Android

I picked up a Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S) phone a few weeks ago. It came stock with Android 2.1. 2.2 was the newest at the time (2.3 was just released today), and of course AT&T/Samsung is being slow on releasing the update in the USA. There was a slowdown on the GPS, so I decided to root it and put in a 3rd-party patch. I filled up the phone’s primary storage when trying to over-write the files to fix the issue. This caused the phone to not boot-up properly. Luckily there was a how-to out on the Tubes to fix it. So I restored the phone after a few tries. I figured since I when as far as fixing the phone, I should be able to upgrade it to a community ROM of Android 2.2. I re-rooted the phone and installed a couple of apps. After downloading and putting the new ROM on the phone, I then rebooted the phone into it’s restore mode and loaded the new program to install the fresh RPM. This took about 4-5 minutes, a bit longer than I thought. I thought I hosed the phone again. Then it started talking. Told me it loaded the 1st & 2nd stage of the OS. It finally came up to Cognitive 2.2beta.
I’m loving the phone so far. The GPS could get its lock a bit faster, but, I’m still pleased with it. I got most of the apps I had on my iPhone 3gs. And some things that even the iPhone can’t do. I’ve got Python installed and will soon be making some scripts to do some home automation as soon as I get the hardware. The mobile wireless AP is nice too.

Twitter

I finally got WordPress to update Twitter. After fighting an authentication issue with the Dev site. I got WP to talk to oAuth. Posts should now be appearing on Twitter.

Apple & Androids

For those living in a cave, Apple has released the new iPhone 4 as well as a new update to the iPhone OS. I have an iPhone 3gs, most of the features I’ve seen so far for iOS4, I have on my jailbroken OS 3. I really have no desire to upgrade the OS or get the new iPhone. Now getting a new Android on the other hand, sounds much better to me. Only problem is AT&T’s Android selection sucks compared to Verizon’s Droids. The Droid X looks pretty sweet. HDMI out, 720P video recording, and of course runs Android. It could use a front facing camera though.

Why do I like Android so much? It’s running on top of Linux and doesn’t lock you down like the iPhone OS.
Maybe some time soon, I’ll be able to put Android OS on my iPhone.

Apparently there’s a problem the reception with iPhone 4. If you hold with your left hand, the signal plummets. Why wasn’t this tested?

Anime

I’m starting up the Central Arkansas Anime Group meetings again. This time we’re meeting the 2nd Thursday, 6PM of the month at Conway Gaming Center. We watch anime every Thursday at 8PM at CGC, so, I figured it would be a good time to start up the meetings.

ARLUG

I’ve created a ARLUG Identi.ca Group to help spread the word about Linux in Arkansas. Post your Arkansas based Linux dents to the group using !arlug.

For those who don’t have a clue what Identi.ca is, it is a Open Source implementation of Twitter. I prefer Identi.ca over Twitter due to it’s based off of Status.net, and can be run of your own server. I run Status.net server over on GameSqueak.com.