techchick.us | Musings, ramblings and rantings of a techchick.

I am currently migrating this blog to a new web host, so if things look wonky for a while (broken images, broken links, theme changing, etc.) you know why.

Yeah that’s right, I’m back. The title up there means what it says. The big black hole sucks up both time and money, so beware. More details on what I’ve been up to later.

Are you a sucker too? Comment back and let me know.

Well after much research, toil, sweat and nail-biting here is the new, improved and shinier techchick.us blog!

I still have much work to do: checking image links, adding back all the sidebar links, and adding categories to all the imported posts but all in all it’s coming along great.

I’ll be putting up the link redirects shortly so hope to be seeing you here soon!

Well I didn’t get to properly celebrate my third anniversary on this blog (October 21st) since as you can see a few posts down my puddy tat passed away the week before. So Happy Belated Anniversary to My Blog.

After yesterday’s severe frustration (see my post on MySpace for details) I spent a fair amount of time today playing around with new blogging software. I figured the whole incident was something telling me I need to get off this thing and administer my blog myself.

Barring any major catastrophes, this blog will be moving to new software and a new subdirectory very soon. Watch this space for details and new links for your bookmarking and RSS feed pleasure.

Out of all the things my phone has done while in my pocket*, this was the most bizarre.

I was out Christmas shopping on Sunday when I got out my phone to call my mom and discovered that the internal phone memory phone book was gone! Only the SIM card memory was intact. Needless to say I was highly upset and disturbed that: 1) my phone was most likely dying and 2) some of those numbers I didn’t have anywhere else.

After I made this discovery I was fortunate that a few key people happened to call me so I was able to save those numbers.

Although I had been toying with the idea of upgrading to a new phone or possibly switching carriers it was a leisurely pursuit – leisurely being the operative word. Now a sense of urgency was starting to build in my brain.

Fast forward to later that evening…

I’m going through my call logs saving numbers to the SIM card memory when I decide to test if the phone memory is or not. I performed the procedure for copying a number from the SIM card to the internal phone memory, then checked the phone book. Not there.

So then I go through every menu and every setting on the phone, just to make sure there isn’t something set wrong or turned off. Bingo! The phone book was not erased, just obscured from view. The option to show both SIM card and phone memory had been changed to display SIM card only.

Since I had already created duplicate entries for most of my numbers I decided to copy all numbers to the SIM card, then change the display to show only phone memory.

Of course, a side effect of all this is that now I’m starting to want a new phone…

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* which includes texting people all by itself!

Va. proposal would track sex offenders by e-mail, IM

Virginia’s attorney general wants to make his state the first to require convicted sex offenders to submit their e-mail addresses and instant-messaging aliases to law enforcement authorities–and he has MySpace.com’s enthusiastic approval.

Bob McDonnell, a Republican, said he plans to push a proposal when state legislators return early next year that would create a database containing all the electronic identifiers of registered sex offenders.

“This is not a foolproof approach, as we all fully realize how easy it is to get new e-mail addresses,” McDonnell, a longtime state legislator who was sworn in as attorney general in January 2006, said in a statement released Monday. “But by requiring registration, and by making the penalties for failure to register the same as those for failure to register physical and mailing addresses, we will take another positive step towards protecting children online.”

Full Story
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Behind the ‘MySpace fugitive’ capture

Darren Bates’ capture last week as he was updating his MySpace page at the Philadelphia main library has been widely reported. But exactly how were U.S. Marshals able to capture the man wanted in Georgia and Massachusetts?

Bates, 35, was arrested Thursday morning at the main branch of the Philadelphia public library. He had been on the run since escaping from the Hancock County Jail in Georgia in June while being held on charges of auto theft. Bates is also a suspect in the beating of an 88-year-old Georgia woman in her home. And he was also wanted on sexual assault charges in New Bedford, Mass.

Full Story

They’ve done it again. The folks at Cerulean Studios have taken instant messaging to the next level… the true universal instant messaging client. A single point of contact on the web for you and all your IM names, social network profiles, web sites, everything. Words alone don’t do it justice. Check out the preview of Trillian Astra (currently in alpha testing) for yourself. I will definately be anxiously awaiting the release.

This past weekend we attended the Pet Expo at the Fort Washington Expo Center. It was a great show, much bigger than last year since they brought back the horse exhibits. While walking around the show and flipping through the program, I discovered that the Expo Center is closing. It’s scheduled to be razed and replaced with an office building.

I have to say, I was shocked and dismayed at the news. That area has more than plentiful office space. In fact, there are several buildings not that far from the Expo center sitting vacant. On the other hand, small to medium convention/expo space in the Delaware Valley is becoming an endangered species. The South Jersey Expo center closed, with the promise that another convention center would be built on another site; so far nothing has happened. The Civic Center in Philadelphia (the original convention center for the city) closed and the property was bought by the University of Pennsylvania; new buildings are being constructed on that site. Now the only convention centers left in the Delware Valley (besides the Pennsylvania Convention Center of course) are Valley Forge, Atlantic City and Wildwood.

The organizers of the Pet Expo have pledged to return to the Philadelphia region in 2007, but currently don’t know where the show will be held. I can’t help but wonder what will happen in future years if they do not find suitable, affordable convention space next year.