Rooted

Last night I finally managed to "root" my Dell Streak. I was debating whether or not I should, but to do something as simple as a screenshot an Android device needs to be rooted. Apparently I could connect it to a PC and take a screenshot using the Android SDK, but that seems an awful lot of hassle for something that is so simple on the iPhone. Yes I know that iOS and Android are two totally different animals, but I've got quite used to easily taking screenshots. Anyway, it was relatively easy once I'd found out that I needed to use version 1.55 of "SuperOneClick", and not the latest version. It was definitely a quicker process than upgrading the Dell Streak's firmware from 1.6 to 2.2 (the latest firmware available for the Streak at the end if last year). That was quite a process, but I learned a lot about ADB Drivers and factory restores while doing it - I had a few glitches along the way, and the mini tablet was unusable for a day or so, but it was worth it. The 2.2 firmware has some nice features although the new Dell Stage launcher really didn't impress me, but the great thing about Android is that I was able to download and install an alternative launcher which suited me better.

Take a small Tablet

My Christmas present last year was a Dell Streak. Originally called the "Dell Mini 5", it is almost too small to be called an Android tablet. With its 5 inch screen, it is a large Android phone, the screen around half an inch larger than the Droid X. It is a cell phone because of Android licensing requirements, but I'm using it as a mini tablet.

iPod, iPhone, iPad

The news has been buzzing today with the much anticipated release of the Apple tablet.
The one thing I like is the name - iPad -it really seems so right. The other names bandied about just didn't sound right - iSlate sounds old-fashioned, iTablet just too obvious and sounding like just another tablet.

Tale of two Wi-Fis

Okay, so I've got my hands on two gadgets. The first is a Nokia N800 Internet tablet, and the second is the Archos 605 WiFi. They both have wireless capabilities and great 800 by 480 pixel touch screens, but that is where the similarities begin to end.



Firstly the Nokia N800 is not a cellphone. It does a lot of things, but its main function is to browse the internet. Now, there are a number of devices which do this, but the N800 has a web browsing experience which is closer to a desktop PC than I've ever seen on a handheld device.

The Archos 605 WiFi is a media player. It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld media player, but it is portable enough to carry around if you have big pockets. It also does a lot of things, but its main purpose is a multi-format video player.

Now for my Wi-Fi problem. The Nokia N800 hopped onto my home wireless network as easy as a wireless Pocket PC. The Archos 605 is another story. I have been trying for weeks to get this thing to connect to my home wireless network, but no dice. It sees my neighbor's wireless networks, both the open and encrypted ones, but not mine. To test it I even briefly connected to a neighbor's wireless access point (sorry, default, it was for less than a minute). That worked. I tried disabling all security on my wireless router, but that did not work.

Hopefully, someday soon I will get the wireless working. Until then at least I can still use the Archos 605 to watch videos I guess. Fortunately I have no desire to buy videos from the Archos Content Portal, otherwise I wouldn't be happy. It would be nice to use the other wireless features of the Archos 605 though.

Deal of the Day

Deal of the Day, or Sale of the Day, websites are springing up all over the net, with some variations on the theme.

The first one I came across was woot!.com which is regarded as the best and most popular.Basically woot! sells one item a day, anything from computers to flashlights. Sometimes the items are new, other times they are refurbished. There is also a quirky funny story about the item on sale. Some people wait up until midnight (which is when the next day's item is put on sale) just to see what it is going to be. Some items sell out quickly (the woot website has stats), and others don't, but a lot are sold, like the refurbished 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 Players on October 15 - over 10,000 units were sold in one day. From what I've seen woot's prices are good and I haven't had any problems with items purchased from them.

And the other sites? Squidoo has short descriptions and links to many sites (but for some reason maybe blocked by overzealous corporate website blocking software).

There are also several Roundup sites, like Deal of the Day Tracker and Bargain Jack. I would advise shopping around before buying anything on these bargain websites.

Since I have not had any dealings with any of these websites other than woot!, I would recommend checking out reviews and approaching any purchases with the normal caution you would use for other internet purchases.

Touch not really phone-less iPhone

The iPod Touch - not really an iPhone without the phone.
I was quite excited when the iPod Touch was announced. Now it is being released this week and the big tech sites have had time to play with pre-release models and write their reviews (see the CNET review here)

As well as being slightly smaller and lighter than the iPhone, the iPod Touch is also missing features like Google Maps, the email client and the Notes application, along with built-in speakers, microphone, camera and other mini applications. It is kind of understandable not to include Google Maps - if you really need to use it you may not be near a wireless hotspot. To leave out email and Notes just sucks. Sure you can use web-based email, as the Safari browser is included, but the email client would have been useful. Even more so, leaving out the Notes application on the first iPod (excluding the iPhone) to have a virtual keyboard is just reducing functionality.

Somehow I suspect these omissions are not accidental, but carefully selected. An iPod Touch which had all the functionality of an iPhone except the phone could very well hurt iPhone sales, something Apple wouldn't want.

iPhone Overhyped?

Of course it is.

Well, here's some facts and more hype.

Engadget's iPhone facts from the first reviews

Should You Buy an IPhone? from the Houston Chronicle.

Smart Money Daily: 6 Major Flaws in iPhone That Could Cost You a Bundle

And the iPhone guided tour from Apple.

Travel Tech

While I was waiting at the departure gate at Los Angeles airport(LAX), a young woman nearby had been looking at pictures on her Sony VAIO notebook. Then she started taking snapshots of them with her RAZR Cellphone. Surely there must be a better way to transfer photos from the notebook to the cellphone I thought, but possibly she didn't have a memory card in the cellphone and the Sony Notebook didn't support SecureDigital Cards.
If it did then it would simply be a matter of copying the pictures to the microSD card, which would have to be inserted into a SecureDigital card adapter (most microSD card come with an SD Card adapter). Then she could insert the microSD card into the RAZR. That way, assuming the pictures on the Notebook were in the right format, or could be converted to the right format, they would be transferred to the cellphone.

Okay, maybe just taking photos of the pictures on the notebook's screen seems simpler, but using the card would definitely result in better quality.

iGo cruisin'

On a recent cruise I took along the iGo Power Everywhere15 charger with "iTips" for most of my tech toys. It was really handy in a compact case (which comes with the unit) I had almost everything I needed to recharge one cellphone, one handheld gaming console, an MP3 Player and two handhelds. Separately their chargers would be five separate power cords, three of them including a large power block or large plug.

The way it works is that once you have bought the iGo power charger (and there are a number of options here depending on whether you want to charge a computer notebook or not, and whether you want to charge two devices at once), you then buy "iTips" for each of your devices. These run at about $10 each, and with careful research (the iGo website has a iTip finder) you can find some tips which work with more than one of your devices - I found one which I can use with both my Sony PSP and Creative Zen Vision:M MP3 Player. Although a number of other manufacturers have come out with similar solutions, I figured that the iGo tips would be easier to find. It also helped that RadioShack had the iGo Power Everywhere15 for $20 less than the iGo website, and my local store had a large selection of iTips. I could not find an iTip for my Tapwave Zodiac, but that was to be expected since it wasn't on the market long enough to get many accessories made for it. After the initial small investment in the iGo, the iTips are not that expensive - for example a charger for my wife's LG VX8300 cellphone (incidentally one of the top ten cellphones of last year according to CNET) costs around $30, which makes the cost of the iTip seem cheap.