weier.net - nerdly

Penchant for Duplicity

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:19:19 -0500

This morning on the way to work my iPod played "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" by The Jayhawks, back to back - one copy from their Smile album...the other from the Dawson's Creek soundtrack. I was startled by this, thinking an error had happened - not even knowing I had two copies of it. Turns out I do...in a playlist of 2256 songs. So the odds of that happening are .04%.

This iPod (an ancient 3nd Generation, OS v2.3) has quite a penchant for doing a "double shot" of artists. Obviously with some of the artists we have where we have about 100 of their songs it is not that surprising...but it seems to have an amazing skill of making this happen on artists where I only have one album.

I have read articles from world-class statisticians discussion this issue where they said it is purely human perception that iPods do not pick randomly...but that that is just the human mind's need to create patterns....AND I know from statistics class that given enough time, the improbable becomes the probable...........but....it just seems too weird.

Hypermiling

nospam@example.com (he) — Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:32:30 -0600

I had 4 goals when I bought my new car....and the most important one to me was "gets better than 30mpg". ...and yet that was the only one I failed to achieve when I purchased my tC. Well, no more...

About 6 months after I got the tC I started applying full-on hypermiling techniques to driving it. (However, with that many tanks of gas already having been averaged up it took quite a while - another year! - to bring the lifetime-of-the-vehicle results up.) After 19 months, I am now officially over 30mpg for the life of the car!!!!!!

In fact...the increase in gas mileage purely from hypermiling? 17.3%!!!!!!!
Continue reading "Hypermiling"

Comcast DVR Discovery

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:47:02 -0600

While fat-fingering the standard (complete-lack-of-ergonomics) Comcast remote (Motorola DCT 3412) I discovered a feature that might make life a lot more livable with this piece o' crap DVR interface of theirs.

While in playback mode if you hit the [Page Up/Down] buttons you get longer skips than the basic 30s forward/7s reverse:

[Page Up] = 5 minute (forward) skip
[Page Down] = 5 minute reverse skip

You can really burn through a show when it is crap - or to get back to the position in the show where you were at when the DVR forget to remember for you.

PS: I am not sure if this is a new feature or what...but I am seeing reports of new features being rolled out - not that I have seen any of these they are talking about personally yet.

PPS: If you never did activate your 30s skip yet...do it....never watch a commercial again.

Emoticons in Texting on iPhone

nospam@example.com (he) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:47:16 -0500

A bunch of people at work installed the Emoji Japanese keyboard to get emoticons in SMS/texting 6 months ago by buying a $.99 app (suckaz!! )...but I was too cheap. Now you can do it for free.

[via iSmashPhone article]

---------copied as well for posterity------------
1. Install 'Spell Number' from the iTunes App Store (it's free)
2. Launch the app
3. Type 91929394.59
4. Press the Home button
5. Go to Settings > General > Keyboards
6. Select Emoji under Japanese
7. Delete the app (if you want) because the emoji icons will still be there

Things You Learn: GTA IV

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:26:00 -0600

If you have your USB flight yoke (joystick/throttle) plugged into your PC when you play GTA IV for Windows, it interprets it as an Xbox control pad and won't let you use the keyboard/mouse controls anymore...AND THERE IS NO WAY TO DISABLE IT!

So now I am stuck manually plugging and unplugging my joystick in only when I need it instead of just leaving it permanently affixed. suck.

Things You Learn: Windows/PC Monitors

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:25:38 -0600

Even if you designate the monitor attached to the second DVI-adapter (ie: the top adapter on the video card, ie: the DVI-adapter furthest from the motherboard) in Windows, the Start Menu will not move to that monitor. On bootup the boot diagnostics will appear in that monitor, the login window will appear there, the desktop icons will appear there...but the Start Menu will not.

Changing the "primary monitor" to the first/bottom/closest-to-the-motherboard DVI and rebooting all works as one would expect it always should.

So....unfortunately you evidently have to re-cable your monitors if you ever want to switch - suck.

NOTE: I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes along and tells me the "obvious" checkbox I missed to make it all work regardless of physical connection...so just in case they need help humiliating me: Windows XP 64-bit with NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ video card.

Things You Learn: MacBook Monitors

nospam@example.com (he) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:02:27 -0600

A monitor with only a VGA connection cannot serve as the primary screen for a MacBook...only as an additional secondary desktop - EVEN with one of the VGA <-> DVI adapters that come with all monitors today.

PS: I wonder if the Apple-branded one has the same problem?

PPS: I just happen to have one lying around.

A monitor with only a VGA connection cannot serve as the primary screen for a MacBook...only as an additional secondary desktop - with one of the VGA <-> DVI adapters that come with all monitors today, because they are almost always DVI-D. With a DVI-I <-> VGA adapter (such as the Apple branded instance) work fine for primary or secondary.

PPPS: Why is life so complex?

Domination

nospam@example.com (he) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:04:08 -0600

Talk about total domination of the wireless internet market! iPhones (51%) and iPod Touch(s) (28%) controlled 79% of wireless web browsing in November. [article]

Interesting side note - wireless web browsing has grown to 8% of all Internet surfing.

Free (& Inconvenient) Texting

nospam@example.com (he) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 09:11:32 -0600

For the hell of it I just felt like digging around for texting possibilities that didn't eat up my limited texting contract or make me whip out my phone when I was in front of a computer already. There has to be something that I could do from email or the web that would end up on the recipient of my choice's cell phone and they would be able to respond seamlessly.

I found "5 Ways to SMS for Free" and looked over a couple services...

TxtDrop looks the most promising - 2-way texting AND having a web interface + Mac OS X widget + iPhone app. So I sent some tests....1/2 hour later I still haven't received them to even try the responses that are supposed to go to my specified email inbox. Hmmm...I don't think we have a winner.

TeleFlip's web site won't even load.

GizmoSMS is only one direction unless you pay.

Peekamo doesn't seem to have any idea what it is trying to do....it looks like MySpace vomited on their site.

I give up...Well, I guess, what can one expect from a market segment trying to lure cheap asses trying to avoid $.05 bills?

One Lonely DVI

nospam@example.com (he) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:52:31 -0500

I was an early HDTV adopter. 2003! ....so I have been living large for awhile now. But we are getting to the electronics life-cycle where compatibility and expandability are becoming an issue. My LCD rear projection TV has only DVI for the digital-HD video source...and worse yet, only one of them.

Nothing, and I mean, nothing in 2008 comes with DVI support anymore...it is all HDMI. But, luckily, since DVI and HDMI are pin-compatible standards you can simply have a cable that has a DVI connector on one end and an HDMI on the other. But that still doesn't solve the issue that I have...too many HD sources and too few digital jacks on the back of my TV. ...a problem pretty much everyone - regardless of TV age - is going to face in the near future as everything switches to HDMI and everyone has 5 things to attach to their TV.

Hello, HDMI switchers.

HDMI switchers are little appliances that simply take X number of HDMI inputs and then, with either a front panel button and/or remote control, toggle the X inputs through its one output to the television. You can find them from $400 (ouch!) on down. ...and that is before even mentioning the ridiculous price of cables to make this octopus work. Sooooo...I had been putting off the pain...moving the cables back and forth between components as I needed to watch each one. ...that doesn't go over well with wives though when the cheap nerd isn't there to move cables for her.

Looking through the possibillities again with "do-it-now eyes" I came upon the XtremeMac XtremeHD HDMI Switcher. It is made to integrate with AppleTV - not that I have one of those - but at least that made it compact and cute. ....and best of all? $99 even at the Apple Store.

Then the epiphany came. NewEgg carries these things too. $85. Holy shit...open box models = $45. HOLY SHIT...10' HDMI cables = $8 ($80 at Best Buy) & 6' DVI <--> HDMI cables = $9 ($60 at Best Buy).

3 days later it was all in my hands.

10 minutes later it was wired up and flawless.

20 minutes after that the Harmony remote had obfuscated the existence of the switcher at all for my end users.

You need this, nerd peeps.

17%

nospam@example.com (he) — Tue, 7 Oct 2008 15:14:43 -0500

iPhone Controls 17% of the Smartphone Market

Now if someone out there would just start buying Apple stock again.

2.1

nospam@example.com (he) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:05:55 -0500

The iPhone 2.1 firmware seems to have gone a far way towards fixing some stupidity in the 2.0 upgrade:

Contacts doesn't take as long. In 2.0 when I would click on my Contacts (which does have 900 entries in it) it would take up to 20 seconds before I could actually interact with the list. When I first installed 2.1 it seemed instantaneously quick again - but now it seems to be back up to 5 seconds or so. So still work needs to be done here.
Apps install original location. In 2.0 when the 3rd party app was installed it just put itself in whatever first open space it could find. OK. But when you did an upgrade it still did the same thing and moved itself from whereever the previous version had been hand-positioned to by you....now you have to manually move it back. ANNOYING! I just upgraded an app and that is no longer the case.
One thing largely hyped was improved backup time - I don't know that I see this.
Also promised, increased battery efficiency & few dropped calls - I haven't noticed anything, but then again I didn't have a problem with this stuff in 2.0.
Reading the news there were also big changes to the iPod app (adding Genius Bar, interface changes, triple-click on the earbuds does "previous track"), Camera (parental lock) and Passcode Lock (self-destruct after 10 fails) - none of which I really use.

Good effort on this one.

iPhone Golf

nospam@example.com (he) — Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:41:59 -0500

Maybe the best thing about the iPhone is that it works with golf glove(s) on.

2.0: Shazam!!!!

nospam@example.com (he) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:10:06 -0500

I have been eyeballing Shazam in the iPhone 2.0 free apps list for a bit now...but hadn't had an immediate need. It promises to identify any song just by listening to a couple of seconds thru the microphone - and then tag it on iTunes so you can buy it - and damn if it doesn't work everytime...

We were sitting across the street from a bar where the only thing we could make out of the tune were the synthesizer bass beat and some hand claps - and Shazam totally nailed it.

Total Awesomeness!!!!!

iPhone in a Dialing Pickle

nospam@example.com (he) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:53:50 -0500

Bah.

Turns out that the iPhone can't dial letter-based phone numbers.

Now how am I supposed to call 888-4-PICKLE?!?!?!?