Tag: Technology

Posted on

First run with Forerunner 305

Today was my first run with my Garmin Forerunner 305. I had already plotted my course using Google Earth because I didn’t expect to get the unit so soon. So I went ahead and ran that run around Mission Bay and then along the ocean. I was extremely pleased with the unit; I’ve never had anything like this before (I do have a GPS unit, but nothing I can wear). It was easy to setup and easy to read while running. The other day, MotionBased released a Mac plugin for their service. It worked great and uploaded my data without a problem. The analysis it does is great for anyone that likes statistics and such. It will prove to be more useful as I keep up my training. Next I’ll have to decide if I want to upgrade from the free service. I’m not the fastest runner in the world and have only one goal for the marathon I’m going to run; finish. You can check out my run and laugh at my results; I need to work on trying to get my heart rate down a bit. (MotionBased lets you set events to be public if you want, so that anyone can view them.)

Bay_Ocean_Run
Posted on

Who designs receipts?

Yesterday, I went to RoadRunner Sports to pick up some stuff for running (in case you haven’t guessed, I’m in training for a marathon; my first marathon to prove to myself that I can do it). I had a coupon for $10 and after checking out, I walked outside, looked at the receipt and scratched my head. Normally receipts have several columns including description, quantity, unit price and extended price. In my experience they also take discounts off at the end. Not here. They had description, quantity and unit price. So if you add up the price column, it will only be correct if you bought one of each item, which I didn’t. To confuse matters, my $10 discount wasn’t taken off at the end, it was taken off the first item. My first item was PowerBar Gel stuff with a price listed as -$2.10. I had to go back in and get this explained to me. What the computer did is take the total cost of the item (3 @ $1.23) and then subtract off $10 and divide by quantity to give -$2.10 each.

That’s just not logical; I guess most people don’t look at their receipts as close as I do or this would be a bigger issue for them having to waste time explaining it to customers.

Posted on

I’m impatient

Garming Forerunner 305I couldn’t wait to get my Garmin Forerunner 305, so as I was checking some forums, I saw that people were picking them up at REI in northern California. So, I gave it another try (I had called on Thursday and was told that I’d have to order it online as they usually don’t come to the stores until the backorders were filled). I called my local store and they said they didn’t have any, but the next closest store (30 minutes away did). I called that store and asked them to hold one for me. I went this morning to pick it up and even though I had to pay sales tax, I did get to use my REI dividend. From reading some forums, calling close to closing time may produce better results as the inventory is unpacked and people anxious to get stuff are going in the morning instead of last thing at night (I called 30 minutes before closing).

Posted on

I hate waiting

I ordered a Garmin Forerunner 305 from gpscity.com on Feb. 21 knowing that the units wouldn’t be shipping from Garmin until about March 1. Well, I’m now in line as they fill the backorders. The wait is killing me! I’m very impatient and can’t wait for my new toy. (I went into software as I wanted to see the results of my work quickly.) Hopefully I’ll have it in a few weeks.

Posted on

Viruses on Navy computers, i.e. I’m paying to get spammed

It looks like the Navy needs to update their virus software as they have a machine trying to send me spam:

Feb 20 21:37:39 linux sendmail[6685]: NOQUEUE: connect from
pacfc.fleet.navy.mil [205.56.145.37]
Feb 20 21:37:48 linux sendmail[6685]: k1L5bda1006685: ruleset=check_rcpt,
arg1=, relay=pacfc.fleet.navy.mil [205.56.145.37],
reject=550 5.7.1 ... Relaying denied

Can I send the Navy a bill for having to deal with their virus infected computer? I’m glad my tax dollars are hard at work sending me spam.

Posted on

Samsung A900 Update – Almost golden!

Samsung/Sprint released an update to the A900 phone today or yesterday (version ZB12) which directly addressed the “phantom ringing” issue that I, as well as others, reported. This is excellent as I can now use a Bluetooth headset with the phone. However, my Parrot EasyDrive carkit doesn’t work with it, yet. I’m not sure if this is a Parrot problem or a Samsung problem, but I suspect Samsung as I can use the carkit with a GSM phone I have on my desk.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Samsung/Sprint will iron out this remaining issue in the near future. It’s disappointing to see the fixes take so long and not to have them in there before the phone was released, but I’m glad they’re finally getting addressed.

Posted on

Aging Hardware

Every now and again, I tend to look at the equipment I have on my desk and think about how long I’ve had it. The oldest piece of “equipment” is a pair of Apple Design speakers that I got in 1996 or 1997. They still are in use and work quite well. The second most ancient piece of equipment is my PowerMac G4/500 dual processor which I bought in late summer 2000. This machine, despite being 5.5 years old, still serves as my test and build machine. My builds now take 20-25 minutes as there are a ton of components and I keep considering if I should upgrade to a newer machine. I’ll still need a PowerPC based machine for testing, so maybe I’ll be able to pick up a G5 dual processor machine cheap as soon as the Intel based towers come out.

Posted on

Yet another Sony memory format

It seems that Sony is up to their own tricks again and have come up with Memory Stick Micro, another proprietary flash storage format. There was the Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Duo Pro, and now this. While it is great that Sony thinks that people will only products that Sony makes. This is completely ridiculous. I had thought that Sony had abandoned shoving their flash formats in our face (the Sony Reader takes other cards in addition to Memory Sticks). Personally I’m quite happy with SD cards as they’re used in most of the handhelds I have, my digital camera and my desktop card reader reads them. Come on Sony!

Posted on

Reliable Internet Access

It seems that people I work with have Internet problems a whole lot more often than I. I feel quite lucky that my cable modem provider, Time Warner Cable, has been pretty rock solid for the last 6+ years that I’ve had them. There have been a few issues in that time, but nothing that I can really remember. I did have a problem with their DNS servers that drove me crazy, so I started running my own. I handle my own email, so I don’t have to worry about that either. The “pipe” that Time Warner provides is fast and reliable. What more can I ask for in a provider?

Posted on

Better than the Sony Reader?

The other day I mentioned the Sony Reader for reading stuff on the go. After a little more research and wading through tons of negative comments about Sony’s offering, I came across The iLiad. Similar concept, but may be better executed. It appears to read PDF, XHTML, TXT, etc. as well as having 802.11g built in. This looks a lot more exciting; hopefully the cost will make it affordable to mere consumers like me.