Contact lens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’d been using disposable contacts for basketball since years ago. In an effort to preserve my dwindling funds, I started an experiment in saving money on contact lenses. Simply put, I would play without any form of optical aid – just good old myopia and blurry vision.

Surprisingly, the lack of clarity did not affect my game as much as I thought it would.

Shooting

Perhaps it boils down to trusting your body and instincts after so many years of experience, but shooting is more muscle memory than anything else. Your body already knows what to do. Set yourself up the same way every time, square up for the release, and keep the followthrough soft. Leave everything else to physics.

Court vision

Recognising teammates wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. I could still see everyone moving around, and pass the ball if I had to. People are just people, although not being able to see their facial expressions made reading readiness just that bit more difficult. A lot more difficult, actually.

Focus

The most surprising change came in this area. Perhaps the lack of details allowed my mind to focus better without distraction, but I got into attack mode a lot easier without contacts. Trusted my instincts and body to work as they should, and just went with the flow without overthinking the game.

I also began to pass on the pick and roll better as well – what the hell? I’d been trying to remind myself to do hit the roll man more often without much success, and the answer came in the form of not wearing contact lenses. Strange, but whatever works.

I’m sure there will be a downside to this harebrained idea eventually, but for now? It rocks. Play better and save dough, what gives?

So, I had a second try at trying to rescucitate something that had been gathering dust. It was time to to update my Infinitec Pocket TV firmware, one that would hopefully cure the initial bout of disappointment with the performance.

The first try: updating the Infinitec Pocket TV firmware

Up came the speed bump: I couldn’t complete my Infinitec Pocket TV firmware update successfully with the suggested method from the Infinitec forum, which was through Settings – About Pocket TV – System Update.

An error came up, and I got this pretty picture on my TV.

E: Bad bootloader arguments “null”

Finding update package…

Opening update package…

Verifying update package…

E:signature verification failed

Installation aborted.

what. the heck. I didn’t have a spare SD card handy to download it elsewhere either.

Getting advice from the source

Next order of business: sent an email over to Infinitec for advice, and Derek G from the support team had this to say:

This is discussed in the forum quite a bit.  The old updater has bugs that make it not work about 70% of the time.  The best solution has been to use an sd-card.

However, you can download the OTA ZIP directly to the device’s internal storage.  Then, open the “Upgrader” app from the app drawer.  Select the downloaded ZIP and try to flash it. Sometimes, users get lucky after a few attempts.

Executing the Infinitec Pocket TV firmware update successfully

I’ll break his suggestion down into steps, to make it easier to follow.

1. Download the 200MB  Infinitec Pocket TV firmware update using the Browser app on your Pocket TV: http://infinitec.com/updates/ptv01/ICS_040031.zip
2. The file will be stored in /mnt/sdcard/Download. To make the Upgrade app locate the install file, you need to move it to the root directory, which is /mnt/sdcard/. I used the FileBrowser app to cut and paste it into the right path.
3. Use the Upgrade app in the app drawer. You go to the app drawer by clicking on the icon on the top right corner of the home screen.
4. Select Local upgrade
5. Select the .zip
6. The Infinitec Pocket TV firmware will be ready to reboot and install the .zip update. Let ‘er rip!
7. SUCCESS! Update complete.

Response feels better now, thanks to Derek for the tip. More comments to come as I test it out.

It’s been a full season since I started Celtics Down Under back in September 2012. While it hasn’t exactly been a raving success, I’m happy that it’s slowly blossomed into a community for Aussie Celtics.

As of today:

• @CelticsDownUnd Twitter followers: 443
• Celtics Down Under on Facebook likes: 330
• Celtics Down Under website, highest page views: 227 (day), 1515 (month)
• Website’s top post (aside from the About page): Michael’s Could Another Big Man Be The Answer?

Not exactly the Larry O’Brien trophy of milestones, nonetheless encouraging. Encouraging, because I got to know many other Australian Celtic fans along the way, who in turn have come to know of many other fellow fans. All of us cheered, ranted, laughed and screamed together in the past months, watching our favourite team struggle its way into the postseason, and ultimately run out of gas. Not the best of endings, but it could have been worse. We went out with grit, and did not surrender.

It really feels great, knowing that none of this would have happened, had I not made the impulsive decision to register celticsdownunder.com and create something from nothing.

Thanks to everyone in the community, especially folks like Justin, Hayley, Tommy, big Kaine, Michael, Nate, Olly, Joel and so on. I’m looking forward to many more great seasons together. Bleed green folks.

#Ubuntu

The world would be a much better place if we learned to look past our differences, and find the things that speak a common language deep inside. Be it love, humour, passion, creativity or something else altogether, all it takes is the first step – a willingness to try.

Less prejudice, more acceptance. We are who we are, and learning to agree with others is one simple, yet powerful step in fostering peace in this little world of ours.

Many people have multiple Google accounts out of necessity, the most obvious point being the fantastic functionality GMail offers. Why wouldn’t you want to have your work and personal email accounts hosted on GMail? How about taking it a step further, and accessing both email addresses from a single GMail interface? Having one platform to control all your accounts is the next logical step to convenience after all.

The snag about an arrangement like this though, comes when you respond to calendar invites. You will notice that you are not signed in to the correct account, and cannot respond. How do we work around this?

Sign in to both accounts at the same time
Click on your profile at the top right corner and select the option: Add account. This feature allows you to sign in to both Google accounts at the same time, which would allow you to respond to the invite properly.

There is a neater way though.

Giving management rights to your Google Calendar
Simply assign the appropriate privileges for your Google Calendar to the other email account.

Click on the Gears icon and go to Settings, go to Calendars, click on Shared: Edit Settings for the appropriate calendar. Under the section Share with specific people, type your other email address, allow See all event details, and Add Person.

That’s it, you’re done.

Sidenote: if you cannot assign the privilege you desire, it is likely due to the domain settings in your Google Apps page. Change the Calendar setting accordingly, and you are set.