Windows 10 Tech Preview

Thought I would have a go at this when I heard about the opportunity on Windows Weekly, knowing I could learn something under way.

If all went well I would have learnt nothing, but it didn't. I made the flash drive, but I just couldn't get it to work. After a lot of time spent looking for the answer, I wrote a post on the relevant Windows forum, and went on to try another PC, my old T91MT.

This installed with none of the Samsung's problems,  and,  though the screen resolution is lower than the prerequisites, everything else worked much faster than Windows 7..

This success led me back to the Samsung, where a couple of lucky Google searches pointed me at the Rufus flash drive builder. First efforts with this failed to install as well, but another lucky search led me to producing another Rufus build,  this time in FAT32 format. Lord knows why, but that allowed me to complete a custom install, which got rid of all the Samsung rubbish, which was so difficult to remove in 8.1.

From there it was all plain sailing :-)

Once I was happy with the status, I carried out a new Macrium Backup, very fast now! I also looked into Recovery, making Bootable flash drives  for both PCs, and custom Recovery folders with the help of reagentc and recimage.  (See Evernote)

This used up all the old flash drives, so I ordered a couple of new ones, which might arrive today.

Replacing the T91MT with a Samsung

My experience rooting the GS2 on the tiny T91MT started a growing itch in the back of my mind.. how much easier it would be if I had a 15" PC. Its very difficult not to scratch at itches of this type, so for days I perused Prisguide.no, and the various ads which fell in my postbox from previous suppliers, until I settled on a Samsung  NP900X4C-A03SE, at a touch under NOK 10K. Gulp! Windows 8 too (Microsoft is not my favourite company, but neither is Apple for the time being). Komplett.no did an excellent job of getting it to me fast, before the Easter holidays, so I had something to do while everyone holidays in the mountains ;)

Thank heavens for search machines! I would have said 'for Google' but they are in my bad books for dropping Google Reader :( Windows 8 was utterly confusing at first. Swiping is not my favourite navigation method, and the Metro/Modern UI is built on this.

I fast found out that:

1.  Keyboard shortcuts are essential
2. ModernMix app from Stardock helps
3. Desktops, a tiny app from Mark Russinovich & Bryce Cogswell gives me three more virtual Desktops.

These helped curb my rage, so now I quite like the black metal panel PC.

On with the story..

I expected the Samsung to come with some 'crapware', but it turned out to not be an unreasonable amount. Norton Security stuff was the most difficult to remove, but when it had gone Windows Defender could be taken into use. I later added Malwarebytes anti-virus too. There was another package too, but it rings no bells with me now but for the word 'cyber' in its name..?

As one should do when a new machine is in a useable state, I installed Macrium Reflect, and made a clone of the 128GB SSD drive to a new 1TB WD USB 3.0 external drive. Bit of a waste of space, but it might come in useful later.

Other 'must have' apps installed were Dropbox, Evernote, Airfoil, VNC, and of course Odin, Kies, Wugfresh, and some other ROM flashing apps, plus WinRar & WinPatrol from my old days ;)

Nuff about PCs!

Rooting the Galaxy S2, the odd man out

As the Nexus Rooting euphoria gradually faded away, I was left with my unrooted Samsung GS2. Looking for a way to Root this wonderful device required much Googling, and reading of XDA threads, as I searched for a Mac way to carry out this task. This proved to go unrewarded..

So often willing helpers would point to the simple PC way of carrying this out. "Use Wugfresh", "Get Odin", "Install Kies", etc., so, in the end I thought OK I'll give it a go, not knowing what frustrations this would stimulate!

At the time I had a tiny ASUS T91MT, which invariably started with an hour or so of Microsoft updates, before one could begin the slow process of installing Kies, a large package needed just for the drivers Odin requires. (Why can't someone simplify things and put up a link to the drivers?).

Anyway, all my thanks go to Jose Farrugia aka @wiredmash who offered the clearest instructions on Rooting the GS2, using the Siyah kernel, see the video and point by point instructions at http://www.wiredmash.com/how-to-root-samsung-galaxy-s2-i9100-jelly-bean-4-1-2/ ... :)

All went well with the above, but for one hitch. The Odin UI more than filled the vertical dimensions of the tiny T91MT, so I was unable to get at the Start button! I tried everything, including a lot of very bad language, until the solution came to mind - change the screen resolution! That gave me a 5x3 inch UI with a tiny Start button I could press, and a minute or so later all was done. Dead simple as the XDA guys said..

No more frustrating wait for an OTA Update

I came across this excellent thread at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626895 which provided very clear instructions on changing the yakjuxw version on my Galaxy Nexus to yakju, which should make any further OTA updates available without waiting months!

One just needs to read it all through a number of times, and be sure to test each stage before doing the final update. The reading took days, while the actual update took minutes :)

So, I now have Android 4.2.2 and the YAKJU build.

Galaxy S2 'updated' to be like Jelly Bean

Although I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the GS2 is the device I take with me, unless I'm on a 'photo shoot'.

The chances of Samsung ever upgrading the GS2 to Jelly Bean being slight, when I heard of Nova Launcher I thought why not try it.

Usually launchers last about 5 minutes on my phone, but after some persistent menu work I found out how to set it up very much like the Galaxy Nexus.

Not bad eh! :)

NFC problem on Galaxy Nexus

Spent a number of hours and tried lots of apps in my search for reason why it didn't react at all. Then I remembered some connection with batteries, and realized I might have a defect (or fake) spare battery.. YES! that was it.

Swapped back what must have been the original battery and everything works OK.

Have more 1KB NFC stickers on the way which will give me more scope for experiment. The Sony Xperia Smart Tags are only 48byte capacity..

Why I did not choose a Samsung Tab 2

A couple of days ago I very nearly pressed the button to buy the above, but there were a few key things which stopped me:

Android's Bluetooth doesn't support Foreign character keyboards.

The screen resolution was not going to make reading ebooks easier for me.

I would have been unable to view iTunes video podcasts.

Two apps were a 'must' for me:
Momento, and Mindnode Touch, neither of which are available for Android. Otherwise, the majority of my most-used apps run on both platforms.

So, regretably I chose to increase Apple's disgusting margins once again.

The Galaxy S2 arrived

Have spent several hours sorting things out so far, and I'm pretty happy :)

The Galaxy S2 is on it's way!

Pixmania Norway certainly got things moving fast on my new Samsung phone. So, in preparation, I have ordered a Case Mate cover, a spare Samsung battery, and just a few minutes ago, a SanDisk MicroSDHC 32GB card, which brings the total up to 48GB, enough for some HD video work..

Should be back with my first impressions next week :)

YES! Pixmania came through..

I received confirmation that my Nexus One had been credited in full, and was able to order a Samsung Galaxy S2 for just NOK 550 more. I would have liked the Galaxy Nexus, but it will be a while before that becomes available in Norway I feel. So, I look forward to receiving the 4.3" device in a few days time, and seeing how it compares with the iPhone 4.