Nov 28th, 2016 with Travis County Chairman James Dickey
Jan 9th, 2017 with liberal John Carroll
Monday, January 9, 2017
Monday, November 21, 2016
Right Talk With Mike Lee
I was asked to come on another local public TV show. Right Talk with Mike Lee. It comes on immediately after The Trailer Park Show.
Nov 22nd, 2016 Show
Trailer Park Show
I was invited to speak on a local public TV show called The Trailer Park show. It is a local show that talks about local Political issues. It has mostly Conservative guests. They have invited Liberal, but they don't seem to stay on much.
Oct 17th Show
Nov 21st Show with Matt Mackowiak
Monday, September 5, 2016
Freedom of Information Act and TX Public Information Act
Every wonder where someone lives? Every wonder what your neighbor's home value is? Every wonder someone's criminal history or Political voting history is? The Internet has many database sources and today it is easier than ever to find out just about anything about anyone.
United States Federal Government is bound by the 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Texas is bound by the Public Information Act which is a set of laws that ensures the public has access to information held by the government.
As the Internet has matured and government has become more technological, many items are readily avalaible on government websites. Things like home values and checking voter registration is easily found by simple name search. Some information requires a formal records requests before they are handed out. Other data items like voting history require searching thru huge Excel files to extract the data. Criminal history searches usually requires a birthdate, so you may need to first get that from the voter history file. Sometimes it's not an easy search, with so many common names. I'm sure there will be a time where everything is easily found online, but for now it is generally located in fragmented databases spread out by our local city, state, county and federal websites.
Here are a few key sites for my location in central Texas.
Travis County
- Property Search
- Voter Registration search
- Voter History Excel download
- General Document Search includes marriage records, liens, Deeds, bankruptcies
Williamson County
Hays County
- Property Search
Other Search sites
- https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com
- Voter History Online search in FL, OH, and PA
- Washington DC Voter History file
- FEC Site to review election records
- Texas Campaign Finance Search
- FAA Drone Registration database
- Wayback Machine https://archive.org/web/
Sunday, August 7, 2016
My list of Internet of Things → (IoT)
I guess I'm a typical guy. I'm a gadget freak and technology fan. After getting my local weather station connected, I started thinking about what else I can get 'wired' up and connected to the Internet.
I'm not including my cell phone, computer and tablets. Those are all devices that we know can be connected. I'm talking about devices that normally just stand alone, but not are Internet enabled or now becoming the 'Internet of Things' or IoT.
Things like security cameras, weather station, Thermostats, doorbell and even a bathroom scale can now be connected. All these are accessible on a computer or with an app on your phone or tablet.
Here is my list of connected gadgets. I recommend looking on Craiglist for the best price. People often have new versions of these devices and give them away at half the retail price:
AcuRite Weather Station → Weather Underground → website
Foscam PTZ camera → Camera 1 site → Camera 2 site
Outdoor Sricam IP Garage Camera → website
YI Ants Camera → appsite
Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat RTH9580WF Thermostat → website
iCam on my computer
Greenridge HOA Park cameras
Ring Doorbell with camera → website
Nest Thermostat → website
Fitbit Aria Wifi Scale → website
Amazon Tap Wifi and Bluetooth speaker
Amazon Fire TV Stick
Google Chromecast
With all these connected devices, I had to upgrade my Wifi router from an ASUS RT-N56U (2011) to a Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500. I started noticing that when streaming video my PC to my Xbox 360, I would get hesitation in the stream. I had around 30 connected devices all taking a toll on my router. While not every device is active at one time, it still consume CPU cycles to keep up with all the connections. After updating my router, my video hesitations stopped. I also upgraded my cable modem to a Zoom 5341J and now get over 100Mbps download speed with Time Warner. It is a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem with speed up to 343 Mbps, which is faster than most people internet network speed.
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