TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

I have the same problem with text entry that is described in this thread on XDA.  It sort of works, but not really.  It's only half a solution, as I can't really control the phone properly. It's such a pity these are all so difficult.  The idea is soooo awesome. I re-rooted my phone, may try AndroidScreencast again, but I prefer wifi over tethered USB. Note that I had to use RealVNC in order to (a) get a connection and (b) be able to re-size the Droid VNC Server window from HUGE/IMMENSE down to a reasonable size.  I couldn't figure out how to do either very well using TightVNC. Both apps have problems with screen rotation.  I put my phone in landscape orientation on my little stand so I can plug it in.  VNC and Screencast both show it sideways.  :-(

[Update 2]:  As of 2015, just forget about AndroidScreencast and go with Teamviewer . It (mostly) just works. Original post below. ---------------------- I can't get it to work. [Update]:  Just figured out the latest Android update broke my root access, so I can't chmod the device properly.  Will have to wait until a new upgrade rom is available, I guess. You can try the instructions here, but they are (at best) incomplete.  Useful links below, you have to put all the pieces together yourself. Notes: The Android SDK landing page has changed.  What you want to get is the SDK installer executable file.  Click "Download for Other Platforms" to see the Windows .exe file, which is what you want.  Don't use the "Download Package" button you see first - clock "Download for Other Platforms", look for "SDK Tools Only", Windows EXE file. When you install, do yourself a favor and put the installation in an easy-to-find directory....

I tried Zoner Free to try to get around Adobe, which was acting very slow.  Unfortunately, Zoner was worse - faster for viewing, but unusable for tagging. The answer is:  It's the network, stupid.   I host all my photos on a central file server, which was just too slow for either Adobe or Zoner, Gigabit connections and RAID6 notwithstanding.  The only solution is to move everything to a local drive. You can kind of forget about any kind of graceful migration from one photos location to another using Adobe Elements Organizer.  I have never seen a program that has such brain-dead defaults and crappy file handling in my life.  It's almost like they make it intentionally difficult for you to re-organize anything at all. Example:  everyone says to "backup" and "restore" your Adobe catalog in order to move drives.  Awkward, as the backup / restore functions take HOURS. Then, when you restore, you will probably check "Restore original file locat...

I wanted to back up my Z3 using Hiren's Boot CD .  I have done this before, and it worked well. (I recommend Image For Windows, available on Hiren's, but you should buy a licence.  IFW seems to be one of the only programs out there that can actually do a bare metal restore.) Oddly enough, when I booted the Z from the USB stick, I did not see Image for Windows.  In fact, I did not see any programs at all.  Mini Windows XP ran fine, but all the programs were missing! Scrounging around the File Manager turned up nada.  It looked like the USB stick was not there, even though the machine had booted from it just fine. The conflict in my case was an SD card that I had added to the system.  It seems Mini XP got confused after boot and replaced the USB stick drive with the SD card.  XP was not capable of reading the SD card owing to the large capacity, and essentially got stuck, unable to locate or load any of the Hiren's apps. Removing the SD card (a...

So two years ago, my car got stuck in a snowdrift.  In my defense (and that of my car), more than half the city got stuck that day. Ironically, by 1:00 pm it had gotten so warm out that ALL the snow had melted.  If I'd known, I would have walked home and come back 3 hours later to drive the car away. (It also made those people who took a "snow day" and stayed home from work look a bit silly.) My car is equipped with the best snow tires money can buy, and had 100 lbs of sand in the rear, but they were no match for this snow.  It was heavy, wet, and deep.  The RWD just could not do it. Now, I hate being stuck.  Possibly more than some people, it is a recurring nightmare for me.  I used to own an AWD sports sedan that would not get stuck, period.  In bad weather, I could literally wait for a couple of 4x4s to lay ruts in the medians and follow right along.  I loved that about that car, and the RWD of my current vehicle is the only thing I dis...

So I tried posting this on EEVblog , and promptly got kicked in the nards.  I had little hope that the thread would progress but some good folks did take up my cause (for the promised $100, of course). Results of my search to date are here . [Update]: eBay seller 99cent Hobbies has been able to source two units for me through TaoBao (Chinese only) .  The supplied units have been verified to have the USB port and software CD, and reportedly have no overshoot issues ( unlike the Quakko and Protek) . [Update 2]:  I have gotten the two units are they are as advertised!  One supply has an issue where it only will output up to 9.0V, but it is almost certainly just shipping/manufacturing issues and not the fault of 99cent Hobbies. So far the supplies have exceeded my expectations for functionality.  Even the 9V issue on the one has not really gotten me down on them.  The software is better than I expected. If you are interested in any, you may want to ta...

Unfortunately, there are too many out there.  As usual.  (The market is so crowded, it's amazing anybody can find anything worthwhile.) I only found about six: Android Lost Free Wheres My Droid Plan B SeekDroid Lookout Mobile Security Prey Cerberus I had to take quite a bit of time to compare them.  Some are free, but require monthly subscriptions in order to operate.  Some are PC-oriented.  Some - oddly - do not provide proper pricing information on their own web sites.  Some are just free period but don't support some of the nice-to-have features. I could have possibly saved myself some considerable time by looking at this review from Android Police .  It has a handy - though not easy to read or modify - chart that shows a feature-by-feature showdown between many phone finder apps.  The "best" ones, arguably, are those on the left-hand side of the chart. Anyway, I found the chart after I had already plowed work into doing the com...

This is just some ramblings on equipment reviews. Personally, I love EEVblog.  If you have not already done so, be sure to go over to EEVblog.com and check out some of Dave's his ratings, rants and reviews.  Just listening to him is enough to make me say "hell, yeah!".  I wish I could do what he does. One of Dave's many services to the electronics community are honest, no-BS reviews of digital multimeters and other equipment.  He's amazingly thorough and calls them like he seems them, including teardowns to reveal the inner nastiness of some of the units.  He's managed to blow several up by just using them. It's an invaluable service, but not without pitfalls.  Not knocking Dave here at all - I can't think of anyone I'd rather have telling me which equipment is good and which is crap.  But the whole review methodology is limited by design. Here's the deal. Variation is the thing.  Reviewers - any reviewer - can only review one (or, in...