Rescuing data from a drive

Thanks to goodies from Eric's gadget box, I was able to rescue some files off a 500GB drive with a broken connector. (The drive was otherwise in good condition, as was the data on it.)

Gadgets! Wii Fit

Bought a Wii console and Wii Fit today (Father's Day bundle on sale at Big W, under my price point for impulse purchases), and set it up with my monitor (I have no TV). There's no sound, but I hate sound, so I'm in no hurry to connect some speakers even though I'm sure it would be better with sound.

What shall I buy?

I'm feeling the urge to buy a new gadget to play with. No, I don't know what gadget, and it's not like I've caught up on all my other gadgets. If Dell has something tempting on special in the paper tomorrow, I may be in trouble...

Smoke alarm

Used grill in oven for the first time in new house. Set off the smoke alarm. Alarm's turn-off button didn't. Eric had to rip it off ceiling and remove the battery. Not impressed. The chops tasted good, but.

Medical update

Medical update: When I saw the physio on Wednesday for a monthly checkup, he seemed reasonably pleased with my progress, though it's obvious to both of us that I still have a ways to go. He then had me do some new exercises (with an exercise ball, one of the big ones you can sit on) and seemed a bit surprised that I did the first few quite easily and well. So he immediately put me onto the intermediate series of exercises, some for strength and others for balance, and on the way home I bought an exercise ball to add to my extensive collection of equipment. I liked them when I was going to the gym. I also bought a new electric jug—this one with a covered spout, to discourage geckos and other wildlife from falling in.

I love the iPod Touch

Eric recently bought an iPod Touch. I didn't think I would like it at all, but I love it! I thought it would be really difficult to read things on the screen, but it does such cool things with the display of web pages that they are actually readable, and Google has a "Google mobile" mode that makes using Gmail easy and even Google Docs are not bad. It connects by wifi to the internet. Typing is tedious (though not nearly as bad as typing on a the keypad of a typical mobile phone), but the rest of it is fantastic. I haven't tried to watch a movie on it, but then I almost never watch movies at all. And I rarely listen to music, so the ubiquitous "music everywhere" aspects of an iPod have never interested me. But the possibility of doing my email and websurfing on this thing on my travels, instead of lugging along a laptop computer (unless I expect to want or need to do a lot of typing), are most tempting. (The iPhone isn't available in Australia yet.)

Mobile phone as modem

One goal I had for my new mobile phone was to be able to use it as a modem to connect the computer to the internet using Bluetooth under Ubuntu. It was easy to get the phone and the computer to recognise each other's existence, but I was stumped on the next step. So I asked for help on the Australian Ubuntu users' list and several people answered, each giving me a different piece of the puzzle: one helped me get the Bluetooth connection working, one gave me a set of scripts to do the dialing, and one had some other hints and tips to make my life easier. I don't know what age group(s) these guys are in, but I asked them to explain how to do things "like you would explain it to your grandmother" and they did a fine job, even the one who started out talking in incomprehensible (to me) geek-speak. I followed their instructions carefully and on my first test -- IT WORKED! I won't actually use the mobile phone as a modem except as a last resort, because of the costs involved and its slower speed compared to our home broadband connection, though the phone company does have a monthly data plan I can sign up for at times when I expect to be using it a lot (like next year's planned outback expedition).

New mobile phone

I got a new mobile phone. I didn't want one, but the CDMA phone system here is being replaced early in 2008 by something called NextG (for Next Generation: how Star Trek-ish!) so I had to get a different handset. I've been putting off getting one until the phone company offered me both an acceptable phone (the early models didn't have various features I wanted) and an inducement that appealed to me. A month or two ago they started offering a Nokia 6120classic phone with the Symbian operating system and all the features I wanted (as well as lots of other features of no interest to me). This week I received their latest inducement offer: $100 credit on my phone bill, so I decided to go ahead and make the switch. The phone has more features than many of my former computers and my cameras. I'm sure I'll never use most of them! I spent some time with the instruction book, learning a few of the most-needed features.

Another geek point for Jean

Usually when I run into something I don't understand about Linux or computers or other gadgets, I yelp for help, but today I had the time and energy to try to solve a problem on my own—and succeeded! It was, of course, easy to solve, once I figured out a few of the non-obvious (to me) steps along the way. Warning to Windows users: unfamiliar terminology ahead. Eric gave me an old 30GB USB hard drive to use for storing my digital photos. The problem: the drive was formatted for some Mac drive format. Ubuntu could see the drive, and the directory names, but it couldn't do anything with it (even read the contents). Eric said "you'll have to reformat it". "Ummm", said I, "how? I can't see any commands for formatting disks." "Use fdisk", said Eric, who then ducked and ran for cover. Well, I am totally enthusiastic about command-line stuff, so I did some searching on the Ubuntu forums to see if there was another way. Found it: Gparted (Gnome partition editor). Cool! So I installed Gparted, which let me see the partitions on the USB drive but not do anything with it ("Format" was greyed out). Then I looked up Gparted's website and found a note that I had to unmount the partition first. Okay, that makes sense (it never occurred to me, because I haven't done enough mount-unmount type stuff to remember it). I found the menu command for that, after which reformatting was straightforward and easy. Unplugged the drive, plugged it in again; it remounted automatically, and away we go. I copied my whole shared partition onto it, and checked on the other laptop that it could be read (yes).

New mobile phone

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd had a visit to a dentist and an eye specialist. Both of these people are in Townsville, a city about 4 hours' drive from where I live. Eric and I drove there on Monday morning, and we stayed two nights, doing some shopping on Tuesday morning. I managed to find all sorts of odd items that I couldn't find closer to home, and I also managed to not spend huge sums of money. (Several times when we make these medical trips I end up buying something expensive, like a new car... but not this time.) I did, however, get a new mobile phone. Mine was 7 years old and didn't have a USB connector to enable me to use it as a modem with a computer that doesn't have a serial port (like the laptop I'm using for travel); nor did it have outgoing SMS message capability, which I've been finding the occasional need for over the last year. Because I travel a lot in areas where the only mobile phone connection is CDMA, my choice of service provider is limited to one: Telstra. So, upon finding a Telstra store, I popped in for a chat. I was not surprised to discover that explaining my internet requirements was a challenge. The phone store staff (several of them) kept assuming I wanted to get email (or view websites) on the phone itself, despite my repeated statements that I did not want to do that -- I wanted to use the phone to connect my computer to the internet, just as I would connect it to a fixed phone line at home. Eventually I was able to extract enough information to choose a phone that would do what I wanted, despite the best efforts of the helpful staff. Fortunately the rest of the process was easy: switching my phone number from the old handset to the new one. They didn't have the required USB cable in stock, but they did order it for delivery to my home address. As soon as it arrives, I'll see if I can get it all working.