Last night I went out to celebrate my friend John’s birthday. It was John, Jayson and a bunch of John’s friends. We went to the House of Brews. It was fun, but I didn’t realize I drank as much as I did, or the desert I had for dinner hurt me. Either way I had a horrible night. I felt sick all night and barely slept. I ended up lying around my apartment the entire day trying to recover. So I learned that no I shouldn’t have chocolate peanut butter cake for dinner, and I shouldn’t drink that much! I knew the later part, but I never learn!
scott
Sick Day
I woke up this morning with a head ache. For me that is never a good sign. It means a migraine is soon to follow. Because I knew I haven’t been sleeping well this weekend, and the head ache, I was pre-emtive and took a sick day off from work. I am glad I did. I went back to sleep and woke up at around noon. I needed the rest. I was bored the rest of the day though. I hate sick days. I usually need the rest but it is boring stuck at home.
I Want A Time Machine
Since I cannot afford a Tardis, I am settling for the Apple version of a Time Machine. After much delay (October) I finally am setting up Time Machine. The delay was not really my fault. I didn’t want to use Time Machine on a local disk attached to my Macbook, but Apple hadn’t released the software to allow you to backup to a remote share. Yesterday they finally updated the software on the Airport Extreme base station to allow this neat function. Firmware 7.3.1 now lets me use Time Machine to a 250gb drive plugged into my base station. I had to plug my printer directly into my Macbook to free up the USB port but it should be worth it.
I am currently running my first backup now. Lets see if this touted feature is really worth it. Time Machine wont fully replace Synk just yet. I will need Synk to continue to backup data I have on an external drive.
The Piano Bar
Last night I went back to Sweet Caroline’s with some friends. My friend Grechen’s friend was having a birthday get together there so a bunch of people went. Like last weekend, it was allot of fun. This time I didn’t drink as much, but it was a good show.
My Link Of The Day
I spend more time than I care to admit on the Microsoft Life Cycle Support site today. I was doing research on when all of our Microsoft software goes end of support. As much as this is a pain in the ass, I do have to give Microsoft credit for actually having a searchable site for this stuff.
The Drobo
My friend John told me about this neat external drive unit a few months ago called the Drobo. I took a look at the web page and was instantly curious. My only issues were the price and how they actually got RAID like data protection. After some reading I was comfortable with the units functionality but the cost was still a factor. The dam thing is $499 for just an empty chassis. My problem is the Drobo could solve many of my storage issues. I currently have no less than 8 external drives in my home computer setup. This doesn’t count my portable drive I have VM’s on that i shuttle back and forth to work, and the external units (that are mine) at work. Most of them are 250 gig drives. I have slowly been consolidating when I buy newer bigger drives. The problem is I am getting more and more drive space but I have no good backup for all this data. The really important stuff is replicated to a backup drive, but the stuff that would be a pain in the ass to replace but too costly to replicate is still a problem.
That was until Tuesday. I finally broke down and spent some of my tax return money and got a Drobo and some drives. Even with its cost, the benefit of having some true disaster recovery ability at home was too much to pass up. So far I am very happy with the unit. I will slowly add 2 additional 1TB drives over the next few months. I started out with 2 1TB drives in the unit. That gives me 1TB of usable space. What is good about the Drobo is that it gives you RAID1 or 5 like protection but allows you more flexibility when upgrading drives.
My Birthday Weekend
Wow, I need a vacation to recover from this weekend. Last Sunday was my birthday. If you know the calendar at all you would also know that Monday was St. Patrick’s day. With both events so close craziness ensues. I went out every night from Thursday through Monday. Thursday & Friday I went out with people from work. We went to a bar or two and drank. It is always fun to unwind with them.
Saturday I went with Gretchen & Jayson to a Piano Bar. They have been a few times but it was my first time to this one, Sweet Caroline’s. It was fun. I always loved the dueling piano bar in the New York, New York hotel in Las Vegas, and the one in Pat O’Brien’s on Burbon Street. I had a fun time, even though I drank much more than I had planned.
Sunday night my parents took me to the Waterfront Crab House in Long Island City for my birthday diner. It was good. I had king crab legs, and finished off my mom’s crab cakes. It was good food and I had a good time.
Monday I meet up with Douge, Yan, and a few others for a few drinks on St. Patrick’s day. I didn’t stay out too late since I was really tired from the long weekend of being out, but it was fun meeting up for a little while.
Can I Find The Right Phone? Part 4, The Palm Treo 750
The latest device I am trying is the Treo 750. Well technically the Centro was the last phone that I bought, since I had the 750 before the Centro, but I still have the 750 where the Centro is returned already. I haven’t tried a Windows Mobile phone since I tried the HP iPaq 6515 back in 2006. I was hesitant to try the Windows Mobile Treo since I had such a bad experience with the iPaq, but I heard decent things about the Windows Mobile 6 OS, I liked the form factor of the Treo 750, and frankly I was running out of alternatives.
Can I Find The Right Phone? Part 3, The Palm Centro
Due to the Nokia E61i’s poor performance with its core organizer functions I recently began to look at alternatives. I sold my Nokia 6120 Classic and N810 Tablet since I found I didn’t use them that much. With that money I bought a Palm Centro from AT&T. I was hoping that the newer Centro would not have the same bugs as the older Treo 680. It was still buggy when I installed the software I typically use. The screen and keyboard on the Centro were too small for me. A screen smaller than a 680 is just not usable for me. I also got spoiled with the nice large screen of the E61i. I wasn’t even a fan of the plastic white case of the Centro, so I returned it yesterday after work. It was worth a try, but the Centro experience didn’t get me anywhere.
Can I Find The Right Phone? Part 2, The Nokia E61i
I have been using the Nokia E61i for a few months now and I like allot of features of the phone, but its shortcomings are starting to bother me allot. Where the Treo 680 would freeze for a few seconds every once in a while, the E61i’s biggest problem is just slow all the time. Launching applications or moving through screens is noticeably slower than on the Palm OS, Windows Mobile, or Blackberry. The E61i is very stable. I almost never have to restart the phone. In fact it was almost 2 months after I got it when the phone froze on me. I think the problem was related to something I installed that was a Beta. I removed it and have been fine since then. The other issues I have with the E61i is it’s PIM functionality. More specifically its tasks program is horrible. The phone doesn’t support categories, the search functions are all but useless, and it takes me around 5 times longer to enter a task on the E61i than it did on my Treo 680. Because there is no category support for the PIM (Personal Information Manager) Software, I cannot easily filter calls with calling groups out of the Address Book. I also have to edit every single calendar entry I make on the phone to put it in the correct calendar on my computer. The lack of a touch screen bothers me, but is a minor issue compared with all my other issues. I haven’t found a good email program, but I limp by with what comes pre-installed. What is good about the E61i is it has no issues syncing with my Mac, especially over bluetooth. It works flawlessly with Bluephone Elite, the phone control software I use on my Mac. It also has great internet functionality especially since it has built in Wifi. Bluetooth also works flawlessly. I paired my Motorola Bluetooth Headset to the phone with no problems. I am able to turn on the headset and it always finds the phone and works. I stopped using Bluetooth headsets on my Treo because it wouldn’t work all the time and I would lose calls because I tried picking them up with the headset.
To sum it up the E61i is a nice reliable phone with a decent selection of software, but its basic functionality is lacking and the phone is just slow. If I could fix most of my issues with the tasks program I might be able to overlook the other issues I have with the Nokia’s Symbian S60 software.