Keep avoiding AVG 8 at all costs!

August 13, 2008 – 12:29 am | Posted in whatev.. | Comments (0)

I’d like to revisit my original post, which became quite popular and even got comments from the people Grisoft. I was also contacted via email by these individuals who offered support and even gave me a 3-month trial for the network I was having problems with originally. So lets fast forward about 4 months, and what do we have now? A very unstable application that still crashes workstations and servers. I removed AVG from the network I had it on (about 15 workstations and 2 servers) and installed Avast!. No more issues since. No more random reboots and crashes, which are absolutely unacceptable in a production environment. Read More »

Iphone blogging

August 3, 2008 – 1:04 am | Posted in Ranting, just cuz | Tagged | Comments (0)

So I’m watching the new Mummy movie (as I type) but I’m so bored that I decided to try out the Wordpress app on my iPhone. This has to be the cheesiest movie I’ve seen in a very long time. All the cliches and corny lines you can imagine. On a separate note, I’m kind of getting the hang of the iPhone’s touch keyboard, it’s pretty good at predicting the words as I type them.

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Why I traded my Pantech Duo for 3G iPhone

July 24, 2008 – 1:03 am | Posted in Ranting, just cuz | Comments (1)

 

No more Pantech Duo

No more Pantech Duo

 

This post is in response to an older one I wrote back in January titled “Why I won’t trade my $99 Pantech Duo for an iPhone”. Well, I’ve done it, I bought an iPhone, although I haven’t received it, I reserved on at an at&t store, and I should have it in about a week. I refuse to stand in line for hours at an Apple store. I will address the reasons why I didn’t want one:

3G: Do I need to explain? The 3G iPhone has, uhhh, built-in 3G.

Real Keypad: Now that I’ve played with iPhone enough, I’m willing to trade the tactile response of an actual keyboard for screen real estate. I usually don’t type anything long on phones, 250 characters at the most, so I’d rather have a nice big screen to see web pages on and videos.

A2DP: I realized that I don’t even use 2nd earphone on my Voyager 855 that often. Listening to music via Bluetooth kills battery life, which I’ll need when I’m on the road all day long. If decide that I want to listen to music via Bluetooth, I’ll just get an adaptor.

Flexibility/Apps: With the advent of the App store and jailbraking, I’m pretty sure I’ll get the programs want/need on my iPhone. I just need Slingmedia to hurry up and launch their iPhone player ASAP!

Exchange: The 3G iPhone now syncs emails/calendar/tasks/contacts with Exchange. Sweet.

Tethering: Can be done with a jail-broken iPhone. 

Price: I sold my Pantech Duo on eBay for $200, minus shipping and charges, I’ll be down to about $185. I paid $215 of the iPhone, which means that I got the iPhone for $40 plus an extension of my contract. I already have a ton of minutes and unlimited data, so no worries there. I’m also pretty happy with at&t, never had a problem with them and coverage in LA is good. 

So there you have it. The iPhone now has all the features I want/need to have. I’ll report on using the actual device once, ummm, I receive it.

New Years Resolutions in July

July 19, 2008 – 10:38 pm | Posted in whatev.. | Comments (1)

I’m back in LA and hopefully I’ll keep the posts coming. Came back from my native Colombia a week ago, where I saw my family and friends, partied and drank in excess, and did a bit of design work. I also realized that I really need to get in shape, after seeing that my triglyceride levels were extremely high (704). The doc said I couldn’t have any carbs, AT ALL.  So I’ve been on the Atkin’s diet for a week now and I’ve been doing a bit of bike riding. I did about 4 miles today, which isn’t much, but seems like a lot of effort for someone who’s so out of shape like me.

Here’s what I did:


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I’m back to blogging

May 11, 2008 – 1:22 am | Posted in just cuz, personal | Tagged | Comments (0)

I’ve taken some time off from blogging, and it this time lots of things have happened. Read More »

Tethering a Windows Mobile to any OS

March 25, 2008 – 1:31 am | Posted in PC | Comments (2)
I love my Pantech Duo

I’ve gotten lots of questions regarding the tethering of a Windows Mobile phone to a PC. There are lots of tutorials out there but I will attempt to show you how to do it regardless of the operating system. I’ve tried it with a Pantech Duo and a BlackJack, and it will work as long as you can find the IntShrUI executable under the Windows folder of your phone. I will not get into specifics, but rather give a general outline of how it is done. Disclaimers: 1. Make sure you have an unlimited data plan. 2. For OSX and Linux, you need bluetooth connectivity, so if your computer doesn’t have built-in bluetooth, pick up a cheap USB dongle from your favorite store. Read More »

AVOID AVG 8.0 AT ALL COSTS!

February 29, 2008 – 11:35 am | Posted in Networking, PC, Ranting | Comments (30)

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I hate to use caps in a title, but this time I’m forced to. Whatever you do, avoid AVG 8.0 which was released yesterday (2/28/08) . For that matter, avoid AVG altogether. I installed AVG Antivirus Network Edition on all the workstations at a clients’ and everything started to crash. EVERYTHING! Servers and workstations. I can only blame myself for installing a brand new version without testing (bad, bad mistake). I’ve used AVG extensively in the past, and I’ve never encountered any problems. As a matter of fact, I prefered using AVG because of its easy to administrate (install, monitor and update all the clients from the server) and because of its small footprint on the systems. My second choise has always been Bitdefender, and only because it costs about twice as much as AVG, but now it is my only choice.

Again, avoid AVG 8.0, at least until they get their act together. I believe they rushed version 8.0 out the door and therefor delivered an extremely buggy program. I can’t trust company like this anymore. It was nice to know you, AVG.

Website Review: Jean Costa

February 26, 2008 – 3:18 am | Posted in reviews | Comments (1)

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In the spirit of attracting visitors to this website, I’ll review JeanCosta’s website, which in turn will (hopefully) result in a review of my site.

What’s JeanCosta.com about?

Jean Costa is a self-proclaimed “internet entrepreneur and college student”. He owns many domains and makes a profit from it (by the way, I’d love to see a post where he explains how he makes money from this, that is, if he isn’t revealing his secret formula). He blogs on numerous (mostly internet-related) subjects on a regular basis (a new post about every other day). Overall he has good grammar and his subjects are usually very interesting. I found his blog thanks to Entrecard, and the post that grasped my attention at first was one titled “Former Software Engineer”, where he describes how he decided to change career paths. Read More »

The best password-remembering tip you’ll ever encounter

February 26, 2008 – 1:27 am | Posted in whatev.. | Comments (67)

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I’ll admit it. I’ve used the same password for many of my online accounts, which is terribly dangerous in today’s online-driven society. I changed this unsafe practice by coming up with a very unique system and in this article I’ll show you how to create unique and easy-to-remember passwords for all your online needs.

Imagine for a second having the same password for all your accounts, and somehow (either using social engineering or other tactics, such as a key logger) someone gets a hold of it and has locked you out of everything. Your Gmail, your online banking accounts, your goDaddy account and your domains, etc. Now imagine trying to regain possession of all of these accounts. Surely, a nightmare. Read More »

What’s up with Paypal?

February 18, 2008 – 11:08 pm | Posted in Ranting | Comments (1)

 paypal

Ever since Paypal redesigned their whole interface I’ve been having all sorts of issues. First of all, it is almost impossible to change your address. In my case, I needed to add the apt/unit number on the second line of my address. I tried several times, after adding new credit cards/deleting credit cards, but nothing worked. I finally gave up and decided to contact support via phone. After being on hold for about 45 minutes, the service rep (with a very heavy Indian-accent) added my aptartment number.

The second issue I’ve had with them is trying to obtain another debit card. The last step on the website just takes you back to the main profile page. I contacted support via email, and 2 days later I was told that they had ordered the card manually for me, but it never arrived.

I came across these issues about 2 months ago, right after they added some web 2.0 spice, and they still haven’t been addressed. In my opinion, Paypal just jumped into the new interface without fully testing it, and they still haven’t fixed all the bugs. Rather disappointing for such a huge company (they’re owned by eBay,  after all).