Since I only do this once a year, I always forget the couple sneaky steps I have to do to pull this off.

• Outlook Contacts, select "Christmas Cards" view
• Tools, Mail Merge. Select New document, and Labels (at the bottom) of the dialog
• (Now over in Word, get the layout of the labels, but no data yet)
• Cursor in first label (top left corner), choose "Address Block" in Mailings ribbon tab. (this puts the field in the first label, and fields in all the rest.
  
• Click "Update Labels" in the Mailings ribbon tab. (this adds the in all the rest of the fields)
• Click "Preview Results" in the Mailings ribbon tab to see the data.
  
• Review each label to make sure the names look good (some might have first & last name reversed)
• When layout and addresses on that first page look good, click "Finish & Merge" in the Mailings tab. This creates the final document with the labels spanning multiple pages in the doc that you will print. You can still make more changes in these addresses before printing (but those changes obviously won't make it back to the source address info in Outlook)

Posted 8:37 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

The Market app on my Droid phone has been "stuck" for the past couple days trying to update the Google Maps application. Connectivity was fine, other apps could update themselves, browser works, etc. Tried canceling the download a few times, which would force close the Market app.

Finally searched a little more tonight and found a work-around.

Phone Settings - Applications - All, find Google Maps ("Maps"). Drill in and choose "Clear Data".
Do the same for the Market app.

Now run the Market (unfortunately you get the EULA since we just removed one of the many "cookies"), and update Google Maps.

Worked for me. Your mileage may vary.

Posted 6:40 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

TV is probably about 8 years old. Turning off on its own, red light on front blinks 34 times, and then picture comes back on.

Original specs on TV here.

Looking around the internets, I'm not alone.

Used system menus per instructions here and reset lamp timer. (was at 15,109 hours. yikes. 1.7 years of continuous watching)

Cheat sheet to reset lamp timer:

• With TV OFF, press the following buttons on the remote: Display, 5, vol +, power
• Use 2 and 5 to move through categories (whole pages of info)
  
• Look for "Option E" category
• Once there, use 1 and 4 to move through items in that category
• First one (item # 0) is the Lamp Time Operating (in hours)
• Show/change data with 3 and 6 keys.
  
• Hours shown when data is changed to 1.
  
• Hours reset when data is STORED as 0. (I had to store as 1 first, then back to 0)
• STORE a value by pressing MUTE, then ENTER (see red "WRITE" text top right of screen)

Didnt seem to fix anything right away. Turned it off and we'll see what happens.

Otherwise, maybe need a new bulb.

According to this post, get one from eBay and self install?

search eBay for "REPLACEMENT LAMP SONY XL-2100U", from seller "niosales"
$129
(make sure you get lamp that includes entire lamp housing, not just the bulb)

Can I self install?

(update 10/12/10)
Yep. Ended up buying this one, and self installing. TV works again, and no blinking red light!

(update 12/19/10)
Worked great for a while, now it's back to its old tricks. Every 20 mins or so, picture goes out, red light blinks 34 times, and then picture comes back.

We found a brand new bulb (same kind I ordered) in a box in the closet here at the house. Think it was the one our Sony extended repair guy ordered for us ("for safe keeping") before the warranty was over. Tried putting that one in, and now getting no picture, and red light blinks 3 times at startup.

This doesn't look good: "overvoltage, IC is faulty..."

DOH! After screwing with it for a while, realized that I was trying the TV without putting the lamp cover back on. Once I put that back on -- it works!! (safety issue I'm sure - TV cant turn on without the cover)

Now we just hold our breath and see how long this lamp lasts...

Posted 9:15 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Google announces voice commands for Android on Droid, etc.

"send text to billy hey lets have lunch" ...

Need:

• Voice Search application from Google. (market)
• Google Search widget (market)
  

http://androinica.com/2010/08/12/google-introduces-voice-actions-for-android-allows-users-to-control-their-phones-with-voice-commands/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+androinica+%28Androinica+-++A+Google+Android+Blog%29&utm_content=Twitter

Posted 8:33 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Just a place to track all the new features in Android 2.2 "Froyo"

• Flash support (download from store) - can set browser plug-ins to run "on demand" if you want to choose when flash will play
  
• 2 dedicated soft buttons on home screen - phone and browser
• Exchange support (auto discovery, remote wipe, exchange calendars with sync)
• Camera updates - settings, LED light while recording video
• Gallery - "zoom out" to see a stack of pics
• WiFi tethering and hotspot (carrier has to enable)
• Keyboard - swipe up from top to get a number row of keys, multi-lang support
• Speed: JIT compiler, apps 2-5x faster
  
• V8 JavaScript engine: web apps 2-3x faster
• Cloud-to-device API: browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. Send "intents", web pages, emails, etc. to phone (via cloud)
• App data backup and restore
• Apps can run from SD card
• Apps can auto-update from the store
• "Update all" apps

Posted 1:55 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Tons of posts about this, but here's one with a concise list of what's in the update. Hadn't seen mention of the Yahoo mail support. Not sure what that means -- a "native" app like Gmail that "syncs" instead of POP3? Dunno. Would be nice to see my yahoo mail folders and such.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/30/verizon-to-start-android-2-1-updates-to-motorola-droid-owners-to/

Posted 10:47 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Sort of equivalent to .NET Debug.WriteLine( )

import android.util.Log;

sprinkle the following throughout the code
Log.d( "Some Category", "blah blah message" )

Couldnt get NetBeans to show me the output. Using Android "adb" dev tool (from SDK tools dir).

adb devices
adb logcat

Can filter output with something like the following:
adb logcat XmlNode:D *:S
(Above says show DEBUG output for XmlNode category, and SILENT for everything else)


blog post about it here
ADB documentation here

Posted 5:33 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Just wanted to keep these URLs around (also have them on delicious).

AVS Forum "official threads" for various devices:

• Samsung 55" LN55B640 TV - here
  
• Motorola DCX3400 HD DVR - here
• Onkyo TX-SR607 receiver - here

Posted 10:22 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Pulled the trigger on the Samsung 55" LCD tv last week. Model: LN55B640
Best Buy - $1599

This will be a post of many setup notes as I hack on setting it all up.

XBox 360
Hooked it up today - I only have the component video cable for it. Do they make an HDMI cable for it? (proprietary connector on the 360 side)

TV doesn't have optical IN (only OUT to a receiver). Since I don't have a receiver yet, I'm using the (white/red) audio composite connectors on the hybrid component/composite 360 video cable to send audio to the TV. Didn't think this would work, but it does. Eventually, with a receiver, I'll hopefully go HDMI from 360 to receiver, then HDMI to the TV. (worst case, I can go component + optical audio from 360 to rcvr, then HDMI to TV)

For a while, was getting 720p on the TV, then finally remembered to set the 360 to output 1080p. SWEET. (Still seeing 60Hz on the tv info display, we looked it up and found that this is talking about the input side, not what the TV is outputting)

No lag in picture display, even in Game Mode OFF. Tried turning it ON and didn't notice a difference.

Time Warner HD DVR Cable Box
Motorola DCX3400
HDMI cable to the TV.

Controlling TV volume with the DVR remote. Use this site to find the code.
Turn on TV, on remote: TV mode, hold Setup button (blinks twice). Enter code: 0812 (blinks twice). Test by turning off the TV with the remote. Woot.

30-second advance
DVR remote doesn't have a button for this, but the functionality exists on the DVR. Just have to program a button on the remote.
Lucky - the same procedure that works on the old Motrola remote works for this one too.
See my previous post.

1. Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3. Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice.
4. Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button.
5. Type in the code 00173.
6. Press whatever button you want to map the 30-second skip command to (ex: ON DEMAND). The "Cable" button will blink twice if successful.

Posted 9:58 PM    |    2 comments    |    Permalink   

WHEW - had a hell of a time today during IK RECESS building my first app for the Droid. Just some notes on what I had to do:

Started here with SDK install. Which has a bunch of sub-steps.

Download Eclipse, wait, need Java -- what version, and what type (EE, SE, ME)? version 6 JDK most recent, fine.

Install Java, which also installs something like "update 17".

Install and Run eclipse. Nope. Doesn't find a java VM. Try -vm command line arg to show it where the VM is. Nope. Now doesn't barf, but just runs, and process dies after 5 secs (no UI). Eclipse readme says compatible with Java 1.4.2. WHAT? I'm using Java 6. Go to get old version, maybe uninstall 6 and use 1.4.2? Huge red warning before download 1.4.2 --- it has passed it's "EOSL" (end of service liftetime) - back in Oct 2008. Nice.

Coworker Brad says screw all that - use NetBeans.

Nice - NetBeans install comes with Java (if needed), but recognizes that I have v6 patch 17 or whatever already and uses that.

NetBeans IDE starts up! But ... not so fast. Move on to step 2: Android SDK

Extract Android SDK, and try to run "SDK Setup" but it doesn't seem to do anything.
Readme says an alternative is command line:
tools\android.bat update sdk

Whew - runs a UI that goes out and finds packages. Fails on https calls (expired cert? who knows - no detailed error message). Set to use HTTP instead. Get a huge ass list of packages, now we're getting somewhere. Chose them all (shouldn't have) and download. Takes *forever*.

Sweet! Now we have some sub-folders under the SDK "platforms" folder that was initially empty. One for each of the Android OS levels, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.0.1

Next step: ADT plugin

ADT plugin is for Eclipse, so we use nbandroid.
Loose instructions here.

To install the Android platform within Netbeans though, we need to point it to a "platform" folder. Now we have one of those after getting through the Android SDK components updater above. Point at the 2.0.1 platform folder.

Woot! Platform installed. Create new project. Hello world. Run!
... wait ... need an emulator.

Per Google instructions, use command line tool to create one.
tools\android.bat create avd --target 5 --name dan_droid

What is "5" ? It's the OS version target dummy. Use the following to see the choices:
tools\android.bat list targets

OK, created the emulator. Back in NetBeans, Run! Sweet, choose emulator ("AVD") to start. Go.
... damn ... errors in the output window that emulator is not ready.

Poke around the tubes and find that you should start the emulator first. (not let the NetBeans IDE start it)

Manually start the emulator
\tools\emulator -avd dan_droid
(dan_droid is the name of the emulator created from above)

Ahh, there's a UI to manipulate the emulators too.
\tools\android.bat
"Virtual devices" node

WOOT! After letting the emulator start and settle down, now run from NetBeans IDE -- I see my "hello world" !!

In NetBeans, when debugging, to prevent getting prompted for which emulator device to use each time:
Project, Properties, Run node.
Set Target Device = "automatic", and select the AVD from the list
(dont worry that this is the registered one whereas you want it to use the currently running one, it seems to figure that out)

Posted 4:57 PM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink   

Starting a list of droid apps that I either already have, want to get, or just want to remember about:

• BettrFlickr - all things related to flickr, including of course, uploading pics
• PicUp (by Aqris) - upload pics to flickr, facebook, twitpic
• Meebo - IM client for all mediums
  
• Digg Droid - app for digg. Can also use m.digg.com mobile site.

Posted 8:49 AM    |    0 comments    |    Permalink