I’ve been having a blast with my iPad 2. I hate to feel like I’m becoming and Apple fan, mainly because I was never crazy about Macs. I have to say though that this is a beautiful piece of hardware that will get a lot of use from me.

This is also coming from a Music Educator’s viewpoint. I found an app that teaches music theory and another app that shows rhythms and you have to tap them out on the screen. I think it’s amazing the kind of tools I have at my disposal now.

I probably will never get a Mac, but I have to say, I haven’t been in love with a piece of hardware in a very long time.

So I made a few cool new updates to the Guam College Books site:

• Auto Suggest
• Newsletters
• Recent Searches Cosmetics and Functaionality

Just in time for the semester too! http://www.guamcollegebooks.com

I just got an iPhone, contrary to me resisting Apple products. My whole professional life, I’ve been relying on Windows Mobile and Microsoft Outlook to keep my life organized, and it has been simple. Windows Mobile and Microsoft Outlook. Period.  So how does the iPhone measure up with keeping my life organized?

When I got the iPhone, the first thing I did was connect it to my computer and sync it with iTunes. To my liking, I found out that the iPhone plays rather nicely with Microsoft Outlook. It synced my contacts and calendar no problem. HOWEVER, the iPhone does NOT come with a Todo app. I was very disappointed.

Luckily, I found a TODO app on the App store, but it was $9.99! The hell… I tried the trial version and it helped me get organized a lot better than the simple todo list in Windows Mobile, so I thought, hey, that’s pretty worth it. I bought it.After I did, I set up sync and was so happy only to find out that it DOES NOT synchronize via cable, but WiFi.

Uh, when I had my WM6+Outlook connected to my computer, it was sync, WAM BAM, k unplug, and you’re all set. This whole App+WiFi sync added another layer of complexity to my syncing process.

I figure I’ve been wanting to ween myself into using more online apps (like Google), so I moved all my e-mail from POP3 to Gmail, and calendars and contacts to Google Apps. Unfortuantely, I needed to get a different app for everything.

So anyway, I went from this:

• Connect phone to pc, sync finished

To this:

• Calendar: CalenGoo App
  • PROS
    • auto-sync with Google Calendar on load flawlessly
    • Works flawlessly
  • CONS
    • Does not use iPhone’s native calendar app
  • Price: $6.99
• Contacts: Sync in a Blink App
  • PROS
    • sync with Google Contacts
    • Uses iPhone’s native contacts app
  • CONS
    • Buggy. Sync not always exact
    • You have to manually sync by opening the program.
  • Price: $4.99
• Todo: Todo App
  • PROS
    • Great app. Keeps you organized
    • Notifications are great
    • Better than any TODO method I have ever used
    • Syncs automatically upon opening.
  • CONS
    • Syncs via WIFI: INCONVENIENT
    • Syncs with Remember the Milk ($25/yr subscription required): EXPENSIVE WTF
  • Price: $9.99

So now I have three separate apps that sync differently with several different services. The iPhone sure is fun to use, and getting organized isn’t bad to begin with, but if you need to be really organized, you better be ready to fork out extra money to do so.

Am I doing it wrong? Is there an all-in-one solution? I found an App called Pocket Informant, but it was rather expensive and I had already bought all these other apps. Also, I looked at some screenshots and wasn’t too crazy about the interface.

The Dell XPS m1210 is a BEAUTIFUL machine. I think it’s the best laptop there is. It’s not too big, not too small, and has tons of processing power and of course, it looks and feels great.

Unfortunately, about a year ago, one of my friends (AHEM!!) put the laptop on a surface where it couldn’t ventilate and it overheated and couldn’t be turned on anymore.  After doing some research, I found out that the m1210 has a defect where it is VERY prone to GPU overheating!! … So i guess that didn’t help.

To make matters worse, the GPU is integrated on the motherboard, so to fix this thing would require an entire motherboard replacement. Screw that. I sold out most of the parts immediately: the motherboard, the keyboard, the ram, etc. Everything but the casing and screen, because I couldn’t sell them.

And thank God for that. Just a month ago, I had some money saved, so I did some research and found out that I could get this sucker back up and running if I spent about $300. I was thinking… That’s about the price of a netbook, and instead of getting a dinky little thing, I can get my awesomest laptop back!

So I bought a motherboard ($175), CPU ($75), 2gb ram ($40), keyboard ($15), and battery ($30). I was really scared though, because the motherboard came from China, so sometimes you never know what to expect.

I received everything and guess what? It didn’t work!! Man was I pissed. I spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong, but I figure either one of two things: I screwed up, or one of the parts was dysfunctional.  I only assumed it was the motherboard, so I furiously contacted the eBay seller and asked him WTF and wanted a replacement. After he agreed, I was taking apart my laptop once again to take out the motherboard to get it ready to send.

But, before I did that, I wanted to run a little experiment of my own. After doing some research, I found out that Rhea’s laptop (Dell Inspiron 6400) uses the same components as my m1210, so I asked her (very nicely) if I could take apart her baby. She reluctantly agreed, so I took out the CPU and RAM and everything and popped them into my m1210.

It worked!! I couldn’t believe it. After doing some troubleshooting, I concluded it was the CPU that wasn’t working. Good thing I make sure all these eBay sellers have a “working guaranteed” clause in their auctions because I got a refund, and after more buying and waiting, I put this sucker together and it works again!

It’s good to have you back

I’m on a programming high. I started programming today at around noon and I’m still going and it’s already 10pm. What I mostly worked on today is a barebones script… kind of like one you would find on Drupal, except I have to program everything by myself.

I should really start to learn how to use these other CMS’s one of these days to save myself a lot of time because so much time is wasted programming things over and over again. I actually created a library of functions several thousand lines long to help me with my programming. Maybe I’ll post up some of my libraries on here to see if anyone cares about them.

Anyway, in addition to the barebones, I’ve started working on a Guam Arts Calendar site. I’m hoping it will help raise awareness of the Fine Arts on Guam and most of all make it so that people can schedule their events without having to worry about overlapping.

That’s all for now!

Just finished Guam College Books site (thanks team DRT wuwu)! I’m still making a lot of changes but overall it’s functional and it’s been so much fun getting this thing off the ground. Here’s the URL:

http://www.guamcollegebooks.com

I also finished up the DRT website… at least a placeholder. You can check it out here:

http://www.drtguam.com

I’m going to play around with WordPress a lot more. It seems to be a really CMS. Plus I’m using it to create Senator B.J. Cruz’s website so I need all the help I can get to get this thing to work lulz