And you pay for it in the “resort fee”.
Setup is trivial but the response time varies greatly in the initial authentication.
Can’t authenticate to their wifi from the Kindle.
Argh!
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HARDWARE: Changning Time zones
Wednesday, November 20, 2013Argh!
Why CAN’T we all use GMT?
The company issued blackberry doesn’t know time zones.
Apple does.
Amusingly the IPAD with only wifi capability know what time it is here.
Even my anchient Verizon cell phone knows.
And why is my body sit on EDST?
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Leave a Comment » | 
HARDWARE | 
Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: No signal on plane
Sunday, November 17, 2013Most interesting on today’s flight.
No signal on the iPhone and no signal on the mifi while in the air.
That surprised me.
With all the fluff about cell phones on planes, they are not much use without connectivity.
NO email; NO texting; NO voice.
Hmmm, have to rethink everything.
# – # – # – # – # 2013-Nov-17 @ 09:26
Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: A change to how money xfered
Monday, November 4, 2013Dear Ferdinand:
We want to handle your money the way you want it handled. That’s why you’ll notice some changes the next time you send money.
Tracking Number (MTCN) required
for Receivers to pick up their money:
Already in most countries around the world, and starting November 5, 2013
in the U.S., receivers will be required to provide the Tracking Number
(MTCN) to pick up their money.
If your receiver is picking up the money at an Agent location that uses
a telephone transaction center, they will need to pick up the phone and provide their Tracking Number (MTCN) in order to receive a special PIN
from a Western Union customer service representative. The receiver will
then need to provide this PIN to the Agent location employee to pick up
their money.
What to do:
Senders: When you send money, ALWAYS contact your receiver to
provide them with the Tracking Number (MTCN).
Receivers: When money is sent to you, ALWAYS ensure that you
have the Tracking Number (MTCN) from your sender before going to
pick up your money.
We appreciate you choosing Western Union for your money transfer needs and look forward to continuing to help you move money for better.
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Interesting. Perhaps this to cut off those Nigerian Princes?
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Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: Changes to protect your privacy!
Sunday, November 3, 20132013-Nov-03
We’ve made changes to your myuhc.com member website that help us further protect your privacy and security. They also make myuhc.com even more easy to use.
What to expect:
Login with higher security
We’ll ask you for new contact information. This improves site security if you forget your user ID or password or log in from a new computer that we don’t know. We have used the most current technology to make sure you are who you say you are.
Register quickly and easily with better privacy protection
We’ve made registration simpler and better, including new security questions to improve site privacy.
If you’ve already registered, you can visit the Account Settings section to change your security questions.
For more information, reference the flyer “New registration steps for myuhc.com.”
Visit myuhc.com today to update your contact information!
Tell us what you think of the enhanced security process by taking a brief survey.
Thank you for helping us keep your health care information safe.
You are receiving this email from UnitedHealthcare because you purchased a product/service from UnitedHealthcare and consented to receive important communications via email. To ensure that you continue to receive emails from us, add the email “from” address to your email address book or safe list.
Please do not reply to this email address, this mailbox is used for outbound email only. Do not include any personal health information as part of any email communication. We cannot guarantee the security of any communication transmitted via the Internet. If you have questions about your account, claims or benefits or would like additional information, please visit myuhc.com or call the toll-free number on the back of your health plan ID card.
To update your preferences for online Explanation of Benefits, Claim Letters or Health Statements to mail, please visit myuhc.com and click on Account settings.
Update your email address, change your member profile page or subscribe to other email publications.
Please note that by opting out of Legal/Regulatory emails, you will receive these notices via mail.
Your privacy is important to us. View our privacy policy.
This email was sent by: UnitedHealthcare, 9700 Health Care Lane, Minnetonka, MN 55343 USA
Insurance coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company or its affiliates. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affiliates.
© 2013 United HealthCare Services, Inc.
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Come on, guys, this is dumb. For one thing, two factor authentication is nice, but a giant pain. Why don’t I get a choice what risks I choose to take. Rather, you should spend your resources making a a better website, so that when I changed employers I didn’t have to create another User id because your systems couldn’t handle it. Or, perhaps, you might allow me to pick the longer passwords that are easily facilitated by LASTPASS. Some folks are further along the curve than you are. Oh, btw, the CHOMEBOOK and CHROME browser I use don’t remember cookies between restarts. So your new method ALWAYS makes it a “new computer”. But I don’t have worry about malware. I’d be amused if anyone responds to this.
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Don’t you just love when they send from “unattended email” or “outbound only”?
Just call, hang on line, and we’ll maybe get around to you with a slew of dumb questions.
And, oh by the way, we’re so big, you can just go somewhere else. (Like I have any choice about who my employer does business with!)
This is why “health”, “health care”, “health care insurance”, or something else should have NEVER been connected to employment.
Imagine if I changed jobs and lost my car insurance. My home insurance. My life insurance.
Crony capitalism at it best!
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Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: Changing my opinions …
Wednesday, October 30, 2013This last upgrade to Mac OS X Mavericks appears to break stuff and change things.
Not for the better.
So, Apple has disappointed me.
I now think they are in the same class as IOS7, Windoze, Linux, and Chromebook.
Each have their own advantages, disadvantages, and utility.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do.
Unfortunately, I just want to use the stuff to produce stuff. I don’t want to alpha test unless I volunteer.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: Chromebook, IOS7, Linux, MACOSX, WINDOZE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
OS: OSX MAVERICKS breaks BlueGriffon
Saturday, October 26, 2013Trying to open a file causes BlueGriffon to crash.
Workaround: Use FINDER to open the file with the “open with” option.
# – # – # – # – # 2013-Oct-26 @ 21:45
Leave a Comment » | OPERATING SYSTEM | Tagged: BlueGriffon, OSX MAVERICKS | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: CFB on FOX on Channel 5 TV poor video quality
Saturday, October 26, 2013CFB on FOX on Channel 5 TV
The picture quality “stinks”!
I see jitter and very poor video quality.
(Not that anyone cares!)
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: Crony Capitalist Microsoft subtly restrains trade
Saturday, October 19, 2013http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-linux-basemosaic-ubuntu-parity,24519.html
Nvidia Removed Linux Driver Feature Due to Windows
By Kevin ParrishOCTOBER 3, 2013 1:28 PM – Source: Softpedia
The reason seems a little contradictory.
*** begin quote ***
Softpedia points to a Nvidia Developer Zone forum post revealing that the company has removed a specific Linux feature as of the v310 drivers due to the Windows platform. A BaseMosaic user on Ubuntu 12.04 noticed a change in the number of displays that can be used simultaneously after upgrading from the v295 drivers to v310.
*** and ***
Yet in v295, the Ubuntu user was able to get four monitors up and running. So why was BaseMosaic altered to support only three monitors instead? Nvidia explains. “For feature parity between Windows and Linux we set BaseMosaic to 3 screens,” said “Sandpit” of Nvidia’s Linux team.
What’s interesting here is that Nvidia’s proprietary Windows driver has features not found in the Linux drivers, but the company will remove specific Linux-only features for “parity.” The comment indicates that the three-screen limit has nothing to do with a degradation of quality when using four screens, but a possible Microsoft request/demand.
Nvidia’s driver documentation states that BaseMosaic can be used to extend a single X screen transparently across all of the available display outputs on each GPU.
“This is like SLI Mosaic mode except that it does not require a video bridge connected to the graphics cards,” the notes read. “Due to this Base Mosaic does not guarantee there will be no tearing between the display boundaries. Base Mosaic is supported on all the configurations supported by SLI Mosaic Mode. It is also supported on Quadro FX 380, Quadro FX 580 and all G80 or higher non-mobile NVS cards.”
It will be interesting to see if Nvidia returns four-monitor support back to its Linux drivers, given that the reason for removing the feature seems a little contradictory.
*** end quote ***
Yeah, dumbing down the free market competitor is fair. But don’t do the something equivalent to the big guy.
Nvidia is taking a gamble.
Hope they pay for that decision.
Personally, I have placed them on my “Toshiba” list. Technology I will never buy. (Toshiba sold the US Navy sub quiet propeller design to Red China.)
Like my “Jane Fonda” list, I have a very LONG memory.
Hope you all do too!
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: Nvidia, proprietary Windows driver, UBUNTU, Windows | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SERVICE: CMT off the air
Sunday, October 6, 2013I have a few guilty pleasures.
One is I like Sunday morning country music while I catch up my paperwork.
Cox strikes again.
“Temporarily Off Air”!
Do I get a refund?
Argh!
It’s not worth calling or email.
The TV guide was off for 4 days.
No acknowledgment.
Argh!
No competition; so why should they care.
# – # – # – # – # 2013-Oct-06 @ 12:04
Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: Cable TV, COX, OUTAGE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: LIVESCRIBE (not recommended)
Friday, September 27, 2013http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/
Bought one on a lark.
Some minor issues, but worked through them.
Even liked it.
Can think of some stuff that could be better.
BUT now I have come up with the KILLER negative.
I lost the darn thing.
OK. It’s a $200 gadget. But it was “useful”.
So I ask the question, “if I buy a new one, can I link it to my old stuff.”
Answer, <cue Jeopardy theme>, …
… NO!
Are u kidding me?
There’s an obvious “use” case!
Oh well, let me slap a big NOTRECOMMENDED on this one.
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: Misplaced my LIVESCRIBE pen!
Wednesday, September 11, 2013All gadgets should have a find me feature.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: VERIZON FIOS reboot
Sunday, August 25, 2013At 1215, the beast dropped power are rebooted.
Lost the inet for a minute, tv took much longer to recover.
# – # – # – # – # 2013-Aug-25 @ 12:20
Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: Kindle Paperwhite
Saturday, August 17, 2013Kindle Paperwhite
Wi-Fi, Paperwhite Display, Higher Resolution, Higher Contrast, Built-in Light
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OK, I relented and bought one. The IPADs, Mac reading app, and such are just too “heavy”.
I like it …
… BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), …
It needs some UI (User Interface) help with respect to Library Books.
It’s a PIA to get stuff off the Kindle that has expired.
It also doesn’t (easily if at all) differntiate between content I’ve borrowed and stuff I’ve bought.
Getting stuff emailed to it seems neat but width-wise doesn’t always fit.
More as I play with it.
“But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.” Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/quotes
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: amazon, ebooks, KINDLE, library | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: NEWTRENT POWERPAK+ NT135T
Saturday, July 6, 2013New Trent PowerPak+, NT135T: (13500mAh) 2A/1A Dual USB Ports Portable Back Up External Battery Charger/Power Bank/Power Pack for Apple: iPad 4 / 3 / 2/ iPad mini, iPhone 5 / 4S / 4 /3GS, iPod Touch (all version); Samsung: Galaxy Note, S4 / S3 / S2, Galaxy Nexus ; Google: Nexus 10 / 7, HTC: ONE, One X, One S, Droid Incredible 4G; Nexus 4, LG: Optimus series; Blackberry: Z10, Torch, Tour; Motorola: Razr Maxx HD, Droid series; Nokia: Lumia 900 / 800 / 700, Sony: Xperia series, GoPro, and most 5V chargeable devices (Upgraded Version of the NT120T)
by New Trent
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It’s not intuitively obvious to use.
When it’s recharging something, it looks like nothing is happening.
You have to carry the original device cables with you.
It can only charge something that will take power from a USB. (No laptops!)
It doesn’t come with it’s own wall wart.
There are two usb output ports, but no external markings on which is the “bigger one” for IPADs and which is the “smaller one” for IPHONEs. (Would a colored dot add that much cost?)
As an OTTERBOX fan, I’d like covers on all the holes.
I’m using it, but my first experiences were 5 stars.
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: gadget, iPad, iPhone 5, OTTERBOX, portable, power, wall wart | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SOFTWARE: FINDFRIENDS interesting application
Monday, May 20, 2013Interesting use for it.
My friend Pete’s in the hospital in Jacksonville FL.
I know where is phone is!
Laff.
I assume he still has it with him.
So, without bothering anyone, I know he’s still there.
Now if it could just tell me the altitude, I’d know if he’s still in ICU or moved to a regular room.
Laff!
Stalking to a new level.
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Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Tagged: cloud, iphone, social media | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: AT&T MIFI Sierra Wireless “UNITE” problem
Saturday, May 11, 2013New AT&T MIFI Sierra Wireless “UNITE”
MTTF about a week.
LOCKED in “shutting down”.
Not easy to get access to the battery. Pulled it and reinserted. Problem solved.
Then, I had to fix what I messed up floundering around.
I popped the SIM thinking that might break the “shutting down” lock.
No dice.
I guess when I put it back in I didn’t ram it home. Afraid of breaking it.
So when it came back up, it whined about “no sim card”.
Easy fix.
But strike one!
Argh!
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2 Comments | HARDWARE | Tagged: AT&T, INTERNET, MIFI, Sierra Wireless, UNITE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: It’s not the PC; it’s what can you do?
Saturday, April 20, 2013http://www.zdnet.com/windows-its-over-7000013964/
*** begin quote ***
Yes, we are entering a post-PC world. Tablets and smartphones are becoming more important… to sales. PCs are no more going to go away than mainframes did. We’re still going to be using them in offices and homes for the foreseeable future. They let us easily do things that we need to do every day that we can’t easily do with a tablet or a phone.
*** end quote ***
I didn’t like Windoze when it started. I was a UNIX guy from AT&T. Then I saw the value of insulating Users for the operating system.
Now, I just focus on getting work done?
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Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: computing, OS, OS X, Windows | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SOFTWARE: Google changes CHROME and makes me reconsider that too
Monday, March 18, 2013When Google nuked GREADER, it also took the extension that supports RSS feeds out of CHROME.
Now, I’m rethinking EVERYTHING I do with GOOGLE.
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Tagged: CHROME, GOOGLE, RSS | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SOFTWARE: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. | Building Feedly
Monday, March 18, 2013Have to move from Google Reader. Argh! Change is never fun. And, why should we ever trust Google again.
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Priorities: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. | Building Feedly: “Building Feedly Re-imagine how people keep in touch with their favorite sites.
SearchMain menu Skip to primary content Skip to secondary content Post navigation← Previous Priorities: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. Posted on March 15, 2013 by @feedly More than 500,000 Google Reader users have joined the feedly community over the last 48 hours. We love passionate readers. Welcome on board.
Our main priorities over the next 30 days are 1) to keep the service up, 2) listen to new users for suggestions and 3) add features weekly.
To keep the service up, we 10x our bandwidth and added new servers.
For new features, we are listening actively to our new uservoice forum and will be pushing out new releases on a weekly basis. Be vocal: we love candid feedback.
Note 1: Here are some tips on how to make feedly less pretty and more functional.
Note 2: If you are a Google Reader, give feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlesly: Feedly for i”
(Via.)
–30–
Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Tagged: change, FEEDLY | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
IPAD: can’t interact with contacts from gmail client
Sunday, March 17, 2013Interesting.
From the natve GMAIL client on the IPAD, I can’t figure out how to save a contact.
Argh!
AND, it apparently doesn’t support the native IOS address book.
I am really getting tired of having to maintain addresses.
Plaxo had promise but all they wanted was to spam, charge, and interfere.
Maybe I should write an X500 directory service.
LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone else has a different agenda.
I just want one synced address book!
Argh!
–30–
Leave a Comment » | IPAD | Tagged: contacts, gmail, GOOGLE, iPad | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Computers … …
Sunday, March 17, 2013Here’s a great quote to inspire you to write:
“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.” – Paul Ehrlich
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As a corollary of this, I came up with the idea of “negative progress”! I can screw up more in a wasted effort than any profess that I can make on a good day.
seems so obvious to me, other than the concept of checkpoints, where one can fall back to a previously know good state, that one can actually “destroy” progress.
Given enough time, I am sure I can come up with examples, but who cares?
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Leave a Comment » | Technology | Tagged: errors, meme shift, memes | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SOFTWARE: Googles RSS Subscription Extension, Removed From Chrome Web Store
Saturday, March 16, 2013a reason to abandon Chrome?
Google’s RSS Subscription Extension, Removed From Chrome Web Store: “Three years ago I tried to convince the Chrome team that it makes sense to add native support to feeds. At that time, Google built an extension that showed feed previews and allowed you to subscribe to feeds. The explanation for building an extension instead of implementing the feature in Chrome was simple:
‘This decision was made based on our philosophy of trying to limit ourselves to adding only the UI features that a vast majority of users need and allow each user to customize the browsers to fit their needs with Extensions. Given that most people are not familiar with and don’t consume RSS feeds, we thought that RSS support would be a better fit as an extension, at least to begin with.’
In 5 months, more than 300,000 people installed the extension. More than 1,600 people starred a feature request for implementing RSS detection natively. Chrome still doesn’t have this feature and the extension released in 2010 has been removed from the Chrome Web Store a few days ago. The issue is that the extension used Google Reader to preview feeds and Google Reader will be discontinued in July.
‘RSS Subscription Extension’ had 869,743 users. Fortunately, it wasn’t the only extension for subscribing to feeds. Here’s another extensionbased on an old version of Google’s extension.
“
(Via Google Operating System.)
Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
SOFTWARE: No More Google Reader
Wednesday, March 13, 2013No More Google Reader: “Google announced that Google Reader will be discontinued on July 1st. It’s a sad news, but it was inevitable. Google Reader has always been ‘on the chopping block’ because it never got enough traction.
Everything started with a feed parser built by Chris Wetherell that turned into a feed reader, helped by Ben Darnell, Laurence Gonsalves, and Mihai Parparita. The product was launched in 2005 as a Google Labs project and it was significantly improved one year later, when the Google Reader team launched a completely new version. Over the years, Google Reader integrated with iGoogle, added social features and handled feed serving for all Google products. Back in 2007, Google Reader crawled 8 million feeds and 70% of the traffic was from Firefox users.
In 2011, Google removed Reader’s social features and replaced them with a Google +1 button. It was the beginning of the end for Reader, who lost all the engineers from the original team. Google Reader is in maintenance mode ever since then.
While feeds are no longer important for many users and browsers start to drop support for reading feeds, social networks make newsfeeds popular and mobile apps like Flipboard simplify reading the news. Feeds are now a behind-the-scenes technology and full-fledged feed readers seem outdated.
‘We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too. There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience,’ says Google’s Alan Green.
It’s hard to find a replacement for Google Reader, since Google Reader was the most popular feed reader and the competition couldn’t keep up with it. You can still find some web-based feed readers, but none of them is as good as Google Reader. Congratulations to everyone who worked on the Reader team and thanks to all the people who subscribed to this blog in Google Reader.
Here’s Google Reader’s team from 2007:
“
(Via Google Operating System.)
Leave a Comment » | SOFTWARE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
MACBOOKAIR: bought a new macbookair; lets call MCBA12
Tuesday, March 12, 2013MacBook Air
11-inch, Mid 2012
Processor 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB
Serial Number C02JD02XF67K
Software OS X 10.8 (12A269)
Let’s see how long this stays out of the obsolete file.
Brought up all my standard software
Tonight I’ll put together a manifest
Need to figure out the old MacBook Air’s software that was bought from the App Store; it didn’t come over.
Scrivner is the only thing not over yet.
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2 Comments | MACBOOKAIR | Tagged: MACBOOKAIR | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
HARDWARE: Watching ESPN3 on the big screen via Apple TV
Sunday, March 10, 2013Watch the Manhattan College Jaspers on ESPM3 over the internet.
“Threw it” from the IPAD to the Apple TV which puts it on the TV.
Neat!
# – # – # – # – # 2013-Mar-10 @ 17:07
Leave a Comment » | HARDWARE | Tagged: AppleTV, INTERNET, Television | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Reinke Faces Life 
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