The United States of Spain or Mexico!?

I just bought a refurbished printer/scanner from the Epson store online and with it came a quick start guide and manual, but the manual only came in Spanish! WTF!? Did I buy the device in Mexico or the US!? What’s the United States coming to!? Last time I looked, the United States’ national language was English! You can confirm that here too! Then, I got a motion detector light because at my house, the street lights aren’t directly across from my house, so I can’t see where to stick the key in at night. Going by my sense of touch just wasn’t enough, so I decided to get one of those. It’s the model E100WSB-C made by EML Technologies, LLC. Why the heck did it only include instructions in Spanish!? Do they assume that most installers are Mexicans or of South American descent? I can understand having both languages, but really can’t understand Spanish only. It makes no sense to me.

If you can guess, I’m totally against education of subjects other than foreign language in a foreign language as well. I don’t see why school systems need to teach mathematics in Spanish or history in Spanish in the United States. I think that if you come to this country, you should be learning the national language.

Also, when was the last time you dialed into an automated system and heard, “For English, press 1”? I don’t remember not hearing that!

I’m open to comments. 🙂

NBC olympic site All-time Medal count unfair …

If you look at the site, it may be a little misleading. The USSR and East Germany haven’t been around for many years. If you combine East Germany into Germany and all of the countries of the former USSR, you’ll have a very different number. I think that if the USSR was united today, there’s a good chance that they would have more medals than the USA.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love our country. As a matter of fact, I have a bet going on with a friend that the US will definitely have both, more gold medals and more medals than China this year at the Beijing Olympics.

What’s USB device VID_07aa&PID_0011 ? Any Windows XP driver available?

This happens to be my old ass USB wireless lan adapter – only 11Mbps. Good enough for an old system and just to get online though it doesn’t have a whole lot of range. The reason I’m posting is because I did a search and couldn’t find the driver very quickly. It’s available at www.driverguide.com, but I’m so tired of having to click through their ads to get to my final driver download. The driver is available for downloading here.

Poor Shayna Baszler … Mazagatti let her take an extra, unnecessary beating

I’m a fan of Baszler, but really, since she was so gassed, did she really have a shot? Should Mazagatti really allowed it to continue? I think most refs would’ve stopped the fight there. Maybe he should’ve asked her if she wanted to continue.

Judge for yourself:

tyborg tazler – MyVideo
Shayna Baszler Vs Cristiane Cyborg Santos

The Next Food Network Star Season 4

After the last episode, a few of my picks are gone – Kevin Roberts and Nipa Bhatt– both of whom I thought had a chance are out of the competition. Aaron McCargo Jr.… eh … maybe. He’s hit and miss. Sometimes, he can have some showmanship, but I think he’s a better cook than a TV star. I think the most complete package still is with Kelsey Nixon. I’ll be very surprised if she’s eliminated anytime before the final two. I wanted to say final four, but we’re almost already there!

My pick for The Next Food Network Star Season 4

Wow!

This show’s awesome! I think I’d watch a show from almost any of these stars. All of the people are very beautiful – they all have great potential.

Who am I picking to win this? (Please bear in mind this is just from watching 1 show.) Well, here are those that I like (not in order):

Aaron McCargo Jr. – great food – 2 iron chefs liked it.

Kelsey Nixon – excellent personality, great energy and stage presence – definitely has what it takes to be on TV. The way she handled the judges questions, it was awesome! She’s also VERY HOT!

Kevin Roberts – the guy is funny … can’t say much more, but have the feeling that he’s got a shot.

Nipa Bhatt – I actually have the feeling she’s NOT going to win, but I feel that she has great potential. Her confidence I think is great. She’s got good answers to judges questions and could handle being put on the spot … but seeing her say “I can’t handle this anymore,” we’ll see what happens. She, like Kelsey, is also very beautiful.

Shane Lyons – I think this young kid’s got a good shot as well – seeing him breakdown in episode 1 I think helped him – it showed his love for food and his pride in his work.

Of these guys … I’m picking Kelsey.

Toyo Sushi on Sloat Blvd in San Francisco

This is yet another, Chinese owned sushi restaurant. We sat at the bar and the chef had a scared look on his face when my buddy asked me if we should do “omakase”. I’m fairly certain he didn’t know what that meant. This place is okay. Their “shari” (rice) really sucks. It had no taste – not salty, not sweet, not sour. Their fish though that day was very fresh and tasted very good. After one piece of nigiri, we did sashimi for the rest of the night. The chef at the bar was lame. We tried ordering from him and he seemed to acknowledge our orders, but never fulfilled them. He told us that he was very busy and we would have better luck ordering with the waiters. That was pretty disappointing. We took 3% off of his tip for that and I don’t expect to go there again.

How to Flash an AirLink101 AR430w router with DD-WRT firmware

1. Connect cable to WAN port and power on router

Download contents from: http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/down.php?path=downloads%2Frelease+candidates%2FDD-WRT+v24+RC7%2FAtheros+WiSoc%2FAirlink+101+AR430W/

2. Set your host IP to 192.168.20.80 (Don’t bother with any values in DNS Server/Alternate DNS)
3. ping -t 192.168.20.81
4. Run PuTTY/PuttyTel (YOU MUST USE PUTTY – SecureCRT and the regular Windows telnet DON’T WORK!) and set port to 9000 with Telnet option. – on the 2nd ping, hit open to connect to the router on 192.168.20.81. If you miss this, you may need to reset the router and try again.
You’ll see:
You’ll probably get these messages:
/releases/svn.porsche/redboot-ar231x/redboot-ar231x/redboot_cobra/ecos/packages/devs/eth/mips/ar531x/current/src/ae531xecos.c#390:ae531x_send AHB ERROR: AR531X_DEBUG_ERROR = 00000145
/releases/svn.porsche/redboot-ar231x/redboot-ar231x/redboot_cobra/ecos/packages/devs/eth/mips/ar531x/current/src/ae531xecos.c#393:ae531x_send AHB ERROR status_4 = 00000145

It’s safe to ignore them.

5. Started TtftpSrv in background.

In the screen, run:
load ap61.ram
go

6. change host IP to 192.168.1.23 and then change your command prompt window to run: “ping -t 192.168.1.1”

7. with putty, telnet to 192.168.1.1 9000
You’l see: DD-WRT>

Unfortunately, after this, it’s a little shaky as to what I did. If you do all of these steps in this order, it should work.

ip_address -l 192.168.1.1 -h 192.168.1.23
fconfig bootp false
bootp: Setting to false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system – continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

DD-WRT> ip_address -l 192.168.1.1 -h 192.168.1.23
IP: 192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0, Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Default server: 192.168.1.23
DD-WRT> load -r -b %{FREEMEMLO} ap61.rom
Using default protocol (TFTP)
Raw file loaded 0x80080000-0x800a8717, assumed entry at 0x80080000

fis create -l 0x30000 -e 0xbfc00000 RedBoot
An image named ‘RedBoot’ exists – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbfc00000-0xbfc30000: …
… Program from 0x80080000-0x800a8718 at 0xbfc00000: …
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x807f0000-0x80800000 at 0xbffe0000: .

reset

DD-WRT> fis init
About to initialize [format] FLASH image system – continue (y/n)? y
*** Initialize FLASH Image System
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

fconfig boot_script true
boot_script: Setting to true
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> fconfig boot_script_timeout 3
boot_script_timeout: Setting to 3
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT>

DD-WRT> load -v -r -b 0x80041000 linux.bin

You should see something like this:

|——————————————————————————-
Raw file loaded 0x80041000-0x803cefff, assumed entry at 0x80041000————–
DD-WRT> ———————————————————————-
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
–

Then run:
fis create linux
This will take forever. This would probably be a good time to set your telnet session so that putty doesn’t timeout and die.

Here’s a screenshot:

putty config to set the timeout

DD-WRT> fis create linux——————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
… Erase from 0xbfc30000-0xbffbe000: …………………………………………………
… Program from 0x80041000-0x803cf000 at 0xbfc30000: …………………………………………………
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .
DD-WRT> DD-WRT> DD-WRT>

DD-WRT> fconfig
Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load -l linux
>> exec
>>
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 3
Use BOOTP for network configuration: true
Default server IP address: 192.168.1.1
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xbffe0000-0xbfff0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xbffe0000: .

Please reference: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29779

and http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23510&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=240

and of course http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/release%20candidates/DD-WRT%20v24%20RC7/Atheros%20WiSoc/Airlink%20101%20AR430W/flashing.txt

By the way, here’s the end result:

Airlink DD-WRT screenshot

Flashing the Airlink AR430W woes …

Timing needs to be right in getting into the damn Redboot – takes forever.

Trick is to do a ping in one window and when you see 2 pings, use putty to connect to 192.168.20.81 port 9000. Another command prompt window WILL NOT work.

Then, ran into this issue:
/releases/svn.porsche/redboot-ar231x/redboot-ar231x/redboot_cobra/ecos/packages/devs/eth/mips/ar531x/current/src/ae531xecos.c#390:ae531x_send AHB ERROR: AR531X_DEBUG_ERROR = 00000145
Not sure if that’s an issue.

Then, try loading the ap610.rom and go and it reboots. Will try following the instructions from here http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=23510&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=240 tomorrow.