HTC G1 rocks

Personal, , ,

A few years ago I switched cell service from Sprint to AT&T since Linux was starting to get a presence in the GSM arena. Then came OpenMoko and hope I’d soon have the same freedom on my phone as on the pc. That project has slowed a little but Google came along with Android and my hope stayed afloat.

The G1 has been out since last year but unfortunately it was exclusively sold through T-Mobile, the one carrier that doesn’t have decent coverage in my area. T-Mobile was being generous with “unlock codes” but it seemed to be a hassle to buy a phone from one carrier only to try an use it on another. I’m always up for a challenge but that was a little much. So I waited.

It was then in December Google offered an “unlocked” version called the Dev Phone 1 usable on any GSM network. That was more to my liking but I wasn’t ready to jump in. That all changed this week. Not really sure what prompted me now, it has been in the news a bit with more manufactures signing on. As well as a new release coming called cupcake. Regardless I took the plunge this week and registered as a Android developer and ordered it.


    You do not have to be a developer or prove that you can code to register. Registering is a requirement before you can order.

It arrived today and after a few hours of use so far I’m impressed. I already have a GMail account so it’s a good fit when it comes to some of the main features. Getting it to work with AT&T was pretty simple too following what others have already noted on the internet adding a APN for AT&T as follows.

name: AT&T
apn: wap.cingular
proxy blank
port blank
username:WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
password:CINGULAR1
server blank
mmsc: http://mmsc.cingular.com
mms proxy: wireless.cingular.com
mms port: 80
mcc:310
mnc:410
apn type blank

.. and I was up and running. Of course having the GMail account for activation made things that much easier. All my GMail contacts and Calendars were synced immediately. When the contacts on my SIM weren’t loaded all I had to do was go to Contacts -> Menu -> Settings -> SIM contacts importer … done.

I’m not sure if I’ll do much on the development front but I do like that as an option. I’ve only just started looking at the app store, I’m sure I’ll get more into that as time goes on. I’ve yet to touch the GPS or camera and only played an mp3 or two. So for now my hats off to HTC and Google for putting out a quality phone with a wide array of features. Lets hope my attitude doesn’t change after a few months.

Thank you Dell

Personal,

Yesterday Dell hosted a recycling event on their Nashville Campus.

I took a bunch of old items I’d been saving for the right opportunity.


    I’m not sure if I’ll use the oak tree sapling they gave me, we already have more trees than we can handle. But I think I can find a friend that will take it.

They also had products available to demo in a small covered area. Would have been nice to see Linux on something other Vista but that’s ok. In addition to the sapling they provided a couple online coupons, now could come in handy.

Thanks Dell !!!

Virtualbox rules

Technology, , ,

The beginning of 2009 I decided to move back to windows for work and with the laptop dead again it seemed like the right time. Yes I forgot, after getting a new power supply it again has decided to shutdown randomly. At times receeding the hard drive, or the memory, or the battery seemed to bring it back but nothing consistent. So I picked up a used IBM T42, added a extended life battery and maxed the memory at 2GB (from the old laptop) and it has been great. Hopefully I’ll get a year or so out of it.

So about Virtual Box. Since the T42 came with a copy of XP I had a license to work with. Installing was simple using aptitude, but I did grab a more current version by updating /etc/apt/sources.list with.

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lenny non-free

This was mainly since the T42 runs Debian and the desktop runs Ubuntu. From there it was.

aptitude update
aptitued install virtualbox-2.1

.. and I was ready to create a virtual machine.

With the virtual machine created I loaded XP, updated and added the software I needed from our servers at work. When it came time to move it to the other machine I did run into a problem. But after checking the forums I was able to clone from one machine to the other and things are working in both places.

Sweet !!

World Cup Soccer in Nashville

Personal

Last week I had a chance to go to the US vs Trinadad & Tobago world cup qualifier for my first time at a professional soccer game. It was a great game and a great time. Soccer fans have the most energy of any sport I’ve had the privilege to see in person. Everyone, and I mean everyone, stands while play is going on. So you guessed it the only time we were sitting is in between halfs. Kind of the reverse of what I’m use to.

I don’t think I could ever play, to much running involved, so I’ll stick with hockey. But their are similiarities it seems between the play making, movement to open areas away from the guy who has the ball … etc. I did finally get a handle on off sides, slightly different than what happens in hockey. None the less I hope I can go to a game again, great entertainment.