For those that visit frequently you’ll see a new look to the site. I figured it was time for a change. Hopefully everything works okay. I also finally installed a spam blocker so now I wont need to spend so much time reviewing every comment posting and deleting 99.9% of them.

I recently uploaded all the pictures I took from the last Vegas trip. I have some videos I posted on You Tube as well.

Some other things to note, we picked up a new car, not unlike my old…um…current car. Okay, so if you aren’t aware I have way too many cars. One of which is a 2006 VW Passat. I leased it, the lease is coming up and we wanted to get Renee a car. After shopping around we actually though about buying out the Passat, but the residual is too high compared to market value. However, we stumbled upon a great deal and a great sales experience with Emich VW. We ended up getting a 2008 VW Passat, same exterior color of Deep Black but this time the interior color is classic grey. It has resulted in great confusion for the dog, but he’ll get over it.

The Scout will be done soon. I dropped it off in Penrose, CO back in early December 2007 to have some work done on it. When I get it back I will do a more formal post with what has been going on, but I got some more pictures today and it looks great. Once I get it back we well be heading to Rocky Mountain International Harvester Rendezvous. After that I need to finish up a couple items then get it into paint. I am still deciding on color(s) but I think I have it figured out. I think.

Lastly, well, I can’t think of a whole lot. We went to a party for a little bit on the 4th then met up with my parents to go watch fireworks. It was a great show, we sat really close to where they were being launched so it was really exciting.

I hope everyone is having a good summer and as I always say, lets get together soon!

I have been a netflix customer on and off since 2002ish. I typically shut it off in the late Spring through Fall and rejoin in late Fall early Winter when I have time to set aside to watch movies. I also often canceled because, well, movies would just sit around unwatched, or I’d be ready to watch one but it was the in between day waiting, or maybe I didn’t feel like watching what we had received.

Right around the time I canceled last, which I believe was about a year or so ago, Netflix had rolled out their instant movie access where you can just stream the movie. I think it’s a great idea of course, but frankly, I don’t want to sit in front of my PC to watch a movie.

Anyway, I let time roll by, we got a couple LCD HD TVs and then I needed to decide if I wanted to splurge and upgrade my cable to get some movie channels or to restart with Netflix. I despise the rates Comcast charges for cable, it amounts to robbery in my opinion. I don’t believe there is a meeting place of getting what you pay for. I would pay a certain rate for a la carte choices, someday…someday. So I choise to spend the extra ~$20/month with Netflix instead of Comcast because I could pick and choose my movies, still see new releases and all that.

Now a month and a half back into having Netflix again I find myself a bit in my old ways. We have two movies I have been sitting on for two weeks and one I keep forgetting to put in the mail. So last night I said, lets see if we can hook the laptop up and try an online movie. So I rooted around some old boxes for a video cable. I knew somewhere I had one for the LCD monitor in my office. I use the digital cable for it so the regular video cable was stashed.

Once I located the cable I tried connecting the laptop to the TV, I kept getting a message that the video source was unsupported. Tried Renee’s work laptop and it worked, but no audio on that puppy. Then I realized it was a resolution issue with the lappy and the TV, made some adjustments and it worked. Sweet! Uh, well now we have video and sound, but the sound is from the laptop. Back to my boxes, I know I have at least one of those little headphone jack to RCA cables somewhere, it is about 10 to 15 years old, but have it. Luckily, I was able to locate it much quicker than the VGA cable.

Connected the RCA’s to the PC Audio in on the TV and now we had sound and video. Now the TV is about 6 - 10ft away depending where you are sitting. The laptop is sitting right next to the TV and I am lazy as shit. So I use the lappy to log onto Netflix and try using the wireless mouse, woo hoo! It works from across the room. So now we are able to use the laptop, no keyboard, but that’s fine. Since we were testing this out I knew there were some movies in my queue that were good for instant watching.

We chose Stephen King’s Cats Eye, hadn’t seen it in probably 15 or so years. Was very cool to be able to do this, the quality was great and we were very excited. So today after doing some work and playing with the dog we watched another. This time the quality was not so good, looked like a typical downloaded movie, but still nice to be able to watch this way. Now we are eager to watch some old TV shows and movies.

I know there are no new releases this way, but I think it’s a great way tp catch up on TV shows, and to watch some of those older movies I really enjoy.

I have been so frustrated with T-mobile and other carriers locking down their phones. Now I understand that getting a subsidized phone has some implications, but limiting applications on the phone is a joke.

You save like $100 - $200 per phone to do a contract with a carrier and they block the best features of the phone.

I have a Nokia 5300 (XPressMusic), it is a good phone, when i got it my requirement was email. My old “smartphone” had email built in, I liked being able to take a picture and email it to a friend or myself.

After getting the phone I couldn’t figure out how to email, the sales guy assured me I had the capability. We travelled, 30 days passed, still no luck. It turns out oh yeah you have email, but you have to log into T-Mobile’s stupid tZones and use their web like interface. I was FURIOUS! I demanded a return (politely) and they said as long as it’s been less than 30 days…sigh.

This was Spring of last year, so with recovering from my illness and surgery and all that I just didn’t want to deal with it. Fast forward to Fall and I was getting antsy. I hate the wap browser, I want more. I want opera mini. Well too bad, T-mobile blocks all network accessing apps. Now I understand their argument, if everyone had access it could cripple the network. For the most part people aren’t going to use it all the time.

I had been searching high and low for 1) unlocking and 2) how to get around this block.

In the end, 1 is easy, call t-mobile, they will give you an unlock code. I still have yet to do this, but since I am not switching anytime soon, I’m in no rush. And since unlocking does not fix the bigger problem I could care less. Item 2, well as of about Sept/Oct 2007 I could find nothing. Lots of companies promising, oh yeah, send me your phone, for $50 we can do it.

I didn’t trust them. So now I start getting antsy again after being in Vegas and taking forever trying to use tzones and the stupid built in web browser. I just give up trying to get the details I want.

I started searching again, stumbled along a lot of the same frustrations. I was about to give in and pay $450 for an unlocked iPhone when I stumbled on a youtube video showing how to unbrand the phone. It included text instructions and links to everything needed. In reality, there was just one app I needed to download because I had the others (came with the phone, Nokia software).

I basically needed to backup my important shit, then run this app, click a few things, change a code, click a few things and BAM, my phone no longer is restricted by the powers of tmobile. It unlocks features I shouldn’t have like push to talk, don’t worry T-mobile doesn’t support it (yet) so it wont work.

Now I am able to install opera mini and use it. It took a bit of fooling around to get opera to actually work. I got it working, then just as stupidly as I got it working I made it stop working. I fooled around some more and realized what I did to get it working and it works again.

I did this not to try and “beat the man” or rip off anyone. I just wanted what I feel like I paid for and was promised. I also want to be able to use the web in a somewhat normal manner. The opera browser has cool features and I can user things like Mobile Google and all that now.

So what about email Jay? Well, sadly I still can’t seem to get it to work. Here is a link to my phone on Amazon (mine is black), notice one of the features is Email (POP3). So why the f can’t I get it to work! At least now I can download and install an email client if need be. One of these day’s I’ll figure it out.

Keep in mind this “unbranding” as far as I know is only for Nokia and if you try it, it’s at your own risk. I take no responsibility for your actions.