On Sunday, out of the ether I got an e-mail from an old classmate of mine, Robert. He managed to track me down thanks to our AOSR (American Overseas School of Rome) coordinator, Flavia. Utterly unreal, man! Who would have ever imagined that after all this time we'd hear from each other? Hmm......makes me wonder who else will emerge from that vast ether of the Internet next!

Remember not to forget thatwhich you do not need to know.

and

Good judgement comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgement.

Finally got a new laptop, the last one, a Dell Inspiron 5150 finally died a horrible death, the hamster finally kicked the bucket..........

So I ended up with a Dell XMP M1530, 4Gb RAM, a 320Gb hard disk and Windows Vista Ultimate. After hearing all the horror stories about Vista I was a like warry of what it would be like. But you gotta take a chance sometime and try something new.

It came pre-loaded with Roxio Creator, IE 7.0, Windows Media Centre and a suite of Windows applications So far I've installed:
- Google Earth
- Skype 3.8.0.115
- SecondLife
- VLC Media Player 0.8c
- Putty 2.0
- Adobe Acrobat Reader 8
- Adobe Flash Player
- Wireshark

So far so good! No crashes yet!

Darn, have been busy lately, so busy that I've neglected to update this blog! Lots of things have been happening on both the technical and non-technical fronts.

A while back I decided to get a dog, a black labrador-retriever to be precise. Well, it happened and on March 17, I picked up Betty. And of course being puppy, toilet training was the top priority (over anything else of course).

Betty, being a labrador she is a quick learner, in fact it only took her less than a week to figure out where she's suppose to leave her deposits. And like all dogs, she's make a good companion even if she smells of dog food! Nothing like the sight of coming home and being greeted by a wagging dog tail!

Betty, being a labrador is a quick learner, in fact it only took her less than a week to figure out where she's suppose to leave her deposits. And like all dogs, she's make a good companion even if she smells of dog food! Nothing like the sight of coming home and being greeted by a wagging dog tail!

Secret codes:

• To check IMEI press *#06#.
• To check the Software Version press *#170602112302#.
• If Imagine the cell battery is very low, and an important call is expected what to do there is a a reserve battery in the absence of the charger then to activate the key and recharge the cell again is to press "*3370#".
• #3370# To deactivate Enhanced Full Rate Codec( EFR).
• *#4720# To activate Half Rate Codec.
• *#0000# It displays the software version of the phone.
• #pw+1234567890+1# To check the Provider Lock Status. ( "*" sigh to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols). ERROR CODE
  
• #pw+1234567890+2# To check the Network Lock Status. ( "*" sigh to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).
• #pw+1234567890+3# To check the Country Lock Status. ( "*" sigh to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).
• #pw+1234567890+4# To check the SIM Card Lock Status.( "*" sigh to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).
• *#147# vodafone this lets you know who called you last time *#1471#.
• *#21# Allows you to check the number that "All Calls" are diverted.
• *#2640# It displays the security code.
• #30# It lets you see the private number.
• *#67705646# It removes operator logo on 3310 & 3330.
• *#73# It reset the phone timers.
• *#746025625# It displays the SIM Clock status.
• *#7760# Manufactures code.
• *#7780# Restore factory settings.
• *#92702689# (to rember *#WAR0ANTY#).