Category: Computer bits

Computer stuff

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Galaxy S II + ICS

Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) on the Galaxy S II is nice, but I’m experiencing a few problems with lag, apps and phone hanging for no apparent reason. Wifi performance seems worse too. Since the ICS update, the wifi keeps dropping out on me in my office, which didn’t happen before. My office doesn’t get great wifi signal to begin with, but it’s like ICS isn’t as tolerant of low signal strength anymore.

I’ve already done a hard reset thinking maybe that would help. It’s also possible that the problem is with the apps that maybe haven’t quite caught up with code changes in ICS. Who knows.

Also, a somewhat subjective thing, but it seems like the graphics look better in ICS.

Will probably have more comments later as I use ICS more.

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Transformer Prime update

This seems to be a week for updates. A new firmware just rolled out for my Transformer Prime yesterday, that I just installed. Haven’t seen a changelog or anything, but most of the discussion in the XDA forum has been about improved (or not) wifi/BT and better (or not) performance. Face unlock has also made it to this version too. There’s also a new indicator for when the GPS extension is attached.

Will see how things are over the next few days.

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Hello Ice Cream Sandwich

The much awaited firmware update to Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) made it to my phone today. Took about 30 minutes for the download, verifying, flashing and rebooting to get it installed and then another hour or so messing around redoing the screens that got reset to the default setup.

Phone seems to be running pretty well so far with out any issues. It was a bit glitchy at first, but a post-install reboot seems to have fixe most of the lagginess problems.

Even though I’ve mostly gotten used to ICS from using it on my Transformer Prime, it still took a little while to get used to it on my phone.

Was finally able to give wifi calling a try. Although I’ve had the phone for a few months now, it hardly ever gets used as a phone but I had a chance to try it out and use it with my BT handset. Worked out pretty well, although with the limited bandwidth of my slow DSL connection, there were a few times where voice got garbled. The sound quality seemed kind of more digitized, almost synthesized with wifi calling than it did when I switched off of wifi calling.

So far the only problem I’ve run into is that I seem to have lost the ability to get screenshots. The normal method of hitting the power + home buttons doesn’t seem to work anymore, although I’ve seen forum posts where people have said it should still work. Not sure what the problem is yet, but I hope it doesn’t require a hard reset to fix. I may do it anyway, just to give ICS a fresh start.

Update: Discovered that a short delay has been introduced to screenshots. Just need to hold the power + home buttons down for about a second before the screenshot is taken. Also learned that power + volume-down works for screenshots too, with a similar delay.

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Asus Transformer Prime GPS Extension Kit

In response to numerous complaints about the lousy (non-existent) GPS performance on the Transformer Prime, Asus had these GPS Extension Kits (or GPS dongles as most people call them) made and sent out to registered owners.
A month after I registered for mine, it finally arrived. It uses the dock connector and latches on pretty securely. Looks a little odd, but I don’t think it’s overly intrusive. In any case, it proved to be pretty effective at improving GPS performance. I don’t know if it completely replaces the existing GPS antenna or just augments it.

Without the GPS dongle, my Transformer Prime might find a couple of GPS satellites, but would never lock on to any of them, even when I was out in the open.

With the GPS dongle, it only took a few seconds to find a bunch of satellites and get a GPS lock.

Turning wifi off decreased the position accuracy a couple of meters, from 8m to 10m, but still pretty reasonable. Probably would be better if I wasn’t sitting in the shadow of my house at the time.

Haven’t used it long enough to know how much impact there will be on battery life but I’m sure I’ll find out over the next few days.

Since it attaches to the dock connector, it obviously can’t be used with the keyboard dock and needs to be removed to plug in for charging. I consider these pretty minor inconveniences since I don’t have the keyboard dock yet. Not really sure how much I’ll even need to use the GPS on my Prime, but if it’s there it might as well be usable.

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Collaboration phishing

I’ve received a couple of emails claiming to be from people who are interested in working with me on a project based on a blog post.

The first one I received a couple of days ago almost seemed genuine enough to make me think about it a little bit longer than usual before deciding it was just another form of phishing. The second one I received today pretty much confirmed that.

If the random URLs the spammers picked for their email were even remotely related to the claimed project, I almost might have been fooled. Big fat fail, spammers.

Both emails had the same form

I am curious if you are the person responsible for adding content to the following page: <Insert random URL>

If not, feel free to forward me on to the correct person! I came across your page during my research for a project for which I am contributor. It is a resource primarily aimed at health care professionals in a <Insert random health care profession> capacity. Our mission is to be an objective, informative source of information for those in the specialized fast-paced field of <Insert random health care profession>.

I would love to send over more details about this project and partner with you, let me know!

Thanks for your time. I look forward to working with you!