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Windows 7 (RC1): It works! July 8, 2009

Posted by bigduke in Uncategorized.
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Although a little skeptical about jumping on the windows 7 bandwagon after the Vista aftermath I must admit I haven’t stopped using it since I installed it. The installation was simple and straightforward. With the exception of downloading specific drivers for my Radeon 4870 GFX card, everything just worked as though someone had waved a magic wand over my machine.

The best part is that software meant for XP works instantaneously without having to specify compatibility. Look and feel wise its like vista but the differences become apparent when trying to execute unsigned software installers, your wish becomes its command and it won’t bother you again with irritating questions. My hardware hasn’t changed at all and yet it didn’t demand any more than what it got.

I have yet to try using it with RAM more than 3 GB, something XP didn’t support but apparently vista did. The system hasn’t crashed on me even once in the past month. When applications become unresponsive it subtly asks you what action you’d like to take. Afterall you ARE meant to be the boss here. The massive taskbar reminded me of Linux (perhaps someone learnt something). It made sense to have it big given that the OS is being geared for touch interaction. Recovering from hibernation takes literally 5 seconds (on a 3GHz core 2 duo). Window transitions are comparable to OSX and are a welcome eye-candy (don’t we all wish for something exciting at times?). Windows can be stuck around the screen and even maximized by sticking it to the top of the screen, very intuitive indeed.

Literally everything an average user would make use of, such as photo gallery, printers, wireless network etc can be managed through sensible interaction with the machine. Win 7 even gives you a fair choice of anti-virus software to choose from if one isn’t installed already.

I really am looking forward to getting my hands on the final release.

Samsung Omnia i900: Too little too soon July 8, 2009

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Image courtesy: Alibaba.com

Image courtesy: Alibaba.com

End-user impression of the i900

1. Hardware: Easy to handle lightweight candybar body with responsive buttons and a big screen. Don’t let the big screen fool you because the resolution isn’t the sharpest. Could have really done with a decent VGA at least. The screen, in comparison to HTC Touch pro is much more responsive. The clunky text (as a result of the resolution) and low color depth makes up for it though. The camera is decent enough to take a “mobile” picture. Video capture works at 640×480 resolution but given the 400×240 resolution it’s scaled down during playback. The stylus hangs outside of the body and looks like a half-pen. Could have really done with some smarts there.

2. Software: Works off the standard WinMo 6.1 pro. The omnia sports a neat phonebook, FM tuner, smart reader (scanner), quick settings, unit converter, “touch” player, streaming media player, and a widget based “today” screen item. By the looks of it samsung hasn’t put in a lot of work integrating the “utility screens” with the device. The online widgets assume network connection availability and for the size of the screen do little to help. Another today screen layout is very iPhone-like and yet another one that delivers the bare minimum. I tried using the SPB mobile shell which completely transforms the phone with some intuitive eye-candy. Auto screen rotation works as expected i.e. the layout changes each time the screen is rotated as opposed to working only with certain apps.

The overall picture: Not the best phone to have if you’re spending money (I picked mine up for free on a contract). Might as well put in a little extra cash and get something worthwhile like an HTC Touch HD. Everything about the device screams “… just get the beta out to market and we’ll work on it from there …” and truly so, Koreans are enjoying a high resolution version of the Omnia. At the end of the day its still a windows mobile 6.1 phone, the OS itself wasn’t designed for finger-touch so you’ll be left pulling out that ugly stylus or pushing into the screen with your nail or worse still picking on corners with anything sharp.

iPod touch 2G v2.2.1 (5H11a) jailbreak March 1, 2009

Posted by bigduke in Miscellaneous.
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It was indeed disheartening to learn a few of weeks back that the iPod touch 2G could not be jailbroken just yet as per the note on iPhone dev team’s blog. However, to my surprise, I found a video by redsn0w on youtube regarding jailbreaking the iPod touch 2G. The sad part being that it was a little complex in that it took advantage of command line manipulation. I was pleased to learn about a couple of tools a few days back that let you easily jailbreak the ipod touch 2g. Both tools provide a GUI with varying degrees of manual operation in order to successfully exploit the device. These are Voltage and cyw00d’s jailbreak helper. Both tools do the job equally well, even with the most recent release of the firmware (v2.2.1). Do make sure you follow the steps right down to the very last word or else you may not succeed. I found the voltage – booter especially helpful, since both exploits are tethered, which means that they rely on the main machine (PC/Mac) to boot the device, in order to boot the device after installing WinterBoard for theming.

Note: Do not worry about bricking your iPod touch 2G since it can be easily recovered by putting the device in DFU/WTF mode. This is done by pressing both the home button and the power/sleep button simultaneously for 10 seconds (when the device is connected to the computer you’ll hear the USB disconnection sound at the end of it) followed by releasing the power button, yet holding down the home button for another 8 seconds (you’ll hear the usb connection sound on the computer). This will put the device in recovery mode, after which you can recover the original firmware using iTunes. When iTunes detects the iPod in recovery mode, it’ll give you an option to recover it, press Shift key + recover button in iTunes and select the original firmware file to restore it to normal. At the end of this process you’ll have the option of restoring the backed up files and settings. But beware, if you do not have a backup of the original backup and applications installed, they’ll all be lost.

CAUTION: Jailbreaking the iPod touch WILL void your warranty so try this only if you’re a technology enthusiast or want more out of the device in terms of features and customization. The providers of the jailbreak software or I am not responsible for any damage to the device as a result thereof.