Phone As PC

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/ubuntu-store-apps-wont-work-across-mobile-and-desktop-in-14-04/#p3

It's not the main thrust of the article, but "Phone As A PC" does get a mention. I think this should be the hottest trend going, not wearable computing. My iPhone has always been faster than any work PC I have ever been assigned, with the exception of the latest. And apps and games on the iPhone seem to run better than on my strongest gaming machines at home, with less problems and gotchas.

So as more and more folks get smartphones, why not make them a substitute for their desktop PC? They already can work with monitors and keyboard and mice in a limited fashion. Just make such extensions easier and more useful. Enable phones to use external storage devices, and even printers.

There were some Android phones, I think from Motorola, that had a desktop mode, that were shown at CES two years ago. doesn't seem like they took off. But clearly this trend has far more usefulness than a watch that tells you when your phone has a text.

Imagine being able to sit down at any PC station, and get your stuff - your programs, your data, without having to mess with virtualization. I can imagine it, and I want it.

Can’t raise fold-down rear seat on 2010 Ford Escape because of stuck middle seat belt retractor

Ok quick break from tech to report on a known car problem and the fix. I have a 2010 Ford Escape, and put the bigger side of the 40/60 split rear seat down to fit a table in the rear. When I went to raise it back up, it wouldn’t move more than an inch or two.

After some investigation I determined the problem was that the middle seat belt, which actually retracts into the top of the seat, had retracted completely and then locked up, stuck.

I spent some time trying various things to get it to let go. I even had half the material off the seat so I could see up to the area where the retractor was mounted. Nothing I tried did anything but make it tighter.

I turned to the Internet, and found out this is a known problem with these Fords and perhaps other models going back several years. Argh! For instance, http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=60783 

Then I found a site that seemed to have some solid advice - http://www.fixya.com/cars/t6637034-ford_escape_middle_rear_seat . This turned out to be fix for me.

Basically take out the 6 bolts holding the seat backs down (2 on each side and 2 in the middle). Then you can get to the Torx bolt that bolts the seat belt to the floor. Then take out the 60 part of the seat back completely, turn it right side up, click in the latch on the side, and the seat belt should retract normally with a couple of pulls. Then just put everything back together the way it was.

Save yourself wasted time trying other methods. They are right when they say this is the only way that works. And once you figure it out, it’s not that hard. Good thing, because I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be doing this again and again.

Configuring Windows Updates. 0% Complete. Please do not power off or unplug your machine. Installing update 1 of 5.

I get this type of message all the time on shutting down and it hangs my laptop. Something in Windows Update gets stuck. A lot.

Here’s a couple of the fixes I’ve used semi- (temporarily) successfully:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949358
• http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/troubleshoot-problems-with-installing-updates

Ios7 Game Center won't go away

I play Scrabble on my iPad and iPhone, mostly with my family through Facebook, which is a blast. One day a year or so ago I somehow hooked Scrabble up to Apple's "Game Center". Almost instantly this turned into a pain in the neck with popups and logins and messages every time I tried to play Scrabble. What was worse is the dialog that would ask every time I opened Scrabble if I wanted to disable Scrabble from Game Center (something along those lines). I would answer yes yet it kept coming up every time. 

This continued into iOS 7. There are new ways to remove Scrabble from Game Center. But the changes somehow reverse themselves every restart. We'll I've finally figured out a way to at least stop it from bothering me, with the help of the following link:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19594549#19594549

Basically it's as simple as logging out of Game Center and then disabling all the possible options in Notification Center for Game Center. This of course affects a lot more than Scrabble. A price I'm willing to pay until Apple fixes Game Center. 

Feeding Twitter

I just noticed that my blog posts haven't been making their way from Blogger through Friendfeed to Twitter since October 2012. (It's now March 2013.) Bummer! All the setup looks good and the posts are making it to Friendfeed so the problem is somewhere between Friendfeed and Twitter. I went ahead and set up Twitterfeed (from the blog direct to Twitter). We'll see how that goes.

Migrated Outlook, blocked senders list gone

I just upgraded machines, and from Outlook 2010 to Outlook 2013. One quick tip for anyone else doing this - don't forget to export your blocked senders list BEFORE you move your .pst file from the old pc to new. It turns out, as best I can tell, that the lists are email account name specific. This means unless you name your new account the same (which I am guessing I did not), that the old list will be stranded and Outlook will start a new blank one (argh).

Dial Back The Crazy

I was about to give Paul Thurrott the crown for inventing this 4 word gem for his blog post http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/dialing-back-crazy-windows-8, but a quick Google search reveals it’s been around awhile… https://www.google.com/search?q=dial+back+the+crazy . Still, what a sound byte!

IOS Garageband tips

Here’s a couple of things I wish I had known earlier…

• Turn off velocity sensitity to fix snare drum volume issue.

• Turn the bar count to automatic for a section so that it doesn’t cut you off at 8 when recording with a mic.

• Shake to get the undo button to come up.

And an issue with my preferred guitar input, the iRig, and GarageBand on the iPad 3:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3836528?start=0&tstart=0

It doesn’t sound like there is a fix, so it may be necessary to abandon the iRig – here are some alternatives mentioned:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MobileIn/
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/stealthplug/

Microsoft shoots self in foot AGAIN

• http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/xbox-music-preview-144504
• http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/microsoft-itunes-xbox-music-144505
• http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2012/10/slick-xbox-music-coming-to-xbox-windows-8-but-windows-7-not-so-much
• http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/14/microsoft-xbox-music/
• http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/15/3502846/xbox-music-windows-7-windows-phone-support

“Hey I’ve got an idea, let’s release an amazing new music service, and completely shun our biggest user-base and our most popular product!” (not an actual quote, just a dramatization)

This is Microsoft’s idea of how to roll out a new music service – don’t offer it to the hundreds of millions of users of their current flagship consumer PC operating system, Windows (7).

Or here’s another great idea, make it first available on your game console (XBOX). Who listens to music while they are trying to play a game or watch TV (and I don’t mean watch TV through the XBOX)? Oh but there’s an additional $60 per year charge to listen to music on your game console versus other platforms.

How do they come up with this stuff? This is a clear case of management by committee. Straight stupid. When they force me off my Zune subscription with the 10 songs to keep per month, I’m going straight to Spotify with my money.

Ubuntu fails

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/shuttleworth_comes_out_swinging_defense_ubuntu_1210_amazon_integration

I *was* a big fan of Ubuntu for years, until I read this article. But as far as I'm concerned, this is about as close to a living definition of sell-out as you can get.

And because Ubuntu was the closest thing Linux and open source had to a success, I'm declaring Linux and open source failed too, at least in terms of a business model. When you have to pimp your customers, you need an intervention. Yikes! This isn't free as in beer, this is free as in train wreck.