In defense of my decision

April 30, 2006 at 6:34 pm (Mobile Tech)

I gave it some more thought. The hiptop’s downfall was the size and the fact that the features were not consistent. I own two mobile phones and a media player- and I don’t like having a bag (so girly?) and having things in my hands. That means that my belt and my pockets are the only places available.

My belt was being occupied by the hiptop2- a very large device that just spread out on everything. It could however store all my organizer and calendar details as well as my contacts. But guess what- my Zen stores organizer and calendar information as well. The only limitation is that I have to sync it at home and not on the go- but still… a major step forward. The only sacrifice made to date relates to the push email- which has become far less critical. Every other duty is done between the new phone and the Zen. These two devices can happily coexist on my belt while my Miphone occupies my pocket- being that it is so thin.

If I ever need push/pop email I will put it on my bmobile.

Therefore I have saved a bunch of money on my mobile bill, saved on real estate on my belt and still have all my contacts in tact.

Thank you Zen for being so versatile.

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Definition of Lexicon

April 30, 2006 at 5:46 pm (Idleness)

lex·i·con
n.
pl. lex·i·cons or lex·i·ca (-k)

  1. A dictionary.
  2. A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary: the lexicon of surrealist art.
  3. Linguistics. The morphemes of a language considered as a group.

[Medieval Latin, from Greek lexikon (biblion), word(book), from neuter of lexikos, of words, from lexis, word, from legein, to speak. See leg- in Indo-European Roots.]
[Download Now or Buy the Book]
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Main Entry: lexicon2
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: the vocabulary of a person, group, subject, or language; also, the total morphemes of a language
Etymology: Greek lexis `word, phrase’

Source: Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
Copyright © 2003-2005 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC

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So Long old friend

April 29, 2006 at 9:07 am (Mobile Tech)

I have a couple things to say.

1) I gave away the Hiptop2 and instead bought a Motorola v300

I have moved on. I parted ways with the Hiptop2 on Thursday April 27, 2006 and embraced the Motorola v300. I didn’t embrace it like I did my Hiptop2 or the Zen or even the new WXGA. It was a business arrangement. The Hiptop2 let me down on Wednesday night by being down for the entire time- I mean all evening and night. I figured I had enough. I decided that the additional $800 per month was just not worth it anymore.

I know, initially I said friends don’t sell friends. I also know that the v300 is a major downgrade. However, I only spent $5000 to get the brand new flip phone. I am going to pimp it and make it into a decent enough replacement. Besides, the Hiptop2 was taking up realestate on my belt which should have been shared between a phone and my Zen. I had to stop hurting- what is the point of push email if it only works sometimes. The phone would often tell me I have no SIM, or switch to phone only mode. Besides, C&W doesn’t invest too much into the Hiptop2 infrastructure to give it a good catalog of items- they let it die and I left her.

The giving away part was a snap decision. I originally intended to put her to rest in a nice memorial type ceremony attended by close friends and family. Instead though one of my two best friends quickly asked me to give it to him- and so I did. I know… I gave away a $20g phone… I could have atleast sold it for $5000. Atleast it will always be near me, and if I want it back I can rob/negotiate with him.

2) More confusion and sometimes more certainty about the car

I am at odds with myself about this thing. I view it from all angles. If I don’t buy it at all then I have more resources to fix my room and save money. If I save money then I can achieve my goal of making a ‘tidy sum’ in three years (this being year 2).
My male parent seems to have a problem with me getting that room. Just today a renewed badminded effort was made to push me out of my vision. I tell you, sometimes I feel like I could move out and pay rent- but because I have my goals I say no. Therefore there is a very strong possibility that I won’t be able to get what I want.
Then there is the point about being muscled out of what isn’t even rightfully mine. Sure it belongs to you but you said I can borrow it- no need to then do a total switch. Things like that make me want to say “fine until christmas kindly youth over ugly- i will get my own tings” but I can’t say that. I have to be smart and say think clearly boy, do the best possible thing.
Darn confusing.

I will be posting pictures of the new phone- not that the v300 isn’t a popular phone that most people know- but as a courtesy.
The best possible decision will be made known to me when the time comes.

Want to switch to something a little irreverent and yet a little philosophical. It is a question that I have never had the answer to- how do we treat the Bible.

I know this is off tech topic but I just want to know: The book created about 3000+ years ago had a set context. Men couldn’t fornicate; men were commanded ‘thou shalt not kill’ unless the person wasn’t a Jew; women were a little higher than house/sex slaves and you could have as many as you could afford. A few millenia/centuries afterwards we change it up a bit. The book is used to justify the subjugation of the African diaspora and they say that slaves should obey their masters. Just a few centuries before that the book was used to justify the religious crusades which saw the slaughter of any non-christian entity- muslims etc. After slavery the book is used to help set us free. Women come along wanting to vote- the book is used to provide equal rights, finally men could fornicate (boo-hoo) and commit adultery and you shouldn’t kill- unless it was a war. Then we have the 2000+ understanding, diversified into several different denominations which are either fundamentalist or have a broader conceptual approach- or just plain new age.

What are we supposed to believe? If the Bible is the inspired word and it was written in context do we continue believing in that initial context? Or is it that the Bible which has the same words for centuries can be reinterpreted to justify a generation. Hmmm.

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Priorities Straightened

April 23, 2006 at 1:22 pm (Idleness, Mobile Tech, PC Tech)

pri·or·i·ty Audio pronunciation of ( P ) Pronunciation Key n. pl. pri·or·i·ties

  1. Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency.
    1. An established right to precedence.
    2. An authoritative rating that establishes such precedence.
  2. A preceding or coming earlier in time.
  3. Something afforded or deserving prior attention.

I have limited resources and several desires. How do I achieve them all? One way is to prioritize and achive things incrementally. Priorities can be established by order of importance, or cost, or urgency, or time to complete the task. The following is a complete list of objectives. Though numbered they are not in order of priority.

  1. I want my little lilly-pad somewhat away from everybody else in my house without paying rent. That may weigh in at over 100k to accomplish fully. Repairs needed, not to mention cleanup- and probably different furniture.
  2. I want to be mobile- I want my own car. Car loans threaten to charge be $25000 per month. With all the things I want to achive, and considering my priorities the car is very low on my list. I can endure ‘this’ a little longer.
  3. I want to build my PVR. TV Card with Remote and IR Blaster, Round Cables and an Internal Fan for cooling, 1GB-stick of RAM, Cordless Desktop, Sound Card, 5.1 Audio to name a few come in at $28862.24 without shipping from Miami or the 5.1 Audio. The perfect PVR/Gaming system (withouth a mobo or chip change). I don’t want to do a mobo or chip change because that would be too expensive- the new X2 starts at U$400+
  4. I want to fully network my house, wired and wireless. I already have the wireless, I have a switch- I just need to run the cable. That is relatively inexpensive but it requires time to sit down, calibrate the cables properly for the plug and do everything neatly along the skirting. Time. Cost should be less than $4000.
  5. I want a new mobile phone: The Nokia 6255 to be exact. I want to stop using the unreliable hiptop email service and get something a bit more reliable. I would get a cheap bMobile to maintain my postpaid account.

Hmmm. I guess I can start at 4. Then 1. Then 3. Then 2. Then if anything 5. Or, maybe I can scrap 2 altogether, and scrap 5 as well. So I do 4, 3 and 1 and just save my money. Hmmm. How long can I endure not being able to leave home without underbreath mutterings…. We’ll see. Taxifare is cheaper than gas money.

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Digg

April 23, 2006 at 11:41 am (General Tech, PC Tech)

Who knew that Kevin Rose moved on from Attack of the Show since Last YEAR!!? The screen savers used to be my favourite show to watch- after which was Call for Help and then X-Play. G4 has eroded the tech in G4-Tech TV by taking out the more mature presenters. Thankfully these stalwarts have moved onward and upward. I realized that I have been wasting away at work looking for crap to do when I could be getting educated in my favourite past time. Here are a few pages my friend shared with me that have proven to be invaluable.

This week in tech – http://www.thisweekintech.com/
Digg – http://digg.com/
Binary – http://www.binrev.com/
CommandN – http://commandn.typepad.com/
Revision 3 – http://www.revision3.com/
Diggnation – http://revision3.com/diggnation
Hak.5 – http://www.hak5.org/

I think Digg and Revision3 as well as Diggnation will be the ones I most frequently visit. They have a lot of things in Revision3 that I have always wanted to do. Kevin Rose stands out because on The Screen Savers he was the dark tipper.

—–

I have set up the older PC for my mother and father to use far away from my room. I think she should be fine now- even the printer is down there. My brother used to print random things at 2am until I put a time limiter on the Printer. When he sends his print requests downstairs I no longer have to care. Nobody sleeps downstairs yet so nobody will be waking up. Mom doesn’t have to come in and wake me to use the computer- FREEDOM!!! J/K- it wasn’t that bad.

The only thing missing on that machine is the internet. My wireless has pretty good range but that receiver is crap. Additionally the reception in that part of the house is horrible anyway. I am going to have to run cable to that machine. If I run the cable I would have to setup those ethernet plugs and the switch under the staircase and then another two plugs in my room and my parents room where the router is. Three plugs, one router, 500ft of Cat 5e cable.
My long term goal for my mom’s machine is that it will be a stroage area for all my media. I can’t stream consistently over my existing wireless and ethernet is cheaper to implement.

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Day Two

April 21, 2006 at 1:03 pm (PC Tech)

I received my new monitor henceforth labelled WXGA on Wednesday evening. Today marks the second day of use. It has been wonderful.

The newness has its ups and downs- don’t think it is continously smooth sailing. I watched Smallville on the monitor and my experience improved ten-fold. Everything was bigger and I could sit farther behind and watch. This monitor is the proper face of my media centre. Even though it is exam time I am giving in to the temptation to install a game and see how it looks at the maximum screen resolution. The newest game I have is True Crime: New York. I don’t even know much about the game- just about a somewhat corrupt cop- which is fine for me. I want to see how things look stretched out on a 1440 by 900 screen res.

One problem I have found so far is that the pictures look grainy. It could be that my digital camera sucks and I need to buy a new one. That option seems likely. It could also be that the screen is so wide it automatically stretches everything out- because the smaller pictures like thumnails or just 640 by 480 look decent. I would prefer to not blame my new monitor.
Another issue is that some programmes are not yet used to all the real estate. They will have to get used to it though because the wxga is here to stay.

I think it is time to up the ante for the media centre. Flow is arriving in May, World Cup is about June and I need to get things cracking. That is precisely the reason I am going to buy and install this TV Capture card. I think it is excellent. The obvious limitation is that it has a single tuner, but then again that isn’t so bad. I still have a high speed internet connection, I can supplement any additional tuners wanted.
After getting the Capture Card I intend to get a remote. I will then tell the Flow people to freely enter my home and give me something to watch. I have never been much of a television person though so I don’t expect too much magic from this experience. I guess I am tired of just not having cable. Most of my time will be spent recording shows- i mean really- Smallville ends in two or three weeks, Supernatural is wrapping up too. There isn’t much going on these days.


Update on the Car:For all the Jamaicans who read my blog (the two of you- Hey MOM!) this car thing is tricky. Hands down the Cable and Wireless Cooperative Credit Union has the best deal. You need to deposit ten percent of the value of the vehicle, get about 18% and 5 years to pay. The vehicle needs to be under 5 years of age to get the maximum coverage. Regardless of the age you need to put 10% in your shares but you may have to secure an additional 20% in a fixed account that isn’t going anywhere. The fees include 1% of the value of the vehicle, $10,000 one off cost, the cost of the loan application, first month downpayment. You also have separate costs like transfer charges, valuation charges, insurance- all of which they want to lend you (entrapment). If you get a sweet deal on a vehicle then joy to you because it makes everything affordable. Once the car is priced at less than $900,000 you will be looking at repayments under $25,000 per month.

Banks suck. If the vehicle is brand new you get 90% coverage, 20% and seven years to pay. If the vehicle is 2002 you get 60% coverage, four years at 20%. If you were buying a $900,000 2001 vehicle you would have to find 40% yourself, pay 20068.34 per month for three years. Credit Union wins.

The only problem I may have to reposition my priorities. Suppose I can move out of my little room and into a bigger room in my house but at my expense. Which would be wiser- buy the car and make car payments or save up, fix my room and then make car payments. I want a car because I don’t like asking and being rejected. Essentially I want my own independence.

However, if I stopped going to school (which will happen atleast when summer ends) then why will I need a car? Probably to take my girl out on the weekends. If I had my little pad that looks okay but I don’t have to pay rent for it wouldn’t that be smarter to secure first. That way instead of going out it would be simpler to tell people to comce in.

Face it people, I am going to be living with my parents right until I am ready to get married- another three or four years. If I save my money now, as in really save each month, then I can easily retire at 30, probably even retire at 26.

Be wise.

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