Category Archives: Smartphones

Smartphone-free for a day – how did I go?

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Today was an interesting day. For the first time in, well, ever, I didn’t use my smartphone for the entire day. No phone calls or text messages (although these were allowed in the brief), no email, no checking my Facebook and Twitter through Tweetdeck, no web browsing to look up random things, no access to Evernote to write down notes and look up existing notes – I couldn’t even check the time.

Well, that was the idea. I ended up having to use my smartphone twice for work purposes: once to write a tutorial for APC magazine on using Tasker on Android (awesome app, by the way!) and the second time to finalise a feature I was writing for PC & Tech Authority on mobile apps. But that was it! The rest of the time I was cold turkey. The surprising thing was that I didn’t miss my smartphone as much as I thought I would!

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Smartphone-free day today!

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I’m currently participating in a ‘Connected Citizens Design Lab‘ project. Yes, I’m one of the 20 ‘connected citizens’. :) Today is the final day of activities, and for this I’m meant to go without using a smartphone for the entire day and keep a diary about my experiences. I can still use it for calls and texts, but anything else is verboten. Ouch, this is going to be tough! Although, the brief didn’t say anything about using tablets…

I’m going to Fiji!

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I’m so excited – heading to Fiji this Sunday! It’s my partner’s brother’s wedding, and there’s a big herd of us heading over for a week or so. This will be my first time in Fiji, and I’m envisioning lots of lying on the beach, cocktail in hand, reading a book, and taking the little one swimming for the first time!

It’s going to be interesting taking the baby on his first flight! It’s only four hours long, but I hear many babies have trouble with the lift-off and descent as they don’t know how to un-pop their ears. We’ll see – hopefully it’s all cruisy!

This week has been absolutely flat out as I’ve been trying to fit in two week’s worth of work so I don’t have to do anything while I’m in Fiji. So far so good – as long as I keep working into the night all week, I should be able to get through everything. Then it’s a full week of pure vacation – bliss!

Of course, I’ll still be taking along a bucketload of technology with me. Some people like to go technology-free when they’re on vacation, but not me. I get way too much enjoyment from all my gadgets to leave them behind, and the only dilemma I have right now is what comes with me and what stays? I’d love to bring everything, but unless I can hire a sherpa or donkey to carry it all behind me, I’ll have to be smart about what I carry.

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HTC Sensation vs Samsung Galaxy S II

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I come from a pretty geeky family. My mum has a 64GB iPad Wi-Fi 1 and white 32GB iPhone 3GS. My dad has a fully tricked out 13in MacBook Air and an iPhone 4, and my brother has a Samsung Galaxy S II. We don’t go into all the gadgets I own, hehe.

It’s become a bit of a family ritual to talk ‘gadgets’ at our family get togethers. My brother’s amused by the fact that I always seem to be using the latest smartphones whenever he sees me, and it was upon seeing my Galaxy S II the last time that prompted him to upgrade from his HTC Desire HD to the Samsung. At Father’s Day today, I was toting the HTC Sensation, which prompted him to ask: which one do you like better, the Samsung Galaxy S II or the HTC Sensation?

I’ve used both devices extensively, and if I had to choose between one or the other, I’d pick the HTC Sensation. Now before you jump all over me extolling the many virtues of the Galaxy S II, I should point out that this is purely a subjective opinion. What does it for me may not interest you in the slightest.

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What I’m doing right now: March 2011

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It’s hard to believe that March is almost over! Scary – means I only have one more full month of ‘freedom’ before I step into the ‘parent’ zone! Hopefully I’ll still get to do all of the things that I love, ie writing, blogging, photography, playing with gadgets, etc, but all of a sudden I’ll have another life to take care of! Thankfully my other half is equally responsible, making the idea less daunting! I’m scared, yet excited, apprehensive, yet hopeful. Interesting times ahead!

  • Alas, it seems I’ve hit another dry spell with regards to photography. I blame my increasingly pregnant state – it’s hard to take good photos when I’m at home almost all of the time and am looking at the same scenery constantly! I suppose I could get inventive with still lifes and abstracts, but my motivation to think outside the square is really non-existent at the moment. This means my 365-days photo project has well and truly flopped. Ah well, I can always start it up again when the baby is born – will have an endless stream of baby photos to take then! :) m But I’m managing to take a few photos here and there, like at the Usher concert yesterday.

  • I’ve been going hard with the tablets this month. Ironic given that I hardly leave the house and tablets are best used out of the house (for me anyway – at home, I’d rather use my 27-inch iMac unless I’m sitting in front of the TV or lying in bed), but I’m having fun nevertheless. I traded an old phone on Gumtree for a Dell Streak 5, and I was quite infatuated with it until I found the Facebook bug that doesn’t let me sign-in to Facebook from third party apps like Tweetdeck. Major no-no for me, so I ended up switching back to the Samsung Galaxy S as my main phone. My TEGA v2 tablet also got an upgrade to Android 2.2.1! I had to upgrade the Wi-Fi card in it myself to get the Wi-Fi working in Android, and I can honestly say that it’s the first time that I’ve ever upgraded something myself on a computer before! Go me! I’ll definitely start using the TEGA v2 once I get more mobile – while it’s not the lightest tablet I have, the fact that it dual boots with Windows 7 makes it the best for writing on the go. I still haven’t had a chance to play with a Honeycomb Android tablet yet, but I’m expecting to get a review unit of the Samsung Galaxy 10.1v next week!

 

  • Further tablet news: I bought myself an iPad 2! Yes, I am an i-sheep, hear me baaaa! Took me four hours altogether, but I was able to walk out with the iPad that I wanted: a white 64GB 3G. God bless my partner for coming to visit me in line and bringing a chair – that and a good book on my Kindle made the wait almost pleasant – I was actually annoyed whenever the line moved up and I had to put my book down and move my chair! No, I probably didn’t need the 3G version, given that I have a Wi-Fi network at home and Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities on my iPhone and Galaxy S, and no, I probably didn’t need the 64GB version either, given that I barely passed 10GB on my 64GB iPad 1. But you know me – I need to have the best, and couldn’t stand the idea of friends having a better iPad than me :P Plus, using Wi-Fi hotspot functions on a phone really sucks up the batteries, and I also get GPS functionality with the 3G. Also, knowing me, I’d probably end up using all of the storage if I knew I didn’t have much to use, just to spite myself!

 

  • At the moment, I’ve just finished reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and I’ve started in on the sequel called The Wise Man’s Fear. Fantastic books if you’re into fantasy – lots of magic, demons, etc. The first book reminds me of Harry Potter as a lot of it involves the protagnist’s years at ‘The University’, only so much better than the HP series!

 

 

  • I’ve made one new addition to my ‘barbie dream home’ tech setup in the living room. I now have an Iomega NAS box setup in the living room that’s permanently connected to my wireless router, and I’m now saving all of my movies to that box rather than my iMac. This drive shows up instantly on my Xbox 360, saving me from having to copy the movie to a USB drive from my iMac and then transfer that to my Xbox 360′s USB port. I even figured out a way to download movies to my Samsung Galaxy S, then transfer them to the Iomega NAS so I can bypass my iMac altogether when I’m feeling too lazy to sit in front of the computer. Sweet! :)

Updating gadget software: one of the curses of being on the bleeding edge

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I finally got the iPhone and iPad updates working. No idea why it wouldn’t work on my iMac, but switching to a Windows PC did the trick. Of course, I had to re-download the massive update files for each (I think they were around 650MB and 615MB respectively), so lucky I have an unlimited broadband Internet account! I was also pleased to discover that it didn’t wipe either device clean, so all of my apps and data stayed intact after the update. I now have personal hotspot capability on my iPhone! :)

Personal hotspot!

I’ve also updated the custom ROM on my Samsung Galaxy S, which I’ve been using lately as my primary phone. There was an annoying bug with Darky’s Extreme Edition 9.4 where the earpiece wouldn’t work during calls (they could hear me, but I could hear the caller), and thankfully this has been fixed in 9.5. Updating to the newer version couldn’t have been easier – I just downloaded the DarkyRom configurator in Android Market and flashed the new update ZIP file from there. I’m not sure whether I’m getting better battery life yet – I’ve noticed that Darky’s ROM eats up more battery than the 2.2.1 JPU ROM I was using before – but apparently 9.5 improves on this somewhat. Time will tell!

My awesome Android homescreen: using the Xperia Arc launcher and beautiful widgets for the clock and weather

An Apple a day…

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One day in, and I’m still loving the iPad 2 to bits. Ah, that new gadget feeling! :) I haven’t had as much ‘bonding time’ with it as I would like, however, as I had an all-day ‘having a baby class’ at the hospital yesterday, and then wound down for the night with a good book on my Kindle (The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller, by Patrick Rothfuss).

Today’s also going to be busy, as I’m having my baby shower today and a bunch of people are coming over. However my good friend Saman is coming over and I’m sure he’ll bring his new iPad 2, so we can have a nice little geek out session! He has an interesting iPad 2 buying story: he lined up at 1pm at the George St Sydney Apple flagship store and was 350th in line, and found out just before 5pm that the model he wanted (black 64GB Wi-Fi) wasn’t available anymore. So then he went to Dick Smith and got one there, and then got accessories from JB Hi-Fi.

I’m tried to update both my iPad and iPhone 4 to the latest 4.3.1 software this morning. Yes, this would mean that I’ll lose all of the cool jailbreak tweaks on my iPhone 4 that I was so pleased with before, but I’m tired of the bugs: there’s a weird one that displays a white line at the top of the screen in most applications (maybe related to the Notified Pro app I’m running?), and also my camera appears to have stopped working – I tried to take a photo yesterday for the first time in ages, and the camera app kept on crashing before it took the photo. Alas, I keep on getting this stupid error message:

Guess there are too many people trying to update their i-devices? I’ll try again later.

Buying the iPad 2, crushing on Android and mulling over finances

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Roll out the red carpet: the iPad 2 goes on sale tomorrow at 5pm! I’m annoyed that Apple didn’t just start selling it at 9am, but I suppose either way, there’s going to be hundreds – if not thousands – of people queuing up. Urgh! Like this guy, who’s been at the main Apple store in Sydney since yesterday afternoon. And he already has an iPad 2! I think he’s just lining up so he can get interviewed by the media.

I’m 89% sure I’m going to get an iPad 2 tomorrow, but jeebers – I’m 8 months pregnant, and I really can’t stand in line for hours on end! I’m thinking about just pre-ordering one tomorrow morning at 1am in case Apple starts shipping them that day (why else open up pre-orders at such an absurdly early time?), and then swinging by the Bondi Junction store at 2pm and seeing what the line is like. I’ve persuaded my partner to come and meet me after he finishes work at 3 so he can help me stand in line (ie, stand in my place while I literally piss bolt for the toilets!).

The silly thing is, I don’t even really want an iPad 2 that much. I’ll get one anyway, because I’m a gadget junkie and need my fix (and can’t stand the idea that friends would have one when I didn’t), but I’m so stuck on the Android operating system that I don’t think I could do nearly as much on the iPad. Yes, it has a gazillion more tablet-specific apps than Android, but I need my customised homescreens with shortcuts and widgets, and the awesome Android notification system that alerts me whenever something needs my attention, and all of the cool tweaks and apps that aren’t possible with iOS because the operating system is locked down so tightly. Of course, things will be different once iOS 5 is released, and I’m really hoping that it comes in a couple of months to coincide with the iPhone 5 launch.

To give you an example of why I’m so into Android, I was able to download a movie through EasyNews using the EZ Usenet app on my Galaxy S while I was lying in bed. I then transferred that file over Wi-Fi to my Iomega network-attached hard drive using ES File Explorer (once I’ve configured it to see the network share on my Galaxy S), and I’m planning to watch it during dinner tonight through my Xbox 360, which plays files directly from the Iomega box. I didn’t have to touch my iMac the entire time! Cool, huh? Pretty sure the scenario I just described isn’t possible on an iPad – not without jailbreaking it, anyway. I could’ve done better than that, even, and skipped the Iomega NAS altogether by streaming the movie directly to the Xbox 360 over DLNA from my Galaxy S (the Galaxy S comes with a native DLNA client)! However, I wanted to permanently move the movie to the Iomega box anyway to free up space on my Galaxy S’s memory card, hence the need for that middle step. Eat that, Airplay! :P

The Android Honeycomb-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v is due out here in Australia in mid April, and I’m seriously considering getting that one too. It doesn’t have a microSD slot like the regular Galaxy Tab 10.1, but given that I’ve used less than 10GB on my 64GB iPad in the year that I’ve had it, I think I’d be fine with that – plus, I can stream most of my multimedia and store stuff in the cloud anyway. I know I’d be so much more productive using an Android tablet than an iOS tablet, the same way I can do so much more on my Android smartphone compared to the iPhone. Vodafone has a great deal whereby you can purchase it upfront for $259 and then pay it off for $39 each month over 12 months, which includes 1.5GB of data – perfect for my current budget, especially since it ends up being $2 cheaper than the outright price of $729. Well, would you look at that, I think I just convinced myself to buy it! :P I’ll also be selling my old iPad, so the overall cost of buying the two tablets shouldn’t be too bad, especially since I can offset most if not all of it by writing articles about them.

Back to the Samsung Galaxy S

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Well that was short-lived! Looks like I’m going back to using the Samsung Galaxy S as my everyday phone! All because I had to ‘condition’ the Mugen battery for the Dell Streak that I bought off eBay. The instructions said that I have to charge it for 8-12 hours, run it down to the last drops off juice, then repeat the process 4-5 times. This meant that I couldn’t bring the phone with me to the city today (had to go to the HTC HD7 launch at the Telstra Experience Centre) as I had just put it on charge, so I swapped over to my Samsung Galaxy S for the day.

Now that I’ve started using the Galaxy S, however, I’m not sure I want to go back to using the Dell Streak again! The Galaxy S is positively flying with the latest custom ROM that I’ve installed on it, which is a really nice change from the early days I had this phone when it ran like a dog! I don’t have any problems getting Facebook to authenticate in Tweetdeck like I do on the Dell Streak, the Super AMOLED screen is gorgeous, and I’ve just picked up a new bright yellow rubber case for it that makes it look like a Ferrari! BRRROOOOOMM!

My Samsung Galaxy S in its sporty new case

I’ve also started using a new launcher: a modified version of the Sony Ericsson Arc launcher that’s running really smoothly on my Galaxy S. It lets you configure folders on the homescreen for particular categories of apps, and uses an iPhone-style app drawer for the main app screen. I’m totally digging it!

Tweaking the Samsung Galaxy S and TEGA v2

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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 :P 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!

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