CHRISdotTODD

Just a few nights back after work, following a fairly normal routine, I accepted the iTunes request for an update to 7.7. Upon completion and plugging in my iPhone, I was prompted to update the firmware to 2.0.1. Again, I accepted. During the middle of this process, iTunes crashed. Upon clearing the dialog boxes, iTunes restarted (my iPhone was still connected). Only this time, iTunes had nothing in it's library -- no music, no movies, no Podcasts -- nothing. And then looking at my iPhone, it was cycling between the Apple logo and an image of a USB plug and the iTunes logo -- my iPhone had become an iBrick. Wow! In a bit of shock, I tried closing and restarting iTunes, and I tried shutting down and restarting my iPhone. Neither one helped. Here I went from a few casual, routine updates to a lot of unplanned for, and really unnecessary rebuilding. First, i had to figure out how to un-brick my phone. The best I could come up with was some instructions posted on ...my first tech blog

photo courtesy of http://www.conniq.com I live in an apartment complex, and I have found that some folks leave their wireless routers open for anyone to join. In addition, for those that are "locked down," the default password was never changed. Why is this? Well networking computers used to be a difficult task, but with today's advanced routers and OSs, it's easy to setup your own network -- and cheap too. You can go down to your favorite "big box" retailer and for less than $50 pick up a fast wireless router. If you already have cable Internet access, just plug-in the router, and it works (DSL requires some configuration). Unfortunately for the non-geek crowd, they are leaving themselves open to anyone who wants to access their network and the computers that are connected to it. "How?" you might ask. First, go to Google and search on " router default passwords " and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky" (or click on "Google S

Dell recently release a report (30-Jun-08) on loss of laptops at airports, and a whopping 12,000 are lost every week. For class B airports such as LAX, JFK, Dulles, the average is 286 laptops per week per airport. In addition, over 50% of those surveyed said their laptop contained sensitive information. Sixty-five percent of the same survey group said they do not take any special precautions to protect their data. In addition, 42% of the respondents do not have their data backed up. What are you doing to protect your laptop and its data when you travel? Of course if you are a Dell customer, the now have some offerings to help address this problem. About.com offers 8 tips for travelers with laptops . The rules for inspecting your laptop when coming in and out of the country has recently changed too. Did you know that your laptop can be seized at the border for inspection for no reason at all? International travelers entering the United States face potential inspection and seizure of t

I recently found a chart that lists common electronic gear and the power and money spent while they sit idle. For plasma TV owners, you far outpace anything else at $160 / 1452.4 kwh annually ($0.11 p/ kilowatt hour). Many of these devices can be plugged into a power brick, and when not in use the brick can be turned off, therefore not consuming any power.

The Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, released an advisory on Thursday July 24, 2008, encouraging people to change the way they use cell phones as a precaution against cancer ( PDF ). Recently I have become aware of the growing body of literature linking long-term cell phone use to possible adverse health effects including cancer. Dr. Herberman in particular cites concerns over children using cell phones, "Do not allow children to use a cell phone, except for emergencies." This was the first item of 10 precautionary guidelines to help you reduce the possibility of cell phone induced cancer. Other guidelines include using a Bluetooth headset or speakerphone over putting the phone up to your ear. Also worth noting, as mentioned as guideline 10, different phones have varying power levels that affect how much radiation is absorbed by the body ( SAR ). Guideline 10 encourages users to use the lowest possible SAR rated phone you c

I haven't had to use MS Access in 7 or 8 years, so recently when I had to do some simple data conversion, it took me longer than it should to figure out how to best accomplish the task. I needed to run some reports against some Salesforce.com data, and the data set was too large for the built-in report tool to handle, so I decided to import the data into Access to perform the reporting. I quickly learned that the date/time format from Salesforce.com is not in the same format as Access. The solution is actually quite easy... transform the data when you import it. I began with my Salesforce.com data in the form of a CSV file (too big for Excel). Here are the steps I used: Link to the CSV data source Create a Make Table Query against the CSV datasource, selecting all data columns -- of course you only need to select the columns that you want to import Replace every date/time field with a forumla that parses the format and writes it in the format Access will accept. Salesforce.com fo

Here's a quick tip for cycling through Firefox 3 tabs using the keyboard: Hold the CTRL key and press Page Up (left) or Page Down (right)