If We Don’t, Remember Me.

This motivated me to find out how to create my own animated gifs. It took some digging but I finally found a forum post over at the Ubuntu forums that has some really good steps on how to create an animated gif. The thread can be found here.

I am laying out the steps below, basically, the same as in the thread mainly so that in the future, if that thread disappears, I will have this post to reference again. So really, this post is mostly for my benefit.

To break it down this is what I do, keeping in mind that I am doing it from Linux Mint. I take a DVD, or ISO that is created from a DVD, and export it using Handbrake.  Then using the steps from the forum I ran this from the terminal:

mplayer -ao null -ss 0:57:32 -endpos 5 movie.m4v -vo jpeg:outdir=moviedirector

Then I open Gimp and select and open the first .jpg file I want to use in my clip. After, I then open the remaining files I want in my clip as layers in Gimp. If you want to resize the animated clip to something smaller this is when you scale the image after all the layers have been added. The next step is to save the file as a .gif selecting to save as an animation in the process. Immediately after in the export area I enable it to ‘loop forever’ and set the delay between frames anywhere between 55 to 75 ms, depending upon the scene. Then under frame disposal, ‘One frame per layer’ is selected from the drop down and ‘Use delay entered above for all frames’ and ‘Use disposal entered above for all frames’ are enabled. Then select Save.

Here is the first clip I created from 12 Monkeys.

And my second clip from one of my all time favorite movies, Blade Runner.

For the rest of the month of October, you can expect to find more animated gif scenes from horror movies here on my blog.

If you want to create your own animated gif and are not on Linux, I found quite a few helpful videos on You Tube of people creating animated gifs on Windows and OS X.

Being a tech geek/enthusiast I am very familiar with Apple products having owned several iPods, an iPhone, a Mac Mini, and a MacBook. If you don’t know me you should know, however, that I am not a Apple Fanboy being biased to no operating system or tech product in particular. However, I understand and have experienced the impact Steve Jobs had at Apple and most importantly the tech industry as a whole. He was a pioneer and will be historically immortal like Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and many more.

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Please note that the quality of your viewing and recording in GUVCviewer is going to be dependent on a combination of hardware. I believe I mentioned my hardware in the video I posted on GUVCviewer back in July but here it is in text format:

Dell XPS 410 with 4GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB, Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi, and Logitech C400 webcam.

Hope that helps.

I decided to give Google Music a try and I wasn’t happy with the Music Manager. While with Amazon I have the option of just uploading certain albums, Google Music Manager wants to upload my entire library without giving me the option to only upload what I want to upload. Yes, I could probably just point it to a folder that only has a specific album or albums but that’s retarded. I do like the Google Music Player for Android though. It’s actually a very nice looking application. I haven’t found anything wrong with the Amazon Music Player. It’s really just a basic player.

I know it may be convenient to just upload the entire library in one sitting but not for me. I have over 10,000 songs that equals close to 50GB and an upload pipe of only 1.85Mps. One, trying to upload all the data clogs my pipe. Two, it would take easily 4 to 6 days to upload my entire library. And using up all that bandwidth in those days would be quite annoying. Now, if Google wants to come over to my house and give me their Google Fiber it would make everything so much better.

I think for now, until Google makes some changes to their music manager, I will stick with Amazon’s Cloud music service.

Since I am a Systems Administrator a lot of my work can be done from my desk, when I am not building new servers or troubleshooting hardware issues. Thanks to the powers where I work I am allowed to work from home from time to time. In the past, before I made the switch to Linux full-time, I used the Cisco VPN client on my Windows machine. Since moving to Linux, I needed a VPN client that worked with our Cisco ASA 5500 and then a good Windows RDP client to remote into my work computer once connected to my work network.

I searched around for a while and finally found a good client for Linux Mint called VPNC. You can find it in the Software Manager or by typing the following at the terminal:

sudo apt-get install vpnc

Of course after installing this I had to work with the Network Engineers in my IT department to configure my profile on the Cisco ASA. Once that was done I needed to edit the config file for VPNC found here:

/etc/vpnc/default.conf

The configuration looked something like this (excerpt of my file):

IPSec gateway IP address goes here
IPSec ID identification goes here
IPSec secret secret password goes here
#IKE Authmode hybrid
Xauth username username goes here
#Xauth password password goes here

Of course, the hash tags comment out the lines. I hashed the password so that I would be prompted once I connected to my corporate network for additional security. Then once I had a connection, validated by having a tun0 interface, I use Gnome-RDP for my remote connection to my work PC. That simple. The only problem is DNS on my personal computer. Since I am on Linux and not Windows my personal machine’s DNS does not get updated to the DNS at work. There are ways to fix this but I know the dynamic IP address of my computer at work so once that Gnome-RDP profile is created with that IP address, I don’t have to remember it. Also, if the IP address of my computer ever changes I know the IP address of our domain controllers/DNS/DHCP servers at work so I can connect to them to get the updated IP address of my workstation.

One issue I found with Gnome-RDP is that there is no clear way to exit out of full screen view of the RDP session. I found you have to select, on your keyboard, Ctrl-Alt-Enter to exit and enter full screen mode of Gnome-RDP.

For about five years now I’ve been using Skype for PC-to-PC calls with family and friends however I remember being able to make video calls as far back as 1999 with NetMeeting on Windows 98. I still use Skype for video calls frequently and sometimes switch between that service and Google’s Video Chat via Gmail. Video chat has been available for a few years now on computers but technology has advanced so much that we now have the capability to have video calls on our mobile phone. That just blows my mind. I’m mean, come on, it’s not science fiction today it’s science fact and that is the coolest thing to me being a fan of science fiction. The iPhone 4 came out last year with a front-facing camera and the ability to make video calls via Facetime. In recent months you also have the option to purchase an Android phone (I think it’s just the Nexus S for now) with a front-facing camera to video chat via Gtalk with more Android phones coming out with the same ability in the coming months.

Currently, I do not own a phone with a front-facing camera (still hauling around the Motorola Droid 1) but I can tell you that my next purchase will be an Android phone with a front-facing camera that will have the ability to video chat. Because I encourage my friends and family to call me on Skype and Gtalk on the computer today I also would like to have that option on my mobile phone too. It’s so Star Trek, man.

So, I’m wondering: If you were to buy a phone with a front-facing camera today, or in the future, would you use the video chat function? I would love to see your vote and read your comments below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

http://guvcview.berlios.de/

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve used Windows most of my tech life since version 3.11. I finally stepped out of my shell and tried Linux about 9 years ago. I first started using Redhat, before it became Fedora, and even setup a Redhat server back in 2004 running a web server out of my house to host a forum for me and some buddies of mine. Other than that Linux server, I’ve never been a full time Linux user. Don’t get me wrong, I have tried quite a few flavors – Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva, FreeBSD, TurboLinux, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and many more – but have never completely used Linux for my day-to-day use.

In 2006 when Apple changed the architecture to Intel processors, I decided to try Mac OS X by buying a Mac Mini and immediately fell in love. Finding that I was using the Mini more and more and needing more power, I sold the Mini six months later and purchased a black MacBook. I still use that MacBook to this day and it has been involved in my day-to-day computer operations.

Even though I have that MacBook, I still use my Windows desktop (Dell XPS 410) for other day-to-day computer operations as well as PC gaming. Well, three months ago I came to the conclusion that I really need to learn Linux, to be more of a intermediate to advance user rather than a amateur user as I have always been these past 9 years. I figured that the only way to really get into the core of the operating system and to learn everything about it was to use it full time on my desktop. That led to creating a dual boot of Windows 7 and Linux Mint 10; the booting of Windows 7 for PC gaming on the occasion I want to game and the booting of Linux Mint to use in my day-to-day computer operations. I chose Linux Mint because I fell in love with it about two years ago after being a Ubuntu fan. There were things that Ubuntu did with the color scheme and Gnome that I just grew tired after awhile which led me to Linux Mint. Now Ubuntu incorporates the Unity interface and I am glad I switched to Linux Mint before that came along.

For those that don’t know me personally, along with being a tech enthusiast, I also work in the tech industry as a Systems Administrator in a Windows environment. I first received my A+ and Microsoft certification 10 years ago and have been working in IT for that same period of time. I know Windows and I know it pretty well. However, working in the IT field I know it is also advantageous to be more diverse in all aspects of technology, that is why I wanted to experiment with Linux those many years ago. But because of needing to stay up-to-date with Windows for my field it has been difficult to dive right into Linux. I have contemplated getting a Linux certification but never have had the money to achieve that schooling. So, that is why I came to the decision of moving to Linux on my main desktop, so that I can use it and learn it. I learn better by getting my hands dirty.

So, from time to time you will continue to see me post newly discovered tweaks and tips in Linux, particularly Linux Mint.

Well, finally someone came along on the forum and pointed me to SLiM – Simple Login Manager. The link he pointed me to that gave a step-by-step guide to setting it up was over at Ubuntuguide.net. After installing it and testing it on a Linux Mint 10 virtual machine in VirtualBox, I liked what I saw. In fact I liked it so much I decided to try to create my own SLiM theme. I took elements from this GDM splash login that, apparently, only works on Mint prior to version 10 and this is what I came up with.

If you are interested in downloading this theme and using it, you can get it from here.

After much research, though, I have found that the project doesn’t seem to be in development any longer, which is unfortunate. You can find out more on SLiM at the wiki too here. One of the things I found pretty neat about SLiM is this:

• To launch a terminal, enter console as the username (defaults to xterm which must be installed separately… edit /etc/slim.conf to change terminal preference)
• For shutdown, enter halt as the username
• For reboot, enter reboot as the username
• For suspend, enter suspend as the username
• To exit to the shell, enter exit as the username

So, if you are using my theme those tips may come in handy if you need to reboot or shutdown for whatever reason. You’ll need to provide the root password for those steps to work.

Please note (as per comments on the Ubuntuguide.net post) that there have been some people who have had issues with SLiM, so use it at your own risk. Also note that I have also tested SLiM in Linux Mint 11 virtual machine and it works, with some minor issues. The minor issue I have found, so far, is that once you log into your session, in order to shutdown or reboot you will have to send that through the terminal as the option is grayed out when you select Quit in the menu. I haven’t found a fix for this yet but I am still searching.

On the right side you will see a Subscribe section to add the RSS Feed to the RSS Reader of your choice. I have also added a means of email subscription so that every time I have a new post an email can be sent to you with the contents of my post.

If you decide to subscribe, thanks.

I thought I would get that confession out of the way first. Of course, those close to me already know that about me. This post will be evidence enough that I really am a tech geek. Desktop system monitoring is something that can be used as a badge to show off just how geeky you are but in all actuality, it can be very useful. Behold the badge of my geekiness with this screenshot of my MacBook OS X desktop using GeekTool.

And more recently:

As you can see there are some useful monitors on my desktop that gauge my memory, CPU and drive space. Just in the past few months since that last Tron Legacy screenshot I have also added a fan speed monitor of my MacBook. The calendar portion at the bottom, though, is not part of GeekTool and can be found here as a free download. The easiest way I have found to configure GeekTool is by installing Geeklets. Basically, they are preconfigured scripts to add to GeekTool to give you the monitors you see on those screenshots. Now as you see above I have a pretty basic desktop on my MacBook. There are some guys and gals out there that have done some AMAZING desktops as evident on this page. I especially like the comic book strips toward the middle; more so, the desktop monitor story as told by the Buffy comic. Look closely at the dialog.

Now over on the Linux side we have something called Conky. I had heard of the utility before but had never used it until today. The guys over at Web Upd8, the Ubuntu/Linux blog, posted a really cool article on Conky Lunatico Rings that someone created over at  Gnome-look.org. I followed the instructions posted on Web Upd8 and configured my own version with a green color scheme instead of the orange using Andrew’s ‘no wireless’ tweak found in the post and posted a brief video to display my desktop.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video quality isn’t so great, I know, so I apologize. Here is a closer screenshot to get a better view.

Other than the color, I was also able to change the position as the default was more toward the middle of my display and I changed the disk monitor from used space to free space.

For Windows users out there you are probably wondering if there is anything like this for you, and there is. I’ve not used them so I’m not too familiar with them but go check out Rainmeter and Samurize.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/714862

The section to pay attention to is comment #10 here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/714862/comments/10

Be sure to download and install both packages attached to the bug list on the right side. I will also provide direct links to the downloads below.

Atheros dkms driver

Dell dkms driver

Here are the simple steps from the bug link:

1. install the latest kernel image and kernel header
sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic linux-headers-2.6.38-8
2. download dkms packages from the right column and install them  (after downloaded ar3011-dkms_1.1ryu2.3_all.deb and dell-laptop-dkms_1.4_all.deb)
sudo dpkg -i ar3011-dkms_1.1ryu2.3_all.deb dell-laptop-dkms_1.4_all.deb
3. run "dkms status" to see if there are the following info(or just paste the result here)
dell-laptop, 1.4, 2.6.38-8-generic, x86_64: installed  ar3011-dkms, 1.1ryu2.3, 2.6.38-8-generic, x86_64: installed
4. you don't need this step if you have the info that step 3 describes  (paste the result of the following commands here)
1. cat /proc/version_signature
2. dpkg -l | grep linux- | grep ^ii
3. ls /usr/src

The steps worked for me without needing to proceed to step 4 and I was able to connect to my OG Droid and transfer files.

Good luck.

I should also give credit to Joe who posted the link in my last post in the comments.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is what came with the Vostro:

• Vostro V130 UltraSleek Laptop 0.65″ at thinnest point (0.78″ at thickest) & 3.5lbs
• Color: Aberdeen Silver
• 2 GB Memory (1x2GB), 1333MHz Dual Ranked RDIMM
• Dell Wireless 1702 802.11n/BT3.0 Networking Combo Card
• 320 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
• 2.0MP Webcam
• Keyboard on Notebook
• 6 Cell Primary Battery
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
• Trend Micro 16.6 PC-cillin 30 Day
• 64BIT Operating System
• 65W AC Adapter
• 13.3 inch Widescreen HD (1366×768) with Anti-Glare
• 125V Power Cord
• VGA & HDMI Port
• Processor: Intel Celeron Processor ULV U3600 (2M Cache, 1.2GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
• Dimensions & Weight:
• Width: 13″ / 330mm
• Height: (front/back) 0.65-0.78inches/16.5-19.7mm
• Depth: 9.06″ / 230mm
• Starting weight: 3.5lbs/1.59kg (with 6-cell battery)

As mentioned in the video, Linux Mint 11 works really well installed on the Vostro V130. Since Ubuntu moved, a few versions ago, to using Unity as its primary interface, I started using Linux Mint as my preferred Linux distribution. It’s basically a branch of Ubuntu but leaning more toward Debian based without the annoyance of Unity. It’s definitely an operating system I would recommend to anyone especially since it is free to download, install and use without any cost to you. Below is a screenshot of the elegant desktop and menu of Linux Mint 11 Main Edition.

Some of you that know me know that I also own a MacBook and are probably wondering why I just don’t use that for my consulting. I was using it for a while but since it is getting a little long in the tooth – I purchased it way back in 2006 – I was afraid of it getting thrown around too much in my duties that it would die sooner than I would like it to (I LOVE my MacBook). Also, if you have ever held the black MacBook from that line you know that those aren’t too lite, especially compared to the Vostro V130.

I have been really impressed, so far, with the performance and mobility of the Vostro V130. And benefiting from the installation of Linux Mint 11 is just an added bonus. Those that may have some apprehension of buying something like this and losing performance will be as surprised as I. The only issue with the Vostro V130 that most reviews have mentioned is the battery life. On average, like others, I’ve gotten about 2 hours worth of battery power. But, in most cases for me, that is enough to work off of onsite when working with my clients before having to plug it in at home to recharge.

If you are not already aware, my business site can be found here:

http://ectech.info

Just visit the blog section, or add it to your RSS reader, and watch out for new post.

In response to @larryfretz on Twitter, it is really quite simple. I’m a Linux Mint fan and even though I have been using Linux for about 10 years I still consider myself a newbie. So, I had to find a guide to assist me in installing and configuring SSH on my Mint 10 machine since it is not installed and configured by default. I did a Google search and found this very useful and easy to follow guide:

Basic SSH Setup On Linux Mint 10 Using OpenSSH Server

To keep my LAN at home relatively secure, I decided to change the TCP port from 22 to something else in the SSH config file. Using the standard list of ports at Wikipedia listing I chose a port that is not a standard used port by the IANA. The router that I use at home is the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. I simply setup a NAT to point to my Linux Mint machine on that particular TCP port configured in the SSH config file. Once I got that configured I downloaded ConnectBot from the Android Market to my Motorola Droid 1 to use for the SSH connection to my Linux Mint machine remotely. It really is that simple.

A few things to note: Make sure you have a really good password for the account you use on your Linux machine for the SSH connection and that you change it regularly. Also, for those interested, I would not recommend the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station for a router. It’s not that I’ve had issues with it (except for once when I completed a firmware update from Apple that had a bug in it and had to revert back to the previous firmware) or that it is not secure, I just think there are other wireless N routers out there that are less expensive and can be just as reliable and secure – I’m actually considering selling my AirPort Extreme and finding something newer. Also, I don’t know if this is standard on all home routers these days but every time I make a change on my Apple Airport router it requires a reboot, which is REALLY annoying as everyone at home loses connection for about 2 minutes.

If you have any comments or additional tips on this please post below. If you have any questions you can email me directly from the Contact page of this blog or just post them in the comments also.

Disclaimer: These are the steps I went through to root and ROM my Motorola Droid 1 and complete it successfully. If you try these steps and brick your phone, I cannot be held responsible for your actions or the outcome of your device. Be it known that if you try these steps you will void your warranty.

First of all know that I am new to this and this was the first time I had ever rooted my phone and installed a custom ROM. I researched a lot of forums and websites to piece together all the steps necessary to get to where my phone is now. It is one of the reasons why I decided to write up these steps because in all my searching I couldn’t find one source that had step-by-step on how to root a Motorola Droid 1 and install a custom ROM.

Rooting your phone

I had Android 2.2.1 Build FRG83D installed. From what I had found there is a way to root your phone manually and a way to do it automatically with rooting utilities some very talented developers had created on their own. Since I am new to the Android OS, I wanted to do it the easy way with a utility. There are quite a few out there and a couple of the most popular are z4root found here and SuperOneClick found here. I didn’t choose either one because after reading those forum pages I had seen a lot of people state that neither worked on the specific build on my phone. After reading other forums and sites I found out that a couple of people had success with Soup or Root found here for my specific build. After seeing the site and noticing the utility was still in beta and had not been updated since October of 2010 I was first a bit hesitant. However it was a very easy utility to use and it worked. The instructions given on the site are very straightforward and easy to follow. If you use that method you may have to do it more than once to be successful as I had experienced and also once you finish the process you will need to update the Superuser application from the Google Market that Soup or Root installs during the process. The Superuser application is used, after you root, to tell other applications that they can have root privileges to do what they need to do so don’t uninstall it.

After I rooted my phone I installed some very useful applications that I highly recommend. One of them I used to install a custom ROM called ROM Manager. There others you can see listed here.

Installing a custom ROM

Long before I had the guts to root my phone and consider installing a custom ROM I had heard of the very stable ROM called Sapphire by Crystal Clear ROMs for the Motorola Droid, and other devices. Having a stable and snappy device was one of the reasons I had looked into installing a custom ROM. Since updating to Android 2.2 I had noticed a performance decrease in my phone, most in UI refreshes when I close an application or change the orientation of the phone from portrait to landscape and vice versa. Hearing so many people rave about how fast Sapphire was I had to try it out. If you decide to install this ROM, even though you have tons to choose from out there, know that there are two files to download from their site; the straight, stripped down ROM (sapphire-2.0.2-update.zip) and the file that has the Google apps that normally come with Android devices come separately (sapphire-2.0.2-gapps-update.zip). But first things first: You need to backup your device before installing a custom ROM and the utility I used with ease, as mentioned above, was ROM Manager. Once you install it you should get the prompt to also enable ClockworkMod Recovery, which I highly recommend. You use this portion of ROM Manager to backup your current ROM in case of any major issues. To help me with this critical step and install a ROM I found these two articles to be very helpful from the Android Police site.

Backup and Restore
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/04/16/complete-guide-how-to-fully-back-up-and-restore-your-android-phone-using-nandroid-backup-and-clockworkmod-rom-manager/

Flashing a custom ROM
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/05/08/complete-guide-how-to-flash-a-custom-rom-to-your-android-phone-with-rom-manager-full-backup-restore/

I was able to follow those very informative steps to backup my device then use ROM Manager to install the Sapphire 2.0.2 ROM. Now, this is where it got tricky for me. See, I ran into a sort of Catch 22 after installing the Sapphire ROM; since it was just a very slimmed down version of Android without the Google Market, I had no way of installing applications, that’s where the sapphire-2.0.2-gapps-update.zip file came into play. But, again, I needed ROM Manager on my device to install the Google apps and no way of installing it, even though the file was copied to my SD card. This is the part where I needed to learn how to use the adb.exe tool in the Android SDK. Since I was on Windows I installed the SDK using the instructions and used adb.exe under the platform tools. One thing you should know that I had to figure out is that you need to install the Motorola drivers for Windows in order for adb to recognize the device when you plug it in via USB, so I extracted the drivers from the Soup or Root utility and installed it on my machine. However, if you had used the Soup or Root utility to root the device those drivers should already be installed. When I rooted my device I had completed it from my Windows MacBook (dual booted with Boot Camp) so I was a little confused at first as to why adb wasn’t seeing my device on my desktop. If you still need the drivers and not sure how to extract them from the Soup or Root utility you can download them from here.

http://www.edwardcrosby.com/Moto_Drivers.exe

But, of course, if you still have the Soup or Root utility you can also just launch that utility and install the drivers from there.

Once you install the drivers the next step is to plug in your device via USB (make sure you have USB debugging enabled under Menu>Applications>Development), open command prompt under Windows (Start>Run>cmd) and navigate to the Android SDK installation under Platform-Tools to get to the adb utility (instructions from the links above on how to install the SDK and Tools). Since I just needed to install the ROM Manager after already copying over the sapphire-2.0.2-gapps-update.zip to my SD card I simply made sure adb server was running with this command:

adb start-server

and then confirmed my device was listed with this command:

adb devices

and then with the ROM Manager apk (which can be found here) in the same directory as adb I issued this command to install it on my device:

adb install RomManager.apk

You can find all these commands plus more over at the adb page.

Once I got ROM Manager installed I just selected sapphire-2.0.2-gapps-update.zip to be installed from the SDcard from within ROM Manager and was able to get all the Google apps installed onto the Sapphire ROM.

Now, for those that may be reading this who are ROM installing pros I am sure I missed some steps that could have saved me some headaches or may have done something wrong that required the long way around but I am still learning and consider myself a newbie in this field. I’m just stating here my own experience on how to root your device and install a custom ROM.

One thing that I have not done yet that I may do is purchase the premium version of ROM Manager as it gives you the option of downloading custom ROMs via the app to install instead of going out and searching for custom ROMs to copy over to my SD card. It’s make things simple.

If you have any questions or comment on these steps just let me know. If you get stuck at a step or need any other assistance I will try my best to assist you. I don’t claim to be an expert but I will try to help you. Also, there are tons of resources out there on how to do this stuff. The only problem I found is that most of it is stuck in pages and pages of forum post over at XDA Developers and over at Droid Forums so there is usually a lot of digging to find what you need. That is one of the reasons why I created this post in hopes to help someone who hasn’t completed this to avoid having to go through all those post like I did.

One last thing I will state is that I am impressed with the Sapphire ROM. It seems to be pretty fast so far and I would recommend to anyone. The only caveat with the ROMs from Crystal Clear is that they may have halted and no support continued due to the developer moving over to CryanogenMod. The details can be found here.

I hope this helps you. Good luck.

UPDATE: I was corrected on a forum by someone who knows a lot more about this than I do that I did go the long way around. The thread can be found here and his direct quote is as follows:

Stelv: “I think you are going through too much trouble to do this, all you have to do is to boot into clockwork recovery. Wipe data and cache. Select install zip from sdcard. Then select rom zip file. Then tap power button to go back to main clockwork menu. Select install zip from sdcard again. Select Gapps file. Then reboot. Thats it.
Nothing is done through Rom manager except for flashing recovery and booting into recovery.”

In later threads, he also pointed me to a site that has some really good informational steps on backing up with Titanium Backup and wiping and installing a ROM found here:

http://www.moddedlogic.com/pe/howto.php

It took a while to find a Kohl’s in my area that still had them in stock but I finally found a location that had two left. Since I have an 11 year old boy in the house that wants the same tech gadgets I get I decided to buy one for him too. Unfortunately for me, one of the two was defective right out of the box, the calibration of the touchscreen was off by about a quarter of an inch. I gave the 11 year old, Techie Jr., the good one while I have to suffer empty handed. But, that is not the end to that story, I’ll tell you more in a moment. For now I will state that I was able to get in contact with Pandigital customer service and they will be sending me out a replacement to swap out in which I should receive within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I have to suffer a little bit longer without a tablet to read comic books on.

As for the Pandigital Novel Techie Jr. has in his possession, I have been researching around for means of loading custom made Android flavors to install on his device. Most of the information I had found is on slatedroid.com. If you are not familiar with the Pandigital Novel, it comes with a OEM version firmware that comes with a generic Barnes & Noble ereader user interface with no access straight into Android. It looks something like this:

Where the standard interface of Android looks something like this:

The difference is that with a straight Android experience I can install applications (like B&N Nook and Droid Comic Viewer) whereas with Pandigital’s ereader interface I cannot.

I will have to be patient a little longer as I wait for the replacement to arrive. Once it does I will then try to post some videos of it running the Nook application and Droid Comic Viewer application.

But, I want to state, that this is not exactly the Android tablet I am looking for. The ideal Android tablet I want is one with a 10″  capacitive screen (where the Pandigital has a resistive), is relatively fast and is under the $300 price tag. I don’t think that will happen anytime soon so I will try to enjoy this cheap product until that time comes.

Enjoy.

Oh well…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since I am still in my 1 year warranty, Verizon is sending me a replacement that I should see arriving on Tuesday. I have not had any other issues with this device and actually have fallen in love with it. However, I am hoping they send me a Droid 2 as a replacement since it has some keyboard and hardware improvements and is supposed to be faster. I doubt it will happen but I can still hope.

Update – 10/07/2010 6:50pm: I just got off the phone with Apple support to find out if they could tell me the default MTU value on the Airport Extreme since you can’t change it. After waiting on hold for a few minutes for the support technician to research the information they stated the default value is 1492. Stupid Microsoft.

Update – 10/07/2010 7:00pm: I just fixed it myself. Believe it or not, it was a DNS issue. I use OpenDNS on my home network. I have never, EVER had an issue with OpenDNS. I simply went into my Xbox NIC and change the DNS to my ISP’s DNS IP instead of using my router DNS, since it has the OpenDNS IPs, and I was able to log into Xbox Live. Crazy. Although, now that I think of it, I probably could have just put an Allow rule in the OpenDNS settings and it would have fixed it too. Stupid OpenDNS

To make it easy, I installed AppBrain application management tool. You can actually see a list of my apps on their site here. And I also have embedded in the right sidebar their neat little widget.

Below is my list of apps. I’m not going to go into each one of them as the post could be quite a few pages. So if you have any questions about an individual application, just contact me.

A very important tip regarding apps in the Android Market: Read the comments. They can be very helpful when you are trying to decide if it is worth it or not.

ecrosby’s Apps on the phone

Phone: Motorola Droid
53 total, 53 free (100%), 0 paid (0%), 55MB total size, $0 total price

• ADWTheme Faded
• ADW.Launcher
• Evernote
• WordPress
• Live Scores
• Twitter
• AppBrain App Market
• Vintage Comic Droid
• XiiaLive Lite – Online Radio
• TeslaLED Flashlight
• Florida State Football
• Explorer
• Talkback
• Amazon MP3
• Google Goggles
• Facebook for Android
• NOOK for Android
• Carrom3D Demo
• Wifi Analyzer
• NewsRob (Google Reader / RSS)
• Movies
• Layar Reality Browser
• AndFTP
• Aldiko Book Reader
• Flying Androids Live Wallpaper
• The Matrix – Live Wallpaper
• Dropbox
• Droid Comic Viewer
• RealCalc Scientific Calculator
• Ringdroid
• Yelp
• Places Directory
• Google Maps
• Google Voice
• Barcode Scanner
• SwiFTP FTP Server
• Android Terminal Emulator
• Wifi Connecter Library
• OI Shopping list
• NetTools
• ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner
• Listen
• Google Sky Map
• The Weather Channel
• Qik Video Camera
• World Clock
• Replica Island
• StopWatch
• QuickTip Tip Calculator
• IP Subnet/Supernet Calculator
• Par 3 Golf II Lite
• Audioboo
• Video Player

View this app list on AppBrain

As mentioned previously, I have been on this mission to reduce space in my house with the elimination of books and other media. Well, recently I have started using the eReader application on my Droid and Dell Mini netbook and I have to say, for now, it does what I need it to do. If you have never used the eReader application, try it out, it’s free. The only issue I have found so far is that the electronic book prices in their market are a little higher than the rest of the market, as compared to Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble ebooks. If you are curious, here is what the eReader looks like on a netbook turned to portrait mode:

The advantage I have on this netbook is that the computer came with an Intel graphics card that has the ability to rotate 90, 180 and 270 degrees. All that I have to do is launch the eReader application and then hit a keyboard shortcut combination of CTRL+ALT+LEFT and the display rotates. As you see in the above picture, I can then hold my netbook almost like a standard size hardback book. Granted, this is not a perfect solution but for now this will work perfectly until 1.) I can find a practical need for a tablet device, 2.) devices advance technologically, and 3.) the devices and the media for the devices become more competitive and affordable.

Well, after owning my second Flip product, I’ve run into a pretty common issue with the UltraHD that a lot of other people have run into. It took me a while to find the solution online so I thought I would post it again on my blog. Here are the steps:

1) remove the battery pack from the camcorder
2) connect the camcorder to a powered USB port on your computer
3) when the “Connected” indicator comes on, insert the battery pack into the camcorder
4) safe eject your camcorder from your computer
5) reconnect your camcorder to your computer
6) the battery pack should now begin to charge within the camcorder

Some people who have attempted these steps have stated that it did not work for them. At first, it did not work for me either but I found one owner who stated that they had to perform the steps more than once before the problem was fixed. I tried the steps again myself and the problem was fixed. So, if those steps don’t work for you try it more than once.

Good luck.

First, lets start with an old favorite I was using for a couple of years, Box.net. I believe this is one of the few first online backup service that offered the option to upload your files for data storage and data sharing. I first tried their 1 GB free service almost three years ago, mainly to share files with friends and family, and for times I needed to post videos and such to this blog (before I discovered Vimeo). But then I found out that their free service only allowed a 10 MB file upload limit – they have since changed that to 25 MB. Due to that limitation I decided to sign up for their 5 GB storage for $5 a month; I used that service up until a month ago, for over two years. To keep this article relatively short, I will only post the key features of Box.net and the other services I researched.

Box.net

• Good: Web link to private files for sharing; files accessible from anywhere via web; online drag and drop files; 1 GB free
• Moderate: folder sharing, but only with another Box.net user
• Bad: No desktop client synchronization; no security for personal edition (business edition only); $5/month for 5 Gb; $10/month for 10 GB with 1 GB file limit

One of the few reasons I left Box.net was because they do not have a desktop client for easy uploading and synchronization. I’ve contacted their customer service about this and they stated that there is no plan in the near future to offer a desktop client.

Microsoft Live Mesh

• Good: 5 GB free; desktop client; files accessible from anywhere via the web
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: Adds Live Desktop remote desktop (mirror drivers installed) without the option to deselect; no security; No web link to private shared files

I was using Live Mesh for close to a year until I ran into an issue with the mirrored drivers that are installed when you install the Live Mesh client. As mentioned above, these drivers are used for the remote desktop feature that allows you the ability to remote into your computer from anywhere you have an internet connection. I believe the service is still in beta so I hope in the future they change this so that you have the choice to install the remote desktop client when you install the Live Mesh Client. Also, since I use Logmein Free to access my computers remotely, there was no need to continue using Live Mesh.

Microsoft Skydrive

• Good: 25 GB free; folder sharing; online drag and drop files; files accessible from anywhere via web
• Moderate: Desktop client synchronization via third party tools  (SDExplorer)
• Bad: no security; No web link to private files

Dropbox

• Good: 2 GB free with the ability to gain extra storage with every referral; desktop client; files accessible from anywhere via web; sync files of any size; secure transfer and online encryption; use on unlimited devices; works on Windows, Mac and Linux
• Moderate: folder sharing, but only with another Dropbox user; Public folder with web link to files; $10/month for 50 GB
• Bad: No web link to private files

For most people who want online storage and have less that 2 GB of data, I would highly recommend Dropbox. The ease of use alone is one of the main reasons I would recommend. For someone like my Dad who only has a few documents but has more than a 100 MB of photos, this was the perfect choice for him. I’ve used it (and still use it from time to time), mainly, for purposes of sharing files with my family.

Spideroak

• Good: 2 GB free; folder sharing; desktop client as a Windows Explorer view; $10/month for 100 GB; sync files of any size; use on unlimited devices;  works on Windows, Mac and Linux; secure transfer and online encryption
• Moderate: sharing folders is a little difficult to setup
• Bad: No web link to private files

Before a friend’s recommendation, I had never heard of Spideroak. I first signed up with Spideroak’s free service to check out their desktop client and was immediately impressed. With services like Live Mesh and Dropbox, their client is a predetermined folder that is installed on your computer. To backup files you have to dump your data into this folder. However with Spideroak’s desktop client you have a explorer-like interface that will show you the folder structure. If you want to backup a folder or file all you need to do is make a checked selection on that folder or file for it to be backed up. Very simple.

Carbonite

• Good: desktop client that encompasses the entire computer; $55/year unlimited; works on Windows and Mac; sync files of any size
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: only sync one machine; no web access to files; no sharing of files or folders

With Carbonite, its only function is to backup your computer, at that’s it. Once you install the client all you need to do is right click on a folder or file and enable Carbonite to back it up to the “cloud“. Its really straight forward and nothing fancy about the service.

Dell DataSafe

• Good: $60/year for 100 GB
• Moderate: N/A
• Bad: client – after installing I couldn’t create the free 2 GB account they advertised because it would not allow me to choose a storage package. Also, it minimizes to the system tray but has no option to close without killing the process in Task Manager; works only on Windows

After trying all of these services, I finally chose Spideroak, mainly, because of the desktop client, but the pricing wasn’t too bad either. This past Monday, after trying their free service for a day or so, I signed up for their $10 a month for 100 GB plan as I have about 65 GB of data to backup. I started the backup process that night before I went to bed and by Friday night the backup finished. This time rate is based on my 1.9 Mps upload speed through my internet service provider. Overall, I am happy with the choice I made. Based on the $5 a month for 5 GB I use to pay through Box.net I am getting a much better deal now with Spideroak. The only thing I have found so far about Spideroak that I can’t forget, or those of you that decide on Spideroak, that if you delete a file or folder on your computer that is being backed up to their service don’t expect it to automatically get deleted from their servers, which isn’t a bad thing. You just have to remember to log into their site to manually delete that folder or file or your storage could fill up over time. But the good thing about this is that if you lose it on your computer and can’t retrieve it for some reason, at least you will have it backed up to your Spideroak storage to retrieve.

At the end of it all, I highly recommend giving Spideroak a try. Again, they have a free service with 2 GB so there is always the option to try before you make a decision. No matter what you do, or how you do it, backup your data. Do it now rather than later because, for all you know, your computer may be getting ready to die on you right now while you are reading this. And if you don’t have your data on a second hard drive or backed up using one of these online services you will lose your data forever.

Backing up your personal computer data is probably the most important weekly task you probably are not doing right now. All those photos of your family and friends, that video of your child’s football game, that spreadsheet you created of your personal financial budget, even some of those work files that you may have saved on your personal computer while working from home one day is just sitting there on your hard drive awaiting that one time when your hard drive crashes and everything is lost forever. That is all it takes, just one time for your hard drive to crash – and it will crash at any time – that will cause all that personal data to be wiped out.

Many people do not realize it but we have been backing up our personal data since the beginning of time; this ancient form I am speaking of is handwriting. If you think about it, when we write down that grocery list, or take notes in class, at church, or in business meetings, handwriting is a form of backup. It is taking the data from our brain and transferring it to another form of media storage so that it will not get lost just in case our brain wipes it out by forgetting. Backing up our personal data is just as easy as handwriting. If we own a computer, another type of brain, and are storing personal data on that computer we should be doing what we do every day when we write on a piece of paper.

There are many ways to backup your personal data on your computer. Some of them inexpensive and some of them free. First, I will tell you what I do in my personal backup strategy. Most of the data I own that is vital and precious to me are my photos and videos of my friends and family. I have other data in the form of documents and also some applications that are not available online any longer. I store all this data on the hard drive that came with my computer. Knowing that this was my only copy, and knowing I needed to backup my data, I went to the local retail store that sells computer equipment (Best Buy, CompUSA, Staples, OfficeMax, etc.) and bought a Western Digital 500GB MyBook USB external hard drive to plug into an available USB port on my computer. You can get this item, pretty much, anywhere for less than $100. If you want to save money on an item like this, it would not hurt to search online on a site like pricewatch.com for bargains. Once I got this external hard drive home and plugged it in, I then copied all my personal data that was under one folder (a.k.a. My Documents in Windows) to a folder I created on the external hard drive. Now, every time I add data to my computer, be it a transfer of photos from my digital camera or a document I created, I also copy those files to my external hard drive. As a safety precaution, I also use Microsoft’s SyncToy to synchronize my local folder to the external hard drive once a week. That way if I forgot to copy the files in that first stage when I originally created them, then a confirmed copy would take place with SyncToy in the second phase. Another precaution was to buy a small portable 160GB USB external hard drive in the form of a Western Digital My Passport drive so that I could carry around a third copy of my data in my laptop bag. In the extreme, if my house were to burn down while I am away from home I still have all my personal data with me in my laptop bag and nothing is lost.

Some of this, you may say, is a little extreme or too much. Actually, if I were to go a step further and actually bought another 160GB USB external hard drive to copy my data to and store at a family member’s house or in a safe deposit box would be labeled as extreme, but not insane. I have heard many experts state that this “extreme” step of storing your personal data off site is actually the only true means of ensuring valid backups. Corporations do it for all their business data to ensure they stay in business in case of any major catastrophes. Why shouldn’t a home user do the same thing when their personal data can be classified as just as critical?

There are so many ways of backing up your data; my strategy was just one example. Separate from completing backups to a local storage, you can also backup your data to online storage. There are quite a few online sites that offer this service at a cost and for free. Box.net is a service that offers both free and pay service. I actually use a paid box.net service for some of my storage so that I can get to the data I need at any time when I have a internet connection. Here are a few other services that offer online storage: Amazon’s Jungle Disk, Dell’s DataSafe, and Carbonite. The beauty about these online backups is that they usually have an application that you can download, install, point to your data folder, and schedule it to backup your data in the background once a day. This way is all automatic and no extra steps are needed by you to complete a backup versus completing a manual backup to a local hard drive.

No matter how you do it, it is really important that you backup your data. Do your research first and find out what suits you best in your weekly, or daily, backup task; local backups to a hard drive or remote backup to an online service. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. The Simplify Media app is best if you want to have access to your music library everywhere you go without having to load everything on your iPhone.  Using the desktop application, I installed it, created an account and pointed the application to my music library. Now, I can listen to my music everywhere, even on the Edge network. What is also great about this is that I talked my sister into signing up for Simplify Media. We added each other to our friend contact list so, now, not only do I have access to my music library, I have access to hers also, and vice versa. Current Price: $5.99 (I paid $2.99 when it first came out for a temporary promotion)

2. Shopper is just a simple shopping list to remind me of items I need to buy at the supermarket or Target. One of the great features about this application, though, is that it has the capability to email your list to another person. Very handy when you need your significant other to pick up something for you. Current Price: $.99

3. Evernote is just that, a note taking application. Yes, the iPhone has its own notes application but Evernote is a hundred times more powerful. Evernote has the ability to sync your notes to the “cloud” so it’s safe from data loss. Not only does it sync your text notes, but it can also sync your voice notes and picture notes. I use Evernote quite regularly on my iPhone but the great thing about Evernote is that it is everywhere; I also have it on my iGoogle launch page on my browser to access. I’ve never used it before but there is also an application you can install on your computer. Current Price: Free

4. Tweetdeck is for people who use Twitter and has been ranked as the best Twitter client out there. Current Price: Free

5. Facebook, of course, is for Facebook users. Although I have a Facebook account I rarely visit. Most of my status information is fed from Twitter. I mostly use this application for when people comment on my status on Facebook and I need to comment back. Current Price: Free

6. Skype is an application that allows you to make VoIP calls and instant message to all your Skype friends, however it only works on a wi-fi connection. Current Price: Free

7. Tip Calculator is great for people who suck at math. I use it every time I eat out. Current Price: $.99

8. Google Mobile is perfect if you use a lot of the Google services. I use the Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Talk in this application quite regularly, and they work really well. I was especially shocked at how well the Google Talk portion worked. Current Price: Free

9. Flixster is for the movie fan who likes to check out film trailers and times at your local theater. Current Price: Free

10. I mostly use the Free RSS application to read my friends blogs. Mostly. Current Price: Free

11. RSS Player is perfect for listening to podcast. I love listening to tech podcast. There have been times when I have listened to all the podcast on my iPod in my car and do not have the newest episode of my favorite podcast that I then use RSS Player on my iPhone to begin listening the to next episode. Current Price: $.99

12. Backgrounds is something my sister introduced me to. It just allows you to download wallpaper backgrounds for your iPhone. My sister found this background for me from the application. Current Price: Free

13. WordPress application is for when I want to post a quick blog to this blog site. Current Price: Free

14. Audioboo is great for audio blogging. I have my Audioboo account tied to my Twitter account so that when I have no time to type a Tweet, I talk a Tweet. Current Price: Free

15. The Sims 3 is self explanatory. I don’t know why I bought it. I’ve played it just a few times and then lost interest. Current Price: $6.99

16. Wolfenstein 3D is a port of the classic first-person shooter game. Same for this, I’ve played it a few times and lost interest. It’s pretty difficult to play a FPS game on the iPhone. Current Price: $1.99

17. Sportacular is a fantastic application for sports fans. I use this quite often to check on NCAA Football scores, to see who is ahead in the current PGA tournament, or to see how the NCAA Basketball teams are fairing during March Madness. Current Price: Free

18. Air Hockey is also self explanatory. This is a great two player game when you are waiting in queue somewhere with a family member or friend. Current Price: $.99

When the Apple iPhone (and iPod Touch) application store first came out, I told myself that I would never buy an application for my iPhone, especially since most everything that was out then was free. Well, I seem to have given in to quite a few pay applications since, especially the $.99 apps as they have seemed so compelling.

For those of you that read this, and have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I would love to hear what you have on your device. Just post your list in the comments below.

This is just a video explanation of using a software KVM solution instead of a hardware solution.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found out after the install that the reason I was having audio problems is because my speaker plug was not in all the way.

To be honest, there really hasn’t been a whole lot that has happened since the last post. The only thing major to report is that I started my own business back in May to attempt to make some extra money on the side. This year’s economy has sucked so much that work has cut down on my hours since the beginning of the year so I had to start cutting a lot of cost in my life. The only problem is that cutting back didn’t really help out a lot; it helped but not so much that I’ve had my head way above water. I’ve been treading the water just fine but I’ve been close to nose deep so I started working on the side to get back to my comfort zone.

In May I started advertising my IT (Information Technology) services on Craigslist, and someone found me. A retail store in Winter Garden hired me to help them with the servers and point of sale computers in their environment. It was then that I decided it best to form a LLC. Thus begin EC Technology Consulting LLC.

http://ectech.info

Its actually taken me this long to get that logo and site setup. Thanks to a good friend of mine with the design talents to help me with the logo, EC Technology Consulting now has a stamp.

Now, I just need more clients to get the flow started. So far, it’s been an interesting experience having to be my own accountant and such but hopefully I can make this successful so that I can make some steady income on the side to help keep my head, comfortably, above water. The goal is just to keep it on the side, I don’t really want to make it a full time business, unless it develops  into something much bigger.

Pray for me and wish me luck.

You can check out my profile and/or contact me there at the following link:

Edward Crosby on CrossLoop

Or, just check out the CrossLoop badge on the sidebar of this site.

The Studio Hybrid came with a 2.0GHz Pentium Dual Core Penryn, 3GB of memory, 160GB 5400RPM SATA drive and a integrated Intel GM965 video card.

Here is a video of the setup.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: One thing I failed to mention about XBMC in this video that should be noted is the plugins available in the wild. There are Hulu and You Tube plugins that will allow you to watch their content from within XBMC. The only plugin that came with XBMC preloaded is a Apple Trailers plugin that will allow you to download all the movie trailers from Apple to view within XBMC.

You can find the Engadget post here.

I realized recently that I didn’t post about the new podcast that I participate in, and sometimes host, called Technical Difficulties. It’s a spin-off podcast of The Unique Geek podcast, another podcast I used to, and still on occasion, participate in. Technical Difficulties podcast usually revolves around recent tech news, but we also include a couple of segments for all listeners. The specific segments entitled Tech Breakdown and Tech Tip are usually on subjects where we explain certain technologies for the technically impaired and tips to help you survive this digital age.

So, please, go check us out at: http://www.techdiffpodcast.com/ You can either listen or download the episodes from our site or directly from iTunes.

Here is the most recent episode for your listening enjoyment, but please check out our site too:

Also, I just added a plugin to the site so that you can now subscribe to comments. Which means if you leave a comment on a post and select subscribe, you will receive an email notification when someone else post a comment thereafter. I’ve mentioned this before in previous post, but I still have the plugin enabled for leaving audio or video comments. So please don’t be afraid to leave me a audio or video comment.

I really wasn’t looking into upgrading anytime soon. I had a Samsung 19” flat screen CRT in good working order that I have had for about 6 years now. In the past 15 years that I have owned a computer, I never upgraded the monitor unless it blew out on me. This time, because it was such a good deal, and my girlfriend really wanted to get me something big for Christmas, I decided, why not.

Now that I have this beauty, I decided to try my luck with Craigslist on selling my old Samsung monitor. At the same time, I had an old Panasonic flat screen CRT TV and JVC DVD player lying around collecting dust that I posted to Craigslist also. I’ve only listed a couple of items in the past on Craigslist and only had luck selling one of those items. Hopefully, I will sell these with no problem as I believe I’ve offered a pretty good deal on both.

Wish me luck.

When I first saw the skin before I applied it to my netbook I was a little upset that there was a hole in the middle that, once applied, would still display the Dell logo. I was hoping I could cover this up; not because I am ashamed it’s a Dell but because it would look totally lame to have a big Dell logo over Rick Deckard’s crotch. I called Skinit customer service to find out if I could return this to get one without the hole in the middle but due to their agreement with Dell that allows them to actually sell a customized skin for the Dell product, they could not send me one without the hole. However, after application, I have to say that I still dig it.

By the way, for those of you reading this that may not know me, I am a HUGE Blade Runner fan, hence the reason I chose a Rick Deckard silhouette.

I stated in previous post that I would post a video of the unboxing of the product. I did record it but it was unuseable footage that I couldn’t post. However, I do have a video that can be posted that shows, briefly, the netbook and the Ubuntu user interface of the new flavor called Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I even found a video online that has a good video substitute of the unboxing of the Dell Mini 9, if you really wanted to see it.

I am typing this post on the Mini 9 now and so far I have to say that I really like it. The keyboard is a little something to get used to since I seem to keep bumping the very sensitive trackpad with my thumbs so the cursor keeps orienting itself someplace else as I type. And the position of some of the keys are a little different from your standard keyboard so I will need to relearn some things as I type, but those are no big deals, it just means a change of habits.

Update (10/13/08 20:20): Something interesting I noticed that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on Dell’s behalf. I ordered the 16GB SSD drive to go with the machine. They, for some reason, created a 8GB partition to install everything on which gave me a little bit over 1GB of available space and left an unalocated 11GB partition just sitting there doing nothing. I ended up installing Gparted, created a 11GB partition and mounted the drive. Now I have 12GB available.
Eventually, I just may blow the thing away and start over and partition it correctly.
There’s some crazy stuff going on over there at Dell.

If you are not familiar with OpenDNS, then go here:

http://www.opendns.com/

To put it simple, it’s an alternate DNS server you can input into your home router’s (and I pray that all of you reading this that have broadband have a home network router) DNS settings instead of your ISP’s DNS. If you go to the above site and select Home Network at the bottom, it will explain easily how to configure your home router to use OpenDNS.

Once you configure your router to start using OpenDNS, create a free account with them, download the OpenDNS utility and install. Then go back to your account settings on the site and start setting up your network. I’m not exactly sure if the utility is really necessary as its only function is to notify OpenDNS when your external IP address has changed.

I really do encourage you, dear reader, to use this, especially if you are a parent. It enforces safe browsing without you having to be conscious of it all the time. For those of you that are a little more tech savvy, it basically has some proxy filter enabled when you set OpenDNS as your DNS server and create an account but all the proxy filtering is done on all their DNS servers.

I don’t have it included in the photos below but you can even create a custom message that will be displayed when a page has been blocked and a way for your network clients to email you the site they are trying to visit so that you can mark the site safe in your OpenDNS settings, if you so desire. Just like an anti-virus being needed on a Windows machine, this is just as important, if not more so.

If any of you have any questions about this, feel free to email me.

Below are a few photos of some of my basic account settings to show you what can be set and how powerful it can be.

I think the main reason why I am so excited is because I have had to wait over a month to receive the darn thing. My patience has been tried. If you don’t know me well, then you should know that I have absolutely no patience. So, it’s been agonizing to wait for such a cool product. Also, I really can’t wait to do this: Dell Mini 9 OS 10.5 Hack

October 14th will be like Christmas. I may even take the day off from work, decorate the Halloween tree and put out the witch’s stockings.

• Inspiron 910 Intel Atom processor N270, 1.6GHz, 533Mhz512K L2 Cache
• Obsidian Black Color with Gloss Finish
• 1GB,DDR2,533MHZ,1 DIMM
• 8.9 inch Wide Screen WSVGA TL
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
• 16GB Solid State Drive (mini-card Module/PATA)
• Mini OS powered by Ubuntu 8.04
• Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
• Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam
• 32WHr 4-cell Battery

Price: $475
I know what you are thinking. What do I need this for? Well for…stuff. I like the idea of mini-computing. I’ve been a fan of it for quite some time. One of the items I had previously that allowed mini-computing, to a certain extent, was my HP iPaq Pocket PC. I sold that about three years ago and have missed it immensely. I’ve had a couple of substitutions since from a Samsung Blackjack and now my iPhone but there are limitations to what these gadgets have to offer compared to a sub-notebook. With this I can carry it around everywhere very easily and have access to all standard computing applications, like email (which I can do with my iPhone),internet browsing (which I can sort of do with my iPhone), word processing (which I can’t easily do with my iPhone), and so much more without having to lug around my standard notebook all the time.
Like I stated, I ordered it yesterday. What sucks is that it will not be delivered until October 13th. I just found out today that the Linux version, the one I ordered, doesn’t begin shipping out country wide until October 9th. So what I ordered was more like a pre-order. The Windows XP version begins shipping country wide September 18th. Why does Windows get all the privileges?
I’ll post once I have received and used it for a while to give you my hands on opinion.

I have plans to upgrade the hard drive in my Macbook to a 250GB drive since I found 100GB wasn’t enough; the drive doesn’t arrive until tomorrow. Since I was upgrading the drive I thought it would be the perfect time to upgrade to Leopard since I would be rebuilding my Macbook after all. Well, I couldn’t wait. I bought Leopard this evening with every intention to wait to install the OS when I installed the hard drive tomorrow evening but my impatience got the better of me and I just finished upgrading.

So far as I can tell it’s just pretty. Yes, there are some minor improvements to some of the integrated applications that come with OS 10 like Mail, the Address Book, and iCal but what I am most interested in trying out, and should be using the most of, is Spaces. Spaces is the utility that allows you to have multiple desktops giving you the power to have multiple applications open in separate desktops. Example: I can have two desktops setup. One would have my web browser and iTunes open and the other would have a word processing application and a dictionary application open. It gives you the ability to work in several applications without cluttering up one desktop.

I still plan to install it again. Once I get the new hard drive in the mail I will be completing a fresh install of Leopard on my Macbook instead of an upgrade.

I love technology!

Today was nothing exciting as it was, mostly, orientation day. I spent most of the day in a conference room going over the details of working for IBM and The Walt Disney Company.

Tomorrow is a continuation, if Tropical Storm Fay lets us work. I may not start getting my hands dirty on servers until later this week.

I’m excited.

Click here to view the embedded video.

iPhone 2.0 upgrade, iTunes App Store and a useless iPhone application.

You can get full details from their web site here. The device is very straight forward and simple to use. There is a small LCD panel on the back to view what your recording, along with buttons for recording, playing and deleting videos. Best of all, it’s easy to carry around in your shirt or pants pocket; it’s about the size of a iPhone. These pictures show the size comparison to my iPod Video.

You may be shocked and appalled at the face viewed in the following example but here is a small test clip I recorded on the Mino and posted to Vimeo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One other thing to state about this cool little gadget is the software used for editing your videos. Since the device can connect to your Mac or PC using a standard USB connection, it already has preloaded software that becomes available once you connect. For PC, you can install using the .exe installation. For Mac, the application can actually be launched from the device to edit your videos stored on the Flip’s embedded storage. Your edited results are then saved to your local hard drive. Since the Flip records to a .avi file, I normally just copy the .avi file to my Mac for viewing and uploading. The only issue I ran into during this process is that I did not have the proper codec on my Mac to view the .avi using Quicktime at first, however, Flip also provided the codec in its storage for me to install. There are utilities in the included software that allow you to easily upload your video to MySpace and You Tube, but I haven’t used those features yet since I’ve recently become a Vimeo convert.

The main reason I bought this device was for my upcoming trip to NY, so that I can create video blogs during my off-Broadway adventures. We’ll just have to see how often I actually use it.

Here is just a short video demonstration of the Delicious Library application for OS 10.

*Note, though, the current Delicious Library 2 is only compatible with Leopard, currently OS 10.5.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can get all the details from their web site:

http://www.delicious-monster.com/

A lot of time, money and hard work was put into this amateur mod so I’m feeling a little bit of sadness now. I’m sure I will get over it.

I found there was no need to have it sitting around any longer since I had a powerful Dell XPS gaming machine sitting right next to it rarely being used. So, now that the mod is no longer in use, the Dell machine will be me my main desktop machine. It frees up the needed space and saves electricity. I’m sure I could have upgraded all the parts in the modded PC to be just as powerful as the Dell XPS, but there really is no point.

Here is an old web site I keep around showing the created process of the PC mod.

http://www.edwardcrosby.com/personal/Mod/

Next step, selling my 250 CD collection as it is also just sitting around collecting dust. All my music is on three different hard drives in MP3 format. I haven’t touched a single CD in my collection in over two years.

How are you today and i hope you read this message ASAP. Please, I don’t want you to take this as a JOKE or see it as a kind of SPAM mail. I want you to read this carefully because it is very urgent and important. So kindly try your possible best to help me out of this trouble.

I am presently abroad on a personal business trip to Lagos. Unfortunately, I lost both my wallet & my ATM cards. Right now, I’m totally stranded and have no Funds on me, I have notified my bank about the missing cards and also requires them to transfer me some money from my account if possible but unfortunately my bank couldn´t do any wire transfer to me since I’m out of states. I’ve also visited the US Embassy to report the issue of my lost items and to seek for a loan to pay the hotel bills but unfortunately there’s nothing they too could do to assist me financially, I’m totally confused about that, as I don’t know what to do next. So i decided to take this step by reaching out to you by email.

Can you please do me a favor? I need a loan worth of $1250 so that I could pay the hotel bills and plan on coming back home immediately. Would you be able to loan me this amount and how soon can you send it to me, because I’ll need it as soon as possible. I don’t want you to be worried on when you will be getting your money back, I promise to pay you as soon as I return. Please know that I need this money to pay the hotel bills so that I could be allowed to pack my luggage and leave to board a flight home without any delay, thank God i already have a return ticket.

I didn’t travel with my phone since my trip was not within the states, I would have prefer discussing this on phone, and since I have no access to phone I think contacting you by email is the best and the only means I could use to send you this urgent mail. The hotel management here are not taking it likely with me, just because I couldn’t paid up my bills. I have been restricted from using the hotel phone to make or receive calls, just imagine that.

Write back to me as soon as you receive this message and let me know how you could possibly assist me with the loan, then I could give you further details on how to send the money to me via western union money transfer.

Please keep this confidentially, as I wouldn’t want this to be spread around since no one knows about the trip because all my plans was that its going to be a successful one and I will be back with no difficulties.

Thanks.

The email actually looked authentic since it came directly from his Gmail account. Well, at the same time that I received that email from him, I noticed he was also online on Gmail Chat (Google Talk). So, I decided to IM him in a joking matter asking him how the weather was in Lagos, knowing that somehow I got spam from him and knowing that he would not know what I was talking about since I knew he would not send it intentionally. Well, “he” responded back asking if I could really help “him”. I decided to go right along with “him” thinking “he” was joking and asked “him” if “he” could make change for a $5000 bill. “He” replied back stating that it was not a joke.
I then decided to call him. I got him on the phone and found that he was not actually chatting with me, and, shockingly, he could not log into his Gmail account to change his password, he had been locked out.
I let him go so he could fix this problem.
I state this story to you so that you will know that anyone is vulnerable. In this case, somehow, someone had logged into my friends email account and was sending out an email scam.
Change your passwords, and often.

I don’t know how often I will have them running but they are there and will have me live in my home office. Boring, I know.

After much thought on if I really should buy an iPhone, I finally decided to drive to the AT&T store last evening and buy the 8GB version. The purchase was a breeze and the activation in iTunes on my Macbook, once I got it home, was smooth. It wasn’t until later in the night when I was in bed reading my emails using the Wi-Fi function on the phone that my nightmare began. Ironically enough, it was when I was watching a Quicktime video on Apple’s site from the Welcome email that Apple sent me that the phone started crashing. What Apple did was email me a Welcome email with a guided tour video of the iPhone that redirects you to this Quicktime video. I was about 15 minutes into the video when the phone suddenly rebooted. Once it came back up into the OS (the iPhone is actually running a full version of Mac OS X) it froze again. I tried powering it off but it remained frozen in the OS. I then performed what they term as a hard reset using the iPhone combination of button presses (the Home button and the Sleep/Awake button) to reboot the device. It rebooted but remain frozen once it booted into the OS, all the time displaying a “Searching…” in the upper left for the AT&T network. I plugged the phone into the wall, since I knew the battery would discharge overnight being that it would not power down (and you can’t remove the battery since Apple has no means of doing this, like an iPod), and went to bed completely annoyed.
I woke up this morning with nothing but the AT&T store on mind knowing that, deep down, I was going to have an adventure. And an adventure I ended up having.
After I drank my coffee, ate my breakfast, watching an episode of Carnivale in the process, I left for the AT&T store with the boxed iPhone in one hand and my Macbook in the other thinking that I may have to activate the new one while I am away from home. When I got there a young lady greeted me with a smile but then her face changed to shock when I told her that my iPhone crashed and did not recover. She and her manager then told me that they could do nothing for me, even though I had purchased it from them the night before, and that I had to take it to the Apple Store. It was my face that then turned to an expression of shock. I was flabbergasted. Reluctantly, I left the store and drove down the street to the Apple Store. Looking at this on the bright side, it was a good thing I was not far from the Apple Store; I probably should have just bought it from them in the first place. The only thing is the Apple Store is in the mall. I hate the mall.
When I got to the Apple Store, another young lady greeted me with a smile but then her face also turned to shock when I stated I needed to exchange my iPhone because it had crashed. She directed me to one of her co-workers that worked in the correct department which I then explained to this person the situation. Another surprised individual who could not understand that there could be any problems with an iPhone, until I pulled out evidence Exhibit A to show her the crime. She took the device and tried to reset the device, as I did, but had no luck either. She then took the device over to the “Genius Bar” where a technician looked over the device and attempted, yet again, the same exact steps while I waited at the front counter. She finally walked back over to me with the device in her hand when low and behold the device reboot successfully into the OS without freezing while she was handing it to me. We were both amazed, however I explained to her that this clearly was an intermittent issue and that I would like to swap it anyway for a new one since I was having the issue. She complied and proceeded to make an appointment for me to see a “Genius”…what!? Make an appointment to simply swap the device!? Yes. Apparently, that is Apple’s procedure and there was nothing I could do to sway the young lady. What made it even worse was that the next soonest appointment they had was two hours from that time. That meant I needed to go back home to wait. To my own amazement, I kept my cool and anger and gave in. Yes, I was a teeny, tad annoyed but I gave in. What was something else that was interesting during our conversation was that I could replicate the problem. While she was still in front of me, I turned the Wi-Fi on and the iPhone rebooted and froze. So, through an accident I figured it out on my own that it was the Wi-Fi that was causing the problem.
I then went home, with the same defective iPhone, and waited for my 1:45 appointment. The appointment turned out to be uneventful and a simple exchange was agreed upon by the “Genius” at the Store.
After going through all of that, I wonder if choosing an iPhone was a smart thing. I know something for sure, I will try my hardest to make this phone last beyond the next year and hope that I do not have to shop for another mobile phone for at least two years.

What is even cooler than that is that I had a small part in this project. No, not the laying of the eggs or the raising of the babies but the web cam itself. When our company started working with Audubon a little over two years ago, I was responsible for building the server, installing the web cam software, and setting up the streaming through Windows Media Server service on the server. A vendor was responsible for installing the wireless web cam on top of a post pointing at the nest and the network engineers in my department were responsible for all the network support to get the wireless camera working.

Here is the video segment from NBC:

Click here to view the embedded video.

[iTunes was playing "Nessun dorma" by Pavarotti while I was writing this.]

Click here to view the embedded video.

The technology of ustream.tv is wonderful and has huge potential. Not only do you see a live feed but you also have the option to inlcude audio. It’s fantastic.
The only problem is I have a feeling that, despite the current phase of being beta and free, they may start charging to use the service. I get this impression because looking in my profile I see a My Payments section that could only be used for tracking, well, ones payments for the service. We’ll see.
Since it is in beta, there are the occasional quirks and issues but I am sure the developers are still trying to fine tune everything to get it all smooth.
I hope they do not start charging. It’s a very cool service.
If you want to check in on me every now and then, I will be streaming here.

Click

For the existing blogger, it could be used, very easily, to post videos and pictures very rapidly. It could be used to link to from your main blogging site if you do not want all the media clutter on you main site. What’s better is that they have included a means to post a picture blog straight from your mobile phone. I guess you could consider Tumblr a media blog.
Check it out. It’s free.

Click here to view the embedded video.

WordPress database error: [Lost connection to MySQL server during query]
SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE ID = ’42′ LIMIT 1

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I’ve been hearing about Twitter in podcast, mainly on MacBreak Weekly, since the beginning of the year and had always wondered what the point was. Well, I signed up, added a snipit on my web page (on the left there…look) and have added people to my Friends list who are, mostly, famous podcast personalities. But, there are a few other fun personalities there; like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Rick Deckard (Blade Runner), & Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). With them added to my list, I can see what Rick Deckard is doing while he is out try to rid the world of Replicants, or what Darth Vader truly thinks of Ewoks, or what Xander and Willow are doing while they hang.

Fun stuff.

Click

The image above was taken from within Parallels which runs WIndows XP on my Mac. In it you can see what the interface of WLW looks like. All that I simply did, after completing a screenshot, was drag-and-drop the image into WLW and define the actions of the image. That simple. Although, since it is in beta, I did discover a bug during an attempted operation of clicking the Insert Picture button. When I selected the icon to insert that picture, I got an error message and was not allowed to complete the operation. Luckily the drag-and-drop feature worked.

I would have to say that if you are a Windows users and blog, this might be the tool for you. The best thing about it is that it is free compared to the $150 plus price tag that is placed on the Office 2007 product.

Well, I have found two utilities from Microsoft that will allow you to compose your blog and then submit it to your blog site, I am actually using one now, Office 2007. This version of Office 2007 is actually a 60 day trial version that everyone can download from Microsoft’s site. I would actually encourage you to download and try it out on your test machine (If you have one); it’s a new experience, if you are familiar will previous versions of Office.

The other utility is called Windows Live Writer. It’s still in beta so if you decide to download to try it, you may run into some bugs while using it. My next blog will be tested with that utility.

For now, I want to give you a brief rundown of Office 2007′s blog option. When you open Office, you can select New in which you are then given an option for a New Blank Document or a New Blog Post. There are other options, of course, but to try out this function I selected the latter. Immediately a new blank page opens that looks like a regular Word document and then a separate pop-up window that allows you to enter your blog site information: blogging provider (Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, Typepad, WordPress and others), your site URL, and login credentials. After that it was all pretty simple, like composing a standard Word document. When I was done, I selected Publish and Office 2007 did the rest.

I was impressed.

Gates speaks up over Apple commercials

I like what is written about four paragraphs down, it’s very true:

“There is little truth to the claims made by the most zealous of Mac users, and the educated Mac user often never attacks Windows, or PCs in general, because it isn’t about a system, it is personal choice, and what works best for them.”

Having used most operating systems – Windows, Linux and Mac – it is truly about personal choice. The most fascinating things that won me over with Mac are the applications that come with it for free, the iLife suite for example (iMovie, GarageBand, iPhoto & iDVD), and also the fact that it’s truly not required that I purchase and run a anti-virus program (in Windows, I am constantly annoyed that I have to install anti-virus because I know it’s required and yet I also know that it often bogs down the system performance). There really isn’t anything wrong with Windows, it doesn’t crash on me all the time, like most anti-Windows people state, and hasn’t since Windows 98. And, even if my Windows 2000 or Windows XP gave me a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), it’s not because of the operating system, it’s because of the crappy drivers that were written for Windows by the hardware manufacturer. But, it is true about the security of Windows, it is not as secure as Linux or Mac. Windows has many security flaws and vulnerabilities that are discovered almost everyday, especially in Internet Explorer (use Firefox people, it truly is for your own good), and is extremely prone to virus attacks. But, again, it’s not entirely Window’s fault, the world is out to get Microsoft. Mac, and even sometimes Linux, has security flaws that are discovered in their operating system too. I check for OS X updates almost once a week and find that there are security updates at least twice a month, not as many as Windows but they’re still there. For the most part, viruses are not written for OS X, only Windows, because, as mentioned, the world is out to get Microsoft.

I can tell you now that OS X still has problems and mistakes, it’s not a completely perfect operating system. Just yesterday I was editing a video in iMovie and the damn thing kept crashing on me. I’ve deducted the problem as being a corrupt project and I will have to delete it to start over again, which sucks because it’s a huge project with many edits and movie clips.

But, I will say, it is true what is stated about the differences between Mac and Windows. I still believe Windows is perfect for the business and Mac is perfect for the home user. Take that as you will as a personal and professional opinion. Also, even though Macs are a little more expensive than most manufactured PCs (which is changing fast due to the switch to Intel processors in Macs), I have found so many more applications that are free (most open source) that have been fantastic substitutes for software I would normally have to buy for Windows.

And, one final note, OS X is a faster, smoother operating system than Windows XP. I’m currently running only 512MB of RAM in my MacBook and it still runs and opens common applications rather fast. Whereas I have seen running 512MB in Windows XP is a mistake and most common applications do not open and run as fast. Although, I still plan to bump my MacBook up to 2GB as the extra memory will help me when editing videos in iMovie.

So, to end on what I started saying at the beginning of this post, there is no perfect operating system. In my personal, and professional, opinion, Mac is not better than Windows, and Windows is not better than Mac, and Linux is not better than Mac, and Windows is not better than Linux.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well, I did it, I sold my Mac Mini on eBay. My first ever Mac that I owned for only 7 months. I had to sell. With the purchase of the new black Macbook, there was no need to keep it around. Besides, I really needed the money after my car problems at the end of December (see previous blog post).
The person who purchased my Mac Mini is getting a deal. He bought it for $700 that included the AppleCare warranty, an external 160GB external hard drive (called the miniStack because it stacked perfectly under the Mini), a Mac keyboard and wireless optical mouse. All a retail value of around $1000 he got for $300 less. No worries. I expected a loss, as one should on a used product.
But, I’m not sad, I have my Macbook to keep me happy. I can’t express enough how much I LOVE my Macbook. My only regret through all of this is I wish I had discovered the Macbook – more importantly the refurbished Macbook – at the time I was considering the purchase of the Mac Mini back in May. Adding $200 more to the purchase of the Mac Mini toward a Macbook instead would have saved me a lot of time and money.