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I just wanted to honor the memory of Joshua Dingler. His dad Tommy has been a friend for many years. Joshua lost is life in 2005 in Iraq. My buddy Ron has a collection of posts about Joshua Dingler.

My company recently upgraded me to a blackberry 8800 from verizon. As I was setting it up with my car for hands free I noticed it had a “Dialup Networking” bluetooth service. Something my previous 8703e didn’t support, I had to use a USB cable and it only worked in Windows under Parallels. So I set to work tethering it to my MacBook running Leopard.

For the most part, this was pretty straight forward. Made the blackberry discoverable, added it as a bluetooth device to my MacBook. In doing so, it prompted me and asked me if I wanted to use it to access the internet. So I said yes, and continued.

Then it asked for my username, dialup number, and password. I figured these were the same as the settings I had used on my old XV6700. Phone nubmer #777, user tendigitphone@vzw3g.com and password is vzw. Ends up they were, but there were still two problems to overcome.

1. Which modem driver to use.
Ends up this is pretty easy, just not obvious. In Network Preferences you click on the bluetooth modem connection and click the “Advanced” button. Other Vendor choose “Other”, then under model choose “Verizon Support (PC 5220)”.

2. Disable Compression.
After I had this working it would connect and disconnect after just seconds. I noticed some weird messages in the system log, after digging around on the Internet for a while I figured out the problem. In Leopard MPPE Compression/Encryption is enabled by default, and this isn’t supported. But there is no GUI option to turn it off. So you have to do it manually, here are the steps:

• Open /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
• Find entry for the Bluetooth connection
• Find “CCPEnabled” parameter for this entry and change the “1″ to a “0″
• Save the file, Reboot, and Connect.

After that I connected and worked just fine. One more of the strings that binds me to windows has been cut!

My wife got a white Macbook last Friday. Today she was trying to import photos and got a kernel panic. After rebooting all we got was the Mac startup sound and then 3 beeps. Apple’s site says it means the memory is bad. Maybe it just needs to be re-seated, but lack of a screw driver here on vacation is keeping us from trying. Maybe I need to invest in apple care after all.

We have been here for two days so far, and have been having a great time. Here is a little run down of what we have done so far:

Monday we pretty much just bummed around the resort, and then went to Havana Blue for dinner. Havana Blue is great place that overlooks the beach and the Caribbean Sea. If you are ever in St. Thomas it is must visit, especially if you can get a sunset reservation.

Tuesday was an action packed day. We took a little cruise on a charter boat which visited Virgin Gorda Baths and Devils Bay (British Virgin Islands), Diamond Reef for snorkeling, lunch at a little 6 acre island called Marina Cay, and then on to Jost Van Dyke and the Soggy Dollar Bar. It’s called the Soggy Dollar Bar because you have to swim into the beach from the boat because there is not dock, and you dollars get soggy. I know, pretty deep. Both the beach at Devils Bay in Virgin Gora, and Jost Van Dyke are two of the top 10 beaches in the world. They are Amazing. This was a great trip to BVI that I would recommend to anyone visiting St. Thomas.

That’s it for now, more later.

Wow! I forgot how much terrifying fun it can be driving on an island. The roads are narrow, windy, and you have to drive on the left (but the steering wheel is on the left too). Pretty much every car on the island is a beat up piece of junk. Most look like they have been hit or side swiped on multiple occasions.

None of the roads outside of the city really have curbs on them. That is convenient though for those times you have to run off the road a bit to avoid the car coming around the corner too fast that is a third in your “lane”. I say “lane”, because, there aren’t a whole lot a lane markings on the road, which adds to the excitement.

Our rental car is a certified Piece-Of-Crap Toyota Camry. It obviously has had recent body work (there are still a few parts missing). The odometer says it has 13,000 miles on it, it drives like about 250,000.

Luckily, I lived in Scotland where they drive on the left, so there is something vaguely familiar about this. Add that to living on and island in Italy where the roads and driving where almost identical to those here in St. Thomas. So I’m kindda having fun driving here!

So today someone is forging headers with my old email address which still forwards to me. As a result I am getting a bunch of bounce backs from spam. But I have been learning a lot about myself from the subject lines. Apparently I have good deals for you on wristwatches, viagra, porn, and something in Chinese (maybe the General’s Chicken..mmmm?).

Also I have apparently been on quite the world tour because today alone I have sent email from Georgia, Florida, Australia, the UK and China (I was moving quick, didn’t have time for the General’s Chicken).

Gotta love spammers. If you need any of the amazing products I offer, let me know. Sorry, so far no male enlargement pills.