My Christmas Card 2011

Photo Card

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I need more...

Time.... money..... chocolate.......... There's never enough time to accomplish what I want to do. Admittedly, I could manage my time better, but I also lack the energy to do that. I have a new router that's been sitting in a box for over a week. The old one has been behaving so I haven't made the time to install the new one. I have a pile of work staring at me. That's nothing new. I generally have a pile on my desk. Then my mind wanders and I end up doing something like this... blogging. Though, I rarely blog anymore. I play Farmville and Cityville. The latter is a huge time suck. But, it's relaxing... kinda. Usually when I feel like working, the baby is awake and demanding attention. I'm not complaining. I love my daughter and ultimately, I wish I could scrap the pile of work and play with her all the time. Yeah, this post really has no point. I was thinking about talking about my desktop PC and the debate that I constantly have with myself about why I need one. I could virtually get by with a laptop dock. I like my big monitor, keyboard, mouse for work purposes. I have lots of hard drive space on the desktop and it's run to my TV. I can download and watch shows, etc. It can serve as a decent media center PC. I wish I had the resources to update it. Ya know... time, money.....

Quipsty

Official Gmail Blog: 10 Gmail gadgets to try

Official Gmail Blog: 10 Gmail gadgets to try: "Posted by Martin Gruau, Consumer Operations There is a powerful but little known Gmail feature that lives in Labs called “Add any gadget ..."

EVO app update problem

I've been having trouble with some application updates for a while now. Sometimes, if I moved them to the phone storage then let it update, then move back to SD card, it would work... but that's a pain. Angry Birds Rio wouldn't install. Bejeweled wouldn't update, I uninstalled, then it wouldn't re-install. So, after some research, I guess there's a rogue file that needs to be killed off...

First, hook your phone to a computer with a usb cable - need to have your phone in "disk drive" mode. Open the new drive that will appear on your computer (which, of course, is actually your phone's sd card).

Next, locate the file folders named ".android_secure" (it should be near the top of the listings).

Click on and open up this ". android_secure " folder and look for a file named "smdl2tmp1.asec"

Delete it! Destroy it! Kick it out of your life! It's what is causing the problems!

Unplug your phone. Phone will say something like "preparing sd card." It could take a bit but after that you can update all the apps including those on your sd card and angry birds and download Rio hassle free.

As there a a whole bunch of threads on this issue, please pass the fix on. 

Multiple Online Cloud Storage Services for Free and Organized Backup

Use Multiple Online Cloud Storage Services for Free and Organized Backup

I've been using Dropbox for a while. I find it very useful. It doesn't give me enough space to backup everything, though. I added Sugarsync to backup my photos. It gives more space and I almost like the interface better. Looks like it'll automatically backup/sync my mobile photos. I've been wanting something to do that. Just hoping it doesn't kill my battery.

4/15/11 Edit: Sugarsync is pretty cool, but not something that "just works". It requires a lot of tweaking and digging. Dropbox is more reliable by far!

iTunes Unused Balance

I received an email from iTunes reminding me that I have an unused balance. I used to have an iPhone and bought a few apps here and there. I turned in a large change jar to a Coinstar machine a couple years ago and used it towards iTunes credit. I have since switched to an Android phone which I like much better. I always hated iTunes even when I had an iPhone. I called iTunes when I switched to the Android to see if I could get my money out of this account. For the record, it's $40 and some change. They told me to call Coinstar. Yeah, that got me nowhere. I just set it aside and hadn't really thought of it much until I got this email reminding me. So, I emailed them hoping that there's something that I can do. I get an email back from someone named Arman (of course). He's no help. Can I at least transfer my balance to a friend who will get some use out of it? Nope. Can I use it to buy a gift card? Nope. So, I guess I'll (reluctantly) install iTunes on my desktop PC and buy some movies or something. Did I mention I HATE iTunes?

Bullying

All this media about bullying kinda gets to me. I hope things improve for these kids. I really hope that my daughter never has to deal with bullying. I was teased like you wouldn't believe. I was always 'the fat kid'. I remember walking by a girl in middle school mumbling "heffer, heffer" under her breath, and a full bus of trailer park kids chanting "Mary Hanna lose some weight..." No kid should ever have to deal with that. Needless to say, my self esteem was not so great. Middle schoolers can be awful. The funniest thing to me is later in high school, some of these people actually grew up and became relatively nice. I'll never forget after returning from a competition event (my only extra curricular activity and it was through the tech center, not the high school), I walked over to my car and lit a cigarette. A group of these girls that had previously been absolute bitches to me invited me over to smoke with them. I had lost 50-60 pounds junior/senior year and was more confident and by that point couldn't care less what they thought. It was nice to not be the outsider anymore, though.

For what it's worth, the two girls I remember having the most problems with way back when are actually on my Facebook friends. That's why I've bit my tongue so many times when I see something posted about bullying. One of them has actually said that her kid is having trouble with bullys. No matter how horrible she was back then, I feel bad that her kid has to deal with anything like that. But, I can't help thinking that it's Karma working in some way. In no way was it just these two girls, they're just the two that stand out most in my memory. The second of these two found God and as far as I know, they both became decent human beings. It's not like I'm really holding a grudge, it's just not something that's easily forgotten.

Another part of this story is a class I was forced to take in 8th grade. "Skills for Adolescence"... Um yeah, that was the biggest effing joke. I think I got a 'C' (I was a straight 'A' student). We all had to take this class - I looked at it like group therapy. I was supposed to open up to a class of kids that were straight up evil to me? Um, I don't think so. We were asked what the one thing was that we'd change about ourselves. Well, obviously, I'd lose weight. I said I had big feet. 

Old Posts

I was looking back at some of my old posts. I've had this blog since 2005... it's been moved from blogger, wordpress, my own server, and I kinda can't remember where else. It's funny to read some of the old stuff I wrote, slightly sad that (most) pictures didn't make it when the blog moved. Some stuff is fragmented and makes no sense, but oh well. It's still fun to look back. A lot of my posts are about computers - kinda interesting to see where the technology in my life has gone in 5 or 6 years too. I wish my archives went back even further. I don't remember when my 'first' actual blog started. I had one back in the days of AOL, but no record of that... bummer.

Btw, I moved my domain forwarding so geminidreamz.com should land here now. And, I updated my twitterfeed so any new posts should tweet.

4 Months

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So I guess I can blog via text message too.... cool.

Mobile post

Just a test post from my phone to see how it comes out...

I haven't blogged in a while. I may start again. I don't know. Just a thought. Just a place to record random stuff. Not that I expect anyone to read it. I've moved my blog so many times that the old posts are fragmented, missing pictures, etc. I just imported it from Wordpress (note to self: move domain forwarding to blogger)... hmmm.

Or not... maybe I'll stick with Wordpress... either way, it needs some updating and tweaking....