole ‘nother thing.

It’s refreshing to see “new media” exert its influence and power via the blackouts. A proud day for bloggers vs powerful old media titans and their lackeys in Congress!

Update from Congressman McKeon:

The Congressman’s office emailed to tell me he opposes SOPA as it is currently crafted. Here’s his quote:

“Today my offices received an extraordinary amount of calls and emails from constituents concerned with the SOPA bill.  I have listened to these concerns, and if taken up for a vote on the House floor I would oppose SOPA in its current form.”

SCVtalk has been on the case of the new Apple store, ever since breaking the news back in February. Apple seemed amused by the coverage, so they extended an invite. Jeff had some Carmageddon-avoidance plan that had him out of town, so he put me on the case.

So we’re clear, the only computer I’ve ever had at home, work or school has been a Mac. I’m in the tank for Apple, always have been. My family bought its first Mac, a Mac Plus, the year we moved to Valencia way back when. It’s been a long time coming, and for people like me, this is a big deal.

At 10 a.m. yesterday, the doors opened and the new Apple Store at the Valencia Town Center was in business. The line snaked around the building, stretching past the Five Guys entrance on the opposite side. I spoke with Michelle Heid of Valencia, who lined up with her son Ty at 9:30. She’s been a Mac user since high school and she was thrilled to finally see Apple set up shop in the SCV. The line moved briskly, and Michelle and Ty made it inside by 10:15 or so.

Each of the first 1,000 customers got a free commemorative black t-shirt, packaged in a crafty sort of box. At 11 a.m. sharp, the queue had emptied and nearly all of the shirts were gone.

It seems that wherever 100 or more people congregate in Santa Clarita, the Chick-Fil-A cow appears, with his handler issuing coupons. It’s not enough that the first wave of customers scored a Valencia Apple Store shirt, but free chicken as well.

The store is striking, as Apple Stores tend to be. It’s a long space with high ceilings and there isn’t a cash register in sight. Employees scan credit cards and email receipts with specially-fitted iPod touch units. If you pay in cash, they’ll make change from cash drawer that’s built into a table. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Not only that, the signs that used to display features and pricing have been replaced by iPads that run a product information app. You see fewer printers and software has all but vanished, limited to about 20 titles. Apple now sells software over the internet, directly through an application in its latest operating systems. The effect of this is striking – the only titles on display were tent-pole titles like Adobe’s Creative Suite and Microsoft Office, since neither is available on Apple’s App Store.

Customer engagement is a big deal here, and at times, it seemed that there were almost as many employees as customers. Of course there’s a Genius bar in the back, where they handle tough questions and repairs. There will be a regular workshops open to the public as well as a camp for kids who want to learn more about working with music & video on the Mac. It’s also the first Apple Store with Apple’s new “Startup” tables, where employees get customers up and running on their new computers, iPhones and iPads.

Speaking of computers, in the past, the centerpiece of the Apple Stores were its most powerful computers – maybe a Mac Pro (their most powerful line) driving two 30-inch monitors, loaded with professional audio and video software. But out of dozens of computers on display, just one is a Mac Pro. Recently, Steve Jobs compared computers to trucks and mobile devices to cars, suggesting that there will always be a market for trucks, but most people will prefer a car. Apple is still very much in the truck business, just not monster trucks.

By chance, I ran into Nathan Miles, the owner of Valencia Mac on his way out of the store. Nathan was in good spirits, holding his head high and proudly sporting a Valencia Mac t-shirt. He’s a big fan of the Apple store – his own shop takes may cues from Apple’s look and feel. He carries many of the same products, save for the iPhone, and he’s a creative professional, as many Apple customers tend to be.

It had to be a nervous day for him, but he’s always expected Apple to come to Santa Clarita. In fact, he expected to see it happen sooner. He’s optimistic that the new store is a blessing in disguise, as the user base of Mac users in the SCV increases. I know from experience that his shop can give a personal touch that’s different from a corporate store. But at the same time, Apple’s stores operate in a way few retailers can match.

In all, it was a big day for the SCV, and bigger still for geeks like myself. Now if we could only get a decent coffee shop…

All photos © Nathan Imhoff

The benefits for you, the user of that social networking site, include having the ability to easily “Like” something here (don’t you like everything on here anyway?) and automatically post it to your profile. I would not see what you like (or even know who you are), unless I was friends with you before hand.

UPDATE: To address a comment, I don’t think other Facebook users on this site would see what you “Like” unless they were friends with you.

The benefits for me, as webmaster, would mean -possibly- more readers of SCVTalk as you and your social network view, comment and/or trash the posts here.

The benefit for that massively powerful social network site is that they will soon have inroads into SCVTalk’s literate, highly educated, and witty audience, and they’ll be able to display ads and products tailored to your digital profile (food, bicycles, BBQ for those of us in Newhall and Valencia, sleeping pills for Stevenson Ranch, and mudflaps and rifle racks for Canyon Country readers.)

The drawbacks?

I can’t think of anything. Except it’s all kinds of creepy how powerful the social networking site is becoming. And I don’t like how it’s “opt-out” instead of “opt-in.” That’s why I’m asking for your input first.

So what say you? Would you like the ginormous social networking website to connect to SCVTalk?

Santa Clarita Transit gave SCVTalk an exclusive all access pass to preview the enhancements:$2.8M worth of technology and operational enhancements to their fleet, dispatch, and routing systems. The final phase will be released to the public within the coming weeks.

The project, known as “Transit Information Network” (TIN), provides information to SCTransit staff in real time and serves as a vital tool for the City to actively manage the network.  Transit staff use the tool to pinpoint and address problem areas in the service, such as late or off-route buses.

SCTransit managers have been using the system to manage and improve routes for the past few months (notably improving on-time performance from 85% to 92%).  Now TIN is ready for its public debut, offering passengers instant status updates on any bus serving a given route.  The public will have the ability to access bus/route information in a variety of ways:

LED Signs – providing bus arrival times on a three line display posted at 10 bus stops and terminals

BusTV – Flat panel screens found at the transit center and Metrolink station will display extended service information (should be live by the time you read this).

TIN route data that will be displayed on flat panel screens

BusFinder – Simple push-button terminals providing next bus arrival or destination, giving passengers route options.  This will be the most pervasive of the physical terminals.

Self service – TIN will be accessible via touch-tone phone, web, and iPhone (we validated the web interface will work on most any smartphone, but there will be an iPhone-specific interface to boot).

TIN's real-time reporting allows Transit staff to monitor and respond to route exceptions.

Transit coaches report location information every 20 seconds. Each green dot represents a ping from a coach, containing time, location and speed; the gray halos are scheduled stops.

Analysts can zoom to a specific street and reported location.

Each bus has a GPS, computer and modem on board.

The white hump and "shark fin" are the radio and GPS antennae components specific to TIN. The system communicates via a radio tower on Oat Mountain (or cellular when the buses are out of range).

In comparing the SCVTV preview of some of the infrastructure from November 2009, it was obvious from my tour the full scale go-live is now just a few short weeks out.  Six months ago, the BusFinders were still in boxes.  A significant chunk are already at a number of stops, due to blanket the rest of the service area by the end of June.

Bus stop numbers are marked on the poles all around the SCTransit service area; those stop numbers offer quick access via the web interface.

A preview of the mapping interface that will be accessible to riders via the web.

After an extensive RFP process that began three years years ago, SCTransit sourced the system from Connexionz Ltd, a New Zealand-based provider of transit systems.  The same system is in place in a number of global transit systems, and is currently being installed in the SF Bay area, as well.  The total value of the SCTransit TIN project is $2.8M.

SCTransit is also working on interface to Google Transit for route planning and reporting.

TIN has a robust analytical reporting suite that gives SCTransit a wealth of information that can be aggregated across multiple dimensions, including route, driver, day of the week, etc. – insight that is used to continuously improve the quality of the transit service.

Connexionz of New Zealand provides both software and hardware for TIN.

The shade structure shown will be extended to cover most of the yard and outfitted with solar panels. The panels are expected to provide 90% or more of the facility's energy consumption.

SCTransit has made a series of serious improvements to its fleet and service.  The main facility boasts honest-to-goodness green credibility.  The fleet is dominated by cheap, abundant, enviro-friendly compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered coaches.  Fares are now collected via cash-free TAP cards.  The innovative Commuter service offers near door-to-door transport for most commuters. Beyond improving communication with riders, TIN creates a positive feedback loop into the service, promising better efficiency and service to its riders.

Despite all these changes, unfortunately a material number of Claritans still refuse to take SCTransit, even for the portion of their errands that falls in the sweet spot of the service.  Like an over-achieving sibling to the car in your garage, it seems no matter what SCTransit does, it’s just not enough for this group of people.

Their loss.

What’s the SCV Connection you say?

It was done at Soundman, a local car audio specialist on Bouquet Canyon Road.

Pretty cool hack if you ask me though I’m not sure how visible (or useful) an iPad will be in the dash of a car.

Check AutoBlog.com for more info including a video on how the talented guys did it.

I will preface this acronym-laden post by saying this project is not for the faint of heart, particularly in households with more than one individual. I’d like to thank Mrs. NickelDime and the NickelDime children for their patience and support of what would be considered sheer madness in many homes.

Last week, I canceled our cable TV service from AT&T.

There were a few drivers:

1) Cost savings.
2) Utilization. When we took a close look at the recorded programming on our DVR, it represented a tiny portion of the content we paid for.
3) Movement of content online. Directionally, more and more programming is available via the internet.
4) Over the Air High Definition broadcast (OTA-HD).  The quality is rumored to be amazing. Jeff’s post piqued my curiosity on the availability of over-the-air HD – particularly since his father was able to receive it, which is contrary to the widely-held belief that OTA-HD is effectively non-existent for those in the SCV.
5) Cost savings (have you read my screen name?).

On #4, I spent a few nights digging into OTA-HD technology and the specifics for our valley.  I came across a forum post that discussed the very issue of obtaining OTA-HD in my zip code (91354), wherein one of the responses included this revealing animated graphic of signal strength by major channel, provided by the kind folks at tvfool.com.

From this map, it’s clear that the Cross Valley Connector is doing more than shuttle our residents from one side of the valley to the other – the position of the foothills, circumstances of the elevation, and sheer luck are all in play: OTA-HD straddles Newhall Ranch Road. Don’t treat this map as Gospel: it only loosely correlates to reality and will vary based on the elevation, direction, and position of your home, both favorably and unfavorably.

An Antenna (or two)

The "Terk test"

With Jeff’s good counsel and a shot of optimism, I obtained a simple Terk amplified antenna to determine the availability of OTA-HD at our home. If I was so, ahem, endowed, I would take the next step and get a larger antenna. If I wasn’t so endowed (a state which doesn’t bother me one bit, BTW), I would return the antenna to a gracious retailer and continue pondering the challenge.

I plugged the antenna into a Costco-esque HDTV with a built-in tuner (very important; there are also varying quality tuners — more on this in a bit)… Eureka! The OTA-HD motherlode was mine for the taking!

The tabletop antenna proved we were able to receive at least the major networks.  I consulted der Helmet, who after a brief moment of disbelief, advised it would be prudent to proceed to the next level of antenna – a Yagi.  BTW, going from a Terk to a Yagi antenna is like going from a Vespa to a Ferarri.

I obtained my Winegard Yagi antenna from Ted Lewis of Ted’s Master Antenna, located in SFV.  Ted surveyed our location and used a fancy signal meter to determine our ability to pull OTA-HD.  He validated the Terk test and said we would likely get between 30 and 50 channels with the Yagi.  Ted built a mast, painted our antenna to match the home, mounted it, and fed the signal using existing conduit we had installed for the HDMI connection between components and TV.  What about HOAs (the ones that Valencia is world famous for), you say?  They can pound sand.  The Telecommunications Act of 1996, the same law that prevents HOAs from restricting compact satellite dishes, protects homeowners and renters with antennas, as well.  However, the Act suggests residents need to take reasonable steps to conceal an antenna, provided it doesn’t inhibit its function.  Ted’s spray can took care of that, and it’s on the side of our home with very limited visibility from the street.

Most cable TV (or U-Verse, Dish, DirecTV, etc) packages offer the benefit of an integrated DVR.  One option is to have the OTA-HD antenna go into a TiVo-type recorder, but that requires a monthly subscription.  I opted instead for a home theater PC (HTPC) setup to manage TV show recordings, the guide, internet TV, Netflix, YouTube, SCVTalk, or any other content to display on the main TV.  I purchased a SiliconDust “HDHomeRun” dual network tuner to tie the antenna signal to the HTPC, along with an extra large hard drive and a fancy keyboard/mouse remote control.  The rig also has a more familiar IR remote that operates exactly the same as AT&T’s U-Verse remote.

The Asus EB1501 has a built-in DVD player (not Blu-Ray... yet). The Wii and my hand are not included.

The Asus comes with this IR remote and a full size wireless keyboard/mouse.

Lenovo makes this very cool keyboard mouse combo. Interface via USB RF.

The DVR function in Windows Media Center has a very intuitive interface.

After installing the HTPC and network tuner, I did a channel scan and verified 47 channels with the Yagi.  Some key channels were spotty; Antenna Ted added a special HD pre-amp to the rig to compensate for some loss in splitting the signal into a dual tuner (a must have for certain evenings when two great shows are on at the same time). After the pre-amp was installed, a re-scan showed 67 channels total.  Of those 67, 5-10 are weak or unwatchable, and another 30-35 are non-English.  The remaining ~25 are crystal clear and the content is surprisingly good (if you’re curious, here’s a channel line-up, click “Change my Location”, plug in your zip and select “Broadcast” as your provider).

A still from live TV. Images are extremely crisp, no artifacts nor obvious pixelation. The image shown doesn't do the live experience justice.

A still from a recorded program, which introduces more pixelated images due to the compression of the recording.

A bonus of using an HTPC is the integration of your own content. I selectively eliminated both Yanni and Kenny G from the partial display of my collection.

Despite its low power consumption and low-end CPU, the HTPC referenced above has an excellent graphics processor, an HDMI output, and 7.1 Dolby Digital audio outputs.  All that, Windows 7, and a DVD player for less than $500.  As a Media Center PC, it also serves as a home base for the family pictures, all our digital music, movies, etc – something your cable provider can’t do.

If you have doubts about the ability of a small computer to display an HD signal on a large screen, here is an image of recorded TV displayed on our 52″ Samsung 1080p LCD TV.

Due to extensive investments in home theater tech, sacrifices in cell phones were obviously made. Blackberry shown for size reference.

Does it meet expectations?

Mostly yes.  There have been some teething issues with the new setup, generally pertaining to usual PC-type problems – computer going to standby, dreaded Windows updates, etc.  But nothing we haven’t overcome.  The content available over the internet is spotty and depends on a number of factors (your bandwidth, server bandwidth, content encoding, to name a few).  Although most programming on your cable TV is available online, it is generally at a lower frame rate (so it appears stuttered or choppy) and the sound is mono or stereo.  Cartoons and shorts are OK, but nothing comes close to OTA-HD thus far for image and sound quality.  I suspect that will change over time, but in the interim, the OTA content is sufficient.  One could easily pair this solution with an inexpensive Netflix subscription to bridge most of the gaps.

After two full weeks, we unplugged the U-Verse box but left it in the family room.  A week later, the call I was waiting to make finally transpired.  Side note: if you want to save a few dollars on your cable TV bill without going through all this hassle, just threaten to leave.  I was transferred to three different departments each offering a “better deal” in an attempt to convince me to stay.  Unfortunately “free” was not one of those options.

All in, the antenna, HTPC, tuner, accessories and labor cost just under $1,000.  If you’re so inclined, you could have most of the same functionality for about 25% less by doing the antenna install yourself.  With our cable package + HD + DVR, we were spending $80 per month with U-Verse.  So the payback is 10-13 months.  Those are roughly the same cost dynamics as buying a mower, edger and blower in lieu of hiring a gardener – without the sweat.

Will we last a year with this setup?  I hope so.  If not, I have an antenna and HTPC to sell you.  CHEAP.

Pros:

• Monthly savings pays off investment in roughy one year’s time
• Better picture quality than cable, satellite, or U-Verse
• New and different channels (some of which you may not care for)
• Adds media center functionality, such as pictures, music, movies in a central location
• TV and recorded programming available on laptops, TV screens, and portable devices
• Ready for a transition to more content via internet

Cons:

• OTA-HD not available for all Claritans, and some will get a varying number of channels
• Requires an up-front investment of time and money
• May involve an increase in internet bandwidth to supplement OTA-HD content, for example with Netflix
• Internet content quality varies greatly
• Technical learning curve not for the faint of heart
• Requires the support of others in your household

I must say that 2010 has been quite different from 2008 when it comes to Santa Clarita City Council elections and the web. In 2008, just about every candidate had a website. This time around, that’s not the case.

Maybe that’s because people are using Facebook more now to organize, campaign and spread information. Myers has already covered the “FriendGap” between various candidates on Facebook (Laurie Ender recently started a fan page for Frank Ferry to close said gap).

As all the hip cats know, Facebook is little more than the AOL of the 21st Century and Santa Clarita’s move to that platform makes an open-standards browser/www guy like me cry a little inside, so I welcome Weste to the web in 2010.

Now if our City Council candidates could have caught on to Twitter in time…Maybe in 2012?

ON THE WEB:

www.GoWeste.com

www.reelectmarshamclean.com

www.TimBen.com

www.DavidGauny.com

www.HarrisonforSantaClarita.com

All that made me wonder, just how fast is Santa Clarita now?

Let’s find out. Follow the steps below:

1. Close all of your PC’s open browser windows, streaming media programs (like Windows Media Player, Zune or iTunes) and just leave open SCVTalk. Make sure no one on your home network is watching Netflix or streaming audio
2. Click this link: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ , a popular broadband speed test website
3. Choose “Los Angeles” as your location to test from
4. Let the test run
5. With your download numbers in hand, vote in the poll below

What the numbers mean:

My internet provider is AT&T Yahoo DSL. I’ve had them for about seven years and well, they aren’t advancing with the times. I get about 2.43 megabits per second download speed and 430,000 bits upload speed. A megabit should not be confused with a megabyte. A bit is about 1/8th of a byte. I can download files, in other words, at about .307 megabytes per second, which means it would take me about 16-20 seconds to download a 5 megabyte MP3 audio file.

My dad, on the other hand, has a Time Warner Cable internet connection and routinely gets between 15 and 20 megabits per second download. That averages out to about 2.5 megabytes per second, meaning he could download a 1gigabyte movie file in a little over 5 minutes.

Now what Google is proposing is about 5o times as  fast as the internet connection my dad enjoys on the best of days. We’re no longer talking about downloading movies in minutes or even seconds; no we’re talking about eliminating the concept of  ”downloading” altogether. Basically all media would be instantly accessible to your computer; in fact, under ideal circumstances it could be faster for you to access a High Def YouTube video than to access a High Def video on a computer in the room next to you in your house.

Of course,  you will still be limited by your source’s internet speed. It’s not likely that YouTube or Netflix could actually send you a movie at full 1 gb/s but still, the improvement in your download time would be remarkable.

So yes. I concur with the Signal and the City. Bring the internet to me Google, with great dispatch!

A small slice of radio spectrum in the United States

The SCV just became a little less dark, radio-frequency wise. KROQ, the famous LA rock ‘n roll radio station,has added an FM booster to a mountaintop nearby that blankets the SCV in KROQ’s altogether too predictable mix of over-processed rock and pop bands plus Kevin and Bean in the morning, whoever they are:

It has come to our attention that, a mere three decades after taking to the airwaves in Southern California, our crack Engineering team has installed boosters that (we’re told) allow KROQ to be heard in the following cities:

• Santa Clarita
• Valencia
• Newhall
• Canyon Country
• Agua Dulce
• Stevensen Ranch
• Saugus
• Val Verde

The last time I listened to KROQ was when I bought the first Green Day album, so I’m not particularly excited about this news. However, I am ecstatic that big Los Angeles broadcasters are finally realizing there’s a market of 250,000 up here.

You see, I’ve been bitching for years that radio reception sucks in the Santa Clarita valley. Mostly, I’ve been upset that I can’t get my NPR reliably; KCRW 89.9 has boosters all around Southern California (even Lancaster!!) but nothing for us in the SCV. As a result, in certain parts of town, their signal gets washed out by a religious broadcaster in Kettleman City, CA (I kid you not, I did a full investigation with recordings a few years ago and contacted both stations and the FCC).

But many of us don’t listen to “terrestrial radio” anymore anyway, so who cares? Well, we all should. The VHF and UFH spectrum that carries FM radio carries broadcast television too, and it just so happens that if you want to get the best high-definition television experience (and the cheapest!), you don’t go with the compressed HD signals on Satellite TV, Cable, or even AT&T’s Uverse. No, you go with uncompressed Over the Air HD (OTA-HD) reception. The problem is, we have some big mountains in the way of LA’s VHF/UHF transmitters.

Six years ago, a colleague of mine tried to get OTA-HD from his home in Valencia. He hung a large Yagi UHF/VHF antenna in his attic in his house by the hospital. He used online tools like AntennaWeb.org to orient his antenna, and he was disappointed to receive only ABC 7 in HD and a few other channels. “It just sucks out here, you can’t receive anything,” he told me, his experiment largely failed.

Yet in other areas of town, results can be much better. Last year, my dad, a veteran radio engineer, hung a $100 Yagi UHF/VHF antenna on his roof and received over 50 LA-area television channels in full 1080p. ABC, NBC, CBS, KCAL 9, and scores of others. Free. And the quality is spectacular because the signal is not compressed in any way.

He lives in Sunset Pointe with a clear view of transmitters to the south east, yet AntennaWeb.org predicts very poor results for his location. Knowing that big LA broadcasters haven’t really bothered to install repeaters or boosters for our valley, what could explain his great reception? We think his house is more or less in the line-of-sight of Mt. Wilson, where most of LA’s Broadcasters have towers. Folks in Stevenson Ranch, West Ridge and parts of Canyon Country may also be able to receive these signals.

In contrast, I live on the valley floor and if I were to try to hang a Yagi to receive HD or even FM, the results would almost certainly be poorer. So I’m stuck with my sub-standard & expensive Dish Network HD signal and my Logitech wifi radio to pick up KCRW.

In the future, Santa Clarita’s poor radio frequency coverage may not be an issue at all. Why? Well within 10-15 years, I believe radio and TV signals will be largely irrelevant because broadcasters will start using the newly-opened 700 mhz spectrum to deliver data & internet traffic, voice calls, radio and HD television. Any device you carry will be able to tap into this, and coverage will be widespread, even better than today’s cell phone coverage. Speeds will be phenomenal and indeed, there won’t be any demarcation between different types of media; it will all be IP based right to your mobile device.

Until that glorious day arrives, enjoy your KROQ!

The timing on this is impeccable. Disappointed Apple fans, distraught over the joke that is the iPad, can now at least console themselves with the revolutionary new City of Santa Clarita iBitch App, which allows you to report problems, the GPS coordinates thereof and even upload pictures of the problem to the fine folks at City Hall.

(Side note, have they really thought this through? Imagine your typical iPhone user. Now enable them to upload pictures and complaints directly to City Hall from their iDevice. Disaster and hilarity are sure to ensue.)

Android, WebOS and S60 users…report your problems the old fashioned way, by writing a nasty Letter to the Editor or bitching on this blog.

All kidding aside….I’m jealous. I would be all over this if it worked on my phone. I could report a dozen potholes between here and my house.