When Clouds Go Thump

Almost a year ago Microsoft's Azure product had a global service failure.

It's happened again.

On the evening of February 22, 2013 Microsoft's Azure Service Dashboard had the following notice:

Storage is currently experiencing a worldwide outage impacting HTTPS operations (SSL traffic) due to an expired certificate. HTTP traffic is not impacted. We are validating the recovery options before implementing them. Further updates will be published to keep you apprised of the situation. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes our customers.

The color is Microsoft's.

Most of the time when I went to the Azure Service Dashboard this is what I got.


Here's what triggered it.


Source: Windows Azure Forum on MSDN
MJFara, one of the posters (identified as a "Partner"), hit the nail on the head.

This is unacceptable, I'm supposed to release an enterprise app on this platform?
Imagine how many phone calls I would have gotten by now from very angry customers.
Sad...

The Register's summary:

It is the opinion of The Register that to have a core service fail in every data center across the world simultaneously is an extremely bad thing to happen to a cloud provider.

From my posting last year:

What I want to highlight is that cloud providers are not immune from service failures. They are likely capable of providing more redundant and resilient services than many organizations can provide.

Unfortunately this failure demonstrates that Microsoft doesn't seem to be "capable of providing more redundant and resilient services."

Go back and reread MJFara's comments. Think about it.

Powerline Ethernet Adapter II

Recently I mentioned that I was looking to upgrade my Powerline Ethernet Adapter from the Netgear XET1001 to something faster.

BestBuy had the Actiontec PWR500 for $50 so I bought 2 sets.

My installation experience was the same as with the Netgear. Just plug them in and they work. I didn't even have to do anything to the TiVo or router. And the one at the TiVo end is plugged into a power strip.

All 3 lights went instantly green. The Actiontec FAQ says that the "LK" light indicates the transmission speed. Green means "100Mbps+". Nice.

But...

The second set I bought was to replace the TiVo - Wireless-N Network Adapter used on the other TiVo.

In this location the "LK" light is orange. This indicates the network speed is "50-99Mbps". This is noticeably faster than the TiVo wireless adapter and very acceptable for streaming HD content within the house.

To be fair, I tried a Netgear XET1001 in this same location. I wouldn't even connect.

I also want to share the relative size of the Netgear and the Actiontec.

dd-wrt

The image speaks for itself.

Transcode Contest

After my discovery of Pavtube's HD Video Converter I wanted to compare the transcoding of HD Video Converter and Handbrake.

I took a ripped DVD and transcoded it to iPhone 4.

Product	Time	File Size	Format	Resolution
HD Video Converter	9 mins.	624,569KB	mpeg4	640x480
Handbrake	46 min.	689,317KB	H.264	720x480

There are a couple of other differences. Handbrake would use the ISO file as input. For HD Video Converter I had to mount the ISO (using Microsoft's Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel) and then navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder and select the VOB files.

Here's what the HD Video Converter output file looked like:

And here's what the Handbrake output file looked like:

TV Wiring Diagram

I just realized that I hadn't documented my TV wiring in over 5 years.

I've become a big fan of TiVos. They really simplify my TV wiring. Now the cable input goes direct to the TiVo. HDMI means that I can avoid the clutter of S-video and audio cables. I use HDMI connections to the TiVo and the DVD (I still haven't jumped to Blu-Ray).

As discussed earlier I'm using a 85 Mbps Powerline ethernet adapter. It's still working fine but I am watching for a set of the 500 Mbps models.

After Christmas I picked up a 1 TB Western Digital My DVR Expander to add storage to the TiVo.

I've also put a TiVo in the master bedroom. Without a DVD the wiring is even simpler.

For network connectivity I use the TiVo Wireless N Adapter. That does fine for the TiVo electronic program guide but really doesn't have enough bandwidth for streaming to the den TiVo. As a work around I transfer programs and watch them when the transfer is done. A third 500 Mbps Powerline ethernet adapter will go here.

Pavtube HD Video Converter

I've done a lot with video over the years - DVDs for Seniors, FairUse Wizard, Handbrake, TiVo Desktop, etc.

My video toolkit is capable but cluttered. I use SageTV, DVDShrink, DVD Decrypter, Ulead DVD Movie Factory, Handbrake, Windows DVD Maker, etc.

I've created Youtube videos, DVDs, H.264 videos for iPhones and Androids but what I hadn't done was to take AVCHD (H.264) videos from cameras and burn to a DVD.

That wasn't easy. I even tried the Panasonic PHOTOfunSTUDIO that came with the camera.

I finally gave up and posted on VideoHelp.com. I got a prompt and well thought out response that pointed me to AVStoDVD. AVStoDVD even has a portable version. I tried that but the portable version required a separate install of Avisynth.

One of my favorite software packages VideoReDo Plus has an upgrade that will do my specific task.

But then I came across the Pavtube set of products. They are a little narrowly focused but HD Video Converter said it would take almost anything as input and render almost anything as output.

And it does!

Further it reminds me of Handbrake in that it has a huge selection of predefined output profiles and you can tweak them and save as custom profiles.

Here's how it shows the characteristics of the input files:

Here's the selection of the output profiles:

And then how you can tweak them:

The Pavtube products are reasonably priced. They even offer some bundles but if you Google around you can find coupon codes that provide even further discounts.

Yum! Jelly Bean

I'm working my way through the Android deserts: Eclair, Frozen Yogurt, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, and now Jelly Bean. And a little Butter never hurts.

I am on the edge of my chair waiting for AT&T to upgrade my Skyrocket to Jelly Bean. Samsung has announced what's going to be in the upgrade for Korea but still no release date much less any discussion of AT&T's version. So I wait.

But I'm not patient. My Captivate is just sitting on the shelf since the Skyrocket.

I'd been lurking around xda and Cyanogen for Jelly Bean (4.2.1) ROMs for the Captivate. I never found a "one click" ROM so I finally just dove into it.

Several places along the way you'll need to have the Samsung USB drivers loaded on your PC so you might as well do that now. Get them from here.

If you've installed Java 7 you'll need to add back msvcr100.dll using either this (x86) or this (x64). Then remember to uninstall Java (just on general principles) when you're done.

Also, further down I'll talk about Google Back up. Make sure that you have that turned on and synced before you begin. Here's the setting screen on my Skyrocket Ice Cream Sandwich.

Back to flashing...

This thread on xda is the starting place.

They give you links to download the ROM and the gapps then go right into the installation. The ROM I downloaded was cm-10.1-20130114-NIGHTLY-captivatemtd.zip and the gapps was gapps-jb-20121212-signed.zip. By the way, I did this with the SIM and microSD both out of the phone. Better safe than sorry.

Watch out for that first step.

"Root your device and install ClockworkMod Recovery." That sounds so simple. That took me 2 or 3 times as long as actually flashing the ROM. I tried using SuperOneClick but it wouldn't root the Captivate running Gingerbread.

You can search high and low through that post and there are no instructions on how to root and install ClockworkMod Recovery.

This post is the technique I used to root the Captivate. At first glance it looks complicated but it goes real smooth if you read it very closely. I flashed the same kernel twice by mistake.

Notice that the last flash is of "KK4_stock_kernel.tar". Stock is the key word here. Stock doesn't have ClockworkMod Recovery.

Remember that the first step of the xda post said to "Root your device and install ClockworkMod Recovery." You just accomplished the first three words.

Now for the ClockworkMod Recovery part.

Buried deep in this "Idiot-Proof All-in-one Guide" is a link to another on Gingerbread. I followed this through the ClockworkMod Recovery installation. Since I had already rooted I stopped there.

Then I went back to the xda thread and picked up at step 2.

Oh, the "3-button-combo" is here. Power down first.

On the Galaxy S it done by using the Volume Up + Home + Power keys all pressed at the same time, (this is for recovery mode)
Download mode is: Volume down + Home + Power keys, all pressed at the same time.
Both are done with the phone turned off.

How to do a Nandroid backup is here.

1. reboot int recovery by powering down, then power back on holding vol up, vol down, and power at the same time. This will boot you into stock recovery.
2. using volume down, highlight 'apply sdcard:update.zip' and select by using the menu button (or where it would be).
3. you should now be in cwm recovery. Depending on which one you are using, the text will either be red or cyan in color. highlight 'backup/restore' using volume keys and select with POWER button.
4. select backup
The back up will start, and will take around 5-10 minutes to complete (depending on how much stuff you have in /data)
5. Once it is done, it will go back to the main cwm menu. Select 'reboot phone now' with power button.

As usual with Cyanogen Mod it went perfect after that.

Pretty much.

I told the initial setup to restore my settings from Google. This included downloading my apps from the Play Store. As they came down each one got "(app) could not be downloaded due to an error. (923)" and put an error in the notification log.

All I had to do was to click on each notification and the apps installed just fine. Subsequent downloads from the Play Store worked also.

Incidentally the Google restore restored many of my settings, e.g. Wi-Fi networks and pass phrases, ring tones, time zones, etc. Pretty neat.

I'm sorry I don't have a screenshot of this error but I couldn't figure out how to take one. This post tells you how to enable screenshots in Cyanogen Mod 10.1.

First enable it...
Go to settings>system>power menu...

Then when u press power key for 3-4 sec u ll see screenshot option there..

Jelly Bean with Butter is fast and smooth even on my 2+ year-old Captivate.

Remember that this is a "nightly" and not a "stable" release of Cyanogen Mod. For example the camera in the AOSP code base is not as complete as the Galaxy S III's camera, e.g. doesn't support storing photos on the microSD card.

Even the Jelly Bean lock screen is cool. When you get an incoming call, swiping to the right answers it, swiping up puts you in Messaging, and swiping left sends the caller to voicemail. If the contact has a photo it is displayed full screen. With the screen locked if you press the power key you can swipe in from the right for the camera and in from the left for a widget of your choice. The Jelly Bean keyboard works enough like Swype that I haven't loaded Swype. I'm sure there are tons more features I haven't found.

I'm not sure whether I'm going to make this my day-to-day phone. It doesn't have LTE nor the front-facing camera of the Skyrocket but it sure is nice and rock solid.

Postscript: In hindsight I think that the instructions here could have done the whole process. Try that and let me know how it goes.

DSL Upload Speed II

This is just a follow-up to my previous post on this topic.

I've continued to monitor this and it is working fine. I bumped my uplink speed to 400 Kbps for an extra 50 Kbps.

Recently I've been doing some big uploads to Youtube. The data is going across my LAN from a PC to the router and then across the WAN from the router to the Internet.

Here's what my link speeds looked like during this upload:

Xmarks

Ok, I'm a big Google user. I switched to keeping my bookmarks to Google Bookmarks with AddThis to add bookmarks.

While AddThis works well, Google Bookmarks isn't integrated into Chrome so Chrome's bookmarks are totally separate.

Grumble, grumble.

I'd had Xmarks on my To Do list for a year or more. I made a run at it recently.

I installed Xmarks on my Chrome browsers and my wife's Firefox. On a single account I established 2 profiles, one for me and one for my wife. Then I made the appropriate profile the default for each browser instance. Then I imported the Google Bookmarks into my profile and my wife's Firefox bookmarks into her profile. So far so good.

All seemed well for a couple of days until I noticed that my Chrome bookmarks had many copies of the "Google Bookmarks" folder.

It seems that Chrome's Sync settings were replicating Xmarks syncing.

So I needed to uncheck "Bookmarks."

But now my wife was complaining. It seems that when the Firefox Add-On was syncing to Xmarks the entire instance of Firefox would freeze. That raised the old adage of "When momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

Xmarks is now uninstalled on all browsers.

As an interim I am trying using Chrome's Bookmark Bar to access Google Bookmarks. First I went to http://bookmarks.google.com and bookmarked that in Chrome. Then I went to http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100215 and dragged that bookmarklet to the Chrome Bookmark Bar. Then for clarity I renamed those 2 items to "See Google Bookmarks" and "Add Google Bookmark" respectively.

Here's what it looks like:

That is a kludge and doesn't do anything for Firefox. I may try to make a run at Xmarks again.

Bye, Bye Chromebook

I tried. I really did. But I returned the Chromebook.

It was a lot of little things. The SD card stuck out of the SD slot, the hinge was ugly, the keyboard mapping was odd, the touchpad was numb, overall it was slow, the updates to Chrome OS were behind, the Chrome extensions were backlevel, yada yada.

Besides the sluggishness in YouTube it was also slow updating Google Docs. I have a large Google Document that updates on the T420s in seconds. It updates on the X40 almost as quick but on the Chromebook it consistently took 20 seconds to update.

The price was great but the function was unsatisfactory.

21st Century Video

I've just moved into the 21 century with my video recording.

Way back when (2004) I built a PVR using SageTV. I took it through several versions of software and hardware. The hardware (Dell GX270) is now so old. In early 2012 the UPS died and the fan got real loud. I used the excuse of the UPS dying to just turn it off.

Most of my usage at that time was to record analog TV shows and burn them to DVDs for my granddaughter. The quality was fine for her.

I had moved to TiVo for my HD TV timeshifting but I hadn't tried to burn that content to DVDs.

This past weekend there was a football game that I wanted to keep. I fired up the old SageTV and recorded it there as well as on the TiVo. I did my normal process using the SageTV copy and burned a DVD. It looked awful on my 52" Sony.

Back to the drawing board. I downloaded TiVo Desktop and installed it. Go into TiVo Desktop, click File / Preferences and uncheck the box that says "Use fastest method available..." Then I moved the recording from the TiVo to my desktop. It was huge! 31GB for 4 hours.

But now what could I do with it? The file type was .tivo. After a fruitless session of Googling I just tried renaming it to a .mpg. Doh!

Then VidoeRedo Plus could open it and operate on it. I used VideoRedo to edit out the commercials and then truncate it to the end of the game. That got the file down to 21GB.

Then I took it over to Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6. After fiddling around a little I convinced DMF to create 16x9 output and to use a double layer DVD.

It worked pretty good for a first attempt. There were some compression artifacts in the high activity shots but I think there are some settings that I can change to improve this in the future. Remember that the TiVo file is 1280x720 and the DVD in 16x9 is only 720x405 so DMF has to transcode the video.

By the way, while I haven't exercised the TiVo movement exhaustively I haven't encountered any programs that are copy protected.

This may prompt me to move to Blu-ray!

Living In the Cloud

A while back I mentioned a couple of Cloud apps that I use.

Although I'm a huge Google user, I've been using Dropbox for even longer than Google Docs/Drive. And I've found that the app ecosystem around Dropbox is a lot more mature than around Google Drive.

I started off just trying to find way to maintain a To Do list that I could access from anywhere. I came across Epistle, an Android app, that lets you edit a text file from Dropbox on your Android device.

Here are my Epistle settings:

Obviously then you can edit the text files from your PC using Notepad or Writepad.

So my issue with To Do list was done. That worked so well I began looking for how how I could leverage that solution.

My wife and I are always making grocery lists on scraps of paper and then leaving them at home when we drive by the grocery store.

Epistle would fix that!

But my wife uses an iPhone.

One thing I don't like about iOS apps is that there are so many fewer free apps. It's not that I mind paying for apps, it's just that simple function should be simple cost, maybe even free.

After looking at a number of iOS apps that allow editing of Dropbox text files, I settled on Nebulous Notes Lite. As you'd guess from the "Lite" moniker, there's a paid version that eliminates the ads but it costs $5. Way too much.

Here are my Nebulous Notes settings:

My wife loves it. She'll update the grocery list and text me to stop by the grocery store and I've got a complete list.

So we're done.

Not so fast.

I got a new Google Chromebook. No Notepad there. Sure I could download a file from Dropbox, edit it using Google Docs, and reupload it to Dropbox but that wasn't cool.

So I Googled it some and found Writebox. It does the same thing as Epistle and Nebulous Notes but from a browser. Perfect for the Chromebook. And there's even a Chrome app if you want it more integrated.

Writebox doesn't have an automatic sync option like Epistle and Nebulous Notes so you have to press Ctrl+S when you're done.

The future is here.

Chromebook II

In my original post about my Chromebook I expressed some concerns. These haven't been assuaged.

This week I took the Chromebook into the "wild." I took it to work. As I waited for the meeting to start I started watching a youtube video. Occasionally I would switch to another tab and perform another task, e.g. checking my mail. When I did, the audio got choppy.

The youtube progress indicators were right on top of each other. The red line is the current position and the gray line is the progress of the download.

Hmmm. Must be that the facility's bandwidth was marginal.

Nope. What could it be? Processor?

Bingo! Incredible. 92% of a processor (remember it's dual-core) was being used to render the youtube video.

So I come home and begin to read my RSS feeds. Up near the top was Brian Kreb's post on yet another Flash update. Chrome browser on Windows 7 is prompting me to update it to v23.0.1271.64 m.

So I go over to the Chromebook. No prompt to update but maybe it's so slick it did it in the background.

Sorry Charlie. Build Date: Thursday, November 1, 2012. Specifically the Flash plugin is 11.5.31.2 on Chrome browser on Windows 7 and 11.3.31.518 on the Chromebook even a day later.

ChromeOS updated yesterday to a November 6 build (why did it take 4 days?) but it still had Flash 11.3.31.518. And not a word on the Chrome Blog.

C'mon Google!

Chromebook

On the day the new Samsung Chromebook was announced, I pre-ordered one from BestBuy. Long story why but it arrived last Thursday.

My wife has used it as much as I have and she loves it. She likes it because it is light and cool. She normally uses a ThinkPad T61.

Me, I'm a little more objective.

Since it only has a 16GB SSD I ordered a 32GB SD card to supplement it. The SD slot in my T420 lets the card go completely inside the chassis so I just assumed that's what the Chromebook would do also. Wrong.

The picture on the left is of the empty slot and on the right the card is inserted. You can see that the card protrudes about 3/8". You can't practically leave it in there as you'll break it off. Grumble, grumble.

Also notice how the screen hinge sticks up noticeably. I know it only costs $249 but that's UGLY.

The browser on Chrome OS isn't the same as the Chrome Browser on Windows.

For example, I use the Chrome Toolbox. Here's the Chrome Toolbox v1.0.32 Options screen on Chrome 22.0.1229.94 m on Windows 7.

And here's the Chrome Toolbox v1.0.32 Options screen on Chrome OS 23.0.1271.49.

"Double click on a tab to close it" is why I use this extension. No, that's not an option on the Chromebook.

I've just begun to play with Chrome Remote Desktop. On Chrome on Windows it is v1.9.1271.42, On the Chromebook it is v1.8.1229.66 and still labeled "BETA".

On Chrome on Windows the Chrome Remote Desktop is an icon on the new tab screen.

Not so on the Chromebook.

So how do you invoke Chrome Remote Desktop? Chrome Remote Desktop is the last icon in the app list.

From there on, it works fine.

Stay tuned for more discussion of Chrome Remote Desktop.

Now a Chromebook lives and dies by the Cloud. So you'd expect the interaction with cloud services would be exemplary? Don't get your hopes up.

Ctrl+M (more on that keystroke combo in a little) brings up the Chromebook's File Manager.

Yeah, that's not what I was expecting either. Folders are just intermingled with files.

Just to compare, here's the web presentation of Google Drive (from the Chromebook).

Ok, now to keystroke combos. I was using Google Plus and wanted to go to the top of the page. So I just needed to hit Home. Sorry, no Home key.

Nothing in Help to point me to it. A Google search turned up Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow. Give me a break! It takes 3 keystrokes to enter something as fundamental to web browsing as Home?

So you want to know what the rest of the secret codes are? Good luck. Try Ctrl+Alt+/.

I'm not kidding. That's the documentation. Just poke around and discover what does what. Unacceptable.

I'm not sure about the Chromebook.

Update: More here.

The Tribe Has Spoken

Two of my former co-workers are using Windows Phones. Obviously my Microsoft friend is using a Windows Phone. I admit that I haven't given Windows Phone much attention.

Recently I tried to send one of my Windows Phone friends a Facebook message. I got this dialog box that said that the user is using an app to chat and that for me to message them I need to change my permissions.

I've never gotten that when messaging any other mobile users. Now this post isn't about bashing Windows Phone for Facebook messaging.

When I explained the situation to my friend his response was "I know 7 people with Windows phones." Really, an Enterprise Architect in a Fortune 100 multi-national company knows 7 people with Windows phones. However you want to say it, Windows Phone isn't a player in the enterprise.

Perhaps even Android is a struggling player as well.

Christina Torode of SearchCIO hit the nail on the head in her article about BYOD in the enterprise.

At drug and vaccine maker Sanofi, the smartphone breakdown is 80% Apple iOS, 20% BlackBerry and 1% Android. "And the ones that choose to use an Android often turn it back in and ask for an iPhone..."

Read the whole article.

NFC

One of the TLAs I mentioned previously was NFC (Near Field Communication).

There's been a lot of "noise" about NFC and using this feature for mobile payments. That gets complicated real fast because everybody wants their cut of the transaction. Google has implemented Google Wallet on the Nexus devices but initially this would only support MasterCards. This has been addressed and now supports more credit/debit cards. Several of the wireless carriers, e.g. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, have blocked Google Wallet on their devices and are promoting their own ISIS service. ISIS uses a special SIM card for authentication.

Using NFC for mobile payments with Google Wallet requires a "secure element" which isn't necessarily part of NFC. What this means is twofold: 1) some phones don't have a a "secure element" (e.g. my Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket) so seemingly those devices will never support mobile payments with Google Wallet, and 2) that NFC can be used for other functions.

The rest of this post will focus on the second point.

Steve Gibson did an entire episode of Security Now on NFC. In this discussion Steve explains why NFC is limited to a 1 inch range. You don't have to literally "bump" the devices but they've got to be really close and remain so for the duration of the exchange.

I think the following statement is key to the rest of this discussion:

It's just a short-range means of exchanging relatively low bandwidth, that is, 106Kb per second, data between two devices...

Let that soak in - 106Kbps. That's SLOW. Notice the lowercase "b" indicating bits. And the devices have to be maintained in the 1 inch range during the entire transmission.

So how do you overcome that?

Don't send much data.

So there are are currently three implementations of NFC transfer.

First Android Ice Cream Sandwich has a capability called "Android Beam." Here's a good description of how it works. Basically ICS simply uses the NFC bandwidth to exchange data between two devices. Consequently the objects must be small, e.g. a concise URL such as a Google Map or Google Play Store location (and I'll bet it uses the goo.gl shortener).

To use Android Beam you need to enable NFC and Android Beam in Settings / Wireless and Network / More...

I have actually used this capability. A co-worker and I held our Samsung Galaxy S IIs back to back. On mine I had Google Maps as the current application. His was on the home screen. When the NFC chips established contact both phones vibrated. Then the display on mine changed to what looked like a webOS "card." Above this card were the words "Touch to beam." When I tapped on the card, it disappeared into the distance and the Google Map presented on his phone. I didn't see any residual evidence of the transfer.

So what applications support this Android Beam? Dunno. I've looked high and low for a list with no success. Google Maps worked by my own testing. Sending URLs between Chrome browsers didn't for me but allegedly they should. Reports say that contacts should transfer.

There's also a related use of this capability known as "NFC Tags." These are passive stickers that transmit an NFC signal when energized by the NFC radio in a device. These tags can transfer the same type of data that is exchanged between two devices. This means that the tags can trigger pre-defined actions on the device, e.g. turning Wi-Fi on or off, performing a Foursquare check-in, etc. There's a good article on NFC tags here.

Second Samsung has a like capability on Samsung Galaxy S IIIs called "S Beam." Here's a good description of how it works. NFC is used to identify the devices but the actual object is moved over Wi-Fi Direct. This raises the bandwidth to 300MBps and relieves the need to maintain the 1 inch proximity during the transfer. Notice the uppercase "B" indicating bytes. You can see S Beam work here in Samsung's Galaxy S III commercial.

Lastly Android Jelly Bean extends the "Android Beam" capability to use Bluetooth as a transfer medium. Here's a good description of how it works. In this method the bandwidth varies with the version of Bluetooth the devices support and like S Beam the requirement for the 1 inch proximity during the transfer is relieved.

So what devices have NFC? There's a good list of NFC devices here. Oh, the iPhone 5 doesn't have NFC. Maybe next time.

I apologize for how confusing this is but I haven't found even this level of comparison of the various NFC implementations anywhere else. If you find more detail, please post a comment.

Skyrocket Apps

Speaking of apps on my Skyrocket, here's what I'm using now.

Vibration Notifier	j4velin
Gas Buddy	Miles, Just stations with current prices, App Start Up = Stations Near Me, Show All Stations = off
Barcode Scanner	ZXing Team
GPS Test	Chartcross Limited
GPS Logger	Mendhak - Log to KML, New file creation = Every time I start, Time before logging = 30
TiVo	TiVo
Dropbox	Dropbox
Klondike Solitaire	Softick - Disable scoring, Timed Game = off, Sound = off, Table Background = Solid, Left-handed
Angry Birds	Rovio - Mute and Settings/Applications move to phone
Epistle	mvilla - Sync folder location: Text, Automatic sync: check all
Tasks Free	Team Tasks
Dialer2	dnaq productions
Google Voice
Google Drive
Google Maps
Google Reader

Speaking of apps, there's a nice new feature of ICS that I've been using.

I never rooted my Captivate so I couldn't get rid of all the carrier loaded apps. They kept getting updated in the Google Play Store so I kept getting notifications that I had updates to apply. It finally got to where there were 11 apps offered to update that I didn't want to update.

With Ice Cream Sandwich there's a Disable choice in Settings / Applications / All that will let you Disable an app. That doesn't uninstall it but does stop the nagging by the Google Play Store. This setting doesn't seem to "stick" on Google apps. They keep coming back.

If you want to restore one of these apps, they're just at the bottom of the Applications list.

LTE

As I mentioned in my TLA post, AT&T just lit up their LTE ("Long Term Evolution") network in the Memphis metropolitan area.

All the carriers call their LTE network "4G" but it really isn't 4G. Nevertheless it's FAST, for now. Time will tell how the various carriers' LTE networks stand up to the the onslaught of millions of iPhone 5s in the next couple of weeks.

What I can tell you is right now it's smokin'!

Here's a screenshot from speedtest.net on my Skyrocket near my house.

Yeah. You're reading that right. That's showing more than 25Mbps down and almost 7Mbps up. It just can't stay that fast. Think of the backhaul capacity the carriers would have to have. They'd have to have fiber to each tower.

But I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Yum! Ice Cream Sandwich

Yeah, yeah. I know I've blogged about Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) before. But that was on my Nook Color.

This is about Ice Cream Sandwich on my Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (isn't that a mouthful?).

The Skyrocket came with Gingerbread. ICS for the Skyrocket has been out since July 2012 so my plans were to immediately upgrade to ICS.

I had prepared for this by studying Samsung's guide. This is a really thorough step-by-step guide.

When I was buying the Skyrocket I mentioned to the sales person (who was excellent by the way) that I was planning to upgrade as soon as I got home. She cautioned me and said they had replaced several Skyrockets that people had tried to upgrade. "At least do it in the first 30 days so we can do a store exchange for you." was her advice! Not very reassuring.

By the way, the sales person exchanged my Captivate's SIM card for an "LTE" SIM card. She did the activation so my number was live on the new SIM when I left the store.

She did offer me a number to call to speak to a Samsung expert at AT&T regarding the upgrade. Turned out that was just the normal AT&T customer support but they did have a representative that was knowledgeable on the upgrade.

Her advice was to make sure that the SIM card was removed before starting the process. If the phone rings in the middle of the process the phone could be bricked. As I had taken the new SIM card out of the phone at the AT&T store I was ready.

She stayed on the phone with me until the new image was downloading. We agreed on a time that she would call me back and I sat and watched.

The laptop I used was the same one that I had used to flash Gingerbread on my Captivate. That process used Kies Lite and the ICS process called for the full Kies.

As the process proceeded I got a message from Windows 7 (32-bit by the way) that a driver had failed to install. Then the upgrade process stopped and eventually got a "timed out" message. The message told me to where to restart the process.

This time it went perfect. Overall it probably took less than an hour. The image had to re-download which was the biggest time.

The AT&T customer service representative did actually call me back! By that time I was installing apps on the Skyrocket.

SG2, ICS, uSD, LTE, NFC and other TLAs

I seem to have this thing about immersing expensive electronics into liquids. I dropped my Samsung CL-65 into my soup on the Space Needle and recently washed my Samsung Captivate. Amazingly after 36 hours in a bag of rice it was perfect.

But still that was enough of an excuse to upgrade my phone. I had been lusting after a Google Nexus so I dove back into studying the specs. Surprisingly I discovered that the Samsung Galaxy S II (SG2) was very close and actually had a couple of features I preferred. Without going through the entire laundry list I liked the SG2's LTE capability, the Super AMOLED Plus, and the ability to use a microSD (uSD).

I found a couple of comparisons of the Skyrocket and the Galaxy Nexus. The one at geekaphone was typical.

The Skyrocket was offered by AT&T for $99 (with a 2 year contract) and the Galaxy Nexus was offered by Google for $349 (unlocked, no contract).

I couldn't decide and my Captivate was working fine so I did nothing.

Then the iPhone 5 was announced. With LTE. And you know Apple is going to insist that AT&T have their LTE network up imminently. Official word from AT&T was by the end of 2012. Then last weekend talk started surfacing on Facebook that LTE was live in the Memphis area. A friend pushed on his AT&T rep. who conceded that it was up all over town. A quick visit to the local AT&T store confirmed that it was up in my neighborhood.

Forget the Galaxy Nexus with that old fashioned HSPA+. I took home a Skyrocket!

So what about the Samsung Galaxy S III? Way too big!

I'll post more about the other TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) in future posts.

Here're a couple of photos comparing the Captivate to the Skyrocket.