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Hey @Sprint – if you’re going to AMBER ALERT me in the middle of the night, how about some info?!
45 months ago
by Tom
in Technology
Shannon and I were both tired last night. REALLY tired. She ran a marathon (26.2 miles!) and I had just spent the entire day washing, waxing, and detailing a black sports car. Thus, we went to bed early so we wouldn’t be (completely) dead to the world today.
Then we heard an explosion of sound from either side of the bed. BOTH our cell phones starting going off with what I can only describe as a fire alarm sound. Here’s the text we both got:
Seriously? ”please check local media”???
If you’re going to send out a text like that at some God awful hour (which would lead me to believe that it is an IMMEDIATE emergency) then get me IMMEDIATE information! Hell, even the road signs on the highway give a more detailed description of an amber alert usually including a make/model of a car and more.
WHO is the Amber alert for? WHERE specifically? WHAT am I looking for?
You ever hear the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? Yeah. Do this enough and the impact of an “Amber Alert” gets devalued to a nuisance.
Hopefully someone from Sprint replies to this.
This is not my after #DragonCon blog post. It is, though…
01 year ago
by Tom
in Technology
A post about something I did because of Dragon*Con. I spent last night doing a clean install of the OS/Apps on my Samsung Galaxy S (Epic 4G) phone. During the con, the damn thing would stall – crash the occasional app – take forever to load.
In short, it started acting stupid.
The cause? Well, I have learned that just because you CAN move apps from the phone to the microSD card it doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
So things seem to be fixed, and this post is testing the WordPress app on the phone. Look for actual Dragon*Con stuff in the next few days.
Dear @SamsungService – need help diagnosing an 56 inch LED DLP issue!
22 years ago
by Tom
in Technology
My television is a Samsung HLS-5679W 56-Inch LED Engine 1080p DLP HDTV. The other day, the left half of the screen started “ghosting” green around everything. You can see in these three photos (click each one for a larger view):
Now, I’m a “I can take it apart myself” type of guy (especially since there is NO ONE within 60 miles to work on this thing.) So what is the issue/what do I need to fix it… or is my TV fried after just four years? Please advise.
Additionally: the video explaining how to replace the bulb on my television from your website is incorrect. I learned this when I opened the back looking for the bulb. You may want to correct it:
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/HL-S5679W?#
Working Out with DOCTOR WHO: The Three Doctors (3rd Doctor)
52 years ago
by Tom
in Technology
The List of Who what where I’ve seen:
- Planet of the Spiders (3rd Doctor)
- The Time Warrior (3rd Doctor)
- The Green Death (3rd Doctor)
- The Mutants (3rd Doctor)
- The Claws of Axos (3rd Doctor)
- Terror of the Autons (3rd Doctor)
- Spearhead from Space (3rd Doctor)
- The Krotons (2nd Doctor)
- The Aztecs (1st Doctor)
Booyah.
So, do you remember how cool it was when Spock showed up in that two part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation? It was like a geeky party with your favorite classic science fiction buddy handing out with your new ones. I can only guess that the fans of Doctor Who in 1970 who saw “The Three Doctors” felt exactly the same way.
A gel-like plasma creature arrives on Earth and hunts down the Doctor, who calls on the Time Lords for help. Unfortunately, the Time Lords themselves are in crisis as their energy is being drawn off into a black hole. So, they send the Doctors’ earlier selves to help out.
This episode is very much a breaking of the Time Lord rules which forbids the Doctor from ever meeting his former selves. Before you get TOO upset that fact, ask yourself this question: Did Captain Kirk ever break the Prime Directive?
The answer is yes – and it made for damn good television when it happened. ”The Three Doctors” uses a loosely written story to feed fans the excitement that comes with recognizable guest stars. This series isn’t great science fiction, but it is (without a doubt) fun Doctor Who.
THE GOOD: I haven’t watched very much of the Second Doctor, but having him around serves as a great reminder of how different the role can be interpreted from actor to actor. Also, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart’s confusion regarding the two Doctors makes for comedy gold.
THE BAD: The First Doctor was is such poor health that they had to cheat him into the story by explaining that he couldn’t completely cross time to meet the other two and was only available via television monitor. This was because his scenes were filmed at his home. It would have been awesome if he were around interacting with the other two, but they did the best they could.
THE CHEESE: This is the level of cheese equivalent to Batman and Robin appearing on Scooby Doo. (In case you aren’t clear, that in NOT a bad thing.)
My Top 10 Favorite Android Apps (so far)
32 years ago
by Tom
in Technology
So I recently got a Sprint version of the Samsung Galaxy S phone called “The Epic 4G“. I can safely say that after owning it for almost a month it is THE best phone I have ever owned.
For those of you that know me, I have had a long standing boycott of the iPhone due to the fact that I need a physical keyboard on any texting or smart phone that I own. I have tried time and time again and I just can’t seem to get used to the whole touch screen keyboard thing.
Thus the Sprint version of the new Samsung phone was a total win for me since it includes the sliding keyboard. Buying this phone also introduced me to the world of Google’s Android OS. Previously, I owned a Palm Pre which used the WebOS platform… and even though I LOVE my new phone, there are still things that the Palm OS did just a little better.
Anyway, in playing with Android, I have found some pretty snazzy apps. If you like to suggest some others I should try, please let me know. Here’s the ten that I have been the most impressed with/enjoyed the most so far…
AndFTP - the best of the free FTP apps I could find.
Angry Birds – when is the full version coming out??!!! Even Palm’s WebOS has a full version already. Dammit!
Google Goggles – I am yet to actually use this app for anything practical, but there is something to be said about the fun involved in taking pictures of things and see what Google finds as a result.
Google Voice – the ability to call from my Google Voice account on a whim gets built into my phone via this app. This is extremely useful when using the phone for the business line (which is a Google Voice number.) Pure awesome.
gReader – I still keep track of websites via RSS, and this little app allows me to keep plugged in to my Google Reader and updates the articles. This is a great for when I want to keep caught up on reading and there isn’t a PC around.
Hootsuite – just like the online website, I can manage and play with a number of the Twitter accounts I manage. Now if they’d only get Facebook integration built into the Android app, too…
Mojo NES – old school Nintendo goodness that plays classic NES games on my phone. I am using the free one and it seems to work fine.
RockPlayer – this lets me play DivX files on my phone. With the extreme prettiness of the screen’s resolution, this is VERY important… and it looks DAMN GOOD.
WordPress – how awesome is it that I can make posts like this from anywhere?
ScanLife - an app that scans bar codes and then looks them up on the Internet for price comparison. I see this getting a lot of use this Christmas while shopping.
Testing Mobile Posting (again)
02 years ago
by Tom
in Technology
I have a WordPress app on my phone which (last time I tested it) didn’t work well with adding photos. I am trying it again. If it worked, you should see the awesome Weird Al shirt I got this past weekend (which I will post more about later.)
NOTE: Didn’t work right. I’ll try to make another post in a few.
