Friday, December 30, 2011

An insight this morning...

On may way to work this morning, it dawns on me: this was the first Christmas in ten years that there absolutely no candy canes in my house. Even being a diabetic hasn't kept me away from them...

But this year was a cane free Christmas. Maybe I can find some at Wally World today..

Some detective work of late….

If i haven’t said so before, I now prefer to use the Energy ROM for my Android powered HD2. The phone is old, and mine is starting to show it’s age (I hove about 10 blocks in my phones memory that are going bad), but it still soldiers on, and it can still run software that’s designed for phones that are coming out today. In fact the version of Android and HTC Sense on my phone are my advanced than even what my brother has on his HTC Sensation (btw, there’s and Energy ROM for the Sensation, too….). Team Bluedroid also publishes a pretty decent Sense 3.5 ROM (in fact it was the first Gingerbread ROM that I had for more than 2 hours). Also of mention is mwakious. When it comes to the overall look and feel, I like Energy. The issue is that while Energy has the looks, it doesn’t have all the features I’m looking for, so I take elements from the other ROMs (like Flikr, laputa, etc. Usually from the Bluedroid), and incorporate them into the ROM (not that hard to do, since all the ROMs are .zip files, and you just have to unzip them, make your changes, rezip them, and flash). 9 times out of 10, this goes well. Even up to the December 14 ROM. When he release the December 19, I downloaded it and installed it. And then noticed that it wasn’t rebooting. In fact, it was on the boot animation screen for 4 hours while I was at work (at the most, it should be a half hour, even after I wipe the Dalvik cache). My quick and dirty workaround was to reflash the ROM whenever I needed to reboot. A pain in the ass, but Energy ROMs are generally stable enough that you don’t normally need to reboot everyday… When the December 25 version, there was still issues. Finally the December 26 version came out, and this version was supposedly address the rebooting issue. When I tried it, I found I could hot reboot the phone without any issues, but whenever I powered off the phone, or pull the battery, there were issues. The December 28 version came out, and it had the same problem. If frustration, I switched all the way back to CMYLXGO. Then acting on a hunch that it was an issue with the kernel in the ROM, I redownloaded the kernel and recooked it into the ROM before I flashed it. No more problems. So far.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas has come, and is almost gone….

Went to my sister’s for Christmas Day. Texted my nephew to have the Altar and ram’s blood ready for the human sacrifice, and I was disappointed. Food was served, and there was a lot of it. To confess, I forgot my insulin at home, and I did over-indulge in sugar (but as soon as I got home, I immediately took a shot, though). But the food was good, and I got to see the brother that I hardly ever see (in Christmases past, we had the tradition of the Christmas Mule, where one brother did his Christmas Shopping, and the other was the bearer of the back-pack (the shopper had to pay for lunch…), But we’ve gone our separate ways. It is nice to see him and his girlfriend, though.

Eventually, it came time for the distribution of the loot. My parents gave me a gift card to Wally World, which is what I requested. I don’t necessarily need stuff right away, but with the gift card, when I realize what I need, I’ll be able to get it then. My aforementioned brother and his girlfriend gave me a big bucket of popcorn, and some sugar-free candy. I promptly regifted the popcorn (and one of the bags of candy) to my nephew (after explaining that I really don’t have the best of teeth, and I don’t do nuts that well, and the popcorn is just months of hyperglycemia). The armor-all gift set I got last night I regifted to my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law (and my sister) gave me a new coat, which has a removable liner (which can also be used by itself). I also got a hat and some gloves.

The gifts are irrelevant. I really don’t care about what I receive anymore, or even if I receive anything at all. It’s about family, friends, and having a good time.

Bah! Humbug

Well, it’s that time of year. The Godless Pagan Holiday (Winter). This year, I got Christmas Eve off, a simple gesture from my boss, but greatly appriciated. With those incompetent clowns at Peirce Transit cutting service to the bare bone and then some more, it would’ve almost been impossible to get to Grandma Bryant’s for Christmas Eve. I was originally planning to overnight there, and so I packed my laptop, the power cord for it, and the usb cable for my phone (so I could charge it from the laptop when I plug it in. I only forgot my phone at home. Phil and I decided to give Dad (he lives with Grandma Bryant) the old WiFi router that I replaced a last October. And I set it up as a Christma present to him.

We do a modified Secret Santa, where you buy the present, and they’re distributed by lottery. Usually there’s the one present that’s chosen by the one person that results in a big laugh. A few years back, it was a cousin who got a kid’s photo album (at the time, they were very definitely not having any children, she and her husband). This year, my name was called, and it was my turn to pick a presnet from under the tree. I picked one, and I heard a cousin try to dissuade from picking it. As I opened it, I realized why. It was a car detailing kit (in the big Bryant family, I’m the only non-driver). A good laugh was had by all, including me. It’s not about the present. I won’t be using it in the near future. But a good time was had by all, and that made it all worth it. I brought a Target gift card (my line of reasoning is if I don’t know who’ll end up recieving it, then I might as well get them a gift card. If they can’t find what they want at target, then they don’t deserve a Christmas present…). This year, the same cousin who brought the car detailing kit grabbed the gift card. She also grabbed the gift card I brought last year.

Well, tomorrow, we’ll have Christmas at my sister’s. But right now, I’m doing in my own Christmas tradition: watching midnight mass on TV. I’m definitely not Catholic, but I do have a couple of friends who are, and I figure this is one of the things we can do together…..

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Today’s lessons:

What I’ve learned in the past week:

  • When you’re thinking about selling your laptop, don’t actually delete your account until it’s agreed to change hands. Then if you do, don’t delete your user account, just wipe the drive.
  • When you delete your user account (thinking you’re going to sell your laptop and later decide not to), perhaps you should consider that opportunity to wipe your laptop drive rather than try to rebiukd you account.
  • if you decide to simply rebiuld your account (along with all your files) accross the network form your tower (with it’s 1 Tb drive), then remember that even with an N WiFi network, it’s going to take about 36 hours using the windows 7 migration tool. However, if you just bring the router back into your room, pull out the ethernet cables again, and manually copy them from one machine to another will only take you about two hours.
  • The Windows 7 data migration tool is really good at transferring your Firefox and Thunderbird settings…

BTW, yes I did finally get smart and wiped the drive on my laptop. I don’t have all my programs installed yet, but I have enough for now. I’ll finish the rest later….

Spelling mistakes are left here on purpose….

Monday, December 19, 2011

See you in Hell, Dear Leader!

Kim Jong Il is dead. Maybe his replacement will have more sense. What’s the point in acquiring weapons of mass destruction (with his nuclear weapons program) when your people are starving? The scary part about his is the unknown. Who will succeed him? Granted you can’t go that much further off the deep end that he was, but that is also a possibility. But it also brings hope. Hope that his replacement will have more sense. Or at least two neurons and the ability to rub them together…..

Monday, December 12, 2011

Seahawks vs. St Louis...

Tonight the Seahawks are playing host to the St Louis Rams. At the Clink. While both teams royally suck, theSeahawks should do well. Historically, they have the best Monday Night record.... And in nationally televised games, they usually never do too shabby, either. Note if they could only win the non-national games...

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Approaching usability….

When I last blogged about using Gingerbread, I was using bluedroid. And the next day when I went to work, I had to reboot the phone to swith from Wi-Fi to 3g. And then I had to reboot to get back on W-Fi when I got to work (one of my employer’s unwritten perks is I’m allowed to use the company’s Wi-Fi for my laptop and my phone, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my job). So, as soon as I get back home, I switched back to CMYLXGO’s Froyo. I don’t know what it’s been, but ever since I got my 32 Gb card, I haven’t been able to finish setting up that ROM. I can install it and start setting it up, but usually before I finish moving in, something happens, and I end up starting over….

Anyway, it’s been a month or so since I tried Gingerbread, and a lot of progress has been made. I’m now using Energy. The only drawback is that it doesn’t have all the widgets that I’m used to in other Sense 3.5 ROMs. No problem. Some trial an error, and I copied everything I needed from the Bluedroid ROM I downloaded. Some things that I’ve noticed:

  • It is now possible to switch between 3g and Wi-Fi without rebooting. A real plus since T-Mobile now meters my 3G bandwidth, and I really don’t need to reboot my phone at the start and finish of every journey…
  • I can now switch between keyboards. Which means I now use the Swype public beta on this ROM. Though for the most part, I still use the default Touch Input….

Compared to Froyo, this biuld seems to be more stable. Then again, I haven’t finished installing all of my apps yet. This ROM (which is rooted, as all the others ROMs I’ve used) comes with Titanium back-up cooked in already. So, I’m doing a back-up every night to save my work. It’ll also make it that much easier when NRGZ28 puts out the next version.

BTW, did I mention that when I first bought the HD2, the first WinMO ROM I put on it was an Energy ROM. And it was also my preferred ROM when I had my Rhodium.

I will be finishing up my contractual obligations torwards T-Mobile in the very near future. Then I can upgrade. I’m debating between getting a Sensation, or an Amaze….

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Just saw the game….

I Just saw the Seahawks game tonight. Vince Young is going to have a terrible time taking a dump tonight. With all 11 pairs of Seahawks’ shoes up his ass and all….

Seriously Vince, Seahawk defenders are not your wide recievers. Granted, I (and most likely the team) really don’t mind that you give us the ball consistently, but that’s probably not the way you want to play. Try throwing it to your teammate, next time.

If it wasn’t for the interceptions, this game would’ve been close. Possibly an
Eagles victory. Offense sells tickets. But it’s the defense that wins games…