Jawbone Bluetooth Headset from Cingular

Overall, I’ve been happy with my cellphone – a
Motorola Razr V3. It is light, thin, and receives and holds
signals fairly well. However, there are a several things that
don’t work for me.

First, the internal and external screens are unreadable when
I’m outside or in the car. Unfortunately, this seems to be a
characteristic of LCDs so until someone comes up with a better
replacement, there’s not much that can be done.

Second, the battery doesn’t last very long. By long, I’m
talking about two or three eight hour days on stand-by before I
need to recharge. I’m not sure if advances in battery types will
help this, but for now, there’s not much that can be done.

Third, along the street and even in a noisy car, it is very
difficult to hear the caller’s voice. I’ve turned up the volume
all the way but it just isn’t very loud(or my hearing isn’t very
good). I’ve also tried using the speaker phone, which works well
but that isn’t an option in crowded locations or when privacy is
required. I’ve even tried using a wired earpiece which also works
but after a few months, it failed due to a shorted wire.

In a couple of months I will be eligible to
change phones at a discounted rate. I may do that. But what phone
I might get is still up in the air. I’m leaning towards getting
one of the Palm Treo
PDA.
Most likely,
the 680 for no other reason than because it the cheapest Treo
(Nokia makes a nice unit but I’m not used to its interface.
Still, at half the price, it will be in the running).

Why a PDA and why the Palm? Since becoming the division
administrator six months ago, I’ve had to keep track of a
multitude of appointments. At first, I tried using a day
planner/calendar. But it was so big that I usually didn’t take it
with me, which defeats the purpose of having one because I can’t
refer to it at meetings if I don’t have it. This was a big problem and for awhile, I was making notes at meetings then transferring the notes to the day planner when I got back to the office. Obviously, this was not very efficient.

So I bought the cheapest PDA, a Palm Z22.
It’s small, light, the battery lasts a long time and keeps my
appointments. I’m quite happy with how it works. The problem is,
I’m now carrying the Razr and a PDA. This is more than I want to
carry around. So that’s why I’m looking at a Treo. The downside
of the Treos is, of course, they are larger than a Razr or Z22,
individually. Still, I could fit one in my pocket. But who knows
what kinds of phones will be available in a couple of months?

In the mean time, I went looking for a Bluetooth wireless
headset to replace the wired earphone that failed. I know there
are a bunch of headsets out there. Many of which are probably
very good. But I was looking for one that had noise cancelling,
which narrows the field and increases the price.

As it happens, my cellphone
carrier, Cingular recently started selling something called the
Jawbone Bluetooth headset
[warning: site requires Flash]. Yes, I know, what a name. But I
guess it’s descriptive because, apparently, it uses sound
conductance through the bones in the face as a way of reducing
the noise picked up by its microphone. It also uses other
circuitry to try to filter out certain types of impulse
noises.

But when I called the nearest Cingular
store to ask if they had one in stock, I was met with
incredulous silence and then treated as if I was some kind of
prank caller. So, I used the email address found in the Cingular
press release and asked for help. Within a short time, a helpful
person by the interesting name of Kelleigh Scott responded and
asked what zip code I lived in. I sent that back and Kelleigh
responded saying one had been put on hold for me at the Cingular
store near my home! In a time of rude and/or unresponsive
businesses, this was a very pleasant surprise. Imagine that,
someone actually quickly and efficiently responded to an email.
You better believe that after work, I went directly to the
Cingular store and picked up my new headset. If only all
businesses were like that! Well done Kelleigh Scott and well done
Cingular.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone – Aloha!

MT 3.33

Okay, as far as I can tell, most of the behind the scenes
changes to this blog went through without problems. What I did was
upgrade to the latest version of MovableType. Like upgrading GNU/Linux
distros, I don’t really do an upgrade. What I do is backup the posts
and then wipe the directories clean. Only after doing that do I install
the new software. Otherwise, the old files don’t necessarily get
upgraded and you can end up with a partially upgraded system which
makes for a fully unstable one. System, that is.

I note that the instructions on how to do the install leave out
important parts. Like? If you are using GNU/Linux ftp to move the main
install file from your PC to your web host, you need to remember that
the file is in binary format (either .gz or .zip, depending on which
one you downloaded). If you upload it as ASCII, you _will_ have
problems. Problems that may be difficult to diagnose. Even after you’ve
done the upload and extracted the file into the folder you will be
using (e.g., /bin, /cgi-bin, /cgi-sys, or where ever you’ve chosen) ,
you need to move the sub-directory called mt-static out of your install
directory to somewhere on your web root. How you do that varies on the
operating system of your host so I will leave that as an exercise for
the user.

However, there are some issues related to the default index
template that still need to be changed. For instance, why does the
template display each and every past month? I mean, I’ve been posting
for several years now and the default should not display the months on
the main page. Rather, the default should be a link to a
separate page that breaks things up my month, organized by year.

Secondly, for some reason, the title of each post is displayed
as a link. I’m not sure why that is, although it seems like a good idea
except for the fact that they already provide a link to the post (its
down there labeled as “permalink”). I’m not sure, but MT may be
combining CSS files from the old version with the new. If so, I need to
find out how that is occurring because, as far as I know, I’ve deleted
or moved all the old directories.

Lastly, and this is not necessarily part of the upgrade, I’ve
decided to bite the bullet and go “dynamic” in page creation. This
means pages will be created on the fly rather than rendered as
standard, static HTML. I do this not because I think it is a good idea
(in fact, I think it’s the opposite), but since my web host, pair.com.,
throttles the scripts that MT uses, which causes certain functions to
fail, I don’t have any choice. Of course, I could switch to another
host or host this site myself, both of which I am looking into. But for
now, this is how things will have to go. This means, however, I really
have to remember to back up the content because should the database
that actually stores these posts become corrupted or otherwise
fail, _everything_ will be lost. Everything. Like, forever. YMMV.
Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Programming Note

I’m going to do some house cleaning on the server for this
site. As I do that, full access to this blog will not be available. If
you come by during this time, the current page should be up, but not
necessarily other services like search. Hopefully, the outage won’t be
long so things will be back to how they were shortly.

On the other hand, if it all goes badly, which it has in the
past, my blog may be down for a couple of days. Stay tuned.

Aloha!

Panasonic Says Buy Plasma, Not LCD

Now that all the presents have been opened and you’re still
waiting for that flat panel TV, now is the time to think about
upgrading so that you will be ready for the Super Bowl! It’s too bad
the after Christmas sales don’t seem to have materialized. At least,
not to the extent I’ve seen in past years. I guess retailers must have
had a good Christmas.

Anyway, no, as I’ve said before, I don’t want to get in to a
flame war over which type of TV is better – plasma or LCD (actually,
the old school tube has the better color rendition, contrast, and deep
blacks and pure whites). But one of the manufacturers of all three
types of TVs says, for larger screen sizes, plasma
is best.

Why is Panasonic/Matsushita saying this? Well, Panasonic, the
article says, insists that plasma has “superior contrast, color
rendition, crisp motion, viewing angle and durability when compared to
L.C.D. TVs.”

Now, as I said at the top, I don’t want to get in to any flame
wars over this. If you like LCD, more power to you. I think Sony makes
some of the better, if not the best LCD TVs around. So if you want to
buy one, go right ahead.

As for me, if I were to buy a flat panel, which I’m not yet
planning to do, I would get a Panasonic plasma. On the other hand, Sony
still makes an old school CRT-type
TV that is high definition, 34 inches, and sells for less
than $1,000USD. This TV, to me anyway, beats both LCD and Plasma. Happy
shopping! YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Christmas Around the World

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way
To say “Merry Christmas to you.”

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

Ave Maria Gratia plena
Maria Gratia plena
Maria Gratia plena
Ave, ave dominus
Dominus tecum

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
klingt es weit und breit.
Schön ist eine Schlittenfahrt
im Winter wenn es schneit.
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
klingt es weit und breit.
Mach’ mit mir
‘ne Schneeballschlacht,
der Winter steht bereit!

Mele
Kalikimaka and Aloha!

Caught in the Catch-22

CMP/United Business Media owns Byte magazine. Back
when Byte was
actually published on paper, I used to have a subscription. Then it
disappeared from the shelf and eventually became an online only
publication. I subscribed to the new version so I could read the famed
Chaos Manor column written by Dr. Jerry Pournelle.

But eventually CMP got rid of Dr. Pournelle. Perhaps the
events are not connected, but it seems that around that time, I began
to get all kinds of spam emails from one of CMP’s other
publications called Dr. Dobbs Journal. I especially got notices of
seminars that Dr. Dobbs was involved in. Unfortunately, these emails
were coded such that you could “unsubscribe” from _only_ the event that
they were currently advertising. That is, there is no way to
unsubscribe from ALL
events. This essentially means you will ALWAYS get these
spams. This is very clever. In some states, I wonder if it isn’t also
illegal because employing this method means you can never unsubscribe
from future mailings.

Even using their CMP Feedback Page, which leads to an “Unsubscribe“
page doesn’t work. The unsubscribe page seems to be set to never allow
you to actually submit the page (it endlessly requires you to enter
your email address, which you already entered and a CAPTCHA, which is
never accepted)(yes, javascript was enabled).

In addition, their “Privacy“
page is a model of errors. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that even I
make mistakes. But I’m just a private citizen with no money to hire an
editor. But if you look at the number of errors on the page, you have
to wonder if CMP spent any time/money on proofing what they have. For
example, they have a link to its corporate website:
http://www.cmp.com.com/. Internet savvy users will note that there is
an extra “.com” in the link. Hence, clicking on the link gets you nowhere.

In total, given the inability to unsubscribe, even when they
give you the illusion that you can, a rational person could easily come to the
conclusion that CMP was being less than honest. I hope these are just
inadvertent errors, but you have to wonder when a supposedly high tech
company can’t even get its own URL right.

YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

When all life on Earth (except for roaches) ends, it will probably be as a result of something like this
story. Now, who knows if the story is true, but according to
it, World War III almost began because of a long forgotten phone system.

This was during the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. As
the story goes, it seems a direct link from air traffic
controllers and fighter hangers was established. To activate
the warning klaxons(tm), all you had to do was lift the receiver of the
phone and the alarms would go off automatically.

Apparently, this system was replicated over several
states. But eventually, the system was replaced with another and the
phones removed. Except for one.

In New Jersey, someone failed to remove the phone and its
direct link to the jets. Said jets targeted Cuba and were on ready
alert twenty four hours a day. In a few minutes, they could be
airborne, winging their way towards their, and our, fate.

One day, as part of a general cleaning, the staff found the
dust encrusted red colored phone. By then, no one knew what the phone
was for but they decided to pick up the receiver. Not hearing anything,
including a dial tone, the staff replaced the receiver and gave it a
good dusting probably thinking they would be praised to doing such a
good job of cleaning the office.

Within minutes, the tower called to ask whether an
Air Defense Command scramble had been order. When the mystified staff said no,
the tower “Immediately transmitted to the aircraft, “F-86’s
taking off, abort, abort!” on the emergency
radio, a frequency that all aircraft are required to monitor.”
Fortunately, the abort was received and World War III would have to
wait for another day.

Aloha!

Xandros 4.1 II

I’ve mentioned before how there really isn’t such a thing as
doing an “upgrade” installation with Linux. No matter what they call
it, it’s just not a complete as when you do a Windows upgrade. And
that, my friends, is faint praise to Microsoft because they do a pretty
bad job of it. So if you try an upgrade installation of Linux
(regardless of the distribution), you will probably have many problems.

Just to try it, I decided to do an upgrade installation of
Xandros. Although things looked pretty good after the install, I’m
beginning to run into problems.

First, in my old configuration, I had purchased and
installed CrossOver Offce Professional directly from Codeweavers
because they had a more recent version than Xandros (as an aside, do
not expect to get the more recent versions of software from Xandros,
even when you pay money for it). After the upgrade, as far as I can
tell, Crossover Office Standard has taken over. I do not know what
happended to my purchased copy. In addition, I had to reconfigure the
Launch menu because none of my Windows applications showed up except,
strangely enough, Lotus Notes. So, I had to add Excel, Word, Access,
and PowerPoint to the menu.

Secondly, my problems with Xandros XN are growing. If I try to
install certain files from the Xandros supported repository, I get
error messages saying some files did not download. Well, no kidding. I
thought that’s what XN was for. I mean, I just upgraded this
installation. Why am I having these XN problems? If I try to add the
unsupported Debian resposity, I get a screen full of errors like:

Couldn’t stat source package list
http://xnv4.xandros.com xandros4.0-xn/contrib Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_pkg_dists_xandros4.0-xn_contrib_binary-i386_Packages)
- stat (2 No such file or directory)
Couldn’t stat source package list http://xnv4.xandros.com
xandros4.0-xn/contrib Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_pkg_dists_xandros4.0-xn_contrib_binary-i386_Packages)
- stat (2 No such file or directory)
Unable to parse package file
/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_pkg_dists_xandros4.0-xn_main_binary-i386_Release
(1)
Problem opening
/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_pkg_dists_xandros4.0-xn_non-free_binary-i386_Packages
The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

I gave up and wiped the disk to do a regular install. That seems to have made a
a positive difference. At least, I can now download supported files.

I’m still undecided whether to recommend this distribution since every other distribution also has problems when upgrading. Still, I have to wonder when things will get better.

Aloha!

Bono and Microsoft?

I like a good rumor as much as the next guy (Google Apple iPhone and
see what you get). So take the following as my attempt at starting a
rumor (good or otherwise).

Most everyone knows about the connection between Apple iPods and the
rock band U2
(see the special edition
iPod here). Recently, U2 finished their latest tour right here in
Hawaii.

Seen at the U2
show was Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Seen at a restaurant was Gates
and Bono (although perhaps not at the same table). Seen at the
after party was Gates and Bono (sorry, can’t find an online link). Even
going back as far as May
of last year (scroll down), Bono stayed over at Gates’ home in
Seattle.

Now, most of this is probably due to the charity work both Bono and
Gates do. But wouldn’t it be great if there were a U2 special edition of…now…wait…for…it – Microsoft’s Zune!

Okay, so it’s a little early for an April fools joke. But I couldn’t resist…

Xandros Desktop Pro 4.1 Response

Yesterday, I posted about my
problems with Xandros Desktop Professional 4.1. In response to the post, I got a comment from someone
identifying himself as Matt, a product development specialist at Xandros. You can read the comment at the bottom of
yesterday’s post but essentially, he is saying they don’t do activation anymore. I will take him at his word. But if so, they need to change their FAQ and online customer accounts to reflect this.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone – Aloha!