I’m having one of “those” days where I just can’t stop tinkering with my gadgets.
I started off with my Samsung Galaxy S. I’m not sure where the idea to start fiddling around with it came from, but there it was, so I obliged the ‘gadget monkey’ on my back by paying a visit to xda-developers and see what the latest ROMs were for it. I quickly discovered that Darky’s Extreme Edition was the one all the cool kids were trying out, so I downloaded all the necessary files for the latest version 10 Beta 3 and starting flashing in ODIN. Nearly bricked my device on the third and final step where I had to flash the ROM using Speedmod Recovery – I had transferred the Darky ROM to a microSD card, but the Recovery kernel just flat out refused to see the card. I tried running my Galaxy S as it was, but it refused to boot – just kept on vibrating away at me at the Samsung logo screen. Uh-oh!
It never is as straightforward as just following the posted instructions – indeed, it wouldn’t be as fun without the danger element involved. Finally I figured out how to mount the Galaxy S as a USB drive in Speedmod Recovery, and I was able to copy across the Darky ROM to the Galaxy’s internal SD card. From there, it was just a matter of flashing it using the Update mechanism, and huzzah! I haz Gingerbread on my Galaxy S – and it runs extremely fast, too! 
But enough with the Galaxy S – my next challenge was the TEGA v2. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had successfully updated it to Froyo, however I didn’t have Wi-Fi working as my version of the tablet had an outdated Wi-Fi card in it. Hugo to the rescue! He sent me a new Wi-Fi card to fit into the TEGA, and it was surprisingly easy to install! Of course, I had to get my partner to help me with unscrewing the back case and removing the relevant components – he’s much better with the hands-on stuff than me 
But once it was in, the Wi-Fi started working beautifully, and I was able to sign in to my Google account and get all my data syncing down. I had a brief scare when the touchscreen stopped registering my input, until I discovered on the TEGA v2 forum that pressing and holding on the Back button for 10 seconds re-calibrates the touchscreen. SUCCESS!
The innards of the TEGA v2
I still don’t have a fix for 3G yet – Hugo posted a solution on the forums, but it’s all gobbledegook for me, way too technical and beyond my expertise! But hopefully someone comes up a step-by-step for dummies on how to get this working! The other thing I’ve noticed is that there’s only a limited number of apps available in Android Market: no Facebook, no Twitter, no Tweetdeck, no Beautiful Widgets, and those are just the ones that I’ve looked up. I’ve tried emailing myself the APKs and installing them from there, but that only worked for updating the Facebook that was already built into the ROM. I’ve also ticked the ‘Allow installation of non-Market applications’ option in Settings, but it didn’t make a difference.
Still, I’ve made a lot of progress today towards turning the TEGA v2 into the ultimate tablet. Tomorrow’s another day! One cool thing that I’ve discovered is that the TEGA v2 recognises wireless adapters for keyboards and mice even when in Android (I’m using a Logitech desktop combo, but I’m sure it would work with other brands too.), as well as connected flash drives! So I can have a full keyboard and mouse setup in both Android and Windows 7 and transfer files on and off at will without having to do application acrobatics with email, Dropbox, etc, making it near-perfect for using as a mobile workstation!
