This Rant has been over a month in the “waiting” because I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. Pretty stupid of me, I know, but when dealing with a hardware vendor I do have an inexplicable large amount of patience when their products are defective. This is especially true when dealing with a brand new/1.0 product. So I’ve been waiting a month for D-Link to step up their support on their DWL-122 WiFi/USB and they’ve failed miserably – in fact, while I’ve been waiting for a new driver from them, I’ve discovered that their DBT-120 Bluetooth/USB adapter sucks almost as much!
Continue reading Test Drive: D-Link’s USB Products (They suck!)
Monthly Archives: August 2003
When?
When? Such a simple question, yet in this instance there seems to be no easy answer. Time is a tricky business but I’m only asking for a single point in time to be named for a very simple event. When? I ask it of a department of my state government – a learned group of people that are mathematical scholars and engineers – and these are the people to ask when concerning a question involving four dimensions; only scientists can truly appreciate the nuances of Time. When? I don’t ask it of historians because this question is about our present and eludes to the future; the past isn’t applicable to my question. My question is simple in nature but unanswerable in this reality: When can I drive on Interstate 95 without getting stopped in traffic?
Continue reading When?
SharpMT – 1.3 Release
Announcing the official release of SharpMT 1.3! The 1.3 version adds handful of new features to SharpMT, and again, they’re from user feedback: support for post dated posts, support for the WMP9 blogging plug-in, an enhanced Add URL’s link box, and a few UI changes. The important links to know about:
Product info: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/
FAQ: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt/faq.htm
Download: https://www.randyrants.com/sharpmt.exe
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.3 Release
Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Release
Announcing the official release of Pocket SharpMT 1.3! The 1.3 version is the initial release of Pocket SharpMT – despite of the 1.3 version number which keep in sync with SharpMT – so the FAQ is the best source of information about the features and version history. Pocket SharpMT was designed for Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003 devices – it requires the .NET Compact Framework to be installed (version 1.0 SP1) before it will install properly.
Continue reading Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Release
Last Call for Bugs
Time to put a milestone in the sand. I sorta see some online-ibus interuptus type events on my personal horizon and I didn’t want to leave either SharpMT or Pocket SharpMT in a state of disrepair. What started as couple of small bug fixes for SharpMT have evolved into some nice new features that I’d like to make permanent. Pocket SharpMT has gone though enough paces and testing (by users mostly) to be launched as an initial release. I don’t know of any outstanding bugs at this time; if you found something that broke either application, please let me know – otherwise I’m going to kick both these out the door and take a small break for offline pursuits (as well as some planning for a 1.5 or 2.0 version of both applications!) Thanks for the ongoing support!
New Sections
I’ve added two new sections to the site, as this “thing of mine” seems to keep on growing every week. I’ve added a software section for both SharpMT’s, the RantsTab, and a few other tools that I’ve “saved” from my shareware company which is now closed. As most of these donation-ware applications tell you to look at this site for more information, I’ve added a donations page to help that process along. Otherwise, it’s business – or un-business – as usual!
Public Wi-Fi in a Death Spiral
From the FurryGoat: I do agree with the basic fact that I’m not going to go to McDonald’s specify to find a hotspot, but don’t try to sell me that GRPS will beat it out – it’s just to damn slow. It’s not about where the connection is located, but rather the convenience of connectivity. That’s not the half of it, m’boy!
Continue reading Public Wi-Fi in a Death Spiral
SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 3
Another feature added! There’s now a new tab on the Add URL dialog called Favorites. On this tab you’ll find a list of bookmarks that your have on you Favorites menu in Windows/IE. If you select a URL from this list it will be added into your Draft. Download 1.3 Beta 3 here and read the updated FAQ.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 3
Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 7
Only a small change for Beta 7: The Add URL dialog now supports the title attribute for the Anchor tag. If left blank you’ll see no difference; if filled in, a title=”text” will appear in the inserted URL. If you’re on a PC download 1.3 Beta 7 here or read the FAQ. On a PIE, download the CAB file here: ARM.
SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 2
Gotta love having downtime and not losing power at the same time – at least I think ya do… two neat things, two changes, and one bug fix for this release. Download 1.3 Beta 2 here and read the updated FAQ.
Continue reading SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 2
Drive-Thru Horror Story, Part 2
I understand why people like to use the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant. Even though it promotes laziness, it is a convenience, especially on a rainy day. (Remember that east coast people melt when they get wet so we avoid the rain at all costs – I learned how to not melt from my trips to Seattle and I thank the ppl there for that.) I also understand that sometimes the drive-thru can be a necessity, too… especially at a Dunkin’ Donuts. After all, if you’ve been there enough and are now so fat that you can’t get your butt checks off the driver’s seat or if you’ve opted to sue the food chain for “making” you obese [crock of shit!] and can’t be seen getting a 12-pack of chocolate frosted before your court hearing. Of course none of this makes up for the fuckhead in a drive-thru line that causes a ten minute wait to get coffee.
Continue reading Drive-Thru Horror Story, Part 2
Blackout!
Ironically, my piss ant, bass-ackwards, small town is just beyond the eastern most edge of this massive blackout that has sacked towns from Detroit, MI to Fairfield County, CT to Toronto, Canada. My parents have no power and they’re only 5 or 6 miles away. There are Metro-North trains that I would ordinarily be on that have been stranded between stations for hours. Radio and TV stations are off the air all over western CT and parts of NY. New York City has people clogging the streets as they walk out of MTA terminals, leaving stuck subway trains behind. As near as I can tell this is the first mass blackout since some time in the late 70’s but my mother likens this to the “blackout of 1965” – either way it’s a major outage and I still have power… scary.
Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 6
More subtle changes for Pocket SharpMT while the socket disconnects get looked at. Pocket #MT can now insert information from the Contacts data store and the “Add URL” dialog now returns focus to the control that last had it. The only other change is that I’m no longer including SH3 and MIPS CABs as I hear that only ARM chips are included in Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003 devices. If you’re on a PC download 1.3 Beta 6 here or read the FAQ. On a PIE, download the CAB file here: ARM.
Continue reading Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 6
Santi: Memoirs of an Italian Geek
A new Geek book has been released: Memoirs of an Italian Geek by R. L. Santi. I’m told it will show up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble but right now it’s available here in paperback thanks to iUniverse. Call me biased but I thought it might interest a number of the readers here – the majority of you are just as much a Geek as I am.
Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 5
I think I’ve come to terms with the connection/hanging problems and wanted to get it out there so this got released quickly – this is the last bug to disappear before I kick both 1.3’s out the door. I’m hoping that these fixes take care of the hanging-while-posting bug and the missing-assembly-bug but there’s a trade off for it… on a PC download 1.3 Beta 5 here or read the FAQ. On a PIE, download the cab here: ARM.
Continue reading Pocket SharpMT – 1.3 Beta 5