Samsung Galaxy S Rooted, now what?

When I first got my Samsung Galaxy S, it had 2.1 on it. I was impressed with Android in general, but 2.1 had some issues which I was somewhat frustrated with:

• Battery Life


• Wireless Reliability

Interestingly, the two issues were linked. The problem I was having was that quite often the phone would not connect to the wireless network. While trying to connect, the phone would be using 100% cpu. In order to resolve this issue, I had to switch off Wi-Fi and switch it back on again. Usually that would solve the problem, connect to the wi-fi network, cpu consumption would return to normal, and battery life would be long and predictable.

When 2.2 came out, I was still plagued with wireless connectivity issues, as I was in 2.1, but it didn't consume 100% of the CPU (and thus battery life was not affected), and it was the problem was quite rare. So, all in all I was quite happy with it.

I did have one major annoyance the whole time I owned the phone, and that was with the Facebook app. It would LAG to hell on every operation. Quite often, I had to reboot the whole phone to recover from a facebook app crash. I found myself not using Facebook at all because the app simply did NOT work, and I found myself quite jealous of nearby iOS devices that COULD run it fine.

Having owned the phone for nearly a year now, it was beginning to have other problems with lag, and some applications Force Closing on me. After a while, I figured the 500 or so apps that I had installed and uninstalled in the last year were probably to blame. As with any OS, a format and reinstall generally solves a LOT of problems.

So, I took screenshots (Hold Back Button and Press Home) of all my home screens, and applications listings. Backed up my SD Cards to my PC, Backed up my SMS Messages using SMSBackup+ to my Gmail account, and reset the phone back to factory defaults. Or the 2.2 version of the factory defaults.

Immediately, I was much happier with the responsiveness of the phone. Opening apps was faster, moving between home screens was snappy. Very happy.

So, I reconnected my gmail, installed K9 and reconnected my exchange mailbox, re-synced my calendars and contacts. I set up all my home screens, and within about an hour of starting, the phone was back to the way I wanted it - but everything worked REALLY WELL. Even the facebook app, which before was the most broken of everything, and now works just as well as the iOS equivalent.

It was at this point that I realised just how easy the whole process of "stating again" really was. I figured I already had everything backed up, so if I had to reinstall again it wasn't a huge loss. Why not try and root the phone. It's all the rage in the iOS world, and unlocks HUGE potential in devices. So, I did it.

I side-loaded Z4Root (using Astro), and I did a temporary root. It worked fine.
I installed Root Check, checked that I did in fact have Root, and it confirmed as much. So, I did a permanent root.
When the phone booted back up again, it was just the same as before. I still had root as confirmed by Root Check.

It was at this point that I wondered exactly what the point of root on this device was. I'd never really "wanted" for more access to my device.

So I did some searching on the internet for "The x top reasons to root your android phone". What I found was quite a surprise, to me at least.
As far as I can tell, the top 3 reasons to root your Android phone are:

1. Overclocking the CPU


2. Ability to take screenshots


3. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tethering

Seriously? My Samsung Galaxy S already does Wi-Fi tethering already, and takes screenshots already. I don't need root for either of those.

So, the only reason I would want root, is to overclock my phone.

Now, you should know I've worked with computers for a very long time. And I've seen what overclocking does to computers.

I had one customer come to me with a faulty PC (that he'd purchased from me 18 months prior), and he said "It's broken". When I fired it up, it was obvious that something was amiss, and I asked a simple question: Did you overclock this?
and the answer was yes. So I gave it back and said, well good on you. Now you need a new one.

Overclocking is like running your car past redline. You're an idiot if you do it, and you're going to break something.

Every machine that I've ever heard of being overclocked has needed to be replaced within 12 months... Why the hell would I want to do that to my phone?

I removed the root, and uninstalled Z4Root. I just don't see the point of it, when my phone does everything I need it to do, and more, right out of the box.

If I owned an iOS device, I can certainly understand the appeal.

A friend of mine recently jailbroke his iPhone 3GS. He was very impressed with his new jailbroken phone for two reasons:

• He could now use CUSTOM Ringtones


• He could now watch XviD videos

I laughed at him and told him to buy an android phone.

Microsoft DirectAccess - What a royal pain in the backside!

Dear Microsoft,

Your DirectAccess product is 100x more complicated than it should be.

If I ever meet the developers who designed and developed DirectAccess, I am going to belt you around the head repeatedly, until you delete the whole bloody thing and do it again properly!

DirectAccess, the way it should have been:
-Require a SINGLE Public IP Interface and specify it by Interface, or manually specify the public IP if behind a NAT or Firewall. (Why the fuck do I need 2 sequential public Interfaces??? Don't you know we're running out of IPv4 addresses???)
-On server, Install RRAS and Enable "DirectAccess" in the same way PPTP is enabled. It should be no more than a bloody tickbox!
-Enable traffic on port 22 (or any port you want) and run an SSH/DirectAccess Server on that port.
-Create an AD Group, filled with computer objects that will connect with DirectAccess.
-Specify the AD Group(s) in RRAS/DirectAccess, and have them set up with a group policy which configures them properly. Including a Public Certificate with which to authenticate, Public DirectAccess Server IP address and Port and other basic information.

Done.

DirectAccess Client:
-Must be connected to the LAN at least once in order to get it's next Group Policy
-After that, the next time it's NOT on the LAN, and does NOT have access to any DCs, and DOES have access to the public interface of the RRAS/DirectAccess server (which it knows by the GroupPolicy object) it should connect to the server and authenticate with the certificate that was automatically allocated and delivered by GP
-The DirectAccess server will then determine whether the Computer Object is still valid, if so it gets an IP address INSIDE the LAN (v4 or v6).
-Traffic should flow normally, as though you had connected to PPTP, and you should then be able to log on to the domain normally, like you would inside the LAN.

DONE!

How fucking hard is that?

It should be a 10 minute job.

Idiots.

Senator Stephen Conroy - You are still an idiot!

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Windows 7 Roaming Profile on Server 2003

I'm replacing all of the workstations and the server in one of our branch offices.
The server is running Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. It's also the only Domain Controller, DNS Server, DHCP Server and Exchange server in that site.

The workstations are 6 new HP Desktop machines running Windows 7 Professional.

We've set up a very nice instance of "FOG" (http://www.fogproject.org/) for workstation imaging, running in a Virtual Machine on the server.

The idea is, we set up a single working image of one of these workstations and FOG can deploy that image (via Boot on LAN) to each of the workstations whenever we have a problem with the machines (viruses, etc). It even supports Multicasting so I can replace the images on all 6 machines simultaneously. Fog also runs a service on each machine, so that after it boots up with the generic image we can make changes (change computer name, join domain, etc). So it makes life much easier than our current solution (send the workstation back to Sydney to be rebuilt).

The problem I had was that we want to use roaming profiles on each machine, so that once the computer is imaged, it gets renamed by Fog, joins the domain automatically, and then the user can simply log on as themselves, and have their profile come down off the server, just as it was before the imaging took place.

Obviously at this point there will be a bunch of Windows Updates and AntiVirus updates that need to be done, but that's not a problem.

The problem I found was that Windows 7 (and Vista) profiles are apparently not compatible with Windows Server 2003.

The normal profile path (as defined in Active Directory) is \\servername\Profiles\%USERNAME% but when the machine logs on, it creates a new profile called \\servername\Profiles\%USERNAME%.V2 and then logs the user on with a Temporary Profile.

It never uploads the profile to the server, and therefore never syncs. Every time it logs on, you get the "You have been logged on with a temporary profile" error message, and no changes are ever saved.

Workaround:
- In Active Directory: Remove the value for "Roaming Profile". Leave it blank.
- Log on to the Workstation as the user you want to create the profile for.
- Log off the Workstation as the user
- On the Server, navigate to the Profiles folder and create the folder %USERNAME%.V2 with appropriate user permissions (Domain Admins (FULL), SYSTEM (FULL), %USERNAME% (FULL))
- Using Robocopy (http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd) copy the Profile from the Workstation to the new Roaming Profile folder:
robocopy \\workstation\C$\Users\%USERNAME% \\servername\Profiles\%USERNAME%.V2 /MIR /XD "Application Data"
- The important thing to note here is the '/XD "Application Data"' switch. This excludes the "Application Data" folder from being copied. This is VERY important, as if you don't do this you will get an infinite loop of Application Data folders which will cause a LOT of problems.
- Once you have copied the profile from the workstation to the server, you must then go back in to Active Directory and set the Roaming Profile path to be "\\servername\Profiles\%USERNAME%". <- Do NOT specify the .V2 folder, it'll automatically look for the .V2 extension.
- Log back on to the workstation as that user. You'll get a bunch of errors about how the profile has only been partially synchronised. This is OK to ignore, and won't come up again.

Make changes to your profile, log off, and back on again, and they should be there again and it shouldn't come up with any errors!

NSW Mobile Speed Camera Locations Google Maps / Google Earth Mashup

Having seen the list of Mobile Speed Camera van locations in NSW I flicked through and noticed that there were a lot that applied to me. Specifically, to my upcoming trip to the Snowy Mountains. At first glance, Coming from Sydney, I found 4 possible camera sites along the trip in each direction!

Using Google Earth, I've taken all of these sites and put them on to the map of Earth. Then using the Directions tab, I was able to overlay our route to the snowy mountains on the same map with all of the camera locations, and I discovered another 3 sites!

That's 7 potential camera locations in a single direction of travel from Sydney, and the annoying thing is: we pass through Canberra for a while and they've got these bloody cameras too!

Grab yourself a copy of Google Earth and install it.
Then download the .kml file that I created by clicking here, then click on "Free Download" and wait 60 seconds for the file to download.

You should then be able to see all the camera locations (as of today) and overlay your path on to the map using the Directions Tab. Then skoot along the path and see where the cameras are.

I'm sure someone will come up with a better way of doing this, if you do - let me know and I'll link it here.

I make no claims that this is perfectly accurate, and you are of course responsible for your own actions if you are caught speeding! This is just a guide, don't rely on it as it's likely to change at any time!

Good luck!

Telstra T-Hub what a Joke!

Telstra has given our company 5 T-Hub devices in order to evaluate whether we'd like to sell these to our customers. I was given the task to get the thing online, as nobody who had tried before me had any luck.

Upon firing up the device, and following the setup wizard, step 3 (of 5) involved a software update. This software update promptly failed, and crashed out of the setup wizard. Luckily, the device simply started working as though the setup wizard HAD been completed, and away we went.

While the user interface is very clunky, and is far inferior to competitors devices (iPad?) it did, for lack of a better word, work. I was able to surf the web on my wi-fi, listen to on-line radio, look at footy scores, check out you-tube, and if it wasn't blocked by the proxy in my office, play around on facebook.

The music, videos, and photo systems seem to work well, though the screen resolution isn't great, and the frame rate for full screen video sometimes lags. I particularly dislike how the video freezes momentarily while you change the volume up and down.

I was even able to make phone calls to our receptionist with relative ease.

However, my success was short lived, the device started doing a software update (the update that had moments before, failed) and this time it seemed to be working. The device promptly rebooted in to a newer version of the OS and once again I am presented with the setup wizard, seemingly resuming from where it crashed out earlier.

This time, I was thwarted by step 5, the final step of the setup process:
Please enter your Bigpond login details.

I was somewhat puzzled, as the device is a Telstra T-Hub, not a Bigpond T-Hub.
Since I intended for the device to remain on-site so as to allow staff to play with it, I didn't want to enter any Bigpond internet connection login details in to the device. I didn't understand why this should be necessary.

I called the 1300 Number in the back of the manual, followed the prompts to technical support, and ended up at Telstra Line Activations. A gentleman there kindly explained that I had the wrong number, gave me the correct 1800 number, then transferred me to the "T-Hub technical support department", it rang, and I ended up at Bigpond Technical Support.

After explaining my situation to Bigpond Technical Support, they said they didn't know anything about the device, and that I should contact the T-Hub technical support department.

You can imagine my frustration at this point, but I persevered (explaining the process I'd been through on the phone system already). The monkey connected me back to the 1300 number that I had already called in the first place.

I followed the prompts, and ended up with having my call answered by a voice-less Telstra employee (who I suspect was the same bloke I spoke to already). He refused to acknowledge me, even though I could hear him breathing and typing on his keyboard.

After being magically placed on hold a couple times, he eventually hung up on me!

Getting pretty angry by this point, but I called the 1300 number again.

This time, I chose the "T-Hub Sales" department, and my call was answered almost immediately. Amazing.

I bit the ear off the guy who answered, who finally sent me through to the T-Hub technical support department.

The lady I got through to was somewhat frazzled by my call, I was a little upset by this point already, and she clearly had very little knowledge of the device.

I explained to her that I was stuck at Step 5 of the T-Hub setup process, It's asking me for Bigpond login details. How do I get past this without entering bigpond login details? I'm a telstra customer, why do I need to be a Bigpond customer too?

She seemed puzzled by this question. I think she's under some illusion that every person in Australia is a Bigpond customer. Apparently, Bigpond is the only ISP out there, and to use another provider would be silly.

As though she was reading from the fine print, repeated: "The T-Hub requires a Bigpond username and password in order to function." over and over again.

I explained to her that I was quite capable of using the device without bigpond login details moments ago (when the setup crashed). It worked fine, right up until the involuntary software update took over.
"The T-Hub requires a Bigpond username and password in order to function."

I explained to her that these were demonstration units sent to us by Telstra themselves, and that if I am unable to evaluate the product, there's no way I can recommend to our Managing Director that we should sell these devices to our customers.
"The T-Hub requires a Bigpond username and password in order to function."
Whatever, if you can't help me, please put me through to somebody who can!
"The T-Hub requires a Bigpond username and password in order to function, my manager will tell you this too.!"

After a bit of aggression, she took my number to have someone "more qualified" contact me, we ended our conversation.

I give up. I logged in to the system we use to store passwords, and I entered the login details of one of our Bigpond Cable internet connections. Made it past step 5, and the device started working again.

I demonstrated the device to my managing director, who seemed somewhat unimpressed...

Since the device was now working, I decided to take it home and see if I could find some practical use for it.

I've set it up next to my home computer, connected to my home wi-fi, and my Telstra phone line. I can make calls with it, and everything seemed to work fine for a couple of days.

My wife and I got home on Monday night, and we wanted to have a quick look at a mapping service. Since it was late and the computer was off, I picked up the T-Hub.
Finally, I've found a situation where the device can be somewhat useful. Finally, I've found a purpose for the device.

I turned on the screen, and the device booted up (I should have mentioned, the device shuts itself off completely every time you turn the screen off. And you have to boot it up every time you want to use it. Annoying, but only takes about 30-40 seconds to boot up). I was prompted with a message: "This device has detected that you are not using a Bigpond Internet connection. Broadband services will be disabled until such time as you are using a Bigpond Internet connection."

My internet connection is with TPG. But my phone line is with Telstra. Once again, I fail to understand why I can't surf the web on this device without being locked in to a Bigpond internet connection!

Shocked and pretty damn angry, I pressed OK, and sure enough every useful application on the device was grayed out, and all I could do was make phone calls.

I turned the device off, and have not touched it since.

I returned to work on Tuesday after a long weekend, and received a phone call in the middle of the day. It was a bloke from Telstra, he sounded like he was calling from Sydney, and spoke with an Aussie acsent. Finally I thought, I'll get this issue worked out and get back to my testing.

"The T-Hub requires a Bigpond Internet connection in order to function."

What a F**king Joke!

A motivator

A motivator I created some time ago...