Friday, April 23, 2010

Palm 755p reboots every time I access memos

I've had this one before, and last time I just re-installed the VZ updater for the Palm 755p.

But the Updater is a major process that requires a cable. Palm has not seen fit to release drivers that allow us to connect our 755p's to Vista 64bit using a USB cable.

So, what other options do we have, Scotty?

I dialed the Palm System Error Log number #*#377# and found that MemoMain.c was at fault, but I didn't know if the Memo database was corrupt or if the Memopad program was hosed.

I considered doing a hard reset, but instead I used the advice in this post: Treo 755p - suddenly resets when I try to open Memo, which was to delete "MemosDB-PMem" from the Internal memory space using the free FileZ Palm app.

It worked. Memos accessible, no rebooting. Vista 64bit to 755p connection problem workaround.

But it was late, and I skipped a step, which made a mess for me. I didn't set the Hotsync conduit for Memos to "Desktop overwrites handheld".

I lost all of my Memo categories and all my hundreds of Memos got dumped into one big pile on the 755p and the Desktop. Oh sheet! What a mess.

Now, I am not certain that if I had set the Hotsync to "Desktop overwrites handheld" that it wouldn't still have messed everything up, but it seems like it woulda helped.

Windows updates disable my Wifi

I have an Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN wireless card in my Laptop.

I just downloaded a big batch of Windows updates and when my computer rebooted I couldn't connect to the network. My Wifi card was disabled in the Device Manager.

What the heck is up with that? This is exactly why I hate applying Windows updates to my computers. They very frequently cause problems. But you need to get them to help protect your computer from security threats.

Luckily, and by pure chance, I had downloaded fresh drivers from the Intel site recently. So I ran the setup and my wireless came back.

One time I ran Windows update and it ruined Office. Which in turn ruined IE and Outlook. One of the Office files had gotten corrupted....ahh...this is one of those things I should have blogged about right after it happened.

I couldn't find my stupid office CD's to re-install. (Move several times, change computers, put your software in various boxes in storage, this is what happens) None of my friends or contacts had the same version of Office; I needed retail, they had business. So in order to get my computer back I ended up going to the torrent sites.

Computers suck. How is your avg person supposed to be able to deal with this kind of problem without paying for hours of tech support, or getting another retail copy?

Thursday, April 22, 2010

sufficiently advanced stupidity

While doing research on Google Apps for domains, I came across this repartee in a comment thread:

Evil?

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" ... or something equally non-evil.
Steve McLeod
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
@Steve McLeod

True, but sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Giles
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Gave me a chuckle.


Original post: Joel on Software: Don't ever use Google Apps for anything important

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Best Spam Comment Evar

I got this comment the other day:
Hey! I think about these things all the time for example if you bought land do you own it all the way to the core of the Earth? If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is it naked or homeless? Why is bread square but most sandvich meat round? I liked your site it gave me some more things to think about!
The commenter linked to some haxxor site in Russia...but, I give points for the use of actual funny, even if it was recycled.