The Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights - Final Year

This will the last year that Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studio will have the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, presented by Siemens. The over 5 million lights were turned on Friday, November 6, 2015 and will be turned off Sunday, January 3, 2016. Hollywood Studios will undergo some major enhancements as Disney takes away and adds new "lands" to this park, like Cars Land and Star Wars.

Another Desktop

My almost 5 year old laptop was slowing down. The last year or so I started recording and editing videos. The laptop just took too long to do all I need to create a finish product for upload to my Youtube account.

Worthwhile Dumpster Dive

My sister brought several of these home -- the speaker, not the player. I even like the blue. I wish she was able to get a couple more speakers, but they were all gone when she went back. If we had a couple more, then they would be put in other rooms and our Bluetooth devices that can tap into them.

Droid Incredible FINALLY Updated

After numerous tries the Verizon way and two tries the Android Forum way, I've finally been able to update my Droid Incredible phone with it's latest system update. Thanks to the people on the internet, not Verizon.

The Verizon way was to wait for them to push the update to your phone. If the update does not succeed, it puts you back on the queue for the next push wave. I got the push about 4 times. Once even when I was at Disneyland. None of those updates worked. First time was not enough storage. All the other times was a hung phone doing nothing.

Okay, I will not ding Verizon Customer Support on not helping as I did not bother calling them at all. I'm glad I didn't as reading the members who did call Verizon was unable to get help where the solution was not "Factory Reset".

I decided to seek my help on the internet as I seem to find many of my answers there. The members of the Android Forum gave me all the help I needed. I found them by searching for "droid incredible system update stalls".

It brought me to this 1st step in performing the system update:
Second GB Update/Patch Won't Reboot Issue - SOLVED!

Then I had to perform one of the steps in this post:
For those who want the second GB update/patch
I found that I needed to do Method III. In order to make the date stick, I chose the prior month of next year.

The bummer out of this process was that I needed to removed some apps, clear some data and cache in order to clear up storage that the phone supposedly needed and then repeat the steps above again. I guess I deleted enough to only repeat the above steps once more.

Crossing my fingers that this update clears up problems I've been having with the camera phone. Hope it's not the bigger storage card I installed. It now has a 16 gig card. The user manual said it could handle it. Hope it's not the new extra battery I'm carrying now in case I needed extra power while I was doing a mileage run.

Maybe it's telling me I should be looking at new smart phones as I'm up for freebie credit for new phone in 4 months.

Count Me In for the "No DRM" Camp

I never had problems with DRM (Digital Rights Management) ebooks.

I've been reading ebooks since 2005 when a co-worker showed me her Treo. I had a Sony Clie then, and they both had the same operating system -- Palm OS. 5 years of reading ebooks with no problem.

I started worrying when Palm decided to come out with a new operating system in 2009. Palm said new OS will still run old programs. This did not sound good. Hopefully, Palm or its software developers would come up with something better as I would not be changing my device for another year.

It's a year later. Palm is not doing good. It was being trounced by iPhone and new Android devices. Latest scoop, Palm has been acquired by HP. Who knows what's going to happen? No worries, I've jumped Palm ship. Instead of trusting Palm, I was hoping the owners of eReader and Mobipocket would come through with software on the Android platform. iPhone is not in my future because of carrier and poor NYC service area.

What really pushed me to not become a fan of DRM was the acquisition of an iPad last month. Yes, I wrote that I was not going to get one, but I have one. Since I had over 600 ebooks that were DRMed eReader (.pdb) and Mobipocket (.prc), I wanted the ability to read them on the iPad. I had to de-DRM the books in order to convert them into another format that could be used on the iPad.

After the iPad acquisition, I got a new phone -- an Android one. Mobipocket did not come through on Android. eReader did. Regardless of these two vendors, I was able to find a reader software that enabled me to read my DRM books -- iReader. I'll still be testing other software until I find one that I'm totally happy with.

Another ebook headache -- I've not been able to buy any books from my preferred vendor, Fictionwise. They are waiting for their distributor, Ingram, to iron out the agency-model pricing with the publishing houses. There goes the idea of acquiring books from a single place as I've not been able to buy a book for two months nor download some of my purchased books. In the meantime, I'm buying from other vendors. I still need to read and am no longer purchasing physical books.

Regardless, the books I buy belong to me. I do not want to be locked down on which device or format I'll be reading my books. Nor do I want a vendor to control where I get my books and where I can read them either. I'll be de-DRMing all my books so I can convert them into any format to read on any device I want.

This customer is QUEEN!

My new adventure is working with Calibre, library management software, to load and convert my ebooks that are constantly growing. I also need to figure out what device has what :)

iPad as an Ebook Reader

I was waiting for reviews about iPad, especially as an ebook reader device. After reading what these folks have to say, iPad will not be in my future.

Will Apple's iBookstore be Publishing's Waterloo
The iPad: A Hella Long Journal and Review
10 hours with the iPad: Why the iPad Is Not a Kindle Killer

I'm happy with the equipment I have now. The iPad, Kindle, Nook or Sony eReader does not offer me anything I need beyond what I have now. As I like traveling real light, my Palm Centro is my ebook reader device of choice. I am currently researching a possible replacement for the Palm Centro as there are new phone choices out there.

What are your thoughts about the iPad? Is it in your future?

PS3, A Cable and Netflix

Yes, I'm now own a PS3 Slim. I was always planning on getting one since I read it's a multipurpose machine. The Blu-Ray player cinched it. Then the streaming of Netflix nailed the coffin. I ordered my PS3 Netflix streaming disk to be ready and that came last week.

I was in no hurry to get a PS3 Slim until I found there was a discount on American Express' Membership Rewards. The points have been sitting there for many years. I got me my holiday present and my brother his birthday and holiday present. Poor SIL has to now find a different gift for him. He and I are very hard to get things for. If we want something, we go out and get it :)

FedEx delivered the PS3s yesterday. I opened up to retrieve the manual to read the setup requirements and what was provided. As I have a 1080p TV set, I knew I needed to get a HDMI cable for optimal resolution. I wanted to get the system all hooked up this weekend and was planning on heading to Radio Shack to get the cable. My brother happened to call and told me to go to Home Depot. The other places were highway robbers. I checked it out on the internet, and he was right. The prices are so drastically different from store prices. I headed to Home Depot and discovered they do not sell their lowest priced items in a store. $20 was still cheaper than the other places. I'm playing for store inventory and immediate satisfaction.

Hooked everything up, easy-peasy, and fed the Netflix disk. I can now watch many of the Netflix offerings. The only inconvenience is it is not constant streaming. The video is interrupted every 30 minutes or so while more is downloaded. Many intermissions. I've watched Passenger and Legend of the Seeker (Season 1). It's better than nothing. I'll be able to catch up on the series that have appeared on HBO and Showtime, like Tudors and Dexter.

I'm happy with my new toy. I now need to get a game to play on the PS3 :) Do you have any recommendations -- something along the lines of Mario Bros, Zelda, Tetris or Bejeweled?

Lightening the Load

I love the peeps that come up with great solutions.

The first set of wires are for my PDA. The second set of wires are for my phone. Both are used to recharge my gadgets and to synch it up with data on my laptop.

I just recently replaced all those wires with this set of gadgets. I can even get away with not carrying the AC plug. The USB cable and the two doohickeys will allow me to recharge my PDA and phone and also synch up with stuff from my laptop. What's not shown is also an attachment for a car charger. I'll have to remember to bring that with me when I head to Los Angeles.

Just like that. I carry the AC plug in case I don't want to pull out my laptop to recharge my phone.

Love GADGETS!!! I have a lighter load to carry and room to carry something else now

*VBG* New Toys

I love new toys. Pointy likes one of them.

When I was getting out of the dinosaur age and moving to DSL, my Bro said not to get wireless box as technology is not there yet to keep outsiders out of your stuff -- snoopers or people driving by looking for a connection. I got a wired DSL model and connected it to a hub so Pointy and I can be on at the same time. That means we're stuck in the living room and dining room. I always wanted to wire upstairs but that means pulling cable or running long wire all the way upstairs (not very good look). I solved my problem. I came across a Linksys system that uses some kind of signal. Plug one box into the hub. Plug the other box into your computer. Your computer can be anywhere in the house. Pointy loved it this Friday as she was able to do work-work in the kitchen. This is one toy. Good toy because I can go upstairs now.

My other toy came today. I'm all hooked and playing with it. It's a Graphire (the 4x5 one). It's a pen, mouse and tablet combo. It also comes with Adobe PhotoShop Elements 3.0, Corel Painter Essentials and Nik Color Efex Pro. Now, I can upgrade my Elements. Can't wait to see what I can do graphically with this. *rubbing hands together* Need to see if I can sneak in time between work. Oh what FUN!