The Advice Thread

[chasfh]

It has finally happened: we finally got a monthly Internet bill for $100. It's AT&T Gigabit. What are you guys paying for your Internet? Is there a better gigabit deal out there? Is gigabit overkill for a two-person household?

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

It has finally happened: we finally got a monthly Internet bill for $100. It's AT&T Gigabit. What are you guys paying for your Internet? Is there a better gigabit deal out there? Is gigabit overkill for a two-person household?

Yup, just got a $5 bump from ATT also. We're now at $75 as part of a bundle with DTv, which we really should drop because we totally under use it other than Tigers and Wings games, but are too lazy to do anything about it.

I got the 1G service as an early adopter and when I was working I was moving a lot of large files on and off the cloud all the time so it was appropriate. I still move a 70G backup set to the cloud but only about once/mo now so it's a good question whether I still need it.

I guess at this point I'm spoiled by being able to do a MacOS system reload or Linux Release upgrade from the cloud in 10min. 

 

[chasfh]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Yup, just got a $5 bump from ATT also. We're now at $75 as part of a bundle with DTv, which we really should drop because we totally under use it other than Tigers and Wings games, but are too lazy to do anything about it.

I got the 1G service as an early adopter and when I was working I was moving a lot of large files on and off the cloud all the time so it was appropriate. I still move a 70G backup set to the cloud but only about once/mo now so it's a good question whether I still need it.

I guess at this point I'm spoiled by being able to do a MacOS system reload or Linux Release upgrade from the cloud in 10min. 

 

I have tried to bundle my DirecTV with AT&T GB and they wouldn't let me. Must be a market-based thing where they feel they have to give it to you in Ann Arbor to be comeptitive, but they don't have to in Chicago.

I'm thinking of moving down to the 300 mb level, and I'm wondering whether at my level of usage (two people in the hosue, streaming mostly, no gaming or anything else taxing like that), I will even notice a difference?

[Motor City Sonics]

I switched to AT&T after WOW had too many drop outs and price hikes.     I don't bundle and I am a Gigillionaire (as the commercials say).  It's running me about $60.   Not complaining.  It's how I watch everything, but I am considering dropping You Tube TV.  I have been avoiding watching TV the last couple of weeks and watching a lot of You Tube, Netflix and other things.   TV is basically just for sports now.     The recent switch to digital from AT&T did not cost me any extra money and I can upload a 30 minute music segment via .wav file to my radio station's server in about 40 seconds.   

Edited November 16, 2024 by Motor City Sonics

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

I switched to AT&T after WOW had too many drop outs and price hikes.     I don't bundle and I am a Gigillionaire (as the commercials say).  It's running me about $60.   Not complaining.  It's how I watch everything, but I am considering dropping You Tube TV.  I have been avoiding watching TV the last couple of weeks and watching a lot of You Tube, Netflix and other things.   TV is basically just for sports now.     The recent switch to digital from AT&T did not cost me any extra money and I can upload a 30 minute music segment via .wav file to my radio station's server in about 40 seconds.   

Are you saying you get AT&T gigabit service only, not bundled with any other AT&T products, for $60 a month as is, and not $100 a month?

[Deleterious]

Honestly, 300mbps is overkill for almost everyone. 

4K videos will be the largest files downloaded by most everyone. At 300mbps you could stream 10 4K videos at the same time without any problem.

[Motor City Sonics]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Are you saying you get AT&T gigabit service only, not bundled with any other AT&T products, for $60 a month as is, and not $100 a month?

Yes.   No other service.  I was already a customer when they changed it to digital and did not charge me more.   This was back in August.   I got AT&T Fiber.      Doc always said I needed more fiber.  

Edited November 17, 2024 by Motor City Sonics

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Yes.   No other service.  I was already a customer when they changed it to digital and did not charge me more.   This was back in August.   I got AT&T Fiber.      Doc always said I needed more fiber.  

They've been jacking me up five bucks a month every six months or so for at least a couple years. Really, it must based in large part what market you're in. Maybe it's also I'm not being a pest to them about it.

[Motor City Sonics]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

They've been jacking me up five bucks a month every six months or so for at least a couple years. Really, it must based in large part what market you're in. Maybe it's also I'm not being a pest to them about it.

It might also be because I am still a relatively new customer and they locked me in for awhile.   As Deleterious says, 300 mbps is fine for me.   With that I could up load a segment to Under The Radar Radio and Sonic Bliss (heard Sundays at 7 and 9 pm on annarbors107one.com and thisisqmusic.com),  in about 2 minutes for each 30 minute segment.    But the Fiber is better.  

 

And you're in Chicagoland, right?   That might be a big reason too.   It's like gas prices, it varies depending on your location and how much competition there is.   Maybe you only have 1 or 2 choices.   Well, 1 isn't a choice, actually.

Edited November 17, 2024 by Motor City Sonics

[chasfh]

24 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

It might also be because I am still a relatively new customer and they locked me in for awhile.   As Deleterious says, 300 mbps is fine for me.  

Do you have 300 mbps?

[Motor City Sonics]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Do you have 300 mbps?

I have Fiber now, I think it can be much more than 300 mbps.     The Speedometer was pegged all the way.  What does your speedtest.net show you? 

Plugged in Ethernet cord

 

Not plugged in, wireless.   Not much of a difference and I am not gaming, so it's plenty fast for my needs.  Basically uploading and download .wav audio files.    

 

 

Fast enough to acquire Corey Seager in Out Of The Park '25.   

I am on August 10th and my Tigers are 50-67 and the real Tigers were 55-63.  

I am not expecting a turnaround like real life.  

 

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

I have Fiber now, I think it can be much more than 300 mbps.

I don't know exactly what the top is for the type of fiber they run to houses. I believe the fiber itself is capable of at least 10gbit/sec. My router has one 5 gbit/sec ethernet port but the service is capped at 1g.TBH, not that many sites will transmit to you that fast anyway.

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

I have Fiber now, I think it can be much more than 300 mbps.     The Speedometer was pegged all the way.  What does your speedtest.net show you? 

Plugged in Ethernet cord

 

Not plugged in, wireless.   Not much of a difference and I am not gaming, so it's plenty fast for my needs.  Basically uploading and download .wav audio files.    

 

 

Fast enough to acquire Corey Seager in Out Of The Park '25.   

I am on August 10th and my Tigers are 50-67 and the real Tigers were 55-63.  

I am not expecting a turnaround like real life.  

 

The question is what speed does AT&T say you have. This is not a hard, tricky, or unclear question.

[Shades of Deivi Cruz]

I have Buckeye cable for internet (but use Hulu LiveTV for TV), but AT&T fiber just recently became available. One of the reps stopped by a few weeks ago, but I shooed him away saying that we really don't have any problems. It seems like ever since then my internet connection gets wonky when trying to watch TV. I pay over $100 a month for the cable internet, so the price would be about the same. Seems like I'm hearing that switching to fiber might be the way to go.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Shades of Deivi Cruz said:

I have Buckeye cable for internet (but use Hulu LiveTV for TV), but AT&T fiber just recently became available. One of the reps stopped by a few weeks ago, but I shooed him away saying that we really don't have any problems. It seems like ever since then my internet connection gets wonky when trying to watch TV. I pay over $100 a month for the cable internet, so the price would be about the same. Seems like I'm hearing that switching to fiber might be the way to go.

I don't know how Buckeye operates, but Comcast has the local franchise here and my issue with them in the past was that no matter what dl speed you bought, they gave you no upload volume. Every one is trying to get you to use cloud storage but it's it's pretty useless if you can't get anything *in* to it. I don't know if competitive pressure has forced their hand on that or not yet, but my fiber service has always been completely symmetric, upload and dl at the same speeds and no data clamping.

[oblong]

Not sure if this is a peeve or what... but I have a gmail account i use for internet stuff, like subscriptions and news sites, etc.  It's only purpose is that.  I tried to use it to register so I could read and I realized my account was locked due to size limits.   Turns out Google Photos (Which I didn't know was a thing), syncs up with iCloud photos.  So I deleted a bunch of videos and pictures from Google Photos.

Last night I went to show a picture from October to a friend, and it's gone.  When you delete from google photos, it also deletes from your icloud.  There's no way around it.  I had to go into my trash bin and recover hundreds of photos from this summer and fall, and a bunch of videos from the last 10 years.  I spent 15 minutes looking for a way around it.... you can't turn it off.  Yes, there is a 'sync' feature in google for Apple but it's just for "Favorites".  

I could try deleting the google photos app but I think that has to be done on every device.

What a crock of ****.  I'm already backing up to the icloud.  All to get me to pay google for more storage?

 

[gehringer_2]

56 minutes ago, oblong said:

Not sure if this is a peeve or what... but I have a gmail account i use for internet stuff, like subscriptions and news sites, etc.  It's only purpose is that.  I tried to use it to register so I could read and I realized my account was locked due to size limits.   Turns out Google Photos (Which I didn't know was a thing), syncs up with iCloud photos.  So I deleted a bunch of videos and pictures from Google Photos.

Last night I went to show a picture from October to a friend, and it's gone.  When you delete from google photos, it also deletes from your icloud.  There's no way around it.  I had to go into my trash bin and recover hundreds of photos from this summer and fall, and a bunch of videos from the last 10 years.  I spent 15 minutes looking for a way around it.... you can't turn it off.  Yes, there is a 'sync' feature in google for Apple but it's just for "Favorites".  

I could try deleting the google photos app but I think that has to be done on every device.

What a crock of ****.  I'm already backing up to the icloud.  All to get me to pay google for more storage?

 

What conceivable purpose is there is syncing anything to two places on the cloud? Absolutely predatory marketing to try and get you to use (read "buy") more storage. There should be a class action suit in there somewhere!

I avoid cloud photo managers like the plague. I have photos backed up on my google drive but purely as archives. And if you have multiple apple devices good luck ever figuring out what is actually mirrored where and what happens when you try (and  usually fail) to delete anything from a particular device.

My answer to all this was to finally get a NetworkAttachedStorage unit. It just sits there quietly serving files 24/7,  organized the way I want them and accessible on the net anywhere. And it talks to Linux, Windows and MacOS without prejudice. I use my google drive just for backup and collaboration now. My wife still fights with I-Cloud though, haven't weaned her off it completely yet.

Edited November 19, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Dan Gilmore]

I try to avoid Google as much as possible, mainly because their business model is to capture as much personal data on people for the purpose of advertising. Rob’s story underscores that concern. Any possible anti-trust action to limit big tech has probably gone for the next few years. 🙁

[oblong]

I turned off full access in my iphone settings for Google Photos to my photo library... but then when i go to google photos, I can't view them with that turned off.  They require full access to my photo library on icloud for me to be able to view photos that they are storing?!?  Oh, I can view their memories and faces and places and other compilations they've created for me but just not the regular picture roll. 

One strange thing I noticed which is either neat... or frightening.  They do a collection based on faces.  One of my lifelong friends is featured and it has the various photos of her and I from the last 10 years... and also a picture I took of our 4th grade class picture, the ones with 30 people in it.  It freaking recognized a 51 year old woman from a tiny picture from 1983!

 

[Motor City Sonics]

I have grown completely tired of hard drives, external or otherwise, frying and me losing a ton of music and having to rebuild music libraries (not totally, but covering the last 3 months).     

 

I am looking for a recommendation for a good cloud storage program for music files -- so I can access the music from any computer. 

 

Your thoughts? 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Motor City Sonics said:

I have grown completely tired of hard drives, external or otherwise, frying and me losing a ton of music and having to rebuild music libraries (not totally, but covering the last 3 months).     

 

I am looking for a recommendation for a good cloud storage program for music files -- so I can access the music from any computer. 

 

Your thoughts? 

Costs between Apple, Google and MS are close enough at the 100gb level that it's mostly a matter of what platform you use determining which is most convenient operate in. I hate the way Icloud and increasining OneDrive, try to force you into doing things their way, so bought 100gb on google drive. You can mount a google drive natively in windows, and there is inexpensive SW for Mac and Linux that integrate google drive into Linux or Mac as a mounted drive. $2/mo for 100 gb. If you jump to 1TB they are stil pretty close.  I've had no complaints with google drive. I'd already had a big google drive allotment from my employer and when I retired I just bought my own storage and moved things over.

That said, I have >250gb of wav files ripped from my vinyl and CD collection so I don't actually use the google drive for music - that's mostly regular data backups. The music lives on my home NAS which serves it to any device around the house.  An NAS doesn't do much of anything but serve files so it's pretty bulletproof. The NAS runs a raid array which is fully mirrored and internally CRC checked so you can lose one drive and lose no data. It's also accessible from the internet - easy for Windows. A little trickier but doable for Mac or Linux. But again, I have the music store mirrored to Samsung FIT drive (about the size of a mouse transmitter) that I carry in my computer case. It's in a Linux file system and I've never lost a thing on a Linux file sytem drive, internal/external, USB or otherwise,  in 20+ yrs. But I have two rules - don't buy lowest price drives of any kind, and don't use Windows as the primary storage OS for anything important.

Edited December 7, 2024 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

On 11/19/2024 at 10:02 AM, oblong said:

Not sure if this is a peeve or what... but I have a gmail account i use for internet stuff, like subscriptions and news sites, etc.  It's only purpose is that.  I tried to use it to register so I could read and I realized my account was locked due to size limits.   Turns out Google Photos (Which I didn't know was a thing), syncs up with iCloud photos.  So I deleted a bunch of videos and pictures from Google Photos.

Last night I went to show a picture from October to a friend, and it's gone.  When you delete from google photos, it also deletes from your icloud.  There's no way around it.  I had to go into my trash bin and recover hundreds of photos from this summer and fall, and a bunch of videos from the last 10 years.  I spent 15 minutes looking for a way around it.... you can't turn it off.  Yes, there is a 'sync' feature in google for Apple but it's just for "Favorites".  

I could try deleting the google photos app but I think that has to be done on every device.

What a crock of ****.  I'm already backing up to the icloud.  All to get me to pay google for more storage?

 

I'm sorry, are you saying here that Google Photos syncs to Apple iCloud and you can't decouple them? Do I have that straight? What's the business connection here?

[oblong]

29 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm sorry, are you saying here that Google Photos syncs to Apple iCloud and you can't decouple them? Do I have that straight? What's the business connection here?

Yes that's correct.  I don't remember installing Google Photos, I guess it just is part of their suite now because I had the gmail account.  All my photos are there.  If I delete a photo from the Google Photos app, it deletes it from my photos library on my iphone and thus my icloud library too.  I just went in now and the message, in Google PHotos, when I delete a photo says "This photo will be deleted from icloud photos on all your devices.  It will be in recently deleted for 30 days".

It's not a business connection but just an extortion racket to get me to pay Google for what I am already paying Apple for.

Do a search on it on the interwebs and you'll see lots of people talking about it.  Google has cloned the iCloud in terms of photos and you can't get around it.

Amazon has a photos app too and it does the same in terms of syncing but I can delete from Amazon Photos without worrying about it being deleted off iCloud.

 

[Deleterious]

This was just announced a few days ago.  Does this help your situatuion?

Google Finally Announces Much-Needed Google Photos Feature

Quote

December 9th Update: I've added a method for removing individual photos and videos from your Google Photos backup while keeping them on your local device—use at your own risk!

 

[LaceyLou]

Since I don't think it warrants its own thread.... are there any decent meal kit plans out there, especially ones with different dietary restrictions? Both of the ones I've tried in the past had meals that all tasted the same to me, and one of them later had a recall because one of its ingredients was causing serious liver/gall bladder issues.