Movie 2012.12.19 - The Man with the Iron Fists

Kung-fu films don't get campier than this. Was lured into watching this movie because the blurb says "Quentin Tarantino presents...". Apparently, the man has nothing to do with it. The movie was directed by RZA (pronounced ree-zah), and written by RZA and Eli Roth. He probably just lent his name to the venture to help his friends sell more tickets. Heck, before this I've never even heard of RZA. Yeah, shame on me, never listened to Wu-Tang Clan.

Anyway, the movie has some big names in there, like Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Jamie Chung, Rick Yune, and um, RZA, among others. Didn't help a bit in making the movie better. Not sure if the acting is really supposed to be bad (as a homage to the old martial arts flicks), or the actors knew it's a crappy movie and gave up trying. The storlyline is a mishmash of old themes - government gold stolen while in transport, power struggle within the clan, the son avenging the father's death, an invincible enemy, lady escorts who are part-time assassins, fighters who rise from the ashes to become super fighters, etc. You name it, it's all in there.

Creeds' ROM for SGY

Can't remember when was the last time I updated the Samsung Galaxy Y. It's currently running v3.2 of Creeds' ROM, and the latest version is 3.5. Thought it best to do an upgrade before I sell the phone.

The upgrade process is easy enough. According to the FAQ, you don't even need root. Download the zip file, and copy over to the external microSD card. Boot into CWM recovery by pressing VolUp + Home + Power. Perform data reset, select Install zip from SD card, choose the ROM zip. Once installed, reboot.

In my case, the factory reset worked, but I still ended up with Creeds 3.2. Did the upgrade a couple of times, with some variations of wipe cache partition, wipe Dalvik cache. No joy. Read through the forums and found a tip - mount system. That worked a treat!

Movie 2012.12.14 - Battlefield America

My wife is such a fan of dance-off movies, I thought this would be a good addition to the collection. WRONG! For one, there is not much dancing going on. During the times when the kiddies were actually dancing (instead of fighting among themselves), it's very, very heavily edited. You can't really see the dance moves.

I know the recent dance movies are cliched, but this one takes the cake - a group of disadvantaged kids who likes to dance, a hotshot adman sentenced to community service, (kiddie) gang rivalry leading up to a dancing competition, dilemma between a promotion and sticking with the crew, a kid who has to deal with his mom's death and the arrival of the estranged dad, a mom who won't let his son join the crew, an understanding boss who has a change of heart after watching the competition, etc. Man, you could guess the plot a mile away. There is not much acting happening, just people reading their lines.

Really should've checked IMDB first before watching this movie. 1.9 stars out of 10. 'Nuff said.

Movie 2012.12.10 - Skyfall

Not one of my favourite Bond movies. The pace of the movie feels slower. There is less gadgets, less cars, less girls, and more talk. The dialogue is sharp and witty, but the plot is weak.

In this installment, Bond (Daniel Craig) is pitted against an old MI6 agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), who has gone rouge a few years ago. Silva is out to get M for betraying him to the Chinese. He starts off by stealing a list of undercover NATO agents and revealing their identities on YouTube. Then, he hacks into MI6 and later firebombs the HQ. Bond captures Silva and brings him back to MI6's new underground offices. While trying to decrypt Silva's laptop, Q inadvertently lets some malware into their network, allowing Silva to escape from his cell. Silva barges into M's tribunal hearing and shoots at her, but was foiled by Bond. Bond snatches M and drives off to Scotland in a vintage Aston Martin. At the Skyfall manor house, Bond and his trusted gamekeeper Kincade and M set up booby traps around the place a la Home Alone. The bad guys come and there are explosions everywhere. At the end of it all, Silva is killed by a knife in his back, and M eventually dies from a gunshot wound.

The Wiggles' Celebration Concert

All good things must come to an end, even for the Wiggles. After more than 20 years of being in the business, the original cast of the Wiggles (except for Anthony) is handing over the reins to a new generation of kiddie entertainers. In this farewell concert, the much-loved Wiggles perform the old favourites one last time for their fans - young and old alike.

The concert was supposed to start at 1:30pm, but it was delayed a bit. People were lining up to buy merchandise, to have their pictures taken with the Big Red Car, to check in the prams, to buy coffee and foodstuffs, etc. The Allphones Arena was packed, although surprisingly it wasn't full-house. My kid is not a die-hard Wiggles fan, but he eventually warmed up. The Wiggles members were introduced one by one, then Captain Feathersword, Wags, Henry, and Dorothy. The new cast also got to strut their stuff.

My only gripe was that I left the DSLR at home. Unlike other concerts, the Wiggles were encouraging everyone to take pictures and videos. I had to make do with the SGS for videos and the Atrix for photos.

CM7 Atrix-MROM

Just about had enough with the Atrix with its myriad issues - random reboots, not charging, slow charging, process hangs, etc. Not sure if it has to do with the Atrix itself or the Neutrino ROM. To be sure, I decided to try out MMontuori's CM7-based Atrix-MROM. Supposed to be more stable, as it's built entirely from source.

First impression - delivers what it promises. Much better camera and video recorder. Video capture lags a bit when using high resolution. Very stable. Fingers crossed.

"Aristocrat" Grilled Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup banana ketchup
• 2 tablespoons calamansi or lime juice
• 4 pieces chicken thighs and legs

Whisk together garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, pineapple juice, banana ketchup, and calamansi juice. Add marinade to chicken in a bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least overnight for up to two days.

Before cooking the chicken let it rest at room temperature for over an hour. Do not discard the marinade but set aside for basting. Grill chicken over medium heat until cooked through, basting occasionally. Serve fresh off the grill with java rice.

Upgrading the Motorola Atrix 4G

Been eyeing JB Hi-Fi's $199 Motorola Atrix 4G for a couple of weeks now. Before I could order online, SIL had a change of heart and gave me her pre-loved handset, which she bought for $700. There's a good reason though - she's now rocking an SGS III. Her Atrix is prone to random reboots, and the battery sometimes doesn't recharge.

Spent most of the day reading up on how to unlock the bootloader, how to root, how install a recovery and how to flash a new ROM/kernel. With Moto devices, you have to deal with locked bootloaders, SBFs, RDS, fastboot, and a few terms I've never heard of.

Theoretically, you simply unlock the bootloader using the "fastboot oem unlock" command, once you've managed to connect the phone to the PC and go into the fastboot menu. Some devices come with a BL that cannot be unlocked, so your best option is to flash a known unlockable BL. This is done using the RDSLite tool.

Unlocking/Rooting the Motorola Atrix 4G
http://www.forceflow.be/2012/01/15/unlocking-rooting-the-motorola-atrix-4g/

Noob's Guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1154600

Another guide from Cyanogenmod
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_olympus

Automatic Bootloader Unlock/Root
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182871

Pudding unlock/root guide
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136261

In my case, I find it more convenient to simply download the auto-unlocker tool because it comes with all the tools and software that you'll need in one package. Install the Windows drivers and make sure the PC can detect the Atrix. Boot into the RDS Protocol Mode by powering up the phone with the VolUp button pressed. Run RDSLite and flash the SBF (Single Binary File) for your device. Once finished, the phone will automatically reboot. Power off the phone.

Dunno what happened, but the Atrix never booted up properly after that. Looks like a softbrick to me. Used the auto-unlocker tool to fix the softbrick.

Next step is to unlock the BL. Power on the phone while holding the VolDown button. This will get you into the fastboot menu. Scroll through the options by pressing the VolDown button. Once you see "fastboot", press the VolUp button to select that option (fastboot protocol support). Most guides don't mention this, so all the while I thought there's something wrong with the USB cable or USB port or the drivers or the laptop! From the command prompt, "fastboot oem unlock" to get your DeviceID. "fastboot oem unlock " to unlock BL. "fastboot reboot" to reboot.

Next step is to install a CWM recovery. Easiest and safest way is to do it via ROM Manager. Then it complained that my device is not yet rooted. You can root it now using the one-click root tool, but I opted to use moto-fastbook instead. I can get the root later by flashing a pre-rooted ROM.

One-click root for Moto devices
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1255548

RomRacer's Recovery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1204500


Last step is to flash a custom ROM. Even here I got problems. I've decided to go with Neutrino's ROM because non-Blur and slimmed. Problem is, it hasn't been updated for a while, and the original download links are now broken. Had to trawl through the forum posts to get the ROM and addons. That's how ended up with a v2.8 ROM with v2.9 addons, which failed. With a proper recovery, it's relatively easy to recover from such mistakes.

Neutrino ROM downloads
http://neutrinorom.haris.me/old-files/aaurnab/

Official Neutrino ROM addons
http://ge.tt/84vdN0M?c

faux123 kernels
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1156040

Remove Babylon Crap

No idea how it happened, but even an Internet veteran like me got duped by Babylon Search. It's now my default search engine. My browsers all have a Babylon toolbar. My homepage goes to Babylon. New tab defaults to Babylon Search. Wonderful!

Most obvious solution is to remove all reference of Babylon from Add/Remove Programs. Done. (Some people have reported that it's not even visible in Add/Remove Programs.) Next is to uninstall/remove the toolbar from the browsers. Easy. Next is to manually reset the homepage. Check. Then, remove Babylon from the list of search providers. Done.

Changing the new tab default page is a bit trickier. On Chrome, go to Setting, go to On Start-up, go to Open a specific page, and remove any Babylon pages. For IE, run regedit.exe. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs. On 32-bit Windows, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs. Change the value to res://ieframe.dll/tabswelcome.htm