My First Android Phone - LG Optimus One

Ok, after some canvassing about what would fit in my budget, I decided getting an entry-level Android smartphone from LG - the LG Optimus One or P500.

I decided to pick Optimus One over other phones at the same price range for the following:

• Android 2.2 - Froyo
• 512mb RAM
• Looks neat and simple
• Wanna try LG (yep my first LG mobile phone)

I got the red color. When I got it from one of the phone stores in Park Square in Glorietta, Makati area, it's so minimalist. It's packed in a small box. The small box contains the following:

• LG P500 Unit with battery (1500mAh as labeled)
• Headset
• Wall charger with micro-USB cable
• User Guide
• 2GB Samsung TransFlash/MicroSD

Got it for around 13 thousand bucks. It's got NTC sticker on it (if it's worth mentioning)


Time for some tinkering...

Happy Mothers' Day!

To all moms out there, Happy Mothers' Day!

To my one and only Ina... despite our slips and mistakes, the great deeds you did and still doing for us, your children, are simply immeasureable. Naming a few wouldn't fit in all the pages of the entire world wide web.

I wish that the Almighty God give you good health, so that you could continue guiding us, including your grandchildren.

God bless!

Sony Ericsson P990i's Camera

Today, I took pictures around using my Sony Ericsson P990i's camera and Canon IXUS i Zoom (SD30). As I was taking pictures using P990i, I noticed some things. By the way, I haven't notice these things before, because I used to take pictures in flip-closed mode. These things have assigned keys when in flip-closed mode:

• You can only access the "Settings" via stylus.
• You can only adjust the "Zoom" via stylus.
• You can only ajust the "Exposure" via stylus.
• In preview mode, pressing OK (or Return) key is rather confusing because it asks you if you are sure to delete the image (I thought this would happen if you press the "DEL" key).

Here are some of the pictures I took using P990i and Canon IXUS i Zoom. Pictures are originally taken using the same dimension (1600 x 1200). I'm not a photographer, so when I looked at the horizontal and vertical resolutions, I got confused!

P990i

• Width = 1600 pixels
• Height = 1200 pixels
• Horz. Res. = 72 dpi
• Vert. Res. = 72 dpi

Canon IXUS i Zoom

• Width = 1600 pixels
• Height = 1200 pixels
• Horz. Res. = 180 dpi
• Vert. Res. = 180 dpi

I also took picture (not posted here) using Nokia 6630's camera but it made me even more confused because at a dimension of 1280x960 pixels, it has a vert./horz. resolution of 300 dpi!!! Why is that so? I don't know! As I've told earlier, I am not a photographer.

Again, here are the pictures (Left=P990i; Right=IXUS i Zoom):

So... what can you say?

RANT: Sony Ericsson P990i

RANT ON!

I contacted Sony Ericsson because I am receiving error which says:

The operation you have selected requires more storage space than is available. Free some space, for example by deleting files, and try again

That is when downloading emails with large attachments (emails that are larger in size than the internal memory's free space). And so I was given #71213775 as the case number. After several days, I got the following reply:

Dear Mr. [customer],

Thank you for contacting Sony Ericsson on the World Wide Web.

Answer:
Unfortunately, it is not possible to save messages on memory stick.

Best regards,

Sony Ericsson Call Center Philippines

If we can be of further assistance, please email to us at questions.ph@support.sonyericsson.com
For latest news and further product information, kindly visit our website at www.sonyericsson.com or text SE HELP to 2960 (P2.50 per text)

OK! I've got a response from SE that it's impossible for P990i to store emails in Memory Stick. And so, I cannot use this phone to download emails with large attachments as it would choke the phones internal memory. Unless of course I would buy a third party email client for UIQ3 Platform, which has the capability to use the Memory Stick as its storage.

So this P990i - a smartphone, business phone, cannot store my business related emails all the time.

I wonder if Sony Ericsson's new smartphone, the P1/P1 has this capability. But if it isn't capable, it wouldn't be capable of downloading larger emails as well. I could be wrong though...

My suggestion is research a lot, before buying any product. Don't be afraid, ask the salesrep questions you have in mind. Search the net...

RANT OFF!

My Sony Ericsson P990i Debranding Adventure

This happened more or less three weeks ago...

I bought this "Smart and Powerful" phone, the Sony Ericsson P990i and was excited to update to R6D23 - the latest available firmware for this phone. That is because according to what I've read, aside from R6D23 fixes most of the known bugs discovered in the previous versions of firmware, R6D23 makes P990i more responsive. But to my disappointment, I found out that what I've got was using 162008/69 (Taiwan Generic) version R5A02, which is not included in the list of CDAs that could be upgraded to R6D23 (so far).

Downloaded Sony Ericsson Update Service (or SEUS), installed and ran, hoping that I would get the R6D23. After like 30 minutes, when SEUS is finished and after all the things you have to do after a firmware update, I finally was able to check the current firmware loaded - R6A01!

Did some research. Found out that this CDA thing could be changed. But needs to buy credits from kulankendi.com! No free? Greenhills?

I am stuck with R6A01?

What now? Google! Fired up google and it brought me to one of the topics at esato.com forum. Read, read, read, read... and read. The trick was to replace two files from a certain folder. The files to be replaced are somehow confusing! But then again, I must do it. I have to change the CDA. In about an hour, after some combinations of - turn OFF, remove battery, replace battery, hold 'C' button, release 'C' button, etc... lucky enough to get to 162007/1 with R6D23 firmware! Whew!

By the way, SE Phones' CDA, though I haven't got the exact meaning of it, as I've read, refers to the region or country where the firmware is intended to. It's the CDA that SEUS uses to update the firmware, so the 'trick' works, and witnessed and done it myself.

Moving on...

Oh yeah, I just moved!

As you can see, I just registered today, and posted several entries! Well, those came from my old blog site (which I will not mention, o yeah... you lied).

So here I am now, in blogspot.com!

Thanks blogspot.com!

HOWTO: Boot Ubuntu (Fiesty Fawn) LiveCD from Hard Disk Thru GRUB

This is more likely a follow-up post with regards to the previous post. This is somewhat more detailed in explanation. I've done it several times, so I made a short HOWTO for myself, and for others that may find this useful.

Required Knowledge: bootloader, Linux, Windows, File System, etc.

PREPARATIONS

LiveCD Files

Using your favorite ISO image extractor, extract Feisty Fawn's iso image to a VFAT/FAT32 (or ext2/ext3/reiserfs) drive/partition of your choice. Empty partition is recommended. It should be extracted in it's root. When it's extracted, the destination drive's root should contain set of folders and files that can be found in the ISO image (plus other files and folders that may have been already there).

GRUB

1. Using your favorite text editor, open "menu.lst" and add the following lines at the end of it:

title Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) LiveHD!

root (hd0,3)

kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=/casper splash

initrd /casper/initrd.gz

The line

root (hd0,3)

should be pointing to the partition where LiveCD files have been extracted. It's using a ZERO (0) based numbering for hard disk device and partition. So if you saved LiveCD files to the second partition of your first hard disk, this line should be:

root (hd0,1)

where:
hd0 = first hard disk
1 = second partition (of hd0)

2. Save "menu.lst"

BOOT IT

Reboot
From GRUB menu, select "Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) LiveHD!" [enter]
Wait for the LiveHD to load

Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) LiveHD

OK, I downloaded and wanted to try Ubuntu (Desktop) but I didn't want to waste a CD-R (that is if I find out that this distro isn't my cup-of-tea), so I wanted to run it from my hard drive.

After some reasearch, there's a HOWTO that tells how to install it from HDD via downloadable HDD-media, but this requires the alternate installer version of Ubuntu, which I resisted because:
1) I have to download the alternate - my bandwidth is slow; and
2) I don't want to install Ubuntu yet.

After a few trial-and-error combos, here&'s the summary of how I did it.

PinkLove: Another Moto E770 Theme

Here's another Motorola E770 theme!

I originally downloaded this E770 theme from a Chinese website/forum. But there were items in the theme that were not modified (as the remains of default Motorola blue theme are still there) so I looked for those items and modified them to have a uniform look.

MotoE770 Skin: PinkLove

download: e770Skin_PinkLove.zip

password: mabuhay!!!

By the way, my wife uses this theme... NOT me :)

OSXStyle: My First Moto E770 Authored Skin

Yes, after few research, I've finally created my first Motorola E770 skin!

It's named OSXStyle, inspired of course by the great MacOS X!

MotoE770 Skin: OSXStyle

download: e770Skin_OSXStyle.zip

password: mabuhay!!!

note: this is a repost from my old blog

Hello BlogSpot!

Aba, aba, aba! Ala eh, ganere pala ang BLOG - pwedeng mag-type. Akala ko noong una, ang blog ay sound laang ng bumagsak na pwet sa sahig, yun pala'y ang BLOG eh ganere.

Ay siya, ere ang unang post ko eh.

Salamat blogspot.com!