Manga reading on my phone

Roughly more than 1 month ago I saw a guy reading manga while riding the bus. I was thick faced enough to ask him what app was that and quickly installed it when I got to my seat in office. The app is called Manga Rock.

At the top of the popular list of manga is of course Naruto, Fairy Tail and Bleach. In summary that means that I will be able to read those new popular manga while I am on my way to work or home. After reading up to the latest release, I found that these long series will have a similar theme. Fairy Tail loves to use time ie deadlines (ironically just like real life work, LOL) and the characters somehow refuse to die or will not be out of energy no matter how tired they claim to be. Recuperation rate is too unbelievable in my opinion. Bleach on the other hand is somewhat like Dragon Ball, there will ALWAYS be someone stronger and the main character will somehow managed to get stronger but not before getting his ass kicked. Ichigo (the main character, a guy whose name means strawberry =_=||| how gay is that!!!) reminds me so much of Son Goku that he uses his strength to help his friends more often than not ignoring his own safety but always coming out on top.

I also managed to finish reading the real stories of some of the anime which I have watched. The stories vary quite a far bit and I take side with the people who have read it before watching the anime that the stories in the manga is much better than the anime though it is much faster to watch and it might also explain some scenes which have no script or interesting fight scenes which cannot be properly portrayed using still pictures.

When I really think about it, there are so many manga which I want to read now that I don't seem to have enough time to finish them all :( It has crossed my mind quite a few times to re-read old manga ie Dragon Ball and Rurouni Kenshin but those might have to wait quite some while :p

I find this as the funniest in between fillers ROFLMAO. Frankly speaking I didn't get it until almost the end of the series :Þ

Damn.. missed out on a free RM499 phone!!!

Godammit, I forgot that I had entered a competition to get a chance to win a free phone. I only realized it when their page started to show their staff packing the phones to be delivered to other winners :(

To avoid spam, I decided to use a less used email address hence I did not know I got the notification that I had won T_T A case where being too careful does not pay off :(

First email notification:

You Guessed Right!

Congratulations on guessing the correct price of the Huawei Honor 3C!

The Huawei Honor 3C which is packed with features like 5MP front camera, Quadcore 1.3 GHz CPU & 5" HD LTPS screen is priced at only RM499!

We will email the redemption code for xxx.my to you soon, be the first 100 to redeem the code and you will get the Honor 3C from xxx.my for FREE. 

1. Be sure to register yourselves at http://www.xxx.my/ before 1st May (Thursday) 12 noon and link the account to your Facebook profile.
2. Head on to http://www.xxx.my/ at 3.08pm on 2nd May (Friday) to redeem the Honor 3C.
3. Only the first 100 to redeem using the code provided in the email will get the Honor 3C for FREE so BE FAST!

All the best and get ready to grab the new Honor 3C!

Reminder notification:

Dear “guess the price” user:

Congratulations that you guess the right Price for Honor 3C.  your Voucher Code is “HONOR3C2GRAM”, this code it bundling with this Email Address  which you fill in our “guess the price” contest

However we got more than 100 users guess the right price, so we will have a little competition called “first come first serve”, this voucher will activated at May 2^nd ,3:08PM, and invalid after 100 usage.

And

The event information as below:

1.       Time : May 2^nd , 3:08PM

2.       We will launch a banner on “www.xxx.my ”on that day

3.       The winner can buy the Honor 3C Free with input the Voucher code

4.       The voucher code will send to winners through Email which filled in “guess the price” contest.

5.       The winner need to finish the register and verify by May 1^st 10:00PM.

6.       For all verification purposes, xxx only recognizes the email you used in the “guess the price” contest

And most important preparation is to register and verify on xxx.my, deadline is May 1^st 10:00PM  :

a)       If you Login in xxx with your FB account to snap, specify your “guess the  price” contest used email  ID in the prompt shown by xxx (Refer below image A).

b)       Please verify whether you have specified the right email ID in your Account Information

 (

c)    if you login in xxx with xxx account to snap, please make sure the vmall account email address is same as the “guess the price” contest used email.  

d)       any other issues, please contact us @ 1800 – xxxxxx.   Or  Email us @ xxx.my@mail01.xxx.com through your contest used Email ID

Come to think of it, I was driving around that time so might not be able to do this anyways =_="

My Galaxy Note II LTE =D

About a month ago, I accidently dropped my Galaxy S2 from waist height =( and the display went dead. I was very pissed off that day and probably that was why I got careless. I have been doing research on which replacement phone I should get to replace my faltering S2 seeing that its battery is drained too fast and ROMs are not updated as much anymore.

In the end, at the price that I would like to pay, I got a Note II LTE. I got the LTE version although its not supported by my then telco because I was thinking to switch telco as well due to the very poor reception in many places.

 

Actual box

 See the 4G? HEHEHE

Might be a little small but you can see the signal is now 4G after switching to the Evil Green telco :p

Unfortunately like my previous phone, due to its scarcity for now, there is quite a limited choice of custom ROMs for me to experiment with. In fact, there aren't many that are using the latest ones so I might just have to root it just for using some of the apps that I am used to until an attractive ROM or the official one comes out. Another reason for not using a custom ROM is that it will strip some of the functions which I feel should remain so that is really putting me off.

Last Friday, I went and pick up a piece of hardware which will make my phone even more modern and up-to-date =D A wireless charger to be placed on my already cluttered table =p Well what's a smartphone if it does not give you the feel that its the latest technology other than the choice of what you want, especially in size.

The packaging was very important for the seller =p

Pfft, typical China plugs which is quite a hassle

The charging station

Do you feel the Qi?

Place this baby correctly on the touch points and we are ready to go ^_^

 What sorcery is this???

The charging time depends on the usage of your phone, namely what do you run or have running in the background.

So far, the usage of this charger is just more for the sake of having it because I feel the charge rate is just too slow for my liking. Since my phone can last the whole day of my waking hours, this is for now somewhat like a showpiece.

Lookout!!!

If you are an Android user who have any thought for security, you might have come across that name. Its a free antivirus which offers more than just antivirus protection. Since security is my line of work so I have had this installed since I got the phone. I have never liked AVG so this was the other recommendation which I could find having good review.

They have come a long way although I'm just an Android user for just over a year. Every now and then they introduce some new features and today, I just found out 1 which I vaguely remember enabling :p Its called "Lock Cam". What it does is to take a picture of hopefully the person trying to unlock your phone after 3 failed attempts.

Today, I fumbled about when trying to unlock my phone when I was in the lift heading for a meeting. A picture of me was sent to my email and this would essentially work for the next person who might try to unlock my phone without my knowledge. I was a little shocked when I got the notification until I recalled enabling that feature when it was first introduced not too long ago.

This would really be useful if the thief is dumb enough to try to unlock my phone. The location of that incident is also sent in that email although for me, it was quite far off like by a block :p I suppose its because I was indoors and GPS would definitely not work so the next best would be the wifi which I was using but that's also in my office building. So some improvements is required there.

If you are interested in Lookout, you can get it here too :)

Restoring and Jailbreaking my Ipad

Woke up in the morning to find that my Ipad is not accessible anymore because someone tried the password too many times. Doesn't matter who it is, the Ipad is locked and even when I did what it showed ie "Ipad is locked, connect to iTunes to unlock" it cannot be unlocked. So I had to do what I put off for quite some time already ie to upgrade. My Ipad was stuck in iOS 3+ since the day I got it.

Thankfully Google was a lot of help and I took my few minutes course but got too excited and made a mess. Could not find Installous (duh, the must have if you jailbreak) and again found the solution but overdid it. Added too many sources and slowed the damn thing down and every other thing which I wanted to install would require Installous to be removed =_=|||

In the end I could not take it anymore and re-did the everything, restore and upgrade. Thank goodness that I have a fast Internet connection else I would be stuck at the download firmware page for hours. Restore and upgrade was a pain but not something that is too different from flashing in Android. Lots of reboot and updating so you just have to wait it out.

Once the waiting is all over, I rebooted it once more just in case before I do the jailbreak using absinthe. This part was the easiest (the app only have 1 button to press) BUT you guessed it, more reboot and updating =_= You would think that after so many rounds of reboot, the bloody thing would be satisfied but you are in for a shock =D Cydia on first launch also requires reboot.

Learning from my earlier mistakes, I just added a couple of sources which I remember having before I encountered any issues. So before Installous is even on my mind, I needed to upgrade a couple of the apps which came with the jailbreak and you must be familiar with what is required by now ... After you installed Installous, you get to reboot some more =D

Thank heavens that you don't need to reboot the damn thing some more when installing games. But now I have to find back what I had before and try to get it all back. The hindsight of that issue was that I got someone to do the jailbreak for me before and did not bother to get to know what my friend helped to install. One thing I noticed in iOS 5.1.1 is that my Ipad is using up the juice quite fast, hmm why is this feeling so familiar?

There are a few sources now which offers Installous but I think its best to get it from the original source (of course its more lessons from the earlier experience). So I would just recommend a couple of things to you if you are new to jailbreak (which I doubt very much) :

Sources :
http://cydia.hackulo.us
http://sinfuliphonerepo.com

Cydia tweaks/apps :
Installous (DUH!)
SBSettings (you will get Activator once you choose to install this)
Barrel
Fake Carrier

Since I am more of the n00b here, please do recommend more useful stuff :)

Full wipe?

For Android users who play with custom roms, you will definitely hear of that term. But most of the time, even if you are following the steps listed by the rom creator, you could still be doing it wrong it seems. I knew that what was written by the rom creators were not enough because I can see lots of old data from the roms which I had been flashing after I had learned to do it properly. A lot of those junk programs which I do not re-install still have their folders on my phone. So while reading a forum which is specifically for my phone model, I read about a more detailed  steps to do a real full wipe. 

Since I have not been doing it correctly, it does make sense that sometimes my phone is acting strangely with symptoms which no other have reported. So the next time when I'm installing a new rom, most likely Jelly Bean 4.2, I will be doing the below steps to clear up all the junks.

The correct procedure for doing a full wipe is below.

Go to clockworkmod recovery.

Volume up, power button, and home button all pressed together for a couple of seconds.

Wipe the cache partition

Go to Advanced and wipe the dalvik and batt stats

Go to mounts and storage and select it.

Go to format / system and select it.
Scroll down to format system and select yes.

Go to format / data and select it
Scroll down to format data and select yes.

Go to format / cache and select it.
Scroll down to format cache and select yes.

Now go back and install the rom from the internal or external sd card.

This is the correct way of doing a full wipe everything is erased and formatted ready for the new rom, no old system files, old kernel remnants etc....

No need to wipe data/factory reset, and your internal and external sd cards remain untouched.

If you have done this, please let me know the result. Of course my advice would be for you to still back up you data first, JUST IN CASE.

Cheers, happy wiping and flashing =D

You Jelly?

After a few months of using stock ICS, the battery consumption was so bad that I had to charge at least twice per day. That is insane and I decided enough was enough. Based on reviews and inputs from my fellow SGS2G users, there are only a couple of very good ROMs to use. I looked around and found that there are developers working on Jelly Bean ROMs instead of ICS now so I searched some more and found the highest version there is and flashed it this morning.

Since its an AOKP (Android Open Kang Project) ie a modded AOSP (Android Open Source Project), this means that the standard Samsung programs that takes too much resources have been removed and have been replaced with alternatives which are better and at the same time saves you some juice.

Based on my usage today, I think I can get back to 1 day charge again ^_^ However, learning the new menus and finding my usual settings took me the rest of the day. Some really took some time finding because I was really not used to the new menus and namings.

I don't really understand why they would build in a function for the "user's" sake but keeps on changing how it is used everytime they come up with a new version @_@" I meant the built in screenshot function. You get used to one and then they change it. I find it annoying to be honest...

 The homescreen now allowing you to choose what you want to access directly. I like the weather widget there which was built in.

 For those who don't know, you can get this easter egg by pressing the version number continiously for 3 times. I find this the most interesting one so far :)

An extra feature this time too if you touch the jelly bean long enough. Your screen will be exploded with these jellies which you can fling around just for the fun of it.

Flashing this ROM for the first time after a quite a long break was unfamiliar at first then I remembered that there were instructions which I did not follow to the dot which caused my phone to be stuck at the bootscreen. It was easily fixed and I got my in working condition in about 2 hours as I had to restore the apps. I showed off to my colleagues who had same phones that I am already running Jelly Bean =D

Yummy Ice Cream Sandwich?

Those of you who are using Androids would definitely know what the above title means. Everybody have been waiting for it to arrive and when it does, its a frantic manic dash to get it into your device. My device behaved strangely from the first day I got it. Many people would blame that its a I9100G issue but I just want my smartphone to be functioning properly without the stupid talk about its hardware and supposedly inferior quality to its cousin.

I must admit that I would love to see an improvement to my device by upgrading to ICS. Interestingly, I did see a difference and its much smoother than any of the roms I used before. As mentioned, its a manic dash and I could not wait for Malaysian version to be released, I flashed the Indian version and it worked perfectly. To my dismay, the Malaysian version was released the very next day I flashed the Indian one =_="

So being a faithful citizen, I wanted to stay true to my country by flashing to the Malaysian version. I tried it this morning and the weird thing was that it failed! @_@" I was like, I'm fucked ... The phone can't get into download mode, I'm really screwed ...

I was stuck on a screen with the logo phone-warning sign-PC and the supposed way of plugging in a USB jig would bring you to download mode also did not work and its just stuck at that screen. I was sweating although it was quite cold in office today. I could not find a solution which actually tells me what to do exactly so I experimented. I hope my listed steps can hopefully recover your phone too. Btw, don't panic just yet and try out what I did :)

In XDA-developers, it was informed that if you got this error with ICS, you are quiet screwed and not to mention stuck with pretty much no idea how to proceed. I read somewhere that you need to re-partition your phone because something screwed up (duh!) during flashing. This means that your phone does not have a rom to boot to or something is missing to allow you to continue to recovery mode.

With that understanding, I checked back my PC on what I have. Thankfully I have :

a) Odin
b) A working pit file
c) An old sure working official Samsung rom.

With that, I started my journey back to ICS :

1) Fire up Odin, plug in your phone and pray that you get the yellow box ie phone detected despite NOT being in download mode.
2) Select pit file and PDA as the rom. I think the pit and the rom MUST be compatible with each other. You don't want to screw up any further.
3) With the default selections, press Start and start praying! To my surprise the update progress bar was moving along like it was in download mode!
4) If all goes well, you should get a pass on Odin and your phone will be rebooted into the old rom.
5) Amen. Your phone is breathing again, now to get it back to terms with the rest of the world.
6) I went into download mode again and flashed the Indian ICS
7) Based on my previous experience, its best to reset to factory
8) This part is optional BUT I wanted to restore all my apps from Titanium Backup so I rooted my phone. Unfortunately for me, the non-counter increasing method does not work because somehow the CWM just does not work after it replaced the default version.
9) After half a morning of sweating and praying, my phone is back to ICS and I'm restoring my apps just in time for lunch =D

For my fellow I9100G users, I hope you will not encounter what I went through. If you did, you can try the above and I wish you a speedy recovery.

p/s : Damn Samsung removed the more flexible ICS lockscreen BUT that is easily rectified by installing other launchers which allows lockscreen customization.

Gadgets Aplenty

Its not really like I don't want to make a blog post but I was somewhat busy with work and when I am not occupied with work, I just feel like resting and not typing more stuff which basically is half of my work. So with that being said, replying emails would be some of things which I type most and unfortunately for me, my boss felt that my colleagues and I are not really replying fast enough and the consequence is that we are now given with Blackberries :(



The first thing which I found out about it was that I now have a heavy phone to be carried around again ... My current phone weighs just over 100g :p With that being said, when I walked to office (because I take the train ) on the first day of carrying this from home, my pants almost fell off despite it being held up by a belt.

A Blackberry requires constant Internet connection so I now have quite a high quota ^_^ Since they did not uninstall the pre-installed programs, I have access to my IMs courtesy of my company and I can Facebook too >_< Now I get to make free calls without always needing to use my office phone XD

After my first week of using it, I realized that my company actually have many very hardworking people. These people I know they do not have remote access or use online emails which means if they send email, it shows that they are still office. The latest email I received so far is 10.30pm. Other Blackberry users sends email at 4am =_=|||

That's enough of my Blackberry. I have been searching for a wireless bluetooth headset for quite some time but have been put off by the prices of supposed better brands. Recently there was a sale and I took a look at one of those brands but it was quite disappointing perhaps due to my budget constraint, it was really not as good as when I first thought of it. In the end, I had to settle for a cheaper alternative but still does the job, Nokia BH503.



My colleague also uses this :( BUT I got it for less than half of what he paid for it >_< I don't really know how to check if this is a knock off but for me, I just want to listen to 15 minutes of music while I commute to work and IF I go on travel, I can also use this to kill time.

For anyone using an Android device, you would have become aware that its battery is somewhat of a letdown because if you use it often enough, it would most likely not last you a day, you'd be thankful that it lasts until the end of your working time. Realizing this, I had to get a portable charger so that I can be on the move and not be tied down to a power socket. Being the lazy me and thinking of more long term, I decided to get the biggest portable charger there is and hey presto, Yoobao 11200mAh seems to fit the bill.


I can even charge my Ipad if Im on the go or when I travel long distance where my parents will be looking to kill some time. However, I just recently found out that it cannot charge my Blackberry :( RIM you are the seed of your own destruction!!! Im not too worried about my Blackberry because it can last about 1.5 days for now. Not too many people know of my number just yet =D

The requirement for Unifi to be installed is that it should be near to a television so that the HyppTV box can output to it. This means that my PC is now about 5 meters away from it so a LAN cable to connect it would be in the way for a pathway. Since my PC crashed some time ago and some investment needs to be put into it so I decided to get a USB wifi adapter for my PC. Fixing a PC without knowing what is exactly wrong with it was really a huge challenge but I got it sorted out over the weekend. Installing this wifi adapter however was more of a challenge.


In XP, it cannot be detected and with my PC's dvdroms acting up, it made the task even more frustrating. Somehow this stupid adapter is rejecting my legitimate network password. Although it was quite a complex password BUT I know the damned thing and even checked it a few times to make sure I did not remember it wrongly. Almost on the brink of giving up, I tried the last option which was to play around with the Unifi's router settings. Lo and behold, it was that stupid router which was causing me havoc. Turn off "Wifi Protected Setup"!!! I missed 2 Hernandez goal because of this stupid settings mlm mlm

I think that makes quite a post after being absent for quite some time :p

What is recommended for your Android device?

Rooting it of course! When I first got my phone, I had my doubts about doing this. But as I explored more and more, many things can ONLY be achieved by rooting it. Being an IT person, having control of your electronic device is essential because ... its our field DUH! What made me quite skeptical was the fact that not many developers on my version of the phone ie I9100G. The G is what made it cheaper and it seems to be more exclusive to Asia. Fret not it seems, our Chinese friends managed to get the required files and with some somewhat easy to follow simple steps, we now have a rooted device =D

Taking reference from here, you should download all the files before you start. Install Samsung Kies first because it takes quite some time to finish installation due to the fact that it will still need to download something else during installation. You will get quite used to rebooting your phone in download mode. For me, I find it easier to slide my finger that was pushing the volume down button to slide up to push the volume up button before releasing the home and power buttons. Follow the instructions to the dot and hopefully you will NOT have the yellow triangle warning and get a new cute icon like below :p

I is SuperUser nao

The Android world will open up much wider when you have this icon because there are some really good apps which can only run properly with root access aka SuperUser. Eg. if you do not wish to pay for PapaGo but would still like someone to guide you to places which you are not familiar, you may use Google Navigation which is disabled by default outside of US. If you want to get that follow these steps which I adapted from here :

1. In Titanium Backup, select Maps and make a backup.
2. Select Maps and wipe data, then uninstall.
3. Select Street View and wipe data, then uninstall
4. Download map5.11ownhere.apk & map5.11ownhere-signed.apk from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1007132
5. Copy the map5.11ownhere.apk to /system/app using Super Manager (requires root BUT free)
6. Mount system as R/W when asked
7. Install Google Maps 5.11 ownhere-signed.apk
5. If you wish to reinstall streetview, download it from here: http://www.freewarelovers.com/android/app/street-view (doesn't work in Msia, as you should know)

I am still playing around with some apps so no recommendations yet because those of you who have this phone already would have installed your required apps.

My white Samsung Galaxy S2

After much consideration, I have finally bought a new mobile. I chose the white Samsung Galaxy S2 because it is the rated phone which was not too highly priced after rebates from Digi that is. Having a very able phone without data plan would be very stupid and that was what made me changed my initial plan of just purchasing the phone only and stick to my prepaid.

My phone looks like this BUT the language was Malay =_=|||

Its been roughly a week or so now that I have used this phone and I am still getting used to many things. My initial thought of it was that it felt like a toy because of its plastic exterior and its also super light which just further strengthens that feeling.

Still playing around with it for the moment but so far so good except for the battery life BUT from what I know 1 day seems to be the average of these smartphones. Perhaps I am not yet able to customize or enhance the battery life by "rooting" it because this version of the phone (GT-I9100G) is still quite new.

Digi's infamous not so good coverage is really doing a good job, UNFORTUNATELY for me.