Yet Another Lesson Learned

My former boss (actually now a current boss again since I’m working for him once again) has a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S5. On occasion, he has had me root his phone. And usually what happens after I root it, he then looses root the next time he downloads an update. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He usually just runs the stock, factory ROM (I’m just rooting his phone, I’m not installing recovery, nor am I flashing a custom ROM). The main reason why I’m rooting his phone is so I can install adaway and use the HOSTS file to block the ads on his phone. Generally when he upgrades his phone, since he’s just running the factory software, he loses root, and I have to re-root it. Very recently, he upgraded his phone to Lollipop. And so, I was asked to come in and root his phone. Again. So, I got my laptop and headed up to root it. And halfway through the process, the phone wouldn’t boot up. After some digging, I realized that there was no root yet available for his phone (there may be a root available for it, I’ll have to do more research). Fortunately, he is sufficiently computer literate that he was able to recover his phone.

Why am I writing this? This is a lesson I’ve learned since I got my first Android phone. That you never update your phone as soon as the update comes out. Inevitably there are going to bugs and/or you’ll lose root (not that I’m concerned about that since I’m S-off). For my HTC One, I'm currently running Venom. Currently, it’s KitKat (Android 4.4.3), but Lollipop should be coming shortly. I’m probably not going to be jumping at the bit to update it. It’s sometimes best to wait and see if there any bugs…

This is yet another lesson learned…

A sad day on Science Fiction

And in tv and film. Leonard Nimoy had passed away.

It's wasn't till my teenage years that I really got to see Star Trek The Original Series. So my first exposure to Spock was a copy of a copy of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And he died heroically at the end of the movie...

But my first exposure to Leonard Nimoy was a series he did in the '70s called In Search Of:.

He will always be Spock. I don't know if I can add anything else to what has been written about him. Other than he's gone to the great Star Trek convention in the sky...
RIP Leonard Nimoy.

Just a couple of thoughts on a Sunday morning

Note: I started this post Sunday morning. It's now Friday. I guess I should finish it....

Recently, I tried to transfer to location that is more local for me at the company where I work. The reply I got back s that I would have to step back down to part time before they would even look my file to consider it. But I also attempted to transfer last year when I was part time, and I was told to go suck it. So I'm not going to transfer. As for my next plans, I'm keeping those to myself.

The only winning move in Office Politics and drama games is not to play. Yes, we all have our issues at one time or another. Sometimes the best thing to do is to pull the person aside and privately work out your differences. Other times you may need to discreetly tell your leadership about your concerns. But always talk to your coworkers, not about them.

Respect is a two way street, and it must be earned. In life, abd especially in the workplace.

I know I've posted on this matter in the past, but events of late have brought the topic back up again in my mind. Abd this is still my position...

Why does this keep getting longer?

There was once a time when I could sit down to my computer, partition, format and reinstall a dual-boot system (WinME and WinXP) in two days straight. And this was nuking both drives, so I had to restore everything from CD. Then as my system kept getting more complex, eventually I stopped dual-booting windows, and still my times to from initial wipe to finishing the rebuild kept getting longer and longer. Days became weeks. My back-ups became bigger, but with a second hard drive (that was no longer being repartitioned and formatted every time) and my DVD burner, backing up was never a problem for me.

I started this rebuild on December 11. I now just finished it tonight, over two months later. I guess it’s because once I get my web browser reinstalled, I immediately start ‘using’ my computer again, and ‘moving in’ slows down considerably. I also guess that it doesn’t help that I now have a phone and a tablet. Both are Android and rooted (in fact the phone is S-Off). Come to think of it, I think I know why it took me over two months to reinstall everything on my tower. During this time that I was supposed to be working on my tower, I was busy wiping my phone, going from Jellybean and Sense 5.0 to KitKat with Sense 5.5, and KitKat with 6.0. Right now I’ve found the most stable configuration is KitKat with Sense 6. Of course that’s all out the window, now that Lollipop is now out for my phone.

I should also add that I don’t think I’m going to be dual-booting this tower. There is only space for one internal hard-drive in this tower, and there aren’t drivers in Linux for my internal components yet (as learned from a live-cd test). Maybe in virtual machines down the road.

It took me over two months to do it. But it is done…

Finally, a day off…

Sorry readers, it’s been too long since I’ve been here. I thought that with my phone and my tablet both having blogger installed on them it would be easier to post things, but Life just keeps getting in the way. Today is Valentine’s Day, and I was going to help out a friend today, but he said I wasn’t really needed (though I was still welcome to swing by). That and the fact that I have to get up at 3 tomorrow morning to work led me to the decision to cancel my plans today and stay home. Brought the laptop out to the living room, poured a cup of coffee, and here I am…

• About two weeks after I bought my brother a Wi-Fi Blu-Ray player, his TV dies. So, of course, he replaces it. With a bigger set (though still not as big as mine).
• I joined Amazon Prime. I like the free 2-day shipping on lots of items, but I got it more for the free video & music streaming. And I’ll eventually start reading more on my kindle. Think of it as more of a Hulu Plus/Netflix, but with an annual fee, rather than monthly. I also have Netflix and Hulu Plus, and I can follow programs as they go from one service to another….

I was Austrailia Day last month, and for some reason I keep playing this:

I really don’t care for clowns, but in this case, I’ll make an exception…