2018 – asty.org

Shopping for a new phone? Consider the Galaxy A5 & A8 before splurging on the Galaxy S9

Posted on April 20, 2018October 17, 2019 by chrisa

This is not as timely as I’d hoped, but given that the Galaxy S9 is out and deals are everywhere, I wanted to give mention to a phone line which isn’t even on the radar of most Americans. The Galaxy A series from Samsung has a lot of the nice features of the more well-known S series, but are sold completely unlocked and at a much lower price. They generally have higher end features like IP6X waterproofing, and have a nice speaker placement on the side of the phone versus the bottom which I really like.

Galaxy A5 (2017)

If you prefer your fingerprint reader on the front of your phone, or just like a smaller phone that fits in …

Spectrum’s 10 channel ‘TV Choice’ is the Real Deal (if you can get it)

Posted on March 3, 2018December 3, 2019 by chrisa

Click here to skip my Doofenshmirtz-level backstory and right to the review

Let’s be clear: there is no better feeling than the day you break up with your Internet/TV/Phone provider and cut the cord. Every cord cutter knows what their breaking point was. Mine came when I called Verizon this summer to try and get a better price than the $120+ I was paying for (to be honest, decently fast and pretty reliable) FiOS Internet along with an assortment of cable channels we almost never used. But I started to wonder more and more as the bills came rolling in: is that reliability worth such a mark-up, when Verizon was recently offering Internet-only plans for $40 for new customers (and …

New site

Posted on January 22, 2018January 24, 2018 by chrisa

Decided to add some throwback graphics (circa 2002 – who needs transparent images!) to the new site, and moved providers. Thanks for the great and fast setup DigitalOcean!

I also re-posted one of my more famous (or at least notorious) articles on the PINE license from 2001, When Non-Free is “Free Enough”…