Ricky Says

Question: hi i have question, i just downloaded facebook mobile onto my blackberry and my friends have facebook on their blackberry but they get a little icon with an f on the top of their screen when they get a notification or friend request or message and i just get a text from a code. How would i be able to recieve that little blue f icon on the top of my blackberry and not just recieve a text from a 5 digit code? Please help me out!!! thank youu!!

Answer: I received some great tips from a couple people who deserve the credit, so please read their answers below.

Many thanks to Dennis for the step-by-step instructions and also to @powerwheelz.

If you're wondering where to get the Facebook app for your Blackberry, here's the link, and here's the Blackberry Facebook User's Guide.

I love my Comcast DVR because it lets me record all my favorite TV shows and then fast forward through all the obnoxious commercials. It has a limited amount of storage space however, so we're continually deciding between which shows will stay recorded and which shows will get deleted.

There have also been many times when I've wanted to save a show to my computer, or to make a DVD for friends to watch - such as the time my friend's son was interviewed on a fund raiser for MD that was hosted by one of our local news stations.

I was able to copy recorded shows from my Comcast DVR to my Windows XP computer fairly easily using a FireWire cable, a few software drivers, and a free video streaming program.

How to record shows from a Comcast DVR to a PC

1. Download software drivers and streaming video recorder.

You can download the necessary drivers and a free streaming video recorder called CapDVHS from this link (with many thanks to the AV Science Forum).

Unzip the drivers and CapDVHS recorder to a folder of your choice on your computer. You will use these in the next step after you connect your DVR to your PC.

You'll also need a software program to view the recorded video file, and the free VLC Media Player handles this nicely.

2. Connect the DVR to your PC with a Firewire cable.

My Comcast DVR is a Motorola DCT6412 that supports dual channel high definition (HD) digital recording. There are 2 Firewire ports on the back side that let you connect to your PC using a standard IEEE-1394 FireWire cable.

Setting up a mail merge using Word and Excel is fairly easy and can save you a lot of money at the print shop by doing it yourself.

Kinko's charges a $45 setup fee per mail merge and they use a proprietary 33-per page label format that doesn't work with Microsoft Office's built-in label templates that only print 30 labels per page.

If you follow the steps in this article or video, you'll learn how to create a custom mail merge template that works with Kinko's proprietary 33 labels per page format. You also won't have to pay Kinko's $45 setup fee since you'll be handing them a completed mail merge file in Adobe PDF format that's ready for printing!

To get started you'll need to create an Excel spreadsheet containing addresses for each mailing address. You can use any column labels that you like, but make sure they're in the first row of your table. These labels will be used later when we create the mail merge in Word.

Open Word and select "Mailings" from the toolbar ribbon. Click "Start Mail Merge" and select "Labels" from the popup menu.

Choose the 30 per page Microsoft label template to use as a starting point and click "New Label" to create a new template.

Question: I traveled a lot in 2009 and am wondering if my rewards miles and hotel points will carry over into 2010?

Answer: Yes and No - Redeemable miles roll over but miles that were accrued towards elite status do NOT roll over.

The miles you accrued for redeeming flight rewards will carry over into the next year, and your elite/preferred status will also be retained through 2010. So you'll be able to redeem miles for free tickets and will enjoy your flight status benefits throughout 2010.

However, you must earn enough elite qualifying miles on the program in 2010 to retain your preferred status into 2011 - and your elite point account balance will be reset to zero at the start of each new year.

So if you don't fly as much this year in 2010, then you'll lose your elite/preferred status for 2011.

Last year I racked up some decent frequent flier miles on the United Star Alliance program and also with Alaska Airlines (which includes Delta, and Northwest Airlines).

The elite qualifying miles I earned towards on United's mileage plan in 2009 were reset to zero miles on Jan 1st, 2010. Meaning I'll need to fly a full 50,000 miles to retain my Premier Executive status into 2011.

The same thing happened for Alaska, although it took a couple of weeks for the reset to happen (so initially I thought they were going to roll over the miles). That turned out to NOT be the case however, as you can see from the screen shot of my account balance showing that I'll need to fly a full 20,000 miles to retain my MVP status into 2011.

I had to drop my car off at Les Schwab this morning and realized I forgot to bring my cell phone with me, so I couldn't call my wife to let her know how long I'd be.

Fortunately I had my laptop with me and was able to send her a text message using email.

To send SMS text messages to any cell phone in the US using email, just use your 10-digit phone number including area code as the first part of the email address (without any dashes or hyphens).

Use the table below to figure out the last half of the email address for each major phone carrier:

Type your text message as the email subject and don't worry about entering a message body, but remember there's a 140 character limit to text messages so keep it brief just like you would if you were using your cell phone.

Text messaging fees still apply when texting via email.