Cristian0's Blog

ALTERRA Coffee does not even call to say thanks…

Cristian0 — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:48:18 +0000

One morning craving caffeine, I decided to try the coffee machine at the office because I was too lazy to brew some real coffee. This machine comes with little packages that you can just insert into the machine to brew the coffee of your choice. So, I figured I will try the Colombian, how bad could it be? It was not horrible but the geography on the cover shows all hope is lost for the education system in America.

The one on the left is correct but the one on the right has the North Pacific Ocean north of Panama and the Caribbean Sea in the middle of the Atlantic. I wrote a letter to point this out to ALTERRAcoffee.com and to tell them to put the Caribbean Sea where they had the North Pacific Ocean. I never heard back from them, but to my surprise a couple of months after my letter they actually fixed their packaging. I thought it was hilarious that they actually corrected it and I was kinda disappointed that they did not even sent me a thank you note or you know… a cup of coffee? :p

Zooming In

How to create a WP7 App – Hello World

Cristian0 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:18:22 +0000

Say NO to the SMS “Tax”

Cristian0 — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:39:46 +0000

As you may already know, the “evil” telecom companies want to squeeze every cent they can out of you by making up fees. SMS or Short Message Service is what is usually described as texting by your carrier. In the last decade before the explosion of smartphone, SMS used to fill a gap where there was little to no connection to the Internet. SMS functioned though SMS centers hence requiring its own infrastructure.

Nowadays, this is completely irrelevant as most smartphones typically use standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP. Meaning, if you have a smartphone, it is very likely you are being charged for something that should be covered by your data plan alone. Of course, I am not familiar with pricing from all cell phone companies; however, if you are on a “bundle” plan and texting is part of it, most likely they are just getting a bundle of money from you. Otherwise, if it is clearly spelled out as a separate fee, you might want to consider just not paying for it and using alternatives that require your data plan alone.

There are several apps out there, each one with its limitations, but with more features than SMS. So far, Kik is my favorite cross platform messaging app as it is free and it is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and WP7. The makers of Kik are currently being sued by RIM, the maker of BlackBerry Messenger, alleging Kik uses their notifications system for Delivered and Read messages. This feature is not available on SMS. BBM is a superior app as it provides several other features but it is only available for BlackBerries. GroupMe and Whatsapp are good ones too but they use your phone number as your ID and that might be inconvenient if you switch SIM Cards when traveling abroad or for other purposes. GroupMe also requires you to have SMS for activation so make sure you have not canceled SMS before setting it up.

Most platforms have apps for all popular IM clients such as AIM, Facebook Chat, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, etc. However, the obvious disadvantage is that they require you to be logged in to be able to receive messages. But, you will be able to text with people running it on their smartphones or computers. Of course, all of these apps have a couple of issues to overcome even though they provide more features than SMS will ever do. SMS is already installed on your phone and it is the only way to text people with Jitterbugs. So, tell your friends, tell your wife, that they all need to upgrade!

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respective trademark and copyright holders.

Why I got a Blackberry

Cristian0 — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:22:03 +0000

I recently acquired a Samsung Focus which is another run-of-the-mill phone with a full touch screen front that are supposed to be “innovative”. Who knows if the new iPhone 4S will redefine the type, that’s probably a matter of opinion. Anyway, the point I’m getting to is that I went from a BlackBerry Pearl to a Curve, to a Bold 9700 and finally to a WP7 Phone and somehow I miss my BlackBerry. I miss BBM, the longer battery life, message integration, switching languages on the fly, docks that don’t require pushing or pulling, one-handed operation, the security features as well as a full non-touch QWERTY keyboard. These are very resilient and durable devices. I left my Bold 9700 on top of my car and when I took a curve at 30 mph it went flying into a ditch. It has a couple of punctures and scratches on it but when I put the battery back in everything worked like a charm. I seriously doubt that would be the case with other types of smartphones. I believe in several areas the BB’s still can’t be beaten. If you’re a very social person and do lots of messaging and email. I don’t think the BB can come close to being beaten.

As you may know if you actually used one, Blackberries are way behind in the App department with their “developer unfriendly” OS, which is the root cause for the lack of Apps, plus their hardware and screen sizes don’t match up to the current Androids, iPhones, or WP7s, but they make up for it with their excellent messaging capabilities. Even then, you still have a great assortment of quality Apps such as KiK, Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursquare, Gwabbit, Poynt, Flixster, Google Apps, etc. I still would like a great Blackberry app for WeightWatchers though.

It seems like all the tech sites, from Engadget to CNet and everywhere between, are plastered with iPhone “news” each day and folks have to be jerks and crap on other peoples phones, that’s just the way it is. People calling carnage to RIM CEOs and their unconventional two CEO approach. Fact of the matter is that even basic Blackberries are very good communication devices for most people and let’s face it, unless you are a geek the vast majority of your time with your phone is e-mail/text and calling. They still have a big market share overseas, are making money, and have good chance at coming back with BBX and being able to run Android Apps.

The reason I bring this up is because it has become standard to just bad-mouth BlackBerries, and they’re somewhat shunned, which led to me trying out the “trendy” touch screen phones due to all the online reviews and talk, but in hindsight I would rather have a Bold 9900 because that better suits my needs.

Limit the number of items the user can select in a ListBox with JQuery

Cristian0 — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:40:41 +0000

This little script is able to grab all the listboxes on the page.
$(document).ready(function() { $("select").change(function() { if ($(this).find('option:selected').length > 5) { this.options[this.selectedIndex].selected = false; }; }); });

pretty sleek huh?

What to do with a small SSD?

Cristian0 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:54:17 +0000

As with most technologies, SSD is actually becoming affordable. There are several entry level drives that vary from $80 to $120 in price and 20GB to 60GB in size. However, I strongly advice to step it up to a bigger drive because you are going to run into several issues and annoyances if you go with a small capacity SSD.
First of all, since the drives are so small, the OS will most likely take half the space of the drive. You then install Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop, or any other big app that will benefit from the performance gains and you’ll start running out of space.
Putting media in a mechanical drive should go without saying. Then take a look at hibernation, if you are not on a laptop, you might want to consider disabling it. Hibernation uses an amount of space equivalent to the amount of RAM you have on your computer. 4GB is pretty common and 8GB is starting to become the norm, meaning that would be space you will have to live without. To disable it in Windows 7, open a command prompt and type

powercfg -h off
Next, if you already have something in place to regularly back up your computer, consider disabling system restore. Go to the Control Panel, select to view by Large Icons instead of Category, pick System, and then System Protection. There, you can click on the Configure button, and you will be able to disable System Restore for your booting drive.
After that there is Pagefile.sys, a file in Windows that acts as virtual memory. If you have a large amount of RAM, you can easily do away with this file, make it smaller, or move it to another drive. Simply, go to System again, click on Advance System Properties, in the Advanced tab, click on the performance section the settings button. That will open the Performance Options window where you should click on the Advance tab, then on the Change… button in the Virtual Memory Section. Some sources advocate these changes for small performance gains or to extend your drive’s life, but the jury is still out on that. For certain, they will save you space in your drive.

However, the latest intel chipset on the market, Z68, has a clever way to handle these small drives. It will allow you to use Smart Response Technology (aka SSD caching). It acts as cache for a mechanical drive. It will speed up your system automatically without having to deal with all the nuisance of a small SSD maintenance or SSDs in general.

Copyright 2011 Christian Rios

All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.

Who Is Who?

Cristian0 — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:18:36 +0000

A Project Manager is the one who thinks 9 women can deliver a baby in 1 month.
An Onsite Coordinator is the one who thinks 1 woman can deliver 9 babies in 1 month.
A Developer is the one who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver 1 baby.
A Marketing Manager/Requirements Person is the one who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no man and woman are available.
A Client is the one who doesn’t know why he wants a baby.
A Tester is the one who always tells his wife that this is not the right baby

Wordless Wednesday – Hometown

Cristian0 — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:18:03 +0000

Best Price to Perfomance Ratio PC for Summer 2011

Cristian0 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:07:09 +0000

This build is for people who want a good quality system but do not want to research the components themselves. There is nothing taken into consideration for future upgrades. This is a PC for 2 to 3 years that will perform well and play games decently.

I have decided to pick an Intel CPU since for most purposes it outperforms AMD and I like Z68 chipset features. As you may notice there is a small SSD drive on this build. This will allow you to use Smart Response Technology (aka SSD caching). It will speed up your system automatically without having to deal with all the nuisance of small SSD maintenance or SSDs in general.

I want to provide an overall great experience so I still want good quality on all components. There are plenty of areas where money can be saved like input devices but they make PC usage more enjoyable. Most people skimp on a good UPS but I strongly recommend getting one especially for areas with a lot of thunderstorms. It helps and increases your components’ lifetime. The whole enchilada comes down to about $1450.

Components list after the break:

CPU $219.99
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Motherboard $119.99
ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
RAM $35.99
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL
SSD $119.99
Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5″ 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
HDD $89.99
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Video Card $239.99 or $214.99 with Rebate
EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
PSU $94.99 or 79.99 after mail-in rebate card
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
Optical Drive $18.99
SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model SH-222AB – OEM
Case $89.98
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Heatsink $29.49
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 “Heatpipe Direct Contact” Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7
Monitor $149.99
ASUS VW224U Black 22″ 2ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor w/ HDCP Support 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 5000:1) Built in Speakers
UPS $84.99
APC BE650G 650 VA 390 Watts 8 Outlets UPS
Keyboard $39.99
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
Mouse $46.99
Logitech G500 10 Buttons Dual-mode Scroll Wheel USB Wired Laser 5700 dpi Gaming Mouse
Last but not least
OS $94.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit – OEM

The end of the Blockbuster era

Cristian0 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:11:53 +0000

For Lease or Sale

As you have probably already noticed if you are a baby boomer that still goes to Blockbuster, it has gone bankrupt. The franchise name was sold to Dish Network. We still don’t know what they are going to do with the brick and mortar stores, maybe sell you satellite dishes. They are, however, keeping the brand for online and mail-in rentals. It is sad though that growing up I used to go there with friends, sometimes just to socialize or talk about movies with people knowledgeable in the subject. You would get great recommendations especially from more mature people that could steer you away from “Glitter” or “Crossroads.” It was a place where you could buy snacks, walk around, and our movie hobby wouldn’t be just being a couch potato.

I miss these days, not to mention that streaming still has not caught up with physical media. No streaming option can match the quality of Blu-rays. Most are on par with DVDs, a more than a decade old standard. The Surround Sound and HD Audio availability is very limited. Streaming services have done a terrible job of providing Closed Captioning and their prices are quickly going up. Coincidentally, right after Blockbuster bit the dust, Netflix increased their prices to up to 60% to keep your previous plan, with little to no improvements to the service.

Video is going through many changes, just as audio did in the last decade. MP3s are not nearly the same quality as formats that did not prosper such as Super CD or DVD-Audio. Even though storage is very cheap nowadays, we have not even moved to slightly larger lossless codecs or uncompressed audio. I understand most people do not have equipment to appreciate the difference since iPods are the most common/convenient audio player out there. This leads me to believe that eventually great video quality is simply going the way of the Dodo (and Blockbuster). One day, I will tell stories to kids of how we had much better video and audio back in the day.

All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.