Movie 2011.06.30 - Green Lantern

Movie has quite nice special effects. Not as cartoony as I thought it would be. Plot is a bit incredible - Guardians of the Universe, Green Lantern Corp, green essence , yellow essence, etc. I mean, destroying the big bad planet-crunching Parallax by luring him to the sun to be burned?

Lots of sitcommy jokes, which doesn't feel right in a comic book adaptation. Heck, take away the aliens and it feels like a romcom. Anyway, all the wife cares about is Ryan Reynolds.

And yes, there will definitely be a sequel. Sneaky Sinestro.

Movie 2011.06.24 - Kung Fu Panda 2

Movie should've been entitled Panda vs. Peacock or How Po Got His Groove Back.

So we've got a new bad guy in town in the form of Lord Shen a.k.a The Prodigal Peacock. He's been sending his wolf goons and grabbing all the metal utensils from peaceful townsfolk to build his arsenal of cannons. While fighting with the goons, Po loses his concentration, starts having flashbacks from his childhood, and the goons escape. In an epic fight with Lord Shen, he gets blown to kingdom come, and was saved by a goat soothsayer who helps him remember his past. With renewed strength, the Furious Five together with Shifu and other kungfu masters, they defeat Lord Shen.

The last scene of the movie removes all doubt that there's going to be another sequel.

Audiobook 2011.06.24 - Hot, Flat, and Crowded

First off, an explanation of the title. Hot refers to the global climate, as in "It's getting hot in here." Flat refers to the globalization brought on by the Internet. Crowded refers to the global population.

In this audiobook, Thomas L. Friedman argues that the US needs to take the lead in developing clean, renewable energy for its own economic and political future. Friedman argues that global warming is not a question of if, but when. The country that can develop the cleanest, most efficient green energy gets first-mover advantage that other countries might not be able to overcome in the short term. With less dependence on oil, this will encourage the petro-dictatorships to open up and maybe become less of a dictatorship.

The Sleepy Gong

We got to Wollongong around lunchtime. It was relatively quiet compared to Sydney. Actually feels like a Sunday. Took a walk along Crown Street Mall. It's a 2-3 block strip of pedestrian shopping, like Sydney's Pitt Street Mall. There's some retail shops here and there, some already closed. There's David Jones, Myer, JB Hi-Fi, etc. The only time I got excited was when I spotted some $20 PS3 Singstar bundles and a ceramic white PSP on clearance for $99. (Take a further 20% off for the missing battery.)

After a late lunch, we went to the beach and the lighthouse for some picture-taking with the birds. (Real birds.) Not too many tourists there. By 4:30pm all of the shops, except for DJ, are already closed.

Next day, MIL woke up early and went out for a coffee. It was 9am, and all the shops and cafes are still closed. Good thing we found Campos Coffee and that's where we had our (big) breakfast.

Searching for Truffles

I know Truffles is very difficult to find, but this is getting ridiculous. The address given to us was 427 Princess Highway, Wollongong. We set off from our hotel around 6:15pm hoping to locate it in 15 minutes using our GPS units. We got to the place, but no Truffles. We got out of the car, searched the whole block. Nada. We asked around and somebody told us it's near the Corrimal RSL. Nope, it's not. (Remember, it's Truffles Restaurant, not Truffles Bistro.) We called them up, and were given some vague directions. We headed back in the direction of Wollongong, thought we might have missed it, so we doubled back. Nope, must be the other direction.

We finally found the restaurant at 8pm. Way past the babies' bedtime, which made them really cranky. The menu sounds very nice, but tastes average. Or maybe I was just not in the mood anymore. Prices are quite reasonable though, especially when it's somebody else's treat.

160GB of FAT32

Strong SRT 5431 I recently bought from BigW seems to record and timeshift with no problems, but can't play back recorded programs. All files on USB HDD showing up as 0.0MB on the GUI. I can see the LED light blinking all the time, so the PVR is recording, but where have the files gone? Works fine when I used the USB stick though. Is it because the USB stick is FAT32, while the USB HDD is NTFS?

To test, I tried to format the external disk as FAT32. Nope, Windows XP won't do it. Can't have FAT32 partitions 32 gigs. Turns out that the theoretical limit for FAT32 is actually 8TB, but under XP, Microsoft hardlimited it to 32GB. Solution? Use fat32format from Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd. Now there's even a GUI version, so you won't have to mess with the command line.

After the format, everything works perfectly. Neat little PVR for only $49.

Upgrading ZTE V9 Optus MyTab

After days of waiting, finally received the ZTE V9 a.k.a. Optus MyTab last night from DSE. Left it charging overnight. First impression: hefty weight, nice build quality. Screen resolution is not that sharp, especially when compared to the SGS. Resistive touchscreen is also not as responsive as a capacitive one, but I've been told the response is already pretty good.

First order of the day is to upgrade the software from Eclair 2.1 to Froyo 2.2. That's easy enough. Just download the upgrade tool from either Optus' or ZTE's website and run it. Put the tablet in FTM mode (power on, then simultaneous press on the volume up and down keys when the Android mascot shows up), and connect it to the PC. For me, it didn't work the first time because the upgrade tool can't find the image files. Had to quit and re-run to upgrade tool for it to work.

Next up is to perform the network unlock. Wife's going to use the tablet, not me. There are a couple of websites out there that will generate the unlock codes for free. All they need from you is the IMEI code. Try:
http://nextgenserver.com/calculator/
http://www.jictechnology.co.uk/calculator/index.php
If you're feeling generous, there are a couple of guys on eBay who do it for a fee - ranging from $1 to $6. Shame on you, people!

Get your files from here:

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-light-v9-lightv9-modaco-com/340064/rom-gingerbread-cm7-working-on-gen2-zte-light-v9-2011-06-15/

Instructions here:

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/zte_tablet_v9_optus

and here:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1713293

Latest CM7 and GApp here:

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Latest_Version