Samantha's Blog

Well, I was underwhelmed with the Cruz Tablet which I had gotten because the Samsung Galaxy Tab was listed at twice the price as the Cruz (Cruz debuted at $300 and the Galaxy Tab at $599 with Verizon). Well, after several weeks, I remembered that I had a bunch of credit card points that I had not redeemed for the last two years, and which had a new HVAC system put on it in Spring of 2009. I managed to knock $250 off the price by getting a Best Buy gift card for my points and then bought it on Black Friday when they knocked $50 off the normal list price.

The Cruz Tablet at present is un-rootable due to it having a MIPS processor and a FrankenDroid Eclair Android 2.0. The Samsung Tab was rooted within 5 minutes of me getting my grubby paws on it thanks to Z4Root. I loaded it up with Titanium Backup and ROM Manager (at present no ROMs are available nor can recovery be installed). I have also been able to update the wpa_supplicant file with an aftermarket version (go to the xda-developers forum) which permits ad-hoc WiFi access points – which if you throw in a Droid 1 with the Wireless Tether app you can just use your phone rather than plowing through the 1GB quota in the minimum data plan.

Performance wise, the Galaxy Tab runs circles around the Cruz Tablet. I have downloaded epubs on both devices for “Tom Jones, a Foundling”, main point being the document is LARGE and I wanted to push the limits. It takes over one and a half minutes to load the book on the Cruz Tablet – imagine what the load time would be if you had a Harry Potter or Twilight Saga book to load. The Galaxy Tab takes under 30 seconds to load. Extra-large PDFs have a similar result with load time, only there is an extra piece, going page to page in the Cruz increases the larger the document, sometimes taking several seconds to go page to page, while the Galaxy Tab is comparable to my desktop computer for processing page to page. Also the Galaxy Tab will allow you to install the direct from Adobe version of PDF Viewer, whereas you cannot install Adobe’s PDF Viewer on Cruz, but must use Quick Office to view.

The Galaxy Tab is also noticeably lighter than the Cruz Tablet and so it fits easier in the hand. The Galaxy Tab also has a front camera, a rear camera with flash, and Bluetooth – none of which are present on the Cruz Tablet. One thing the Cruz Tablet has going for it is that it recharges decently over a USB cable plugged in to a computer, the Galaxy Tab barely keeps the battery topped off during use if plugged into anything other than the USB power brick that it comes with. Please note that the Galaxy Tab also uses a proprietary cable – wheras the Cruz Tablet uses a standard micro USB connector. Also, if you attempt to order a replacement cable for the Galaxy Tab, make sure the vendor has a picture posted and that it looks a heck of a lot like an i*Phone charger cable (unfortunately a slightly different form factor!). I have seen quite a number of eBay auctions which say they are charger kits for the Galaxy Tab but they show a micro USB cable – the same as the Droid 1 phone would use.

Galaxy Tab cable

Mini (L) & Micro (R) USB cable

On other notes, Angry Birds runs on the Galaxy Tab, does not run on the Cruz Tablet. The Galaxy Tab is running Froyo so it has a much better chance of being a longer term device both for support and application compatibility.

Well I was a bit annoyed with PBS for redubbing some scenes and cutting some scenes entirely. While I can understand cutting some scenes for time allowances, redubbing scenes just detracts and encourages stupidity (for the same reasons, I order Harry Potter from Amazon UK). One particularly stupid redub I had a problem with was changing “They’re giving me an ASBO” to “They’re giving me community service”. Well I can sort of understand trying to deal with Britishisms, but substituting a charge with a sentence, was just dumb: ASBO is anti-social behavior order – basically being charged with disturbing the peace, vandalism, or other minor criminal offenses. But thankfully, they didn’t want to deal with creating two different blu-ray masters, and thus the original BBC dialogue was restored as were cut scenes. It was also a great treat to see the original “Study in Pink” done as the one hour pilot and how it evolved into a 90 minute movie of the week.

Well, as an e-reader, web browser, and email client, it’s perfectly fine. However, quite a number of apps that I like to use will not install, either due to CPU incompatibility warnings or due to API level being incorrect. Some require root, I really want to have Titanium Backup working so I can do rollbacks if later versions of apps don’t work the way I like or just make local backups – critical since I don’t have a backup that goes to my gmail account with this device. I have also tried z4root and InstantRoot, – they don’t work either.
Here’s the kicker: it is API level 5 – which should mean Doughnut, aka Android 2.0 – but the entire system settings are plastered with Eclair version tags. I don’t know if this is because that is what it took to get a MIPS processor vs the standard ARM processor to work or if it is a FrankenDroid or what. I have run SuperOneClick against it, and while the batch appears to install all the items (superuser.apk, su, busybox, etc.) when it asks if I want to test and I let it, it fails the test. I also can’t seem to get a terminal console, I have tried installing the jackpal term and it won’t install, and install of com.android.term will install, but it force closes any time I try to run it. To use ADB you have to select the debugging option and reboot, to mount the SD card, you can’t just plug it in and select mount USB, you have to turn off debugging and reboot before the SD will appear as a USB drive in windows explorer.

Quoted from the Android SDK site:

Well I had gotten an android phone this past May, the original Droid, and subsequently rooted it and eventually and put Sapphire 1.0.0 on it in advance of the big Froyo roll-out. Well, I also would load it up with lots of fanfic and ebooks for reading on the go. One problem was that the phone is so tiny that it can be hard to read after a while. With the advent of the various android tablets coming out, I decided I would get one that has reasonably broad support that doesn’t cost nearly what an i*Pad does.

I happened across a Cruz Reader at Borders a few weeks back, but because it was a resistive touch, I didn’t like the responsiveness. I did note that the manufacturer listed it as having Android 2.0 (Doughnut) rather than the 2.1 (Eclair) the floor model had on it. Well, last week I got an email from Borders saying that if I pre-order the Cruz Tablet, I would get a $25 gift card, nice, it would just cancel out the TN sales tax.

With the device scheduled fo a Nov. 1 release, I opted for ship to store (and save shipping). So Nov. 1 rolls around, and I’ve been checking the Borders.com website all the while waiting to see if there has been any other updates on the stats for the device or sales promotions. On Nov. 1 it suddenly updated to say the release was Nov. 30th – and no email to say “oh by the way, the manufacturer pushed out the release date another month”. I called Borders and asked what happened to the Nov. 1 release, and they said whoever told me Nov. 1 was lying – until I pointed out that it was on their website until Sunday. They then said distributors and manufacturers call the shots and they can’t tell they won’t get stuff until the last minute and a whole lot of other excuses. Not really building my confidence here!

Well, after a few days of hearing that Best Buy had them, I started looking at the local inventories of the device on the Best Buy website and called the stores that showed stock. When the local store said that they did indeed have a few in stock, I snatched one up. I got the last one from the Mt. Juliet Best Buy. It was sort of sad really, the sales manager didn’t have a clue what the device was (had to explain that it was an Android i*Pad like device or over-sized Droid X) but was cheaper and had more possibilities in the long run.

The box says Android 2.0, but it has 2.1 with a build date of Oct. 22, 2010 – but you won’t be able to tell it’s Eclair until you install something like Electronic Sheep Android System Info because the normal device info says Firmware is 2.0 but does not state what version of Android – just the kernel version. Android System Info shows it to be Eclair. I have been able to take the APK files from my Droid and install some essentials like Dolphin HD, ADW, and ES File Manager, as well as K-9 Mail and a number of games which all run just fine on the tablet (thankfully Astro is preloaded so that puts me ahead of the game). Most of the time the device is very similar to my Droid in performance and responsiveness, however, sometimes, the slower CPU does show itself when opening directories with 1000+ files in Astro or ES File Manager.

I have also encountered a few apps like Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Reader, Laputa, and FBReader which just won’t install – the last app is actually on the Cruz Market (Velocity’s answer to the Google Android Market that Google wouldn’t let the tablet onto). It also won’t install the Android Nook app but does install the Amazon Kindle app. Note – if you use Dolphin HD in “desktop” mode, be sure that when you click the Cruz Market link you flip back to Android/Mobile mode else you will just get a splash page. This applies to whether you use Dolphin or the stock browser. I have attempted to install some of these failed apps using ADB and get the warning “Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_CPU_ABI_INCOMPATIBLE]” which is certainly more useful than “Application not installed” at least there is a reason. The tablet appears as “Ingenic Mobile Phone” to ADB.

For the folks out there who have been wondering, the device comes with a 4GB & 8GB SD card, simple black sleeve, USB cable, and power brick. It has 500MB internal memory and shows 366MB RAM (I’m guessing that some of that is virtual memory). The CPU is listed as Ingenic Xburst V4.15 FPU V0.0 with BogoMIPS 421.06. The tablet DOES NOT come with the docking station shown in so many promotional photos.

THe device appears to have a light sensor in the front along one of the long sides (evidenced by a shadowy dot), but the brightness settings does not have an auto sense setting. The home, menu, and back buttons only illuminate when pressed, and they will respond to a mere brush across them. It is unfortunate that the buttons do not illuminate when in low light settings or that they do not require a half to whole second of pressing before acting (hyper sensitive). It is also unfortunate that there is no search button as several apps I have used on my Droid support search, but the only way to get a search menu for the app is to press the magnifying glass for the search button.

Now if only there was a rooting guide and custom ROMs for this tablet, it would be something to behold as that would be the opportunity to bridge some of these usability and compatibility issues.

I was recently reading a story on the reunion of the “Sound of Music” cast on Oprah. Two things in the article were just gratingly wrong or at least ill informed. It is as though the writer (Ed Pilkington) was trying to connect with the reader by making connections with the contents of the movie, but without being particularly familiar with anything other than the basic plot. If you are going to try to connect to your audience, at least get the facts right…

The moment was heralded with a single blast of a railway whistle with which Christopher Plummer used to call the children, just as he did in the film 45 years ago.

Well, the problem with this is that it was a boatswain’s whistle (bosun’s whistle). Captian von Trapp was a Naval Captian and the bosin’s whistle was what he was familiar with and in fact was what we saw on camera in the movie. The use of special calls would have been something with which Captian von Trapp would have been familiar as this whistle was used for similar purposes in the Navy of his day. Maria took issue with the Captian’s treating his children as members of his private Navy: the dressing them in uniforms, the marching, and the use of the whistle calls.

…the Austrian single-parent who employs an outspoken former nun called Maria as governess to his seven children.

Maria was never a nun. She was merely a novice. She was sent to the family as the Mother Superior didn’t think Maria was a good fit for the cloistered life. She wanted Maria to see the outside world a bit before making a permanent commitment. Also, marriage to a former nun would have created social difficulties and would have been unlikely in that case.

I’ve been a long time user of GB-PVR and one of the very useful things it features is a web gui. This means that you can check on your recordings anywhere on your home LAN or even be watching a program and be scheduling something you just saw an ad for. I also much prefer the viewing interface of GB-PVR, my vision isn’t horrid, but I spend a lot of time squinting at the menus from 8-10 feet away on a 32″ TV with media center, whereas GB-PVR has much higher contrast menus and larger fonts that are far easier to read. The only reason for me to go to media center is to support cableCard tuners which is what the Ceton card I have ordered is.

I have had several recordings with media center fall afoul of a bug where consecutive shows on the SAME channel will run up to the cutoff time and then immediately cut to the next program, whereas if the shows had been on different channels, they would have had the 5, 10, or 15 minute trailers. GB PVR always gave the bumper and didn’t force you to have 10 minute trailers to get to the “X minutes” rather than “X minutes where possible”. The big issue here is that you can very easily miss the end or begining of one of the shows. Also, being forced to have an extra 10 minutes of HD video (when 3-5 would have done the job) isn’t very conducive to conservation of disk space, oh well.

Back to the web GUI portion, I have run across a product (free) called Remote Potato which provides a Silverlight web interface to provide some of the same scheduling interface and recording access for management that I was able to do with the GB PVR web GUI, but with Media Center was being forced to interrupt recordings in order to monkey with schedules or to review what was scheduled. I haven’t been using it very long, but it looks like a promising tool for bridging the gap on a missing piece of the puzzle.

Well tonight the BBC’s version of Sherlock that aired this past spring in Britian will air on PBS. I can’t wait to see this fab re-visioning of an old favorite! It will be interesting to see what gets cut on PBS versus what was in the version that I got from the torrents.

So I was wandering around in the local Best Buy about a week ago and ran across this device. I picked it up and through that it would be cool to have a hard disk I could just plug into my network and be done with it as far as having a secondary backup location for my home LAN computers.

So I get it home and follow the instructions, plug it in and install the software. Turns out the adamant instructions that you run the software on every computer that will access the device are unneeded. So long as you can get to your network neighborhood, you can just locate the device that way.

Once I had found the device, I renamed it to something more memorable and started copying files to it. Backups – large 2 and 4 GB sized split archives to be accurate. Backups as suggested by the box. Even plugged into a gigabit switch with gigabit computer sources, could not get more than 700/kbps copying files, whereas copying to another computer plugged into the same hub would get between 10 and 30/MBps – almost as good as a USB hard disk conected directly to the computer. Files I had tried to copy to this NAS device were projecting 16-20 HOURS, whereas copying to another computer on the LAN – even wireless, was complete in a fraction of that time (as in less than an hour).

Hmmm, the speed was not working for me, so I did some Googling to find out if there was a firmware update I should have had. Turns out, I had the latest. I also found out that the problems most likely stem from the fact that the computer that lives inside the device has only 32MB RAM. There’s your bottleneck – the computer inside didn’t have enough memor to buffer the files being written to it.

On top of the speed issue, I was also having trouble with security on the device. I run an Active Directory domain on my home network and I joined it to the domain. From several computers, logged in using the same domain credentials, I accessed the device. On some computers I was able to read/write files written from another system, but on other sytems or in the case of some files, I was only able to read/write/delete a file if I accessed it from the computer that I used to put it there. On top of this, the web GUI for the device made mention of joining workgroups and domains and loosing ACLs – well I know what that means, but the average home user isn’t – not good instructions.

So, seeing as I had had it for less than a week and got such unsatisfactory results, I took it back to Best Buy – which was also a good thing as it was put on sale for $30 less than I had paid for it. I was far better off putting an extra disk in one of my other computers to do some cross pollenating backups rather than attempting to use this NAS device.

Well, looks like a lot of folks are hedging their bets by ordering from more than one vendor, so while I initally ordered from Cannon PC, I have now added an order from Fluid Digital, in hopes that I’ll get at least one of these toys before Christmas.  I do eventually hope to have one in each of my PVRs so I might as well get on the list since it could be a few months

For months now I have been hearing about the new BBC Sherlock series on the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes Yahoo! group “Letters of Mary”. Well, I finally decided to follow up on it but found that the you tube channel which had been archiving episodes had been pulled. So that left plan B. I pulled out FlashGet3 and hit the torrent sites. I managed to find all three episodes and get them in HD. Even compressed, the quality is great! Any way, all three episodes are fantastic! Each episode takes pieces of original Conan Doyle cannon and weaves a modern version of the story: “A Study in Pink” ~= “A Study in Scarlet”, “The Blind Banker” ~= “The Dancing Men”, “The Great Game” combination of “Bruce-Partington Plans” and “Final Problem”. I can’t wait till PBS shows it here this October!

Holmes and Watson are now more casually Sherlock and John. Holmes’s penchant for sending telegrams has been replaced by cell phone texting. John is an Afghanistan war veteran (it’s amazing how that worked out!). Mycroft is decidedly sneaker – tries to bribe John into spying, probably more a test of character than anything else. John is constantly flirting with the ladies, but except for Sarah who interviews him for a job at a local NHS clinic, is always being turned down. Watson’s alcoholic brother has been replaced by John’s lesbian alcoholic sister. We finally learn what happend to Mr. Hudson – the late husband of John and Sherlock’s landlady (not your housekeeper!) – Sherlock made sure some charges for murder in Florida stuck.