Tag: internet

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Muni Needs WiFi

For a short period of time I had to take the 48 Quintara down to the Mission on a daily basis. I found it actually a relaxing and interesting trip that I wrote about previously as I could sit there with my iPhone and read my email and get constant updates on what was going on along with all the other riders because of the 3G access we all had, but if you like the other thousands of riders who have to take the metro downtown you’re out of luck.

There’s no signal in the tunnels at all. Granted, traveling from West Portal to Embarcadero can be rather quick, but it leaves you with unproductive downtime where if there was an emergency at home I couldn’t even get a phone call in most cases for 45 minutes. On the other hand, BART when I got on one day politely asked me if I’d like to connect to their free wifi service. Hell even going through the bay tunnel I could make cell phone calls. Why isn’t San Francisco looking into this?

There was a time a couple of years ago where I saw buses in San Francisco touting free wifi service they were testing out. You don’t see those today. In a city that says it’s so tech friendly I would expect wifi to be everywhere and available. Well, it is pretty much everywhere, but not always available.  There was a plan at one time to make wifi available throughout San Francisco, but it never took hold. Couldn’t we at least find a way to first make wifi available in the metro tunnel running downtown and then making it available on the buses? It would make the need for 3g/4g data plans almost superfluous and give everyone with a smartphone/tablet computer access to the internet while they have to sit during their commute. Most people complain about how slow Muni is, but if you had something to do during the time you were waiting you wouldn’t notice it so much.

Hell, if I could watch Indiana Jones while I was stuck in the tunnels for two hours I wouldn’t mind the wait as much.

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SFGate gets Internet Radio

I caught a tweet today from Earbits that their deal with SF Gate [the Chronicle] has gone live. I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by them because I’m a San Francisco musician and asked if I’d like to have my music streamed through their website to readers of sfgate.com [hell YES!]

Well, I believe the tweet was a bit premature because if you go to sfgate.com you won’t find any mention of it, but if you go to sfgate.earbits.com you’ll get the station. I’m currently clicking through the songs in various categories and found it odd that for a station that is supposed to be based around the SF Bay Area indie bands that bands from Los Angeles, San Diego and Chicago are popping up. I did find some San Francisco bands though, but I feel there should be more. If any San Francisco bands are out there that read this contact me and I’ll hook you up with earbits so you can get your music heard.

I have my album I’ve Got a Guitar and I’m Not Afraid to Use It! on their playlist as well as my recent single Funk U, but I haven’t heard it yet on the station yet. They definitely need more local talent on there. I’m also a bit surprised at how they classify the music. I currently have the Hard Rock and Metal channel playing and there seems to be a definite lack of hard rock and metal there. I’m hearing a few ska bands and whinny emo-like bands with the occasional metal band thrown in and every other song seems to be from Santa Cruz punks called Seduce the Dead.

Earbits also includes a social networking aspect linking in with facebook and twitter so that you can share the bands you like with your friends and followers. It has potential, but needs more local bands to make it stand out as significant to the Bay Area. They also have apps available for the iPhone and Android so you can listen on the go.

 

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