emun.eee

Thats me in the Volkswagen GLI.  I thought this was pretty funny.

Headed to work in the morning.  I honestly couldn’t see the traffic light behind that tractor-trailer.  There are not traffic lights on the corners either.  I thought it was funny though.  If I can get the video, I’ll post that.

Well, I’ve had my Samsung Captivate for a week.  Probably one of the most useful purchases I’ve made in quite sometime.  This will be real brief but in the past week I have done pretty everything on this phone.  I have paid bills, balanced my checkbook, listened to Little Brother’s entire album discography, wrote this WordPress article, recorded HD video, taken pictures, checked work email, updated my Facebook and Twitter statuses, waste my time playing paper toss, kept track kf appointments, streamed the Bob Marley channel on Pandora, etc.

A couple negatives.  First the phone will slow down for some unknown reason.  It just becomes really laggy.  This happens when the phone is syncing tweets sometimes.  The GPS is shot.  I can rarely locked on to GPS satellites, even when I am outside with clear skies.  Facebook syncing has been broken from day one.  This maybe a good thing because I don’t always need this social sites all up in face all day.  Hopefully Samsung can work out the kinks in the next update.  Battery life is also a but below satisfactory…but then again I’m always using this device.

The positives…there are just so much to list.  This thing has so much utility.  I’m probably able to conduct all the business in my life on this one device alone.

This was pretty informal, just want to put a few more thoughts out there.  Also those pictures might look terrible because they were uploaded using this WordPress app.

Don’t know if it’s apparent or not, but I am a diehard NY Jets fan.  Hard Knocks: NY Jets Training Camp debuts on HBO on Wednesday August 11.  Cannot wait.

First of all -> all the credit goes to ‘chaoscentral’ for the rooting procedure and ‘maerlim’ for instructions on removing the “features” added by AT&T.

Disclaimer:  I am not responsible for any damage that may occur to your handset or your life following the procedure laid out here.

How to root

1. Download the following file -> http://www.emuneee.com/downloads/SGH-I897_root_update.zip
2. Copy it to the root of your internal storage card and rename it to ‘update.zip’
3. Turn off the phone
4. Hold the Volume Up & Down buttons  and the Power button simultaneously.  Release the Power button once the ‘AT&T World Phone’ logo appears
5. In the next menu, select ‘Reinstall Packages”.  Use Volume Up/Down to navigate the menu.
6. The phone will reboot automatically and now your Samsung Captivate is rooted

How to remove AT&T software (most of it anyways)

Prerequisites: Android SDK, a rooted Samsung Captivate, Samsung Galaxy S USB drivers – Windows (64-bit OS | 32-bit OS)

1. Turn on USB Debugging on your phone – Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging
2. Open the command prompt on your PC and CD to to the Android SDK installation directory
3. Navigate to the ‘tools’ folder
4. type the following:

• adb shell
• su
• mv /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.tmp
• mv /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.apk /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.tmp
• mv /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.apk /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.tmp
• mv /system/app/MobileBanking.apk /system/app/MobileBanking.tmp
• mv /system/app/attmaps20-1094.apk /system/app/attmaps20-1094.tmp
• exit
• exit

You are done.  This procedure will remove

• AT&T Navigation
• AT&T Radio
• MobiTV
• Mobile Banking
• AT&T Maps

You can reverse the procedure by typing the follwing after the ‘su’ command in Step 4:

• mv /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.tmp /system/app/ATTNav-Samsung-Vega-1488.apk
• mv /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.tmp /system/app/ATT_Radio_2.1.07.apk
• mv /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.tmp /system/app/MobiTV_800x480_320_20100610_1.0.0.15-118829.apk
• mv /system/app/MobileBanking.tmp /system/app/MobileBanking.apk
• mv /system/app/attmaps20-1094.tmp /system/app/attmaps20-1094.apk

There are other items such as AT&T Family Maps and AT&T Hotspots that will remain although those appear to be links to web apps.  You can also enable sideloading of applications as well.  I haven’t completed that procedure, but the instructions are available here.

I am on my lunch break typing this post on my Samsung Captivate.  Just a few quick observations.

The Captivate is a very quick device. However as I soon found out, installing too many Widgets will slow things down.  You can definitely shoot yourself with all this freedom. The Android Market is full of apps though.  I am typing this article using the WordPress app.

The super AMOLED screen looks great.  The build quality is also pretty nice.

The software is nice as well.  I wasn’t a fan of TouchWiz so I installed LauncherPro beta.   So far so good.

Music sounds nice as well.  I used my Captivate in place of my now sold Zune HD during my morning run.

I’ll do some new articles down the road.

I am going to try something new.  I have decided to develop applications for both the Android platform and Windows Phone 7 platform.  The initial applications I will hopefully be bring to both platforms before the year is over with.

• Google Reader client with all the features of Speeed Reader
• Twitter Trends tracking client

I foresee both of these applications being very very useful.  I will begin posting updates on my development progress, experiences and comparisons between both platforms, and any tips I can give to make development easier for anyone else looking to develop on either platforms.

You can use the the following links to get all the articles associated with the tags to filter the articles for each respective platform.

• http://emuneee.com/category/android-development
• http://emuneee.com/category/windows-phone-development

In other news, I am confident I will be getting a Windows Phone 7 developer handset soon!

I have a new twitter account for all of my mobile discussions, reviews, development news, and rare randomness.

http://twitter.com/eeennomobile

Check me out!

If you’ve been following me, you’ll notice I am somewhat biased towards the Samsung Captivate coming to AT&T on July 18th $199.99.  Just thought I would list all of the review and hands-on articles and videos that debuted this past week.

• Phonedog – Unboxing
• SlashGear – Unboxing
• TechnoBuffalo – Unboxing
• Mobileburn – Unboxing/Hands-on
• PhoneArena – Review
• IntoMobile – Unboxing
• Pocketnow – Unboxing
• Boy Genius – Unboxing
• Android and Me – Unboxing - GPU Benchmark – TouchWiz Walkthrough
• Engadget – Preview
• Android Police – Unboxing/Hands-on
• The Android Nation – Unboxing – Quick Review
• PC World – Review
• Laptop Mag – Review
• Mobility Minded - Review

I’ll update this as more reviews and hands-on articles are published.  Whenever I get mine, I’ll throw up a short review.

Wow, now this is dope.  Kooley High – Sky View ft. King Mez produced by the homie DJ Prince.

Eastern Standard Time dropping July 27!

Download

www.kooleyhigh.com

www.kingmez.com

A Speeed Reader update to v0.95.  This update is specifically for those using it on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.  WM6.1 Pro users cannot use v1.15 because the browser doesn’t not respond to touch. Only Windows Mobile 6.5 users are able to interact with the Speeed Reader browser in v1.15. Please download v0.95 if you are a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional user.  If you are a Windows Mobile 6.5 user and you download v0.95, you will break browser functionality.

Download

So it has been a little over two weeks since I’ve had AT&T Uverse installed.  I’ll run through installation and some thoughts on the service.  If you don’t want to read all of this, summary: Uverse is great!

Installation

I was scheduled to have AT&T Uverse installed on Saturday, June 18th.  The premises technician was 30 minutes late though, not a big deal.  If you refer to my previous post, I said I already had an Ethernet GigE network installed in my house.  This made my installation incredibly quick and painless.  I received three pieces of AT&T equipment:

2Wire 3800GHV Residential Gateway

Cisco Set-top DVR box

The technician was able to connect the NID to the residential gateway using a coaxial cable.  On the side of my house, the Time Warner Cable NID was very close to the AT&T NID.  So the installer, disconnected (unscrewed from the splitter) a line (of three) from the Time Warner Cable NID and plug it into the AT&T NID.  This brought the signal into my home, into the laundry room and the location of all my network equipment.

NID – Connected via COAX

From there, everything was plug and play.  My Linksys WRT54G2 wireless router was replaced by the residential gateway since it doubled as a wireless router as well.  Each Cisco settop box was plugged into the Ethernet network in each location.  Once the residential gateway was up and running the settop boxes were able to connect to it (via my Ethernet network) and it all worked.  My desktop PC acquired a new IP address and worked too.  We spent more time programming the actual remotes than setting up the televisions…lol.

The Service

I subscribed to the U200 television package with the 12Mbps/1.5Mbps internet service.

Everything looks good, although my ping is about 60ms higher than my ping when I was using Time Warner Cable.  I haven’t noticed any degraded internet performance however.  For all of those interested, I am on the 25/2 profile (25Mbps/2Mbps)…which allows me to record/watch up to 2 high definition shows and 2 standard definition shows simultaneously.  The profile determines the rate you are able to achieve at your home.  It is dependant on your home’s distance from the VRAD, quality of wiring, and any other natural or man made interference.  My line is rated for 41Mbps, so there is some headroom for future expansion (3HD/1SD or 4HD/0SD).  This is fine for me, because I only have a roommate (and soon to be fiancee).  However, if you have more TVs (or people watching TV in different rooms) and record a lot of shows you may find yourself restricted by this limit.

Television service has been, for the most part, rock solid.  The only issue I have been having has been some of the TV guide information (programs and times) have been incorrect, resulting in the wrong program being recorded onto the DVR.  This has happened very rarely however.

The picture quality I receive via AT&T Uverse is comparable to Time Warner Cable.  For the part, everything looks exactly the same, but if you look hard enough, you can see some pixelation, compression, noise, etc.  I would describe AT&T Uverse’s picture quality vs. Time Warner Cable as softer (less sharp).  I am watching TV on a Sharp Aquos 1080P screen.

Other noticeable differences between AT&T Uverse and Time Warner Cable:

• Set your DVR to record programs from an internet browser (including your phone) – can’t do this with TWC
• Set-top box software is way more responsive than whatever software is present on TWC set-top boxes – it’s a night & day difference
• Easily manage your account online (add features and channels, add packages, etc.)

Each home receiving service from AT&T Uverse will get one DVR box.  However, due to the nature of the service, you can watch your DVR recordings on any set top box in your home….this is a great feature.  I’ll be able to record Top Gear and watch anywhere in my home while my fiancee watches Oprah…lol.  There are also some other convenient features such as:

• Multiview (News, Sports, Family): you are able to watch 4 of the preselected channels at a time.  For example, for the Sports Multiview, you can watch all the ESPN network channels at once.  Very handy when there is a major sports tournament on, such as the World Cup or NCAA Basketball Tournament
• AT&T Ubar: provides weather, traffic, stock market, and sports updates on your TV screen
• Yahoo Games: you can play Yahoo games online on your television screen

Other benefits of having AT&T UVerse:

• ESPN3.com access for free (watch live sports online)
• Free access to AT&T’s nationwide WiFi network
• NFL Network HD
• No Time Warner Cable =D

Overall, I’m very pleased with AT&T Uverse.  Should you get AT&T Uverse?  Only if you are unhappy with your current service.  You will not save a whole lot of money vs. your existing cable company and in some instances, Uverse maybe more expensive.  Furthermore, it’s a relatively new technology that is very dependent on the condition of the existing infrastructure.  If the wiring in your home or neighborhood is bad, or you are too far from the VRAD, your experience will most likely suffer.  However, the good thing is you can try it out risk free.  I hope I was clear in this post.  If you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll try and answer them as best I can.

Extra

If you have AT&T Uverse and you don’t have the 2WireRealtime tool, its a must have.  It will tell you all types of stats about your home’s Uverse network.  You can get it at: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r24028637-2WireMRTGexe-and-2WireRealtimeexe