Over the weekend I setup a Ubuntu 8.04 installation in my apartment. The main purpose was to have a box to use to connect to my Tivo, but I am also going to use it to play with Java servlet and jsp development.
Of course none of this is any fun without Internet access. So I started configuring my Linksys pci wireless adapter. Turns out that the longstanding bug that affects the WPA2 passphrase store in Gnome Network Manager is still not fixed.
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Just like a car’s VIN number, a cell phone has a number or two that contain interesting information about the device.
There’s the IMEI number, the SIM card number and the phone number itself. Ever wonder what pieces of information are related to those numbers? If you go to the International Numbering Plans website you can enter those numbers in and see what you get.
After several weeks on hiatus, Music Video Friday has returned.
This week we have a trio of videos featuring Yo-Yo Ma. Yo-Yo Ma is an award winning cellist. Known for his considerable virtuosity and wide-ranging repertoire, he has delighted audiences around the world in live performances and in motion picture soundtracks.
The first video is from the dvd “The Music Garden.” This particular clip is of the prelude from Bach’s Suit No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello. This dvd is the first of a six-part series that was filmed by Kevin McMahon and Francois Girard. This dvd was released in 2000 by Sony Classical.
The second video features the performances of several songs from motion picture scores Italian composer Ennio Morricone. The songs featured in the video are: “Gabriel’s Oboe” from The Mission, “Playing Love” from The Legend of 1900, and a suite of music from the movies of Sergio Leone. This album, Yo-Yo Ma Play Ennio Morricone, was released in 2004 on the Sony Classical label.
The third video is a live performance of the song “Slumber My Darling” by Stephen Foster. This song was featured on the studio album Appalachian Journey, featuring Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Edgar Meyer (bass), and Mark O’Connor (violin). This particular track guest starred vocalist Alison Krauss. This album was released in 2000 on the Sony Classical label.
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Lately there has been a lot of flack going on over the Early Termination Fee (ETF) system that the major cellular carriers use to encourage consumers to abide by the length of the contract that they have signed.
Apparently a lot of people are upset that the various cellular carriers are wanting to charge a fee to get out of the contract they signed. Now I can understand that they don’t like paying some extra fee to switch carriers, however, they signed the contract in the beginning stating that they would pay the extra fee if terminating the contract early.
I can understand that there may be instances where the ETF seems onerous due to a dissatisfaction with the services or a case where the ETF is conceivably improperly levied. In fact, I had to pay an AllTel ETF when my wife died solely because the cellphone was actually in my name and not hers. If the phone contract had been in her name then AllTel would have waived the fee and just canceled the contract.
What I don’t quite grasp is why the very consumers that signed the contract are so loathe to abide by the terms. If you have ever signed a lease on an apartment, house or car, I imagine that you have agreed to pay extra fees in order to break the lease. This is a common practice and everyone seems to accept that it is worthwhile, so why is it so bad to have the same clause in the contract on cellular service?
This is part one of a short series of articles detailing the process I went through to restore a friend’s table pc after her hard drive dies due to a head crash.
Background
My friend has a Gateway CX210X Convertible Notebook. This model uses a SATA internal drive. Her drive died sometime last Friday afternoon while working in Windows. You got the standard click of the drive arm against the platter that wouldn’t stop.
I tried some basic restoration techniques to see if I could at least see the drive:
Nothing worked. So I went out and bought a new hard drive for her from one of the local computer places in Valdosta, Belson’s pcXchange.
Installation Problems
At this point I thought I was going to be homefree, boy was I wrong. The first hurdle was getting the Windows install cd to even see the hard drive. Apparently the bios for the CX210X does not have a legacy option to allow the SATA controller to be seen as a standard IDE controller. No problem, I can just use a USB floppy drive to load the drivers before the install, right? Wrong.
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