tech tips | J.D. Hodges

Category Archives: tech tips

Info on the dreaded “not charging” iPad and iPad 2 screen + solutions

Tuesday, 2011.07.12 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Simple tips for charging the iPad via USB | Digiupdateshttp://digiupdates.com/2011/simple-tips-for-charging-the-ipad-via-usb/What we found in all of our test is that although the iPad might say ânot charging on the display, in reality, juice is still trickling to it and the iPad is in actuality still charging; albeit at a slower rate. No wonder: The iPad is designed to charge from the 10-watt wall adapter it comes bundled with, but many USB ports supply only 2.5 watts (5 volts at 500ma). As

Small always on green RAID system for NAS

Sunday, 2011.06.19 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Our family is looking to upgrade our “always on” network storage. Criteria include: energy efficiency, data protection, unobtrusive design, cost. Here is our past and future setup… Currently we use a Linksys NSLU2 with a 16GB USB flash drive. Pros: +super-low power usage (nice since we live off the grid) +compact size +simplicity +SSD (flash drive) for reliability +silent +cheap Cons: +SLOW Planned upgrade: Thecus N4100 Pro (2) 750GB 2.5″ 7200RPM SATA laptop hard drives Upgrade to 1GB RAM (supposed to

i5-470UM vs i3-380UM, differences? [SOLVED]

Tuesday, 2011.05.31 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Question. Hello. I am looking at a new Dell Vostro V130. I see that they are now shipping with either of the following two Intel® Core™ Series Processors: i3-380UM (3M Cache,1.33GHz,800 MHz FSB) -or- i5-470UM (3M Cache, 1.33GHz, 800 MHz FSB) They are both already ULV (ultra low voltage) processors, so what is the difference?! Answer. Great question! Basically, the i5-470UM has turboboost enabled while the i3 does not. This means that the i5 CPU can dynamically overclock one of

How do I cancel Boost auto-boost?! [solved]

Wednesday, 2011.05.11 J.D. H. 9 comments

Question. How do I cancel my Boost mobile “Auto-boost”, I want to go back to just manually re-boosting (recharging, topping up, etc.) my phone! So far, all I can find is this: To cancel out of Auto Re-BoostSM you must actively unsubscribe by calling Boost™ Customer Care at 1-866-402-7366 and they will help you out and get you unenrolled. In this day and age, isn’t there a way to do this online?! Answer.Yes, you likely can cancel auto re-boost online

Vector images in the iPhone SDK

Wednesday, 2010.03.24 J.D. H. Leave a comment

I’m interested in using vector images for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch apps. As Apple keeps adding different screen sizes and form factors, scalable vector images would seem to be the way to go (rather than bitmaps that don’t scale well). With vector images, it wouldn’t matter what the resolution of the device’s screen was, the images would scale to whatever was needed. Here are some misc links and info related to vector graphics in the Apple iPhone SDK: Apple iPhone Tech Talk

American Airlines killed our Kindle

Sunday, 2010.02.21 J.D. H. 2 comments

Alternative title: What to do if your Kindle breaks after warranty coverage has expired. What happened: last night we found out our Amazon Kindle was dead. It had been killed by American Airlines. What we’re doing: We are getting a replacement Kindle from Amazon (see below). What we will do differently: We will be even more careful with carry-on items that may get “valet checked” when we’re boarding the plane. We will try to check all of our valuables before leaving

Roundup of ISAPI rewrite filters for IIS

Friday, 2010.01.22 J.D. H. One comment

Here is a roundup of ISAPI rewrite filters for IIS, they let the webserver take a human friendly request like http://www.jdhodges.com/photos/1002 and rewrite it to a url that a dynamic scripting engine (such as ASP) can understands like http://www.jdhodges.com/photos.asp?photoID=1002 This benefits users who now have a legible URL and especially search engines like Google which are much more likely to index a page which appears to be static than a dynamic looking URL string: Reasons your site may not be

Does Windows 7 load balance multiple internet connections? [yes, probably]

Saturday, 2009.12.19 J.D. H. 13 comments

Question. Does Windows 7 load balance multiple internet connections? And what exactly is load balancing anyway? Answer. Yes, Windows 7 appears to load balance! Annoyances.org – re: Multiple Internet Connections (Windows 7 Discussion Forum) Annoyances.org – re: Multiple Internet Connections (Windows 7 Discussion Forum) pg. 2 Windows 7 Break through. Excited!! Load Balancing Works! – Overclock.net – Overclocking.net NOTE: I haven’t found any official MS documentation on this topic, but from reports on the web it does seem to work…