Technology « FABOO MAMA

Technology

Blah, blah EVO 4G, blah…ooh pictures!

In case you missed my World Wide Web orgasm, I got an EVO 4G. Go me. Yay. Anyway…this isn’t a post on my thoughts of the phone because if you’re following me on FriendFeed or Twitter, you’ve already read them and just want me to shut it already.

This post is about my (our) evolution of gadgets starting 2002. The years 1999 – 2002 are not represented because we can’t find the phones. This is a photographic comparison of what we had to this EVO 4G.

A plethora of hardware

The iPaq and G1 are my husband’s property. We both had PPC-6700s. I think we carried those from ’04 – ’08. The piece of shit Instinct is what I just replaced with the EVO 4G. It’s a big jump size-wise.

Some side-by-side comparison:

Something old, something new

I really liked the iPaq. It had such promise. We knew it was just a matter of time before we found something that reach what we needed. That something was the PPC-6700. The only thing that was bad about that phone, was the tiny screen size and the thickness of it.

Big brother, little brother

All together now…AWWWWWWWW. HTC seems to release a new phone every three weeks. At the end of June, when the EVO is obsolete, all he’ll have to do is look at my husband’s G1 and be inspired. It’s lasted almost 2 WHOLE years. Almost.

Time for an upgrade

It’s clear from the scratches all over the screen, that it was time to let teh Samsung Instinct go. Not that I was broken up over it, since I’ve been wanting to get rid of this phone since December 2008. Even in the middle of March, I was ready to leave Sprint forever and go by a Nexus One. In just the few hours of messing around with the EVO 4G, I’m amazed at my feelings of ecstasy, “I have a real phone again!” I was so ready to go back to the PPC, just so I could do enjoy web-browsing on my phone again. As much as I’ve bitched about the Instinct, I’ve praised it too. There are a lot of features the Instinct had that on other phones, you’d have to download an app or jailbreak the phone to get. But it’s gone now. Sayonara!

Auto — Comments
25
Apr 10

What a difference a week makes

Last Sunday, panic ensued because it sounded like the MIL was ready to buy us a car of her choosing. I felt we didn’t need a car because our 8 year old MINI was running just fine, gets good gas mileage, is fun to drive and is perfect for city driving. To be sure, it was fun looking at new cars, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that an extra car would sit unused in most cases.

Thursday, we got an oil change on our car. Bonus to that, is that the oil change wound up being free because they couldn’t change the filter. Extra-extra bonus is that the power streering came back. I guess they refilled the fluid…I don’t know.

Friday, Adrian hopped into the car to go grocery shopping. The car died in the driveway. There’s something wrong with the gear shift. It won’t move. We can push the clutch in, but we can’t shift.

Now, this is unsurprising because as I’ve mentioned before, our MINI is a piece of crap on wheels. But to have it happen now, is just our kind of luck. If it’s the gear box, this will be the 3rd time it’s happened. I doubt it’s the gear box, because usually, we can move the clutch around. But that’s an $1100 fix. If it’s the transmission, that will mean, it’s the 3rd transmission to fail in the 8 years we’ve had the car. The price tag on that repair is about $2800. Either way, we don’t have the money. And considering the MIL does not like the MINI and wants us to get a new car anyway, we don’t see her help forthcoming.

A week later: We’ve missed the Festival of Books due to the broken car. Today we were supposed to go visit the MIL to celebrate our daughter’s birthday. And now we’re totally okay with the MIL getting us a new car.

The comforts of a car

We’ve been offered a “gift” of a new car. The string attached, is that the car must seat 5, comfortably. You know, unlike our MINI Cooper. The last 3 cars we’ve bought were months and months of research and test driving. I think normal people do it much quicker. This “gift” is a race against time. We’re worried that if we don’t find a car we like, one that we don’t like will be purchased for us. Considering our lifestyle and the thing we want to do, but can’t due to our current car, we’ve been considering wagons. He wants an WRX. I looked at the Mitsubishi Outlander and the Nissan Rogue, but neither have manual transmissions. Other options are the Jetta Wagon or a used Audi A3. I’ll look into options from Hyundai since many of my friends drive them and like them.

Our MINI is 8 years old and falling apart; the glove box is broken, reading light buttons are broken, CD changer is broken, chairs are broken, sunroof is broken, windshield is cracked…and then there’s the small issue of the damaged panel.

I’ve written several times over the years on why our MINI is a piece of crap car. Oddly, it took just looking at websites of other automakers to fully appreciate what we do have in MINI. I had assumed that 8 years later, many items that we have in our MINI would be considered standard in cars nowadays. Well, that’s not the case.

We’ve been spoiled by our MINI Cooper.

We have the sunroof/moonroof on our car and that has a built-in deflector and screening. There are audio controls in the steering wheel, which I love just as a safety feature. The car came with a 6 CD changer in the boot and a valet key. We have 4 carpeted floormats, 2 cargo nets and a cargo cover.

Needless to say, I love these features and thought that for certain cars, wagons to be exact, that some of these items would be standard. I was shocked to see that a sunroof or moonroof package on a car, was a separate fee from installing a wind deflector on the car. Some cars we’ve looked at don’t even have screening for the sunroof.

So, as we talk, we find that features we have in our craptastic MINI are the ones that make driving enjoyable or safer. We each have items that we want/need in a car, but I’m afraid that under $25K, that car doesn’t exist…unless we get another MINI, which is out of the question.

Today, we test drove a Mazdaspeed 3. It’s interior was insanely ugly and boring at the same time. I asked the salesman if you could open the trunk with the key. I have that ability on the MINI and it’s great when carrying many things or heavy items. He said the feature is only available in the sedans. I was surprised at his answer.

My husband’s focus on a car is that it has power, AWD with a manual transmission and matches his personality. My focus is that it gets good gas mileage, the chairs don’t hurt my back and arms, and that the suspension isn’t too bouncy. I drive a lot for work purposes, often logging over 200 miles in day. We want a car that will make us happy.

The MINI is a joy to ride, especially when I have to log 200+ miles one way. The psychological joy we both get from our oversized sunroof can not be minimized. Most cars without a sunroof feel claustrophobic to us. I feel so much safer driving down the freeway, using my steering wheel to control the volume or mode of music, than I do jabbing at buttons while trying to watch out for other drivers.

Obviously, there are things about the MINI that I detest or that don’t make sense now that there’s 4 of us. I can’t wait to have a car where I can put almost any sized cup in the cupholder. I crave sun visors that actually block out the sun and don’t block out the traffic lights. We do need more space, since all the gear we keep in the trunk takes up too much room. We now often have to pile grocery bags on top of the kids and the passenger. I can’t wait to be able to go to Ikea with the whole family without worrying about if we’ll need to have our items delivered or if a second trip back solo is in order.

Internet — Comments
26
Mar 10

I’m part of the Taliban?!

Back in December, I wrote a post about a craigslist listing that sounded too good to be true and it was confirmed when I received what looked to be a phishing email. I got a couple of replies on it today (Whoops! I heard today is the 26th, so I just noticed them today), that just made no sense, grammatically speaking. I had to read it a few times before I realized this person was accusing me of being in on this nefarious plan to not really rent his/her house.

Check the stupid:

Really?

There’s a level of ignorance at play here that I’m not even going to waste my time responding to. It’s just amazing to me, that someone would actually type all this out, assume it makes sense and post.

Perhaps I’m different. If this was happening to me I would have contacted the blog author by email for more information before dealing my Bigot Card. Now? Not so inclined to help. Oh well.

******

Disclaimer: I deleted the comments and blocked the person. I have no intention of letting some stupid shit come to my blog and make baseless accusations with their bigotry.

Media / Reviews / Technology — Comments
9
Feb 10

iPad: Poll Numbers and Spin, or Why You Should Pay Attention

I got an email from Telecom TV with the screaming headline:

Oh dear! 52 per cent of consumers don’t want an iPad

I know, right? So I click the link and start reading. Keep in mind that Martyn Warwick will never be called a fan of Apple or Steve Jobs.

?Last month, before the new device was launched, an earlier survey showed that 26 per cent of consumers who were aware of the hype surrounding the imminent arrival of the iPad had no interest in buying one.

Now a follow-up study indicates that, as the Retrevo blog puts it, Apple has suffered “a failure to convince any new buyers to consider the iPad.” It adds, “Not only did Apple fail to convince new buyers, it may have lost many potential buyers who now say they don’t think they need an Apple tablet computer.”

That’s because, to quote Retrevo again, “Consumers lost interest after the [iPad] announcement. Retrevo’s study asked consumers whether or not they had heard about the tablet before the tablet was introduced and again after the announcement. The word definitely got out as the number of respondents saying they had heard about the tablet rose from 48% shortly before the announcement to over 80% after the media frenzy on January 27th.”

Wow, right? But guess what? I’m not a tech person and I’ve never heard of Retrevo before this article. I’m not going to just take this at face value. I want to know the polling size, how the people were selected, the questions…in other words, the details. So, I searched for “Retrevo ipad survey” (without the quotes) and noticed a link to MacDailyNews at the top of the search results touting the same exact survey.

Continue reading →

Advertising / Entertainment / Internet / Newspapers / Race / Shopping / idiocy — Comments
21
Dec 09

New York Times suggest gifts for the people of color in your life

On FriendFeed, I was alerted to the fact that the New York Time’s Gift Guide for 2009, included a whole section for the people of color in your life.

Yep.

I freely admit to being slightly amused by it. At first I thought it was a joke, but seeing articles and tweets about it, made me realize that it was an actual part of their guide. In 2009.

Naturally, I had to look it up myself. And…uh…well, read:

>>Of Color | Stylish Gifts

By SIMONE S. OLIVER

Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities.

There are some defensive people out there who think this is positively acceptable. They point out that the author of the section is black, so that makes it okay. Get it?

Now, I read some of the different suggestions on NYTPicker and kept thinking, “This has to be a joke.”, but uh…well…

For your Latino friends…

Continue reading →

Manners / People / Social Media — Comments
14
Dec 09

You don’t always have to share

The past few weeks on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve been privy to the rejection of my friends. They post things like “Coworker had a party. Invited everyone in my department, but me.” How are they finding out about these affairs? Through social networking.

One year, a coworkers hosted a holiday party at a local restaurant. She only invited the administrative people in the office. I was an administrative person in the office, but I worked for the district. I was not invited. That did not stop her from sending out the email to her ‘admins’ list which I was on. At the bottom of the email it said not to tell me because I wasn’t a branch worker. It also said not to mention it to her bosses. Unfortunately, the way the email system was set up, the team and branch managers were automatically cc’d on emails sent from her. She had no idea.

While I was not hurt at being sidelined for this event since I didn’t like that coworker anyway, her team manager was pissed. She then spent the next 3 weeks making all the admins miserable because she was excluded.

It’s great that these services have made it easier to keep in touch, to let friends know what’s going on, but for whatever reason people forget to filter. Maybe they forget that they’ve “friended” coworkers on these sites or perhaps they just have no idea that a coworker is following them on Twitter. All the same, when there’s a private event happening, I’ve never understood the need to share that information.

Even before the advent of social networking it was just awful not only to see friends feel down because they weren’t invited to things, but to hear of social events from friends that I was not invited to. What’s the point of sharing that? Or rather, why say, “We had so much fun at David’s house last night.” as opposed to saying, “Oh, we had dinner with friends.”

My husband and I know this group of people who have been friends with each other for a long time. They take trips to San Diego, Tahoe or Vegas together. They have never once invited us to go along. That doesn’t stop them from talking about it. And over the years, I wondered what was wrong with them they’d do that to someone. After awhile, I just stopped talking to them. To me, it was clear that we weren’t considered “real” friends.

During the holiday season & especially with so many people using Twitter and Facebook to update their statuses, it only makes sense that you don’t post, “Getting ready for dinner party @soandso’s house. I love my coworkers!” or “Last night’s party at @coworkers house was wonderful! Thanks for inviting us!” knowing full well that there were coworkers who were not in attendance or invited. After all, think of how you’d feel to learn you were excluded from an event.

Housing / Internet — Comments
11
Dec 09

Hmmmm…something smells

On Dec. 8th, I saw a listing on craigslist for a 3bd. home in Pasadena for $1050 a month. Sounds great, right? So, I emailed the listing asking when we can see the house. My husband, unbeknownst to me had made a phone call to the 626 number on the ad to ask the same thing. That was on Tuesday. That night, we decided since it was close by to drive by and look. There’s a sign outside, but it was obvious someone is living there, you know…since we could see them walking around inside the house. Today, I got this email:

Hello

Thanks for your response regarding your interest in having my house for rent.The house is much available for now and it a 3 bedroom home..I want you to know that i am the owner of this building situated at [redacted].But i am now presently in West Africa for my Hospitals Project prayer crusade with my wife and we have the keys right here with us.I will like to inform you that it was due to my transfer that makes us to leave the house and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own..So for now,We are here in West Africa,NIGERIA our new house and also with the keys of the house,we are trying to look for an agent that we can give this document before we left but could not see and we are as well as don’t want our house to be used any how in our absent that is why we took it along with us here..We are only willing to give the house out to a lovely and caring family only, so if you know you cannot give the house the neatness it deserves please don’t contact me.But if you promise to always take good care of the house,get back to me on how you could take care of our house or perhaps experience you have in renting a home.Hope you are okay with the monthly price of $1050 with hydro,heat laundry facilities,air-condition Etc.I am looking forward to hear from you ASAP,Our house number is[foreign phone number] OR [foreign phone number], below is the application form for you to fill and discuss on how to get the house for rent..

Kindly confirm your interest by filling the form below:

TENANT RENT APPLICATION
FIRST NAME: __________________
MIDDLE NAME: __________________
LAST NAME: __________________
PROFESSION: ________________
PHONE (____) __________ (CELL)
PHONE (____) __________ (WORK)
PHONE (____) __________ (HOME)
MARITAL STATUS: _________
KIDS _____ (YES/NO), HOW MANY ________
Home ADDRESS: ___________________________
CITY: _______________
STATE: ______________
ZIP CODE: ____________
HOW LONG? ___________IF RENTING
WHY ARE YOU LEAVING? _______________________________________________________________________
CURRENT RENT: _______
IF THIS House IS BEING GIVEN TO YOU,
HOW LONG DO YOU INTEND STAYING? ____________
WHEN DO YOU INTEND MOVING IN? ______________

Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my file incase of issuing the receipt for you and contacting you.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the key to you,please we are giving you all this base on t r ust and again i will want you to stick to your words,you know that,we do not see yet and only putting everything into Gods hand,so please do not let us down in this our property and God bless you more as you do this.

Regards…
[named]

Yeah…i think we’ll pass.

Entertainment / meme — Comments
10
Nov 09

Personality test

Thanks to Jandy’s pretty charts and my boredom, I caved and took the test even though I knew what it would say:

Their breakdown of what these mean:

Organized

You like to think a task through before you embark on it. If it’s the slightest bit complicated, you make a list (even if it’s only in your mind) and methodically work your way through it. When you have a goal in mind, you’re not satisfied until you reach it.You are not one of those people who ignore the details, and you don’t understand how anyone can get anything accomplished without thoughtful planning ahead of time.

Introspective

You like your own company; you’re a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you’re thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what’s going on in your mind is more compelling than what’s going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the “introspective” trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Aesthetic

You appreciate art, beauty, and design; you know that they are not superficial but absolutely crucial to living the good life. You have good taste, and you’re proud of it. Those with a high score on the “aesthetic” trait are often employed in literary or artistic professions, enjoy domestic activities — doing things around the house — and are enthusiastic about the arts, reading, and travel.You don’t think it’s pretentious to be moved by art and beauty. You’re not one of those who believe it doesn’t matter what something looks like as long as it does its job.

Intellectual

You are thoughtful, rational, and comfortable in the world of ideas. People find you interesting to talk to. You’re the living embodiment of the saying “You learn something new every day.” In general, those with a high score on the “intellectual” trait are employed in such fields as teaching and research, and are enthusiastic about reading, foreign films, and classical music.You do not avoid abstract conversation, experimenting with new ideas, or studying new things. It bores you to stick to the straight and narrow of what you already know.

Original

You are constantly coming up with new ideas. For you, the world as it exists is just a jumping-off place; what’s going on inside your mind is often more interesting than what’s going on outside.You don’t feel that the road to success is to be a realist and stick to the program; you never stop yourself from coming up with new ideas or telling the world what you’re thinking about.

Impassioned

You have strong opinions and high standards. When others let you down, you’re not opposed to giving them a piece of your mind, even if it sometimes mean hurting their feelings.You are not necessarily a “live and let live” kind of person. You don’t always make allowances for others’ incompetence or allow annoyances to wash over you. You don’t feel it’s your job to make everyone feel relaxed and comfortable regardless of whether they’ve earned it.

Innovative

You come up with a lot of ideas; if one doesn’t work out, there’s always another waiting in the wings. You often have interesting solutions to difficult problems. You’re practically a one-person brainstorming session.You are less interested changing the world than in dealing with things as they are. Unlike those who spend all their time trying to solve problems, you prefer to zero in on things that work and stick with them.

Creative

You are good at solving problems, coming up with original ideas, and seeing connections between things, connections that most other people miss. People with a high score on the “creative” trait often are employed in such fields as finance and scientific research, and enjoy avant garde and classical music as well as literary fiction and scholarly non-fiction.You do not shun abstractions and concepts in favor of the concrete and tangible.

Competent

You strive to master everything you undertake. You tend to learn quickly and do not shy away from challenges.You are not a “que sera sera” type of person, nor do you go easy on yourself when attempting to master a new skill or get a job done.

Astute

You are a quick study. You generally don’t need to have things explained to you more than once. When presented with a problem, you will often have an instant understanding of where to look for the solution.You do not take your sweet time when presented with a new task to complete or problem to solve. You don’t avoid assignments that require you to learn new skills.

Auto / Events / Southern California / Sports — Comments
7
Sep 09

NHRA Museum at the Fairplex

Did you know that there is an NHRA Museum on site at the Fairplex in Pomona? I didn’t. All these years and I had no idea. When we went to the LA County Fair on Saturday, we stumbled upon this place. It’s packed full of racing history. Admission was $1 for adults and frankly, should be more. The place is detailed in racing history, complete with roadsters, motorcycles and drag racers from the beginning of racing history on down to today.

Melrose Missle III

Helmets

Original Batmobile

Wally Parks

Bench with racing stickers

Engine

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