Category Archives: How To

Where I show you how to (or how not to) do stuff.

How To

Get the Nokia N95 for $390

I’ve been amazed by the capabilities of the Nokia N95 smartphone since I first heard about it in 2007. Its price though put it sadly out of reach for me, until a couple of days ago, when I saw it at Micro Center for $389.99. This is a new, unlocked Nokia N95 V3.

If you’ve been watching the price for this phone, like me, then you know that’s at least $60-70 off the lowest price listed anywhere else, if not more. When I search the internet, I still see it listed at some places for over $580.

Of course I bought one. You might want to do the same. If you find it for a lower prices somewhere else, let me know. Keep in mind this isn’t the new N95 8GB model. This is the older N95 that runs the 3rd edition of the S60 software, also known as V3. Btw, the specs say the max size for its MicroSD memory card can only be 2GB, but mine runs fine with a 4GB card.

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How To

How to get T-Mobile Total Internet at 42% off

It’s easy: sign up before 11/1/2008. Why? Because the price will apparently go up to $35/month on or around that date, according to T-Mobile Customer Service.

➡ Updated 10/27/08: Please see this comment below for an up-to-date clarification of the planned price increases. It’s not as bad as I originally thought, but a price increase will still take effect [source].

➡ Updated 11/24/08: It looks like the rate hike will take effect on 12/1, not 11/1. And it also looks like G1 users will have to move to the new, more expensive plans, even if they signed up before the rate hike.

T-Mobile’s current Internet/Data plan for smartphones (it’s called T-Mobile Total Internet) costs $19.99/month, and includes either EDGE or 3G speeds, depending on your area. If you live in the Washington, DC area, like me, you’re currently getting EDGE speeds, but should be upgraded automatically to 3G by the end of this year.

Starting around 11/1/2008, T-Mobile will increase the price for the plan to $35/month, probably because of the G1 smartphone they’re launching, and the extra demand that’s going to place on their networks. I’m guessing they have some infrastructure upgrades to pay for. If you get the Internet plan now (which is what I did) the price for it will stay locked at $19.99/month for as long as you’re with T-Mobile. That’s what I was told by T-Mobile Customer Service yesterday afternoon.

That means you’ll be saving $15 (42%) every single month while others are going to pay $35, and you’ll get the same speeds they’re getting.

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How To

A cure for simple burns

This is something that my wife told me about, and has worked for me numerous times in the last several years. Want to know what will cure your burns quickly, lessen the pain significantly and immediately, eliminate the bubble of interstitial fluid that forms at the burn site, and minimize tissue scarring?

It’s simple. Dab honey on the burn.

As soon as you’ve burned yourself, take honey (in as natural a state as possible — we like Really Raw Honey, but any quality honey should work) and spread it on the burn site. Keep it there for half an hour to an hour if possible. You’ll notice that the pain will go away within minutes, and that the burn site won’t swell up and form that painful bubble that can burst and leave your flesh raw underneath.

What about if you’ve burned your finger (for example) at work and have no honey available? (This happened to me a few months ago.) That’s okay. Put the burned finger in sugared water and hold it in there for 15 minutes or so.

I took some sugar from the coffee station and put about 4-5 teaspoons’ worth in a half a cup of lukewarm water. I mixed it as well as I could so it would dissolve, then I stuck my finger in there. It didn’t work quite as well as the honey, because I the burn pain continued for a couple of hours, though not at the same levels, but in the end, my finger didn’t swell up, and instead, the healing process began from inside, naturally. Look at the middle finger in this photograph. That’s how it looked a few hours after I’d just burned it severely by accidentally grasping a burned piece of Pop-Tart where the sugar was in the process of carbonizing (past the melting point).

You see nothing wrong with the finger, right? Well, that’s the idea! Other than a small numbness at the site, and pain when pressing on it, my finger was fine. After several days, the dead skin peeled off, again with no pain, revealing the fresh new skin underneath.

I know it’s hard to believe this sort of thing, but trust me, honey is a miracle cure for burns. Try it out when you next burn yourself and see what happens.

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How To

Get iMovie '08 to import 3GP files

I recorded a few video clips with my wife’s mobile phone today, and when I tried to import them into iMovie ’08, I found out that I couldn’t. Apparently, I’m not alone, because if you do a search for this on Google you’ll find there are plenty of other people with the same problem.

Fortunately, there are two ways to work this out, but neither is necessarily obvious. Pick one of them:

  • Open up the clips in Quicktime. I was able to open them up and play them right away. Now, export each clip as an MP4 file. You must specifically select File > Export, then select Movie to MPEG-4 from the Export drop-down menu. Don’t just Save the clip, because it’ll package it as a MOV file, which iMovie ’08 will still refuse to import. You must Export it as an MP4 file. You may also be able to export to other formats, but MP4 is what worked for me.
  • Open them clips in Turbo.264, then export them to some format (try Apple TV or iPod Standard, for example). There’s a catch here though. If the resolution of the clips is too small, Turbo.264 may not be able to convert them, and will give you an error. Best stick with Quicktime then.

Now open up iMovie ’08, and go to File > Import Movies, browse for them, and import to your heart’s content. That’s it!

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How To

If Time Machine doesn't work…

… and you get the little exclamation sign within the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, and Time Machine will not back up your Mac any more, then here’s what worked for me, twice so far:

  • Reboot the Mac.
  • Before doing anything else, go into the Time Machine drive, locate your Mac’s folder inside the Backups folder, and look for a single file that starts with a date and ends like this: .inProgress. Move it to the trash.
  • Tell Time Machine to “Back Up Now”.

That’s it. It should start backing up again. But if it doesn’t, you may want to visit the Apple support forums and see what worked for others. Some are saying you’ll need to toggle the backup disk to None, then back to the usual backup drive.

➡ Updated 8/14/08: Make sure you delete the .inProgress file once you move it to the Trash. If you can’t delete it, do a Get Info and make sure you have Read & Write privileges to it, then delete it. It may take a while to delete it, but let the Finder finish the job, don’t cancel it. If you don’t delete that file from the Trash, Time Machine may continue to give you errors and remain unable to back up your Mac.

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