I’m a home phone kind of a guy...

...with a cell phone for when I’m out. But I really like having a home phone. I don’t have to worry about cell coverage issues or standing next to the wall with the power cord plugged in to talk on the phone because I forgot to charge my cell phone. Sometimes I can’t even find my cell phone!


My wife and I have been using Ooma for a few years now and love it! A few of our friends have tried it our on our suggestion and they love it too. I’m blogging about it because it’s sweet. The call quality is great and you can use any standard telephone with it. You plug the Ooma Telo into your modem or router, plug your phone into the Ooma Telo and you’re off and running. Your PC doesn’t need to be on like some services require.

Check it out at ooma.com


At the time I'm writing this the Ooma Telo is on sale on Bestbuy.com for $50 off.


If you have a high speed internet connection you should get rid of your cable company phone package and save some cash. You buy the device for a one time fee of $249 and you get free US Calling, caller-ID, call-waiting, and voicemail. You can access your voicemail via the Ooma website from any web connected PC. All you pay is the monthly governmental charges. In my area it’s about $3.75 per month. They have a calculator on their site so you can find out how much it would be in your area. There’s other cool features available for $9.99 per month if you want to go with their premier service. We use the free (other than government imposed fees) standard service and it’s perfect for us.

Looking for a place to eat? Check out this site...

My wife and I like to go out to eat. You probably do to. Who doesn’t - no cooking, no dishes, hopefully good food and good service. We’re not too big on chain restaurants and like to check out local places we’ve never tried. But there’s nothing I hate more than paying good money for a bad meal or experience. Try to avoid that before you get there...

I love me some chicken riggies!

If you’re looking for a new place to try you need to check out yelp.com. There are a lot of other things you can use it for (i.e. professional services, auto shops, doctors) but I mostly use it for eating out. The cool thing is that they sort everything by food type and there are generally at least a few reviews for each place from folks who’ve actually eaten there. Like anything, you have to take some of the reviews with a grain of salt but all-in-all they’re generally genuine and informative. If you try it out and enjoy using it you should consider being part of the community and posting some reviews yourself.



Check it out - yelp.com !

Cable internet slow?

We live in an age where we want stuff right now! A lot of times that’s not a good thing but in this case I would disagree. It needs to work so I can work (or play)!

Has your cable internet at home been slower than usual? There are a few factors that can cause slowness but sometimes a reboot of your cable modem and router, if you have one, is all it takes to get you back on track. I won’t get into why this works (mostly because you probably don’t care) but I’ll explain how to do it. First...a quick explanation of a few other things it could be.

The equipment in your house is not always to blame for internet slowness or outages. Sometimes the number of people using the internet in your area at a given time can slow everyone down. This is especially true of cable internet connections. I’ve personally not experience this at my own house but I know folks who deal with this all the time. It normally happens when the kids get home from school. The other common cause is your computer. If it’s running slow or has malware (something I’ll cover another time) or a virus it can seem that the internet is slow.

The easiest place to start is reboot the modem and router.This might also resolve wierd wireless issues if you have a wireless router. Here’s how:

1) Turn off your PC
2) If you have a router (not everyone does but you should know because you will have bought it) unplug the power from the wall or the back of the router itself. I’m not going to post a picture because they vary.

3) Unplug the power cable from the cable modem at the wall or the back of the modem. These can vary too but this is a very common model: 

4) Wait a couple of minutes. This is important so make sure you wait!

5) Plug in the modem and router. These will take a minute or two to be ready to go.
6) Boot your PC and give it a go.

Welcome to my new blog!

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully you’ll find something here you can put to use.

In real life I’m an IT (information technology) guy and I’ve been working in the field for about 8 years or so in some capacity. Most of my IT career has been spent traveling from office to office as outsourced IT help but thankfully I’m now in one office all day.

In my past travels, at my current office or in everyday social settings it seems that a week does not go by that someone doesn’t ask a “quick personal question”. Especially when folks find out that’s what I do for a living. I’m always glad to help. The questions are usually about a laptop they should buy, why their wireless at home is flaky or how to get their PC back up to speed.

So, here’s the direction I’m going with the blog:

This blog isn’t for tech geeks but tech geeks might benefit from reading it. I’ll be giving occasional pointers and tips on anything from useful websites to gadgets for home use to how to fix this or that. And sometimes it’ll just be my opinion on something I want to give my opinion on. Most of this stuff won’t be cutting edge but I’m guessing there will be a fair amount of folks that haven’t heard the news.

Let’s get this party started!