Setting up Google Mail works well, but the calendar doesn’t always sync. This is an intermittent issue reported on this thread, and reported in KB33458.
About the fifth entry down in the thread is a workaround that worked very well for me, steps repeated here for convenience:
Remove the previous gmail accounts.
Click on the Add Account button.
Click on the Advanced button.
Select “Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync”.
Enter a description.
Enter “m.google.com” in the Domain field.
Entered my full email address in the “Username” field.
Entered by full email address again in the “Email Address” field.
Entered my password in the “Password” field.
Entered “m.google.com” in the “Server Address” field.
Left the port set to the default (443).
Left “Use SSL” set to “On”.
Left “User VPN” set to “Off”.
Left “Push” set to “On”.
Click on the “Next” button at the top.
Make sure email, calendar and contacts are set to “On”.
I see some wonderful irony in using a Microsoft protocol to connect a BlackBerry with a Google service.
I picked up a new BlackBerry Z10 yesterday. The device is very nice, but a completely different beast than the old BlackBerry. Because of that, there are a lot of questions on how to tweak various settings, and not many answers.
Question: The Facebook apps appears to be sorting by “Top Stories” instead of “Most Recent”. How do I change that?
Answer: In the device browser, go to “touch.facebook.com”, and click on the “Sort” button, select the sort type you want. Open the Facebook app and presto, it sorts as it should.
A few more pictures available. I’ve got the fibreglass and epoxy on the inside, it only needs a final sanding and then installation of gunwales, seats and decks.
I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the past day, trying to figure out why my wordpress install on my Mac doesn’t talk to the database. Setup is simple, enable the built-in apache web server, install the Mac Mysql server and setup as per the wordpress instructions. . But
When you’re on Linux or any other platform I’ve worked on, one specifies the hostname in wp-config.php as ‘localhost’, or whatever hostname the DB is running on.
Seems that when you’re on Mac, you specify the hostname as ‘localhost:/tmp/mysql.sock’. This is not documented anywhere, but works like magic. Hope this saves someone else a headache in the future.
The canoe has come a long way since the last update. Over the past few weeks we’ve laid on the fiberglass and four coats of epoxy, and taken it off the molds. Normally you lay on three coats of epoxy, but the third coat was a bit messy so I sanded it off and added a fourth coat.
Here’s my favourite picture, showing the accent strips really well.
Fooling around with our new Nikon D90, I came up with these two shots. Click through to see the full pictures.
This first one I took while looking out for meteors. I couldn’t see any meteors (too many clouds and fog) but I did find this airplane. The weird light is from a streetlight that’s a good 300′ behind me.
On the evening of August 8th, 2009, Southern Ontario was struck by an incredible lightning storm. In St. George, rather than direct strikes, the sky was constantly lit up by indirect sheet lightning, although accompanied by very little sound. I took some pictures and the resulting colors are a bit spooky. The full album is here. All pictures were taken through a window (I wasn’t about to sacrifice my hair for the sake of photography), with the shutter staying open for 3 seconds. It was after dark, and the sky was pitch black when there wasn’t any lightning, making the lit sky in the pictures all that much more incredible. I give you these two for weird sky colors.
Kezia, aged 4, is our resident dancer. There wasn’t enough light in the kitchen for the lens I had on my brand new Nikon D90, but I do think the blurring adds to the effects of her delight in twirling around.
A bit more work on the canoe, one half of the bottom is complete, center line is cut, and I’ve got two of the sixteen or so planks on the other half complete. The second half of the bottom is tricky, as both ends have to fit perfectly in what feels like 18 different axis. And if you cut the second end too short you start all over again. Pictures below, and more on my Picasa page. Enjoy!
Noah received a model rocket for his birthday, so we built it over the weekend and launched it Sunday evening, when the wind died down to nothing. Here are some pictures of the event. Our new camera was fast enough to pick up the actual launch.
I’ve done some more work on the canoe, the sides are covered, and one half of the bottom is complete. Next up is cutting a very precise center line and finishing the other half of the bottom. More pictures available on my Picasa page.
Noah decided today he needed to make a stop-action lego movie. He pulled out our camera and took over 300 pictures, to make the movie below. Some quick iMovie action, and presto! you have the movie, available below or here.
My Opa, Jan van der Meer, created a few movies this way, but the old-fashioned way, with a 35mm camera. How he got the pictures from single shots to 8mm video is unknown, although my Mom claims it involved a lot of tape. Noah chose to copy some of his style, look for the blocks helping each other up to create the wall.
Here is a video of my son Noah playing at his recital, where he attacks his song. He doesn’t just play it, he marched up to the front and attacked it as if it was a battle he had to win. I’m biased, but I think he won the fight. Noah is accompanied by his Aunt Ang on the piano. Watch below or click here to view it. Enjoy!
A long time ago I decided I would someday build a canoe. That day has come. I decided to build a 17′ Nomad, which is really a typical a 17′ version of the very popular 16′ Prospector. The plans and kit came from Bear Mountain Boats, based nearby in Peterborough. Ron Frenette, of Canadian Canoes, is associated to Bear Mountain Boats, and graciously offered to lend (and deliver!) me his strongback (the red part in the upcoming pictures) and deliver the kit. I can’t say enough about how eager Bear Mountain Boats and Ron are to help out their customers.
The target launching date for this boat is the beginning of September, when we have a Dad & Kid’s canoe trip planned. Whether I’ll make it is yet to be seen, but things are so far going well.
I have an image gallery setup over here that I will update, here follow a few samples for your viewing pleasure.
Due to the harts.name expiring without warning, this blog was moved from harts.name to gybe.ca. Why gybe? First off, it was available. Second, it’s a sailing term (also spelled jibe) for turning through the wind, which fits my current fascination with boats. Third, it was available.
Because the domain expiry coincided with the birth of my fourth child, my venue for announcing it was gone, so here it is. On April 15th my daughter Abriel Josie was born, weighing in at 7 pounds 11 ounces. She is now four weeks old, and all is well. Pictures are available here.
My colleagues at RIM organized a gift basket, and the last few pictures there are the results of that gift. This one is my favourite.
I hope to post a few more times than once a month to this new blog.
After reading this great post of how programmers need to be good typists, I tried out my skill on this typing test. I came out with 75 words per minute… not bad eh!
This bird killed a Mourning Dove right outside my (home) office window this morning. I’m fairly certain it was a young Peregrine Falcon, but the map ranges show they don’t live anywhere close to Southern Ontario. The tail (not really seen in the pictures) was fairly long, with horizontal dark brown stripes on it.
We didn’t see the kill, but based in its behavior I can only speculate that it knocked the Mourning Dove out of the sky, as it sat in the tree above it for a while before going down to the ground, sitting on it for a few minutes, and then flying away with it.
