9/11 Profiteering...

Our world is so messed up. Blaming the WTC attacks (euphemistically "September 11th" or "9/11") for bogus fees. This quote when looking up airfare prices to Merced, CA:

"Airfares displayed include departure tax but do not include segment taxes, Airport Passenger Facility Charges, or the September 11th security fee."

Seriously - "the September 11th security fee" - it's just another bogus fee with a name designed to make people not dare complain for fear of being viewed as supporting terrorism or something.

This is from the website of Great Lakes Airlines for the curious. I'm sick of 9/11 this and that in fear mongering. I'm sick of FOX News calling Park 51 the "9/11 mosque" and the "ground zero mosque" (it has nothing to do with 9/11 other than having a memorial in it, mot of the building is not a mosque, and it's not at ground zero). I'm sick of police and mall security and loss prevention rent-a-cops claiming 9/11 as if it's some magic ticket to do whatever they want. I'm sick of the idea that it's ok to write a massive, unconstitutional anti-American bill and pass it into law by calling it the USA PATRIOT Act.

After all, no one wants to be unpatriotic, right? But maybe the most patriotic thing we can do is to return to... life as normal. And the Constitution this great nation was founded on.

Alltel to AT&T

In an Alltel market becoming AT&T? The phone pre-selection site for your free new phone is now live:

http://www.att.com/choosemyphone/

In my market (Kalispell, Montana) I can't get in until the 16th though...

Rooting the Alltel CDMA HTC Hero

[UPDATE - I've noticed some stability issues. I have disabled JIT to see what happens as I've been reading this phone may not have enough memory to JIT properly. It's still MUCH faster than the stock ROM, even without JIT]

These instructions are for the *CDMA* HTC Hero and I tested on an Alltel Hero. The Cyanogenmod ROM I'm using is Sprint branded, which is a cosmetic thing. The MMS fix linked is for Alltel MMS settings, don't use it with a Sprint (or other CDMA) Hero!

*WARNING - I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT MAY RESULT TO YOUR PHONE OR DATA LOSS FROM THIS PROCEDURE. IT *WILL VOID* YOUR WARRANTY. DON'T BOTHER GOING TO ALLTEL OR HTC FOR ANY HELP - READ THE DISCLAIMER THE MOMENT YOU CLICK ALLOW UNKNOWN SOURCES. THESE STEPS WORKED FOR ME, THEY MAY NOT FOR YOU!*

Step One - FULLY charge your phone. This is probably the biggest risk for phone damage - battery death during the flash.

Step Two - In settings - Applications on your phone enable "Unknown Sources"

Step Three - Copy the files available at the following URLs to the root folder of your SD Card:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7964286&postcount=171
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/files/file/127-google-addon-mdpi-20100917/
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/files/file/129-update-cm-600-heroc-signedzip/

Step Four - Open the Android browser and navigate to this URL:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8699733/heroroot010.apk

Download, install, launch, read disclaimer, press button. Unplug phone from charger. Turn phone off. Turn phone on. Turn phone back off.

Step Five - Hold volume down while pressing power, push the HOME button to select recovery, wait for phone to reboot into Darchstar's recovery

Step Six - Backup/Restore, Nand backup, and confirm

Step Seven - Press back, Wipe, Wipe data/factory reset and confirm

Step Eight - Back, flash zip from sdcard, flash the CM 6.0.0, then repeat to flash the google add-on, and finally repeat to flash the MMS fix

Step Nine - Reboot system now and wait

Step Ten - Go into ROM Manager and fix permissions

Step Eleven (NOT required but I recommend for speed) - Go into cyanogen mod settings, performance, ignore the dragons and enable JIT

Step Twelve - Reboot and enjoy!

My thoughts on hatred

Video explains it all (my first vlog!):

Qur'an Burning Madness!

I do not understand the madness around either the "ground zero mosque" or the Qur'an burning. First, Park 51 is an Islamic community center being built several blocks from ground zero. Do I agree with them? Of course not, I'm a Christian. I believe in the Bible. I do not AGREE with them. But I'm proud to live in America where we all have the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. I pray for them. I pray that they would see the love of Christ and the truth of His divinity and the good news of His death on the cross for our sins.

I also do not AGREE with Pastor Jones. Book burnings have always struck me as the silliest form of protest. You're BUYING a product (thus, supporting it) to express your dislike for it. It's like Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) said regarding a "boycott" of their show they once saw. Penn & Teller did a show about chiropractors and called chiropractic "bullsh*t." Which, even if they're totally wrong, is their free speech right. Penn found the reaction of the chiropractors funny. A large group of chiropractors went to their show to tell them that they were boycotting them. Penn said "that's not a boycott, that's supporting us!" He pointed out that they could've gone to talk to them afterwards without buying tickets (which are $50-$100 apiece) to the show.

I also think that in a country with freedom of religion it's quite disrespectful to burn another religion's holy book. However, one radical pastor burning some Qur'ans is not newsworthy. We're all offended all the time and everyone is giving pastor Jones what he wants - national media attention and shock value. Burn a Bible, and no one will care. Why? Because, while offensive, that's what free speech is about - and Christians have (in general) long respected the free speech rights of others. Until now, when many Christians are opposing the free speech rights of Park 51, and many Muslims are opposing the free speech rights of pastor Jones.

So, to Park 51 and to pastor Jones - welcome to America. You both have the right to offend each other, and neither of you has any right not to be offended.

P.S. All this hype is about a man who certainly appears more than a little out of it... watch this video:

Google Instant

First, a funny video that's also a good demo of Google Instant:



Now, for my only problem with Google Instant. More often than not it DOES NOT WORK, at least yet. I have NEVER seen it in Google Chrome (now, I am using the Dev channel release of Google Chrome 7 [a pre-beta meant for developers to preview the latest web technology], and Google only says it works in Chrome 5 and 6. But if it doesn't work in their web developer release of Google Chrome, well that's just bad news... who want it MORE?). I saw it in Safari a couple times on release day and then not again until today. When it works, it works great and is wonderful. But seriously. Get it consistent - there every time - in Safari; and get it into the developer release of Google Chrome. Yesterday, please.

Wonderful product, released before it was quite fully baked.

[UPDATE - Now it works in the Google Chrome dev release]

[UPDATE 2 - The problem is my Google Account - it works in the dev release - if I'm in an incognito window, thus not signed into my account. Google isn't letting my account use Google Instant it would appear. Boo that.]

[UPDATE 3 - Signing in while in incognito mode made it work... so I cleared all browsing data and now I have Google Instant in my account in Chrome... still need to bake things a little Google, but it's working great for me now!]

Impossibly Bad Windows Phone 7 Ad...

Wow, Microsoft couldn't have made a worse ad than this:



Seriously, what on earth were they thinking. This ad for Windows Phone 7 is as bad as I expect Windows Phone 7 itself to be. Microsoft's getting rid of the few advantages Windows Phone had - like multitasking. Seriously. Android, Symbian, Windows Phone 6.5, and even the new iOS 4 support multitasking. Why is Microsoft going backwards? Windows Phone 7 was previewed with the horrendous Kin and it's like Microsoft is trying to release products so bad they go under...

There's plenty of great Android devices available today. If you buy one through the AmazonWireless banner below, you'll help to support this site and make it possible - and you'll get a fantastic price!

Google Instant

I don't have a whole lot of time to write about it right now, but the new Google Instant is pretty sweet. Still not available to everyone - or in iGoogle, unfortunately - but it works extremely well. It makes searching the web much, much faster. It's not a "change the world" thing, but it's a huge help.

Why? Not because you get your first results faster - but because you can see the changed results as you type. So you can do several search queries to find what you're looking VERY quickly. It won't change the world... but it's a nice little productivity boost!

The New iPod Touch - Why No Still Images

Apple really knows how to get people excited then break it. They're adding HDR photography to iOS... THAT is an exciting feature. They're adding a camera to the iPod Touch (two actually). But, in the ultimate of cruel irony - they're not allowing the use of the camera for still photography (or at least that was a feature not mentioned). Boo that. Even if it isn't iPhone quality, being able to take still images of typical cell phone quality with the added benefit of HDR would be amazing!