New Samsung A900 Update

Sprint/Samsung came through with another update for my Samsung A900 phone. The update was supposed to fix some Bluetooth problems and picture mail problems. I could care less about picture mail as I've only used it a handful of times since I've had it. Bluetooth, on the other hand, is one of the reasons I got the phone. My problem was that my headsets kept ringing like there was an incoming call. I was quite excited to see this update, but within a few minutes, my excitement turned to disappointment. My headsets still ring. I guess Samsung needs more time to figure out how to do Bluetooth. I'll call Sprint and Samsung and alert them of the issue in case they think they fixed it. It can't be all that hard to work with Bluetooth as other companies have been doing it for years and people are quite pleased. Maybe it is just Samsung's CDMA development teams don't have a clue; it hasn't been until recently that US CDMA carriers really offered Bluetooth phones (Sprint had the Sony Ericsson T608 a few years ago, but that was a half baked phone with lots of bugs).

Another new blog system

Last weekend when my wife were on a weekend getaway, I thought it would be neat to be able to blog offline and then upload my entries when I got home (we had no Internet access where we were). (The getaway was to get away from our house, not our work.) I started down the path of writing a program to do this, but didn't finish over the weekend. Yesterday I discovered a program called MarsEdit which did exactly that. However, it didn't support the blogging system I used. So I decided to switch over to WordPress as it is supported by MarsEdit and is quite popular. To top it off, the interface was a bit more to my liking. However, the transition was not easy, but I managed to get all the articles moved over.

We'll see how this new system works out.

The downside of upgrading

I'll admit it, I'm a geek and wanted the latest and greatest. Do I have a need for it? Not usually, however, I upgrade most of my software as soon as an update comes out with 2 main exceptions, Quicken and QuickBooks. Upgrades for both seem to do very little for me. I had to upgrade QuickBooks in April because it didn't function properly in Tiger.

Today I went to my accountant and brought along my data file exported from QuickBooks Pro 2005 for Mac to the Windows format. My accountant hasn't updated his QuickBooks Accountant edition from 2004, but luckily he had no trouble reading my data file. Now if I had upgraded to QuickBooks Pro 2006 would I have had problems? Possibly and it would have been much harder for my accountant to do my taxes.

Lesson learned, don't upgrade software if you have to be compatible with someone else.

When we were talking, he really doesn't see what else an accounting package can do. He did make some good points and I can't think of what I'd want it to do either.

I'll keep upgrading most of my other software just because I'm a geek.

San Diego Chargers or is it San Diego Whiners

The San Diego Chargers have decided not to put their expansion/renovation plans for the stadium and surrounding area on the ballot for November. This is excellent in my opinion as they are a private enterprise that seems to want concessions from the city and wants the city to spend tax payer dollars to help them make money. I'm not a sports fan, so maybe I'm jaded, but why should the Chargers get special treatment? Does sports really help the economy? From what I've read, not really (in terms of net gain).

Other cities in the county (and around the country) are trying to court the Chargers. I say, great, let them leave. We (the taxpayers) already spent a boatload of money about 10 years ago to renovate the stadium, we had a ticket guarantee so that they could make more money, and now pay them when a game is sold out because they are losing revenue due to becoming in compliance with the ADA. I say it is about time we give them the boot and if they can't make money without taxpayer funds, that's fine. Our city can't afford to subsidize the Chargers nor give away 600 acres of land to private enterprise at a time when the city has a pension debt of almost 2 billion dollars.