KitKat on Nexus 7

Got tired of the KitKat update coming over OTA, so I flashed the KRT160 update manually.

Followed the instructions provided by Android Police. Process is pretty straightforward as I already have a customer recovery installed. Simply download the update zip (either directly from the tablet or from a PC, then copy over to internal storage). Reboot to customer recovery, and flash.

More people think it made their tables more responsive, but the only difference I noticed is the inclusion of Quickoffice.

Movie 2013.11.17 - The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

One of the stranger movies I've seen. Written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Costume design by Jean Paul Gaultier. Scored by Michael Nyman. Starring Richard Bohringer as The Cook, Michael Gambon as The Thief, Helen Mirren as The Wife, and Alan Howard as Her Lover.

Uncouth British gangster crime boss Albert holds court at the high-class French restaurant Le Hollandais Restaurant run by French chef Richard. Out of boredom and spite, his wife Georgina has an affair with restaurant regular bookstore owner Michael right under his nose. As expected, Albert gets wind of the affair and goes on a rampage. He tortures young Pup to find out their secret hideaway. While Georgina is at the hospital visiting Pup, he descends on the bookstore with his posse and tortures Michael to death, force-feeding him pages from his favourite books. Georgina implores Richard to make a meal out of Michael's body. She forces Albert to eat the human dish, and shoots him in the head.

N9 Developer Mode

First thing you wanna do after getting the N9 is enable developer mode (found under Settings > Security menu). Once activated, the phone downloads a 1.2MB developer mode bundle package, and restarts. After reboot, you'll now have a Terminal app and an SDK Connectivity app.

It's a bit difficult to type on the Terminal's on-screen keyboard. Good thing the SDK Connectivity app comes with a VNC server for you to remote access in.

You can also download more developer tools. For me, all I need are Networking (tcpdump) and Utilities (wget, nano, and x11-utils).

Getting root
Run the Terminal app.
Type devel-su
Default password is rootme

Enabling VNC
Can be enabled on the SDK Connectivity app.
Or download Nokia's NetView app. Does the same thing.

Enabling ssh/scp
Log in to root account
passwd user
Give a new password to user user
ssh user@localhost
Enter password
Run SDK Connectivity to get the WLAN IP address
Connect to phone via WinSCP/putty

Where to get MeeGo apps
n9-apps.com
store.ovi.com
my-meego.com

Installation files have the *.deb file extension.

Generic install instructions:
 - copy deb file to N9
 - install using "dpkg -i *.deb" command
 - most often than not, you'll get some warnings
 - to fix, run the ff. commands:
apt-get update
apt-get -f install
 - if it specifically mentions some missing package(s), download using apt-get and install:
apt-get install
apt-get -f install

Built-in video player is very picky about the files it plays. For the record, the phone came with these video files:

Dolby Soundscapes
2:35 71.3MB
864x486 h264 @3486k
E-AC3 @ 384k

Nokia Pure
2:53 76.8M
854x480 h264 @ 3349k
E-AC3 @ 384k

Couple of alternative players out there are VLC and the kmplayer/mplayer combo.

Get the VLC installer here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?dyd7mp6os9fm0ty
A few website will mention http://www.irunvlc.me/, but that domain's already obsolete.
An older version of the VLC packages can be found here:
http://maemo-archive.wedrop.it/download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/maemo/vlc/
If the installation process spews out some error messages, run these additional commands:
apt-get update
apt-get -f install
Running the VLC app gave me a desktop UI. Hangs a lot and didn't play any of the videos.

Get the kmplayer and mplayer installer here:
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=42
A little bit better than VLC, but not much.

Installing Firefox
Installer files here:
http://romaxa.info/fennec/mozilla-central/
Browser doesn't work at all (for me). 20MB download, too.

Awesome little phone, but the lack of proper working apps is killing it. Personally, I doubt if Sailfish or a fully-working Android port will ever come and save Lankku.

Nokia N9 and Lumia 520

Company is having a mobile phone sale. Mostly Nokia Nseries and first-generation Lumias. Some old, some new.

Sale was supposed to start at 12 noon. I showed up at 11:45am, and there's already a long queue. I knew I should've came up earlier. I was surprised they didn't go an auction instead. That way, there's no need to queue, and the company can maximize profits.


At noon, the floodgates were opened, and people rushed in. Stacks of boxes grouped according to model and price. There were so many people about, I can't find the Lumia x20 phones that I had in mind. In a split-second, almost all the phones are gone from the tables. "Two per person!" shouted the staff. I grabbed the nearest ones I can find, and ended up with a used 16GB black N9 and a brand new yellow Lumia 520. Not bad for less than $200.

I pity the fools who showed up at exactly 12 noon.

Rooting the Nexus 7

Rooting the Nexus 7 should be a trivial matter as there is a one-click root tool already out. The Nexus Root Toolkit can also do backup/restore, unlock bootloader, flash custom recovery, etc.

The difficult part is to get the laptop to detect the Nexus 7. With the USB drivers I downloaded via the SDK Manager, fastboot works, but not adb. To push images to the device for rooting, adb is what we need. The recommended universal drivers didn't work. After some trial and error, manual selection of the raw Google drivers under WugFresh Development\data\Drivers\RAW_Drivers\Google_Drivers worked.

The rooting process went fine, but SuperSU complaining that it can't find any su binaries. Repeated the root process, and now I have root.

Google Nexus 7 (2012)

First impressions on the Google Nexus 7. Feels hefty and solidly-built. I'm liking the rubberized, pimpled back. Screen is sharp, bright, and colors vivid. Very smooth and responsive. The only part I didn't like is the thick bezel around the screen.

Ten minutes into powering up the Nexus 7, a notification came up saying 4.3 upgrade ready to be installed. Sure, the latest is always the best. The device booted up, and the multi-coloured X icon came up. Five minutes went by, and the X icon is still there. Long press on the power button to turn off the device.

The tablet simply reboots and gets stuck on the X screen. Time to hit the forums. Apparently, quite a few people have encountered this problem, and the general consensus is that a reflash is required.

First, a few prerequisites:
 - You'll need USB drivers, so that the PC/laptop can talk to the device.You can download the drivers directly from here.
 - You'll need to download the Android SDK to get the adb and fastboot platform tools. Some devs might provide a stripped-down package, but best to get the tools straight from source.
 - Then, you'll also need the stock 4.3 ROM image for the device here.

Full instructions for the restore is available here. Quick instructions below:
 - Reboot into the bootloader using Power + VolDown
 - "fastboot oem unlock" to unlock bootloader. Note that this will wipe your data.
 - Unpack the ROM image, which is in tgz format. Best to unzip it in the same folder as the platform tools
 - Again, reboot into the bootloader.
 - Run flash-all.bat

Swatch Metal Bracelet Adjustment

To adjust the length of a Swatch metal bracelet, all you need is an ice pick and a long-nose pliers.

Identify the metal link you want to remove. Note the arrow marking on the underside of the link. Use the ice pick to push out the split pin in the direction of the arrow. Pull out the split pin from the other side using the pliers. If required, remove more links using the same procedure.

Once done, put the bracelet back together, and push the split pin back in the opposite direction of the arrow. These split pins are quite flimsy - usually breaking into two. If you need spares, you can go here or here.

Preliminary Drawings and More Deposit

Received 9 pages of preliminary architectural drawings (done by Marretta Design) on Sept. 27.

Lucia of Fowler had been asking for the remaining 4.9% of the deposit.

Tried to delay payment for as long as I can, but looks like today's the day. Again, paid for by my credit card.

Samsung Galasy S4 Mini (GT-i9195T)

The wife finally got herself a proper decent phone, instead of using my hand-me-downs. Got a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini 4G from Vodafone. We had a choice between this, the HTC One mini 4G, and the SGS3 4G. I would've liked the HTC One mini for its premium industrial design and the BoomSound stereo speakers and UltraPixel BSI camera, but the lack of a user-replaceable battery and microSD slot are dealbreakers for me. Between the two remaining Samsungs, the S3 has a bigger screen and higher resolution and bigger storage (16GB vs 8GB). However, the S4 Mini has more RAM (1.5GB vs 1GB) and faster performance and newer software. Given that my wife has small hands, S4 Mini it is.