Category: Toys & Tech

All hail Nexus 7

I have started down a new path on the way to tech happiness by (almost) throwing away my smartphone and replacing it with dedicated tools: a dumb phone, a tablet computer, and a camera (when I need one). I am tired of carrying around a device that is a compromise in every area it was designed to cover – a smartphone is the Swiss Army knife of handheld devices, and while it can be used for many things, it does none of them as well as tools designed for those jobs. A smartphone, in general:

  • Is too big, complicated, and laggy to be considered a good replacement for a simple mobile phone
  • Has too small a screen to view many webpages, documents, etc., especially for an extended period
  • Usually takes crappy photos compared to a dedicated camera
  • In its latest and greatest form, costs more than a dedicated camera, tablet, and dumb phone combined

For these reasons, I have decided to go back to carrying more devices, perhaps until smartphones can be had with better features at a reasonable cost. This is an experiment.

I have cameras, so that is covered.

I went to buy a dumb phone, but the color I wanted (a small black Samsung flip phone) was out of stock at Tesco, where it was on sale. They had one in Ruby Red with sequins, but I’m not ready for that quite yet.

As for a tablet, I got a great deal on a Google (ASUS) Nexus 7 3G 32Gb at the Tesco Lotus five minutes from my house. This model can use wifi and a 3G sim card, so I signed up for an unlimited True H promotional deal for 499 baht/month (discounted iSmart 699 plan). I don’t plan on using the sim that often at home or work, but it will prove useful when my wife and I go on trips. The 400 voice minuted bundled with the plan will go to waste, since the tablet does not have phone functionality. Oh, well.

My next few posts will be dedicated to the rooting, modding, and set up for the Nexus 7.

 

There is only one true replacement

I really don’t know why everybody is suggesting exotic alternatives and roll-your-own solutions… If you want a replacement for Google Reader that closely replicates it in its prime – social functions and all – do not pass Go, do not collect $200, go directly to The Old Reader and get in line to import all your feeds.

Everybody who suggested any other sites without mentioning this one needs their web pass revoked.

I got an e-mail telling me my import was finished, and within 5 seconds of logging in, I knew this was the best choice for me and probably any other Google Reader addicts not using a touchscreen. ’nuff said.

 

Homeland Arrival, Imminent

The Old Reader

I guess it takes a long, long time to import RSS feeds.

Yahoo JP’s feeble attempt at getting fugee traffic from Google Reader is laughable with a 300 feed limit — webnerds eat 300 feeds for a light snack, you fools!!

The Old Reader, please be good to me.

 

—————————

UPDATE: I signed up for updates regarding an upcoming alternative I hadn’t heard about until recently, Hivemined.

I also feel like I got scammed by NewsBlur, which claimed to offer free accounts and then  took me to a page that said: Due to overwhelming demand, free accounts are temporarily suspended. By going premium you get full access to NewsBlur.

Oh, and it also filled out part of a credit card payment form for me, from the “free account” info I provided:

NewsBlur

Dicktards. I’ll try and cancel that account as soon as possible, but don’t expect much from liars like these.

UPDATE 2: By visiting the root address, I was able to get as far as importing my OPML file, which allowed me to update 64 feeds (!!) after clicking through a full-page nag screen with another credit card payment opportunity… This guy wants money and not much else, it seems (somebody has to feed his dog you greedy fuckers). There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but he should at least be up front about it and not pull this bullshit temporary suspending of free accounts. I was able to cancel my account, at least, which the site says is “permanent,” but considering his definition of “free,” I won’t hold my breath.

Teaching with Google Plus

I’ve now fully implemented my improved ad-hoc Google+ system for my weekend classes and have found the greatest barrier for entry to be that some students cannot use the net except for clicking on virtual cows and Like buttons.

After having them sign up for Gmail and Google Plus and showing them how I want work to be done for the first couple of classes, I now have a couple of active “Communities” where I post assignments and class announcements, and students ask questions and check their grades. It seems to be working smoothly. I’ve had some inquiries from people who saw my workshop at the conference last month, so it’s been good to experiment with new ideas and functions for this system.

How to root and upgrade an HTC Desire HD running Gingerbread to a custom Android ROM

There are basically two methods and I tried both: You can create a “gold card” and turn S-OFF, then root manually, which will entail a lot of futzing around with your phone and an extra mini SD card, or you can do the heavy lifting by booting into a Linux Live CD (choose the latest 32-bit LTS version) and automating most of the process with a slick software package called Advanced Ace Hack Kit. I recommend using the latter technique, even if you’ve never used Linux before.

It’s not easy if you’re totally new to it, but if you’ve enough confidence to try installing a custom ROM on your phone, you can probably work it all out: Download Ubuntu, burn the .iso file to a CD, choose to try out Ubuntu from the CD instead of installing it when the option appears. Figure out how to open the Terminal application, and you’re ready to go. Follow the instructions in this handy guide, keeping a couple of things in mind: Although the guide states, “no ROM downgrade is needed prior to attempting to root,” I did in fact need to downgrade my ROM (Advanced Ace Hack Kit told me I had to) first. Also, “any 32 bit computer running Linux” probably means “any computer booted into a 32-bit version of Linux.” The important links in that document that have changed, I have linked to in this post. Lastly, I ran into a problem after downgrading the ROM, deleting the downgraded ROM, and trying to install CyanogenMod ROM with ClockworkMod Recovery: The automated installation stopped with an error, leaving me with no bootable ROM and the phone showing the white HTC loading screen in perpetuity. I solved this by holding down the Volume Down key and pressing the Power key to boot into ClockworkMod Recovery, then using it to choose the .zip file to flash (CyanogenMod 7 ROM in zip archive had already been downloaded to the mini SD card in a previous automated step). That was it.

Some other problems I encountered, such as the Hack Kit prompting for a password, were solved by RTFM (reading the effin manual for the kit).

The only backup I performed beforehand was my phone contacts, which I saved to my mini SD card (the SD card contents were not noticeably affected by any of these procedures), because I wanted to start totally fresh.

C. Buddha’s Great Android Experiment

After clearing my calendar for our October holidays, the extra work I was planning to do fell through. I’ve spent the extra time planning for a possible simian uprising, playing with Max and Mina every day, and creating an Android application. I mostly did it to investigate the process for publishing an app on Google Play, for future work reference. However, it would be extremely cool if you would go check out the app and inflate the ratings and press Like buttons, etc., for me, since I’m an attention whore. Thank you.

Link: C. Buddha’s Blog Reader

This app is a dedicated blog reader for my blog. You install it on an Android device and when you run it, it loads my blog’s feed and lets you see new posts. If you want to comment on a post, you use the link provided at the bottom of each post to jump to my actual blog via your internet browser.

Note: There are ads in the app. They do not pay me, they pay the developer of the site I used to create the app. You cannot remove them. Then again, this is kind of a useless app, so who cares? I may eventually generate an iPod/Pad/Phone version of the app that will be identically useless, but it will probably tell you how to get somewhere more accurately than iOS Maps.

—