Alfaj0r.com

To break the scary trend of politically charged posts , I’m going to tell you all about my newest USB drive. That’s right. Get into it, people!

I got a 4Gb Cruzer Micro, and the first thing I did after plugging it in, was uninstall U3. No, thanks, I don’t want something installing into my computer for my portable device. And it’s also ugly. And I didn’t want it, I just wanted 4Gbs of storage in my keychain!
Luckily, I was able to uninstall U3 without a problem, but after reading a bit, I guess some people have had trouble in the past. They have a page here to download an uninstaller, which to me says "oh hi, most people are not going to know how to uninstall this bloatware, and out of those, most of them are going to be to lazy to research how to do it, muahahha ".

At any rate, I happily had a device that was nothing but a dumping ground for all my secret documents. I was a happy customer now.

But then, I started wondering. Why would anyone even use U3? I came to find out that it would be useful to have some portable applications that you carry around on your keychain. Like your browser, with all of your bookmarks… And maybe even a password manager, so that you don’t have to remember all your different passwords for myspace, facebook, twitter and Oprah’s fan club site.

So, in search for an alternative, I ran into PortableApps and PStart. I ended up trying PortableApps first, and I haven’t had any problems at all, so I didn’t even make it to the other alternative. Now, I have Firefox, FileZilla, 7-zip, Miranda, Notepad++ and PuTTY, anywhere I go.

And one of these bookmarks that go with me now, is for FreeRice.com. It’s a good time killer for about 10 minutes, which serves multiple functions: entertainment, improvement of my engrish :eng101: by making me learn new and crazy words, and it helps feed the hungry of the world, by donating 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for each word you get right. Go check it out!

When I first bought a cell phone, I got a Nokia E62. I needed something that was easy to type on, as I was using it for my second job, an on call computer technician for Computer Techs of Reno.

But then I got a new job, and they took over my account and gave me a new phone (a Cingular 8125 ). Since then (March 07), I’ve had the Nokia laying around, doing nothing. So, I figured that I’d give it to my brother for him to use. The only problem is that my brother lives in Argentina.

So, I have to unlock the phone, because it was only set to work with Cingular (now AT&T). The process was actually pretty simple, and I can’t believe I put it off for so long. Basically, you call Cingular support, tell them you want your phone unlocked and wait about 2 weeks. That’s it.
Now, they might ask you why you want to unlock this phone, to which I said the phone was going to be used overseas with a different SIM card, and that I needed to make sure it was going to work before I got there. I was never specific on who was going to use the phone, so that I’m not bound to any kind of verbal agreement. (who knows, eh? :tinfoil: )

I got my unlock code today. After they emailed me to let me know the issue was resolved, I called them to ask where the code was, and after about 10 minutes on the phone (a lot of account verification goes on for this, I’m guessing it’s a big deal), they gave me the code via phone and email. They even check to see if your specific phone has any kind of special steps to unlock. It turns out, on the Nokia E62, you just put in a non-Cingular SIM, and it asks you for the unlock code. Easy enough! :keke: