Sep 07
Amazing facts about the Social Media Revolution:
Jun 22
What it is:
An IM client that supports AIM/Google Talk/ICQ/Jabber/MSN/mySpace IM/Yahoo & Facebook IM on your iPhone. The version that got published live today to the iPhone App store includes Push Notification. I.e. when you get a new IM, you’ll get an SMS/Text-like notification on your iPhone screen telling you who sent the message and the content of the message. You have the option to either close the message box or view, which automatically opens the application and opens a chat box in which you can chat with your buddies.
The good:
-Nice UI.
-Easier to chat on the iPhone than I thought it would be.
-Error correction works great and once you get used to typing, you’ll be chatting away fast on it.
-Supports landscape view.
-Push notification is very nicely implemented, although logging off before you go to sleep is recommended.
The bad:
-Yahoo IM doesn’t work. Every time I attempt to log in, I get the error message “Connection failed on all fallback ports”. Not sure if this is temporary or not, looks like it’s not specific to this version of Beejive based on a quick Google search.
-Frequent crashes. I’ve had it for less than a day and it has crashed 3 times on me back to the home screen.
-The cost. $9.99 for an IM app? If it had been $4.99 I wouldn’t have complained, but $9.99 is more than this app is worth right now given the issues above.
Recommend that you wait and see what Meebo is up to or for Beejive to drop the price.
Update: Now getting “error: received invalid data” when trying to log in to Yahoo
Update: June 24th – looks like Yahoo is working now, at least somewhat. I could log in to one Yahoo account, but not two at the same time. Log out of all accounts and log back in.
Jun 16
Verizon FIOS, I love you. You’ve changed my life. The speed you give me is unlike anything I’ve ever had on this side of the Atlantic. I have yet to have any network related downtime from you. (Now watch the service go down this week, just because I wrote that…)
Now fix your damn DNS servers, would ya?
(For the non-techies, DNS is what looks up the name of the web site you want to visit and translates it so that your computer knows what to download.)
If you’re on FIOS, simply switch to OpenDNS or the other Verizon DNS servers and you’ll get rid of those pesky error messages saying you can’t load certain web sites. It’s easy. Just do it. You’ll thank me later.
May 13
The names in this post have been changed to protect the innocent.
One of the fun things about working in a medium size company is that you get thrown all kinds of different problems to solve. This one got escalated to me from a remote user.
My internal mouse has given out on me. I’ve not spilled anything on it and nothing other than run of the mill finger dirt has come in contact with it. Any diagnosis ability on your end?
External plug in mouse works fine.
After checking what laptop he had (HP G60 125NR Notebook PC), I sighed, knowing that I had the exact same issue with an HP laptop a few years back.
Spent a good 30 minutes researching the different causes and solutions and sent 3 to the user:
Solution 1: At the top of the touchpad, or at the top of the keyboard, there’s a button / switch that turns on/off the touchpad. Make sure this is on. Test.
Solution 2: Verify that Synaptics TouchPad software is installed
Follow the steps below to open the Mouse Properties settings window and determine if Synaptics TouchPad software is installed on your notebook:
- Right-click on the desktop and select Personalize > Mouse Pointers . The Mouse Properties settings window will open.
Alternately, click Start and type Mouse in the Search field, and select Mouse when it becomes available in the program list. The Mouse Properties settings window will open.
- Verify that the Device Settings tab is present in the Mouse Properties window.
- If this tab is not present, you will need to obtain the Synaptics TouchPad software.(let me know and I’ll point you to it)
Solution 3: This worked on mine once. Turn off your laptop – take out the battery, wait 30 seconds, put the battery back in. Start it up. Test.
—————————-
1 minute later I got the response:
You know the remarkable thing about a computer is that it gives you the ability to simultaneously be embarrassed and pleased with yourself. Step 1 worked.
Lesson learned: Always try the low-tech solutions first and don’t assume the problem is more complicated than it is. I could’ve solved this with a 2 minute phone call but instead wasted 30 minutes thinking it was a complicated problem.
May 05
When troubleshooting the Xbox 360 media sharing with a PC, make sure that the checkbox under sharing in Wireless Network Connection Properties to allow sharing of your network connection is not checked. It prevents media sharing to the Xbox 360. I had to enable this for another reason a while back, forgot that I had set it and couldn’t see my laptop on my 360.
I haven’t seen any mention of this on any MS support site.
Apr 12
I finally got to Inbox Zero in my personal email inbox. I migrated all my personal email accounts over to gmail and went from there. Took me a few hours but feels good. Ended up using labels for Family, Friends, Purchases, Registrations, Finances, etc.
I’m going to attempt to do the same thing in Outlook for my work email. The only issue being that there’s 33,877 emails there, so I’m guessing it’ll take me a while, even with Outlook sort & search.
Apr 12
(note, this is an old post that I copied over from my old blog. It was helping people out, so I moved it over).
Outlook 2007 on a Windows XP Box. Upgrade from Office 2003 to 2007. Rarely, when sending email, the message:
“The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. It the problem persists, restart Outlook.”
would show up when sending email. After the upgrade, it happened all the time. (I should probably preface all this with the fact that it wasn’t *my* machine and I was troubleshooting it using Fog Creek’s Co-Pilot service). The user could not send email. Every time when clicking “Send” that message would show up. Even after restarting Outlook. Went through all the typical troubleshooting steps:
-Reboot (duh)
-Disable Add-ins (Linkedin, Google Desktop Search, Norton, etc)
-Created new mail profile & new .pst
-Disabled desktop firewall
-Disabled anti-spam software
-Paused Google Index
-Switched to use SMTP on port 25 instead of SMTP over SSL
-Archived old data
None of it worked. Google or Microsoft support wasn’t much help, simply because the error message is too general and applies to many different problems.
The solution?
-Empty the Deleted Items Folder
I kid you not.
3-4 hours of troubleshooting and searching for answers and that was it. There must have been a corrupted file in there or something.
I hope someone finds this post and that it saves them the time.
I need a beer.
Apr 12
Added Nike+ widget to push myself to get to the gym. Don’t care much about speed, just about getting on the treadmill, turn on a podcast or music and relax my brain for an hour 5-6 times a week.
Also added the Last.fm widget, so y’all can laugh about the music I listen to.
Apr 12
Moved Stjernstrom.com to a new host and installed Wordpress. Everything should work as before. If it doesn’t, please contact me.
