Eric Krassinger

Wow, what a fun weekend. Mardi Gras is one of my most favorite weekends in St Louis. It is #1 when it is warm but we have not seen that in several years. I also missed out last year due to my senior capstone class at Wash U so I felt like I needed to make up for lost time. I headed out to my friend’s now annual party which has unlimited alcohol (or at least we thought), heated tent, and multiple port-a-potties. It was a a fun time. I was surprised that we did not walk around as much but it was pretty cold. It was also a first that I did not go to a bar but that is because we were having that good of a time. It was also the first time I woke up without a hangover afterwards…lol. Here is the limited pictures from the weekend.

Friday and Sunday were both laid back days. Got some good Vday time in with the girlfriend along with some DVR, COD, and movie watching. Two things: (1) I am getting better and better at COD (up to a level 21). Especially since I gave up on the sniper rifle. My kill to death ration is almost always positive now. (2) I watched District 9 on Sunday. The first 25 minutes was so bad that we turned it off but I gave it a second chance since it was recommended and up for awards. I turned it off right as it was getting good. The weird thing about it is that the movie had a totally different look and feel the first 30 mins compared to the last hour. It was almost like it was directed by two different people. The last hour was very good and I would recommend it. It had a good plot which I did not see coming.

I had the two rings over heating Xbox failure several months ago. I found out that only the 4 ring (i.e the Red Ring of Death) is covered under the extended 3 year warranty. Pretty worthless considering both are overheating issues. I wrote about this before but basically I tried to clean it off, inspect the fans, and put new thermal compound on it but nothing worked. I didn’t want to buy a new one but had so much invested in Rock Band songs that it was hard to walk away.

A friend suggested I give a guy a call that he saw on his work message boards and has this site. I was super skeptical because it didn’t sound on the up-and-up. The reason I thought this was because it was basically a guy picking up Xbox’s outside a local restaurant in St Charles. A second person posted on my friend’s work message board that his fix worked so I figured I would give it a try since what did I have to lose since it was basically useless.

The guy charges $35 (unless it’s unrepairable) but the estimate to fix  is free. Their main fix is to reflow the chips with a special machine. He also does a modification on the fan to keep it running at full power which cost another $10 (even thought he charged me $5). He told me it would be loud so made sure I did not use my xbox for watching movies. He claimed the change would decrease heat by 30 degrees which is a pretty bold statement.

I got the xbox and he told me he reflowed it and put in bolts for the heat sink clamps (something that makes much more sense than the stupid X clamps that MS used). I took the unit home and fired it up. The first thing I noticed is the loudness. I was expecting it to be first generation loud like some of my friends but it is 3 times louder. I don’t notice it when playing games but definitely can when it’s idle. I probably wouldn’t have done this if I knew it was this loud but then again it will probably prevent it from breaking again.

All in all, it is still working after several hours of COD Modern Warfare 2 and Rock Band.

I would make a couple suggestions to the guy running this service even though it sounds like he is running a pretty successful business and I would recommend him to anyone with Xbox 360 problems.

1. Have some kind of receipt/contract for when you turn your $300 xbox over to a random stranger in a mall parking lot. I asked him about a receipt and he said no one ever asked him about that even though he thought it was a good idea. He claimed to do a over a dozen fixes a week so business must be good.
2. Workout a better drop off process. It just makes the whole thing shady. You have a great word of mouth business but it could be better if you had more of a professional front.
3. Detail the 40 day warranty that you claim in a contract. A spoken warranty is never good for a business.

I was recommended this Yahoo article earlier in the night about things not to buy in 2010. There was a couple items in the list that intrigued me thus I looked it up. Overall, I highly agree with 8 out of these 10 items but totally disagree with the other 2.

I disagree with the Smartphone logic. This articles logic seems to be that you should only buy an iPhone or a Blackberry because they are the market leader. I bet ever consumer electronic company wishes that everyone followed this ideology on market leaders. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The iPhone was once a disruptive product and earned its market share from Motorala and Blackberry. What makes new smart phones incapable of doing this? This topic is even more hot since CES is this week and Google’s Nexus One was unveiled. There are plenty of new phones out there to cut into Blackberry and Apple’s market share.

The other one I disagree with even more is their theory about SLRs. Larger and better cameras have always been around albeit more expensive. Compact camera became popular because their ease of use, good quality, and small size. This concept still holds true today. You can’t tell me that every girl in the world wants to carry around a SLR in their purse instead of a small compact! They even disprove their theory by saying “Canon’s digital compact cameras start at $110, while the SLRs start at $570.” The average consumer is not going to buy a SLR when they can get a good picture out of a $100 camera. What the article fails to call out and which also goes back to the smart phone logic is that I can see the compact camera losing popularity in the years to come as phones are starting to have standard 5MP or more cameras. With that said, I still don’t see people getting rid of the compacts in the next couple years.

5 out of the items I believe should have been on the list for 2009 or earlier. I guess this writer is out of touch with technology….or at least behind. For example, I haven’t had a friend with a home phone line in 10 years.

As with every other year, I embarked on my two week hiatus from work for the holiday break. This year was a little different since I rarely went out and instead opted for a more relaxed feeling with the people I care about.

Movies

I saw a ton of movies over my break. All the summer hits all hit my Blu ray at the right time. I am not going to go into a lot of details but I was disappointed in The Hangover. It was definitely funny but I can think of a lot more comedies that are much better. For example, Old School is 5 times funnier. Maybe it was over hyped. What I did see that was amazing was Avatar in 3D. Going into the movie, I did not know much about it except everyone kept saying how good it was. It was very impressive and would only recommend it in 3D (well worth the $17 ticket). The color, images, and plot was fantastic. It instantly became one of my top 5 movies ever and can see it being my first 3D movie since 3D TVs are already hitting the market.

Fantasy Football

I came super close to do the unthinkable and winning my league. That is a hard concept to grasp because I lost 4 out of the first 5 games but had some good mid season pickups (Miles Austin) and people returning from injury (or getting more time due to teammates injured) that made my team into a powerhouse. Unfortunately, I got distracted in the semi finals and did not manage my team that Sunday morning and loss by 2 points when all my bench people had over 20 points each. I won the consolation bracket and scored my points in the final week than both the teams in the final.

Family

I spent a lot of time with the family. What is funny (or maybe not) is that I think I spent more time in a 30 day period than I do the other 11 months combined. I really enjoyed all Christmas and New Years parties that I went to.

New Years Eve

First off, I hope to never plan a NYE night ever again. Unless it is in Vegas (something I have always wanted to do and just happened to be something one of my Wash U friends did this year but she did it way more than I ever could). After much going back and forth, we went to MoMos for dinner and Big Daddy’s in Soulard for the night. It was my first time at MoMo’s. I was most impressed by the Sea Bass. It was $10 and was equal to a $30 serving at most fine restaurants. Big Daddy’s was also good. Well worth the $55 since they had premium drinks and Red Bull included … hello Three Olives Cherry Vodka and Red Bull drinks (my fav). Like expected cabs were impossible but worst than I thought. I thought it would be easier since we went to a 1 o’clock and all the city bars don’t close till 3 but I was wrong. Thankfully a friend drove us home after a couple hours. I found out today at lunch that I could have gotten a ride immediately from a guy at work that lived next door from where we were.

Sports

I only followed two sporting events closely this break, both MU games. The MU vs IL basketball game was a surprising win. The MU bowl game was a rather disappointing one. I did watch a lot of the other bowl games but no NFL games. It is also nice that the Rams got the #1 draft. I would like to see them get Suh as the #1 then a quarterback for the #33 pick.

Various

• After a couple failed fixing attempts, my Xbox 360 is still broke.
• My friends can be complete idiots at times especially when it comes to hot tubs in the cold.
• I did not catch up on my DVR watching which is amazing since no new shows recorded. Watched a lot of movies instead. I also probably only played an hour of video games the whole 2 weeks.
• No one goes to Wash Ave during a holiday break. Important fact to remember.
• Finally went ice skating at Steinberg Park. It was fun but very cold and windy so we did not stay long. One thing to note is that place must make a killing. Very low overhead since it is outdoors and getting like $9 a person.

First off, I have always been a huge fan of Microsoft. Ive own their stock for multiple years and have always been a huge fan of their operating systems. I also was a huge fan of Xbox 360. I thought it has been ground breaking and offered more features than PS3.

Lately, I have been rethinking my stance. Enough that I haven’t installed my Windows 7 that I preordered. The reason for this spite is that my Xbox 360 Elite quit working last month. Everyone knows that Microsoft has experienced a huge problem with defective units due to overheating. I bought an elite almost 2 years ago because it had the new processor that ran at a lower temperature and was quiet. Well, I turned it on last month to watch a DVD and I got two red lights. I looked it up and saw that it was an overheating issue. I knew they extended the warranty to 3 issues for an overheating issue. 2 out of 3 people I know with an Xbox had to send theirs in to get fixed. So I filed a warranty claim to find out that I did not have the “right” overheating problem (i.e. The Red Ring of Death). What is up with that? How can there be more than one over heating issue and have different warranty periods? It cost $100 to send in to Microsoft to get repaired which I thought was totally crazy. Why would I pay for half the cost of a new one to run into the possibility that it would just fail again? My next thing was to take it apart to clean it. I did that and it still overheated. It had no dirt on the fans anyway. I also took off the heat sinks and applied new thermal compound based on possible fixes I read but that did not work either. So that leaves me with a tough decision. I really like having a Xbox and have a ton of money invested in it with Rock Band songs. I also really want to get the new Call of Duty but am struggling with the idea of buying a new one to have the same problem again. I might just buy a Wii because it rocks and a PS3 because I can play COD and also the new upcoming Gran Turismo.

All I can say is how can Microsoft have allowed such a nightmare? They have basically lost a huge fan and purchaser of their products.

I can not explain to you how happy I am with ÜberTwitter. I have been using Twitterberry for over a year and was pretty happy with it but also dissatisfied with some recent changes and some bugs from those changes. I searched for a new client a couple months ago since it did not seem like there was any support for Twitterberry but I could not find another application that functioned the way Twitterberry did. That was all until I saw ÜberTwitter in the top 25 downloads of App World.

I at first did not like it because I thought that Twitterberry had a little cleaner look (which it does) plus I liked the shortcut that hitting back always took you to a new tweet. It took me a couple days to realize it but this new app has a ton of features. My favorites all revolve around viewing and sending pictures. The new features are:

1. Being able to preview the “twit pic” in your main window next to the text
2. Seeing the full picture with a single click without having to go into the horrible BB browser
3. The tweet/picture can also be geo tagged and it will show you where you took or uploaded the picture on a Google Map interface in the same screen as your looking on the picture.
4. Being able to directly send a picture after taking it without having to view the picture.

Other new features that I did not have before are:

1. Being able to add or block a user from the app
2. See tweets from people around me (pretty cool)
3. Seach twitter
4. View Trending Topic
5. Full spell check (Twitterberry had it but then lost the feature for replies in the last email.
6. Being able to reply to a group
7. Forward a tweet to an email
8. Monitor multiple twitter accounts from the same app at the same time
9. Integration with Google Talk
10. Send videos in a tweet
11. Visual icon notification for any tweet on the app icon and another icon in the header if you get a reply or direct message. (one of the main reasons I left Twitterberrry.
12. Latitude like locating system which can use GPS, cell towers, or both for my phone.

The app is free but it has a banner on the top that does not bother me at all. I just realized that you can but the full version for $5/year so just did just to support such a fine app.

So I finally figured out that I do not have the latest release version for my Blackberry Bold. I was actually at least two versions behind. I was hoping for a new version to fix my various performance problems that I have blogged about before like speed, memory, and the web browser.

The Process

It was somewhat easy but I would not say that the average Joe could not figure it out on their own and I did not see any instructions. I am sort of mad at myself that I did not do this earlier since the download file is in the same dropdown on the AT&T/Blackberry site as the Desktop Manager.

1. Connect the phone via USB
2. Install the update on your PC
3. Run the Desktop Manager where it then realizes there are updates
4. Choose the updates you want. I had 35. These range from libraries to new firmware to new applications, etc.
5. Click okay and watch it go to town

I actually got a fatal error when I did it the first time and was sort of freaked out but the phone worked fine. The weird part was that I could not get it to recognize that it was plugged into the PC via the USB. I tried two cables and plugged into both my dock and laptop. I did notice that my dock was not seated properly so I fixed that and restarted it which did the trick. The second install went fine and took about 20 minutes.

New Software that I have found so far

1. Visual Voicemail – There are third party applications but this one is available for supposedly only the Bold according to Engadget. I had to add the service through AT&T but it was free. Not sure if this is only temporary since it seems like they are testing it on the Bold.
2. My-Cast Weather – Looks to be a Garmin app which probably means it is pretty good. It does have satellite radar which I couldn’t find in any of the 3 apps on Blackberry App World. The one thing it does not have (which is pretty big) is that it does not have detailed weather for the day or a 5/10 day forecast. I like how WeatherEye shows a different icon for the various weather on my homescreen plus shows the weather if I hover or it so I will still use it as my primary weather app but will use My-Cast for radar.
3. New Games – Pac Man, Scrabble, and Tetris
4. Mobil TV – I clicked on it and it looks to be a $10/month service where you can watch over 40 channels like ESPN, Discovery, Disney, NBC, ABC, and CBS
5. I now have the ability to update BB firmware via the phone. The option was always there but supposedly did not work on v.167.

Conclusion

I did notice that I had 30MB of device memory when I restarted for the first time. I though this was higher because all my apps needed to be started for the first time. Once I started weather, Google Maps, Twitterberry, Facebook and others and looked later I had 42.2MB which is crazy. Just looked an hour later and it is 43.7 while running Pandora which is making me just giddy. It for some reason went up plus I had never seen it that high before. This will be awesome and make my day if they fixed the device memory issue which has been my major complaint about this phone.

Lets hope it fixes my other problems like the following. Only time will tell.

1. The web browser and other apps saying there is not connection to the internet even though the phone says I am on Edge or 3G
2. The memory issue
3. Speed or lack of lag that it gets at times
4. Battery life which should improve if the memory issue is fixed

• I am talking with a CPA/Tax guy about redoing my taxes to deduct for my entire Wash U tuition. Here is a good article on the subject. I know it will raise a red flag if I refile my last 3 years and get a bunch of money back so want to go through official channels.
• I am officially uninstalling Civ 4 tonight. That game is too addictive. Its taking to much of my time and preventing me from working out and getting other important items done.
• Not sure if this Smoltz pickup is good. I guess it is at least not bad for the Cards since it only cost them $100k. The upsides could be huge with small downsides.
• Does no one want to go floating on August 29th? The Rengler is going with a huge group (25+). Hoff and I reserved a 6 man raft and a cabin with AC that has 3 beds (For Friday and Saturday but we might only use it Friday). The total costs comes to $210 so that would be split amongst whoever goes. Let me know if interested. We are floating the Black River. Were trying to mix it up.
• Going to check out Parties in the Plaza for the first time before volleyball on Thursday.
• Does anyone know a good St Louis cleaning service that will buff hardwood floors? Mine really need it and I do not want to buy/rent the equipment needed to do it.
• I realized that my favorite character is not Kevin Nealon on Weeds. He does offer comedic relief which has gone downhill throughout the season but I realized that Guillermo is not only funny but he makes the show by bringing it back to its original plot line which is more entertaining …. selling drugs.
• Looks like I will finally move/sell my desk tonight. I have posted on Craiglist 3 times and got good responses but everything always fell through. I am still very hesitant about selling stuff on Craigslist. Especially when it is a low cost item.
• I was somewhat entertained with the Shaq Vs show last night. Not sure if any other sports star could pull off that show. I liked it for the same reason the only sports star I follow on Twitter is Shaq….he just says funny things. The staged aspect of the show sort of bothered me.

Does anyone know of a good BB Twitter app because I am tired of the bugs in Twitterberry and the recent changes in 0.9.1.1? They said they fixed two things in the change log. (1) “Fixed an issue when notification icons may not disappear after viewing unread messages.” I had never seen a message notification icon before this update. Now, I only randomly get them and they do not go away until I restart. (2)”Added a new @replies popup. Now you do not need to leave the list screen to post a reply.” This option sucks and the previous version was great. Not only does it look bad, but I lost the ability to spell check and see what my character total is.

I have been using this app since December and loved it then except for Twitpic not working correctly in which it now does. They need to quit messing with the design and fix the bugs. Please correct this and add native support for sending a picture from a Bold so I can send a picture straight from the picture screen instead of having to go to the picture folder to send it.

I signed up for Google Voice this week to see what all the talk about was. I had heard rumors that AT&T was going to block Google Voice and I thought that was the case when I tried to download from my phone and the web address kept giving me a weird error but finally it worked. I got a number with a 314 area code and the last 4 digits are the same as my current cell number which is a plus.

Features

This is a hot app because it allows you to bypass your phone carrier’s bill. What I mean by this is that you could totally cancel your text messaging plan and have people send you texts over your new number via your data plan or WiFi. The same works for your voice plan so you could have the lowest voice plan available. The other big features are that you get a rising credit for international calls (which I don’t understand yet) plus you have visual voicemail.

Below is the list of the complete features.

• A single Google number for all user’s phones
• Free calls and SMS in the contiguous US
• Calling International phone numbers for as low as 0.01 USD per minute
• Call screening. Announce callers based on their number or by an automated identification request for blocked numbers
• Listen in on someone recording a voicemail before taking a call
• Block calls
• Send, receive, and store SMS online
• Answer an incoming call on any of your phones
• Phone routing. Choose which phones should ring based on who calls
• Forwarding phones
• Voicemail transcripts. Read voicemails online and on my BB
• Listen to voicemail online or from a phone
• Receive notifications of voicemails via email or SMS
• Personalized greeting that varies greetings by caller
• The ability to forward or download voicemails.
• Conference calling
• Record calls and store them online
• Switch phones during a call
• View the web inbox from a mobile device/phone
• Set preferences for contacts by group

Here is the main screen. The purple dots are text messages and the blue dots are voicemails. I left myself a couple voicemails and I never got the text to read exactly right but it was close. I could not get it to show the users names like above even though they are in my BB address book.

Making a call or text does take another step so not sure I would use it as it is now. I am use to just start typing a name and it automatically goes to my address book where I can then click the Blackberry button to choose the option to text, email, or call. This app does not allow you do this. To get it to do this you, you have to (1) be in the app and click the Blackberry button (2) select address book (3) scroll to the person you want (4) then you get the options above to call and SMS using Google Voice. I am not sure why it is not directly integrated into the address book but shows up when you initiate through the app. I have a similar problem with sending a picture through Twitterberry.

I do receive texts and calls along with sending texts but I can not get the outbound calling to work. I keep calling my office phone and it rings and rings and rings. I did also notice that voicemails take a couple minutes to show up on my phone where they show up immediately online. I also do like that it says my name when you call my Google number from an outside line. It is a very neat feature that I see all carriers doing. It basically would stop you early from continuing a call if you dialed the wrong number.

In summary, below are my big advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

• Basically free texts and calls
• Visual text voicemails

Disadvantages

• Does not have native commands built into the Blackberry menu
• Is not directly tied to my address book so it only shows numbers in the inbox instead of names. Not sure how the above picture shows names.