RIP Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, has died.

Happy New Year!

Cast of my teeth

This was made to fabricate my crown.

Phone data usage

I love graphs. The spike in May was probably due to a trip Boston to a wedding.

Stephen Fry on the use of language

I agree wholeheartedly with Stephen Fry, here. Grammar and spelling Nazis, particularly on the net, are bloody annoying.

 

Bandwidth usage, phone edition

Was curious about my data usage -- I have an unlimited (non-smartphone) text and data plan from AT&T. They will soon be changing to a dual-tier plan, with caps at 200MB and 2GB. The ridiculous bit is that they want to charge you and additional $20/month for tethering, something I commonly do when I travel with my laptop already. iPad owners get really screwed: the unlimited data plan they were promised is now the 2GB plan. This only very shortly after the 3G version was released.

Anyway, here is my usage for the last several months.

 

What to do when your phone won’t boot

My Sony Ericsson W760a died over the weekend: would not boot. Re-flashed the firmware and it seems as good as new. Unfortunately, the phone deletes all apps saved on the memory card when it boots up for the first time.

My first sliderule

I broke down and bought a cheap reproduction sliderule from ThinkGeek. It’s plastic, and it doesn’t slide very well -- sticks a bit.

However, it’s pretty fun to learn to use. The thing doesn’t come with a manual, but ThinkGeek hosts a PDF manual, and points to a online tutorial.

RIP Alexander McQueen

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen appears to have committed suicide.

One of the things he is well-known for is the "bumster" pants: super low-slung pants which bared buttcrack. However, no one seems to know exactly when they were introduced, which is odd. The BBC News Service say 1996; Grazia Daily, a fashion blog says 1994; the Fashion Page (a fashion site which has been up since 1994) claims 1995; The Guardian claims the earliest with 1992.

Why you would flash your phone with generic firmware

So, my phone died again: it stopped recognizing the battery. AT&T sent me a warranty replacement. Of course, it had the default AT&T-branded firmware. I had forgotten how obnoxious it was: everything is locked out, and you have to pay to use them. You can't use the GPS without paying $10/month, you can't play MP3s, you can't use your own MP3s as ringtones, you can't tether the phone to your laptop for Internet access.

The only added feature is that it supports IM: AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. The built-in email client, however, is pretty braindead and doesn't have GMail as an option, and there is no way to manually set the account info.

This is why I reflashed my phone with the generic Sony Ericsson firmware. My phone is actually useful, now. Not bad for $16.

On the other hand, I am not terribly impressed with Sony Ericsson's quality control. This is the second replacement. I've had other SE phones in the past which never had problems, and I tend to use my phones for 3 years or so.