a horse is a horse of course of course unless of course the horse is Patches

enable mp3 support for the Samsung SCH-a930 from Verizon

Shane C. Mason posted a small article with instructions on how to enable MP3 support on the Samsung SCH-a930 from Verizon.  He notes that you must have a micro-SD card and a lot of patience because of its limited interoperability.

The phone from Verizon, as shipped, will only play WMA format media files by default.  This truly is dissapointing and manipulative since they advertise it as an MP3 phone. 

Samsung SCH-a930 as a serial modem over bluetooth HOWTO

Verizon ships the SCH-a930 stripped of what should be easily accessible menu options for changing the mode of data transfer from a USB cable, to bluetooth for use as a serial and data modem.

I will not jabber about how to setup a communication link, since the scope of this article will just show how to change the phones settings.

1. open the phone's menu and navigate to "settings and tools"
2. press the '#' key and enter '000000'
3. navigate down to "Port Map"
4. if you need to access your networks data service through a bluetooth connection, navigate to DS(DATA), choose "bluetooth" and hit ok
5. to map your serial modem link to your bluetooth device, select DM(DIAG) and select bluetooth in the following menu..  hit ok
6. return to the "settings and tools" menu, navigate to "phone settings" and then "pc connection"
7. select bluetooth and hit 'ok'
8. for fax and data modem options, navigate to "call settings" in the "settings and tools" menu, and select the option for the next data call that is relevant to your needs
9. initiate your connection from your computer to your phone - there are many sites with general documentation on how to do this

For dial-up (dun) networking, I have had luck with channel 16.  For a serial modem link,  channel 8 works well for my needs.

Why I canceled my once loved and intuitive Yahoo! Mail Plus e-mail account and ditched Yahoo! Mail BETA

During the cancelation process, I was given a tiny little text area to express why I no longer appreciate what Yahoo! premium services offer.  Here is what I wrote:

Your phone support technician, Jake made no attempt to resolve the send/receive issue I was having with my account.  I asked if he could have someone look into the problem, or if he could transfer me to an higher level support employee, but he refused.  He made me aware, that sometimes it can take up to 48 hours for Yahoo!'s mail server to deliver mail.  This is not a service I would like to pay for.  I told your representative I would wait 48 hours, and if the problem doesn't magically resolve on its own, I would be canceling my account.  He replied it was my choice and I can do whatever I want.  Please note that the problem in question, verifying e-mail addresses had been a problem for well over a year.  When contacting your technical support over a year ago, I was given a work-around enabling me to bypass the verification codes.  A year later, which is now, the work-around no longer works, I need to setup forwarding immediately, your tech support chooses to not help, and your business does not care if a paying customer renews his premium account.  I don't feel the Yahoo! in the air anymore. 

70 something better channels than air, but the choices occupy what time I should be watching TV

I upgraded my cable TV plan and have about 70 new channels to check out.  There is a little bit of a problem with this though.  When I had only a few channels to choose from, I would most likely channel surf for just a short while and stay on that channel, knowing nothing better is on.

Now I find myself spending most of the time channel surfing, and never finding anything I would want to watch for any particular length.

So I wonder which is the worst use of time: watching crappy shows like court TV programs and soap operas, or giving my fingers a work out changing the channels constantly, and hoping the heftier bill will pay for itself.