Tao’s Blog

Just came across this unofficail T610 website. I am going to accumulate more T610 sites in this blog entry.

Official T610 site

This is the T610 photography & community site.

myT610, a comprehensive T610 site.

Mobiledia T610 page

Phonescoop T610 page

Tao of Mac T610 page

Howard Forums Sony Ericsson

Porta Ludovica is a fan site of Umberto Eco, the famous Italian semiotician, and writer of several highly acclaimed novels and other academic works. On this site, a large amount of writings by or about Eco is presented, quite an amazing reading. I even plucked the site to my Palm Tungsten T2 so I can read on my daily commute.

Vegetal and mineral memory: The future of books is an interesting essey by Umberto Eco.

Believe it or not, cell phones are computers, so, like all computers, they do crash. Also, like all computers, you need to understand why it crashes, and when it crashes, so you can prevent it from crashing when you need it most. Of course, you also need to know how to solve the problem when it does crash.

I have a Sony Ericsson T610. It is quite a smart phone, with Bluetooth, Infrared, and serial port to communicate with a desktop or laptop computer, or a handheld computer, such as a Palm PDA. In September, I experienced several crashes of the T610, and I spent some time to figure out what’s going on with my gadget.

All the crashings happened when I was testing out the Bluetooth connectivity with my Palm Tungsten T2 PDA, and, during the exhaustive and demanding testing, an incoming call interrupted the testing. When the reception is not good–by the way, my carrier is T-Mobile, which is not renowned for its signal strength–the phone would either: 1. Crash, stopping responding to keyboard (or keypad), 2. blaring out high-pitch noises instead of human voice.

The solution: after extensive bluetoothing, turn off the cell phone, wait for 1 minute, then turn it on again. This will reset the operting software, rendering the system more stable. In those inauspicious situations when the T610 does crash, try to turn it off. If the phone would not listen to your keypad command and the on/off switch, the only solution is to take out the battery. I found out that it is not necessary to do a master reset, in most of the cases. Of course, because you can back up contact and other PIM information on desktop or PDA, you can easily restore you system even after a master reset.

I wrote some other T610 user experiences, to find them, search T610 in this blog.

Saffo’s law

Read about something about Saffo’s law. It states:

We tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short run, but underestimate it in the long run.

It is also called Amara’s law or Clarke’s law. Actually, it seems Amara’s law is more widely used.

Exif format

Exif file format is widely used in digital cameras. Here is a rather comprehensive reference site about this file format.

Index.dat files are big privacy problem for Windows operating systems. To remove them, you need to have administrative account and to re-start the computer in saft mode.

This link has the details.

After deleting those nasty index.dat files, use shutdown -r to re-start the machine.

Sometimes those mail-in rebates can be a real headache. Here are some general tips on how to proper handle those mail-in rebate situations:

Rebate tips from Wisconsin department of Consumer protection, it is a rather good guide line when dealing with mail-in rebates.

Federal Trade Commission Consumer page, and this PDF page discusses about rebates.

This is an ABC news report about mail-in rebates.

This news article reported the situation of CyberRebate, it doesn’t look good.

As a last resort, you can complain to Better Business Bureau. This is the New York Better Business Bureau.

Or, you can even file complaint to the Federal Trade Commission for alleged rebate fraud.

I enjoy listening to the radio since I was a kid in Wuhan, China. AM, FM, SW, then, finally, Internet. Since I got the cable modem broadband, Internet radio is just so easy and nice. I enjoy the following shows:

Leonard Lopate show

Fresh Air

Been there, done that

The Next Big Thing

On the Media

Studio 360

These stations I listen to regularly:

WNYC

NPR

BBC World Service

The Changing World (BBC)

This evening, I was browsing the net on my iMac with Mozilla 1.2.1. I was listening to an online radio show in the background with RealPlayer. While I was busy checking and filing the bookmarks, for some inexplicable reason, the browser crashed.

I restarted the machine, then Mozilla kept crashing. I restarted the machine for a couple of times. I didn’t know what’s wrong. The Mozilla recently behaved quite strangely, namely, it would not obey my order to display the toolbar with text only, instead, it obstinately showed the icon and the text. Maybe the preference file corrupted long ago, and I only discovered it today?

Anyway, I trashed the preference (or Application Registry) file of the Mozilla in my Documents folder. It looks ever since then, everything backed to normal again. I hope it would last.

The only catch: I must reset my preference manually again. Took about five minutes, no big deal. But I must re-file my bookmarks again, that’s one hour’s job. ARRRR!

Sunday evening, I was listenening to the radio. A rather interesting voice attracted my attention. “Hi, Dude … ” The tone sounded quite similar to the turtle in the animation movie Finding Nemo. It turned out to be a radio show about the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Today I listened the radio program again online, this is the show’s web site. The name Starbucks came from the book, it’s the name of the first mate on board the ship, Pequod.

I constantly put earphones into my ears. On my way to work, on my way home, while I am reading, while I am doing chores in the kitchen. So I when I read this poem by Michael Ryan, I feel it amusing and enjoy it very much. Here is the poem:

Earphones

by Michael Ryan

Autumn in our kitchen, hooked up
to a discman (Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin),
I become the music with earphones on:
no noise-as-usual inside my skull,
I can do things so the doing seems to be coming
from not-me, I am so expert and prolific
at rutabaga soup, peeling and chopping with such prowess,
spicing with panache, fussily tasting and adjusting,
even cleaning the pot and utensils, wiping the counter,
the sink, the cutting board – so happy, my darling,
that I despite myself have made something good for you
you will never have to suffer or work for,
Look, it’s waiting in your favorite blue bowl
with fresh bread and wine beside it.
Come, sit, my loveliness, my blessing:
Come, sit, and eat it with me.