Cheap tablet PC–and it’s an Android

Posted on November 15, 2011 - Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

This was an interesting experiment.. And even better, it was successful  I wanted to see if it was possible to hack a cheap eReader and make it into an Android tablet. A friend had a PanDigital Novel 7 inch eReader that had some Android capabilities–a browser, etc. But no Google market capability. You could load apps, but you had to do it manually, and the choice was much more limited than the Google Market. My friend had heard that the Novel could be hacked, but he wasn’t comfortable with trying. The price was right–$68 (plus $10 shipping), so I figured it was worth a shot.

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Cobol Ready Trace lives

Posted on August 8, 2011 - Filed Under Business, Mainframe | Leave a Comment

In the age of Expediter, et al, it may seem old fashioned to want to use this old tool, but it’s still an unmatched gem. For those of you who don’t remember Ready Trace, it’s an old verb that was obsoleted by Cobol II. It lists every paragraph that a program executes. Expiditer, for all it’s great capabilities, cannot do this. Nor any other tool that I know of.
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Good tip on necessary Windows utilities

Posted on July 20, 2011 - Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

This is definitely worth watching–I’ve been using one of them, CCleaner for years, so I think this guy knows what he’s talking about.

 

Use Autoruns to control startup programs

Posted on June 28, 2011 - Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

From WXPNews:
You might be aware of the MSCONFIG utility that comes with Windows XP. You can open it by simply typing its name in the Run | Open box and it’s a good starting point for finding out what runs automatically on your system. But if you really want to delve deeply into those autorun programs, there’s something that’s a whole lot better and it’s a free download from Microsoft. Autoruns is one of the Sysinternals tools created by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, and not only can you use it to speed up your system by disabling unnecessary automatic programs, you can also use it to help track down malware (which is often set to start and run automatically). You can get it here: 
http://www.wxpnews.com/7NJW64/110628-Autoruns

 

Beach rentals available

Posted on June 28, 2011 - Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

These are through a friend of mine. This not a front for a rental business–these are timeshares that she owns. Post a comment if you’re interested.
Outer Banks, NC
Outer Banks Beach Club        7/29/2011 -  8/5/2011    2 bdrm / 2 bath   $1200.00
 
The Windjammer                       7/23/2011  - 7/30/2011   2 bdrm / 1 1/2ba $ 900.00
 
Sea Scape Golf & Beach         8/14/2011  – 8/21/2011   2 bdrm / 2 bath  $ 900.00             
 
Va Beach, VA
Barclay Towers                         8/5/2011  – 8/12/2011    1 bdrm / 1 bath         $ 900.00     

News feed in FaceBook

Posted on January 14, 2011 - Filed Under Business, Family | Leave a Comment

I thought I was losing my mind because I couldn’t find my friend lists in Facebook any more. They used to be over in the left column, but they disappeared. I finally figured out where they are after reading a couple of articles on using FB for a news feed, similar to Google Reader.

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Linux update

Posted on January 5, 2011 - Filed Under Business, Family | Leave a Comment

A while back, I posted a story about my adventures with Linux on an older PC. I was stymied at the time, but I have made significant progress since then. The memory boards I had ordered (and didn’t work), were replaced–good job, memorystock.com, and they fit just fine this time.

It actually turns out that I probably didn’t need the extra memory–once I installed Xubuntu to the hard drive, it got significantly faster. But, extra memory never hurts. The version of FoxPro that comes with Xubuntu is fully functional with Hootsuite, FaceBook, etc., so I consider that installation a success.

The score is 2-0

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Bit the Bullet (Android, that is)

Posted on January 4, 2011 - Filed Under Business, Contracting, Family | Leave a Comment

My PDA (aka Palm, Tungsten E) has been my constant companion for about 5 years now. I even soldered a new battery in about a year ago. It was the perfect instrument. It could sync with Outlook, I could read books, and even download web pages (offline, of course). Then, the paint began to flake. I couldn’t sync with my new PC (curses, Vista), then I started having problem syncing with my XP machine. Still, I resisted the urge to buy a smart phone–I did not want to get locked into a contract, and that monthly data package was just too big of a pill to swallow. I used a prepaid phone (Tracfone), it was cheap and worked just fine.

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Linux will revive an old PC? Not so fast.

Posted on September 7, 2010 - Filed Under Business, Family | 4 Comments

I bought several old notebook PC’s a while back, specifically for the purpose of giving them to my grandkids. I wanted to see if I could retrofit them as replacements for newer PC’s, sans Windows. Because, let’s face it, Microsoft has effectively tied their newest OS to any new machine that you buy.

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Syncing two computers (especially Outlook)

Posted on July 8, 2010 - Filed Under Business, Contracting, Family | 2 Comments

Dropbox.com allowed me to sync Outlook on my 2 computers, simply by dropping the pst file in a folder. Worked with Quicken, too. Magic. You just have to be careful not to have Outlook open on both computers at the same time.

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