Is it spring yet?

These Bradford Pear trees, popular in the South as an ornamental street tree, are usually among the first things to bloom out here. While temperatures are supposed to drop again this week, Charleston boasted springlike weather over the weekend with 80-degree days. This photo was shot Sunday morning off Rivers Avenue in North Charleston.

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A cookie endorsement I'd like to see

Just how good are those Thin Mint cookies?

Good enough to fight over.

Seems a pair of roommates in Florida had a real knock-down drag-out, including chasing one another with scissors, because one apparently stole the other's Girl Scout cookies.

Here's the story, according to the Associated Press:

"Police say the roommate's husband tried to separate them. The roommate said she gave the cookies to Howard's children ... Howard is charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was released Monday on $10,000 bail."

OK. I like Thin Mints myself, and when I get them I tend to protect my stash. But there may be some over-the-line behavior here. Maybe.

What do you think?

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'Hey y'all, watch this' part 3,682: Chainsaw in pants

Thief with chainsaw in his pants doesn't get very far - NBCActionNews.com - Kansas City

I love this. According to Chickasha, Oklahoma police, the guy may have been intoxicated.

Ya think?

But here's the story. Guy walks into a hardware store, sees an Echo chainsaw, and decides to walk off with it. He needs to hide it.

By stuffing it down the front of his pants.

It took a minute for store employee Richard Largent to catch on to what was happening. "I felt sorry for him; I thought the gentleman was crippled." But another employee saw the bar of the chainsaw between the man's legs, and the chase was on.

NBC affiliate KSHB reports it this way:

"Employees cornered Black in a nearby field, where he ditched the chainsaw, climbed a tree, and scrambled down into someone’s house ... when the person inside kicked him out, the Ross employees chased Black to a creek where he dove in—headfirst.

I can't make this stuff up. But just think, that chain saw was this close to causing a little unnatural selection.

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.txt file makes a simple, elegant to-do solution

Daily agenda (as todo.txt) is shown on this Linux desktop; it works just as well in Windows too. The file is easily accessible from the Fluxbox menu to the left, but you can also create an icon and store that on your desktop.

Quick and dirty productivity is made possible by using a simple text file that anything can read ... check it out.

As seen in Hubpages.

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Hipster PDA: Getting mileage from index cards

What's that in my pocket?

It's only a stack of index cards, but man, does it get a following from the geeky and GTD crowd.

An excerpt:

It's simple enough to assemble: 1) Grab some index cards and 2) Clip them together with the binder clip. That's it. As Mann puts it in his website, there is no Step 3 ... it's a whole lot fancier than the old Redneck PDA, and it's easier to share information with someone (i.e. give him an index card, which is easier than chopping off your hand). And unlike the old PDA (or smartphones, which picked up where the PDA technology left off) you don't have to worry about batteries, system crashes, or the usual electonics catastrophes.

From Hubpages: Check it out -- if for no other reason than to find out what a Redneck PDA is.

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Possible fix (maybe) for mobile Gmail

It was one of those oh-the-heck-with-it ideas, and I still don't know if it was an actual fix. But after five days of being semi-incommunicado I am finally able to access my Google Mail box from my cell phone.

For me, it was simply a matter of changing my email preferences to always use https. Whatever that means.

I was shooting wild here, but not completely. I remembered .https was my default gmail setting for a long time, and I took it off because it wouldn't feed into iGoogle. So I kind of worked backward from there. Maybe it will make a difference in how my email loads, I thought.

So what the hey. Tuesday evening as I was finishing up at work (using the wifi hotspot in the office) I went into my Google Mail settings and clicked on the "always use .https" box. If it worked, great. If it didn't, it cost me nothing to try and I can always try something different later.

In truth, I thought so little of the idea I didn't bother to check until I got home an hour later. I cranked on the cell phone and went to my iGoogle home page. There, gmail refused to load:

--The Gmail gadget does not support the "always use https" preference that you selected in your Gmail settings. Learn more (includes a link from there)--

Just like before. Something, obviously, was happening. But just for grins, I went to my mobile bookmarks and tried to get into my Google mail that way, with https on.

And got in. And read my mail. Like I am supposed to.

Later I checked the Learn More link from iGoogle. It seems https is a lot more secure than http, and is recommended particularly if you're using public wireless Internet like I do. I'm not smart enough to figure a lot of this out, but https is sort of a combination of http and SSL, which is a security thing. But it does create its problems with iGoogle, and https is not an exact science yet. According to Google:

- Errors in the Gmail for mobile application may result in enabling this (always use https) setting.

- Errors in Google Toolbar may result from enabling this setting.

Errors in Gmail for mobile? Shoot, I'm getting more errors from not using that setting. And I really don't care for Google Toolbar, the resource hog that it is. So https it is.

So I'm not able to fully use iGoogle with the https setting on. Shoot, I'd rather be able to actually read and answer my email than just look at iGoogle and see what my most recent email communications are without being able to read them.

When I reported the mobile Gmail problem in this space, I did get a suggestion. Open a Hotmail account and forward my Google mail into that so it can be read. I considered that, but I'd prefer not to go through all this forwarding routine just to read some email.

Meanwhile, the folks at Google were working on the problem. Ethan, who identifies himself as a Google employee in the mobile Google support forum, wrote the following missive Tuesday afternoon:

"Thanks for your reports. The m.google.com team has narrowed down the cause of the 404 errors, but we need your help to investigate further.

"Please visit our secure webform to send us your phone's IP address so our engineers can debug:

http://goo.gl/ThpeQ

"Thanks!

"Ethan

And the matter remained ignored by much of the tech media. I subscribe to several: ReadWriteWeb, Slashdot, TechCrunch, and Mashable! While I'm able to keep up to speed on many tech issues with these, I have not found a word in any of these online publications about mobile Gmail access issues. According to MPCS-ProxyMan in the Google forum, we need to resolve this issue, we have over a million customers who are getting HTTP error 404 for your gmail app ... this is also affecting our android app for gmail." While it's hard to take anything mentioned in a user forum as gospel, I don't think this "over a million" is a funny number. Not at all.

But for me, the "always use https" setting seems to work. I'm not going to argue with the results, at least not right now.

Anyway, there it is. My fix, or maybe it's not a fix. Maybe it really is just in how you hold your mouth. Anyway, you're welcome to try it.

[You tell me: Does this little hack work for you? Anything else work? Are you able to get your mobile Gmail? Please share.]

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Got mobile Gmail working. Hope it sticks.

Don't know if it was a real fix or blind luck, but went into gmail preferences and selected 'always use https.' Seems to work.

(more to come)

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Web-enabled cell phones having trouble accessing Google Mail

My Google Mail is acting all weird, and answers seem a little few and far between. But I'm not the only one with this particular problem.

For the record, I really like my Gmail. It is probably the best email innovation since ... well, the computer. It's easy to like the search functions, the way it integrates with other Google tools, and the huge storage. A friend turned me on to Gmail several years ago when it was in beta, and I never looked back. What's Yahoo?

When away from a wireless connection I can usually check my news and process my email by phone. I have a Samsung 451 phone with a slider keyboard. It's good with phone calls on those rare occasions that I actually talk on the phone. It's super with text messages, and I can do a lot of things with it. It can surf the Internet, kinda sorta. The phone doesn't have the Java fixins and the browser is prehistoric, so its Internet powers are limited.

Call it what it is. My phone is not a smartphone. At risk of going all non-politically-correct on y'all here, I'm using a tardphone.

But that's OK, too. While I'm not qualified to be a hacker (in this case, meaning programmer), I can whip up a few baling-wire tricks that can make my computers and phone do things do things you wouldn't expect. I get a lot of mileage out of my tardphone.

So the other day I needed to check my email on the phone. I hit the link out of my mobile iGoogle homepage, like always.

No joy. This error message flashed on my tiny, two-inch screen:

HTTP Error: 404 Not Found

At first blush I thought maybe my links got screwed up. Such things happen. So I tried hand-typing it in:

http://google.com/mail

http://gmail.com

No luck. Let's try the mobile site, although that's usually automatic:

http://m.google.com/mail

http://m.gmail.com

Tried again, this time using https:// as the prefix. Even went so far as to try the straight .html version of Gmail, and got the same result. That error message.

What's odd is that I can access many of my other Google services. I can get the search engine, iGoogle, Google Reader for RSS, Voice, my Gmail contacts through Voice, and my calendar. But not Gmail.

It turns out, though, it's not just me. I'm glad to hear that. I think.

A Twitter search using #gmail as the key shows several others having this problem. As far as the mainstream and tech media, not a peep through Sunday.

Several have written to the Google Support Forum, saying they lost access around Feb 8 (my connection went Tango Uniform on the 11th). Some report losing access to all Google functions (Calendar, etc.), and apparently the problem is not just with tardphones. Real smartphones seem to get this problem, particularly of the Crackberry variety.

A fella named Ethan, who identifies himself as a Google employee in the support forum, seems just as baffled as anyone else. Another person on the forum, The C Man, reported this Saturday: "Google employees are investigating the problem and have not been able to reproduce it."

Already this doesn't sound promising.

It was recommended the user clean out the phone browser cache. I did this, and it worked about as well as it did with some other folks who tried -- like, not at all.

I pulled the battery out, reset the phone, even reprogrammed it in case that worked. Again, nothing. At this point I was so desperate that if the Verizon/StraightTalk folks suggested I dance naked in a bucket of steaming chicken guts during a full moon (now that's a visual for you!) I would have tried it.

So far, this error seems awfully random. Some folks report it, others don't. Some have problems getting access to all Google services, some -- like me -- just Gmail. Several cell phone carriers were involved. The whole thing seems like a crapshoot, one of those problems where no one knows exactly what's going on, how it happened, or how to fix it.

I should feel better that it's not just me, and not just my non-Java phone.

I'd hate to think Gmail is revamping its system so that you can't access it from a tardphone like mine. It could be something that corrects itself in time, but you never know.

Knowing all that, I should feel better.

But I don't.

[As this situation progresses and/or finds resolution, don't be surprised if I report back in this space.]

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Cloud Computing 101: A starter's toolkit

Here I try to cut some of the mystery out of cloud computing ... or maybe really muddy the waters up some more.

Article appears in Hubpages.

Excerpt:

"Here's the beauty of cloud computing: You can conceivably get by without a hard drive at all. Shoot, all you really need for cloud computing is an operating system, Web connection and browser, and perhaps a USB thumb drive for local storage. If you want to do it like a real geek, put your operating system and Web browser on the thumb drive and boot off that. Hard drive? What's a hard drive?"

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Will Ford slip the PC Police noose?

South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford has been in office for 30 years, moving straight from community organizing into politics (sound familiar?). And he's been known to stick both feet in his mouth on occasion.

The most recent Ford-ism came about earlier this week when he argued against stronger laws against illegal immigration in the state. He told a Senate committee that illegal aliens are a good thing for the state's economy.

Because Mexicans will work hard for their money, he said -- unlike blacks and whites.

"I know brothers -- and I'm talking about black guys -- they are not going to do the dirty work at Boeing, to do that hauling and all that building, that dirty work," Ford said. "A brother is going to find ways to take a break."

White guys, which Ford called "blue-eyed brothers," were not much better, he added.

Whoa, Mr. Ford ... wha'?

Whether he speaks the truth or not here is not the issue. It's not important, just as the truth is seldom important in our Brave New World of Political Correctitude. Rather, what's at issue is whether anyone was offended and who the offender is.

Rather than the expected venom, a lot of the usual screamers are just shaking their heads. Shoot, it's just Senator Ford being Senator Ford.

Ford? Why, he's just messin', that's all. "What am I apologizing for? I made a lot of jokes in my presentation like I always do," he said.

And that's cool. I don't mind politicos who speak their minds no matter what others may think. I don't have any problem with any celebrity who shoots from the hip. That's why I always liked Charles Barkley so much, and part of why the late Sen. Barry Goldwater captured my imagination so many years ago. We need more of that in politics, the corporate world, and everywhere else. And some folks really need to attempt to sprout a life, too.

But check out the reaction to Ford's comments, will you?

The NAACP, which ceased to be relevant decades ago, gave him a flaccid rebuke by calling his choice of terms "unfortunate." Dot Scott, head of the Charleston NAACP branch, said she will not press for an apology, saying it wouldn't do much of anything.

"I am not high on apologies," Scott said. "People usually say what they mean. I don't think it would do any good to even ask him for an apology. There is only one way. It's Robert's way."

She may be speaking the truth here.

Meanwhile, the guilt-ridden liberal crowd seems strangely silent about Ford's comments. I haven't heard a peep from that quarter, and they'd be screaming for scalps if, say, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made the statement.

So it looks like Ford gets a free drop on this. He just might slip the PC Police noose.

Why is this?

To be honest, I haven't the slightest idea.

I do know this, though. If someone like a Rush Limbaugh, a Bill O'Reilly, a Sarah Palin or a Mike Huckabee said something like this, you just might see a whole bunch of hate mail and inflammatory comments. Even a guy like Tim Scott, the newly-elected black conservative Congressman from South Carolina's First District, won't skate on this, you can bet the hacienda on that.

(Footnote: Later Ford admitted he does need to work on communicating his thoughts better, but his remarks were taken out of context. Standard foot-in-mouth reflex response, yes?)

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Errata: Underwater mortgages in growth areas

Totally clean forgot; here's the link to go with yesterday's blog:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-02-04-under-water-chart_N.htm

Just might want to make it available, y'know? Anyway, it's interesting reading.

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Majority of mortgages are underwater in Vegas, other growth areas

Where are people losing their butts on their mortgages these days?

I found this in USA TODAY, and it shows that a tick more than 71 percent of the mortgages in Clark County, Nevada, are underwater. That means more is owed on the house than what the house is actually worth.

Clark County, where you'll find places like Las Vegas and Laughlin, has also been one of the highest-growth areas of the country for at least the past decade.

Here is a partial list of counties where home buyers might do well to just junk the mortgage, take whatever lumps they get on their credit ratings, and walk away with what's left of their posteriors:

Rank County State Mortgages under water 1 Clark Nev. 71.1% 2 Osceola Fla. 66.5% 3 Merced Calif. 63.1% 4 St Lucie Fla. 62.4% 5 San Joaquin Calif. 59.6% 6 Stanislaus Calif. 57.5% 7 Clayton Ga. 56.1% 8 Orange Fla. 56.1% 9 Solano Calif. 55.6% 10 Maricopa Ariz. 54.4% 11 Washoe Nev. 53.3% 12 Pinal Ariz. 52.6% 13 Flagler Fla. 52.5% 14 Pasco Fla. 51.5% 15 Riverside Calif. 50.5%

Interesting mix. A whole lot of Florida. Several counties in California -- including Riverside County, where I grew up. Several Arizona counties, particularly around the population centers -- Maricopa County is basically Phoenix.

And unless I'm mistaken, nearly every one of these counties has experienced off-the-charts population growth for about the past three decades. The Inland Empire, which encompasses Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, was THE high-growth capital in the nation before the Las Vegas metro area took over.

Coincidence? Forget it. There ain't no such animal, you should know that.