I let the update install which takes about 5 minutes and then go about my business.  The following day I realize I haven’t received any e-mail from my corporate e-mail account.  I click on messaging and go into that account and then it starts to sync up.  I think to myself “that was odd, I hope it is better now”… It was not.  My settings were that same as before the upgrade Data Push was turned on.  So I read a few forums and they suggest deleting and recreating the account (done… no help) Remove and replace the battery (done… no help)  Talk to my IT dept to have them fix something with the exchange server as it could be a cert problem… (done… wait no I didn’t do that one, as it was just an issue with push, not an issue with over connectivity)

So after looking all over the web and not finding a solution, I figured out this problem on my own.  Writing it down here in case anyone else has the same problem they can get this fixed.  The fix for me was click on Messaging -> (settings button) -> messaging settings -> e-mail -> email delivery -> Attachment Download -> Turn (OFF) Download over Wi-Fi

BAM! instantly my data push starts working again.  I am not sure what the issue was here, as I was both on Wi-Fi and 3G all the while when I had this issue.

I hope if you are having this problem and find this blog, that it works for you as well.  Let me know!

just needed to share that.

I ran into one big hiccup that I could not not find any solutions for so I thought I would post it here in case someone else runs into the same issue.

While trying to install Waninkoko’s CIOS38rev14 it would just go to a black screen and turn off the wiimote.  no matter what I did it wouldn’t load the boot.dol

I tried redownloading the files and coping them to the SD card.  ( no luck always the same issue) every other boot.dol and wad would load up properly.

Solution!!

Reformat the SD card, do it again if you have to.  I used the panasonic tool that is linked on many sites about this procedure.

Now I am playing wii games off the hard drive and not putting wear and tear on my discs or DVD drive.

A Finished Battle

I made a Robot fighting game.  How it works – you make a file that has your robot’s commands and then it will fight other programmed robots until you lose 10 health.  I made it in C# using the microsoft XNA framework, so in order to play it you would need to have XNA installed on your computer.  If you would like the source code or the compiled game let me know and I’ll send it to you.  If you want your robots to fight against mine send me your instructions text file.

Your file has to be in this format each command has it’s own line and after your main commands you need an IF_HIT line followed by the commands if your robot gets shot, followed by IF_COLLIDE for what it should do if it collides with another robot.

all of the commands available are

MOVE # ( if number is 0 it will move to the opposite wall, else it will move that amount)

ROTATE # ( will rotate the robot that # of degrees)

ROTATE RANDOM (will rotate to a random degree)

SCAN (will scan for a robot)

FIRE (Fires your cannon in the current direction of the gun)

SET_ROBOT_TO_GUN (will turn your robot to match the current gun angle)

SET_GUN_TO_ROBOT (will turn your gun to match the current direction of your robot)

here is an example

ROTATE -90
MOVE 100
SCAN
FIRE
IF_HIT
MOVE 0
IF_COLLIDE
ROTATE 90
MOVE 100

I started picking up programming again.  I used C# with the XNA libraries to make a quick pong game.  This took me about an hour to code up and it is more for the learning experience, but if you want to check it out,  leave me a message and i’ll send you the program and/or the source.

Calla being cute sitting by the river

So we went to St. Cloud to visit Calla’s Family this Thanksgiving.  We had a lot of very good food, but the highlight of the trip was when we went for a little excursion with just the 2 of us.  First we went below the dam to skip stones in the river.  We had a lot of fun, but the real excitement was above the dam where the water was frozen.  After just sitting along the river for a few minutes, we accidentally knocked a chunk of ice on the river and it skidded and made an interesting noise.  We then spent the last of the sunlight throwing more ice onto the river.  Below is a video I took of Calla throwing a piece.  Isn’t she cute!

I would like to thank Movie Rotator for helping me to rotate the movie I took sideways with my camera.

Settlers of Catan

Settlers of Catan: This classic game from Germany is very fun.  Each game will be different than previous games, a strategy that worked one time will not work the next.  It is a mix of resource management with strategic placement of your pieces to gain more resources and block your opponents.   This game is pretty easy to pick up so we’ll play that when we have newcomers.  This game has kept us up until 3am cause we had to have ‘just one more’

Puerto Rico: Calla got this one from me for her Birthday, on recommendation of her Brother.  This one has no dice so there is less luck, but there is still a lot of strategy.  It has resource management to a degree, but the interesting thing is the playing differant roles each round so you get differant special abilties.  This one is about knowing when to pick a certain role, and hoping the person in front of you didn’t have the same idea.  This is one that I would like to play more of.

El Grande: Calla got this one for her Birthday from her Brother.  We played this with him and one of his friends when we were in Chicago.  We want to get it into our nights up here.  El Grande doesn’t have any resource managment but it does have a card system for getting special abilities.  The twist is, you have to secretly bid for turn order so you can pick the cards that you want.  The main goal is to place your pieces around the board so you can maximize your points on scoring rounds.

Diplomacy: This is one that I got for myself =) … on Calla’s Birthday.  We haven’t played in on game nights yet, but we played in back in college and some of my friends in CO got an e-mail version going earlier this year.  When I bought it the store clerk said “Ahhh the game that destroys friendships” that pretty much sums up how a game of Diplomacy can end.  It is similar to Risk but there are no dice, nothing random.  Your success is based upon who you can make friendships with that can support you against the others.  In the middle game there are ussally a few backstabs that will leave a few people bitter if they are really into the game.  This is one of my favorite board games, and i hope to get it into our game nights when we get a group of 7 people.

Risk 2210 AD: This is Risk but with water and moon spaces.  All I have to say is “The Moon Rules!!”

Comment if you have any other good board games.  And Julian and Heather get ready cause we will bring them when we visit in Jan.

Have you ever taken a picture of a sunset or strange cloud formations?

Have you ever taken a short video or a tornado, or winds during a hurricane?

If you answered yes to any of these and would like to share them with the world, or if you are interested in seeing these images from around the world check out www.reportstorms.com This is a new website where regular people can upload their own weather and storm pictures/videos/and observastions.

Please pass this site along to others that would be interested

[12:15 PM] Adam Morse: I now understand why you say FAIL all the time: http://www.slate.com/id/2202262/?GT1=38001
[12:16 PM] Doug: that is an epic win
[12:17 PM] Doug: http://failblog.org/
[12:17 PM] Adam Morse: yeah, looking at it right now
[12:17 PM] Adam Morse: now whats with epic win?
[12:18 PM] Adam Morse: oh
[12:19 PM] Adam Morse: the youtube videos on that failblog site don’t work
[12:19 PM] Adam Morse: they play 2 seconds and then stop
[12:19 PM] Doug: mine work
[12:19 PM] Doug: your inet fails
[12:20 PM] Adam Morse: you EPIC FAIL
[12:20 PM] Doug: my inet is ftw
[12:20 PM] Adam Morse: this slang crap is just crap
[12:20 PM] Doug: lolzers

We then had a discussion about why he won’t use lol or LMAO or ROFL in chat.  Since he isn’t litterally on the floor laughing, he would rather type out “That’s Funny”

I try to fit in a few internetz words in at work everyday.  a few favorites are

noob, ftw, wtf, ftl and every now and then a FFS in an e-mail like

FFS Jim I thought we had that taken care of already.

I am not quite up to lolspeak (link to lolspeak 101) in my e-mails yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

kkthxbai