Category Archive:

Minnesota Government WTF

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I was paying MInnesota the sales taxes I collected on my business for 2008.  I’ve always been of the opinion that government websites suck and are notoriously difficult to navigate.  Today I found proof of where they’re at… about ten to twelve years behind the times.  First, I had to use Internet Exploder as somehow they wrote javascript form validation that works in IE and not in Firefox.  Then the kicker – the screenshot below says it all with their “new feature” in red print.

In case I have to spell it out, this is a “forgot password” link and form.

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My 1979 Ford F-250 is for sale

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Sold 2/16/2009

1979 F-250 body on a 1976 F-350 chassis with a divorced NP205 transfer case. I’ve had this truck for ten years and it deserves a home
with somebody who has the time and passion for maintaining this truck that I once had.
I have a lot commute and new baby in the family that consumes my time. The truck has a rare engine with even rarer factory exhaust manifolds.
Ford guys will know the value of a 4BBL Cleveland. The truck runs very good, the drive train is very reliable.

What is has

  • 351 Cleveland engine with 4BBL heads built to stock spec with around 40,000 mi since rebuild.
  • Four wheel drive works great
  • New Warn hubs.
  • C6 auto transmission built extra heavy duty and has 20K mi on it.
  • NP205 divorced transfer case for better drive line angles
  • Dual exhaust with H pipe and flowmaster mufflers
  • Ground up resto in 1995
  • 3 inch body lift and 3 inch suspension lift
  • 38.5” gumbo monster tires with plenty of tread left
  • Dana 60 rear with heavy duty Dana 44 front with 4:10 gears
  • Heavy duty brakes
  • Air horn
  • Aftermarket aluminum rims
  • Aftermarket interior
  • Sliding rear window
  • Chrome bed trim
  • K&N air filter
  • New battery in October
  • New Dual diaphragm brake booster
  • New heater core
  • Lots of chrome (bumpers, diff covers, etc)
  • New door speakers.  Comes with 10inch truck speakers, but no player.

What it needs:

It’s an old truck and has many little things that need attention. Your welcome to stop by for a test drive; it drives very well. The drive train is stout.

  • Roof light is out
  • Tailgate latch is tricky
  • New side steps needs to be bolted on (comes with truck)
  • Drivers exhaust manifold cracked and welded up. No to little leaking. Have new manifold that comes with truck
  • Truck has rust in some places on the cab and bed floor.
  • Rear brake shoes need tightening
  • New tires soon
  • New front bumper and passenger fender


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Toyota bluetooth microphone volume adjustment

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I connected my iphone to our 2008 Toyota Camry tonight and found it fairly easy for not having used bluetooth before.  I was unable to find out how to import all my phone’s contacts directly into the car, but that’s another story.  I setup some contacts in the car’s phone book manually and started making some calls.  Immediately I was told “I can’t hear you”.  I was unable to find in Toyota’s manual how to adjust the microphone volume.  After some googling, I found a solution online here and here.  The images below were taken from these two sites.  All credit goes to them.

1. Turn your Toyota to the “on” position.  This could be a push button or key.  Don’t start the vehicle, just the on position as if you were listening to the radio.

2. Hold the “info” button on the vehicle’s display with your right hand and flip the lights on and off with your other hand.  You might have to play with it a bit to get it right.  This is why everytime you get your car back from the dealer your lights have been turned off.  After a couple seconds and two or three flips of the lights, the display will enter diagnostic mode.

3. The menu is probably different between Toyota models and years, but once you’re in diagnostic mode, get to the main menu.  On my 2008 Camry, I initially had to press a button in the upper right corner for the menu.  The menu will look something like the image below.

4. Press the “BT Voice Quality Set” button on the menu.  You’ll see an interface like below for the bluetooth adjustment.  The microphone volume is the “Send Voice Lv” entry.  Turn it all the way up to 5.  The receive voice entry is fine at 0, but you can always turn that up a bit as well.  I turned mine up to 3 and it was quite a bit louder.

5. I was unable to find an “exit” button, so I turned off the car from here and it worked fine.

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Facebook “Account Unavailable due to site maintenance”

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For a site that currently has an Alexa traffic ranking of 5, this is pretty dumb.  It’s almost as bad as the sporadic errors on myspace.  Site maintenance?  Really?  At 10:45am on a Tuesday?  Come’on.. give me a break.  Facebook is one of the busiest sites on the net and you disable my account for “a few hours” in the middle of the day?  I’d expect they would be able to release code with a “flip of the switch”.  If not, I’d expect downtime to be scheduled and during times of minimal traffic.

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Facebook error “Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content”

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I started getting this error for a few days ago now.  I simply send a hyperlink to a friend and facebook doesn’t like that.  WTF?

12/31/08 Update:

I found a post on Facebook about the issue at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=18347337130 .  Apparently, “if you try to send a message that contains a link to a website with an importer” you’ll get that message.  “This response is our way of trying to protect every one’s privacy. Right now, the sites that are asking for this information, and that we are blocking as a result, gain complete access and control over your account”.  Okay, but I entered a few different URLs over a time span of a few days and every one of them was blocked.  I’m pretty certain it’s a bug.

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