The IT enthusiast

Review Samsung Chromebook Series 5 (3G).

2011-07-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

Au trecut deja cateva zile de cand mi-am cumparat Chromebook-ul Samsung (varianta cu 3G), asa ca am avut destul timp sa ma joc cu el si sa-mi fac o parere despre el. Sigur ca nu am reusit sa “explorez” tot ceea ce stie acest laptop, dar in cele ce urmeaza va voi explica ceea ce mi-a placut si ceea ce nu mi-a placut la acest device. De-a lungul review-ului, am scris cu verde acele lucruri care au fost gandite bine de Google, si cu rosu cele care au fost gandite aiurea, sau care ofera anumite beneficii in utilizare dar cu care nu ma pot eu obisnui.

Incep cu hardware-ul mai intai. Ar trebui sa-l plasez sub o categorie, ceea ce e oarecum dificil, asa ca o sa il numesc simplu, Chromebook. Asta pentru ca nu e nici netbook (care e ceva mai mic decat acesta), nici notebook (Apple are MacBook-uri cu dimensiuni mai mari, incep de la 13”). Si cu siguranta nu e nici tableta. M-am tot intrebat de ce nu o fi scos Google o tableta cu asa ceva (Chrome OS, sistemul de operare), dar mi-am dat seama ca nu prea ar avea rost. Google are deja tablete cu gramada (cu Android pe ele), asa ca probabil au vrut sa scoata un produs usor si portabil, care nu e o tableta. Si le-a cam iesit. Samsung i-a plasat dimensiunea exact intre cele doua MacBook Air-uri, dar nu prea se apropie nici de ele (ca si categorie in care l-as putea plasa).

Ca si plusuri aici imi place dimensiunea ecranului, dar si ecranul in sine (LED de 12,1 inch, foarte luminos, Google zice ca se vede foarte bine in lumina soarelui dar eu inca nu l-am testat in aceste conditii). Deasupra ecranului are un webcam, microfon, si un senzor de lumina ambientala, dotari destul de folositoare, zic eu. Toata conectivitatea de care dispune (cea prin porturi) e reprezentata de: 2 USB-uri, mufa pentru curent, un port miniVGA (cred, am primit in cutie adaptor la VGA pentru el), un port de casti/microfon (da, unul singur, cred ca se pot schimba functiile intre ele) si cititorul de carduri. Tastatura are taste mari, cu destul spatiu intre ele (e island type, ca pe MacBook-uri). In partea superioara, butoanele cu F-uri (pe care eu foarte rar le-am folosit pe tastatura traditionala) au fost inlocuite cu back-forward, refresh, full screen, un fel de change screen (poti sa ai multiple screens pe Chromebook), cele de luminozitate si de volum. Google/Samsung merita felicitari pentru ca incearca cu adevarat sa iasa din tipar, ca si Apple cu ale sale MacBook-uri.

Trackpad-ul e foarteeeee mare si raspunde foarte bine la comenzi, cel putin la degetele mele (sunt multi care s-au plans de senzitivitate, dar eu nu am probleme). Pentru a face click, by default, trebuie sa apesi pe trackpad, nu doar sa il atingi, insa poti sa apesi doar de la jumatatea sa in jos (destul de ciudat, desi nu ma deranjaza). Stie si multitouch, insa doar two-finger scrolling si drag-n-drop (click pe ce vrei sa muti, si apoi cu celalalt deget muti unde vrei respectiva chestie). Ca si greutate, are cam 1,5 kg (cum eu am fost obisnuit cu multe alte laptopuri, pare foarte usor). E extrem de subtire, nu stiu cum e in comparatie cu MacBook Air, dar va asigur eu ca e chiar subtire. Toata carcasa e construita in intregime din plastic, care desi scoate unele sunete cand il iei in mana/il misti, pare de calitate. La trackpad am observat cateodata un scartait mecanic, datorat faptului ca touchpad-ul nu e fix (cum am zis, trebuie apasat cand vrei sa faci click pe ceva). Bateria nu am apucat sa o testez, dar conform Google, ar trebui sa tina in jur de 8 ore jumate.

Trecem la software. Prima data cand l-am deschis, am simtit ca ceva lipseste, si anume sistemul de operare. M-am obisnuit insa rapid cu Chrome OS, care practic e doar browserul Google, cu toate aplicatiile si extensiile sale, plus cateva optiuni (ca si setari). Cand l-am primit, nu a trebuit sa-mi bat prea mult capul cu el, si-a facut singur update, am dat datele contului meu de Google, si el automat mi-a adus aplicatiile si extensiile. Simplu, rapid, eficient. Conectarea s-a facut simplu si rapid la reteaua wireless, fara batai de cap (eu am varianta cu 3G, la care am si 100MB trafic de internet gratuit pe luna de la Verizon cat timp mai sunt in SUA).

Ca si viteza, e foarte rapid deoarece e cam browserul Chrone care ruleaza de unul singur pe laptop. E rapid in limita procesorului dual-core de 1,66 GHz (Intel Atom) si a celor 2 GB RAM. Adica se descurca bine la incarcat majoritatea site-urilor, la schimbat taburi, la taskurile ce tin de acele aplicatii din Web Store. Dar daca deschizi un website mai mare, cu multe elemente, incepe sa aiba un pic de lag (in acel website). Insa in momentul in care deschizi mai multe website-uri de felul acela, deja incepe sa se tarasca. Sa nu uitam totusi ca a fost conceput ca si un dispozitiv portabil, nu ca un monstru de laptop de 15” si 4-5 kg care numa portabil nu e.

Boot-ul e ft rapid (sub 8 secunde), din stand-by iese in mai putin de o secunda, deci ceea ce a promis Google s-a si intamplat. Un lucru cu care chiar nu m-am obisnuit dar nu ma derajaza e faptul ca in momentul in care ridici ecranul, Chromebook porneste automat. Functia de guest mode e una foarte interesanta. Cand vrei sa ii permiti cuiva sa-ti foloseasca laptopul, pur si simplu apesi butonul power pentru cam o secunda, indeajuns incat sa iasa din cont si sa nu se stinga (cam in inca o secunda se stinge), si intri in Guest. Din acel moment, Chromebook nu mai tine date despre navigare, dar nici “nu isi aduce aminte” nimic din datele salvate din timpul in care ai fost logat pe contul de Google.

Nu cred ca se putea ca acest Chromebook sa nu aiba si dezavantaje, si inca unul care chiar ma “supara”, si anume Flash-ul instalat pe Chrome OS-ul din el. Ideea e ca videoclipurile merg foarte bine, doar ca pur si simplu nu poti face click pe niciun fel de buton din acel player facut in Flash. De exemplu, cand deschizi un videoclip de pe YouTube, acesta porneste de unul singur, si asa continua, pentru ca nu poate fi oprit, nu poti regla volumul, nu poti sa il duci in full screen, nu poti sa faci nimic cu el. Din cate am vazut, versiunea instalata e 10.2.158.28 iar Chrome OS-ul e up-to-date, deci deocamdata problema nu poate fi rezolvata desi sunt sigur ca Google va lansa un curand un update la Chrome OS menit sa rezolve problema. Totusi, YouTube mai poate fi folosit si in HTML5, care merge destul de bine (e disponibil pentru majoritatea videoclipurilor, nu pentru toate, si poate fi activat de la http://www.youtube.com/html5 ). Deocamdata insa, un punct in minus pentru faza asta. Cu atat mai mult cu cat YouTube apartine Google. Puteau macar sa faca videoclipurile sa li se deschida celor de pe Chromebook-uri direct in HTML5, pentru a nu face problema asta chiar asa de evidenta.

Si acum un lucru care creeaza destula confuzie: HDD-ul. Asa cum probabil ca ati citit, e un SSD de 16 GB, doar ca nu poate fi folosit. Adica singurul care il foloseste e sistemul de oprerare, pentru cache-uri. Eu am salvat o poza pe el Chromebook, insa inca nu imi e clar unde a pus-o, dar sigur nu e in Picasa (care acum ofera unlimited storage pentru dimensiuni mai mici de 2500 x 2500 pixeli). Cred ca e undeva pe HDD, si stiu ca e accesibila prin butonul downloads din...Chrome (si da, poate fi deschisa out-of-the-box, fara un program third-party). Un lucru interesant pe care l-am facut astazi: am downloadat un .xls, pe care am incercat sa-l deschid direct de pe Chromebook, insa nu il stie deschide. Asa ca am mers in Docs (Google Docs, am aplicatia luata din Web Store), am uploadat fisierul, si dupa ce l-a convertit intr-un format compatibil pentru aplicatie, mi l-a deschis exact ca pe un PC cu Windows si un Office instalat. Doar ca in cazul asta am platit doar 499 de dolari pe Chromebook, si nu un pret care se apropie de acea valoare doar pe licentele pentru Windows si Office.

Ar mai fi unele chestii de zis despre acest Chromebook, dar deocamdata ajunge. Acum sigur ca multi ma vor intreba daca “merita cumparat?”. Depinde. Daca sunteti genul celui care are nevoie de un laptop puternic, cu aplicatii dedicate pentru un anumit task, raspunsul e...nu prea. Dar daca aveti nevoie de un laptop portabil cu adevarat, cu browserul Chrome pe post de sistem de operare, si sunteti dispus sa incercati ceva nou, atunci da, cu siguranta ca merita.

In cazul in care aveti orice alt fel de intrebare, nu ezitati sa ma intrebati si eu o sa va raspund cat de repede pot.

Antennagate passed, Glassgate has just started. What's up next, Apple?

2010-11-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

The antennagate madness seems to be finished now (everybody knows now that Apple's faulty design is causing signal lose, or even call drops), and the next problem, generically named glassgate, has just started. It was believed that it was just the creation of the competitors, but it seems to be quite real now because Apple has taken measures against this problem.

It is not clear how resistant the glass from the back of the device is, as there were reports which said that after the device has been repeatedly taken out and inserted back from and in some cases, scratches occurred on that glass. It seems that dust particles can get stuck when the cases are inserted (between the case and the glass), causing serious scratches on the glass. In fact, these scratches will, eventually, create cracks on the whole glass surface from the back of the iPhone 4.

It seems that Apple is aware of this issue, because they pulled from the Apple Stores from all around the world all cases of this type (at least until this problem is clarified). So, if you don't have a case, you'll get call drops because of the way Apple designed iPhone's antenna. But if you get one (anything else except the bumper), you risk to have the glass from the back of the device even cracked.

I already see Apple telling everybody that their products doesn't have any issues, and users are the only ones responsible for that scratches/cracks (just as they did with Antennagate).

No Limera1n or GreenPois0n icon on iPhone/iPod/iPad's SpringBoard after Jailbreak? You're just doing it wrong.

2010-11-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

For those who didn't know, SpringBoard is the home screen of the iOS, the screen where all of your apps are located. I won't tell very much about Limera1n or GreenPois0n, they are just jailbreaking applications (Limera1n works on Windows and Mac, while GreenPois0n has a version for Linux also). Basically, they are quite the same thing (they're using the same exploit), and they work with any iDevice running 4.0, 4.0.2 or 4.2 firmware.

They are both very easy to use, you just have to download, run, and click "Make it ra1n!", and you'll be told how to put your device in DFU mode in order to start jailbreaking your device. A problem experienced by some of the people who tried jailbreaking their iDevices was that there was no Limera1n/GreenPois0n icon on the SpringBoard after jailbreaking (even though the applications said that jailbreaking succeeded).

The idea is that iTunes (it doesn't matter what version it is, it just needs to recognize your device) must be kept running while jailbreaking. Don't ask me why, I also had that problem, and when I left iTunes running while I used Limera1n, my jailbreak succeeded (when you see that drop rain on your iDevice, it means that jailbreaking succeeded). Probably, there's something in iTunes which allows the device to receive data while in DFU mode.

Who would have thought that there's such an easy fix for this problem?

If you're on Android, just don't use NetTraffic Monitor (from PopSoft) to monitor your traffic. It causes only issues.

2010-11-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

NetTraffic Monitor is an app from Android Market which claims to be capable of monitoring your data traffic. It seemed quite weird to me even from the first run, because it requested me super user access (I'm running on a rooted device), even though its only work was to view and count my traffic, and nothing more.

After I installed it, I observed that the internet over 3G/2G networks was no longer working (the device was sending data, but it wasn't able to receive back anything). Actually, I didn't realize that the problems started after I installed NetTraffic Monitor, it took me about 2 days to realize that (during that time, I spoke with my carrier, thinking that they had problems with the network).

The app indicated only about 30 kb during that two days on mobile data networks, and absolutely no traffic on WiFi, even though I probably had about 50 MB on it. So I decided to uninstall it because it was useless (I also realized then that the problems started after its installation), and after the uninstall, guess what? The internet started working normally, and I haven't got any problems since then.

The app is the first one if you search for "Traffic Monitor" in the Market, so just be careful what you install and what you don't.

Angry Birds, the popular iOS game, now available for free in the Android Market.

2010-10-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

Angry Birds is one of the most popular games for iOS, and it was bought by over 6.5 million people running Apple's devices (without counting those who downloaded it via Installous). A few days ago it has also been launched for Android, in the Android Market, and is now available for download, yes, for free. Of course that it includes ads, but they appear only when you are restarting a "mission" and only for a few seconds (2-3 maximum).

Just as I was expecting, it is a very addicting game, and I started liking it as soon as opened it. On my Nexus One (1GHz processor with 512 MB of RAM) the game runs smoothly, without any lag. I've first seen this game on someone's iPod Touch (3rd gen) and it really had lag. The high graphics the developers included in this game make it a must have one for any Android device.

As someone said, "Once played can't stop". Maybe only when your battery discharges completely. It has already over 250 000 downloads, and about 10 500 ratings. A paid, ad-free version is expected to become available later this year.

To download it, just search for "Angry Birds" in the Market, it should be available on Android Markets from all over the world. If you can't find it there, just request me a download link for it and you'll be able to download it directly on you Android device.

Limera1n/Greenpois0n and iPad on 3.2.2? Better...not.

2010-10-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

If you've got an iPad and you want jailbreak on it, my recommendation is to avoid the update to 3.2.2 (if you haven't done it already). My iPad was bricked today by a an app (it was stuck at boot logo), and I decided that because there was no way of recovering the data I had on it, the best option was to update it to the latest firmware, 3.2.2. But it turned out that it was a bad idea....

Everything went fine, iTunes 10 successfully updated it to 3.2.2, but the problems started when I tried to jailbreak it. Even though it seemed that the jailbreak succeeded, I couldn't find on the home screen the icon/shortcut/logo/app/whatever of the jailbreak tool I tried. I tried both limera1n and greenpois0n, on three different computers. One was running Windows XP, one was on Windows 7, and the other was on Mac OS X. However, on none of the them I got the icon of the jailbreak solution I tried. So, I couldn't get Cydia, so the jailbreak was completely useless.

I really don't know where's the problem, some people reported that both solutions worked fine from the first try on their 3.2.2 iPad, others reported that they tried of few times and than they succeeded, and others reported that they got in the same situation as me. I think that I tried about 25 times to jailbreak that iPad. I really got tired of these iDevices. Unjailbroken, the iPad it is just a bigger iPod, even a much cheaper Android-powered device being able to do much more that an iPad can. But if you jailbreak it (it's legal in case you didn't know, read more here), you'll get a big headache with all the bugs and problems jailbreaking brings.

I ended up by restoring the iPad to 3.2.1 (I had SHSH on file for 3.2.1, so it was quite simple), and I did the jailbreak using jailbreakme.com. If you're still on 3.2.1 (or 3.2) and you want jailbreak, make sure you do it before updating the iPad to 3.2.2, because at that time you can save your iPad's SHSH blobs without any problem.Having SHSH saved on 3.2.1/3.2 (or even on 3.2.2 if you get there with a jailbroken iPad) means that you can anytime downgrade/restore to the version you have that SHSH saved.

Use them on your own responsibility:

Jailbreak by limera1n (Windows, Mac OS X): http://www.limera1n.com/
Jailbreak by greenpois0n (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux): http://www.greenpois0n.com/

Ubuntu 10.10 is live, there aren't any huge changes.

2010-10-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, got today to a new version, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. This new version brings some changes, but they are small so the experience is pretty close to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. The themes (Radiance and Ambiances) were slightly polished, making Ubuntu a quite good-looking alternative for Windows or Mac.

One of the most notable difference is represented by the fonts. They look now much prettier than before. Below is an example:

The Ubuntu Software Center has also been changed, bringing you new features, such as "What's new", "Where is it", the ability of handling .deb files or paid applications. Actually, there's only one paid application now, but it is just for testing purposes, more are expected to come with Ubuntu 11.04.

The installation process has been completely redesigned. Andrew (from webupd8) shot a video of it:

Ouch, I was about to forget about it. There's also a new wallpaper into Ubuntu 10.10 by default. The old one, which has been a little redesigned compared to the one present in 10.04, created a real scandal and was changed after some users reported even a bug into it. So, it now looks something like this:

Other changes are represented only by under the hood improvements and updates to most applications, changes that are seen rarely or aren't at all for the end user.

Ubuntu is available for download from here.

Limera1n is available, jailbreaks iOS 4.0-4.1.

2010-10-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Limera1n has been released yesterday evening, and after geohot got angry and pulled the download link (I don't know exactly why), it seems that Limera1n is now available for download again on the official website. This new jailbreak tool promises to jailbreak almost any device running iOS 4.0 or 4.1.

The supported products are iPhone 3Gs/4, iPad, and iPod Touch 3G/4G. For the unmentioned products: iPod Touch 2G support is coming soon, while for the iPhone 3G you must use redsn0w. For the moment, limera1n is available only for Windows, the compatibility for Mac is coming soon.

Theoretically, limera1n does hacktivate your device (allowing you to use it with any carrier), but many people reported problems after hacktivating their iPhones with limera1n, so I don't recommend you doing this yet (limera1n is currently in beta 4).

Hope I don't have to tell you that you're using it on your own responsibility, it is an unstable release so don't expect from it to be bug-free. You might have to restore your device or you may even get a bricked one as a result of using limera1n!

Download from here.

We'll probably have an alternative to iOS for the iPad soon, and that's the Chrome OS.

2010-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm starting by telling that I have no idea about how popular "Hexxeh" is, but I never heard of him until now. And it seems that he isn't very popular on YouTube, as he has only a few thousands of views. But he did something really interesting, he succeeded to run the Chrome OS on the iPad. Yes, I'm sure you know, that OS created for netbooks by Google, running on the so popular iPad. So here's a video of what he did.

This seems to be quite real, because of two reasons: the first one is the pointer, which you can see that really moves when he clicks on something, and the second one is the speed of the OS, which shows that the Chrome OS might have been emulated on that iPad. Of course that there is a lot of job to do for Hexxeh, and one of the first things he needs to do is to improve the speed of Chrome OS (if he wants to release a official version of his work, of course).

In case you have issues with Market on your Android device, here is what you can try.

2010-09-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, there are somewhere around 100 000 apps currently available in the Android Market, growing faster and coming forcefully behind Apple's App Store (which has around 200 000 apps). Is isn't currently any problem for Apple, but there's a matter of time until there will be a real challenge for Apple to keep up with the incredible grown of the Android Market.

However, the Market (the place from where apps for Android are officially installed) isn't a perfect app. Actually, it's quite buggy, maybe too buggy in some situations. Nexus One, a device on which the Market worked perfectly and which is considered "the Google Phone", got some problems since it was updated to 2.2. There weren't big problems until about a month ago, and, from then, my phone fails most of the times to install some updates (when more updates are available in the same time).

This is a common problem on many Android devices, and here is what you can try in order to get Android Market working properly. First, disconnect your device from wifi. Then go into Settings | Applications | Manage Applications | All (if these steps doesn't correspond to your device, just find in the settings the list with all apps).

From there, scroll down to "Market", tap on it, and then tap "Clear data", "Clear cache", and "Force stop". This will practically clear everything Market had saved about your apps. Then, connect again to wifi, and start Market. You'll be asked to Accept the "Terms of Use", and then it will list all your installed apps and the available updates on "Downloads" (just like it was before).

Now, just don't force it to update everything. Update every app from the update button (inside the app page), and make sure you don't update two or more apps in the same time. Otherwise, it will continue failing to update some of the apps.

Keep in mind that this is just a temporary solution, and doesn't work at all times. Additionally, make sure you have enough free internal storage memory on your device, as this could be the problem in some situations.

Apple just released iTunes 10.0.1, fixes lots of bugs.

2010-09-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

Apple has just released a new version of iTunes, 10.0.1, which brings improvements to Ping (more exactly, it adds a new sidebar for it), and fixes lots of bugs. Here's the changelog of this update:

iTunes 10.0.1 makes it easier to share your favorite music with your friends on Ping. You can now Like or Post about music right from your iTunes library. You can also easily see the recent activity of a selected artist in your library, or of all artists and friends you follow on Ping using the new Ping Sidebar.

This release also provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Addresses an issue where the picture quality of a video changes depending on whether the on-screen controls are visible.

• Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly quit while interacting with album artwork viewed in a separate window.

• Fixes a problem that affects the performance of some third-party visualizers.

• Addresses an issue where the iTunes Library and playlists appear empty.

• Resolves an issue that created an incompatibility with some third-party shared libraries.

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.

• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.

• Play your favorites on the all new iPod Touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.

• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.

• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.

• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.

• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

It is not clear if this causes any problems with jailbroken devices, so if you have jailbreak on you iDevice, just stay away from it for now.

You can either get this new version via the Apple Software Update utility (on Mac), or you can manually download it for here (Windows & Mac users).

Twitter under attack, stop using Twitter.com until the problem is fixed.

2010-09-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

If you're an user of Twitter, you probably observed today that many of the persons you follow are tweeting strange things. The idea is that there's an exploit in Twitter.com responsible for that. More exactly, the website fails to disallow the "onMouseOver" JavaScript command, which means that if you move the mouse over the offending tweet, you'll automatically retweet that tweet or you will be redirected to another website.

This is how a message like that looks like (DO NOT click on that links!!):

http://a.no/@"onmouseover=";$('textarea:first').val(this.innerHTML);$('.status-update-form').submit()" style="color:#000;background:#000;/

or another one:

http://t.co/@"onmouseover="document.getElementById('status').value='RT Unlevin ';$('.status-update-form').submit();"class="modal-overlay"/

It seems that most third party clients aren't affected by the exploit. Stop using Twitter's official website for now, as the strange messages are still coming in. Anyway, DO NOT click on the websites that tweets are linking to, they can possibly try to insert malicious code in your computer.

Twitter didn't announce anything about this until now, but they'll surely notify users when Twitter.com is safe, so follow status.twitter.com for latest news.

Facebook's policy becomes more and more abusive, tries to stop you from connecting to anybody.

2010-09-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Facebook takes more and more aggressive (and of course, abusive) security measures, turing some users against it. The first time I realized that Facebook exaggerates was when I was on a holiday and I tried to login from my phone. It simply told me that my password wasn't correct, even though I tried logging in for about 10 times (that was on the "Touch" version of Facebook).

OK, so I tried then logging in from the desktop version (again, from my phone), and surprise, it logged me in but I had to confirm that I was... me. That was, in fact, the reason for why I wasn't allowed to login from the "Touch" version of Facebook (how difficult can it be for the guys from Facebook to make it possible for that verification to be done from the "Touch" version?).

Recently, when I was again on a holiday, it happened the same thing, but this time I was requested to do a stupidity. It showed me 8 randomly pictures (if I remember correctly), from all of my friends albums, and I was asked to choose who that photos belonged to from a list of six friends (six different friends for every photo). I have a lot of friends with hundreds of photos, how do I recognize somebody if I only see a photo from a party where that person was, photo is which there are 20 persons dancing?!

This evening when I wanted to add somebody as a friend, Facebook told me that invitations from strangers (yes, they were referring at me) are temporary blocked, and that the person that I invited was going to receive that invitation later (OK, it didn't sound exactly like this, I'm not getting that anymore, but it was something like that). But how the hell do Facebook know that I'm a stranger to that person?!

For the same person (yes, I didn't give up), now it says this:

This Request Can't Be Sent

Do you know this user personally? To prevent misuse of Facebook, this request can't be sent. To learn more, please visit the Help Center. If you believe you're seeing this message in error, you can report the problem.

And this is not the first time I'm getting this. Somebody told me that I get this because the person I'm trying to add as a friend blocked me before, but if I keep trying, it will work, in the end.

I don't know where they are planning to get with these policies, but, unfortunately, the only thing they are doing is to turn the people against Facebook.

Beautiful "Day of Ubuntu" Live wallpaper changes the look of your phone depending on the outside time.

2010-09-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

"Day of Ubuntu" Live wallpaper is definitely one of the best live wallpapers available for the Android-powered devices. This is its secret. It changes by itself, depending on the time the device has. For example, the below photo was taken at 10:30 P.M., and the time which was represented on the wallpaper corresponds to the time which was outside at that time.

This type of live wallpaper isn't something new, there are few more wallpapers like this one on the Market, but I think that this is the best of them. It takes only 800 kb, it doesn't create any kind of lag on a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, it looks great on Nexus One's high-resolution screen (480 x 800 pixels), and it seems that the battery drainage is extremely reduced. Your device must support Live Wallpapers, otherwise it won't work.

Search it in the Android Market: "Day of Ubuntu".

P.S.: I'm not using the native Launcher, that's why my dock looks like that.

How to install Frash (Flash) on your Jailbroken iPad (the easy way).

2010-09-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest disadvantages of browsing the web via the iPad is its total lack of Flash, which makes it not that web-friendly. Apple claims that Flash sucks, that it uses enormous resources, that it is slow, it drains battery fast and many others. That's why they probably won't ever accept Flash on the iPad.

Actually, Apple is that one which sucks here, because Android shows that Flash can run decently on smartphones. OK, without counting on what's on YouTube, I can tell you that Nexus One is compatible with 99% percent on what's out there (yes, on the internet), and on over 90% of all websites containing Flash content, Nexus One is capable of playing that content smoothly.

Returning to iPad and Flash, there's a way of installing something like a Flash, named Frash, on it. But firstly, you need to know that you must have a jailbroken iPad. And you can jailbreak it only if you're on iOS 3.2.1 or below (sorry if you're on 3.2.2). For the right firmwares, just use http://jailbreakme.com/ (I hope I don't need to tell you that you're doing it on your own responsibility).

Then, after you finished jailbreaking your iPad, you must start Cydia, go to Manage | Sources, and there add http://repo.benm.at . After you've done that, just search for "Frash" on Cydia. Install it, and, bingo, you have....Flash, on your iPad. You just need to type on what's Flash content on websites in order to display it, but, unfortunately, it isn't as compatible as it should be.

I mean, stuff like ads work perfectly, but where we are talking about games or videos, you'll be disappointed. Mainly, they won't work at all. So, even with this trick, iPad's style of browsing is still far away from where's Android's browser.

If you haven't got the new Twitter interface (yet), you don't have to worry, you will be getting it soon.

2010-09-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

You probably heard about the Twitter's new interface which has been released on Tuesday night (September 14th). I didn't write anything about it because I didn't have time for almost anything on the last few days. So, this is one of the most important changes Twitter did to its official website until now.

However, there are some users who don't see the change even two days after the change has been released (I also don't have it). The change is rolling out progressively, so there might be a few more days to wait for some users to get it. As it writes on its official blog, the update started rolling out on that night for a very small number of accounts, and it's probably still rolling out for some accounts.

What's changed, as I've told you, is the interface which has been redesigned, maintaining its simplicity. Twitter also got more user friendly. It's now possible to view embedded photos and videos from DailyBooth, deviantART, Flickr, Justin.TV, TwitPic, USTREAM, yfrog, YouTube and others. You can now see related content, meaning you can see replies to a tweet, other tweets by a user, the location from where a tweet has been sent, and more. Moreover, you now have "mini profiles", which allows you to view quick information about someones account, without having to leave the page you're on.

Over the following few weeks, both versions of Twitter will be available. The possibility of changing between interfaces allows you to accommodate easier with the new one. We'll see how the users will reaction when the old one won't be available anymore (because there are people who don't like the progress and the change).

Antennas Android app allows you to see where the GSM towers used by your phone are located.

2010-09-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

Antennas is a very simple but useful Android app, which is designed for those who wish know where the GSM towers to which their phones communicate with the network are located. The app also gives details about GSM/CDMA cellular status (and the RF strength). It works the best with 2G, as the 3G/CDMA support is limited by Android. Because of this, users are reporting a reduced accuracy on 3G/CDMA. However, on 2G it should be working just fine.

The app takes only a little over 35kb, and it works just perfect for me (I'm running on a 2.2 Nexus One on 2G). The towers seem to be located really accurate. It is possible to view their location in two ways, on a normal (Google) map or on a satellite map (Google Satellite).

You can download it from the Market by searching "Antennas" (first result, app created by mploy).

Microsoft tries desperately to attract the attention of Windows Phone 7, organizes weird parade.

2010-09-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

Microsoft organized something like a parade with the occasion of launching the RTM version of Windows Phone 7, which isn't the version that is going to be the present on the devices that will be shipped with Windows Phone 7 on board (what I'm trying to say is that the RTM version, or Release to Manufacturing, isn't the final product, it's the version which has been sent to manufacturers in order to allow them to prepare themselves and their devices for the final launch of Windows Phone 7).

Returning to the parade, what Microsoft did was to dress its employees in all kind of zombies, clowns and women in pink, celebrating, along with the launch of Windows Phone 7 RTM version, the death of iPhone of BlackBerry. They actually carried on the streets a dead giant iPhone and BlackBerry, trying to show everybody that the Windows Phone 7 is just near the corner.

One thing is clear, there's a total desperation in what Microsoft did, and what they probably wanted to say is "Death to iPhone and BlackBerry, the Windows Phone 7 domination starts". Windows Phone 7 looks good from what I've seen on YouTube (the interface is completely changed and the OS has been highly optimized). However, I doubt they have any chance on a highly competitive market, such as the US, where the market is shared by Android (with HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc), iPhone and BlackBerry.

Anyway, why they didn't say anything about Google's Android?

More on Gizmodo and Engadget.

Veetle - Broadcast live streaming video in HD, or how to watch the newest films for free.

2010-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Veetle is an internet-based service which allows users to share video content with the others, in a free and comfortable way. Anybody can share anything, obviously, as long as the content isn't illegally shared by the person who shares it. The idea is that as long as you're watching them you won't have any problems, but you might have problems if you're the one who shares them and you are not allowed to (you didn't pay for that content).

It has some disadvantages, however. Everything is shared by users, on users' computers, so if the user looses the connection or doesn't have enough bandwidth for sharing with everybody, the channel will become unavailable or it will play badly (with frequent stops). But, mainly, the idea is good. Right this moment, there is Iron Man 2 broadcasting on a channel and the quality is somewhere around 7-8 on a scale from 1 to 10. If the user continues broadcasting, the following film will be "Robing Hood" (users have the possibility of creating a schedule of their channels).

It is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, and all that you have to do is to go here and download it. You'll automatically receive the version of Veetle according to your OS. There's no stand-alone app, practically spoken. That's just a script that's going to allow to watch you directly from your browser (just go to Channels on Veetle.com).

Please note that it isn't compatible with all browsers (it runs just fine on Google Chrome on any OS).

VLC for iPad sent to Apple for approval.

2010-09-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

VideoLan sent their free media player, VLC, to the approval process at Apple. If everything goes well (it shouldn't be any problems as the app doesn't break any rule, but we know Apple's style of denying apps for absolutely no real reason....), users will be able to play all kind of multimedia content on their iPads.

You won't be obliged to convert all of your videos to H.264 in order to get them working on your iPad, you will be able to put videos in any kind of format on your iPad, because VLC has plenty of codecs for almost anything (passing the limits QuickTime has).

This is a video demonstrating how VLC works on the iPad.

You can read more on Gizmodo.

Samsung S2 are quite good external HDDs. Unless you're going to use them with Multimedia Players (Popcorn Hour/WD HD TV).

2010-09-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

Samsung S2 external HDDs are quite attractive products. Mostly because of the variety of capacities, and because of the available colors. So, they look good, they are perfect for backups, and they work well (I get somewhere around 25-30 MBs reading/writing rates on my computers). But if you're planning to use them with multimedia players, such as Popcorn Hour or Western Digital HD TV Media Player, they are going to give you an enormous headache.

I also got one, a blue one, with 640 GB, and I have some issues with it. As long as it is on FAT32 file system or HFS+ (Apple native), it works like a charm, both on my Popcorn Hour and on my WD HD TV. But when I'm converting it to NTFS, it is completely unreadable by my both multimedia players.

WD HD TV used to say that it didn't recognize it, but after I was told that an unofficial firmware might make it work with my HDD, now it doesn't react at all when I'm connecting my HDD to it. On Popcorn Hour, it simply says that "USB failed". I tried connecting it through an external USB hub (which was externally powered), in order to exclude the possibility of failing because of not getting enough power, but the S2, formatted on NTFS, won't work at all.

I found on some forums users complaining of this (reproducing exactly the same situation, the S2 work on these multimedia players as long as it isn't formatted as NTFS), but there's no fix for this (only some suggestions that were tried by everybody having these issues, suggestions that don't help).

If you're stuck here, you can format the external HDD as HFS+ (FAT isn't an option, as it has limitations), and then install MacDrive on your Windows computer (unfortunately, you have to buy it), which will give you the possibility of both reading and writing to HFS+ partitions from Windows. I don't know if MacDrive can format the HDD as HFS+, because I did it from my MacBook.

Anyway, the idea is that if you want to buy an external HDD and you're planning to use it with a multimedia player, you should avoid Samsung's S2 external HDD.

iOS 4.1 expected today. Jailbreakers must stay away!

2010-09-08T04:44:00.000-07:00

Dev Team announced today that all those who need jailbreak and unlock must stay away from iOS 4.1, which is expected to be available today through iTunes. Especially those who need unlock, they should not update in any situation as the update will also update the baseband from the device and there's no way to downgrade or to unlock it.

If you have SHSH saved for any iOS version before 4.1, you will be able to downgrade the iOS, but the baseband will be still blocked. Saving SHSH is highly recommended, because if you got any issues with your current jailbroken iOS and you have to restore when the iOS 4.1 will be available, it will automatically restore your device to iOS 4.1, situation in which you'll be stuck with an firmware which can't be jailbroken (and the saved SHSH allows you to downgrade the firmware).

Don't buy a Transcend RDP7 USB card reader + USB hub if you're on Windows 7. They aren't compatible.

2010-09-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

Transcend has a very interesting product, named RDP7. It supports almost all kinds of cards, and, in the same time, it's also a USB hub. As it's written on the official website, external hard drives shouldn't be plugged in the USB hub (probably because the hub does not get any external power so it isn't able to handle external hard drives), and this should be the main disadvantage on this product.

The extremely short cable might also be a problem, because if you don't have the computer on the desk, you won't be able to use the hub very easy.

You can also consider connecting this product into another (externally powered) USB hub, which should allow you to use the RDP7 in a comfortable way. That's what I did, on my Windows 7 based computer, and....surprise, try to shut down the computer, if you can.

When connected through the other USB hub, my computer gives, in most cases, blue screen during shut down and it restarts by itself. When connected directly to computer, it doesn't give blue screen, but, however, Windows fails to shut down and restarts by itself. The problem isn't, most probably, caused by the product, but by the ~~excellent~~ poor drivers included in Windows 7. I came to this conclusion after seeing that Windows XP shuts down just fine, on the same computer, with the RDP7 connected.

So, if you consider buying this product, or a similar one, make sure you check if it's compatible with your OS (don't read only on official website, there was written that the RDP7 is compatible with Windows 7), and, in any case, ask at the store if it's possible to return the product within a few days (this will help you in case you're not satisfied with your product).

Android sales increased by 886% in Q2 2010, overtaking Apple's iOS in the US.

2010-09-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Android sales simply exploded in the Q2 2010 by 886% worldwide (or 851% in the US), Canalys reports. It seems that Android has overtaken iOS in the US, having 34 percent of the market share. Android is followed by RIM, with 32% of market share, and, on the third position, by Apple, with only 21,7% of market share.

However, reporting to the worldwide market share, Nokia is the leader, with about 38% of the market. And this comes mostly because of the second largest smartphone market, China, where Nokia has an astonishing percent of 77%.

You can find more details on SlashGear.

Motorola tries to sell its Droid 2 by making fun of iPhone's lack of Flash.

2010-09-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

You probably remember Apple's campaign with the apps from the App Store, yes, that one with "That's an App for that". Motorola, taking the example of Apple, makes fun of its obstinacy for denying flash on its iDevices, starting its own campaign, named "Flash Websites? There's a phone for that". The phone which is advantaged by the campaign is, of course, Motorola's Droid 2, which has recently been launched.

This is nothing more than a hit in Apple's face, which has been aggressively attacked from all directions with the Antennagate madness, which, paradoxically, has drastically increased the request for the iPhone 4. The original Droid was sold quite good, so, considering this, I'm expecting for the Droid 2 to be a successful device. And this will, definitely, increase the market-share of Android, which, according to some recent studies, has overpassed Apple's iOS market share in the US.

Google Chrome 7 dev version is available for download.

2010-09-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

Google launched their seventh dev version of Chrome, the browser which attracts many people by combining the minimal design with sophisticated technology, making it one of the fastest and one of the most advanced browsers available. I'm using it on both my Linux and Mac OS computers and, as expected, you won't see any important changes compared to the previous version.

Of course that there are many changes, but almost all of them are in the background, and they are not observable for the end-user. If you're on Mac, you'll feel that the loading time of the webpages was reduced, making it impossible for any other browser to keep up with it (Safari, Opera, or the so acclaimed Firefox). Most of the webpages load, literally, instantly, and if there are any delays, they are caused by the DNS or by the latency of the network.

Regarding the update, if you're on Linux and you used dev versions before and updated the system regularly, you already got Chrome 7 dev.

If you are a Mac OS X or Windows user (or a Linux user who needs the dev version), here is the official link where Chrome 7 dev is available for download: Google Chrome 7 Dev (it should automatically give you the version of Chrome according to your OS).

Testing Toshiba Camileo S20 HD camcorder.

2010-09-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

Toshiba Camileo S20 is an low-level camcorder (it's somewhere around $150 in Romania), but it really impresses me. I was expecting to be just a camcorder with which you can just play a little, and nothing more (considering that I had before a P10 which I changed with the S20), but it definitely exceeded my expectations.

It's very thin (only 17mm), extremely light (I was searching the battery on the pack because I wasn't thinking that a camcorder can be that light with the battery inserted), and the design Toshiba gave to it makes it look really good (much better than the P10). It can record at both 1080p and 720p resolutions (the 4X zoom is available only for 720p and below), and some of the features it has are "Macro" mode, Slow Motion, Pre-recording, Motion Detect and many others (the P10 didn't have them, P20 might have them but as the specifications from Romanian websites selling these camcorders are very poor, I can't be sure it has).

It also has image stabilization, and the camera can shoot photos at 16 MP. The resolution is very good for a camera of this type, but, however, I wasn't able to take clear photos from a very short distance, even with Macro mode activated. Anyway, the photos I took outside look absolutely brilliant. The 3" LCD screen is quite poor, and even if the photos/videos don't look pretty good on it, when you put them on your computer, they are perfect.

Camera startup time is more than acceptable (it turns on and off automatically, but you also have a button to turn it on and off manually), and I think that the pre-recording and slow motion options are the features which make this camcorder to worth buying. You just push the pre-recording button, and when you see something interesting, you just push the recording button. This way, you can recording the lightnings very easy. Practically, when you push the record button with pre-recording on, the previous 3 seconds prior to pushing the record button are also added to the recording.

If you consider buying a camera like this, here is what you also need to know: in the pack, you're going to find the power cable, USB cable, a TV cable and a tripod (it's very useful), and of course, the quick start guide. And, if you buy one, don't forget to remove the insulator from the battery, otherwise it won't charge. Both photos and videos are accessible directly via USB, without the need of any additional software (like Sony does). What is also important is the container of movies, which, in this case, is AVI (QuickTime won't play it if you're on a Mac, but VLC does it smoothly, and it should be doing it on any platform).

Here is a video I recorded today in Hungary. My opinion is that the image is just perfect.

Solving AccuWeather's app force close problem (Android).

2010-09-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you're an Android user, you probably know that after the latest update, AccuWeather app stopped working and everybody complains about this (any device, any Android version). It simply force closes after the launch. It seems that AccuWeather is never going to update that app, so I found a way of getting AccuWeather data on your device, under the same interface.

There are more AccuWeather apps in the Market, if you search for them. However, I've found one which really works, so if you search for "ACCU WEATHER Quick" (yes, ACCU WEATHER with capital letters), you'll get an AccuWeather app which really works. It seems to be released by Accuweather.com (nobody knows exactly), and it has a few bugs, but at least it works. Some users reported problems with the widget, problems that I don't confirm. There were also reported some problems with the accuracy of displayed information, but as I've just downloaded it, I think that the information is quite accurate.

So, go to the Market and download "ACCU WEATHER Quick" app to see if that one works for you.

iPhoDroid, the simplest way of installing Android on you iPhone, is available for download (Windows).

2010-09-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

iPhoDroid is probably a really waited application for lots of iPhone users. It allows now the installation of Android on your iPhone, under Windows operating systems. However, it is not clear if it is compatible with any Windows or with any iPhone, but it should work over XP and Vista (both 32 and 64-bit platforms), and for the 3G iPhone (from what I've seen on YouTube).

I don't know if it works with Windows 7 or not, or for the other models of iPhone, but as long as you haven't found anyway a confirmation that it works with your OS and with your iPhone, I don't recommend you trying this. Moreover, you're doing everything on your own responsibility, so if something goes wrong, you might have to restore your device.

Direct download for official site (please notify me if the link becomes unavailable): iPhoDroid download.

Breaking: Apple announces new iPod shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod Touch models.

2010-09-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Apple has just announced a new iPod shuffle, a new iPod nano, and a new iPod Touch.

This is the new iPod shuffle:

The new iPod nano is here (what's the most important feature, is, of course, the touchscreen):

And the new iPod touch is also here (with its new Retina Display and front and rear camera):

All photos are from Engadget, and the prices for these products are:

$49 iPod shuffle
$148 8GB, $179 16GB iPod nano
$229 8GB, $299 32GB and $399 64GB iPod touch

Apple's Keynote Live on any OS!!

2010-09-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here is where you can watch Apple's Keynote live, from any OS.

There are lots of users currently watching this (Apple's own stream isn't currently working), so if it loads slow just be patient (or try refreshing it).

Watch live streaming video from gizmodo at livestream.com

Twitter API changed (again), most third-party clients are failing to authenticate.

2010-09-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

Twitter announced on its official blog that starting from August 31st, its API is going to be changed. All third-party clients/applications are now logging on via OAuth, a new method of authentication that doesn't require them to store your username and your password anymore (this has the purpose of increasing users' security). This new change requires some changes in all third-party clients/applications, changes that the guys from Twitter say that they have been done.

They say that most clients, such as Echofon, TweetDeck, Twitterific, Seesmic, and Twitter for Android, iOS and BlackBerry are already authenticating through OAuth, which is not true. TweetDeck, Seesmic and Twitter (all on Android), are all refusing to sign in. I've last checked a few minutes ago, and there is no update into the Market (for any of the specified apps) to fix this problem. Bad, very bad, Twitter!

If it's necessary, I can make a video for Twitter (or for any other company providing third-party clients for Twitter), proving that the mentioned clients cannot connect at all.

Is Facebook down at this moment? Some users report so.

2010-08-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

There are some users currently (1:50 PM GMT time) reporting that Facebook is down, via Twitter. It is not clear, however, what's happening, because there are other users reporting that Facebook works just fine for them. I have to mention that Facebook works for me quite well. Downrightnow.com, which is the website that monitors lots of services and reports if a service or another is working or not, is currently displaying Facebook as "Likely Service Disruption".

This state comes from users that reporting both on Twitter and on downrightnow that Facebook is down, while the Facebook officials didn't confirm (yet) that their service has any kind of problems.

If you want to see the progress of Facebook, just follow downrightnow.com. If you are an user of Facebook, please leave a comment telling us either if you have problems in accessing Facebook, or if works fine for you.

AMD officially killed the ATI brand.

2010-08-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

AMD decided to kill the ATI brand after they made some studies which showed that people don't care too much about it. In case you didn't know, ATI has been bought a few years ago by AMD, because it wanted to enter on the market of graphic cards (and AMD considered that buying ATI and starting a fight directly against NVIDIA was the best option).

Starting from now, every new card which will be released by ~~ATI~~ AMD is no longer going to be called ATI. This is a bad news for some people who really liked the ATI brand, as they might now consider of turning to NVIDIA. Or....not. But, anyways, I don't see this as a quite intelligent move made by AMD. First graphic cards to be named AMD are going to be launched later this year.

OK, this is going to be really weird. How can you say AMD Radeon 5870?

Samsung sells over 1 million Galaxy S devices in the US.

2010-08-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

Samsung announced that it sold over 1 millions Galaxy S phones in the US, fonarena reports. Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Mobile, says that the availability of Galaxy S to a large number of carriers, has given to millions of customers the chance to getting one.

Galaxy S is currently sold in the US under the following names:

Samsung Captivate (AT&T)
Samsung Epic 4G (Sprint)
Samsung Vibrant (T-Mobile)
Samsung Fascinate (Verizon)

Moreover, it is soon going to be available at U.S. Cellular and Cellular South.

It is the time for Apple and RIM to wake up and see the reality. Selling 1 million devices on a highly competitive market isn't really easy. Samsung has became an important competitor on the market, and surely this hits directly Apple and the market-share of its iOS.

Read more on fonearena.

Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha changes its look, I hope you like orange....

2010-08-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 10.10 gets, while still in Alpha 3, a quite big change at its interface. The default wallpaper has been updated a little (this isn't that big change), but there were new, much cooler wallpapers added from which to choose. Its theme has also been updated, and even if the older one was changing with every update, it has been removed and newer Ambiance and Radiance themes were added.

Ambiance looks really good, nice finished, not like the older one, which seemed so unfinished. Regarding to the new Radiance, it looks so...white. It isn't currently very pleasant for the eyes (it's 9:30 P.M. right now and it's completely dark outside, maybe because of that), and, most probably, changing the brightness of the monitor to a (much) lower value would make it pleasant (or trying it while there's sunny outside).

Anyway, you will feel with these new themes like you are returning a little bit in the past. They are bringing back some of that orange I liked very much at Ubuntu, but now it is much more vibrant than before. Window buttons, which are still on the left side (and I hope they'll remain there), look quite strange now. They are a little bigger than before, but they are interesting.

I can't take screenshots (I don't know why, Ubuntu simply doesn't want to take them), and that's why I am sending you to my friend from WebUpd8, which has made a few screenshots of everything which is new in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta.

I want to remember you that on September 2nd the Beta version of Ubuntu 10.10 is going to be released, the Release Candidate comes on September 30th (it represents around 95% of the final product), and the Final Release is expected on October 10th.

Fennec (Mozilla Firefox) for Android, or how to run out of storage on your device.

2010-08-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

The first Alpha version of Fennec (a.k.a Firefox Mobile) has been released yesterday. The advantage which Mozilla wants to use against other browsers is the possibility of adding add-ons in the browser, in order to increase its functionality. Mozilla says that their new mobile browser tries to bring the desktop experience (which is not something extraordinary, however), on the mobile devices.

Everything looks good, at least in theory. In practice, the program itself takes around 30 MB just to install, and this is way too much for some Android devices (eg. Nexus One, which has only <200 MB internal storage). I've successfully installed it and I remained with only around 100 KB free storage on the internal memory. But there's a problem. When I launch it, the screen stays blank and then it returns to launcher. The application has the possibility to move to SD card, and I've done that, but the situation remains the same (the application doesn't launch).

You can read more about Fennec and download it from the official Mozilla blog, here. If you want to install it, make sure you have at least 30 MB of free internal storage, otherwise the device will warn you that you're completely running out of internal storage.

TweetDeck announces new Beta version for Android, includes few new features.

2010-08-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

TweetDeck announced today their new Beta version for Android, v0.9.5. This new version brings some updates and features, such as:

Full compatibility with all Android 1.6 devices and above.
Added option to remove Facebook, Buzz and ForeSquare accounts, but also to delete tweets sent by you.
Added multi-Twitter account compose.
New More button for Twitter profiles and updates, allowing users to: Reply All, Sharing, Translation, Copy update text, Copy update URL.
Tapping on top of a column automatically updates that column.

I really used to be a fan of TweetDeck when I was a user of iOS, but now my favorite Twitter client is HootSuite (both on my Android device and on my computers). TweetDeck seems so unfinished on Android (it's normal, however, as it is still a Beta version), and I think that just the possibility of using other social networks from the same client (such as Facebook or Buzz), isn't a good enough reason just to choose TweetDeck.

The complete changelog of this new Beta version of TweetDeck is available here.

TweetDeck v0.9.5 is available for download from here.

Exclusive: Install Google Earth 1.1 on your Android 2.2 device (without Market) !!

2010-08-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

You probably heard that today Google launched "Google Earth", version 1.1 for Android 2.2 devices. It should be normally available for download via the Market (as everywhere writes that) or via a scan of its QR code, but, unfortunately, it isn't. Or at least, I can't find it in the Android Market, and there are many users complaining about this. If you are one of these users, I have a good news for you. I found a way of installing Google Earth on Android, without the use of Market.

We are going to use another application in order to install Google Earth, and app that has similar functionality to the Market. So, open the Android Market, and search, download, and install "AppBrain App Market". In the meanwhile, go to AppBrain.com from your desktop (most recommended) and create an account using your Google account.

When you finished creating your account, open AppBrain App Market, and sign in with your Google account (you should see in the upper right corner "Sign in"). When you have successfully signed in on your account in AppBrain App Market, go again in the Android Market, and download "Fast Web Installer". It will ask after launch for the permission to your Google account, so give it, and then the app will quit by itself.

The following step is to go on your browser from your Android device to AppBrain.com (you should be automatically logged on; if not, login with your Google account), search for "Google Earth", click on the first result, and then click "Install" (not "Download directly from the Android market!). The download will start automatically, and you'll have Google Earth on your device installed in a few moments.

So, enjoy Google Earth and if this really helped you, please share this page with your friends! :-)

HootSuite say Twitter API is currently experiencing a critical issue that affects some third-party clients.

2010-08-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

HootSuite announced on their official blog that Twitter's API is currently experiencing a critical issue, and that is the reason of which some third-party clients (including HootSuite), have some problems. They said that "Home" and "Mention" streams are currently not updating correctly, and this also affects the users of iOS and Android. Additionally, some users may also experience crashes when they try to view certain streams.

They also said that the guys from Twitter are aware of the problem, and they are working in order to fix this.

You can view the current status of Twitter's API here.

Seesmic force close problem was fixed a few minutes ago via an update !!

2010-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Seesmic announced a few minutes ago on their official twitter account the availability of an update in the Market, which promises to fix the problem with the Twitter API users from all over the world had today (which was causing Seesmic to force close). However, it seems that the problem has been fixed for the previous version also (maybe Twitter changed something at their APIs in the same time?).

The new version is 1.4.3, and yes, I confirm that it fixes the problem.

Setting up WDS between Asus WL 520GU and 520GC + WPA encryption gets the whole network into a conflict.

2010-08-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided a few days ago that in order to improve the security of my wireless network, I should change the encryption of the network from WEP (which can be decrypted in under 60 seconds, that's proved), to WPA (which can resist even a year to a decryption attack, experts say). The reasons was that I had some doubts about the devices operating on my network, but everything is clear now (I have over 10 devices usually connected on the network).

I have two Asus routers, a WL 520GU one (with print server), and a WL 520GC one. I've written some time ago an article on how to set up WDS (or Wireless Distribution System) between them (a method of improving signal into your house for example, by setting them to operate in the same way, under the same name), which is available here (it should be applicable to almost any other models of Asus routers).

So, let's return to the problem from the title. I've changed their both encryption method to WPA, and I've let them continue working. Everything worked smooth for a few tens of minutes, than my devices were disconnected.They reconnected very fast (a few seconds), and continued working, again, for a few tens of minutes.

Then, suddenly, the entire network crashed, all devices were disconnected, and all tries to reconnect failed, as the main router (from which comes the internet connection) was refusing to give addresses to the devices requesting them. I said that it refused to give addresses, because it is practically the one doing the whole job, with the second one only repeating what it "says" to the network. As I wasn't able to receive the addresses, there was no possibility of getting into the routers in order to check the reports to see what could possibly fail like this. A restart of the routers (disconnecting their power cables) made the network start working again (this happened somewhere around 1:30 A.M. in the morning).

And they continued working until the following afternoon, when the network crashed again, creating exactly the same situation. I've searched for an update for the firmware of the routers, but there wasn't any. I've also searched to see if somebody else was having the same problem, and I found a few users reproducing quite the same situation, but the provided fixes were not helping at all.

I changed the encryption back to WEP in that afternoon, and everything has been working perfectly since then (very stable). I can't imagine what could be the problem that caused that crashes, probably that there's an incompatibility between these routers when they're operating in WDS while encrypted with WPA.

So, I repeat. If your Asus WDS crashes while secured with WPA, try changing that with WEP. Hope this helps you.

Apple about to patent a technology that allows them to detect if your iPhone was stolen or jailbroken.

2010-08-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Apple has made something like a....passion from patents. The last thing they want to do is to implement a technology which can detect if your phone has been stolen. This technology should help you in case if your device was stolen by notifying you about this situation and allowing you to remotely find it. However, the situation can stay a little bit different in practice, because Apple might be able to audiovisual spy you, by detecting if somebody with a different voice or face is using the device, and shutting down the device remotely.

But what's really worse, the technology should allow Apple to identify if the device has been jailbroken and unlocked, so they might have the possibility to kill the device remotely. A line in the patent also mentions that cellular carriers could shut down or cripple the device, if it is detected as jailbroken.

That's a good news for the retail, but for the customers, it is definitely something unacceptable.

You can read more on Engadget.

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, declares really interesting things.

2010-08-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, claims that the young users of the internet will have, most probably, to change their names in the future because of data explosion and the lack of privacy which, in his opinion, is going to be a real problem. He warns that those users who share a lot of data on the internet, for example, their location in real-time with the help of FourSquare, are at an enormous danger. By regularly following somebody's location, there is a possibility to predict that that somebody is going to be in a certain location, at a certain time.

What's worse, Facebook is the social network which is going to create the biggest problems for the young users of the internet. Eric says that by a simple search, pretending that you're a teenager now, any employer will able to find out anything about you. Practically, all what's there is only user generated content. The employer will see what you've done on Facebook, you're profile data, what you've shared with others, you're comments, and even your photos, so the employer can immediately make an idea of who you are.

And the problem is that this data can be stored even for many years, so even if you've changed a lot and you're a really serious person now, because you had a lot of fun 10 years ago and you seemed like a crazy person, for example, an employer might refuse you.

He even says that CIA doesn't need to work very much to profile you. You already profiled yourself. They just need to browse a little bit, and they'll find what they need. They recently bought web software capable of predicting the future, and this is something which says a lot.

Only the time can prove that what Google's CEO predicts now is true. And if it is, I don't see a bright future for many of us (nowadays teenagers).

Ubuntu 10.04.1 released, if you used Update Manager regularly, you already got it.

2010-08-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 10.04.1 has been released, WebUpd8 announced yesterday. Like usually, this version puts together all the updates that Ubuntu 10.04 had until now. So, if you used the update manager regularly, you already have it. It has been released just for those two want to make a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (because this version has all the updates until now and they don't have to wait to download and install them).

This is what is called a maintenance update, and it's available for both desktop and server versions, and for both i386 and amd64 architectures.

It's available for download at the known, official download page, here.

AccuWeather Android app gets an update which breaks it.

2010-08-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

AccuWeather.com is probably one of the most known weather websites in the world (together with weather.com), and it has, of course, a dedicated app in the Android Market. It has been recently updated (I don't know exactly when because I just came from Greece and I couldn't see there any updates because of the weak connection I had), so I updated it today.

It has a much cooler interface than before, but, unfortunately, it crashes every time I try to open it. It can be used for about one second, then, it stops working and has to be force closed. I'm running Android 2.2 on a Nexus One, but it seems that this doesn't matter, as everybody reports the same problem after update. I've already reported the problem, and the guys from AccuWeather have to move fast, because even if the app currently has 3 stars and a half, I'm sure that its rating is going to fall soon.

Availability of iPhone 4 for 17 more countries has been announced yesterday by Apple.

2010-07-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Apple announced that the iPhone 4 comes to another 17 countries via its Retail and Online Stores, and also via its Authorized Resellers. These countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Honk Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. This is going to happen this Friday, on July 30.

If you hope to get an iPhone 4 in one of the mentioned countries, you should pre-order (if it's available) it at an Apple Retail or Online Store, or at an Authorized Apple Reseller (the best is at the carrier which has an exclusive contract with Apple) as soon as possible, because there are expected important problems with stocks (and big delays, as Apple can't currently keep up with the request only from the US).

If you want the full article, view Apple's press release here.

Hi5 email finder, or how has been the privacy of hi5 users completely violated over the last few years.

2010-07-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

When hi5 was launched, it had a reduced number of members. Over the years, it became more and more popular, so there were many people interested in finding out email addresses of the people which were having profiles on hi5. When you sign up, you have to give hi5 an email address which has to be verified after, address with which you're going to login every time you use hi5. So here started everything.

When you register hi5, you have to agree with some terms of use (which nobody reads). And there, you agree that, even if hi5 will not make your mail address public without your permission, it has no responsibility for any failure of their systems. Somehow, it has been discovered that it is not quite complicated to gain access to the addresses from which users are logging on.

So, if you know someone's hi5 profile, you can paste the link of his/her profile into a website, which will return you the email address of the person whose email you want to find. And this happens without his/her permission. First websites of this type were created long time ago, and they are still working pretty well.

Hi5, which is "the authority" which should have done something in this situation long time ago, didn't move a finder to change something until now. It simply let the privacy of the users to be violated. Over the time, it has been shown that hi5 very vulnerable against many attacks/exploits, so, what's worse, an email address of somebody can be found even if that person has his/her profile private!

An example of a website which can do what I told you is yahoo-invisible.us (this one can find only profiles which were registered with Yahoo! emails). Personally, I don't support this type of websites, but I just wanted to show you how easy is to violate the privacy of millions of users.

Will you be still using hi5 from now? Do you agree to have your privacy violated this easy?

Android 3.0 test build already done?

2010-07-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Kevin Krause, an editor from Phandroid presented a photo on the website with a device which seems to be running the Android 3.0. From the photo, we can see that it's a Nexus One (this is what's written in "About"), but it is not known why the upper part of the device has been covered with a sheet of paper.

As some users said, it is a high probability for this photo to be a fake one, as it's easy to modify what's written in "About". However, I think that there's a change for the Android 3.0 to be already released for a small group of Android engineers, for testing/developing purposes.

Anyway, I have to warn you. If you see on the following period a build which claims to be the Android 3.0, don't install it until a confirmation from reliable website in the domain is received. Just be patient, and don't make something you'll regret later. I don't think you want a bricked phone...

More on Phandroid.

What do you think about this photo?

BREAKING: Jailbreak & Unlock for the iPhone, now officially legal in the US.

2010-07-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

The US Government announced today big changes for all iPhone/iPod/iPad users. Starting from today, Jailbreaking and Unlocking of these devices, along with rooting of Android devices and ripping of DVSs (for educational purposes only) are completely LEGAL into the United States, unless they are violating copyright law.

This is a major hit Apple's face, who, because of its strict policy, didn't let users install unauthorized apps. This decision is a big news for users who were afraid that jailbreaking could bring them into illegality, so, starting from now, they can jailbreak and unlock their iDevices without any fear. However, it is not clear if Apple's policy is still applicable, as they might still refuse to offer support if the device was jailbroken (I'm not sure if this decision puts them into illegality if they continue doing that, we'll most probably get a clarification of this on following period).

You can read more on this subject on Redmond Pie (they've also included the new DMCA legislation).

Review of "VirtualBox 3.1 - Beginner's Guide" book.

2010-07-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

“VirtualBox 3.1 - Beginner’s Guide -- is a book released by Packt, a publishing company which produces books and eBooks for administrators, developers, but also for newbies. This book is organized in 8 chapters, each chapters being organized in more parts, making it easier to learn and understand what the book contains. A free chapter (like a demo for you) is available for download here.”

This is a book designed for the beginners, as the title say, but I would definitely recommend it to anybody (even to the experts) who would like to use the virtualization. It starts by telling you the minimum resources your computer should be having. Whether your on Windows on Linux, you don’t have to worry, because the whole process, from starting the download to finishing the installation is explained clearly in words, and with the help of images at every step. Whether you had never “touched” VirtualBox ever before or not, it is practically no way to get stuck.

I have to tell you that the Guide is designed for VirtualBox 3.1, the newest version of VirtualBox being 3.2.6 now. However, 99% of what is presented in this book is still correct. VirtualBox has been created by Sun, which has been recently bought by Oracle, who, of course, got everything Sun had (including VirtualBox), in their “property”. Even if after that significant improvements were done to the VirtualBox ( guest operating systems run mainly better now), many people say that Oracle killed the VirtualBox, because there are currently several problems present. However, as I’ve already told, 99% of what is in this book is still applicable, because, theoretically, everything remained the same.

I told that I recommend this book even to the experts, because, even if it explains things like configuring (in a basical way) VirtualBox and downloading an image of an operating system, installing it and running that OS, the author also explains things that I couldn’t pass using my own knowledge. It explains anything, from 3D hardware acceleration for the guest OS, to the best configuration of the HDD, and from the optimal network configuration, to the remote control of the operating system (these are advanced things). Of course that it also explains you what you can do with a virtual operating system (this is useful if you come from Windows for example, and you have never used Linux before).

The reason for which the author chose VirtualBox is simple in my opinion. It offers anything a newbie or an expert would wish to do via virtualization, and more than this, it is free. If you are a beginner in virtualization and you buy this book, I recommend you reading it all (there is a common English used, so even if you’re not a native English speaker, like me, you’ll surely understand anything), or, even if you know how to use VirtualBox, there is a possibility to get stuck somewhere, so having this book on your desktop would be a real help in this situation.

At the start of each chapter, there are some lines which tell you exactly what you’re going to learn. After you finish each chapter, it will give you advice on what to do (eg: to continue practising what you’ve learned), and it will also summarize all that the chapter has covered. At the end of the book, there are more quizzes which will help you to verify the knowledge you accumulated. This is something that I like and I think that they are really useful for everybody.

To conclude, I think that “VirtualBox 3.1 - Beginner’s Guide” is a book that is worth buying, because it addresses to absolutely anybody who uses or intends to use the virualization on his/her computer.

Samsung presents a very resistant, flexible, AMOLED screen.

2010-07-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

I know that this is not something new, but I saw it yesterday and I think that this is something that will drastically change the way we use and "communicate" with our phones in the future. I'm talking about a new screen from Samsung, which produces screens for many of available smartphones on the market. As we all know, AMOLED (or Active-Matrix organic light-emitting diode) and Super AMOLED (both from Samsung) are the best screens for smartphones, used by several manufacturers, competing directly with LG's Retina Display, which is used by Apple on the iPhone 4.

I think that with this new type of screen, Samsung continues to show its supremacy on the market, placing LG and its so congratulated (by Apple) Retina Display under it. In the video below, you'll see Samsung's new screen in action. Even if this flexible screen is folded in half, it continues to display the image without any problem, and to demonstrate its resistance, it was hit many times by a hammer, without getting broken at all.

An exact date of launch has not been specified, but it is expected to hit the market within the following two years.

Fixing "SD card damaged. You may have to reformat it" issues on HTC Nexus One/Desire.

2010-07-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

I've got today this issue after I transfered a file from my computer (Ubuntu) to my Nexus One (which runs the stock Android 2.2). After I clicked "Safe Remove Hardware" in Ubuntu, I got the following error on my Nexus One: "SD card damaged. You may have to reformat it". I've searched for more hours on many forums, and it seems that this is more a regular problem for HTC Desire, rather than for the Nexus One (only a few Nexus One users reported this problem).

To be more exactly, this problems seems to be caused by a poor quality of the microSD with which these devices come. I've tried fixing this by rebooting the phone with/without the microSD card inserted, or with apps from the Market, but neither of them worked. I was not at home and I didn't have a (external) card reader with me, so I got stuck there for the moment.

After I got home, it took me some tens of minutes after I got this fixed, so here is what I recommend you doing. Insert the microSD into a card reader, because in this case you have access to what's inside it. Copy all the files on your computer (for backup), and then, using a utility application which can deal with storage drives and partitions, try to completely format the microSD using FAT file system.

I've done it using "Disk Utility", a program which comes preinstalled with Ubuntu. I'm not sure, but the default Windows partitioner should be able to do do the same. I've also tried formatting the microSD directly from the phone but it didn't work.

After you finish formatting the microSD, copy back all your data to it (do not delete your data from the computer yet! keep that for backup), insert it in your phone, power it up, and wait. If everything is fine, the device will start, slowly, to display all data you copied back to the microSD. Music and pictures are going, for example, to be displayed gradually (it may take a few minutes to display all music and pictures). If this happens, you may now delete the data kept for backup in your computer. The only problem is that I don't have anymore all apps I had installed on the microSD. Excepting this, everything is back and working.

If you still have problems or you need help with formatting your microSD, don't hesitate to request help via a comment.

TouchWiz from Samsung working on the Nexus One without root.

2010-07-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Somebody from xda-developers claimed that he ported Samsung's TouchWiz to Android 2.2 for the Nexus One. Even if some users said that this is something great, what I think is that Android's 2.2 default interface looks 10 times better than Samsung's TouchWiz, but this doesn't matter. What is important is that that person worked to do this, so that's why we have to appreciate his work.

He said that it works on the FRF83, so if you're FRF91, I can't guarantee you that it will work. I wasn't able to install it, as the user said that it needs to be installed with adb. It fails to install normally ("There is a problem parsing the package"), and, from what I know, adb means Android Debug Bridge. If I'm right, there's a quite complicated process which needs to be done, but you can try (use Google, it will help you) if you want to.

Via Engadget.
Original Source and download on xda-developers.

Samsung sends free Galaxy S devices to unsatisfied iPhone 4 users (UK users only).

2010-07-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

It seems that Samsung offered free Galaxy S devices to users who declared themselves unsatisfied by Apple's iPhone 4. The only thing that these users from the UK to which Samsung sent these devices did, was to complain on Twitter about the iPhone 4, so that Samsung contacted them offering free Galaxy S devices.

It seems that this is a tactical move made by Samsung, which tries to make a little advertising to its devices in order to increase its market-share. Of course that these devices were sent to people who are really influential, so if you are a normal Twitter user, don't even mind trying to receive a free Galaxy S. You can try if you really want, but there is almost no chance of getting one. And don't forget, devices are being sent only to important people from the UK.

iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G users have to save SHSH Blobs from now!

2010-07-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

If you're having a 3G iPhone or a second generation iPod, you didn't have (until today) to care too much about saving SHSH Blobs. We are talking about those who have jailbroken iDevices, of course. So, these applied, until today, for the 3GS iPhone/3G iPod and later iDevices.

Starting from now, SHSH Blobs must be saved by iPhone 3G/iPod Touch 2G users, because Apple stopped signing digitally for older firmwares for these devices. If you have one of theses devices, changing firmwares was easy, you just had to select an firmware and click update or restore and then to do jailbreak, depending on the situation.

If you update today, for example, your jailbroken iPhone 3G from 3.1.3 to iOS 4.0, and you didn't save the SHSH Blobs for your device, there's no way of turning back. You'll be stuck on iOS 4.0, with iTunes giving you an error when trying to downgrade (restore to older firmware). And this happens because, as I've already told you, Apple stopped signing older firmwares for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 3G.

So, you really have to save them (just for any case). On your jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch, open Cydia, and tap on "Make my live easier, thanks!". This is all, it's really simple.

If you're asking what this does exactly, here it is: when iTunes will try to downgrade your iDevice, instead of asking Apple's servers for approval, it will call Cydia, which will, if you have saved your SHSH Blobs, give iTunes "OK for downgrading".

Update: Another virus hits Yahoo! Messenger.

2010-07-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

A virus which is not new to Yahoo!'s network seems to be hitting it again. A Romanian website for security warns users of Yahoo! Messenger about its existence and offers help in fixing it. This virus sends various links, most of them referring to Facebook (so this creates confusion between users). Some of them are pasted here:

http://ow.ly/2D4zB?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
is this you on pic? http://ow.ly/2cWs2?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
foto :D http://ow.ly/2d3aB?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
foto :D http://ow.ly/2cTes?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
foto :D http://ow.ly/2bmMb?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
foto :D http : //ow.ly/2b7Xp?=www.facebook.com/photo.php
foto :D http://ow.ly/2aG6r?=www.facebook.com
foto :D http://ow.ly/2arJj?=www.facebook.com
foto :D http://ow.ly/2aHoc?=www.facebook.com

The virus asks user to download a file, which is, of course, the virus. Here are some examples of files containing the virus:

012457566896789-JPG-www.facebook.com.exe
PIC348u6234-www.facebook.com.JPG.exe
n719753102_09.JPG-www.facebook.exe
n11975310_09.JPG-www.facebook.exe
n11975310_09.JPG-www.facebosok.exe
n777719102_09.JPG-www.facebook.exe
102_09.JPG-www.facebook.exe
9.JPG-www.facebook

Normally, an antivirus program should detect the malware and remove it, but if it doesn't (or you don't have one), you may download Palevo Removal v2 from here. This program should automatically close the virus and remove it. All you need to do then is to reboot.

Note: Windows 7 and Vista users must click "This program works correctly" when prompted.

Thanks to the Romanian website called IT Security which made everything possible. (Google translated webpage here).

Update: The admin from IT Security warned me that the virus is downloading more and more files with strange names (it's quite impossible to keep up with it). He also told me that using Malwarebytes should help much (download here). Make sure to update after installation and then perform a full scan.

Motorola Droid X doesn't really breaks if you install a custom firmware on it.

2010-07-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

There were lots of discussions about the recently-launched Droid X, and why it seems to get broken when trying to install a custom firmware on it. Motorola came up with an declaration, claiming that these who tried custom firmwares on their phones didn't actually break them, their phones just went in recovery mode by themselves.

What creates the "problem" is eFuse, which is an system designed by Motorola to verify the bootloader which runs on their phone. More exactly, if eFuse detects unapproved software, it will automatically enter the phone in recovery mode. When the user tries to boot with an official firmware, eFuse detects that as an approved software, and lets the phone boot normally.

This is really interesting, I am sure that there will be soon methods of avoiding eFuse (or making it think that custom firmwares are actually approved software).

Apple still doesn't admit that iPhone 4 has problems with signal reception.

2010-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Everybody hoped that Apple will, in a final, admit that the iPhone 4 has problems with signal reception, at the conference they organized today. But Apple still doesn't admit this, saying that "phones aren't perfect", and declaring that BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Omnia II have the same... little issues. This surely wasn't the answer that anybody wanted to hear.

The only good news is that Apple will offer free Bumpers for everybody who own an iPhone 4 (what an incredible fix, Apple!), and when they will run out of Bumpers, another accessory for your device will be offered. But this happens as long as you bought your phone before September 30th. They also claim that they spent over $100 million in special rooms, where they tested iPhone's antenna, and they didn't discover any problem.

Moreover, they also said that only 0.55% of iPhone 4 owners called AppleCare to complain about the reception issues. If anybody finds details about this problem on the internet, who they think that is going to call them just to be told that the phone doesn't have any problem with antenna?!

Personally, I am completely disappointed by this policy of Apple. Are they ever going to admit (maybe in the following 50 years) that the iPhone 4 had problems with antenna?

iOS 4.0.1 and 3.2.1 hitting the iPhone and the iPad. Jailbreakers MUST stay away!

2010-07-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

Apple launched today two updates, one for the iPhone (4.0.1) and the other one for the iPad (3.2.1). It seems that these updates are patching the exploits used for jailbreak, so the guys who are working on these solutions are telling everybody who need jailbreak and unlock to stay away from these updates.

The only thing that the update does on the iPhone is to fix the signal issues (or at least, this is what Apple says). It is not confirmed if this fixes the issues or not (however, it seems that Apple silently recalled the iPhone, because many people who got their phone replaced are no longer complaining about the signal issues). I didn't find out yet what the update exactly does one the iPad.

I just warned you about what these updates do, but I won't offer you solutions for jailbreak at all. If you need, search on a dedicated website for something like this.

Syncing Palm handhelds (running PalmOS) with Ubuntu 10.04/10.10.

2010-07-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

If you have an Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 and a (older) Palm handheld, you probably want to synchronize them, especially to install programs on your device (I have a Zire71, which doesn't have WiFi, so the only way of installing applications is via a computer). We'll be using "gnome-pilot" in this purpose. So, go to Synaptic Package Manager (System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager), search for "gnome pilot", and install it.

After you installed gnome-pilot, go to Start | Preferences | PalmOS Devices, and click Add. Now make sure that the port/hub in which the handheld is connected is working, and your device has enough battery. If you had your device synced before, click on "Get from PDA" button, and tap on the sync button on the dock. If that doesn't work or it's the first time you sync your device, give it an owner name, and an ID (it doesn't matter what ID, I put 1000), click "send to PDA" and tap the sync button on the dock.

If that succeeded, close that window, and on the "Conduits" tab, enable all settings you want. Make sure that conduit "File" is enabled. When you're ready, right-click on panel (the bar with Applications, Places, System, etc) and click "Add to Panel". There, select "Pilot Applet" and click Add. A black-and-white icon should appear on the panel (if you can't find it, ask for help).

All that you have to do now is to download applications for your PDA, and to drag and drop them over that icon. When you tap on the sync button on your device, it should be automatically installed on your device. I know, it isn't intuitive, but you can't say that it's difficult.

If you have any problems, don't hesitate to leave a comment and I'll be happy to assist you.

Nexus One trackball flashing in different colors (Android 2.2, -no root required-).

2010-07-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

If you own a Nexus One, you probably know that there is a conflict between Google on one side, and developers and users on the other side. This happens because users and developers want the trackball to flash in different colors, and it is not known why, but Google doesn't want this.

I don't know if this is a feature brought by the Android 2.2 update, but, without any root, the trackball from the Nexus One can actually flash in different colors. You can have any color you like: Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Cyan, White, Magenta, Purple, and if you now the hex codes of the colors, almost any other color (or a combination between them). I'm not sure, but what I think is that there is only a single LED, capable of flashing in different colors, and not more LEDs, every flashing in its own color. But this doesn't matter.

What's important is that this feature is working well on Android 2.2, FRF91 Build, without root. I'm now asking myself were the hell are the developers, and why they didn't develop yet their applications with this feature. They can make the trackball to flash blue when you receive a reply or a DM on Twitter, and yellow when you get a message on eBuddy, for example.

Search for "LED Tester" into the Android Market (it's the second result, that one with the blue trackball at its icon).

if it doesn't work work for you, please leave a comment telling the version of Android, its build, and if your device is rooted or not.

Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 getting out of control.

2010-07-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I presented you Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (here), telling you that it has some bugs at sound (it doesn't work at all with some sound cards) and at booting procedure (or more exactly, it fails the installation procedures and is forced to boot in live CD). However, there is another critical bug that I experienced a few minutes ago.

Here are some details: Pidgin + Chrome were running (nothing else) while I was notified that Gwibber crashed (it was not running, I didn't open it). Everything is...normal until now, I periodically receive notifications telling me that Gwibber crashes (even without running it). But what happened after was....let's say, normal for a pre-release version of Ubuntu. The main problem is that you it makes it difficult to save what you were working on at that time. This is what I'm talking about.

When Gwibber crashed, "Report a problem" has opened, in order to let me send details to developers, to help them fixing the problem. And it seems that, I don't know why, "Report a problem" crashed after that, too. And again. And over and over again. I think that every second, two windows of that type were appearing. That's not much, I know, but for my desktop, which doesn't have video hardware acceleration (lack of drivers), they are a real problem, as it is hard to save anything.

So, here's a new bug that developers need to fix for the final release of Ubuntu 10.10.

Yahoo! Messenger login issues?

2010-07-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Since this morning, I've been experiencing important problems when logging in into Yahoo! Messenger. In the morning, I started my desktop PC on which I got the following message several times when I tried to connect from Ubuntu, with Pidgin

Account locked: You have been logging in too frequently. Wait a few minutes before trying to connect again. Logging into the Yahoo! website may help.

followed by

Received invalid data.

After all these messages, it simply connected by itself. I thought that it was a problem with the way Pidgin was authenticating on Yahoo!'s servers, but in the after-noon, I tried to login from a Window-based laptop, on Yahoo! Messenger 10, and surprise. It said that my password was wrong. OK, I gave it another try. And then another one. And I continued like this five more times.

In an end, I got an error which said that the messenger can't communicate normally to its servers (actually, my password wasn't wrong). After I got this, I successfully logged in at the following try.

I have no idea which is the problem, but I hope that Pidgin was wrong. I mean, I don't login frequently on Yahoo! and, anyway, I think that it was referring that somebody tries again and again to login from my account so it was locked because of this (exactly, I'm afraid that somebody tries to hack it).

If you have this problem please don't hesitate to leave a comment telling us also when your problem started!

New YouTube mobile interface.

2010-07-08T01:40:00.000-07:00

YouTube launched a new interface for their mobile site, one which is more complex and more touch-friendly, making it easier and faster to access both videos and all other stuff (subscribes, favorites, like and unlike for comments, and even a possibility to play videos in HQ). The interface is designed to bring users a very similar experience compared to the desktop version of YouTube.

Here is a video from YouTube showing the features of the mobile version (I don't know what was in their mind when they put the Nexus One and the iPhone together).

This website surely is a fresh breath of air for the iPhone users, but is it worth on the Android? I mean, YouTube says that it is fast and with many options, but the YouTube app from Android is just the same. Moreover, the app looks better on the dark interface.

Which one are you going to use? m.youtube.com or YouTube app from your device?

Using social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or LinkedIn? Then, try HootSuite.

2010-07-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

HootSuite is a professional social client, featuring various platforms: Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Page, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace and Foursquare. I presented you some time ago Seesmic's web service (here), and the main difference between them is that HootSuite is much more complex and supports other platforms, not just Twitter.

There are many things you can do with HootSuite: track results of your websites (only for WordPress), add contributors to your account (who can post from your account), schedule posting at certain time/date, monitor mentions or assign tasks to your contributors. All those in a well organized screen, with a theme of your choice (you have 3 themes to choose from).

Posting is done easily with a large number of options, and with the option of selecting the network on which to post. If you are confused about changing settings, viewing your stats or managing plugins, just hit that owl on the upper left corner of the window.

Go now on http://hootsuite.com/, create an account, and start using all of your social networks from one single place.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Alpha 2 is available.

2010-07-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know which are your feelings about Ubuntu 10.04, but I have the impression that it was just released. And I have to tell you, that on the 3rd of June, the development for the following version of Ubuntu was officially starting, with the launch of Alpha 1. Today, we already have the Alpha 2, which has been released on the 1st of July.

You're probably curious to know the changes now. So, they aren't really important....interface was a little redesigned, a change that is even hard to see at a first look, boot time seems to be improved a little...and some bugs related to the sound and booting procedure. The rest is the same.

The schedule has been changed this time. We have 3 Alphas, a Beta, the Release Candidate and the Final Release. So here's the schedule:

~~3rd of June - Alpha 1~~
~~1st of July- Alpha 2~~
5th of August - Alpha 3
2nd of September - Beta
30th of September - Release Candidate
10th of October - Final release

You can download the current build (Alpha 2) from here.

Chrome dev version fixes most of the problems.

2010-07-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

You probably read my article about that stupid bug from Chrome, which keeps aleatory some windows unmaximized even if they are maximized, right? (more here). And you probably seen (or not) Andrew's comment from WebUpd8, who recommended me today to try the latest unstable version of Chrome, which is an Alpha one.

It seems that this version fixes this the bug that I had. It adds some updates to the interface. That loading signs from the tabs have changed colors, and the interface at tabs and at the buttons under them seems to be a little redesigned. Loading speed of webpages has been improved. However, remember that this is an Alpha version and it can crash when you need it more, so this version is more recommended for testing purposes.

If you want to install it and you already had a version of Chrome installed, I recommend you doing it via Synaptic Package Manager, in order to avoid any conflicts that might occur from installing the latest version over the previous one. If you didn't have Chrome yet, go on SoftPedia here and download the latest version corresponding to your OS. Please note that the latest version on Linux is 6.0.453.1 dev, so try to search the same version for your platform.

Apple promises to fix iPhone 4 signal problems via software update, experts say it's impossible.

2010-07-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Apple published today a letter regarding the iPhone 4 and its signal problems. Officially, it seems that the device really has some problems with the signal, and not the users were actually causing that problems (letter is available here). Apple declared that they have a failing algorithm which calculates the power of the signal, and explained the problem into the letter. They also promised that they are going to fix that problem via an update (in a few weeks), thanking everybody for their patience.

The wireless specialists don't agree with Apple. However, they say that the thing with the bad algorithm can be true, an update can possibly improve the accuracy of the displayed bars (they aren't currently displaying the real signal). But, there still is a problem. The phone loses completely the signal while in the hand, and this isn't a problem caused by a badly configured software. The experts say that this is a problem with the design of the device, when you cover with your fingers or your hand the region which causes the current problems, it will lose the signal in any situation. It doesn't matter what software it is or how it is configured, this is simply a problem with the design of antenna.

I'm curious to see what happens when Apple will launch the next update, and which will be the people's reaction if the wireless reception problems will not be fixed.

Full article on Gizmodo here.

Google Chrome Beta has at least one serious bug.

2010-07-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

I observed this bug several times over the last few days, and I decided to tell you about it. It happens randomly (I haven't observed to occur regularly on a certain website) when you're trying to maximize a window while being unmaximized. The page simply remains unmaximized, even if the window is in full screen. I took a screenshot to get an idea about how something like this looks like.

If you get here, what you have to do is to copy the link and open it in another tab. Unmaximizing and maximizing the window or refreshing the page does not work.

This happens on Ubuntu, with the latest Beta version of Chrome installed (5.0.375.86).

Nokia prototype (possible N9) gets on the internet.

2010-07-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

The guys from TechoBuffalo got a Nokia on their hands, which seems to be the predecessor of N8, the N9. What is not clear is why is it (still) running the Symbian OS, because Nokia promised that all their high-end devices which are going to be launched after the N8 will be running the MeeGo OS.

Here are some of its specifications:

nHD Display (640 x 360 pixels)
4" capacitive multi-touch Display
8 MPx camera with LED flash
possible VGA camera with LED flash on front
HDMI out
Bluetooth + WiFi

You can find more details and images (+video) on TechnoBuffalo.com.

Yahoo! launches broken Android application.

2010-07-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! launched two own applications for Android, Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. I've installed them both, and I must tell you that I am disappointed by both. The messenger is completely useless. It connects to Yahoo!, but it doesn't display any contact as online. All my contacts are seen as offline, even if I currently have about 45 of them online (and visible, of course).

Regarding to the mail, it works, but it does it really slow. Too slow for a mail client, in my opinion. Viewing through the content of the mails is fine, but the time from when you select another mail and you view it, is simply too much. On a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of ram, with Android 2.2 Froyo installed. OK, if it works like this on Nexus One, how does it work on slower devices?!

Have you installed these two programs? How are they working (if they are...) on your device?

iPhone 4 available in the Eastern Europe, at prices nearly $3500.

2010-07-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

A few days ago some users from Twitter discovered that an online electonics shop from Romania has the iPhone 4 in its offer, at a price somewhere under $3500 (32GB model). Everybody hoped that it was a mistake, or at least, that the guys from that website were kidding, but after somebody contacted them, we found out that the information was, unfortunately, true.

Today somebody found out that another online store has included the iPhone 4 in its offer, at the same price. I don't know who the hell they think that is going to buy an iPhone 4 at that price, I mean, if somebody can find an iPhone 4 in an Apple Store in the US, he/she can bring it here and pay under $1000 for it. However, because of Apple's problems with stocks, iPhone 4 is currently a hard-to-find product almost anywhere.

These prices are available at regular online stores from Romania (which are not Apple dealers and I think that they don't even have the right to resell iPhone 4 here).

If you live near Romania (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, etc) and you know that iPhone 4 is available there, we would be glad if you can tell us its price (and if it is locked on not).

Microsoft say they sell 7 copies of Windows 7 every second. You have to be kidding, right?

2010-06-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft announced a few days ago an information which is quite suspicious, at least for me, and I think I'm not the only one. They said that they sold 150 million copies of Windows 7, meaning they have been selling 7 copies every second since they launched it. 150 million Windows 7 sold? 7 copies every second? Hmmmm....

Let's calculate something. Let's say that those 150 million copies, were all upgrades, to Windows 7 Home Premium. Its price is $120. This means that... they had somewhere about $18 billion income (yes, $18 000 000 000). But I'm sure that they also sold lots of Windows 7 Ultimate full version, at the price of $320. These numbers, for a company which is still market by the fail of Vista, seem that to be not pretty real. I don't say that Microsoft is lying, I say only that it is hard to believe something like this.

What do you think? Do these numbers seem real to you?

More on Microsoft's blog here.

Google removed remotely two applications from some Android devices. And what?

2010-06-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, an announcement came officially from Google who said that they removed two applications from the Android Market. The cause was that those two apps were simply not doing what they were intended to do. They were made by a security researcher, and even if they weren't developing any malicious activities or saving sensible data, because they violated Android's Terms of Service, Google decided to remove them. Till now, everything is OK.

But, what created notable flames on the blogs/forums/social networks was the information that Google, in order to remove completely that applications, also removed them (remotely) from the phones of some users who downloaded them. Personally, I don't see what is the problem in this, and why some people became...upset because of this. I think this reaction of Google was something normal.

Google affirmed that the two applications could be used in attacks, so, considering this, I really don't see any problem in Google's action. Are they afraid that if Google can do this, Google can even get access to their private data? So what, do they think that other OS providers didn't implement mechanisms like Google did? I'm sure that they also did. But at least, in Google's situation, it is very good that this is something transparent. Very good, Google!

Convert (almost) anything on your Android device with Unit Converter - Convertpad.

2010-06-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

If you're searching for a complex conversion program for Android, what I recommend you to try is "Unit Converter". It is a fully featured Unit Converter and Calculator. As I've told you in the title, this can convert (and also calculate) almost anything. Starting from Length, Weight, Volume, Time, continuing with Surface Tension, Permeability, Fuel Efficiency - Mass, and finishing with Typography, Cooking and Lumber (and tens of others).

This application is very popular on the Market, having over 250 000 downloads currently. It is very useful especially at Physics (at school), but also when you want to convert something fast and you don't want to stay and think how it is the best to convert that. It has even a currency converter (but unfortunately it has a limited number of currencies and needs a data connection to update). But, what matters, it is free.

Download it now from the Market : "Unit Converter - Convertpad " (type full name, the application is by Sunny Moon).

The best collection of HD wallpapers?

2010-06-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

My opinion is that, when we are talking about HD wallpapers, the best site where you can find plenty of them is HDwallpapers.net. You will find there only high-quality images, at the best resolution possible. Wallpapers on this website are organized on categories. Some of them are: Abstract, Computer, Movies, Nature and Landscapes, Travel and others.

I think that this is the best site of this type, because of the quality of the pictures. The organization on categories is a plus when you're trying to find something certain. The website is well designed, having a pleasant theme. What I also like is that the advertising is present only on the left part of the website while navigating through the wallpapers, under categories, so it is discomforting the user while navigating.

Visit HDwallpapers.net now and download the wallpapers you like.

Do you know an equivalent website or one you think it's better? Let us know!

iPhone 4 just arrived, as well as major problems.

2010-06-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

iPhone 4, the phone which "changes everything, again", seems to fail quite much this time. The guys from Engadget have been using the iPhone 4 for 6 days now (this is really interesting), and they noticed some scratches on the back of the device. Apple said that this "Gorilla Glass" which covers the front and the back of the device is...I don't know how many times resistant than normal plastic, and it is very hard to scratch. However, the guys from Engadget got it scratched. More here (+photos).

The front of the unit doesn't stay better, also. After just 4 drops on asphalt, the screen broke. Probably the screen didn't work anymore, but they (the guys from Engadget) couldn't test that, because the device stopped working from the second drop already!!! More here (photo+video).

There are problems, again, with the screen. Many users are seeing yellow spots at the bottom of the screen. It is not known if this is a manufacturing fail or an IPS LCD issue, but it is clear that there are problems with the screen. Apple said that they are working on a fix, but it is improbable that they are going to resolve something as they had 600 000 requests on the first day of pre-orders, and most probably there are over 1 million devices coming to their customers currently. Anyway, it seems that IPS screens are harder to create than it was thought, so only a half of Apple 4 units can be delivered at expected time. So, I think that it is 99% sure that we'll have problems with the stocks, again.

There are also problems with the signal. Cellular signal. We don't know yet if there are problems with the Wi-Fi, because there weren't any reports saying this, but as Apple's products are usually having problems with the Wi-Fi, it is expected to come in the following period reports confirming this or not. Certain is that there are major problems with the cellular signal. If the device is kept on a flat table, the signal is excellent, the new construction of Apple does it's job excellent (the antenna is integrated on the structure of the device). But in the moment you take the device in your hand, the signal decreases, until it loses it. If you put the device on the table, it gets the signal again and goes even until full.

More about these two problems here (photos+video+polls).

Are you having any of these problems? Please leave a comment to let us know if you have or not.

Protect your Android device with Lookout Mobile Security.

2010-06-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Todays mobile devices (such as phones) run more and more advanced and complex operating systems, so a protection suite is something needed now. When I got my Android phone (Nexus One), I've started looking for a mobile antivirus. I got one which offered only antivirus protection, but I wasn't satisfied with it, so I tried Lookout, and it really impressed me.

This is not just an antivirus. It has a very useful backup mechanism, and for extra protection, it also has a device locating system (named "Missing Device"). Additionally, in the last system, a method for making your device scream is also included, to help you in case that you lost your device and you think it's somewhere near you.

When you install the application, you have to create an account. Later, this account is going to be used in order to manage various tasks, such as: details about scanned and infected files, viewing, managing and sending back to your phone data which has been saved (via backup), locating and making your device scream, and some other tasks.

The entire system works perfectly. It happened for me several times to download infected apps from the Market, and Lookout blocked them. I also tried to locate my device, and it located (not instantly) my phone impressive exactly (it indicated an area of about 50 meters, as when I tried to locate it I was inside a hotel room).

After you create an account, you can enter on https://www.mylookout.com/user/login, from where you can see real-time details about your phone. From here, you can do anything I told you. You can even set how frequent should your device be scanned and backup procedures done.

It works with Android 2.1 and Android 2.2 (tested by me). Search it on the Android Market: "Lookout".

Windows 7 SP1, coming on July.

2010-06-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

Service Pack (SP) represents usually the most important update that a version of an OS can receive. Windows 7 SP1 has been tested by developers for more months, and it is coming for the end-users by the end of the next month. What this update will include are all bug-fixes and updates which were already delivered to the users through Windows Update, plus support for USB 3.0.

It seems that this new pack fixes about 150 vulnerabilities and has about 150MB. The installation process is probably going to be really easy, and even if it isn't necessary now, Microsoft probably wants to make a step forward and detach from what was a total fail, Windows Vista. There are lots of torrents which pretend to be the SP1 Windows 7, but as it is not yet released officially for end-users it is hard for me to believe that they are the real SP1 which will be released by MS.

If you think Windows 7 is boring, just be patient until the SP1 of Windows 7 arrives (I'll let you know when Microsoft launches it officially).

Apple launches iOS 4 today!

2010-06-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

Apple is today going to launch their new version of iPhone OS, now named iOS. We are talking here about iOS 4, a new operating system for iPhones/iPods which adds over 100 new features to the iPhone 3GS, compared to the earlier OS version. It's a quite complicated story, because this new OS will be available only for the new iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

However, if you have a 3G iPhone, it has been already shown that the new iOS stresses the device considerably much. I recommend you not to update yet, and wait for some videos on YouTube to see how fast it moves. Apple is always making older devices (this time is 3G's turn) to move slowly with new software, in order to make people buy new devices (3GS or 4). And if you're on 3G, you won't have multitasking and wallpaper image (so there is no real need to update, in my opinion).

What else you need to know is that if you ordered a new 3GS today, it is already being delivered with iOS 4 so if you need to unlock it, there is no jailbreaking solution yet. Don't understand me wrong, iOS 4 has already been jailbroken, but the 3GS and the 4 will surely come with a new boot rom installed so you can't jailbreak them yet.

Anyway, if you need a jailbroken device, do not update yet, as the situation is not clear how to jailbreak iPhone 3G/3GS/4.

Android 2.2 FRF72 manual update is now available.

2010-06-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

Google launched yesterday an update for Android 2.2, for those who received their Nexus One at Google's conference. It updates the build number on the Nexus from FRF50 to FRF72, and it is just an under 2 MB .zip archive. So, there shouldn't be any notable difference compared to previous version.

However, for me it seems that it makes the applications a little more responsive, and changes the way "pinch-to-zoom" works on pictures. The first sensation is a little inaccuracy, but after playing a little with it, I think that this is a new feature. If you move your both fingers in a direction while zooming (in or out), you will observe that the image moves that way. This is too natural (for the fingers) and too smooth (for the phone) to be a bug, in my opinion.

Please note that in order to update, you MUST have the previous built for Android 2.2 (FRF50) installed on your phone.

You can get the Android 2.2 built50 (previous built) with installation instructions from here.

For FRF72, follow the instructions from the link above, as they are the same.

Download Android 2.2 FRF72 from here. In case that Google removes the file, mirror download link is here.

You can expect for this file to hit the Nexus via an OTA update anytime.

Notes:

You may have to try step 6 for several times (it might not work for the first time).
Step 8 is necessary.
This will NOT void your warranty, however, the update is on your own responsibility.

Apple and AT&T canceling iPhone 4 pre-orders, apparently, for no reason?

2010-06-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

Some of the people who pre-ordered the iPhone 4 had received a mail which notified them that their pre-order has been canceled, apparently, without any plausible reason. On the first day of pre-orders Apple had about 600 000 requests, so that they delayed the shipping date for pre-orders two times, until the 2nd of July. There were, on the first day, much more requests than anybody (including Apple) has expected, so Apple's servers had big difficulties in handling that heavy traffic which has been occurred.

AT&T doesn't stay better, they also canceled some pre-orders, saying that they had ten times more pre-orders on the first day compared to the 3GS. I don't know what's with these cancels, but it is certain that this will put some people in an unpleasant situation, especially those who wanted to have their phone on the first day of shipping (OK, who didn't want?). Considering this enormous demand for the iPhone 4, pre-orders which are made today are going to be delivered much later.

By the way, Apple has already started shipping iPhone 4 for those who ordered it in the first period of pre-orders. They will most probably be received on the 23rd of June.

Sources from Engadget, here and here.

Fixing "connection refused" problem in Pidgin (Ubuntu).

2010-06-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

"Connection refused" error is a problem which is known by many Linux users. It is usually occurred (sometimes) on most IM clients, especially when trying to connect to Yahoo!. This is a very annoying problem, and almost nobody knows exactly how to fix it (and if they fixed it, what they really did). Certain is that this usually occurs when the guys from Yahoo! are changing the way users are authenticating on their servers. So their servers are probably misconfigured (for Linux users), and they are simply refusing all clients who are coming from other clients, different than their own client (application).

There are some ways of fixing this on the internet. It has been reported that if you continue trying to connect, you could be in a final connected or redirected to a server which allows authentication in the old way. However, theoretically spoken, this solution is only temporary. If you disconnect, you'll probably have again problems connecting. Other users reported that changing the server on which the application is logging on may resolve the problem. I've tried changing it between scsa.msg.yahoo.com, cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com, scs.msg.yahoo.com and other addresses like these. I tried to change the address even with server's IP address directly (thinking that it could be an address resolving problem), everything with no luck.

But I continued trying, and after tens of forums and blogs, I found on brainstorms.in a user who reported that changing the server to scsd.msg.yahoo.com works. And it really works. So, if you have this problem, click on Accounts -> (on your account) Edit Accounts -> Advanced, and on the first row (Pager server), put "scsd.msg.yahoo.com".

Please leave a comment to know if this fixed your problem or not.

Ubuntu 10.04 + Nvidia FX proprietary drivers? Maybe not!

2010-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

I never was a fan of Nvidia's graphic cards. I don't have a reason for this, but I simply prefer ATI's products. And after what Nvidia proprietary driver did when I activated it in Ubuntu 10.04, I surely won't be a fan of them ever. So here are the details. An AMD platform (32-bit), with a Nvidia FX 5600 graphic card and a fresh-installed Ubuntu 10.04.

Nvidia usually makes its own drivers for Linux distributions. These kinds of drivers are known as "proprietary drivers", which means that their code is made and developed by Nvidia developers. In Ubuntu, in case that something goes wrong (including a driver), developers (from anywhere in the world) start working (on open source code) immediately on a fix so that it is available as soon as possible in the Update Manager. But with Nvidia, the situation is different. Because it's a proprietary driver, Ubuntu's developers doesn't have access to the code (because it isn't a public or open source code), so they can't improve or fix it. Any user using a Nvidia graphic card under Ubuntu has to wait for Nvidia's developers in case that it appears a problem with the driver.

So here's my problem. After I activated Nvidia's driver (version 173), it asked for a reboot. Until then, everything worked fine. But after reboot...it happened...I don't know what. I can't even explain. Under the VGA port, the image was highly affected. I could hardly read something on the screen (the colors and the image were totally misplaced). The monitor (Samsung T220) was continuously warning me that the image is displayed in "not optimum mode", and even after I got into driver's settings and changed them from auto to 1680 x 1050 with 60 Hz, the situation remained the same. The image on the monitor was starting to color white at every 10 seconds, and I was afraid that this can burn the pixels or even broke the entire monitor.

On DVI, the situation was completely different. The image looked pretty OK, however, the monitor was still warning me that it is in "not optimum mode" and it was restarting at every 1-3 seconds. This happens both with driver version 173 which is recommended, and with version 96 to which I have access.

In now stuck on a desktop without any accelerated video driver, but at least, this works (even if it is quite slow). The only thing I can do is to hope and wait for Nvidia to update their stupid driver for Ubuntu 10.04. I don't know why, but I think that Nvidia won't change something here...I hope I'm wrong. I know that there are some open-source drivers for Nvidia called "Nouveau" but I observed that they are only for GeForce6 and above (mine is GeForce 5).

So, if you installed one of these drivers with problems, try to enter into "hardware drivers" to remove it, and then reboot. In this way, you will be able to use your computer.

If you know how to fix this, please let me know via a comment.

Ubuntu 10.04 has 2 important bugs since 13th of June - with all updates installed -.

2010-06-14T01:59:00.000-07:00

The first problem is with the sound. What you should do is to avoid putting the sound on mute, because you won't be able to start it again. This is what I did yesterday. And now I realized that I don't have sound anymore. It doesn't matter what settings I give to the system in sound preferences, because on the bar it just displays the speaker followed by three lines (3x "-"). This means that the sound is muted, even if in all my settings the sound is on. Of course that "waking up" the sound would be theoretically possible with third-party programs from the Software Center, but I'll let my system like it is, just to see how much it takes for developers to fix this.

The other problems is related to the...shutdown. Here it is a critical bug, which brings you to the login screen, when you select shutdown. I don't know why, but now the shutdown button has the same functionality as the log out one. Practically, there is now way to shut down your system from the OS. In case that you are here, what you can do in order to shutdown your system is to push and keep the power button on your PC/Laptop for 5 seconds (this cuts the power of your computer), or to unplug it from the power source (if you are on a laptop, use the first option). Both are improper ways of shutting down the system, but there is no alternative.

Note: My Ubuntu is up-to-date, at 9:15 GMT time, Monday, 14th of May, and the problems are not fixed. If an update appears in the update manager which fixes these problems, I'll update this article.

Testing campaign for BitDefender 2011 Beta has started.

2010-06-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

BitDefender, the security company from Romania, announced the start of the testing campaign for their latest security suite, 2011 Beta. The installation of this new product is done quickly, with the possibility of scanning before installation and without the need of restart after installation. What you have to do in order to get this product working, is to enter here to create an account at BitDefender (if you don't have one), and then to enter here and select one of the first two options. Then you'll get two keys, which will give you 180 days (6 months) of trial if they are inserted.

Related to the antivirus itself, it now has another interface which is optimized especially for unexperienced users. It includes "Search Advisor", which automatically warns you if you visit a website reported as infected (all links are automatically checked with BitDefender's servers), a new utility which displays you all applications that are stressing your computer and suggests you ways of fixing them, and a new mechanism, which assures the optimum speed of the computer (the antivirus adapts its use of resources dynamically, depending on the available resources of your computer).

The detection rate has been improved compared to the earlier version (with the help of new methods of detection and upgraded existing ones), and I can really say that this places BitDefender on top of the world's most powerful antivirus suites. However, as usual, BitDefender has important problems related to the fix of advanced and complex malware. This kind of problem can even make your system unable to boot.... so this is an important thing that is not yet resolved.

If you want, you can download and test this security suite, but as it is a Beta 1 version, I don't recommend you using it in an environment in which the security is something essential.

Is Yahoo! Messenger for Mac going to be a beta version forever?

2010-06-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

I bought my Mac almost a year ago (10 months), and when I received it I hoped that it would support Yahoo! Messenger by default. I knew that Mac OS X is a very stable and a very complex OS. And mainly, so it was. Except that iChat, the default chatting application from Mac OS X, doesn't support anything else than MobileMe, Mac.com, AIM, Jabber and Google talk accounts. So here started the problem...Apple didn't implement a client supporting Yahoo!, so it was clear that I had to use Yahoo!'s own application.

I was surprised that at least there was a program developed by Yahoo!, for Mac. It was a beta, and it was the only option that I found for Mac. After installation, I noticed several problems, such as: unexpected crashes (prior to this the application becomes unresponsive), a bug which doesn't allow you to click on a contact (you have to move the pointer in order to do that), and the most...idiot problem, that one which displays you as "available" even if you logged in as "invisible". OK, you are "invisible" for all others, but you see yourself as "available". And this happens always.

What I consider that sucks is that you see only the small avatars of your contacts in the list, and if you move the mouse over a contact you will see only its name and status, without the picture. If you want to view the picture in "large" size, you have to open a window chat for that person. On Windows version of Yahoo!, you can view large pictures even on the list with all contacts (there's an option for that).

Those aren't critical problems, but they are very annoying because they seem that they will never be fixed. Yahoo! didn't launched any new version since I first installed it (it's still 3.0 beta (191946) ) and I don't think that Apple is going to move a finger to do something. But I still hope that Yahoo! didn't abandoned at all developing their application for Mac...

iPhone 4 has been announced - coming on 24th of June.

2010-06-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

iPhone 4 has been announced today, by Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. I was expecting to be a real surprise for me, but it actually wasn't, because pretty much of what was rumoring in the last period is found in the device. Also, the...too sharp design for an Apple product, in my opinion. So let's get through the specs:

Thinest smartphone ever (9.3 mm)
Apple A4 chip inside (also found in the iPad and we know that it has 512 RAM, but we don't know what's the frequency of the processor)
3.5-inch display with a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels, Apple calls the display a "Retina Display"
Battery life improved by 16% compared to 3GS
5 MPx camera with (single) LED flash and 720p video recording capability
Frontal camera for Video calling
The case is made of a scratch-resistant material (both the screen and the back, finally)
A secondary microphone (for noise canceling)
Gyroscope
New micro-SIM standard
iOS4 (the new name for the iPhone OS) which allows the creation of folders, as well as wallpapers on the background)
And finally, Multitasking (Apple has to learn what multitasking does mean from Android, but this is an other story)

It will be available in black or white, with a capacity of 16 or 32 GB. It will be first launched in the US, France, UK, Germany and Japan, with pre-orders starting in a week. Another 18 countries will be added in July. Its price will be $199 for the 16 GB version, and $299 for the 32 GB version (don't worry, with a 2-year contract with carrier).

Are you going to buy the new iPhone? I probably won't. Nexus One can do almost anything what the iPhone 4 can (except video calling). And even more.

Nexus One's internal memory is quite insufficient.

2010-06-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

I've occurred problems related to insufficient internal memory after over a month of using the phone. I came from an iPhone, so I never look how many applications I have, as soon as they are "fitting" me. I've been able to install many applications, because they are specially designed to occupy as less as possible, because it is known that Android 2.1 (and previous versions) doesn't support installing applications on external SD cards. First time when my Nexus informed me that it was running "low on space", happened just a few days before media got the 2.2 update (which I also got, manually).

In case you didn't know, Android 2.2 allows installing applications to SD cards (or more exactly, moving them after installation on SD cards). But this is just a theory, as there are applications which doesn't allow moving themselves to the SD card. Actually, there are only a few applications which have this possibility. I mean, I have about 90 applications and I was able to move only 2 of them on the SD card.

The Nexus has 196 MB internal storage memory, and I have free only 13 of them. I know that I have a game which occupies pretty much of that memory (about 25 MB), but because I like it I don't want to delete it (and I can't move it to SD card). Of course, if I need more storage for the phone, I will remove it (and other applications if needed).

Google didn't bring something which helps much here (with 2.2 update). I think that they must now make pressure on developers, to design and update their applications with supportability for SD cards.

ExoPC Slate and ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC/EP121 are coming - can they stop iPad's explosion?

2010-05-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

Engadget announced in the last two days, three new table PCs, all three being designed to be potential competitors to Apple's iPad. The first one is ExoPC Slate, which features a 11.6" capacitive touch-screen, 2 USB ports, HDMI out, SD card slot and a VGA webcam. What we can find inside: a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB SSD storage space and a Broadcom Crystal HD chip, which promises to playback videos at 1080p. How can you compete with something like this, Apple? It is much over the iPad. Unfortunately, it runs Windows 7 Ultimate, which is not designed at all for a screen this size (surprisingly, the screen responds perfectly to anything the user tries to do). The price is probably going to be somewhere around $599.

The other two are ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC and EP 121, which, I have to say, are two completely uninspired names for these table PCs. Unfortunately, we don't have any details about what is inside, or their

prices. We just know that the first one has a 10" screen, and the second one has a 12" screen. While Joanna (the editor from Engadget who tested the device) was using the device, there were really important bugs observed related to the interface of the touch screen (it was quite unresponsive most of the time). Even though, the interface looks much better than that one from the ExoPC Slate. Its OS is a Windows Embedded Compact 7, and I'm sure that the interface is going to be improved and most of the bugs fixed in the future.

Apple announced that they have passed 2 millions of sold iPads, and it is not yet available anywhere in the world. Do you think that these three table PCs have the ability of stopping this boom of the iPad?

More details: here and here

Android 2.2 Froyo stops supporting .aac files for the media player.

2010-05-30T03:41:00.000-07:00

This is something I discovered yesterday, when I was heading towards somebody. When I tried to play my playlist (all songs were downloaded directly on my Nexus with a third-party application, from YouTube, in .aac format) I was notified that this format was not supported (anymore) by the music player.

OK..so I downloaded the songs on a computer in .mp3 from YouTube (because I was in a rush) and sent them to my phone. Then, when I was going home, another surprise. Even if the downloads from YouTube are not done in a very high quality, the .aac songs were more that OK. But the mp3-s were worse than anything else. I had difficulties in even understanding what the singers were saying. So, Google screwed it up a little.

What you have to do is to download the music externally (not from YouTube, because they are mainly in a low quality), preferable is directly in .mp3 (because converting can affect the quality!) and then to send them to your phone. You can send them via your USB cable, but as I observed that the media player "feels" the changes with a considerable delay, I recommend you rebooting the phone. If it still does not see your music and you are sure it is in .mp3, play a little with the player and then it should update the list with the new songs.

Microsoft offers free antivirus protection for Genuine Windows users.

2010-05-30T02:49:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus program for those who have genuine copies of Windows. As I'm not using (at all) any OS from MS I wasn't able to test it, but I can tell you some details and what is being told about it. So, what's good is that it is free (of course, if your copy of Windows is licensed) and it is made by Microsoft, who knows exactly what's inside the operating system so they can fix any vulnerability faster than a regular security company.

They say that it protects your computer against viruses, spyware and other kinds of malicious software, all in real-time. What I think that is bad, simply because it is made by Microsoft, is that it may fail regularly in different situations (fake alarms, issues when running, weak detection and stuff). But this is not something proven and is based on my past experience with Microsoft's products.

Those who tested said that it detected and resolved several threats better than NOD32, and even used less resources, but I doubt that this is something relevant (as I haven't seen any "serious" tests). There are comments on blogs where this product was reviewed in which the people told that it is a very bad protection program, because it wasn't able to detect important trojans/viruses so my doubts come also from here.

You can download and try Microsoft Security Essentials from http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/ .

Running Android 1.6 on your PC (+video).

2010-05-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

Android is the operating system for mobile devices which is getting more and more popularity everyday (about 60-100 000 devices with Android OS are activated every day, and it's coming fast behind iPhone OS). By knowing this fact, users of iPhone and Windows Mobile devices are trying to port Android to their devices. But what I am going to show is how you can get Android running on your PC. OK, not natively, but with the help of a virtual machine.

Note: this works on any platform (Windows, Linux, and Mac). None of your data from your computer is going to be affected.

What you have to is to download VirtualBox from here, and the Android 1.6 that will run on VirtualBox from here (scroll down to "StableRelease" and click "view" on the first file, named "android -x86-1.6-r2.iso" to start downloading). These two downloads are not large so the download should finish fast. Do not burn on CD Android OS after downloading, just let the image somewhere where you know about it. Then install VirtualBox like a normal application.

When you finish installing VirtualBox, do the following (if your know what VirtualBox is and how to configure it, all you must know is that Operating System and Version must be selected as "Other", and respectively as "Other/Unknown"; otherwise follow these steps):

Select "New", give it a name, and at Operating System select "Other" and "Other/Unknown" at Version.
Give it a quantity of RAM (doesn't matter how much, but make sure to have free on your system that amount you're giving to it).
Let the settings like they are (Boot Hard Disk and Create new hard disk)
Then, on the window that appears, click Next, then Next, and because 2.0 GBs are just enough, click again Next, then Finish and again Finish.
Now, your new Guest OS appeared on the left column of VirtualBox, with the name you gave it. Click Start.
On the window that appears, click Next.
Now, where it says "Media Source", click on that folder sign on the right part of the window.
Click Add, and browse to where the image it located and click Open. Make sure it is highlighted and then click Select.
Click Next and then Finish

Congratulations. You have now successfully configured your Virtual Machine and Android 1.6 is being booted automatically. I haven't installed it, I only ran it like a "Live CD". If you want to install it, you can try, but I don't know if it is difficult or not. I recommend you selecting "Live CD" just to see how it's look like.

You can now try and explore the functionalities of Android 1.6 on your PC (except calling and SMS because there isn't any carrier available). Below is a video which demonstrates you that this really works (even if I tried it on Mac, it runs also on Windows or Linux hosts).

A weird thing related to Android 2.2 call receiving functionality.

2010-05-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have now about five 5 days since I upgraded my Nexus One to Android 2.2, and the phone still doesn't stop...impressing me. I've observed that if I receive a call from somebody and I am near the phone, I can hear the voice of the person who's calling me. For example...if a friend is calling me and near him is a person to which he says something while he calls me (my phone is ringing), I can hear what he says.

I don't know if this is a bug in the Android, a malfunction of the device, or this is something normal, because I wasn't able to find anywhere else something related to this thing. I am really...curious if this happens to anybody else, and if it does, this means that it is possible for those ones with Nexus One devices and Android 2.2 to speak for free, but for a limited time, because the call stops after 10-20 seconds (depending the carrier).

So, does this thing happen to you too?

p.s.: If you need to update to Android 2.2, here's how to do it.

Latest stable version of Google Chrome is here.

2010-05-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

Many new features were added to Google Chrome in the last period, almost all of them being available only in unstable, Beta releases. The most notable feature here is the synchronization between bookmarks, settings, preferences, and even themes, on all your computers, with the help of your Google account.

But what's new is that this feature, together with better implementation of HTML5 and support for Flash 10.1 (support is there, but Flash is not yet there as it is not ready), is that all these features are now "pieced" together in a single stable release, 5.0.375.55 (for any platform). Even if Google didn't mention anything about possible updates to speed and security, I'm sure that they also included some.

You can download the latest version from http://www.google.com/chrome.

Manually update your Nexus One to Android 2.2 Froyo.

2010-05-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, the new version of Android has been released for download for some users. More exactly, we are talking about those persons who got the device officially, from Google, for reviewing purposes (mass-media or press). So, for all other users, who got the device via Google's official website, there is no OTA (over-the-air) update yet.

However, the link from where Google was pushing the update to the targeted devices has been found, and everybody has the possibility to update. Unfortunately, the update file has been removed from that link by Google, but there isn't any problem, because some users uploaded that file to external sources.

Before starting anything, I must tell you that I assume NO responsibility in case that something goes wrong or you have any kind of problems after update. This update has not been officially released for your personal device by Google. You must have a NON-rooted device, with original rom (your build must be ERE27).

Here is all you have to do:

Download the update file from here (mirror download, it is not from Google's server ~~so please confirm if it works or not!!!~~ Yes, it works, just take a look at the comments).
Rename it as "update.zip" (make sure not to be update.zip.zip) and send it to the microSD card which is in your Nexus.
Shut down your device.
Keep pressed down the "Volume down" key while you press the power button.
When the screen appears, scroll down to "recovery" (with the "volume down" key), and then press the power button.
A new screen will appear containing a triangle with an exclamation point symbol inside. Now you have to press down the "Volume up" key and the power button at the same time.
A new menu will appear, in which you have to scroll (with the trackball) until the "Apply sdcard:update.zip" option has been highlighted, and then press down the trackball.
The device is now updating the software. After the update finishes ("Update from sdcard complete"), you may have to select "reboot system now" (I didn't have to do the last step, but it has been reported that it might be necessary for some users).

Note: the first boot after update may take longer. This is something normal, do not panic! It took me about 5 minutes. And I think I had 2 successive reboots, so stay calm, your device didn't go crazy (this was what I thought when I saw that).

Congratulations! You now have the Android 2.2 on your Nexus One.

Click here for a list with most of updates. What I observed is that my device worked normally only after the second reboot. Lookout (antivirus) crashes continuously (had to force close), and Seesmic can't connect at all (several users confirmed this).

But most important of all, the device runs much faster. You can find more details at phandroind.com by clicking here.

Please leave a comment telling us if your update succeeded or not (it is very useful for other users)!

Android 2.2 is coming in a few weeks.

2010-05-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

Android 2.2, also known as Froyo, is coming up in a few weeks for Android fans. What is known is that, if now everybody agrees that it's extremely fast on powerful devices (e.g: Nexus One or Desire), the next version will be much faster. Google developed a new JIT compiler (just-in-time compiler) which accelerates programming languages from 2 to 5 times faster. Yes, you read correctly, Java is going to be accelerated up to 5X.

The new version will have Flash 10.1 support integrated, this means that you don't need anymore to root your phone and get another ROM in order to have Flash, it will be integrated into the OS. Moreover, with this new update, you will be able to transform your phone in a Wi-Fi hotspot. This means that you will be able to share a mobile data connection (from carrier) with another computers/devices, either via Wi-Fi or via USB.

The home screen (launcher) will have near the "menu" button, a phone shortcut (on left) and a internet shortcut (on right), being available in whatever screen you will be. Installation of applications on the SD card is (finally) going to be supported on this new version of Android. You will be able to install as many applications as your SD card can store. An update is coming to Market too, making it able to update all apps with only one tap.

It is know that it will come in a few weeks, and as soon as Google will announce an exact date, I will let you know.

Is Vietnam the place where Apple decided to lose all their new devices?

2010-05-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

After the story with the iPhone which was found by somebody in a pub in the United States, and of course, after the start of the investigation for possible theft against one editor from Gizmodo, a new (lost) iPhone appeared in Vietnam. This second device has 16 GB internal memory (on the device which was found in the U.S. it was written "XX GB"), and the main (big) difference is that it doesn't have any screws on the bottom, anything else being the same.

Now, another new device from Apple appears, again, in Vietnam. This time, it is an iPod touch, and the differences compared with the actual iPod Touch are that it seems to have a 2 megapixel camera, and 64 GB internal storage memory. On its back it is written "DVT-1", so it is 99% sure that this is not a final version.

June 7th is the date when Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is scheduled, and it is sure that we will have then a new iPhone, but I think that it is improbable to hear any announcement about a new iPod Touch there.

Even if when the story with the lost iPhone in that pub started I refused to accept that everything might have been planned by Apple, now, that is what I think. Apple is a...too serious company to lose devices like this. My opinion is that they are making this in order to explode the speculations about their devices, and so, their devices to get shortly after launch enormous popularity.

What do you think?

More here, here and here.

Get a Mac OS X-like dock for Ubuntu.

2010-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

The dock from Mac OS X is one of the most beautiful docks for PCs. Unfortunately, you have to buy a MacBook/iMac in order to get that dock in front of your eyes (the process of installing a Mac OS X on a regular, non-Apple platform is very complicated). But if you have Ubuntu on a computer, you can get a dock that looks something like that one from Mac OS X on that computer.

It is called Avant Windows Navigator (or simpler, AWN), it can be found on Ubuntu Software Center, and it looks something like this:

The dock is not that simple to use as that one from Mac OS X, but after a few minutes you should already know how it works and be able to configure it without problems. But, this dock is even better than that one found on Mac OS X, because you can add many other widgets on it directly from its menu (like real-time statistics about computer or weather). You can put it on any part of the screen, even on the top, and this is something that you can't do with Mac's default dock.

Get it from the Ubuntu Software Center by searching "AWN".