I’ve seriously got to get off my ass and finish a few things around on the blog. I’ve got tonight, a full day tomorrow, and Friday morning to work on it, so maybe I can get creative.

I’ve got to finish the new layout. This one is shit. With all due respect to the designer (it is actually a great design), the layout - and how I’ve killed it - just isn’t working for me anymore. I’ve got one in the works, but lazy ass hasn’t wanted to code since finishing up CPSC 312 this a month ago. I’ve gotta shake that bug.

I was also thinking about coding up a widget that takes that entire sidebar and makes it interactive, so that clicking one of the services pulls from any available APIs and gives a preview of the contents. But maybe not. I probably should focus on the layout.

Oh, and I need to write up my First Looks/Quasi-reviews for some new toys I’ve gotten like my Kindle, Wii Fit, etc.

I noticed a few interesting things while reviewing stats and figures for ThisIsLee.com. I felt that I may need to enlighten you on a few things.

In case you didn’t know, a site owner can see everything about your request to the site. How long you stayed, how often you show up, what pages you read, etc. We can also see exactly what you search for on any search engine to get here. This is the one I monitor quite a bit. I like to find out what brings people to my page. This evening, when checking for any new search terms, I noticed something a little odd. Someone (or multiple someones) searched for “lee atkins att” to get to my page. Even more interesting are the particular stories that are pointed to. One story was where I talk about the AT&T 3g rollout, the other was a tweet where I talked about the new LG Vu I got to play with. I say maybe “multiple someones” because this is the first time I’ve ever seen this search term show up, yet it is #1 with a bullet on the Google search result page.

What is interesting about this other than the fact that “Atkins” isn’t my name? Oh, nothing other than the fact that everyone from the level above me at AT&T (my rep) on up do not know that Atkins isn’t my name. My SME phone that is provided to me even has the name Atkins associated with it.

Coincidence? I think not.

I like that, AT&T. And by AT&T, I’m talking to specific people that work for you. You know who you are. Googling for your SMEs’ names and “att” to see what we are chattering about across the intertubes? Pretty smart. Clever, even.

But we can see you.

I had to add a new category for this, “Quickie”, because it’s going to be short.

Don’t ask how, but I’ve got a good reason to believe that AT&T is rolling out 3G in Chattanooga on June 30th.

AT&T’s 3G coverage nationwide is currently just above pitiful, so it makes sense they’re expanding it.

However, think to yourself what else has launched at the end of June before and what is expected to launch in roughly the same time period this year. I’ll let you figure it out.

All I’m saying is the rollout around the 30th is probably not limited to Chattanooga and is probably going to consist of a lot more than just a technology launch. I mean, you would probably want to launch a flagship product to demonstrate it, right?

(Note, everything below the Chattanooga rollout statement is speculation, but damn if it doesn’t sound just right.)

EDIT (June 11, 2008):

Sorry, I didn’t get to find much more out yet or write a post, but I did make this. I placed 28 of the 3G towers onto a Google Map. This isn’t complete, though. For example, there are more between the big group of Chattanooga ones and the single Cleveland one. There are some important boundaries, though. The towers go no further north, south, east, or west at this time than the farthest towers in those directions.

This is going to be a tiered rollout. If your area doesn’t have it yet, and you are close to the Chattanooga market, they are working on pushing it out in the weeks (and, most likely, months) following the June 30th activation date. If I get any more info or find out changes to the “go” time, I’ll add it to this post.

 
View Larger Map

This data is correct as of 5/31/08. I didn’t post a screenshot of the interface I’m looking at for two reasons.

1) I’m pretty sure I can’t show the *actual* program I’m pulling these from, and my AT&T reps already know I blog here. (But, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with arbitrarily placing little dots on a Google Map that just so happen to roughly line up with coverage, right?)

2) You can’t tell anything from a screenshot. It shows all towers: new, old, dead, and dying. You have to pull up another popup for each one to get useful information.