John Bain

How-To get free HD Television in Ottawa

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:37:00 -0500

If you live in Ottawa and you don’t want to give Rogers or Bell your hard earned cash then you can do what I have done and it only cost me 20 bucks and I get all the HD channels I need.

Things you need:

Digital HD antenna
+25 feet of coaxial cable(May need longer if you live in a house)
A television with a digital tuner(Almost all new tv’s have these built-in to them)

The antenna can be purchased from many retailers but the cheapest ones can be bought from Walmart, XS-Cargo and Factory Direct.

My antenna came from Factory Direct and cost me a total of $14.99! Some assembly was required to but nothing super technical.

From my own experience the price of the antenna doesn’t equate to the quality/reception of the antenna. I use to use this one but it was TERRIBLE, good thing I never payed 70 bucks for it. :)

1. The Unboxing

2.Some assembly required

3. Almost there

When you have your antenna assembled, attach your coaxial TV cable to the antenna and put the antenna in your house/apartment window. Hook the other end of the cable to your television, your television still neets to be setup to use OTA which is burried in your TV’s menu system … I dont have steps for this part. :D

Once your television is finished scanning for channels, sit down in your favorite chair and enjoy all the free HD television you would ever need.

A TV antenna works best if there is nothing blocking your line of sight to the antennas. So if you mount the antenna high you can get all these channels:

CBC (English) 4.1
Global 6.1
CBC (French) 9.1
CHCH 11.1
CTV 13.1
Omni1 14.1
TVO 24.1
TQ - Tele Quebec 30.1
TQS (V) - CFGS 34.1
TVA - CHOT 40.1
CTS 42.1
“A” Channel 43.1
Omni2 60.1
CityTV 65.1

To learn more about Ottawa OTA go here.

The ones in bold are the key ones for me, if I want to watch other channels like Space or Discovery I connect my laptop to the televison with an HDMI cable. If you go online you can watch these stations:

The not so free sports packages:

[Solved] Adding Adsense ads to your Tumblr posts

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:15:00 -0500

It’s very easy to place Google Adsense ads to the body of your Tumblr posts. In our example we’re going to demonstrate how to embed a 468x15 text Google Adsense ad into the middle of our post, this process is the same for all javascript based ads.

Before doing any of the instruction below this line create your desired blog post without any Google Adsense ads in it, take care of the text, positioning and formatting first!

Once you’ve created and published your post go to the dashboard of your Tumblr blog, click on the Cog icon to go to your blog Preferences page:

By default Tumblr strips out advanced HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from the regular post editor.

To ensure that Tumblr can accept the JavaScript code thats needed for our Google Adsense ads, we need to ensure that under “Edit posts using”, you’ve selected “plain text / HTML”:

Be sure to save this new preference.

In a new browser tab goto Google Adsense and copy the javascript that was generated when you created your Google Adsense ad, copy it to your clipboard and go back to your tumblr blog:

What you need to do next is edit the blog post you created previously, you will notice that the editor is now showing plain html markup. Find the area where you would like your Google Adsense ad and paste in the Javascript from Google:

Our inserted Google Adsense ad:

Save your changes and go view your tumblr post, it may take few minutes for the Google Adsense ad to appear.

Remember:

Because of how the Tumblr post editor works if you make any other changes to the post after the ad has been added then when you save the changes you may actually strip out javascript and effectively kill your Google Adsense ad.
Dont edit the code from Google, changing the code will cause the Google Adsense ad not to work

Canadian Public Service(PS) Right for Me?

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:26:00 -0500

I need to get some of my thoughts down on this virtual paper/papyrus/parchment.

For about the last month and a half or so the topic at hand has been rolling around in my head, “Should I quit the PS ?”. Dont get me wrong the PS is an alright employer, I would never give them the great status but they’re a close second. :)

The reasoning I have been using to help make this decision is to weight the positive and the negatives.

Positives:

Great pay for entry level.
Culture of support.
Huge networks of people.
Ability to take training and goto conferences at no cost.
Union Shop.

Negatives:

Being uni-lingual creates a HUGE glass ceiling for any promotion.
French training provided is a joke.
Horizontal movement is restricted by a unionized class system.
Seniority of time often overshadows quality of work, experience and dedication to tasks.
Union Shop.

If you look at the points above you may have noticed they’re mostly related to advancing in the workplace. This has always been a huge issue for me as I require/need new challenges. Not in the sense that I cant sit still(ADHD) but once I master one I need to build on that skill and move forward … a natural progression to becoming a Manager/Chief/Director.

Maybe my future is in the private sector, it gives me:

The chance to compete with peers.
Opportunity to work toward promotion.
Unilingualness is less of a factor.
Is usually more agile.
Ability to learn/use new technologies.
Higher income in the long term.

So you may be wondering what are the largest limitations to me becoming a Manager/Chief/Director ?

All Managers MUST speak/read/write in both official Canadian languages.
Because of the structure in the PS many people stagnate and stay in one position for years if not decades, this creates limited chances of promotion in ones own group.
Because of the unionised shop employees who are CS1’s can’t do the work of a CS2(This is the class system I mentioned earlier) or even apply/compete for open CS2 positions. This is often called “At-level opportunities”.
No vehicle/road-map is provided to move from a CS1 to a CS2.
Department of Shared Services has removed alot of the opportunities to move around in the IT groups of many departments.
You may have not heard of it before but its shaking the public service at its core, its called the “Canadian strategic and operating review” which basicly translates to layoffs and limited opportunities for promotions

I’d love to hear from others who have had to deal with this issue, who has left the public service ?

I think my next step is to speak to my manager and explain to him what I want out of my job. If I cant get what I want then why stick around … right ?

[Solved] Treadmill RF DSL interference

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 02:00:00 -0500

The Problem:

My old man had a second generation treadmill that when turned on would knock out his DSL and even cause his television to shut off. After some quick googling I discovered that this is a very common issue. According to dslreports.com

RFI is insidious. It can sneak around no matter what you do … totally wipe out your DSL.

Noisy RFI … can reach your computer or modem through the AC lines, but more likely by radiating from the AC lines to your phone line. … RFI can interfere with various sections of the spectrum needed for DSL, causing lower sync rates and throughput, and in some cases repeated interruption or even total failure to sync.

The Solution:

Find a power bar with an RFI/EMI filter to clean the power/signal coming from the offending treadmill. I had tried 2 different powerbars and only one worked.

1. Didn’t Work Rocketfish 7-Outlet Surge Protector (RF-HTS105)

This powerbar/surge protector sports a A 47 dB EMI/RFI noise filter which DIDNT work at all

2. Did Work Monster Power Center (FS MP HTS400)

This powerbar/surge protector sports some technology called “Monster Clean Power Stage 1 v2.0”

Once I plugged the treadmill into the Monster Power Center I was able to see the improvements immediately.

Hilarious canadian standup

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:33:25 -0500

Hilarious canadian standup

Old laptop digital picture frame ... or atleast it was

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:24:00 -0500

I hope this younger generation never has to deal with IDE ribbons, floppy drive, dip switches, and CRUSH-ABLE CPU CORES!!!!!

I have been working on this old laptop project for the last 4 or 5 days; Taking an old laptop(Pentium III 600mhz) and converting it into a digital picture frame. I had the fitment in the frame done, all my cables and ribbons run flat, linux distro tuned for speed and purpose … all it needed was a backing and one of those legs to hold the frame up.

I figured time for pictures!

I take 2 pictures of the frame booting and cycling images then I flip the frame over to take a shot of the back. I dont know how it happened but when I layed it face I crushed 2 corners of the CPU … check out the hi-res pics.

I know its my own fault but i think Intel should take partial responsibility for building a heat-sink that rests on 3 legs … wtf blue men !

Anyways time to find a mobile P3 cpu on ebay …..fuck

Local(Ottawa) folk rock quintet Kalle Mattson produced this...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:53:52 -0500

Local(Ottawa) folk rock quintet Kalle Mattson produced this amazing cartoon history of the world to go along with their single Thick as Thieves. The video, which cost only $250 to make, was made with paper cutouts using stop motion technique

stungeye: 20 Hz visualizes “a geo-magnetic storm occurring in...

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:48:40 -0500

stungeye:

20 Hz visualizes “a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Data courtesy of CARISMA, operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.”

Mind Blown!

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:46:08 -0500

Mind Blown!

Made some posters for when Jets play in Ottawa :D #GO #JETS...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:07:38 -0400

Made some posters for when Jets play in Ottawa :D

#GO #JETS #GO

#NHL

Pictures of Ottawa over Thanksgiving

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:35:00 -0400

Pictures of Ottawa over Thanksgiving

2011 NHL Gamecenter Live Blackouts

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 23:55:00 -0400

For my fellow Canadians thinking about purchasing a years worth of online NHL streaming you may want to know this tidbit of information.

Unlike normal sports blackouts for local teams, the NHL has broadcaster and local team blackouts. So if CBC, TSN and TSN2 are broadcasting the game on their channel then you wont be able to view the game on-line. Samething goes if my local team(Ottawa Senators) is playing a game anywhere … it will be blacked out as well :( .

To see a Canadian schedule I built from the NHL, CBC and TSNs go here.

If you have purchase Gamecenter Live during the pre-season then move fast as you only have 5 days to receive a full refund.

Our visit to Perth,Ontario

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:41:14 -0400

Our visit to Perth,Ontario

How not to change a tire

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:16:48 -0400

How not to change a tire

Nova Scotia Trip

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:42:48 -0400

Gonna try a travel blog, checker out http://bainsnovascotiatrip.tumblr.com/

Back of the bus

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:23:23 -0400

Back of the bus

Bolts in #octranspo bus 6628 seat have totally fallen out...

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:16:50 -0400

Bolts in #octranspo bus 6628 seat have totally fallen out … Had this strange urge to bend over and fix it for them too

Song of the night :)

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:49:40 -0400

Song of the night :)

Did the Shared Services kick my ass ... I dont know?!

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:58:36 -0400

Impossible … what happened ?

The Canadian government last week introduced the declaration of a new department in the #GOC, the Department of Shared Services(SS). The SS was formed as a cost cutting measure to bring the IT departments in almost all of the #GOC into a new level of fiscal responsability by consolidating Data, Email and Network infrastructures under one house. Now since I have started working in the #GOC I have been preaching cloud computing, wiki’s and shared resources.

So why would I be worried ?

Because it happened too fast, I’m still at the bottom of the tech pile fighting my way to the top.

What are you gonna do now ?

Gonna try and get back on top of the situation, with education. My chances of climbing the ranks through the normal course of time/experience/opportunity seem to have disappeared.

What are you gonna take ?

I don’t know, I have been eyeballing the Unix Admin course at Algonquin College but I’m unsure. These shared services may need a few linux/aix admin but who knows, I may just leave the public service … lord only knows.

Moral?

Life may try to get me down but if I want it bad enough I will take it all, after all I am a King Bain.

Capital Cruising: Time-lapse video of Ottawa

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 10:26:59 -0400

Capital Cruising: Time-lapse video of Ottawa:

Aazing time laps video of various locations in ottawa …. its a must watch