hakbox

After having my iPhone 4 for about a month, I was quite disappointed with dropped calls, and battery life.  I would get 4-5 dropped calls in a day.  My battery would last 5-6 hours.  This couldn’t be right.  I called Apple support on more than one occasion, and they informed me of the following:

1. If you restore the phone from  a 3G backup, it is known to have issues, such as dropped calls and shortened battery life.
   Strange, but OK.  The tech. told me to reset the phone, and set it up as a new phone.  But what about all my data in the 100s of apps I use?  No way I was going to do this.
2. You need to reset the phone via settings…
   Really? That didn’t help out one bit.

I was seriously considering returning the phone, that is, until my new case arrived.

(continue reading…)

Filed some bugs, and am enjoying the updated features and content.  All I can say, is I really appreciate the changes to the lore-master.  It will definitely make the character much more fun to play at lower levels, and even more uber at soloing.

I was just over @ Microsofts dev forums, and noticed something odd.  Apparently, the $99 / year development model will only cover paid app submissions.  If you want to add free apps, it will cost you $19.99 per app.  I can understand why they would do this, but it just seems silly.  Especially if you look at the other major companies (Apple & Android marketplaces).

Read the forum post here (no login required):
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7series/thread/bf5aa877-2ed2-43a1-8578-9e97cc044690

We finally decided it was time to upgrade from our 3G to the 4.  The 5MP camera, 720P video, and FaceTime are what did it for us.  Anyway, this post summarizes our experience while trying (and finally succeeding) in upgrading the two lines on our family plan (both 3G).

In summary, we upgraded 2 lines on June 30, and everything looked to be in order.  We received order confirmations for both lines.  We received 1 phone from AT&T Premiere withing 7 business days, however, I had to get on the Apple waiting list (July 16, 2010), to finally get the second iPhone (July 21).  Still no word from AT&T Premiere, but I will cancel the order with them.

On a side note: To my dismay, I’ve realized I naturally hold the phone in the infamous death-grip! I thought everyone must be exaggerating about the signal loss, but it’s amazing how fast the signal drops off!  Literally in 5-10 seconds!

(continue reading…)

Thanks to Matt Burns over at Crunchgear and the instructions he pointed out, you can use this as a home network server for windows without signing up with pogoplug or installing any software. But why would you not want the pogoplug service? They stated several times they will offer everyone life-time memberships for free.  :-) Anyway, here are Matt’s instructions:

1. Plug your USB drive into your computer, format it (or if it’s already filled with data, don’t format it!)
2. Create a file on it named .ceid Using notepad, or your favorite text editor.
3. Put these lines in the file (replacing yoursharename with a name of your own choosing). Note the mode=rw allows reading and writing. servicename=yoursharename
   xcode.metadata=never
   xcode.thumbnail=never
   xcode.stream=never
   cifs.mode=rw
4. Plug the usb drive into the Dockstar, and you’re all set.

The drive will be available as \\fadsMMMMMM\yoursharename (where MMMMMM are the last 6 letters and numbers of the Dockstar’s mac address, which is on the label on the bottom).

I have to say, the FreeAgent DockStar is awesome.  I’ve used it so much already, with the pogoplug service, and have 3 drives with (several terrabytes) hooked up.

Recently, I had to reinstall OS X from scratch.  I was trying to install windows 7, and boot camp would not give me more than 5GB due to “unmovable files”.  Anyway, after many attempts around this (google doesn’t have much in terms of solutions that work), I decided to do what most people say: Do what Apple / Boot Camp is asking you to do… reinstall the OS.   So, that’s what I’m doing…

I boot off the snow leopard DVD, start up Disk Utility, and repartition my drive to one large partition (as strongly recommended when using GPT), and try to start the installation.  The install button is grayed out!  The message right above it states: “Mac OS X cannot startup from this disk”.  Some google searches suggested this is because the MBR is somehow messed up (or the installer thinks it is).  Several suggestions later (like, resize the partition so something smaller, then save, and immediately resize back to full) don’t seem to work (still getting the same error).  So, I figured, since the MBR was messed up, maybe changing the partition type would wipe it out completely.  For me, the solution was just that!  I changed the partition to MBR  via the Options button on the Partition tab.  Of course OS X won’t install on MBR, if you don’t believe me try going back to the install screen after creating the new partition.  Once the partition is saved, try the installer again (you will see a message that OS X can’t be installed on an MBR partition and it must be repartitioned as GPT in Disk Utility).  So, then, change it back to GPT and Apply! Note: Once you create an MBR partition, everything will be grayed out (even the – (minus) and + (plus) buttons.)  Don’t panic, just select 1 Partition from the pre-configured configurations pull-down (right above the partition display).  Then, go into Options, select GPT, OK, and apply.  Now, when you go to the install screen, it won’t complain.

Have fun installing OS X!

Ever wanted to check your gmail from the UNIX / LINUX command line? Well, recently I have been wondering if there was a mail client that could do it.  As it turns out, there is, and it’s called mutt.  Checkout this great article on lifehacker.com which goes through the very simple steps to get it working.

Want it on your mac terminal window? The instructions cover that as well!

Well,

I’ve owned the sidewinder X8 for about 1.5 years now. Although I really enjoy using the mouse, I’ve had to replace it twice (so far). The transceiver seems to break-down every 5-6 months. Microsoft has been really good about sending me replacements. The mouse comes with a 3 year warranty. Even though I’m on my third, I’d still recommend this mouse! Having all the extra programmable buttons is really neat.

Read more about the mouse on Microsoft’s site.

For every original idea, there’s someone who “thought of it first”. And, if they happened to patent that idea, well, you’re screwed. Speaking from personal experience, it seems increasingly difficult to have any original thought, bring it to market, and run a successful business … the American Dream, right? Well, the dream is becoming more and more impossible to achieve. This is especially true since for every original thought you might have, there is someone waiting with a patent, broad enough to cover any idea, or variation on that idea you might have. And they have enough money to be armed with lawyers!

So, what was the American Dream, seems to have been replaced with the U.S. Patent dream. Be the first to patent an idea, then try to extort anyone else with similar original ideas to pay you licensing fees. Bye, bye, American Dream!

In order to always run google chrome incognito (why would you want to run it any other way?), just add -incognito to the short-cut command line! That’s it! Nice and simple.