Cybertough Industries

Zune on Windows-7 sucks

cybrfrk — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:53:43 +0000

When Windows 7 was available to use (as a MSDN subscriber), I installed the Ultimate edition. Things were slow to get fully running (hardware), but eventually people updated drivers and I'm a happy camper.

About a month ago my Zune (30GB) stopped working. If I looked at hardware, it was there, but not working properly. So I uninstall, clean the registry, reboot, install new software, and go through the detect sequence. I've done this dozens of times, hoping that something kicks in and the hardware (made by Microsoft) is recognized by Windows 7 (made by Microsoft).

But no. I get this every time.

So. Microsoft, want to fix your stupid software drivers?
Here's the funny part. We've tried this on two laptops, a desktop and a netbook. Everything but the Netbook gave us the same install error. Right now I'm running three Zune loads (different devices) from my Netbook. The cheapest device of them all.

Microsoft Fail!

PS: If I sound pissed it is because I am.

Be very grateful when you can

cybrfrk — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:20:03 +0000

There have been times in my life when God's grace has been hard to find. It's during those dark days that being grateful for health, wealth, family and friends has helped to pull me out of the gutter and lifted me up on the shoulders of those who love me. Right now is a tough time for many around me and my heart hopes for the best of times.

CC @get directly down on Flickr

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (Ephesians 1:18)

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)

The bible does not work well in an eBook format

cybrfrk — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:12:38 +0000

The first book I bought after purchasing my Kindle2 was an NIV version of the Bible. Today I went in and submitted a review, which I must say, was not very positive. Even as I typed the review I became aware of the fact that perhaps it was not the book that failed as much as the platform. Then again, people need to know that their normal use pattern will need to change or they should stick with the traditional paper version.

CC @goXunuReviews on Flickr

Did the hardware vendor, in this case Amazon, fail to fully understand how certain books are used and thus provide the ability for the author to implement? Or was it that the author simply didn't go through the necessary work in order to properly catalog and tie the proper metadata/hierarchy/taxonomy?

My biggest gripe is the ability to find book chapter:verse reference through the "find" feature. Most times, if you are in a study or attending church, people will reference something like "John 16:28" and expect that you can find it pretty quickly. If you do this within this book, you will not find anything. That on top of the failure of a navigation structure, means to find the "John 16:28" takes 35 separate actions on my part:

Click menu button
Select "Table of Contents" (may have to use joystick)
Push (down on stick)
Use joystick (down 7 times)
Push (down on stick)
Select "John" by using joystick (down 6 times)
Select "16" (down on stick 4 down, 2 right)
Push (down on stick)
Select "28" by using joystick (down 4 times, right 7 times)
Push (down on stick)

So what now? You are in the book of John, chapter 16 verse 28, do you actually have any indication that you are there? Of course not. There is no context awareness as to where you are within the body of a book (best example is chapter), only the display of what word or character count (and percent complete), indicated as "Locations". You cannot jump ahead to each chapter without navigating back to the Table of Contents and hoping that the chapter is listed. This same problem carries over into search results; no indication of what book chapter:verse the item was located in.

I hope that as Amazon looks at the next multi-touch version of the Kindle(3?), that they include a better taxonomy awareness, allowing for a higher level of navigation and usability.

If I had designed a software application that required 35 actions to perform a task my Human Factors Engineering team would hang me up.

They can do better.

Now I am excited to see how my bible study uses a new live-blogging, live-sharing, live-questioning approach during sermons and studies from http://www.youversion.com (about). Imagine reading scripture together at the same time, on a web-enabled device, listening to the sermon over the web, and being able to ask questions during it that the pastor answers (live). This has potential.

Is this a new support model from Cox Communications?

cybrfrk — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:32:50 +0000

I have been a customer of theirs for nearly 15 years now in the East Phoenix Valley. What started with cable eventually grew into internet and eventually digital phone. Since becoming a customer I've seen their support model grow and the ability to actually talk to someone who works for Cox dwindle and fade. Even today, most of the support you receive (phone or at your home) is actually provided by a third party contractor working for Cox.

For the last several years I've noticed a degradation in the quality of my internet service at home. The funny part is that they started charging me more for a higher-speed service. So after getting tired of speeds ranging from 0.2 to 3.0 Mbps, I decided to do some research and discovered that I indeed had a higher limit service (that I was paying for) but I needed to upgrade my modem.

What? You mean you upgraded my service, charged me more, and never told me I needed to get a different, newer, modem to take advantage of the faster speeds? Yes sir, if you buy a DOCSIS 2.0 (or higher) modem, you will see faster speeds since we see nothing wrong with your line.

Now I have no issue in buying a new modem to support speeds that were 3-5 times faster than what I was getting with my old one, but....could you possibly tell me? Why charge me for a service that you knew (based on down the wire diagnostics) that I wasn't using? Shady? Perhaps.

So, I upgraded and my speeds now began to peak around 12 Mbps (down) and my up speeds were bouncing off of the 3 Mbps (about a 10x increase).

I was happy.

That was until recently; I've noticed performance start to shift and degrade at sporadic times during the day. Sometimes everything would be humming along and I would get kicked offline. So I would pick up the phone and there would be no dial tone.

Yup, internet and phone offline. Good thing my T-Mobile service is more reliable than my Cox systems.

So I was a tad upset and posted a less than nice tweet to Twitter:

Cox service sucks. Making me really question having hpone and internet with the same company. (source)

Since this was more of a venting exercise I thought nothing of it until I received a public reply:

@CoxTech1? Want to help? Stop my Internet and Phone from going down at the same time. Glad my cellular service isn't at that level. (source)

This began a hailstorm of responses using direct messaging inside Twitter, a total of 10 back and forth messages, resulting in my tweet:

Super impressed that @CoxTech1 is taking the time to troubleshoot via Twitter (source)

Needless to say, I used Twitter to send some IP information, modem MAC address and some other data which resulted in a line diagnostic and appointment for today. At 8:45 am, End2End Technologies (for Cox) came by, did some in-home inspection and tightened all connections at the street, house. He also noticed some line noise and added some filters to address.

Is my problem solved? Until it's a regular business day and everyone is home cruising the web (around 6 pm), I can't tell.

Although, I am impressed. But they should know, I don't use their lame TV service, I have HD-Dish with my super dual DVR.

Before Service

After Service

The real test will be if it stays solid. Then again, bouncing against a real server in a really connected city, gives me significantly different results.

After Service, to LA

Ode to the Netbook

cybrfrk — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:27:38 +0000

I love my Netbook.
That's not a statement because it's a direction that the company I work for makes the processor for most of them. It is a statement for every reason that Netbooks are becoming so popular.

Low cost
Highly portable
Runs anything, anytime, anywhere
Great battery

New skin making my Netbook beautiful

Now for me, I wanted to jump into this area for an upcoming, log trip we had planned, and decided to buy a Acer Aspire One D250 for around $235. Add onto that a $40 2GB memory upgrade and a $15 skin, guess what, I'm still under $300 for a six-cell system that boots and logs me into Windows 7 in under 60 seconds. Couple that with cell-tethering and I have a system that I can use to cruise the internet while doing 75 mph down the road.

So far I've had the opportunity to use it while in Mexico on a vacation for a few days and again while in the hospital with my wife following surgery; it performed superbly.

If you don't think that the age of small portability is upon us, go read Jeff Atwood's recent blog post about the same topic.

Tethering — for the win!

cybrfrk — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:26:58 +0000

After much internal dialog, I decided to try to tether my Google G1 (T-Mobile) with my Netbook. This has been out for quite some time and until I saw Dan Wahlin use it while teaching a class (on Silverlight), I had decided there was no real need. That was until I bought a Netbook.

While this sucker is nice around the house, cruising at 10+ Mb/sec speeds, doing the same going down the road or someplace else without WiFi, is completely another story. Tomorrow I'll find myself in an area where there is no connection, and being able to stay connected is a bonus. Thanks PDAnet.

At home speeds (T-Mobile, 2G, G1, Tether)

At home speeds (Cable)

Update 2/5/2010: While at the hospital I realized I had 3G coverage, here are those stats

Speed from Hospital (T-Mobile, 3G, G1 tether)

Do we protect our children too much?

cybrfrk — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:33:04 +0000

When I was 19 years old I joined the US Navy and went through eight weeks of basic training. During that time I was broken and rebuilt as a person, into a member of a larger team. Some old habits were erased and I learned different, more efficient methods to perform tasks and respond to events.

Learning to deal with problems

My military training taught me to open my eyes much wider than what my less-than-perfect childhood had brought me. For myself, basic training was an opportunity to fill my toolbox with lessons to be applied when the right (or wrong) situation presented itself. Whether it was jumping from a sinking ship, putting out a fire, surviving a chemical attack or rescuing an injured shipmate, the things I learned still serve me well today. I learned to think for the team and how to survive any situation (real or virtual).

As a parent I struggle with what to teach my children and what to let them endure on their own. If the Navy had not taught me how to fight a fire properly, when one broke out in the galley, I may have panicked instead of grabbing the proper gear and helping to put it out. Then again, the lessons learned often sink in the deepest and stay the longest.

Do I let my kids deal with heartache or warn them of some upcoming problem before it occurs? Do we shield them from so much that they think the reality of the world looks much different than what it is? How equipped are our children in dealing with conflict if they never see it at home? How trusting will our children be in their personal relationships if the only picture is that of their parents? Is it healthy or unhealthy to fight about and resolve issues openly versus in private?

While teaching our children it is necessary to establish boundaries within social normalcy. To our children these boundaries come in the form of rules and restrictions. These are not always popular but they are often necessary in order to keep our children on the right path. It is a balance between being their friend and being their parent.

At some point in their life we hope that all the wisdom we have imparted is enough to get them through every day. The lessons they learned and how they apply them will be a testimony to our parenting, but we need to take that testimony with a grain of salt. Not everything they encounter in their lives could have been foreseen. Many encountered events, no matter how much planning, can be random.

Eventually life dictates that we step back, cut the binds and pray for the best. The greatest gifts I hope my kids have learned from me involve hope, faith and love. Do you hope for the same?

The rain can be a beautiful thing for some

cybrfrk — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:17:02 +0000

As someone who spent a large portion of their youth in the Pacific Northwest, I love the rain. The freshness that the world carries after the air is cleaned and the plants are fed just brings a sense of peace. For anyone living in the
desert they know that rain can bring new life, sometimes not welcomed weeds, and flooding. We are experiencing the largest storm in decades blanketing the west coast as well as Arizona, and still for some, this is not the storm to be worried about.

Rain falling in my backyard

Storms are disruptive to our lives. Storms cause change.

Everyone needs to remember that even damage caused by a storm brings things of beauty, things needed. Plants grow and wounds heal.

Keep love in your heart and all will come as God promised.

Teleported Goats and the Google Chrome OS

cybrfrk — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:35:04 +0000

Today I decided to create a bootable flash stick with the latest version, courtesy of Hexxeh. While it's still early in their build cycle, I was able to glean a few interesting things regarding this operating system. Overall it's shaping up to be a good thing, but unless the user "usability" is tremendously increased, no one will use it. Let's consider how long open-source Linux builds have been out there and they have still not made it into the mainstream. It doesn't matter how nice Gnome becomes, Mom and Pop still feel they are too complex. Think iPod or Television, make a consumer OS that easy to use and they will flock.

Then again, if this is merely an OS to jump into when you need to do some quick browsing -- spot on. Of course I want the ability to keep someone else from using their Google login and using my hardware.

Good things

Fast boot (8 seconds) time with my Acer Aspire One D250 (from flash drive)
100% running on my Netbook without configuration
Ubuntu under the hood
I was able to do this post from within the Google Chrome OS

Not so good things

The interface is a browser
You have to turn things on such as "enable tap-to-click" for your touchpad
No desktop, no apparent control panel, no apparent. All applications must be web-based apps.
This is really a "connected system" operating system. Minimal offline usability since it relies on the browser to do everything.
No web no use.
Battery indicator is non-functional

Tricks

Once you are in the system, use the ctrl-alt-del trick to get into the task manager. After that, you can use alt-tab to switch between the browser and the task manager.
Normal tasks are performed in a terminal shell
- CTRL-ALT-T to get into it
  - Be careful, every time you do this it opens a new shell
- Typing "help" and enter, gives you a listing of all commands
- "sudo shutdown -h now" and enter, will shutdown the OS (system) after entering the system password
- For the hexxeh image, the password is "facepunch"
- CTRL-ALT-F2 shells in, CTRL-ALT-F1 back to GUI

What is the hoopla about goats? http://www.goatsteleported.com

The version tested, Chrome Browser 4.0.289.0 (35439), Operating System 0.5.25.201001021707 (Developer Build)

A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles

cybrfrk — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:16:27 +0000

For our wedding anniversary this year, I had the opportunity to surprise my wife with a trip down to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) in Sonora Mexico. I have a kind co-worker who offered me a stay at her condo in Sandy Beach for three nights (Las Palomas Beach & Golf Resort, Phase 2). It was the most amazing gift at a beautiful place and we shared it with my wifes sister/brother-in-law.

The overall drive was a little more than four hours from Phoenix and was quite uneventful. After you get into Mexico do not expect glorious views and excitement, at this point you really need to pay attention to any directions since the signs in Mexico fall far below what we are use to in the States. I don't recommend stopping for hitchhikers. Follow the directions towards Sandy Beach Resorts.

Check-in was a breeze, but then again there was no one around except the staff for the resort. Our names were in the system, we paid our fees and were given keys. Parking was next to the elevator and the room was immediately after exiting on the sixth floor. I couldn't have imagined anything easier.

When we stepped into the condo we were speechless. Although the shades were drawn, the room glowed with beauty and elegance. Tiled floors, colorful paint, gleaming counters and comfortable furniture greeted us and promised of fun times to come. Only after pulling back the shades did we realize that the better view was through the window and off the balcony.

We discovered the water was cold but tolerable, the sand was warm and comfortable and the sky was blue and beautiful. One of our first tasks was to walk around both phases so we can see what this paradise has to offer. One of the neat things was finding the hammock farm over on phase one.

During our adventures, we headed towards Cholla Bay and found a great place to have breakfast (or any meal, since we had three there). Although not as upscale as the resort it had the feel of a beach side community that had forgotten how to maintain themselves. In the same area we ran across JJ's Cantina, a favorite for spring break visitors as well as locals.

If you are interested in booking some time at a resort and soaking up the restoring atmosphere of a great vacation, my friend Barb can hook you up.

The title of today's blog is brought to you by writer Tim Cahill.