What I Know

Root Droid x on 2.3.3, Gingerbread for Windows

jamesmthrasher — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:34:30 +0000

Thank you macpro88 at droidxforums. and razorloves@rootzwiki

Droid x root on gingerbread(2.3.3)

1. If you don’t already have them installed, download and install the Motorola usb drivers HERE.
2. Download Pete’s Motorola Root Tool HERE. It’s a zip file so you will have to extract it to a folder.
3. Your phone needs to have USB debugging enabled. So, go to Settings-Applications-Development, and check the box for “USB debugging”.
4. Connect your phone to your computer with usb cable and choose the “Charge Only” mode.
5. Navigate to the “Pete’s Motorola Root Tool.exe” file that you downloaded and extract earlier, and double click on it to open the one click root tool.
6. Press the button to root or unroot your phone and follow the onscreen instructions. Your phone will automatically reboot a few times during the procedure and then it will be done.

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If you have trouble with the above method, try this one.
This one click method will root your phone that has a Froyo or Gingerbread ROM. It must be run on your computer and should work on any version of Windows. Again, this is for Windows ONLY.

1. If you don’t already have them installed, download and install the motorola usb drivers HERE.
2. Download the Droid 3 Easy Root Script HERE. It’s a zip file so you will have to extract it to a folder. (Dont worry about it saying Droid 3. It works on all Moto phones.)
3. Your phone needs to have USB debugging enabled. So, go to Settings-Applications-Development, and check the box for “USB debugging”.
4. Connect your phone to your computer with usb cable and choose the “Charge Only” mode.
5. Navigate to the Droid 3 Easy Root Script folder that you downloaded and extract earlier, and double click on the “Click to root your DROID 3.bat” file to open the one click root tool.
6. Follow the onscreen instruction. Your phone will automatically reboot a few times during the procedure and then it will be done.

PLEASE READ THIS!

-If your phone reboots to bootloader after the root method has rebooted your phone to continue the root process, simply unplug the phone, reboot the phone, then when the boot animation comes back up, plug the phone back in. Rinse and repeat for the amount of times the root process needs to root your phone.

Improving office flow through “hands off” leadership

jamesmthrasher — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:25:01 +0000

My dog Charlie, an energetic, caring, loving dog only understands postitive reinforcement. Any negative re-enforcement renders him un responsive. At the moment of the scolding he will respond with a somewhat desired reaction. Great! so he did what I wanted him to for that moment, what happens when I turn my back? The long term must be reinforced through positive methods.

At this point you may be worndering what Charlie has to do with office flow? The answer to that question will be addressed in the following text, first let me introduce my self. I have over six years experience leading Marines both on and off the battle field. Some are born leaders others work hard to develop the skills of an exellent leader. Whether in an office or the streets of Fallujah Iraq, leadership must encourage freedom of thought, action, and inspire diligence through positive reinforcement.

Thoughts, we all have them, no one can take them away. People may think what they want, when they want, and you cannot do anything about it, nor do you you want to. Thoughts create ideas, ideas to speed up simple tasks, new office layouts, new software or hardware to streamline production. Always take time to entertain thoughts. Starting at your entry level employees, ignoring thoughts my repress great ideas, losing out on an investment. Instead of focusing on the bottom line, invest in people. Take the time to understand how your fellow people think, what they think about. Brain storm, meet, chat, lunches, excercise. Stimulate intelligence, harbor productive thought. A leaders most powerful tool to inspire is to listen and take action. Once an asociate sees his or her idea being entertained, less influence is needed to complete tasks. A manager, team leader, provides guide lines an end state, the team should drive the bus there to. Hands off the thoughts, allow fluidity, envasive leadership will most often fail.

Action, dynamic, moving energy should help to lubricate the wheels of a tight nit specialty team of any type. Small action groups, think tanks, should stay moving at all cost. keeping that energy up is crucial to some times methodical tasks. Taking 30 min a day and leave the office, get the heart rate up can evolve a lethargic team into a dynamic group of cohesive smiles. The active nature of leadership must be expounded daily to exemplify an what you want from the team. Don’t think for a second that its your team. ”The Team” will create a free process of thoughts and ideas, movement towards the objective. Once you take ownership of the team you have essentially stiflled the development of inspiration. Stillness is good, like the body the mind needs rest. Allow 15 minutes of silence before meetings, or mind numbing tasks. Just allow everyone to clear the mind. this will provide a more useful productive mind. If you dont have 15 minutes then you rethink your agenda.

Inspiration; inspire by doing, believe in what you are saying, speak with your asociates. instilling ideals in individuals will take time or just one statement, depending on the people and the plan. Patience is always good. Like Charlie people don’t want to be to talked down to and or reprimanded. Negative reinforcement will always have a destructive result. Breaking down the relationship between all parties envolved. Inspiration is specific to each individual, the task is to pay attention to the language of needs. People tend to express what they need verbally or non-verbally. Pay attention to emotional reactions during meetings. This talk of emotion doesn’t mean sway in the wind and bend to each persons will. Keep a firm but fair, unpartial intuitive mind about your asociates. Never waiver and always follow up, and stay true to your word at all cost. Fluidity again is key allow people to want what you offer, make your path the lucrative one.

Create a positive working environment with goals and accolades to be obtained. Keep things moving by taking time to be still. Not everyone will be a great speaker inspiring people to achieve greatness, recognize your strengths and build on your weakness. Always keep in mind your counterparts, without them nothing will get done. Remember Charlie, and keep a cool head.

EXCEL 2007 TIP #1: Conditional formatting using due dates based on a start date, a submission date and an end date.

jamesmthrasher — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:54:49 +0000

In order to follow along Download the Conditional formatting excel doc on the right, to get the password just leave me a comment.

If you are forced to use outdated sofware to create rosters and databases like I am at work. You have one option Excel, I would love to use sharepoint Sometimes I find my self in a bit of a bind picking up after someone elses work, trying to fix things they left undone. This happened yesterday as I was trying to use conditional formatting on an EDATE… Needless to say this did not work.

If you are trying tomake a table with employees, their info, START DATE, EVAL DATE (4 MONTHS) AND END DATE…

You may also want the cell to automatically turn red when the date is passed due. Well if you use =EDATE()4) to get the EVAL DATE, then guess what no dice, you will not be able to use the conditional formating button to simply hightlight the cell when the date is passed due. Unless you do some excel time consuming date conversion on another tab…

I have an easier better way, I found versions of this on other pages but not in this format and none that worked. Yes you can use the IF formula to simply state that the date is either true or false, that creates too many columns and too many problems.

I took the doc home after our christmas party, drank a bottle of wine and deleted everything.

Setting up the spread sheet.

Create table with your required data.
Highlight your column titles and click Data>Filter
Create Drop down menus using the Data>Data Validation
Select list and then create your lists somewhere else on the page way out of range.
On the top row A1 Type Date, then highlight A2. Go to the top bar and click Formulas>Date&Time>NOW, select that from the drop down. This will be used as a reference for ouur conditional formatting later on.
Input a test start date like this 1/1/2011 in F3 (for me at least, yours can vary)
now in f4 select the cell and type [ =Table1[[#This Row],[BEGIN DATE]]+120 ] without the brackets
the +120 is the amount of days you would like to add to the start date.

Conditional Formatting

Select the G5 - G100 column (or however many entries you need.)
Left Click the Home>Conditional formating
Navigate to Highlight Rules>Less Than
Once the dialogue box that opens presents you with two input boxes, for the one on the left select the cell where you put the NOW formula.

To be continued..

If you are in a hurry like I am at the moment, just download the excel doc titled Conditional Formatting.

The template is password protected, just comment to get the password.

If you have any questions contact me @ jthrash84@gmail.com

Firefox 9 gets a face lift, and more horsepower

jamesmthrasher — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:52:47 +0000

Download Firefox 9 As I type I am downloading the new Firefox 9 on my Meego Netbook. The claim to fame is the new look on Android and Java improvements. Notably Mozilla has renewed there search provider contract with Google. Mozilla will definitley be starting the new year off right in 2012.

The Java fixes and the new look were much needed, Mozilla 7 and 8 seemed a little on the clunky side and even internet explorer was looking like a better choice just for a second there. Just kidding.

Chrome or Epiphany, Opera, etc… There are many to choose from, all have there strengths and weaknesses. I use most of them and honestly do not prefer one over the other. I just love the speed of it all. Things have come a long way since I was dialing up with my ultra-secure Earthlink, and browsing on my Netscape Navigator. Or hacking AOL for free service for months on end. All those colorful CDs were ridiculous. I am emensley happy with the browsing experience provided today, and I believe that it can only become more intuitive and blazingly fast.

Interesting enough the Google search contract provided 84% of Mozillas revenue in 2010. Without that contract there might not be a Firefox 9. Whew good thing they got that contract. Otherwise I might be stuck with Chrome, which isn’t bad, I am liking it on my net book.

Once I get some time with the the new Firefox I will post my experience.

Hacker testifies against Manning.

jamesmthrasher — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:38:15 +0000

Lamo testifies against manning

In case you have been hiding under a rock for the last few years, a young Private First Class leaked thousands of classified documents to the popular website wikileaks.

Today CNN reports that a hacker came forward to testifie that Manning had been on a chat forumn, most likely irc which is commonly used on government computers to communicate. They did not release the medium used. The messages were simple in that the hacker was falsely trying to obtain information about the illegal activities of the soldier.

The young man could possibly see the death penalty. The question is “How dumb could this kid be?” My God, this kid copied thousands of classified documents and then went on line to talk about his great accomplishment! Essentially he aconplished nothing. Anyone with a secret clearance can so what he did. It took no skill, yet he thought that he deserved recognition for his accomplishment. The sheer stupidity of this character amazes me.

Amazing feats of programming magic deserve recognition. If this guy had hacked the SIPR from an outside source I’d say wow that’s impressive, treasoness and stupid but something to possibly boast about.

Its very sad that we spend millions possibly billions on defense network security. We hire the most intelligent mathmeticians and programmers in the world to work at the NSA and the Pentagon. Yet it only took one Army PFC and a few CDRs to accomplish the largest security leak in history.

Apple goes for the throat taking down htc, or did they?

jamesmthrasher — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:33:47 +0000

wo corporate giants go head to head striking blows at one another Apple vs. htc. Ding, ding, ding. Apple comes in swinging claiming htc used proprietary source code from Apples coveted ios. The U S Trade Commission ruled in favor of apple, giving htc until April 2012 To pull its prized models from US distribution.

Taking sides!

vs

There is still hope for htc, The President still has 60 days to veto the ruling. Will our commander in chief exercise his veto right and save htc?

More Importantly, now that Apple has the ball rolling will it roll over Google? I would assume that if given the opportunity, Apple may just try and knock out the competition all together. That will have profound impact on market prices and freedom of choice.

I will definitely take sides and say that I enjoy the experience of Android on an htc device. I have owned an iphone 4 and the htc incredible. I am much happier with the freedom I have using my Android device.

That seems to be a common thread for apple, closed, proprietary, greedy. DOnt take me the wrong way I respect what Apple’s products are robust, refined and user friendly. They put out quality before quantity and stay on the edge of the their game.

I prefer a more open development, i.e. android+Google. I have to say I will be very disappointed to see htc devices taken off the shelves.

My theory is Apple will not stop and they will continue and try to take android out of the fight!

also see Redmond Pie

MeeGo v 1.2 Netbook Operating System Review

jamesmthrasher — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:50:38 +0000

MeeGo?

So, been hunting for a great netbook OS for some time now for my NB205:

Specs from lspci command, no lshw to be found.

Make: Toshiba

Model Name nb205

vendor_id : Genuine Intel

model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N280 @ 1.66GHz

cpu MHz : 1667.000

cache size : 512 KB

Memory: 2Gb

Did I find the netbook OS I have been looking for?

The answer is Im not sure yet. The only way to figure it out is lay out the Pros and cons and come to a conclusion. I can just tell you what I like and what I don’t like. This might aid you in making a decision. The content below is for my own research, I am in no way affiliated with the Linux Foundation or Tizen.org.

How to get MeeGo v. 1.2? Click here.

How to install? Click here for Windows install instructions, or here for Linux Instructions.

Pros:

Clean look
Easy to install
intuitive navigation set up
Good documentation and “How to”

Cons

Surprisingly laggy
Limited functionality.
~~Clunky package management, doesn’t work!~~ A bug fix has been implemented, unfortunately your first update will take a really long time.
Slow Boot up time
Easily bogged down interface during heavy usage
No copy and paste between apps
No right click for more options

Package Management

Zypper is the default package management application for this version of MeeGo. I prefer apt ot yum because I am more familiar with those applications. But I am excited to learn a new command line package management system. Luckily for everyone that may not be too excited there is an easy to use front end grapgical user interface that simplifies the whole process.

I was first impressed by the extremely clean and web based interface. There were a few usability issues such as not being able to copy and paste from Chrome to the Facebook app. Switching back and forth between apps and windows is a bit clunky using the zones tab, ALT+TAB works just as well. There is no right clicking for more options, Windows users beware.

Hardware support for my net book and a whole host of others is very good. If you are looking for a simple net book os with minimal clutter and cloud based functionality this MeeGo might before, the rest is just my opinion.

New to Linux?

If you are coming from Ubuntu and are not too familiar with Linux, or if you are coming from Windows and not too familiar with Linux, You are in luck this is just point and click, if you never want to use or see a command line you can do that. I strongly recommend users familiarize them selves with the terminal and bash shell, it may come in handy one day.

The devices menu, gives you a quick layout of your netbooks status, which I liked.

The media player is very spartan, but easy to use.

The Home space allows you to customize a “page” to your liking much like Yahoo, or Google.

The internet app seems to be broken, it is not saving my Google Chrome web searchs. This might be due to Google Chrome being an add on app not in the original build of Meego. I would be interested to Download and install the “Chrome Free version” and see if this app works.

The settings app is simple for the average user this is all you need, for the super users out there this will slow you down. I do not particularly enjoy this feature. I like full control and I want my settings to be plentiful.

The applications are decent, you’ve got evolution, thunderbird, a calculator, file manager, enough to do your basic web browsing. I was a little surprised at

the lack of office software on the distro. I like to use my netbook to take notes and i like libreoffice, or abiword, or something to that effect. Maybe I missed it let me know if I did. Overall the applications menu is fine it works everything is wh

ere it should be and the simple icons dont take away from the simplified net experiences.

Finally, and most importantly. For me at least (geeky)

SSH

Given this is a Linux Distro the Corps of the operating can be done from the terminal. The terminal is there and easy to get to. Also ssh works right out of the box, great for me! Other than blogging I enjoy managing my other Linux machines via ssh, and copy files via scp.

Lets Wrap it up

At the moment I happen to be editing this post from my MeeGo Netbook 205 with 2 Gigs of ram and an Intel Atom Processor. This experience from install to use has been enjoyable. In comparison to other netbook distros such as easypeasy and Ubuntu net book Remix, this is the easiest by far to set up and use. Battery life is great, it looks great, and it just works.

The Social networking leaves much to be desired It lacks refinement and no twitter! I was surprised to find this sparse social networking platform. For me thats not to big of a deal, web apps are available to fix these shortcomings.

Comparatively speaking I had much less hassle installing and using this distribution than others. Ubuntu net book remix had an alsa sound driver issue I was never able to fix, same thing with Easy Peasy. Both of those distributions are based on debian, so they both have the same problems. Windows xp is just too insecure and SLOW. So out of the four I have chosen MeeGo.

What it lacks in package management and versatility it makes up for in usability, and for me I like to use my net book for web surfing, web design (php, mysql), ssh , server management, and blogging. For these things MeeGo works. I believe I will use it for a while until something better comes along.

Back Track Linux Version 5 on a Toshiba NB205

jamesmthrasher — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:28:31 +0000

I recently spent a few hours scanning and cleaning a Windows Vista Toshiba Satellite l505. This task was painful, slow, and agonizing. After about hour four of svcanning and cleaning using various methods. I decided to sit down with the owner of the infected machine. We spoke about his computing needs. The conversation was brief and a I recieved a verbal snapshot of what sort of operating system my client needed. Usually I don’t advocate Linux for non computer savvy clients but in this case with his love for browsing and downloading torrents, I assumed I could set it up for him and all would be well. I explained the benefits of Linux security, and the lack of virus in the wild for most Linux and BSD kernels. Now I dont want to go around installing linux on everyones computer that I fix, simply because I might be out of a job at that point. Answering questions like do I need an anti virus is all i would be good for. Lets face it I have never had a Linux or BSD question I couldnt find in a forum.

All this talk about security and viruses made me hungry, no really it opens up my next project BackTrack on a Toshiba NB205 for network security and penetration testing. I belive this little netbook will be perfect and Backtrack looks interesting. IF you need an install tutorial I will not be doing one because they already have perfectly good instruction here.

I will be installing via a usb thumb drive, considering my netbook has no cdrom drive. Here goes nothing Ive got the USB…. will post results in the future.

Fedora 16 install

jamesmthrasher — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:06:04 +0000

I Like to try out as many flavors of Linux as I can download, Fedora 16 is no different. So I something about Fedora 16 and I had to try it.The download was quick and I fired up my virtual box and got ready for the install. Firs things first, Fedora has one of the best LIVECD environments out there. It is fast and robust and with the gnome version very easy to navigate for anyone. But. Yes there is a but right off the bat there was a problem with gnome 3 and the virtual environment, I’m not surprised this was probably because there is no 3d rendering etc. etc

After I went through the short and very easy to use installer and it wouldn’t copy over the image to my virtual hard drive. I am going to have to take a break from Fedora, even though it has beautifully done live cd. Ubuntu is just easier and it works. I may be a little biased, I am just more comfortable with apt.

So i went back and tried again with no changes, and again will not copy the image over to my virtual drive. Oh well, I will not waist anymore time on this today Ill come back to it later and post about it. Back to PHP and MYSQL.

xampp

jamesmthrasher — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:33:10 +0000

Recently I set out to learn PHP and MYSQL, so far I made great headway in the 24 hours since I started I have gotten a litle passed that stage and have started to guild a website. I found that configuring a LAMP server from scratch a bit time consuming on s debian based server and I have left windows behind all together. The only time I deal with a Windows PC these days is at work and to fix them.

So linux was the obvious choice for me, but I also didnt want to spend all afternoon setting up my LAMP server like I have done in the past. I did a little search and found a few alternatives; foxserve, triad, xampp etc etc. xampp was most definitely the easiest to download and install. So thats why I whent with it. After all this is for the speed of install and ease of use while learning a new programming language. Documentation can be found easily with friends of apache. During the point and click days of Ubuntu Linux and software that just works this is perfect for a novice or a professional who doesn’t have the time to sort through con fig files. I enjoy using it, Its on my Ubuntu desktop, on my debian squeezw server and on a xubuntu laptop that just died the other day : {.

the installation is simple just follow the Link for Documenttaion I posted earlier and you will have a working LAMP server with 5 minutes no Joke. Enjoy.