New Phone! The myTouch 4G

I got a new phone for my Birthday.  Its the HTC myTouch 4G.  It is a GSM phone running Android and has the highest Internet speed of any phone and works with Simple Mobile.  I got it unlocked for $35 and and now use it anywhere in the world.  It has Wireless HotSpot feature as well as USB tethering for sharing your connection with others or your laptop.

New Wii

I got the girls a Wii for Christmas. Its been about 5 years since they came out with the video game system and allot has progressed. There are plenty of games for it and mods too. It was not long before I had to mod it to take full advantage of its capabilities.

The original Wii mod guide is located at: http://www.modifyanywii.tk/

Remember, if you have no knowledge/experience whatsoever in Wii

Hacking, please use the CompleteSoftmodGuide instead.

http://www.completesoftmodguide.tk/

It offers the same hacks + detailed information.

The files below are made as an aid for those experienced!

http://www.mediafire.com/modifyanywii

http://www.4shared.com/dir/0oQUBGDg/sharing.html

Video to mod your Wii... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgKYlmppxW4&feature=related

To download Wii games use these torrent sites:

http://torrentz.eu/

http://www.wiiiso.com

http://thepurplecube.org

http://thepiratebay.org/

Top iPhone Apps

It has been about a month and a half with my new iPhone and I have installed over 150 apps. I tried to get the best of the best apps, but there are just to many to use them all the time. So here is my list of the top most used and useful iPhone Apps for me:

JailBreakme.com - This is the first site you should visit to install the JailBreak software expoit. It only works on iOS 4.0.1 or lower. It exploits a hack in the browser to jailbreak your phone and allow any 3rd party software to be installed on your phone. Without this patch, you can only install Apple approved software and this really limits the potential of your iPhone. (Update! New jailbreak Limera1n has been released for version 4.1 -> here is a nice video that explains how to do it. Keep in mind this only works on iphone with the old bootroom. 3GS phones with the new bootrom will not easily be jailbroken. There are some jail breaks out there, but as of this writing they are all "tethered" meaning after you reboot your iphone, you will need to re jailbreak your phone.)

Cydia - This is the first app that is automatically installed after you jailbreak your phone. It contains many hacks and other useful software to really take advantage of your iPhone. Below are all Cydia only apps that I use the most! Make sure you add SinFul Repo site to Cydia for all the cracked apps at -- > http://sinfuliphonerepo.com/

Ultrasn0w - Unlock Phone Service Hack - You apply this code to allow your iPhone to be used on any GSM network like Tmobile or Simple Mobile. I am using my iPhone on Simple Mobile for $60/month, unlimited calls, text and data!
Five Icon Dock - This allows 5 rows of icon instead of the normal 4 rows, check out the picture above for how my main screen looks! I can really pack in more programs on one page then the standard Apple layout screen provides. Also install Five-Column SpringBoard to get 5 columns of icons instead of 4!
LockInfo - This useful hack allows a bigger clock and a preview of messages on your lock screen. I have it simulating the HTC interface with a big clock, weather and small previews of emails, text messages and twitter updates.
Installous - This is another program similar to the App Store, but it contains all free programs for the iPhone. You do need a jail broken iPhone, but once you got this app, you can pretty much get anything for free.
MyWi 4.0 - This Cydia app, allows me to tether my iPhone to my computer. I can use my iPhone's Internet connection on my laptop thru WiFi or USB cable. I find the USB cable more fast, but the WiFi sharing is nice to0

Multifl0w - This Cydia app shows for a really cool preview of all apps running in the background. It replaces the multitasking switching app from Apple, which only shows the icon.

Trapster - This can be found in the Apple App Store. It Logs and view other peoples reports of Police radar spots.

Navigon Mobile Navigator - The Best GPS for the iPhone. It costly, but you can find it for free in Installous.

More New Gadgets

One nice thing about a new house is that you get a chance to buy all the latest gadgets. When I first moved into my new house, I first got a 32" LCD/DVD combo TV for my bedroom. I got it with Time Warner Cable and that came with a High Definition DVR from Scientific American, the 8300HD for recording up to two shows at one. It automatically records program series and I can quickly fast forward through commercials.

I soon realized that I spent most of my time in my office, so I got a 19" LED TV. LED technology is the latest in TV design and the picture is amazing, claiming a 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio and uses very little energy, requiring only 12V to run. Now I needed a big TV for the main living room. So I got a 47" Insignia, LED TV from Best Buy. To play movies I decided to invest in a Blu-Ray player, since HD DVD is finally dead.

I got a LG BD590 Blu-Ray and DVD player from Amazon. This device is more then just a DVD player, it also has online streaming capability from Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and a host of other online streaming sites. It connects wirelessly to my Linksys router using WiFi (802.11g or n) and streams movies directly to my TV via HDMI cable. I got a free trial membership to Netflix and its amazing, plus I get one DVD in the mail too. I'll probably stay with Netflix service, since it is well worth the $8.99/month fee for unlimited streaming of movies. It works on my iPhone and also allows mutiple computers in my house to stream movies too.

New iPhone

I got a new iPhone this weekend! Its been been about 3 years since Apple released the original iPhone and we are now in the forth forth generation of the iPhone. I did a bit of research on all the models and decided on get the 3rd generation phone called the 3Gs. The four models of the phone, in order, are the 2G, 3G, 3Gs and now the 4.

3Gs model: I decided to stick with last year's 3Gs phone because it is the best bang of the buck. It performs faster the the previous two models and the cellular service works the best of any iPhone model. People have complained about the iPhone 4 reception and their have been plenty of drop call reports on the iPhone 4. The 2G and 3G were simply just to slow to be very useful for any heavy Internet surfing.

The craigslist price on the 3Gs is between $250-$350. For the 2G or 3G models you can purchase for $80-$220. If you want a an iPhone 4, the prices are $500-800. You can always get a new iPhone that works only on ATT's network for $99 and with a 2-year contract. The monthly fees can be as low as $55 for very limited services (450mins, 200MS data, no texting). Average user should expect to pay $90 (900mins, 2GB of Data, 200 texts). For a totally unlimited service expect to pay $135/monthly (unlimited calling, data, text and tethering included). This would end up costing an average user $2260 to $3340 over a 2-year contract.

Simple Mobile: I decided to use Simple Mobile's network. There plans are $40, $50, and $60/month. All the plans are prepaid and all prices include all taxes and fees, with unlimited talk and texting. For a two year period the cost would only be $960-$1440, plus the cost of a GSM phone. The $50 plan has 100MB of Web and the $60 plan has unlimited Web. There is no long term contract and you can switch plans every month. Simple Mobile resells the T-mobile network, so they have the same 3G coverage as T-mobile, but is about 25% cheaper. You can use any T-mobile phone or any unlocked GSM phone. All iPhone sold in the USA are locked to ATT's network. To use an iPhone on another GSM network, like T-mobile or Simple Mobile, you need to first jailbreak the phone and then unlock the phone.

Jailbreaking: In the course of my research, I found out that not all software version of the iPhone can be jail broken and unlocked. To jailbreak an iPhone it must be on software version 4.0.1 or less (as of this writing 9-21-2010). Basically, just take your iPhone to http://jailbreakme.com and execute the script, it can take 30-60 minutes to complete. When it is finished you will get a message saying that Cydia has been added to the home screen of your iPhone. You are now running a jailbroken iPhone.

Unlocking iPhone: From here you can install the unlock software and use your iPhone on any GSM network in the world! Just click on Cydia: Manage: Sources: Edit: Add type in http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com

Once the source is added you will be able to find ‘ultrasnow 0.93′ in cydia which you will have to install by tapping on the ‘Install’ button which will download 48kb around of data and install it by downloading Mobile Substrate and then preparing it followed by reboot of the device.

Other helpful hacks: One you phone is at this state their are plenty of other hacks that you can perform. Just search the Internet to find more or click on this link. Here are some of my most useful hacks!

1. • Get Push Gmail on your iPhone
2. • Enable tethering now (prior to AT&T allowing it)
3. • Sync your iPhone with multiple computers
4. • Add a 5th row of numbers on your QWERTY keyboard

Google Offers Free Phone Service

Google is now offering free phone service with every Gmail account. Call anywhere in the USA for free, right thru your computer. Been playing with it and its pretty neat. I also signed up for Google Voice which gives me a local number that will ring my cell phone, home phone and Vonage phone.

The voice to text feature of the voice mail system is pretty cool too. And you can even call me from this blog. Just click below and enter a phone number and I will call you!

Try it!

Hijack Virus

Got a call from my sister and her Vista PC was Hijacked. Basically whenever she visited a website or tried to run a program it would pop-up a messages telling her that her computer was infected and she needed to visit a website to fix it.

Whenever she tried to run any programs it would pop-up the message. Whenever she tried to visit it website, it would go no where. Basically her laptop was useless.

So I managed to fix it by following these steps:

- Reboot the computer into safe mode - by pressing F8 upon start-up

- Run MSCONFIG and disable the nefarious program. It was called fxxxxx.exe

- Restart the computer in normal mode Safe mode

- Delete the program .EXE from the hard-drive

- Edit the host file and remove the extra line of code redirecting her browser to nowhere land.

My Lexus In The Shop

I took my Lexus LS400 into the shop on Friday. I had the check engine light turn on and a number of other minor issues I wanted to them to take a look at. My windshield mister motor was dead, my center brake light had a couple of bulbs out and my AC would blow warm during stops. My air conditioning issues was due to a relay that failed.

Going to a Lexus service station is an experience in awesome customer service. All of the service area has flat screen TVs, leather furniture, free drinks and even Apple computers. They even will give you a free car to drive until your car is fixed. For all this, you do pay for it.

They charged me about $100 for all the parts and $350 for labor. They didn't have the parts in stock so I had to come back 4 days later. Fortunately, they gave me a 2010 HS 250h hybrid loner car use while my car was in the shop.

This car was sweet and one of the most technologically advanced cars I have ever driven! Not only is it a hybrid getting 35MPG, it has a rear view backup camera and voice activated navigation system. To start the car you push a button. The car actually unlocks automatically when you get close to the car.

Check out the video below of me backing out of my garage and the back-up camera. My previous company actually makes backup cameras, so it was nice to see one in action.

Things To Look For In A New House

Here are all the things I really like about my house. If you are looking for a new house I would consider only a brand new house at this point. Look for these little details. They make a big difference in the long run and believe it or not, the cost of a new build really isn't that much difference then a used home. This list is, admittedly, a list of "technical" things, since Im a technical guy. If you want to see a listing of non technical items then just do a google search.

Brand New Construction using the latest in building technologies and meets all the high-efficiency code of Austin Green Building Program. All new homes have to be built with the latest building codes. Most of these codes require better building techniques and money saving energy efficient materials to be used. A new home will be warrantied for at least one year and many major items warrantied for up to 10 years. Why settled for a home "as-is" when you can get warranty and some peace of mind for the same price or better? Look at JD Power's rating for builders in your area. Here is a link to the builders ratings for Austin, TX.

LP TechShield, Radiant Barrier used on the roof to block 97% of the radiant heat of the Sun. This alone will save allot in cooling and heating the house, especially in the hot summer months of Texas. The barrier typically reduces heat in the attic by up to 42%, which equals to about a 17-39% monthly savings on cooling costs. There are many suppliers of radiant barriers and the technology is relatively simple and very effective no matter who you use. Existing homes can also be retrofitted with the technology to achieve similar results.

TJI Engineering Wood used to support the 2nd floor, this prevents squeaks in the floor. TJI joists resist the bowing, twisting and shrinking that can lead to squeaky floors. TJI joists save on labor because they are lightweight and install quickly. The beams are stronger then lumber wood and can span much greater distances without additional support beams underneath. The technology is also "Green" since you can use scrap wood in the OSB layer.

Lime Stone exterior, just looks dam nice. Any brick or stone house always looks better then a non brick house. While it is just a facade and provides little structural support, it still acts as a thermal mass to help moderate the house's overall temperature. On this house the Lime stone is literally 4 inches thick. They say their is little insulating value to the stone, but I still feel like it takes longer to heat up in the morning sun compared to a wood or vinyl sided home.

High Efficiency HVAC system - a 14 SEER Lennox Air Conditioner and heat pump - costs less to keep the house cool and heat. If the temperature falls below freezing then a back-up radiant heater kicks in.

Dual pane low E Windows . The glass is coated with a thin layer of tin. This absorbs the UV rays and prevents the heat from entering the house. The window frames are also made of Vinyl which is more insulating then aluminium when tends to conduct heat more readily then vinyl.

Seven zone Sprinkler system that shuts off automatically with use of a rain sensor. This wireless device has a ceramic sensor that communicates to shut-off the system if it is wet outside.

Jump ducts in every bedroom for better circulation and energy efficiency. Typically, when you close a room door the ventilation system has to work harder to push air through the closed door. By adding a vent to the each room the system can just push the air through the vent for better air flow. The only hassle now is that I have more filters to replace in each room, but this is a better way in the long run.

DSC Security System with wiring for CAT5, telephone and Fiber Optics. I have a fiber optic connection at the road. This should give me the fastest possible Internet connection. The house being pre-wired means that an installer doesn't have to worry about fishing cables through all the walls.

I don't cook much, but I love the look of Granite Counter tops in the kitchen! For what ever reason, after looking through so many homes, a plain laminate counter top just says old and dated to me. Yes, Granite doesn't add much functionality to a home for a guy that doesn't cook much, but dam a Granite kitchen just looks awesome! It is one of those things that catches the eye and makes you fall in love with the place. Click the picture to see the entire counter top.

(you can click on at picture above to see more details..)

Why does the IRS ask your Job Title? and Austin Plane Crash

Why does the IRS ask your job title? The simple answer is because their are specific tax laws that vary depending on what you do for a living. Specifically the "Self-Employed" status or sole proprietor status.

If you are a self-employed person and do not fall under an "employee" status, you can generally claim many additional expenses, as tax deductions for against any monies received. This is a tremendous tax advantage over an employee, where the employer must pay income taxes for that employee's entire salary.

Typical self-employed careers would be a lawyer, accountant, Doctor, construction worker or dance instructor. All these jobs can be paid a fixed amount per hour to the individual. That individual does not pay income tax on the monies received. Taxes are only applied at the end of the year or quarterly after all expenses are accounted for like office space rent, office supplies, software, car, travel, tools and training costs.

Current tax rates for a self-employed person is 15% for the first $50,000 in net earnings. Where if you made $50,000 as an employee at "normal" job you would be tax at the 28% tax bracket. Think about that.. As an employee your tax rate is almost double that of a self-employed person. So you make $50K working for someone then you have to pay $14k in taxes. But if you work for yourself and made $50K then you only owe $7.5k

The self-employed are at a great tax advantage here. Keep in mind that self-employed typically don't have any benefits like health care so they have to pay all that themselves. In any case, its still a big difference in taxes.

Back to my original question about your job title: This self-employed status is great for many workers in the USA, except in 1986 Congress pass a law that excluded some jobs from being "self-employed." This group of workers were primary technology workers. The exact text was "engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work..."

So this entire group of workers could not work for themselves because some clever government lawyer wanted more tax revenue and decided to single out this group of workers to extract more taxes from them.

Now, I am a technology worker and I ask why not also exclude private lawyers and accountants? Well the answer is simple. It was a lawyer and an Arthur Andersen accountant that wrote the exception into law. Why would those skilled trades people shoot there own profession in the foot?

This law is totally unfair and discriminatory to single out an entire profession. And this was one of many reasons why Joe Stack killed himself flying his plane into the IRS building in Austin, TX. Now, I'm not condoning what Joe did, he was crazy. But I read his suicide letter and tried to put myself in his shoes. I can say I understand his frustration. This law needs to change, but I would never condone anything crazy like what he did..

Here is a NY Times Opinion Editor about this law,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21shulman.html

Gifts for Me..

If you need gift ideas for a typical guy, then here are some ideas. Most guys like gadgets so here are a few that I personally found this year for myself.. They are for the guy that has it all.. Click on any of the pics to take you to a store where you can buy it..

This is currently the best Bluetooth headset on the market today. It even beat out last year's Jawbone headset and is a bit cheaper.


This little gadget uses LEDs to lite up and charges wirelessly by induction. Pretty cool in an emergency.

This $10 device will sound up a small room.

This is a device that allows you to use your car's radio to connect your cell phones speakers for a wireless setup.

This convenient organizer allows you to recharge all your gadgets in one place. For the someone that has a phone, headset and mp3 player it is very handy.. It's also allot cheaper then the Powermat.

This cool device will wirelessly transmit your pics from your camera to your PC or the Internet. You can actually get a free one if you upgrade your storage space with with Google.

People Search Engines

Google may be good at many things, but people search is not one of them. For that you’ll have to use a more specialized search engine.

Going by ComScore’s December numbers, Pipl is leading in the US with 557K unique users to Spock’s 260K, but is trailing internationally with 1.35M uniques to Spock’s 2.38M. How has Pipl pulled this off? Matthew Hertz, the company CEO, tells me it’s mostly word-of-mouth. It’s a simple answer but it rings true. Just take it out for a spin and you’ll see why—it’s just good. In fact it’s so good it’ll probably scare some people’s pants off when they see what information it is able to—legally—drudge up.

It produces not only links to all of your profiles on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, blog mentions, and photos on Flickr. It finds mentions of your name in public records, including property records, SEC filings, and birth databases. It also finds e-mail addresses and summarizes “quick facts” about the person.

Unlike most search engines, Pipl crawls the Deep Web. I’ll explain. A general purpose search engine typically crawls the Web by following links to URLs found in other pages. By contrast, the Deep Web is made up of pages that no other pages link to. Dynamic pages are a good example of these sorts of pages. This means that if an engine wants to index pages located in Deep Web repositories it has to “guess” possible URLs. Just how big is the Deep Web? No one really knows but it’s generally accepted that it is vastly greater (orders of magnitude greater) than the Surface Web—the pages which are easily indexed by search engines.

#1 http://pipl.com/

#2 http://www.spock.com/

#3 http://wink.com/

Best Travel Web Sites

Here are my favourite sites for finding deals when traveling..

Best AirFare deals http://www.kayak.com/ or http://www.mobissimo.com/

Then goto Priceline and bid 20% lower.. 

http://www.yapta.com/ for using frequent flyer miles

Check historical Flight delay info at http://delaycast.com/

Best site for Hotels:  http://hotelscombined.com/

Best Site for Car Rental: http://bnm.com/ then goto PriceLine.com and bid 20% lower...

Best Site for getting around a big city:  http://hopstop.com/

Restaurant search: http://opentable.com/

General Travel site: http://www.frommers.com/

My first Blog...

Wow.. I finally got my own Blog.. For a guy that is so into technology, you would have thought that I would have done this a long time ago. For most people, I seem like an early adopter of most technology. But to me, I always see someone else ahead of me and that makes me want to leap ahead. I guess it all depends on where you are in the technology road map. There is always someone that knows more then you and then someone that knows allot less then you. That's what makes technology fun. Everyone is at a different point and you can always share something with someone about something. I am learning something all the time. Blogging has been around for a while, so its not really new to me. It's really just something that I finally decided to do like the last few things I decided to get on board with:

Gmail account (atn1972@gmail.com)- I moved recently and had to cancel my Comcast cable.. I should have known better and stuck with a web mail account years ago. Hopefully, Google stays around for a while and I don't have to change my personal email for awhile.. I do have a Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail account, but yahoo has to much junk, AOL sounds like they are going under soon and Hotmail is just to slow. Gmail is simple and works on my phone, a Motorola Q9c with IMAP protocol. It also has a cool Photo upload feature to share photos. I used it to sell all my stuff on Craig's List. You can check out my public album at http://picasaweb.google.com/atn1972

New Cell Phone - My current phone is a Motorola Q9c, from Sprint. I had to get a new phone after losing my job. I had Razor before, and several Blackberry phones from Sprint, Nextel and ATT. We tried them all. The Blackberry's are nice, but a bit to expensive for a personal phone. I got the Q9c using the Sprint SERO plan. $30 for 500 minutes, free data, unlimited nights and weekend. It was the best cell phone deal out there. The cost now is double that. So I was lucky to get it. I also got $100 off the phone. The best part is that I can use the phone as a "modem" and its unlimited data for about $35/month with taxes. The speed is like 128Kbps and plenty fast for what I need. It has really come in handy when I travel for work and cant get Internet access. I use a USB cable most of the time, but it can also connect with Bluetooth which is just a bit slower and kills the battery. Using the cable keeps the phone charged, which is convenient. The phone also works during the data session, but if a call comes it, it will drop the Internet connection until you hang up. All-in all its a great phone with great features... The phone also has a GPS chip in it, which means I can use google maps to navigate with my car. It comes in handy especially if you want to do a search for something local.

MySpace Page - I finally got a MySpace page. It seem everyone was doing it, so I did too.. Not to much on it, but I have meet a few interesting people on it and found some old friends. I think I might try Facebook next. It seems to be more professional and less junk. MySpace has lots of junk and people trying to get you to sign up for some porn site.

CraigsList.org - This site is simply amazing. Its a free online classified ad site. You can post things for free and buy or sell just about anything. It's like an Ebay, but better.. Its all local. You sell you stuff to people that live around you. Or you buy stuff from people around you. There is no bidding, just the stated price and you go to pickup your items. I sold all the contents of my house in about a week. 80% of my large furniture was sold within 6 hrs. I was simply amazed!