Tuesday, July 19, 2011

BlackjackUnleashed.com domain name expired

I let my domain name blackjackunleashed.com expire because it did not generate enough money to make it worth keeping.

When I have time I will move the website to a new URL.

The Blackjack Unleashed program is hard coded with the old blackjackunleashed.com domain name on the about page so I will update the program with the new URL as soon as I can.

However, blackjackunleashed was programmed using Microsoft Visual C++ 6 (VC6). VC6 does not run on Windows Vista and I am using Windows Vista. I don't currently have access to my old computer so I don't know when I will have time to fix it.

If anyone else buys the blackjackunleashed.com domain name I am no longer associated with it.

Monday, June 13, 2011

DotCorral.com Link Popularity

I checked DotCorral.com link popularity using http://www.seocentro.com/ and got 3.

I still have no google page rank. So far I have not had time to do much except create a few links on my blog. I am still looking for ways I can market my website. So far no one has found my website as far as I know.

Monday, June 06, 2011

DotCorral.com Marketing

I am starting the marketing for DotCorral.com today.

Yesterday was the first day DotCorral was live and I noticed it just got indexed today at 5:00 PM by Google.

As you can see below Google has few matches and Bing and Yahoo both show 0.

Google search for "dotcorral" shows 7 results.
Google search for "dotcorral.com" shows 5 results.
Google search for "link:dotcorral.com" shows 0 results.
Google page rank for www.dotcorral.com is not ranked.
Google page rank for dotcorral.com is not ranked.

Bing +"dotcorral" shows 0 results.
Bing +"dotcorral.com" shows 0 results.

Yahoo +"dotcorral" shows 0 results.
Yahoo +"dotcorral.com" shows 0 results.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

DotCorral.com social network website is live

DotCorral is a new general purpose social network website that is now live. It is located at DotCorral.com for beta testing.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Fix for LG Rumor Touch YouTube video problem

A guy on a forum said it is a bug with the phone software. To fix the problem when you get "Loading 6%", press the power button to turn off the display and wait 3 seconds and press the power button again and it will load again from 0% and finish the video. After you press the power button after 3 seconds you also need to unlock the screen. This will clear the software so it can load successfully. I tested this solution and it worked 90% of time; however, sometimes it will still fail. It might help to reboot the phone sometimes too if you keep getting an error.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

LG Rumor Touch plays YouTube about 5 minutes then fails

My LG Rumor Touch won't play YouTube steaming videos for longer than about 5 minutes before it fails with an error. When it fails it says "Loading 6%" and hangs and later an error message says "There is a problem playing the clip".

I never played youtube much until now so I guess this is the first I noticed the problem. If I only play short videos I would never see the problem.

- Most videos that I have problems with are about 9 to 11 minutes long.
- Videos about 5 minutes or less play normally.
- Most videos play around 4 to 6 minutes but I had one run 9 minutes before getting the error.
- Sometimes it will stop playing and shows it loading successfully and continues to play several times; however, later it still says "Loading 6%" and hangs and fails.
- I get the same problem with the youtube HQ or normal setting.
- I get the same problem if using the netfront or opera mini browser and they both run the same media player.

If it can play the first 5 minutes without a problem I don't see how this would be a network problem.

I suspect a software problem on the rumor touch. There seems to be no way I can update the media player software on the rumor touch like I can upgrade opera mini.

Also it could be that different Rumor Touch have different versions of software from the factory so it is possible that not all Rumor Touch have this problem.

Friday, November 05, 2010

LG Rumor Touch Review

The LG Rumor Touch from Virgin Mobile is my current phone. I have the Beyond Talk $25 a month plan. The plan has unlimited internet and 300 minutes a month.

Sometimes YouTube videos will get an error when trying to play them.

There are a few free programs you can load from Virgin like google maps and opera mini. You can't load other programs unless you hack it.

The google maps program that works on this phone does not have spoken directions which would be nice when you are driving.

You can use most HTML websites with either the built-in netfront web browser or opera mini.

The phone has good battery life. I think I can use it about a week assuming I am not using the phone a lot.

I really like the phone even if it is not as good as a smart phone; however, now that they have an Android phone available I think I will upgrade in the future so I can do more.

SeekDotNet ASP.NET web host review

I used seekdotnet for a web host for several years but I am not using it right now.

I am giving a review because when looking for a cheap web host you always see a lot of negative reviews so you think that none of them are any good.

I had their cheapest plan. I think I used their service for several years. I was using ASP.NET and MySQL and PHP.

My websites where not large in database size and not getting a lot of traffic but the speed and performance of their web host service was OK.

There was downtime but they would fix it usually within a few hours. I can't remember how many times it went down but I think it was once every few months.

I also had some technical issues from time to time. I always sent a help ticket online and they would respond normally the same day and would fix things pretty fast. Some issues were problems with their system and some were things I did not know how to do.

I liked how they let you use your total disk space amount for the MySQL database if you want. On the SQL Server database they limit the amount of database disk space to an amount that is much less than your total disk space.

There was a billing issue that they never fixed but it was not a big deal. Every time they charged my Visa card which was once every 6 months I got an extra small charge of about $1.25 for currency conversion from my Visa card company. I complained to seekdotnet about it but apparently they can't do anything about the issue. I think the issue has something to do with them being an Australian company. I contacted my credit card company and they said it was for currency conversion.

Overall I thought the service was pretty good and would use it again.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Nokia 6010 prepaid


The Nokia 6010 was my first prepaid cell phone. I really liked this phone a lot. It has good call quality and reception. I have a new cell phone now but I still use this sometimes as a backup.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Samsung t349 Prepaid Review


I bought the Samsung t349 cell phone direct from T-mobile for $49.99.

The camera takes good photos even without a flash. I like the feel of the keyboard and thought it was easier to use than a traditional keypad for typing. There is a MicroSD card slot on the left side that can take up to 4 GB.


Monday, December 14, 2009

makeourbigday is live

www.makeourbigday.co.uk is live today. Makeourbigday is an event and wedding gift registry website. It enables you to ask for money instead of presents and to take online payments with major credit cards or paypal.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Gateway notebook shows wrong model number

My notebook is a Gateway M-6834 Notebook.

I recently had to restore my Windows Vista Home Premium OS from the backup image on drive D because it was malfunctioning and was not usable.

After I restored I noticed that in Control Panel->System and Maintenance->System it says my model is Gateway M-6750. Therefore, they seem to have the wrong image at least on drive D. I can’t be certain if the model number was always wrong before the restore because I don’t remember looking.

My notebook is no longer on warranty. I contacted Gateway to try and find out what was going on but they would not talk to me unless I paid for support so Gateway is no help on this issue.

The notebook seems to work OK after the restore so I am not going to worry about it.

I only had one other problem with the notebook. When the notebook was on warranty it had a bad keyboard that would intermittently print extra characters when pressing some keys and I had to send it back in to the factory to get it fixed. This seems to have been fixed OK.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Google Voice

I am using Gizmo5 with Google Voice so I can make free phone calls from PC to landline. With the first two calls from PC to landline I had perfect reception; however, the other party said my voice was garbled and hard to understand. I was using wi-fi with my notebook and a headset for these calls. I will try again in the future but unless I can get better call quality I don't think it will be very usable for calls to a landline; however, the main purpose for me is to use it as an answering machine.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Geocities discontinued

Geocities is being discontinued by Yahoo.

I hosted a personal home page and a webpage for blackjack explorer on Geocities.

Blackjack Explorer was discontinued and has been replaced by Blackjack Unleashed.

My home page is also hosted by google at Loren Brown's Home Page.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

T-Mobile Nokia 1661 Review


I bought the Nokia 1661 cell phone for the T-Mobile prepaid service on sale at Target for $14.99.

The Nokia 1661 has basic features like a calendar, clock, alarm, reminder, calculator, call log, themes, speakerphone, and 3 free games. Two less common features include an FM radio and a flashlight. It comes with a hands free headset and microphone. The headset is required for the FM radio to work because it uses it as an antenna.

It does not have bluetooth, web browser, GPRS, GPS, camera, or mp3.

Overall I like this phone and would recommend it as a basic phone. The keys on the keyboard are a little small but work fine for me since I don’t text much. I found the sound level to be fine. I like the small and thin size of the phone. The screen is bright. The controls are easy to use. The battery life is good, rated at 4.2 hours talk and 20 days standby.

I thought my battery life was kind of short because I was recharging every couple of days but I thought it might be because I was using the phone. However, after I tested I found the battery life of my phone was only about 4 days on standby. It is suppose to get 20 days so 4 days is definitely not normal. Therefore, I took my phone back to Target and exchanged it for a new one.

I tested the new cell phone and get around 12 days on standby. This is still shorter than the 20 days it is suppose to get but I assume it is normal so I will keep this one.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Canceled landline for cell phone

I canceled my landline and have been using just my cell phone for several months. It is more convenient to use a cell phone because it is always with me.

I use a prepaid cell phone plan from t-mobile that cost about 10 cents a minutes.

I just purchased a new cell phone, the Nokia 1661, from Target for $14.99.

I also just signed up for google voice and plan on using it as an answering machine.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Blackjack Unleashed on Download.com

Blackjack Unleashed was accepted on Download.com at Blackjack Unleashed 2008.5.25.

6/10/2008 was the first day I saw any downloads. On 6/10/2008 I had 23 downloads and on 6/11/2008 I had 42 downloads.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

MetroFi free citywide wi-fi shutdown

I was using metrofi.com in Sunnyvale; however, now MetroFi is ending service June 20, 2008 in Sunnyvale so I have to find another ISP.