Tag Archives: by Zero

Personal, Site News

Happy Anniversary of ZeroXR 13mg! One Year of Evolution!

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Ah… One year ago, I remember talking to Merinda about websites. She was fixing to launch hers and she said something along the lines of this quotation:

“Sometimes you have to make a name for yourself and a brand to showcase your own ideals to the world. Start something and watch it grow~!“

I weighed those words heavily and then took up her offer to refer me to Dreamhost. I am very glad I did take up her offer as I have branded myself online and the best part… I have watched my writing evolve tremendously. I started out feeble but quickly learned to revisit old works and build from those. However… I cannot give myself all the credit. I had many others help build me as a writer. My good friends from the Dallas Ubuntu Linux group, those helped me a ton. There was also my two lovely guest writers who flank me. The lovely Miss Wyno and the honored Miss Ivy, I thank them for aiding me on proofing and even revising. Then there was the greatest influence… My small grouping of fans.

Some of you were just fans of my site back when the older Vox hosted site was running. Some of you joined up when I decided to feed an RSS line into Facebook. Some of you became fans when I had just gotten my cheap business cards… Then some of you recently became fans from knowing me at school and being curious of the web address on my contact card. From that… I watched 1-5 hits a day become 20 – up to 60 a day on some days!

I would like to thank you all for 1 year of evolution. One year of change and embracing the principle: “Evolve or Die”. I know I have a few things I need to fix to grow even stronger as a writer. Some of you all have had the courage to help say “This needs to be better” or “That is good!” For those of you, I am glad you drop feedback! I look forward to even more good things later on!

Love,

Personal, Site News

Signing off until the Anniversary of ZeroXR 13mg

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So… with exams starting tomorrow… I decided to hit “home” at Whitley hall early. Family was instigating a minor verbal scuffle, so naturally, I was fighting to escape ASAP and focus on a good mentality. In my demonic haste… I packed up all the stuff to stabilize my laptop’s life, but failed to pack up the power cord.

With the sad shape of my battery, I only have 3 hours of power over 3 days. From that, it nixes any gaming I may desire as well as randomly browsing 4chan/7chan/711chan/0chan for amusement. The only thing is… I am cut off from my loved ones who speak to me via instant message or e-mail. This probably depresses me the most of all things.

At the same time… It’s a sign from my divine beneficiaries that if I am to start off my week with the worst battle first, I will have to fight until the bitter end. There was apparently a blessing to any Chemistry 111 and 211 students from my professor that the grade from the final exam will also replace the lowest grade from the standard exams. So for me… I will fight onward to ensure a stable victory. I am not asking for an A in Chemistry as the last few things have diminished that very quickly… But to manage a C is the objective and a B to be a “bonus” objective.

History and Math I am not too worried about… I have done my work so I am alright there.

For my family, friends, and fans… If you wish to give me kind words: Send me a text message. If you need me to talk to you for encouragement, give me a call. My phone is now my life line until Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 1pm.

Also, December 10th is the first year of ZeroXR13mg and zeroxr.com’s existence. Any celebration should be reserved until 12/10/2008 after 1pm.

Thanks for the support for either my academic life or the life of this site… From here on out… I will lock down Suzaku and sign off from my laptop. I look forward to coming back live on Wednesday. For those of you taking exams with me… Good luck to you!

Technology

Rumor Mill – The BlackBerry Blitz May Be Coming to T-Mobile…

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So… With RIM making an aggressive attack and failing badly cause 2 mobile phone companies somewhat screamed at them to get the BlackBerry Storm out to market… (ahemVodafoneGlobalVerizonbastardsahem) This has caused RIM to have a bit of an issue of creating a negative image for the Storm. However… some have made mention that with the new firmware upgrade that was officially available from Verizon and Vodafone, it seemed to clear some issue up. However, there is the issue reported on various users on the web saying that some of the hardware buttons have fallen off! If you want to see some of the bad press generated… Check out Wired’s Blog from their Gadget Labs here.

However… Lucky for RIM, their BlackBerry Bold has gotten them quite good praise. To have wifi, GPS, and 3G while being as stable as it’s predecessor the 8800 series… RIM has hit the person who wants a powerhouse corporate communicator. It both has corporate beauty as well as casual beauty. There’s also the matter of the BlackBerry Javelin (or it’s other name, the 8900 series Curve 2) pending its release soon to the US. So far, Rogers Telecom Canada has it, but rumors shroud its US release. The Javelin is one of the devices that follows more the principles of the 8300 series Curve, it’s not quite as hardcore as its cousin the Bold.

I was reading this post over at TmoNews and some of the users mentioned corporate tidbits that February 2009 may be the month of the BlackBerry for T-mobile. The reasons for that being…

  1. Verizon didn’t pay big money for a 6 month exclusivity for the BlackBerry Storm 9530 in America… They only paid enough cash to get 90 day exclusivity. So for the GSM release, it was a bidding war between AT&T vs T-Mobile and T-Mobile won the battle. The day that Verizon’s 90 day exclusivity ends would (in theory) end 2/21/2009. Three months would be plenty of time to let RIM perfect the Storm as well as engineer one for the GSM/3G bands for T-Mobile. I would make an assumption that for T-Mobile, based from the forum posts and things around the web (like other users) that T-Mobile’s version may be called the BlackBerry Storm 9520 with stuff like myFaves, HotSpot@home, wi-fi and possibly GPS on the phone. I just hope the GPS is REAL GPS and not that sorry excuse of GPS found on the BlackBerry Pearl Flip.
  2. The speculated release date of T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Bold has been speculated from first quarter to even second quarter of 2009. The only thing is… November was when AT&T got the Bold 9000. It seems AT&T fell into the same trap as Verizon with not fronting enough cash to get a 6 month exclusivity period, but managed to get just 90 days. I don’t remember the exact release date for the AT&T BlackBerry Bold, but I would assume it’d be close to 2/21/2009 that the Bold’s exclusivity to AT&T wears out. Should this be true… T-Mobile’s Bold may be called the BlackBerry Bold 9020 but just bundle a few additional features like HotSpot@home and myFaves; while hopefully leaving alone the fact that it has true GPS on it.
  3. Floating rumors say that because T-Mobile Germany has the BlackBerry Javelin, that it is destined for T-Mobile USA. There was also some rumors that another BlackBerry was supposed to come out end of the year for T-Mobile in conjunction to the BlackBerry Pearl Flip. However, it doesn’t look like the Javelin is coming out this Christmas. Naturally, I could see it coincide with the February blitz of BlackBerries and possibly some promo around then too like a possible rescaling of BlackBerry net plans.

Should the speculation and rumors be true… I may just hold on to my phone until February and wait for the BlackBerry Blitz. That would give me much more equal footing to things like giving BlackBerry devices equal footing to the G1. oi vay… Decisions, decisions…

Personal, Technology

Zero needs your help! Help me pick a new phone!

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The Zero Corporate Communicator is due for an upgrade… My AT&T Tilt has taken quite the beating from me. For 7 months of loyal service, being subject to my drunken rages every now and then, but also being hacked to fit my needs… I am amazed it has last me 7 months. I mean with respect to things… Check out my phone chronology! (Disclaimer: Times are approximate…)

10/2004 – 10/2005: Nokia 3120 (1 Year)
10/2005 – 1/2006: Motorola RAZR V3 (3 Months)
1/2006 – 3/2006: Motorola SLVR L6 (2 Months)
3/2006 – 5/2006: Motorola MPx 220 (2 Months)
5/2006 – 7/2006: Sony Ericsson T637 (2 Months)
7/2006 – 10/2006: Motorola SLVR L7 Unbranded without iTunes (3 Months)
10/2006 – 1/2007: HTC Wizard as a T-mobile USA MDA (3 Months)
1/2007 – 5/2007: Nokia E62 (4 Months)
5/2007 – 10/2007: Palm Treo 680 (4 Months)
10/2007 – 4/2008: DUAL PHONES – Sony Ericsson P990i AND Sony Ericsson w300i (6 Months)
4/2008 – Present [12/2/2008] – HTC Kaiser as an AT&T Tilt 8925 (7 months onward…)

Lately, my phone is going through issues… The slider mechanism is getting loose, unless I lock it in the angular position if I somewhat slack with the screen angle. I am going through a RAM leak issue that my phones go through… So something like the phone’s alarm or an event reminder will lock up or even crash my phone. I have to reboot the phone every other day now rather than every 4 days to keep the phone functional. The worst part… I have tried almost EVERY cooked and stock OEM HTC TyTN II ROM possible to flash into my phone in hopes of having a functional phone that was stable since the maladies happened… But alas… even a bare stripped out BASE ROM that is on the original HTC TyTN II without the garbage still has my phone crashing and locking up.

So yeah… I have been looking at new phones. At the moment, I am eligible through T-Mobile to enjoy the same deals as new users from being eligible for an upgrade as long as I do the 2 year hitch. However, should I choose to hop back to the Death Star and be subject to their funny taxes, rollover minutes and etc… I’d have to wait until around until June of 2009. Time is not of the essence, yet… Unless my phone just purely becomes dysfunctional that it is unstable. I do need a smartphone, as the ability to see my calendar of events and keep my contacts at ready access. Messaging is highly important to me as I do a lot of mobile contact when voice is not an option. Internet plans are being considered, as e-mail and instant messages are my alternative lifelines other than texting and voice calls.

Here’s the line-up… so far that is:

BlackBerry Bold (To be unlocked…)
BlackBerry Javelin (aka 8900 Curve) [Unfortunately no official link yet, link from Boy Genius Report]
Nokia XpressMusic 5800 (The wicked touch screen music phone)
Palm Centro (Unlocked from Palm)
HTC/T-Mobile G1 by Google

My common themes seem to be phones with physical keyboards that are exposed, the only exceptions being the G1 and the Nokia Xpress Music 5800. The G1 has a slider keyboard like my Tilt, while the Nokia has a soft keyboard and it does support written input via stylus.

The issue of billing is not too bad… cause at the moment, I pay $70 for my current plan after taxes and such. However should I go with any device with the optional net plan (for the G1, the net plan is MANDATORY), the price totals out at $80. So it’s about 1 take out meal a month less. Not a big deal, cause I don’t have much time for that anyways. The only pressing issue would really be the $35 activation fee and the device prices.

The BlackBerry devices may be fun, but the Bold, for example is only available in the US as a locked AT&T phone and I would have to spend a little extra coin to get it unlocked for use. The Javelin is not known if it’s coming to T-Mobile USA, but there is already an AT&T unit under testing. For either the Bold or Javelin, this is probably the most expensive route ranging from sniping one off of craiglist at $450+ before any unlocking services.

The Palm is a rather nice and pint sized little smartphone and at roughly $300 unlocked from Palm is a great deal. The sad selection of white only is a little sobering… Though the final issue is compatibility with the T-Mobile mobile web… I am highly considering mobile web, so it puts the Centro on a very thin edge. The Nokia XpressMusic 5800 ($500+) is also on that same thin edge with the mobile web compatibility… Though the XpressMusic is more media centric rather than a corporate looking communicator.

The T-Mobile G1 is probably the underdog of them all… Priced at $180 with a 2 year renewal, fully Linux and open source, and quickly becoming versatile. It’s made by HTC, so I am not too afraid of build issues. Sure, it looks a little caddish and far from corporate professional… But to know that it can basically give me near remote control over my own site is damn near staggering, especially when there are times I’d kill to blog something but only to find that I have to pay for a wireless LAN at Starbucks for an hour I may not use entirely.

I digress…

If anyone has an opinion, feel free to comment and let me know! If you have a recommendation, tell me your reasoning why! Any reasonable insight is welcome and encouraged!

Personal, Site News

Week of the Dead and Flavour of the Weak

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So my campus is doing Dead Week, but oddly… it’s not a typical Dead Week. Some of my courses, it’s true to the traditional meaning with a dead chase to reviewing as much material as possible. Other courses, it’s back to back orgy of new materials, testing, and beatings of reviews… so my brain feels burned, cremated, and possibly fried. To think it’s just Monday! Ugh…

However… This is also the time that people succumb to weakness of slacking. That is weakness from the eternal warmth of the soul. For those of you who are in academic venues like me… Don’t give up ghost yet! Fight on and power forth!

Sadly… this may kill my active postings for a while as I will be either studying or playing World of WarCraft to burn off the hazardous amounts of stress that may render injury and death of my books.

I will throw a post up that will require the help of you readers… Please keep a watch on that.

For now, I need to recharge my fuel cells with complex chains of carbs, proteins, sugars, and water. Best of luck to anyone out there fighting in school! Power to the students!

Reviews

A Man of Action – Anthony Action Product Line Review

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As a discerning gentleman, I like feeling 100% when possible. In a sea of mens grooming items, it’s hard to find things that allow a man to feel his best when we are bombarded with advertisements of shaving gels that claim to help give the closest shave or the lack of reviews for things related to facial cleansers. Sadly, most of the “drug store” faire works poorly in action and end up being irritating topicals rather than being therapeutic andro-cosmoceuticals.

Anthony of the Anthony brands realized this and had to give men an alternative. From this, the Anthony Logistics line was born. Combining products formulated with some of the most natural ingredients with the intent of being functional and beneficial care for men’s grooming, this was the foundation behind the Anthony Logistics product line. But the evolution of men’s grooming didn’t stop here for the Anthony brands… For the man who wants a quick means to clean up and not fuss for time, there’s the Anthony Sport line for that. Now… for the really distinguished man, the most recent line is made just for them. Action by Anthony is a blend of Logistics and Sport lines combined, but on top of that, it merges high end ingredients for a truly top echelon product.

Alfred from Barney’s New York was gracious enough to give me the vital things for a man to start and end their day… The Action foaming face wash, the 2-in-1 shaving cream, and high performance moisturizer. Once again, my thanks goes out to Alfred for his kindness!

The Anthony Action Foaming Face Wash is a one that is recommended to be use at the start of the day as well as the end of the day. The ingredients help to calm and soothe the skin, but glycolic acid and the avocado oil to help slough off the old skin, clean off the topical bacteria, and moisturize. The cool part is the glycolic acid can also help beard hairs lift up as mentioned on the Anthony site. So for those who do like to shave in the morning, this is probably a great way to help make your shaving ritual much more effective! The face wash is also great to end the day by scrubbing off the dirt, sweat, and grime incurred from a day as it ends up soothing and relaxing the skin. From spending 2 days with the face wash, I felt a great response from it. Most of the facial washes out on drug store shelves usually end up smelling like medicine, however… The Action Foaming Face Wash smelled very soothing and almost something akin to very soothing tea. It was refreshing to be able to start my day and end my day feeling completely relaxed.

I’d decided to see if I could stack up effects and see if I could use the Action 2-in-1 Shaving Cream to put it at its highest potential. To my amazement, a small amount of it goes a much longer way than a giant blob of the drug store picks out on the market. The mixture does a great job of helping the beard stand with the peppermint and eucalyptis oils as well as toning out the skin with the licorice extract. From all of these essences, the scent is not particularly strong. The unique synergy that everything has is wonderful as it helps to lift the beard hairs and provide a close shave. When used in combination with my Dovo shavette, it probably gave me one of the closest shaves I have had in the history of being a straight razor fanatic of 1 year! The best thing is that with the 2-in-1 Shaving Cream is instead of needing an aftershave, you can just use a tiny amount and it acts as an aftershave and conditioner for your beard!

The last thing I got to sample was something that most men probably don’t think much about. As men live their day to day lives, we interact with the greatest forces of nature. What most men don’t think about are the effects of the sun and the elements. Things like dryed out skin from arid winds, UVA and UVB rays nuking our flesh, and even daily stress putting fatigue on our faces. The Action High Performance Moisturizer by Anthony helps to keep face and defend against the common adversaries of a daily life. Some of the ingredients here are found in the other products, so it keeps with the theme of the Anthony Action line: quality ingredients for the discerning man. The blend of ingredients in the High Performance Moisturizer are pretty simplistic, but they go a long way. The moisturizer is lightly scented, but it is very pleasant to boot! The recommended usage is twice a day, so it’s pleasant to start the day off with the moisturizing the face as well as end the day to have it repair any cell damage and superficial damage from the day. Possibly the best part is unlike the drug store moisturizers for men that are either heavily scented, greasy, or what not… The Action High Performance Moisturizer is no where near close to that. It’s functional, but minimalistic… Something very akin to how most men like things in their life to be.

For those of you who may be shopping for yourself or maybe a spouse/significant other looking to give your guy something really nice this holiday season, skip the cheeky “holiday sets” and check out the Anthony Action line. It’s definitely worth the cash for the great experience I had. The prices below are listed from the official Anthony site, though they could be subject to change and other promotional offers. The Anthony line can be found at various retailers like Barney’s New York, Sephora, and Bath & Body Works. I can say they definitely get my approval in my book!

(Disclaimer: These are just standard prices before any taxes are calculated according to your state)
Action Foaming Face Wash: $22 USD
Action 2-in-1 Shaving Cream: $25 USD
Action High Performance Moisturizer: $40 USD

Reviews, Site News

2 Male Grooming Reviews in the Works!

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On returning home to Dallas this weekend, I was greeted by a parcel in my office. It was a plain looking parcel, except it had the postal seal from Barney’s New York from my grooming contact, Alfred. I would open it up and find two of the hallowed lines of male grooming inside. Some items from Men Science and Action by Anthony were enclosed as well as a kind note from Alfred! Expect these reviews to be up very soon, this way, guys who are looking for something refined this holiday season can put some of these on their Christmas lists!

Keep a watch of the updates! I assure you that I will not disappoint!

Technology

An Open Letter to The Linux Using Students of Texas A&M Commerce

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Dear fellow students,

Some of you have chosen the past of most difficulty. Some of you have chosen to be free of Microsoft’s tyranny and to open your heart to the power of open source. To you, I commend you! However, I am willing to bet some in our ranks have been unable to enjoy such sweet splendor without much strife. I am referring more to the school network. Some of you may have had to compile the Cisco Network Manager and maybe failed in vain from incomplete dependencies…. Some of you who decided to be like me and run an Ubuntu variant to try importing one of their profiles in order to connect but you were met with the message of “VPN Secrets incomplete”.

I say to you… Fear not! I have managed to secure myself the information on the configuration from the Center of Technology and Information Services center from the McDowell administration building. If you are a student in need of getting connected online, I have done you a favor by compounding the complete configurations as a Cisco Network Profile. If you do, in-fact, need this file… Please send me an e-mail to info@zeroxr.com and I’ll be glad to pass it over! If you want me to help out… Please feel free to inquire and I’ll be glad to stop by!

Power to the people, free as beer! Those are the things to live by!

Regards,

Personal, Technology

Ugh… Winter Blues~!

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So I am sick… augh!!! It blows… but to compound more bullcrap… Early this morning, Windows decided that my mouse was not to move away from the bottom corner. On trying to fight and beat the OS to the power of my will… well… let’s just keep it at the fact that things got worse. So once again… my laptop is well… toast with Windows. However… in usual fashion, Linux is like the cute geeky girlfriend who’s like the supportive best friend that saves my bacon again.

Which brings me to a comparison that I talked about with a good friend of mine…

Windows is like the crazy girl who can do all the freaky sexual crap. Stuff that would interest all the wrong sorts of people. At the same time, when you make the threaten to leave… it does crazy dramatic bullshit with empty promises of steak and fellatio.

Linux is like the one cute girl that either you’ve known forever or she’s the one lotus in a myriad of flowers. She’s the one who’s smart, can go to the bars with you, and even play a multi-player role playing game online while being a dork. She’s the one that you’d like to be with, but the real world somehow nags you to go back to the crazy whore called Windows.

Anyhow… My brain is exhausted… damn installations… DAMN IT ALL!!!

Personal

Blessing of the Battle Maiden

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So here I am… in Chemistry lecture. What the heck am I doing? Well… I found out even though I attempted to go to bed at 8pm only to get up at 11pm from an odd panic that disturbed my sleep to only play World of Warcraft to chill my nerves…

There was no Chemistry test today.

To think I fighting to the point of almost succumbing to my own mortal frailties to the tune of a funeral march celebrating the possession of a demon overtaking my mortal body. All to find that my test is not delayed until Wednesday… IT’S FORKIN’ DELAYED UNTIL FRIDAY!!!

I mean cool that it was delayed until then, but to think I had my hands up high, ready to put a bullet into the test… and the test ends up using a “ninja vanish” with flash powder.

My classmates said to take this “boon” as a blessing. To a sense, it is… I know my own “guardian angel”, the Stone Maiden, has been arising a lot from something akin to personal crisis. However… Her visage graced me last night and she took me on a relaxing and spirited drive. She couldn’t speak, but her drive was more relaxed. She was in the Angel Zero version of a BMW //M5 and doing the standard fare of aggressive driving moves, but it didn’t feel like battling a demon. Her driving was like listening to a beautiful concerto by one of the great composers of the past. To a sense, maybe it was her way of telling me “Relax… There’s no need to bleed to death anymore.” Whatever her conveyed message may be… I appreciate her love and grace for giving me her blessing.