The Steussy Ranch

Two weeks ago, I bought an iPhone for Gabi’s birthday. She insisted that I get one as well, since I enjoyed playing with her iTouch that she got last year so much. The big problem with the iPhone – AT&T service is terrible. I used to live in Los Angeles, across the street from the Directors’ Guild building on Sunset Blvd. I couldn’t imagine many more central places to have a strong cellular signal, but AT&T never got any reception anywhere near it. European’s traveling in the US are usually stuck with AT&T service, since their GSM phones are compatible with that service. One European friend broke into tears when he realized that in the middle of Disneyland he had no service whatsoever.

Temecula is somewhat better served. The central parts of town have strong AT&T signals, but where I live and work in the close developments on the northeast side of town, the signal strength is quite poor. In the two weeks we have had the phones, Gabi has missed half of the calls made to her simply because the phone never rang.

What you see above is the antenna from a Dual Band YX510 PCS/CEL cellular phone booster, installed in our attic and available from Amazon for about $310. We installed and tested it earlier this week, and made a final installation this morning. We’ve gone from no service in the Family Room, Dining Nook, Kitchen and backyard to 4 and 5 bars of service.

Gabi handled the power drill and laid the wire from the attic, through my office, into the Family Room. The unit rests behind some pictures on a bookshelf, nearly invisible but giving us full service in the house and home office for our wireless.

If it weren’t for the iPhone, I would have just stuck with Verizon, which gives better service nearly everywhere I’ve ever been, both rural and urban locations. After seven months of pristine, uninterrupted service in Hungary and Greece, it was kind of a let down to be faced with these problems.

Two weeks ago, I bought an iPhone for Gabi’s birthday. She insisted that I get one as well, since I enjoyed playing with her iTouch that she got last year so much. The big problem with the iPhone – AT&T service is terrible. I used to live in Los Angeles, across the street from the Directors’ Guild building on Sunset Blvd. I couldn’t imagine many more central places to have a strong cellular signal, but AT&T never got any reception anywhere near it. European’s traveling in the US are usually stuck with AT&T service, since their GSM phones are compatible with that service. One European friend broke into tears when he realized that in the middle of Disneyland he had no service whatsoever.

Temecula is somewhat better served. The central parts of town have strong AT&T signals, but where I live and work in the close developments on the northeast side of town, the signal strength is quite poor. In the two weeks we have had the phones, Gabi has missed half of the calls made to her simply because the phone never rang.

What you see above is the antenna from a Dual Band YX510 PCS/CEL cellular phone booster, installed in our attic and available from Amazon for about $310. We installed and tested it earlier this week, and made a final installation this morning. We’ve gone from no service in the Family Room, Dining Nook, Kitchen and backyard to 4 and 5 bars of service.

Gabi handled the power drill and laid the wire from the attic, through my office, into the Family Room. The unit rests behind some pictures on a bookshelf, nearly invisible but giving us full service in the house and home office for our wireless.

If it weren’t for the iPhone, I would have just stuck with Verizon, which gives better service nearly everywhere I’ve ever been, both rural and urban locations. After seven months of pristine, uninterrupted service in Hungary and Greece, it was kind of a let down to be faced with these problems.

Still working on things. Steussy.com is administered through Network Solutions, which appears to be a bit of an internet dinosaur.

One of the great joys of working from home (rather than on the road in Budapest) is being able to run my servers from inside my office. I can use an up-to-date computer loaded with Ubuntu and have direct access to it at all times. Speeds are twice what the co-location in Los Angeles advertises (and I had trouble approaching getting those speeds there).

The problem is that I need to move the server files. So, if you are getting a “Database Error” or something similar here, it means that I’m still fiddling with things.

I’ll probably be posting a couple of wrap-ups to this adventure. After all, it was pretty big. Seven months abroad, over 3000 photos, 6 hours of video. The big results are positive. Dan-dan and Camilla are both fluent in Hungarian. Dad has a good basis in the language. Lot’s of time spent with friends and relatives.

One thing I have done is post the best 60 photos on my Facebook account. Rather than replicate them here, let me send you directly there -> click here.

Old office.

Office after cleaning.

It’s amazing what seven months in a relatively small, neat office space in Hungary will do for your taste in office decorum.

August 4 was Gabi’s 40th birthday. It was also almost our last day in Hungary, so our heads were elsewhere trying to get the family moved back to the US. While the official party will be later (Sept 6 in Temecula), I wanted to do something special on the actual birthday.

I ordered a limo, which rolled up in front of Grandma’s house at 5pm. It was a complete surprise. “There’s never been a limo on Harsfa utca! Dang, the street isn’t even paved!” We took it around the city, drank champagne in the back and went to our favorite restaurant for dinner. It was a great night.

August 4 was Gabi’s 40th birthday. It was also almost our last day in Hungary, so our heads were elsewhere trying to get the family moved back to the US. While the official party will be later (Sept 6 in Temecula), I wanted to do something special on the actual birthday.

I ordered a limo, which rolled up in front of Grandma’s house at 5pm. It was a complete surprise. “There’s never been a limo on Harsfa utca! Dang, the street isn’t even paved!” We took it around the city, drank champagne in the back and went to our favorite restaurant for dinner. It was a great night.

Boy, the Steussy family reunion was a blast! There are 30 photos in my group here, so you need to go below the fold to see them.

(more…)

We made it! Lot’s of work to do to the place, so I best be at it. Several posts will come soon.