Palm Centro, Kul but problems

We are here in New Orleans waiting on word of a rental application we submitted last week. As part of settling in to a new home I got a family cell phone plan with local numbers. In Trinidad we used pay as you go phones from the local GSM/ATT affiliate, Edge Wireless.

I originally wanted to get an ATT plan for national coverage, but the Palm Centro carried only by Sprint was luring me. I had looked at one in Lake Havasu while we were stuck there with a broken truck, but the shop said that they sent their Centros back for some problem. She said that they were hotsync'ing in a loop. That didn't make any sense to me so I put it out of my mind. Hotsyncs only happen when you push the button on the connector cable, no?

So we got two phones in the mail from letstalk.com. I read about Letstalk on some spam post on a bulletin board. That was one spam that worked. Got the Centro and a Sanyo Katana 8500 for Madame. She wanted a belle music phone. That Katana kinda sucks, it is really difficult to find and play the music on yr SD card. Everything is pushed thru the sprint data network. "Vision plans" they call it. Works pretty fast here in N'awlins tho.

So the Centro is pretty nice. Never had a Treo but I've been using a Palm TX for two years and enjoy fiddling with the system, altho it is easy to make it unstable. The stock Centro seemed very stable. It does have three different email programs, which seems very strange. The 'Sprint mobile email' program I set up to get my netscape/aim mail, but it never sync'ed again and I couldn't find any menus or buttons to make it work again. The palm stock email program, variously called Versa Mail or Multi Mail, is there. Then there is Messaging as well as IM. I also installed Agendus Mail which I am used to using on my TX. I installed Agendus 12 from Iambic, an upgrade from the Agendus 11 which I had paid for.

Google maps works very well; I was able to find Rayne Methodist Church and Whole Foods with it. Yesterday I was searching for the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles and attempted to use Google maps to search. It kept stalling, then eventually reporting that all sockets in the network were used up. Huh? Never seen that before.

It reset, I tried again and the same situation happened; no sockets and then reset. I thought that MobileWrite or clips might be causing problems. A Treo has no graffiti handwriting recognition, or an area to write in, so a graffiti replacement program of some sort is required. I was using graffiti 1 to replace graffiti 2 on the TX.

About an hour after Google maps started crashing the Centro started trying to run hotsync repeatedly. With no cable plugged in. I pushed home, or phone, but hotsync would immediately run. Eventually it reset/crashed. Hotsync started again within a few minutes. A terminal disease, looks like.

I figured it must be hardware, as hotsync is triggered by connecting two signals within the connector thingie on the bottom. There is a program icon to do this as well, when you are using bluetooth or the network to sync.

After more thought and reading something, I decided to hard reset the unit and start all over again. The 'no sockets' error made me think that the "Sprint Mobile Email" program was trying to get mail but never receiving. The icon for that program is there but I cannot find it within the file system with Filez or 3gx or Resco Explorer. I put the new version of RescoEx in, will have to pay for that program again.

So, hard reset, then re-install minus clips and MultiWrite. I have the graffiti anywhere prog from Splash data in now. It is more expensive but looks quite well done; better features and configuation.

Have to use it a few days to see what happens. The tentative word is that software conflicts can indeed cause a Centro to go into a hotsync infinite loop and crash the phone.

trip to Louisianne

Our trip to Louisiana was a bit more eventful than I had hoped. The Dodge sprang a trouble light on the way out of Humboldt. I checked it with my computer tuner thingie and it reported a misfire on cylinder 8. I zero'd it out and kept going. I'd been irritated by trouble lights for about a year due to a power steering pump sensor. Apparently it tells the computer when the power steering is working to force a slight increase in the idle speed. If idling, that is. So I was not too worried by this report of a misfire.

Two days later it was actually misfiring at idle in the gas station just across the Arizona border from Needles. Premium gasoline in Needles costs $4.06. We arrived at Auntie Bernice's in Lake Havasu on Sunday night after Thanksgiving. The next day I took it into a recommended Chrysler shop for a checkup. Error codes had spiraled to vastyness. A failed oxygen sensor and injector errors along with the misfire. Bummer. Then it turned out that cylinder 8 was showing 75 pounds of compression. Ah. Heart drops.

I bought this truck new, my first new four wheeled vehicle. I babied it, changing the oil many times the first few thousand miles, then running synthetic. So, I authorized a valve job on the right head. Two thousand dollars later the shop starts it up and it bangs and seizes. Pulling the head back off reveals a disintegrated number 8 piston. Incredible.

I just put four new tires and shocks on it and that is about the value of the truck at this point. Now I have to put in a new long block engine. The shop is very sympathetic and helpful but it is going to cost me $6,000 to get a running truck back. That might be the value of it when it is done, might be a bit more than it's value.

Les Holy Angels

I just found out via email that Tony Cortesi's orphanage in Port au Prince has a website. A Blogspot at least. So I am linking here, and at Haiti.Lyalls.

wife 1.0

Remember the days when people were so excited about email and the internet that they sent jokes to lists of friends on a regular basis? That was cute, and quickly got tiresome. Here is a good one tho:

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources.

In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3 , Football 5.0 , Hunting and Fishing 7.5 , and Racing 3.6.

I can’t seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I’m thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0 , but the uninstall doesn’t work on Wife 1.0 . Please help!

Thanks,
Troubled User…..

___________________ __________________
REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING !!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfrie nd 7.0 . It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support . I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application “Yes Dear”
to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0 , Cook It 1.5 ! and Do Bills 4.2 .

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system!

Best of luck,

Tech Support

Leopard and Toast

I installed OS X 10.5, Leopard. On the Minintel. There is a lot of talk about superfluous graphical toys, and I do not like how the new dock graphics make it hard to tell which program is running, but it is fast and smooth.

I got it installed with a re-partition (to get rid of an old FAT partition which I never used) and format, then installed the software I use, Tivo desktop, Parallels, then Roxio Toast 8. Toast would not start. Tried all kinds of stuff, deleting plist prefs files, disk utility to check permissions (some were messed up). Nothing worked. Finally, while probing settings I noticed (again) that Parallels does all kinds of fancy stuff inside the networking. They fiddle down inside the OS something scary.

So, I started all over again, installing Toast before I let Parallels look at the computer. It worked. Toast installed, the update installed fine and put Tivo to Go in there.

There is a program from Eternal Stormsto change the awful transparency of the menu bar. This is an essential.

blogger spam

I've been searching for banjos. I want to get rid of my Wildwood Troubador banjo and get something more old-timey. I've looked at the Enoch Tradesman, which is a nice simple rig with a thin 12 inch rim and no 'tone ring'.

So, I looked at the Enoch Banjos site and saw that he has fancier models named Model 100, Model 200, etc. I yahoo'ed for "enoch m-100 banjo" and got a bunch of nonsense blogspot listings. Link is up there. They all seem to have been purged.

layout enabled

So, what is a layout enabled blog? I was searching my Amazon affiliate account, trying to add a link to the seeger bookPete Seeger book. Some automatic widget thing was talked about with directions to automatically add it you a blog page. Well, this blog page, pretty much ignored for the past month since I got it working, won't accept it.

It says that "layouts must be enabled" and I cannot find mention of such an option.

stuck in Port au Prince

The family's flight was canceled due to the hurricane which passed to the south of Haiti. The whole of Sundays flights were canceled I guess. No one was at the airport at all. Madame spent the night at the hotel right by the airport; Visa Lodge.

This morning the AA staff at the airport sent everyone up to the American Airlines bureau at Delmas 32, quite a ways from the airport. Everyone who was denied a flight yesterday had to go there. Must have been a lot of people. Took her a number of hours to get to the counter; the kids went to sleep under the feet of the crowd.

She got a ticket to Miami, but not to Toronto. Hm.

The date of this flight? Aug 30. Ten days from now. Eleven days after the scheduled flight. They apparently do not care to send any extra planes to Port au Prince to pick up the days worth of passengers who were stranded.

They also do not feel any obligation to pay anything for this 10 day (no, 11 days) delay. AA is treating everyone like Haitians. No respect or concern at all.

Apparently there was a riot at the AA office when people started learning that they would be waiting many days, weeks for some people, for a flight to replace one days cancellation.

She said that the crowd smashed the windows of the office and the police had to be called. Must have been exciting with ti Emile-Alex having 18 months now, and two days after Roxie's fifth birthday party.

They are now at the hotel in PetionVille where Roxanne was born. Well, the hotel where we lived when Roxie was born. I'll have to call the Maitre to arrange the payment.

I guess kindergarten for Roxie will have to wait.

compressed air power

The Air powered car. Compressed air. Tata Motors is licensing it for India; I am interested in Tata cause they are going to build a micro car which will sell for 100,000 rupees. They call it 1 lakh rupees. Divide by 40 and you get approx $2500 U$D.

So, they've announced they will build an Air Car as well. Click it.

Toronto, trash and scooters

Being in Toronto the past two weeks has been interesting. It has been a long time since I've spent much time in a big city. Other than Port au Prince, of course. Well, the trash situation in Toronto resembles Port au Prince more than San Francisco.

A big problem is that Ontario does not have a deposit on container law. Soda cans, zillions of 250ml water bottles, anything like that which is picked up by recyclers in California, are thrown on the ground. There is no financial incentive for anyone to pick them up. I've been told that Alberta has a deposit and redemption system, but Ontario does not. Hey, that is pretty backwards.

I see a few scooters here, not like San Fran or Santa Cruz. The riding season is cut short by snow, of course, but this is a large city with hardly any freeways; all surface streets. We need more scoots here. I did see a new Vespa GTV with the headlight on the fender. Beautiful. Expensive.

I've been searching the new scooter scene this past week. I had a Vespa GS 160 (maybe it was a 150) in the late 70's, then another in the late 80's, but they were both worn out and unreliable. I've been looking because lately a surge in new automatic plastic bodied can be seen in Calif. Most of them are from China, with unrecognized names.

Now, India has been making Vespa's under license for generations, and Bajaj is a popular bike in Calif, with a 150cc four stroke motor and the traditional manual transmisison with twist shift on the left handlebar. Another Indian Vespa has been sold in the USA as the Stella by Genuine Scooters. Well, the Indian manufacturer of that bike, LML of India, stopped producing any vehicles at all while searching for a partner. Bajaj makes only automatic scooters now; the market for traditional scoots disappeared in India.

But. Kinetic has been making some interesting automatic scooters. They bought the rights to the Italjet line of machines and have started producing one of them for the Indian market. Phase 2 motors is trying to bring these Indian scoots which are modern, tough, and built far better than most of the Chinese no name scoots one sees.

Toronto Transit

I have had opportunity to take the Toronto TTC a number of times here. Mostly I sit in a 12th floor condo and read, but I've been out.

It is a real good system. At first I was put off by the $2.75 fare, but when going from out here at York University to downtown, that $2.75 goes a long way. One gets on the local route 106 to go to Downsview station. Or the 196 Rocket (express) to the same place, just a little faster.

At the transit station it is not necessary to use a transfer. Debarking from the bus one finds that one is inside the station; behind the barrier I suppose. You are above ground; enter the building and descend to the train platform and get on board. No hassles about getting a transfer, no one has to check anything.

It works the same in the other direction. Get on the subway downtown with a token or exact change and go to the end of the line. Downsview, in this case. Walk upstairs and go out to the bus platform and get on your bus. No hassles. I've never seen this before and like it very much.

Local papers talk about how the TTC has gone downhill, and Thorald (my host) remarks on how not too long ago the fare was $1 rather than $2.75, but it is far better integrated than the San Fran Bay area or Los Angeles, and far more pleasant than New York, NY.

There are hardly any freeways here. Freeways are what we call them out west. Expressway or Turnpike are terms used in the East. In San Jose an Expressway is a surface street with limited access, while a Freeway is completely isolated from the normal surface grid.

Toronto TTC must run a great many busses. They certainly have a large variety of types. New busses are Electric/Diesel hybrids while older ones are marked as Bio Bus; denoting Biodiesel fuel. They are still running 30 year old GMC forward look coaches; the single speed automatic V-drive with two stroke engines. Perhaps they are adapted with new engines, but the units we drove in the 70's. I liked them. They were hot rods to drive, handled like a sports truck.

The Central city has street cars as well, with overhead power. Looks like some Coviet block arrangement, Budapest perhaps. Some streets have a separated area in the middle of the road which autos are not allowed to share. This is being expanded recently, to the annoyance of some drivers, apparently.

those blogger settings

Today I finally got blogger to post to a directory at lyalls.net. It really just took reading the directions more closely. That, and figuring out when it was going to do SFTP or FTP. Our hosting service, webmasters, does not support SFTP, which is simply FTP over a secure sockets layer. Tech jargon.

Clearly reading the instructions consisted of determining what the ftp path for the documents was supposed to be.

Now, if I could figure out how to tweak the look of this blogging page, or insert it into the Devoid Zone page. But this is published as an html file, not a php file. Hm, perhaps I can treat it as a php file anyway and insert it. Something for later.

nightmare bus ride to toronto

We took the Greyhound from Arcata to Toronto; from whence Lucienne and the kids flew to Port au Prince. The flight was on bonus miles, so it cost only tax. Flying to Toronto would have been prohibitive. Everything was booked, and tickets were at full price. A bonus mile flight from San Francisco was unobtainable; everything booked. Flights to Port au Prince are actually mostly full. Lots of Diaspora going home for the summer. For the heat?

So the Greyhound was OK up to Kansas city. We did have to change busses in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Denver, but the run from Denver to Chicago was supposed to be on one bus. In Kansas City they were short a driver; we were already running a two bus train from Denver. We got a good driver out of K.C., then had a flat tire just outside of St Louis. Right next to the airport as a matter of fact. A replacement bus came in only a half hour or so and our driver took us and our transferred baggage to St Louis. That was where the nightmares started. One bus was available to go to Chicago and I was in charge of getting six bags from our bus to the next one. By the time I got Lulu and Roxie/Emile-Alex over the the Chicago bus and back to the baggage carts there were only 5 bags. Frantically looking for the sixth bag and being told that the Chicago bus was full put me in a good mood.

The station manager told us that there was no room on the Chicago bus, and that our tickets to Detroit, then Toronto, were routed wrong anyway. Where is the missing bag? He doesn't know. Probably on a bus to Chicago. This regardless of the policy that passengers are responsible for getting their own bags transferred.

After a bit of suppressed raging (we were already tired of changing busses) I accepted the managers advice that we should get on the bus to Indianapolis, then change to a bus to Detroit. Ok, we went to Indianapolis, where we learned that there is no bus to Detroit. So we got on a bus to Dayton, where we were told that the next bus to Detroit was going to be full and no backup could be ordered from there as it was a contract location, not a dispatch hub. So we continued on that bus to Columbus. Where we changed busses again. To go to Cleveland, whence we would go to Buffalo, not Detroit. Our bag, remember, was on its way to Detroit.

Columbus was pretty crazy. One baggage guy seemed to be working, so I started pushing our baggage cart over to a door. The baggage guy came running up insisting that only he was authorized to push a cart. Huh? Other stations had no objection to folks using carts. We sat on one with our luggage in Denver for quite a while. Yah, so I started pushing the cart anyway. Then a security guard shouts at me from down the way "where are you going?". I ask "what?" and he goes psycho; I'm disrespecting him, etc. Hay-sus, the crazies that get hired as security guards in this country. The manager there eventually came out, just as this wacko was threatening to have me evicted from the property, and figured out where we should go to get to Toronto. She was good. She rolled her eyes about the antics of their hired wacko. We got new tickets cut. A bus to Cleveland was loading shortly and we got on that. Another change of bus would be required in Cleveland, as would Buffalo. When we were getting on the bus to Cleveland the very important baggage guy refused to put our bags on the bus, saying that we required new tags. Tags for Buffalo. I said "oh,ok. I'll go talk to a manager again" and went back inside, where another manager came out and actually put the bags on the bus. When I got back the very important baggage guy was no where to be seen, but our bags were loaded, bound for Cleveland.

But Cleveland. That was hell in the bus universe. Columbus to Cleveland, short run. Changing to yet another new bus today. There were no baggage carts available in the station and Lucienne made sure that she was in charge of tracking the bags this time; I let one disappear in St Louis, remember. We needed to get a bunch of bags and two kids around the corner to the next bus, which was sitting waiting. I tried to talk to a baggage worker about getting help with bags, but he deliberately turned and walked away from me. Lucienne started loading stuff onto the new bus (going to Buffalo) while I went back to get stuff from the bus from which we debarked. When I returned to the Buffalo bus I found Lucienne locked inside banging on the door. A half dozen staff are standing around in front of the bus laughing, the driver (who locked her inside), nowhere to be seen.

Now this is really outrageous, and bizarre. I reach out to open the bus door and another retarded security guard threatens me, saying only the driver is allowed to open the door. So, here I am with Roxie and Emile-Alex standing by the bus looking at Lucienne locked inside, a big pile of luggage sitting around the corner, out of sight, and I have to get that baggage 200 feet over here where 6 greyhound staff (plus a retarded contract employee) can look at it while they stand laughing. Ah. Yes. This is Greyhound style customer service. So I tell Roxanne to hold on to Alex while I go haul bags. Her mother can watch her from behind the locked bus door and 6 greyhound employees can stand there laughing. The retarded security guard tells me that I am not allowed to walk to get my baggage! This lame brain tells me that MY responsibility is to hold on to my children. While the staff's friends steal our baggage, perhaps?

I tell this brilliant service oriented person that their mother, standing 8 feet away, is watching them. He says that she is locked on the bus and I'd better not leave; I tell him that is the drivers responsibility. He goggles while I walk away, then he threatens to have me arrested.

I returned with the bags and piled them up in front of the bus and we wait for some strangely tortuous driver to return and open the door. It is full, just me and two kids waiting outside, now with all our baggage, and Lucienne standing on the steps just inside the locked bus door. And various baggage crew who refuse to touch baggage and some sort of assistant manager; she is very amused by the whole scene.

Saturday, 21 July 2007, Noon
Finally the driver returns. This departure was scheduled to depart at 11:25am, Saturday, 21 July 2007. (eh? documenting for later reference) It was waiting for our bus from Columbus to arrive and it is now past noon. The hard working baggage staff now observe that our bags are tagged for Detroit while this bus is going to Buffalo. Well, this is Cleveland while the tags say they should be in Chicago now. Our tickets are for Toronto and checking through the border is not allowed. Baggage loaders don't know this, apparently.

So, they very inventively insist that our bags may not be loaded on this bus to Buffalo; they will go to Detroit. Cute little attempts at further torturing paying customers. I calmly tell them that these are my bags and I now hold a ticket to Buffalo and that the manager at Columbus put them on a bus here with those tags on them. My refusing to panic at their attempts to torment us give them a little misgiving. The assistant manager who has heretofore done nothing but joke with the idle baggage loaders and security guard finally announces that she will write 'Buffalo' on the tags so that the loaders can consent to touch our baggage.

The driver returns to this crime scene and consents for us to enter his little kingdom, but then orders me to get in and sit down while he locks the door on all of us again while our bags remain sitting on the tarmac. I object that I must see that our bags are loaded. He orders me to sit or he'll evict me from the property. I observe that Greyhound policy clearly states that passengers are responsible for getting their bags on the bus. He growls very convincingly and clenches his fists. This was a rather convincing threat of violence I thought; I sat down and stretched to look out the window to see whether these brilliant Greyhound staff would load my bags or throw them away. They did get loaded and our sociopath driver was actually a competent driver; we got to Buffalo without further incident. Our bags were unloaded in Buffalo intact.

Transferring in Buffalo was no problem. Greyhound Canada takes over here. What a relief! The driver is civil and helpful, he is Quebecois. The bridge over the river has one lane into Canada and two lanes into the USA. The one Canadian bound lane flows, the two lanes into Homeland Security are backed up for a mile or so. Canadian security and immigration are friendly, unlike the experience going the other way. Lucienne's I-551 permanent resident card and Haitian passport gets her into Canada with no problem. Lucia, who lives in Toronto and has Canadian residency, cannot get into the USA. How rude.

Crossing into Canada with Greyhound Canada is a great relief. It feels like coming home after the torment we have had heaped upon us the past day and a half.

I eventually was able to get the number of the Detroit baggage department, and then get someone to answer. I was pleasantly surprized to find that they were able to send the missing bag along to Toronto. They would not check it thru, but in this case they gave it to the driver to check it thru customs. Ah, it must have been a Canadian driver on a Canadian bus; that explains it.

So, the bag arrived in Toronto. This bag had most of the presents bound for Port au Prince. The Logitech sound system for Marcels Playstation, lots of clothes and shoes which Lucienne had bought with her own money, etc.

I took the Toronto TTC downtown the next day. A very good transit system. The bus terminal is a few blocks from one of the subway stations. Found the baggage person there, a young chinese woman who had no knowledge of the USA. This I found when I remarked on how pleasant I found Greyhound Canada compared to Greyhound USA. East of the Mississippi at least.

yas entring

I was thinking of selling one of my seldom used musical instruments last week. A "GuitJo", or six string banjo headed thing from Deering. It has been in the back room of this cabin we live in for some time. Since I picked it up from storage in Santa Cruz.

Moisture had gotten to it so badly that the unwound strings had rusted away into the plush lining of the lovely case@!

Spent a few days completely disassembling and cleaning it.