"the GEEK corner on the web"
Archive for July, 2011
MS-DOS turns 30 Years Old Today!
Jul 27th
On July 27, 1981, Microsoft purchased QDOS from Seattle Computer Products. It was a great deal.
When IBM came to Microsoft asking for a 16-bit operating system, the company had to scramble to get one together. Rather than writing a new one from the ground up, it turned to Seattle Computer Products and its existing 86-DOS (aka QDOS), and bought a non-exclusive license for $25,000. The next Spring, in May 1981, it hired away the program’s author, programmer Tim Paterson. And then, on July 27, it paid another $50,000 for all rights. A month later, it was shipping on IBM personal computers, and eventually turned Bill Gates and Paul Allen into two of the world’s richest men.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Your Way To a Faster Computer
Jul 20th
(from Gizmodo) — Bet you didn’t know that half the files on your computer have not been used since the day they were created. And the answer to getting rid of them efficiently can be found in your garbage can.
According to researchers from Johns Hopkins, you don’t need some fancy computer file management tool. You just need some good, old-fashioned help from the waste management industry. Folks that work with garbage know how to sort through piles of trash and keep the good, discard the bad and reuse what they can.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins believe this is the model people should use when managing their computer. Computer owners should dispose, recover, recycle, reuse and reduce their files until they have minimal waste. Getting rid of this digital waste is not only liberating, it’s good for your overstressed, overfilled computer, too.
Custom GSXR Built in Central New York
Jul 13th
Located in North Syracuse a friend of mine had the opportunity to work on this bike. These pictures are the proof of all his hard work.
Visual Voicemail (VVM) not working on your EVO?
Jul 5th
(SOLVED) Read On…
So I realized this past week that I was not getting my Visual Voicemail at all but instead I was getting a TEXT telling me to call my voice mail. Owning and paying for an EVO you expect things to work. I do not get that many messages so you can see why it took me a while to figure out there was a problem. I started to think that this was happening because of the Android Gingerbread update to my EVO.
So the first thing that I do is I start checking the Internet for posts and articles indicating the same issue. So many were found but they all said the same thing.
- Go into your VVM on your phone.
- Press MENU… Compose
- Where it lists To: activate@vvm.sprint.com then record.
- Hit Stop and then Send.
Then I wait for the messages to flood in… both of them. But nothing happened
Next I see to go to Manage Applications in System settings and clear the data.
This looked and acted like it was doing something but again nothing happened.
So I spend a good 2 hours on (and off) the phone with Sprint resetting this and that. After about 4 calls and constantly removing my battery they tell me that have no idea and have to put in a ticket. So now I wait for a call back in the next 48 to 72 hours.
Happy 4th I get a call back from Sprint and we try more of the same. Still not working so they need to escalate it to their network team. Again I am in a holding pattern to see if the “professionals” can help me.
Today I “Google” the issue again and find a post that I did not see before. I found a post on a blog in 2007 regarding the Handcent program causing a conflict when set as default. I unchecked that option, restarted my phone and just got ALL my old messages. Look at that it’s all better now and before a call back from Sprint.
My frustration is this. Clearly this is an old issue and it looks like so many others are having this same challenge so why did Sprint never ask me to look at this one basic setting? I do not want to blame any one person for the drop in communication but I would think that this information would be accessible by the Sprint team in charge of these types of things.
This may not work for everyone but it did work for me!