Month: September 2010

Evo 4G Update

My fears of dropped support were alleviated this morning (roughly 00:32 this morning that is) when Sprint finally pushed out an update to correct some of the major problems on the Evo 4G spawned by the Android 2.2 update. I haven’t had time to test much yet but here’s what I’ve noticed.

Syncing multiple GMail accounts now works again. I could tell this right away as my phone rebooted from the update and notified me of four new e-mails in my secondary account. Huzzah! That was the biggest annoyance I had with the Android 2.2 update.

The calendar bug has been fixed as well. Good to know.

The microphone button is back on the keyboard. This button was replaced by a keyboard language selector in the Android 2.2 update which really irked me. The microphone button brings up a speech to text input mechanism that actually works fairly well (it doesn’t do punctuation of course and sometimes it selects the wrong word if there are multiple spellings though).

I’ll note there seems to be general performance improvements in this update as well. Various phone functions such as bringing up the application menu seem to work a bit smoother now. Of course that could all be in my head.

I haven’t testing the Pandora sound quality and Last.fm song skipping issues I noted yet. Those two problems are tied for my number two biggest annoyance in the Android 2.2 update. If those are fixed I’ll be willing to forgive the most likely broken VPN support.

I’m glad my worries were incorrect and HTC didn’t decide to just drop support for the Evo. I’ve dealt with too many companies (Palm, HP, Sony) who made hand held devices and then dropped support a few scant months after release. I wish HTC would have been a little more upfront about their work on these problems just so us paranoid individuals knew something was going to be done. Either way something is fixed now which is good.

Maybe I Spoke too Soon

You know all the bitching and complaining I’ve been doing about the lack of an update to fix some glaring issues on my Evo 4G? Well word on the street is Sprint is finally releasing a patch to fix some of these issues. Multiple GMail account synchronization is listed as a fix but I don’t see any mention of a fix for audio streaming issues for applications like Pandora and Last.fm. If the multiple GMail account synchronization and audio streaming issues are fixed I’ll consider that a win and be a happy camper even if VPN is still borked.

If It Doesn’t Work Just Do It Again Only Harder

Snowflakes in Hell has informed us gun ban activists are at it again in Germany. A German woman went on a shooting spree killing four and injuring another 18. When strict gun control laws aren’t preventing shootings what’s the best way to deal with it? According to gun ban activists ban guns entirely.

I’ll never be able to wrap my head around the idiocy of these people. It’s been shown time and time again that enacting draconian gun control laws doesn’t prevent gun violence. In the real world where I operate most of the time when something doesn’t work we stop doing it and try to solve our problem in a different manner. If you’re using a hammer to pound in a screw and getting sub par results the answer isn’t to get a larger hammer but to get a different tool all together.

Gun ban activists seem to be believe if something isn’t working you just need to do it harder. German already has some of the strictest gun control laws on the books and they still have to deal with shootings every now and then. Britain which almost has a complete ban on gun ownership also have to deal with shootings periodically. People are going to go crazy and kill others. If somebody is willing to commit murder they’re willing to break gun control laws. Knowing these two things maybe the best option is to loosen gun control laws and allow people to arm and defend themselves. Obviously gun control laws aren’t doing a damned thing.

The Expendables

I’m often late to the party and this is no exception. Last night I finally got around to seeing The Expendables. After watching it I must give this movie my utmost recommendation. The Expendables does what it’s intended to do very well, which is be an over the top action movie akin to old films of the ’80’s. Every big name action movie star in the last three decades can be found here, even Schwarzenegger.

Everything in the movie eventually gets shot, blown up, or has a knife stabbed through it. It’s pure mindless destruction and famous action movie stars being awesome.

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

What’s faster than a speeding bullet? Light. Well that is until some yahoo shoots down your fiber cable. Apparently Google is having trouble with a few bad hunters shooting down data center fiber cables.

I’m going to say Google’s response of burying their cable is good. After reading the headline I was assuming somebody was going to lobby to ban hunting within X miles of any telephone pole or some other such nonsense. Although everybody reading this understands these few hunters give the rest of us a bad name these are the kinds of actions anti-gunners cling to as reasons for stricter gun control laws. Let’s not give the antis what they want and ensure our rounds only go where they are supposed to.

Facebook Fraud

A strange thing is happening on Facebook. Out of nowhere all these attractive women with profile pictures of themselves scantily clad want to be my friend. Obviously I’ve become a hot commodity all of the sudden which I can understand being awesome and all.

Of course I’m a big believer in, “If you’re going to do fraud do it right.” I’m sorry I can’t bring myself to believe that the girl in the profile picture graduated college in 1978. If that’s the truth then plastic surgery has really advanced in the last couple of years.

The question is raised why the sudden surge of random people trying to add themselves to my friends list? Well the Occam’s Razor stated that the simplest explanation is usually the best one and that holds true here. These fake friend requests are most likely attempts at identity theft. Many people put a lot of personal information on their profiles such as their home address, phone number, and place of work. All of these pieces of information can be useful in stealing a person’s identity.

If you’re going to use these types of social networking sites be careful. Remember not to post any important personal information such as you home address and don’t add people to your friends list unless you know them. The weakest link in any security system are the people. Social engineering can be used with far better results than physical hacking as people are generally very gullible. Having a healthy dose of paranoia isn’t a bad thing.

Try to Top This

I personally don’t believe being knighted by a monarch is an honor but some people do. And one of these knighted people took the extra step and pretty much topped everybody. Author Terry Pratchett was knighted and decided he needed a sword. The means a trip to the sword shop right? Not for Terry Pratchett.

With help from his friend Jake Keen — an expert on ancient metal-making techniques — the author dug up 81kg of ore and smelted it in the grounds of his house, using a makeshift kiln built from clay and hay and fuelled with damp sheep manure.

Yeah that’s right he make his own sword out of fucking iron ore deposits dug up on his property. Just in case that wasn’t bad ass enough:

Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease, also said he had thrown in “several pieces of meteorites — thunderbolt iron, you see — highly magical, you’ve got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not”.

Yes he did this while suffering from Alzheimer’s and tossed in a few pieces of meteorites just to show off how awesome he is. Of course he lives in Britain so:

Pratchett has stored the sword, which he completed last year, in a secret location, apparently concerned about the authorities taking an interest in it.

He said: “It annoys me that knights aren’t allowed to carry their swords. That would be knife crime.”

All that work and he lacks the right to show it off for the bad ass piece of labor it is.

Seriously you can’t top Terry Pratchett and neither can I. Also here is an article with a picture of the sword.