Considering we have had like one inch of snow this whole winter,the amount of salt used everywhere seems excessive. Its like a crusty salty wonderland.

I finished a new version tonight. It works great on the nook with gingerbread now. Gingerbread enables bluetooth on the nook color which makes me question why the device did not originally enable the bluetooth chip that was obviously inside. I was able to pair it with my apple bluetooth keyboard the way I do with my ipad. The ipad is pretty great but the nook is so much more portable. Its large enough to have a lot of screen space but small enough to be jammed in some big coat or jeans pockets. I only wish it had its own 3g chip the way that the ipad does although I guess tethering with the phone is actually a better deal because it does not require an extra account or monthly fee.

Here is what it looks like on the nice big nook screen.


Version 1.23 had a bug that forced the app to quit on reload. If you are having issues make sure you are on 1.24. Check the market and see if there is an update. If so update it.

One problem with the move from stylus driven resistive touch screens to capacitive finger driven ones was winter and glove covered fingers. The problem exists no more with new gloves that transmit your finger energy through the pointer and thumb. So glad I found these as I was getting sick of using my nose.

I got my parents an HP computer for christmas. It is unbelievable how much bloatware comes with Windows 7. I spent about 45 minutes uninstalling just to make it stop asking me to buy crap. Its funny because some of the stuff doesn't even exist anymore like HP webOS tablets. I love how the welcome page thanks me for purchasing a HP webOS tablet when this is a desktop windows 7 computer.

And I though them charging $4.95 for a softball size cauliflower was outrageous...

Wheat grass prices at the coop blow my mind. $9.99 for 4oz and $19.95 for a pound. 4oz is a small ziplock bag full. The tortoises could eat it all in about 90 seconds.

I actually don't understand how wheat grass, which grows so easily, can cost more per pound than steak. What the hell is going on?

I was at the candy shop on elmwood looking for some gifts when saw these bug based candies. I remember my cousin from AZ getting me one of these as a kid. I never ate. Does anyone really like these or are they purely for gag gifting.

The kids are always so thrilled to see him.

I was playing around with the microsoft lync client for android today when I discovered just how insecure the data from your chats are on your phone. I can't understand how it could be allowed in a very controlled corporate environment like you would find in banking, healthcare, etc.

Microsoft admits freely that the conversation history is stored on the device.

What they don't say is that basically, the client stores all of the chats you have a in sqlite database that is pretty much plain text accessible.

Using the android development toolkit and grep (basic free tools) I was able to locate the lync data store on the phone at /data/data/com.microsoft.office.lync/

You can easily pull it off you adb connected device with this. It will grab the data and put in a directory on your local computer called lync.

adb pull /data/data/com.microsoft.office.lync lync

Say you send someone a message with secure data e.g. "the secret pin for my bank account is 1234"

Then someone steals your phone, adb shell into the phone copy the data over the computer or an sd card for safe keeping.

then they can extract whatever they want.

grep -r -a secret com.microsoft.office.lync/databases/DataStore.sqlite
and two minutes later they find

"the secret pin for my bank account is 1234"

So what that it might have a little binary content on either side.

Not only that but lets say you are the investigative, computer type - the app lets you send off any conversation as an email. So any app that accepts email intent (gmail, mail, text messaging, etc) accepts the content and passes it from that app to the world at large. If you have any special controls over your corporate exchange, like outgoing filters to look for sensitive data, they get bypassed going out through something pretty insecure like plain text email or text messaging.

I can see how they wanted to side with convenience. At the same time I can't understand how this can appeal to the customers they tend to appeal to most (government and big business). Why would they not encrypt this data on the phone at least.

The ssh clients on the ipad/iphone have so many less ratings than on android. It makes me wonder if really not that many developers use the ipad/iphone compared to android. I mean the top ssh client on the iphone which also does rdp has less than 100 ratings while the one on android has 23,000+ and over 1,000,000 downloads. The ipad app store doesn't list number of downloads. Hopefully, I can get work to reimburse me.





The issh app seems to be pretty great. Having all of that extra space to type and have keyboard vs on the iphone/samsung galaxy sii makes a huge difference. Work has disabled my ability to take screenshots on the ipad as a "security precaution" so I have to keep taking pictures of it instead.


Here is a video someone did about using issh

I want teeth that look like that.



Last year I tried to be cheap and got a regular crown at the regular in network dentist and it ruined like 6 months of my life in pain and infection, as well as, cost me another broken tooth in the process. I wrote about it here (e:paul,54524)

Then I found Wood Dental Associates on Franklin in North in Buffalo and his expensive ($1200+) but awesome cerec tooth milling machine which measures you tooth space with 3d cameras and mills the tooth in the office out of this strong and chemically inert ceramic. I love the new fake tooth. It fits so well, is strong and feels just like a real tooth. To me it was totally worth the money and made me feel confident about my tooth and the dentist.

So I had a couple other fillings done there because they don't use mercury unlike the in network dentists and its right across from my house. They were also expensive in the $600 range but I figured it was worth it not to get more mercury in my mouth. At that point, I signed up for a regular cleaning and thought I would go there as my regular dentist.

I figured how much can a cleaning cost. Today, I found out when I went in for my scheduled 6 month cleaning. When I sat down for the cleaning the hygenist said that they no longer do normal cleanings and that first this Florida Probe machine would check my mouth for any issues. I thought it was some pre-cleaning process but once it was done, she told me instead of the normal cleaning I would need a $1099 3 visit special cleaning with the antibiotic called Arestin implanted because I had stage 4 periodontal disease.

Reading the testimonials is a mixed message. Who is this appealing to, the dentist or the patient.

Our proportion of non-surgical perio revenue jumped 100% since 1999, when we implemented Florida Probe. The real value for the patient is that because he understands his problem earlier and better, he acts (prevents bone loss) earlier."

The overview page makes me even more uncomfortable

This part sounds good and reasonable

Improved Accuracy
The System’s constant-force, computerized probe allows measurements to be consistent between examiners who likely probe with different amounts of force (which could mean different readings for the same patient). Our probe’s precision is 0.2 mm., which also improves the accuracy of measurements and assists the clinician in determining the correct diagnosis and follow-up for the patient.

This part sounds beyond scammy.

Generate New Revenue for Your Practice
Did you know that just 1 more quadrant of scaling and root planning acceptance per day at $250, working a 4-day week, adds $50,000 per year to your bottom line? This is only the beginning: 3-month re-care, adjunctive therapies and diagnostic fees add to this hygiene-driven increase in production. This means an incredible return on investment opportunity. The typical practice will increase hygiene and perio production by $10,000 per month.

Now the weird part is that I was just in to their office in June and they didn't mention anything about gingivitis and then I was at the other dentist twice in the last three months for the geographic tongue and he and his team of student dentists didn't mention anything either. Now I get that maybe the machine is more sensitive and can detect stuff but I can't believe I went from not humanly noticeable to full blown $1099, you need to be on antibiotics, stage 4 periodontal disease. If the machine is really correct, are these dentists so clueless that they could not visually recognize this possibly severe tooth disease in the last 6 months.

My lame GHI dental insurance will only cover like $200 at his office. Although, they would cover the scaling in full at any in service dentist. After my bad experience with two in service dentists I don't know if I want to go back. I know why they cover it in full, its because those other dentists are willing to trade quality for quantity of patients. For example, GHI doesn't really pay them much more, those dentists are just willing to accept $35 as full payment for some procedures.

I want a dentist I trust in so bad. Even more so, I want to trust this dentist so bad. In fact, I trusted him so much more until I read the Florida Probe site. I guess I will get a second opinion. In the mean time I need to brush better. I think one issue is that I was using a medium instead of soft brush which was hurting my gums.

Two things that also bother me about this.
1. I flossed just before I left which could have irritated my gums a bit.
2. The measurement is really not done by the machine, if you watch the video, the hygienist really does makes the decision when to press the floor peddle which sets the depth.



Does anyone have a dentist they really know and trust?

Knowing me, I will probably just go there because it is convenient and immediate. The more I read about gum disease the scarier it is. Check out this crazy info on the NY times site I am saving as PDF for future reference. ::READ PDF::

Here is all my private tooth information for the world to judge me on.