That damn 2 Mb

To test the LTE 4G Verizon data usage, I intentionally left my New iPad in a WiFi area, and see if the usage will go up.  After a full work day, I checked the usage, and found that it goes up from 55Mb to 57Mb.  What the HELL!  Like, how come the data usage will go up when I didn't do anything.  The only thing I can think of is that I brought my iPad with me with going to the kitchen, but even then I was like reading a eBook or something.  This got me so pissed, and decided that I should turn off Celluar data access all together until I really need to.  That really sucks, because when I used my 3G AT&T unlimited data plan, I don't have to think so much.  I just use, and get on my life.  This damn 4G totally sucks.  I only benefit is Personal hotspot.  That's it.  Piece of shit Verizon 4G.

Verizon 4G LTE 2Gb monthly plan for my New iPad

Yesterday I subscribed the no contract Verizon 4G LTE 2Gb monthly plan for my New iPad.  The idea is to figure out how fast 4G LTE is, how good is Personal Hotspot working with my Andorid phone HTC Desire, and what will my regular way of using Internet will cost me if I use 4G LTE.

After one night, I found that 55Mb was spent.  That kind of puzzled me since I only did the following things so far:

- Stream Tech News Today the podcast
- Turn on Personal Hotspot, and use AudioGalaxy on my Andorid phone to listen to one song
- I kept Personal Hotspot ON all night even though I am at home.  However, I turned off the WiFi on my Android phone, so no one should be using my Personal Hotspot unless someone hacked into it.

I tend to think that the relatively large amount of data consumption is due to the Personal Hotspot, so I turned it off, and I'll reexam how much data consumption on LTE tomorrow morning.

Another thing: the system Cellular Data Consumption check is NOT being updated!  It stays zero all the way.  Odd.  So I have to log into Verizon account in order to find out the truth.

I also found that I am way more aware of data consumption with 4G LTE, and I don't like that experience.  I have a very strong feeling that eventually I will go back to my grandfathered AT&T 3G Plan.

Disappearing folders in Blinq Photo

Blinq Photo is my favourite iOS application for browsing photos in my home server machine.  But recently I found that it has some tiny odd problem: sometime after Blinq server service started, it will failed to load up all the subfolders of the Photo folder I specified in the preference manual.  I tried and tried and eventually found out that the most reliable way to resolve the problem is by removing the folder from the preference, and then add it back in again.

Let me observe the situation and see if the problem comes back again after reboot.

Back to Windows 7

After struggling with Windows 8 Consumer Preview for a while on my MacMini (Last 2009), I finally gave up and switching back to Windows 7.  It's way more stable and usable an environment.  It took me a whole night to set up all the basic, so I think it's worthy to create a drive image, in case I need to do something adventurous. 

Still hanging

After the Windows 8 Consumer Preview hanged after I leave my Mac Mini staying up for overnight, I reinstall the OS clean last night and see if the problem still exist.  Well, it still does, and that really frustrated me.  I think Windows 8 Consumer Preview is still too unstable for Mac Mini (last 2009).  Maybe I really should go back to Windows 7.

Still want to fix it

I just booted the system back to MacOSX Lion, and then use "Choose Start Up" to start the sytem with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview disc, and see if this can at least boot the system up on by getting to the Windows 8 installation mode, and then I maybe able to do a repair on the system.

One thing I recognized is that in the OSX Startup disk selection, I DID NOT SEE the Windows 8 Preview, which is odd since I used to be able to see it.

Well, at least now I am back in the Windows 8 installation.  I chose "Repair" option, and then I chose "Refresh your PC" option.  Now I am getting into "Refreshing your PC" mode.  Hope it gets me to somewhere.

After try and try and try, I finally concluded that running Windows on Mac Mini (Last 2009) no longer stable enough to be useful, and I have no choice but switch back to OSX.  This is sad consider that I have been using my MacMini as a main desktop machine since years ago.

The problem started about a month ago.  I rebooted my MacMini and found that the system hanged.  Rebooted after rebooted and I still couldn't get the Windows 7 partition running again.  So I had no choice but reformat the partition and install Windows 8 Consumer Preview.  Things were working fine until a reboot, and now the machine is once again hanged during the start up.

The only conclusion I can made is that something screwed up the system through Windows Update.  However, I can't pin point out which windows update screwed up the system, and I don't want to waste all my time to diagnose the problem.  I think it's just way better for me to simply leave it alone, and start using is just as a simple OSX machine instead.

Do not destory that 30Gb old OSX

I was always tempted to get rid of the 30Gb old school OSX 10.5 on my MacMini, until I found out that when something goes wrong on my system, that old school OSX 10.5 partition on my MacMini Internal harddisk is the ONLY parition that I can bring up.  And from there I can springboard to other places, like the OSX Lion or the OSX Mountain Lion preview OS.

So yeah, no matter how tempted it is, note to self, NEVER delete that parition.

Oh and another note-to-self: stop dreaming about running more than one OS partiion on the MacMini.  You can only do one and that's it.