Another day, another experiment on my new favorite toy business instrument – Kindle Fire. Today I went ahead and installed latest (as of this date) incarnation of Android OS – version 4 aka Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). Again, like in case with CyanogenMod 7 (which is essentially Android 2.3.7) installation is extremally easy thanks to TWRP recovery. Just download Kindle Zone ICS ROM put it on your Fire, reboot into TWRP recovery, *backup your existing rom* and flash the ICS.

It boots nicely and looks pretty good. Connects to WiFi with Internet and LAN access (ES File Explorer comes preinstalled and accessed SMB shares on my home network with no problems).

Being a very early version it has it share of problems. Video doesn’t work correctly (MP4 files for example play in fast-forward mode, YouTube can’t connect). Sounds work sporadically and overall moving around the interface has a jerky feeling. But it looks like a very good start and I am looking forward to a more stable release. Meanwhile I am back to CM7

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UPDATE 02/18/2012. Now this is what the doctor ordered. The new update from the same XDA forum thread as above breathed new life into my Kindle. Basically, everything works. And it looks awesome! Here is direct link to the ROM. So now this is my OS of choice for my Fire. Did I mention it’s Cyanogen Mod 9? Did I also mention that there’s Google Chrome now available on Android Marked for Ice Cream Sandwich?

Found this gem today:

It’s a Visual Basic IDE environment for developing Android apps. But unlike other similar solutions it does not require bloated runtime running on the device, Basic4Android easily compiles native APK app.

Don’t learn Java, utilize your existing Visual Basic skills instead. And the community of thousands of developers can be a huge help as well.

Also you’re in luck today. Download the trial, play around with it and if you like it - use discount code “bvqbet” to get 50% off any version! Here’s how:

1. Visit purchase link: http://www.basic4ppc.com/android/purchase.html
2. Select Plimus as your checkout option
3. Enter coupon code bvqbet in the coupon code field
4. Profit! You get a 50% discound off a regular price

Happy coding!

If you bricked your Motorola DROID 3 phone while rooting it, installing some custom ROM or doing other fun stuff – don’t despair, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

(Disclaimer: I am not responsible for anything that happens to your phone. But then again, if you’re reading this, something already has happened to it).

1. Download the Motorola Stock Image (SBF) v5.6.890 HERE
2. Download Motorola Flashing Utility (RSDLite) v5.5 HERE
3. Extract the contents of the SBF file to a folder on your computer
4. Install RSDLite
5. Boot your DROID 3 into bootloader by holding both Vol+ & Vol- at the same time when powering on the phone
6. Select “AP Fastboot” from boot menu by pressing Vol- repeatedly and then press Vol+ to select it
7. Open RSDLite and browse for the XML in the folder where you extracted the SBF file
8. Connect the phone to PC via USB, and when RSDLite  says  ”Connected”, hit “Start“
9. Wait for the phone to finish flashing, and booting (it can reboot several times, let it be)

You’re done! Your phone is resurrected, feel free to root it, install custom ROMs and do other fun stuff again.

NOTE: You phone may require activation after the flash, just follow original Verizon activation steps (if you’re not prompted to activate your phone and still have no connection just dial *228 and follow the instructions).

CREDITS: Thanks chevycam94 for original SBF-ing instructions and files. As a matter of fact these instructions are pretty much exact copy of first 9 steps of his instruction on how to flash his custom ROM Steel Droid – check it out!

Visited IE test-drive site in my Chrome browser today and was greeted with a cheery banner:

I guess that “Don’t forget to enable your partial hardware acceleration in the about:flags thingy…” is a veiled reference that IE9′s HTML5 is fully “hardware accelerated”. Still funny.

Update: Since Microsoft is abandoning their “native HTML5″ party line the funny logo has been removed as well. Too bad, especially after comparing FPS on speed tests.

This is December of 2009 and Google has an interesting Easter Egg in its Search page. If you leave the search field blank and click “I am feeling lucky” button Google displays countdown in large numbers:

From the looks of it it’s a countdown to New 2010 Year. It’s coming

Gladinet released a very cool Windows client that allows you to mount online storage spaces from different providers (like Amazon, Google, Microsoft) as an ordinary desktop drive.

I tried it with Microsoft’s own SkyDrive (did I mention that they offer 25Gb of storage space for free?)

and it works like magic.

Now who couldn’t use 25Gb of storage space always available from anywhere in the world?

We were updating our family blog with some older photos from our previous travels when we found this picture

The problem was – we didn’t remember neither the name of this place nor the date (only that it was somewhere in Brooklyn sometime in 2006). So our quest began.
Continue reading 'Google investigation'»