Archive

Archive for January, 2009

Useless Services on XP

January 25th, 2009 Comments off

Since my XP computer at work is memory constrained, turning off some services would be a good idea.

http://www.devotedgeek.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-tweaking-useless-windows-xp-services/

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Really tho, I think any of those will just be scratching at the margin, really I need to get SQLServer off my box.

Categories: General, java Tags:

WordPress Upgrading

January 17th, 2009 Comments off

Aside from the usual stuff, this is the line to do a command line backup of the db.

mysqldump –user=<user> –password=<pass> –databases <db_name> –single-transaction <db_name>

Categories: General, open source Tags:

iPhone 2.2 Firmware vs Jailbreak Podcaster

January 14th, 2009 Comments off

Winner : Podcaster.

These days the “reason” I have jailbroke my phone has been the “illegalPodcaster application.

Especially during the election season as it allowed me to keep on top of all the news. It was however buggy and crashy (version 1.2).

When Apple released the 2.2 firmware the primary feature I was looking forward too was the ability to download podcasts “out of the box” as it were, mainly because of how buggy and crashy Podcaster was.

Well, the 2.2 download feature while nice is still pretty useless, in that

  1. You can’t setup a subscription on the phone and have it check for new podcasts. Instead you have to manually check each podcast.
  2. You can’t delete a downloaded podcast once you are done with it.

Thankfully, Podcaster released a new version (1.4) that is much more stable. That and with Backgrounder, podcasts can be played and downloaded in the background.

Categories: General, life Tags:

Good on ya ATT

January 14th, 2009 Comments off

ATT did two things recently that were actually pleasant surprises. To be fair tho, they weren’t really pleasant, just better than the normal douchbaggery.

First off, when you drop to a smaller rate plan, they actually let you keep some of your roll-over minutes from the higher rate plan. We had a family plan with 2,100 minutes, which back when there was lots of drama was necessary. Over the course of year tho, as the drama subsided, we built up over 6000 roll over minutes.
I delayed changing plans because the next step down is 1400 minutes, and we use just about that many, +/- 100 on the prior 4 months. So I decided that after Christmas when holiday calling should have dropped off, I would drop the rate plan, and just not use my phone in an effort to build up a small rollover cushion. On an average month, I use about 300 minutes, Isabeau uses 1000, and the kids use like 100 (they just txt).

Anyways, when I called to make the change, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that when dropping down in rate plan they let you keep as many minutes as your new monthly rate plan, aka 1400.

I also inquired as to another sore spot, turning off data access to phones that don’t have a data plan, aka the kids. They can do that now, and as a “bonus” it disables picture messaging, which teenagers (or anyone for that matter) don’t need / should have / will just cause trouble.

Last year, my nephew, while bored on a long car trip in California, decided he would watch a “free” tv show on his cell phone, which meant a $300+ data charge.

When the bill arrived I called ATT and bitched them out in an effort to get the charged dropped, aka why on earth do you allow phones without data plans to download large quantities of data! GRRRR They eventually ended up cutting the charge in half, but were unable to disable data access to his phone.

Lastly, they can enable and disable txt messaging for a phone now, which is provides a nice motivational level, grades or no txt messaging.

Categories: General, life Tags: