Intra-Uterine Parasite

Week 11

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Week 9

Google Calendar Sync on 3G

You can sync your Google Calendar back and forth with the 3G with three easy steps.

1. Follow my directions below to jailbreak your 3G
2. Download the "Google Apps" in Cydia and then reboot your 3G
3. Download Nemus Sync in Installer

*don't use Nueva Sync -- there is no point to use a third party server that proxies an actual sync. Nemus Sync flows much more smoothly

Jailbreaking with Firmware 2.1

A couple of things:

1. I think it is easier to use QuickPwn instead of WinPwn now to jailbreak the 3G on a PC. I used WinPwn the first time mainly because they came out with the ability to jailbreak on Firmware 2.02 first. Now, however, QuickPwn allows you to jailbreak with the latest firmware update (2.1). Plus, it is easier - you simply upgrade the firmware using iTunes, then run QuickPwn. It isn't necessary to build an IPSW file like in WinPwn.

2. To use QuickPwn to jailbreak an iPhone using firmware 2.1, follow these instructions
a. Use iTunes Version 8 to upgrade to firmware 2.1
b. Download Firmware 2.1 seperately
c. Download QuickPwn
d. Put QuickPwn and Firmware 2.1 in the same folder
e. Run QuickPwn and Follow the instructions

*quickpwn doesn't upgrade your firmware, it just jailbreaks it.

Links
1. iDevTeam blog post about 2.1

iPhone Mods - tips and tricks

I have been playing with my iPhone 3G a lot lately and having a lot of fun figuring some useful mods out. This reminds me of early computer days in terms of user-end changes and experimentation. Anyway, all of these ideas are stolen from other sites and just synthesized here in my logic - which is at the level of a retarded 3rd grader.

How to Sync Your iPhone on Multiple Computers (e.g. your desktop and laptop)

1. Download the free programUltraEdit

2. Find your itunes library

3. Locate the file "iTunes Music Library.xml"

3. Open the file with any text editor (e.g. notepad or UltraEdit)

4. Find the entry between the tags that follows "Library Persistent ID". The entry will be a long alpha-numeric entry.

5. Copy the entry down exactly on a piece of paper.

6. Close the file.

7. Make sure itunes is not running

8. On the other machine you want to sync with (e.g. laptop or work computer), open the file "iTunes Music Library.xml" in a text editor and, again, find the entry between the tags that follows "Library Persistent ID". The entry will again be a long alpha-numeric string of 16 characters.

9. Copy the entry down exactly on a piece of paper.

10. Now, replace that entry with the entry you copied in step 5 - don't change anything else. The new entry should also be 16 characters and match that on your first computer.

11. Use UltraEdit Hex Editor to open the file "Tunes Music Library.itl" (or "iTunes Music Library" on a Mac).
12. Select "find and replace" from the edit menu -- make sure Hex matching is selected, not ASCII
13. In "Find", enter the ID you wrote down in step 5. In "Replace", enter the ID you copied down in Step 9.
14. Choose "Replace All"
15. Save file and close it

How To Jailbreak Your Iphone

1. Download WINPWN 2.5

2. Download Firmware 2.0.2 IPSW

3. Plug in iPhone to USB

4. Power off iphone

5. Run WinPWN 2.5

6. Select the 2.0.2 Firware file when prompted

7. Follow steps to put iphone in DFU mode

8. WINPWN will shop up on iPhone with message to restore custom IPSW

9. Hold SHIFT button and push the restore button in iTunes

10. You will be prompted to select your IPSW

11. Select the ISPW you must built (it will be called something like “Custom_2.0.2” and will likely be in My Documents

How To Tether Your 3G (using your iPhone to get your laptop on the internet)

1. Jailbreak your Iphone

2. Download 3Proxy in Cydia

3. Download Terminal in Cydia

4. Create an “ad-hoc” network by right clicking on the two computers in the bottom right hand corner of XP or Vista

5. In the first box of the create ad-hoc dialog, type in anything you want for the network name. I named mine “3G Net”

6. In the second menu, select, “No Security/Open Access”

7. Create Network

8. You will temporarily lose your internet access as your laptop starts the ad-hoc network and leaves the wireless you were on

9. Now go to your Iphone

10. Go to Settings à Wi-Fi and your newly created Ad-Hoc Network should be listed there

11. Join that network

12. Now you need to write your new IP Address down for your Iphone by clicking on the blue dot to the right of the network name in settings

13. Write the IP Address down, you will need it in a moment

14. Now go to the “Terminal” program on the 3G

15. Type in “socks”

16. Nothing will seem to happen, but it does

17. Hit the home key

18. Go to Safari and then type in a URL (e.g. http://www.google.com)

19. Your Iphone won’t be able to get on the web through the Ad-hoc and will automatically switch to 3G but it will keep the ad-hoc network running in the background

20. Now go to your laptop and open up Firefox

21. Go to Tools à Options àNetwork à Settings

22. Click “manual proxy configuration”

23. On the last line that says SOCKS Host, type in the Iphone IP address you wrote down earlier

24. Type in 1080 for the port to the right

25. Click ok

26. In the URL of firefox, type in “about:config”

27. On the Filter line, type “socks”

28. Click on network.proxy.socks_remote_dns

29. This will change the value from “false” to “true”

30. In the URL box, type in a URL (e.g. http://www.google.com) and you should be good to GO!!!!

31. If you need more help, go to

a. http://cre.ations.net/blog/post/how-to-tether-your-iphone-3g-and-browse-the-web-using-your-3g-co

How to get NES ROMs on your Iphone

1. Download WinSCP on your home computer or laptop

a. It’s free at

i. http://winscp.net/download/winscp416setup.exe

2. On your iPhone, go to Cydia – you will need three programs

a. WifiToggle

b. OpenSSH

c. NES

3. Connect your 3G to a WiFi network

4. Get IP Address of the iPhone (Settings à Wifi à blue button on the right)

5. Disconnect the phone from the Wifi Network

6. Go back to WinSCP and type in the iPhone IP Address in the “Host Name” field

7. Type in “root” as the username and “alpine” as the password but DO NOT try to connect yet

8. Go to the iphone and hit “Toggle Wifi”

9. This will enable the WiFi and give a message that says “Enabling in 3 seconds” and then disappear when you join

10. Right when the message disappears, or just before, hit “Join/Connect” on WinSCP

11. The timing is important – otherwise the iPhone security features will load up and not allow you to connect

12. If you connect successfully a file explorer screen will come up with the iphone on the right side

13. Now you are ready for ROMs

14. ROMs can be placed in …..

a. You might need to create a directory called “NES”

15. To find ROMs, you need a torrent programs, like uTorrent

a. http://download.utorrent.com/1.8/utorrent.exe

16. Go to http://www.mininova.org and search for NES games

17. You can usually find all the ROMs as one zipped file

18. Download the file using uTorrent

19. Now you just drag and drop the files using WinSCP from your computer to the correct folder on the iPhone

How to Create Ringtones

1. First, you need to go to Control Panel à Appearance and Personalization à Folder Options à Show Hidden Files and Folders à and make sure that “hide extensions for known file types” is NOT selected

2. Go to itunes and select the song you want (if using itunes, you can’t do this with a song purchased through itunes).

3. Right click on the song and select “Get Info”

4. Put in the start and stop time of the ring tone you want to create in the dialog box (max = 40 seconds)

5. Select “OK”

6. Now, right click on the file and go to “Convert Selection to AAC” and click on this

7. Itunes will do some magic and the new file will appear

8. Right click on the file and select “display in Windows Explorer”

9. Find the file in Windows Explorer

10. Make sure that the file has the “m4a” extension – if not, see step 1

11. Select the file and right click on it and select “rename”

12. Rename the file from whatever.m4a to whatever.m44

13. You should get a message from windows telling you that this will be an unstable file. That’s good. If you don’t get the message, see step 1.

14. Go back to itunes and add the file into the library

15. Now sync or drag the file into ringtones

References and Software

1. How To Sync Your iPhone to multiple computers

2. UltraEdit

3. WinPWN 2.5

4.IPSW Files (Firmware)

5. iCafe

6. i dev team

7. Sleepers

Real Estate: Like a fun game for grown-ups

We have a house under contract here at 2540 West Maryland Avenue 33629 and closing is on July 2!





Buying a house so far has been a neat experience - especially because I was looking for location, price and equity more than granite counter tops, hardwood floors, and a jacuzzi style bath tub (can put all that in later).

Anyway, it looks like the hunt paid off and we were able to get a town home under contract two blocks west of Bayshore and just north of Bay to Bay. This is 2 miles from my work and about 2 miles for my wife as well. Plus we are less than a mile from shops and restaurants in Hyde Park.

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click on image for larger view of layout

click on image for larger view of layout

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We offered 28% less than their asking price and 20% less than any comparable house had sold for in the area. Originally, the property was listed at 240K. At that price, the home sat on the market for 80 days until the price was slashed to 199K. Then the home sat again for another 5 days until I came along.

At 199K, the house was at $148/sqft. In that area of 33629, especially compared to other very nearby townhomes, nothing really goes for less than $160/sqft. So, in reality, a house in relatively good shape (clean and well maintained, but out-dated) was already a good deal at 199K. Nonetheless, Money magazine (05/2008, 06/2008) predicts a continued decline in Tampa home prices. In addition, this house was offered by a seller who put no money/work into the home just before placing it on the market and had their mortgage 90% paid. In other words, they stood to walk with some money even if the price dipped. In addition, the sellers are in their late 70s and don't even live in-state at this time. The daughter is having to travel back and forth between Atlanta to deal with issues related to the house.

I took all of this into consideration when coming up with an offer of $126/sqft (170K).


We also asked seller to pay all closing costs (above the estimated fees and up to 6% of purchase price) and include a home warranty. The sellers had already offered to pay buyer's agent fees (it was on the face sheet) but we even increased that by $250 in the offer contract. In other words, I was trying to give the sellers things to negotiate before they went back to the price. My goal was to get the house at the offered price and walk into equity. I fully expected the seller to cut the amount of closing costs and cut the warranty. I also expected some movement on the price.

Let me say, I was pleasantly surprised when my agent called a few hours before the offer deadline to say that the sellers had essentially accepted EVERYTHING we asked for in the purchase offer. The only changes -- they found a cheaper warranty company and didn't want to increase my agents fees by $250 (no biggie though because there is plenty left in closing costs that can go to that). My agent definitely should get all the fees he can out of this because he has been great. We met last night at 10pm - as soon as he received the contract signed from the seller - to finalize the purchase offer. So, if you need a house you should definitely get in touch with Rob Wilson (rob@askrobaboutrealestate.com). Oh, and an aside, Rob used to run Ink19 - the music magazine from the 1990s that we lived by for planning Florida road trips to see bands play in the pre-internet era.

Let me give a plug to my lending company, Compass Bank. If you are looking for a Doctor's Loan Home Mortgage, this is the place to go. Specifically, get in touch with the mortgage broker Drew Daniels (drew.daniels@compassbank.com). I know there are few others out there (BOA, Suntrust, Tower) but Drew was able to still get 100% financing at a time when others were starting to have difficulty making that work. Plus, no PMI and I'm able to buy points to decrease the interest rate with the left over money at close. That parts kinda cool because I'm essentially getting a check from the seller to buy their house.

Well, no problems so far - now comes the inspection, appraisal and the joy of finding Home Owner's Insurance in Florida (a market where no one sells it any more thanks to the multi-Hurricane year in 2004).


One of the best things about the house is it's built in security and privacy. The garage and privacy fence are essentially all you can see/reach from the street and the garage can be used as the major entryway for residents.


After you come through the garage/fence, you enter the front patio. Notice the white door - what is not shown here (but is shown on the hand drawn figure above) is that this door goes into a small entryway that then has yet another door to enter the home itself.



This is the main living room after you walk in the front door - the front door is over in the left hand corner and this is taking from inside the room looking to the front.



The stairs are right in front of you when you walk in the door.


After you pass through the living room, there is a hallway with a bathroom on your left and a utility closet/pantry on your right.


Then you move into the dining room with the kitchen on your left


This is taken from the far part of the dining room, looking back towards the front of the house (kitchen on right and living room is down the hallway which has the bathroom and pantry).



One thing that is great about the place is it's size and the potential with that size. This room follows the dining room and is at the back of the house. It's large at 12X12 and was used as the TV Room/Family Room in the old home. We will likely use the front room as our main common area and forgo a formal living room (that never seems to get used anyway when people have one). This room will likely become a study or extra bedroom at some point.
There is a door on the left wall that goes to the outside back yard/patio.


There are 2 bedrooms upstairs, each is the same size. Each has a huge walk in closet. The windows have a view of the back patio in one bedroom and the front patio in the other. All of the blinds are nice wood blinds - no vinyl cheap mini blinds anywhere. Plus there are hurricane shutters (that's what the weird crank is on the left of the window).

They share this weird bathroom seen in the next picture:

The bathroom is really the only major house flaw. From one bedroom, there is an alcove (no door) that has a sink. Next to the sink is a door leading to the main part of the bathroom with toilet and bathtub/shower. Then there is another door that leads to another sink and toilet and is connected to the other bedroom. Yep, it's odd.


This patio is begging for a hot tub - don't you think? And the best part is the light maintenance that is required with the simple patio blocks and landscaping - no big yard but still a (fairly private) space outdoors.


This is taken from the corner of the backyard (where there is a little gate out to the ally) and looking at the back of the house.

USF COM c/o 2008 Video

I'm trying to use some of my off time this month and next to get back into wakeboarding and wakeskating a little bit. However, I've discovered some other cool sports that I didn't know about previously. Namely, wakesurfing and toe-in surfing using a jet ski to get past the break. More stuff to try....This documentary on wakesurfing is excellent and the huge waves on the toe-in surfing are incredible.

Wakesurfing

John McCain

Not going to vote for the Senator but still got a great opportunity get up close to McCain yesterday at Moffitt. I was a tool for the "young" face of health care along with about 10 of my med school colleagues as well as some other associated USF Health people (nursing students, a few attendings, etc). Still didn't figure out what's going on with the left face/neck area.....

I'm three rows behind McCain - the blue shirt floating in the background of the large woman with black hair on Sen. McCain's left side.

Video Here:
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Politics/Detail;jsessionid=39A9020C22E62A3FFB2CC5E52280B57F?contentId=6420366&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.14.1&sflg=1

Real American!

The original photos in this video were taken circa 2001 (look the young Dr. Rockathon!). It has taken me about 7 years to get around to putting them together as a video. Fortunately, my procrastination paid off and there are some great new images that were integrated in with the originals. So, turn your volume UP and watch (the whole thing for some twists). Enjoy.

Match Day!

Yesterday was an exciting day as I matched into my top choice for residency training in emergency medicine at the University of South Florida/Tampa General Hospital. I know many of you are aware that this was an important goal that allows me to train in a great program with excellent faculty, opportunities and resources (and a brand new ED!). It also allows Christy and I to stay in Tampa. I’m looking forward to these next three years of residency training as a physician.



Below are some related links regarding match day.

USF Health profiled me on their main page (second story):
http://hscweb3.hsc.usf.edu/health/now/?p=412


The Tampa Tribune also covered Match Day:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/20/anxious-usf-medical-school-graduates-get-residency/?news-breaking
Photos from the Trib
http://snap.tbo.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=324168

In addition, the St. Pete Times conducted an interview with me that should appear Saturday (assuming it doesn’t get bumped for real news).

http://picasaweb.google.com/alivinghominid/Matchday

My AHEC Talk

I'm giving the following talk as part of National AHEC Week (see below)

http://hscweb3.hsc.usf.edu/health/now/?p=414

The Case for Single-Payer, Universal Health Care in the United States

Jason W. Wilson, MSIV

National AHEC Week 2008 (March 24th-28th)
USF AHEC luncheon Tuesday, March 25
Noon - 1:00pm / MDC 1097
Open Invitation to All USF Health

To mark the start of National AHEC week on Tuesday, March 25 USF’s Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Program will host a luncheon & presentation entitled "The Case for a Single-Payer Universal Health Care in the United States". The thought provoking presentation will be delivered by medical student Jason Wilson, President of the Class of 2008.

"In order to resolve health disparities, we must focus on possible systematic and structural origins of outcome differences," states Wilson, a fourth year medical student. "A major area where we see large disparities between populations and individuals in this country is in access to health care services. Unfortunately, access is often limited due to lack of health insurance or inadequate coverage. Equal access won’t solve all of our health care problems, but certainly we can address many AHEC goals by working towards better policy and economic structure."

College of Medicine’s Class of 2008 President, Jason Wilson, and Cynthia Selleck, Program Director of USF AHEC and President of National AHEC Organization.

USF’s AHEC Program Director is also the President of the National AHEC Organization. Cynthia Selleck, DSN, ARNP, says AHECs plays an important role in the workforce development, training and education component of the nation’s health care safety net programs. "AHECs focus on improving the quality, geographic distribution and diversity of the primary care healthcare workforce and eliminating the disparities in our nation’s healthcare system." There are 54 AHEC programs throughout 47 states operating 208 centers in rural and medically underserved areas.

The March 24th luncheon on the campus of USF Health is open to all, with food provided by Gulfcoast North AHEC.

A Closer Look at USF AHEC and the national organization…

The University of South Florida AHEC was created in 1993 and has placed thousands of medical, nursing, public health and other health professions students in medically underserved and community-based sites to provide health care during clinical training rotations.

Congress established National AHEC Week in 2006 as an opportunity to recognize AHEC’s valuable contributions in the recruitment, retention, education and training of health professionals in medically underserved areas.