Getting Ready - Part 8

Lately I have been trying to figure out what cell phone and cell phone service provider to get. I’m about ready to make that purchase so I can learn how to use the phone and let people know my new contact number. Then I can cancel my land line service and DSL. I don’t like paying for duplicate services. I just canceled my cable TV service yesterday.

I had decided to get Verizon and a Motorola e815 cell phone. The e815 has been out for about two years and I guess it’s getting to be old technology because when I decided to go ahead and order it, it is no longer available. The reason I wanted that phone is because it has Bluetooth and can be used as a modem wirelessly for the Vaio. As ordered from Verizon, that function is disabled because Verizon wants the user to use their data plan at around $80 per month. However, dialup can be re-activated by hacking the phone and that information is out there on the internet. Verizon has also disabled wireless Bluetooth data transfers between the phone and a Bluetooth computer. But that can be re-activated with hacking also. Verizon wants users to pay for ring tones. With data transfer, ring tones, photos, etc. can be easily transferred back and forth between the phone and computer. I really don’t foresee installing my own ring tones but I do think I would want to wirelessly synch my contacts information in Outlook 2003 on the Vaio. So since that phone is no longer available, I am trying to figure out which of the newer phones that are available that can be used as a modem and allow data transfers without a USB cable. Some of the phone/pseudo PDAs like the Motorola Q or the Samsung SCH-i730 might work but I don’t really want or need all the PDA like capabilities and don’t want to pay for it. So it’s back to researching phones and cell phone technology. Does anyone have any comments on what phone and service to get?

We lowered the asking price for the house last Friday to $489 K. There have been three visits from real estate agents and clients since then. After paying $300 for the Air Medic ozone treatment to get rid of cigarette smell, my agent says she can still smell it so she called the Air Medic guy and he came out again yesterday with some heavy duty air freshener fogging machine. I’ll probably see him again because he left some equipment of his (by mistake). All this concern about cigarette smoke brings out the rebel in me and makes me want to smoke more.

Since I can’t smoke in the house anymore, I have been hanging in the rig most of the time so now it smells of smoke. I guess I should really quit sometime soon. There is a channel on DirecTV called IFC that has some good movies with no commercials so I have been watching some movies in the evenings. I recorded a 1994 Pink Floyd concert “Pulse” that played on the local PBS station. I had to go through some contortions though to edit the recording to remove the PBS pledge breaks. The Media Center OS records in a format called DVR-MS which is essentially MPEG 2 with some enhancements mainly to protect copyrights. It took some time and research to learn how to edit the file. I have NeroVision Express 6 which would read DVR-MS and write MPEG 2 files with editing but the resulting file was in 16.9 format instead of 4.3 format resulting in a flattened image (circles became oblong). So I finally found a free utility on line that would read DVR-MS and write MPEG 2 files but without editing. NeroVision choked when I then tried to edit the MPEG 2 file (I think it was a memory problem since the file was over 2 gigs). So then I discovered one of the Sony utilities included on the Vaio called “DVgate Plus” could edit the MPEG 2 file. So bottom line, after many hours, I finally ended up with a MPEG 2 file of the concert that looks and sounds good with no pledge breaks.

The solar guys have contacted me. The panels arrived but they are having a problem getting the “L” brackets for mounting them. Also they are trying to figure out how to mount the heavy inverter/charger on the E panel to the wall next to the refrigerator. I guess the circuit breakers in the E panel need to be mounted vertically to function correctly. This sounds a little weird to me but they are checking to see if the E panel can be mounted horizontally on top of the cabinet next to the door of the rig.