Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by HolgiB

Nexus 7 - broken screen

HolgiB — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:58:06 +0800

Hi Guys,

just 3 months ago my wife got her ASUS (Google) Nexus 7 tablet.

Now it happened, son dropped it and despite cover it hit right at the corner . Just a small crack is in the glass, but enough to make it impossible to use. The touches are not recognized correctly.

Asked the shop where I bought it to fix, but they ask way to much. It is possible to just replace the digitzer (glass) according to Google.

Where can I fix it?

How looked Apple computing 34 years ago?

HolgiB — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:09:36 +0800

I thought I am asking here and hope the mods are not annoyed.

The Apple IIe was sold a lot in Malaysia. But not the original model, it was a clone version. Some called it the "Foul Apple" or there was also a "Pineapple". Guess that were the roots of the still existing Pineapple shop.

To add some value to my post, here are some specs of this 1978 machine:

* The CPU was running at a stunning speed of 1.0 Mhz (yes Megahertz)
* It came with 4 KByte RAM (thats enough to store 4096 Characters, thats all)
* The graphics capabilities were 280 X 192 pixels, 40 X 24 text, 6 colors maximum

It was easy to extend, as it head extension slot. The PC as we know it today borrowed this idea from the Apple II. But later Apple abandoned the idea, to have a system sold by them with extension slots. Steve Jobs didn't want to have the "perfection" of the original idea spoiled by having user cabaple of adding extensions. After he left, the PowerPCs became extend-able "PCs". When Jobs returned, that changed again with the iMac stuf... :-)

The Apple II was revamped 1983 to the Apple IIe and they were sold until the late 80ties.

So when someone got one somewhere collecting dust, please let me know.

Cheers
Holger

My bad experience wth fake Samsung Phones

HolgiB — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:16:14 +0800

Maybe some here call me stupid or just laugh their ass off, but I think this can help others to avoid being fooled. So let me tell you guys my story and how I wasted a whole weekend, to buy a phone and almost lost RM 2500.

The plan was to buy new phones for our little company. We are three and all of us are using Android phones. But all have one in common, they are fairly old. The plan was to be "always online", with new postpaid contracts and better phones. The combo offers from Digi, Maxis and Co suck - so we decided to better buy the phones separately.

The Galaxy SIII sounded interesting, but might be more phone we need to a price between RM 1890 to RM 2199. A Galaxy SII would be fine too, or even better the Galaxy Nexus. It matches with some specs with the Galaxy SIII and is about RM 150 cheaper than a Galaxy SII. I found a good shop in Subang via Lelong, the Nexus was offered for RM 1198,- with some freebies. So I suggested to my partner (it was Thursday) to go Friday evening to the Shop and get three Galaxy Nexus for RM 1200 a piece. But he was busy and heard, that a friend of a good friend, bought a Galaxy SII for RM 750. I was surprised, the lowest I was able to find was RM 1350. Suddenly the Nexus looked like an expensive option for him and I agreed to go on Saturday Morning to Digital Mall. The place where he believed the IT guy of one of our customers, also bought his SII weeks ago for also stunning RM 900.

It is Satuday around 11:45 and we arrive at Digital Mall. I ask in every shop about the Galaxy SII and the Nexus. Nobody had the Nexus in stock and the price for Galaxy SII was between 1350 and 1480. Not a surprise I thought and told my partner, that his friend bought a whatever Samsung Galaxy, but not a SII. But he was still convinced. I started to get fed up of that and told him to get the guy on the phone. It took some time to get the guy who new the lucky man with the RM 750 Galaxy SII. He provided him the phone number and t hat guy confirmed, its an Galaxy SII and he didn't buy it at digital mall. He explained us, he bought it at the entrance of petaling street. Next to a bridge, there is a shop with a big SAMSUNG sign. He also told us, that he is very happy with his SII. But the manual was french, so maybe thats the explanation for the low price. It might be, that its meant to be for the french market.

Around 1:30pm we arrived at China Town and with the help of this guy over the phone, we managed to find the shop. I thought this is a big mobile shop, which must be crowded with customers. Selling re-imported or reconditioned mobile sets for insanely low prices. But it was just a small mini shop in front of a mall. The whole ground floor of the mall full of mobile phone shops.

So we asked the guy for the price of a Galaxy SII. He replied "Just RM 650". We booth looked at each other. My partner and friend smiling, I rather in disbelief. He was right, I was wrong. I asked about the Nexus and he has stock for RM 800. Another surprise. So my partner dared to ask for the holy mobile phone grail: "How much is the Galaxy SIII?" "The Galaxy SIII is RM 1100, Hari Raya Promo", wtf? "And if we buy three?", my partner responded. "Then I can make RM 1000 one set". In disbelief, I asked to try one set. He came back with a Galaxy SIII in a Samsung box. I switched on the phone after inserting the battery and was greeting with the typical Samsung splash screen and boot sequence. The screen contrast look great and the display high resolution. Android felt snappy and fast, all checks on the phone proved its a real Samsung SIII. But the case looked cheap. I never checked out the SIII so much, I was looking for the Nexus before. I also asked for a Nexus set, which started with its typical boot animation and all info through settings was correct. I asked "Is this a real SIII?" The salesman responded "Friend! Come on lah. Not to worry. All original... you see or not?" Then I noticed no 16GB internal memory, but the salesman destroyed my concerns and showed me that no memory card was yet inserted. I was sceptical, the set had a charger from a company callled "Anycom". We found out a South American mobile phone provider, some labels on the box were in spanish. We left with 3 Samsung Galaxy SIII for RM 1000 and a receipt. The conversation while driving back home was, why it was so cheap. Maybe some grey imported stuff meant for the south american mobile provider. Maybe fake? But how can he have three different Samsung models looking like real one, we thought thats impossible. At about 3pm, I reached my place.

Back at home, the first thing was to connect to my wifi and install a benchmark from the market. I used the quadrant benchmark and I noticed even without doing the full test, that something is wrong here. The screen resolution was 854*480. The SIII has an HD display with 1280*720 pixels. After running the benchmark, it became evident, that the phone just gets a third of the originals performance. Also the internal memory was already full, after installing 5 programs from the market. It became more than clear, that this is a fake. (http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/07/10/hdc-galaxy-s3-fake-is-not-real-samsung-model/)

I called my partner and explained to him, we decided to go back and have a serious conversation with that guy. At about 5pm I was again in a car, heading to china town...

Ok, as this is getting long, let me say thats the end of Part 1. Let me know if you like to hear the rest of the story. It ends on Sunday at about 7pm :-)

Market value of a uses Blackberry Storm 9500

HolgiB — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:32:35 +0800

Hi guys,

my boss is leaving us. He wants to keep his now one year old Blackberry Storm 9500. I wonder how much we have to charge him, what would be the market value? Well he was talking of RM 50 to 100

Holger

Motorola Milestone - My favorite apps

HolgiB — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:46:04 +0800

Hi Guys,

I just want to share with you my favorites. My Milestone is on its original image, got no other hacks than root. Alls Apps/Widgets are free - except one.

1.) SeePU
Gives you a CPU/Memory indicator in the taskbar. Very helpful to notice, that there is something in the background, keeping your phone busy.

2.) GDocs Notepad
What I was missing from Windows Mobile, was a notes application. I am used to have a lot of notes on my PDA. From jokes to important URLs, technical information like commands, code snippets and so on. The great thing about GDocs Notepad is, that you can sync it with your Google Docs. So you can add notes from your Computer and get it synced from the phone or vice versa. Nice just to copy and paste something and get it as a note on the phone.

3.) GTasks
GTasks is a nice ToDo list, which syncs with your Google Account. It can be used offline, like Gdocs Notepad. You just have to be online for the sync itself.

4.) Astro File Manager
The best file manager for android, works flawlessly on Milestone. A must have.

5.) ConnectBot
Very powerful SSH client and for an admin like me essential.

6.) AndChat
This is the best IRC client available for Android.

7.) BeyondPod paid
Excellent podcast manager and RSS feed reader. Can be used together with Google Reader.

8.) Meridian Player
The MP3 player of my choice - because it can still play from folders.

9.) Toggle Data Widget
Lets you switch off 3G/EDGE/GPRS from your homescreen.

10.) Network Widget
Shows your IP and the access point where you are connected to on the home screen.

11.) Market Enabler (needs rooted phone)
Lets you fake the provider, to get access to paid applications in Android Market.

Everybody is invited to share his favorites on Milestone .

Cheers
Holger

Places to buy projector in PJ?

HolgiB — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:42:19 +0800

Hi guys,

havent seen any shops selling projector at The Curve or One Utama.

Do you know a shop somewhere in PJ? I am looking for a mid-range projector SVGA or XGA to play and watch movies.

Holger

What to buy?

HolgiB — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:31:32 +0800

Maybe some of you guys can help me. I am a bit lost. I would like to buy a new Full HD Plasma or TFT and send my old Sony TV in retirement.

Asking the sales guys I heard differed testimonies about Plasma and TFT. I want to buy a screen, which is 46" or bigger. It should be Full HD. Because I think when purchasing something, which you would use for many years, its good to go for the best specs. But I am not sure, if the higher resolution really counts? What do you think?

I looked for the following TFTs/Plasmas

47" Philips 47PFL5403, Full HD TFT for RM 5650,- (at Ongking?)
50" Panasonic TH-P50X10K, HD Plasma for RM 5450,- (+ Freebies at Best Dengki at MidValley)

Want to play XBOX 360 on it and later Blue Ray movies...

What do you think? Whats the better choice?

Holger

360 thougths and the evil empire(s)

HolgiB — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:50:50 +0800

Hi guys,

just want to share my thoughts with you! Up to you, if you like to read...

First of all, I was always a Microsoft hater. Well, to be honest it started about 1998. I was self-employed and had to deal with a lot of frustrated customers. They had issues with their Windows 95 or 98. Sometimes it was just the installed Office, which worked not properly. These guys bought the system in my shop. So I was responsible from their point of view, thats understandable. For me I was fixing M$ bugs. Cant remember how many times I called the M$ hotline. After a few times they started to tell me, that next time I call, I have to pay! This was like giving oil into the fire. But thats the way you can behave, when you are such a big player.

I never played a lot on a PC. After fixing the PCs from other people, I had enough after of fixing my own, to get one particular game running smoothly. It was 2001, when I decided to buy a next generation console - at that time PS2. Already owned a used Dreamcast. But I wanted to get the full power! And SONY promised a lot and had this "technical advanced concept" wtih asynchronous GFX/CPU.

With my PS2 I played a lot Grand Turismo. Loved the game, but the graphics? The line flickering? No AA? The difference between the Dreamcast was not really big. I went on buying games, but was never satisfied with the graphics... The XBOX was released already and at that time the price significantly dropped. I sold my (unmodded) PS2 with all games and bought an XBOX. Still hating M$, but it was definately the better product.

The included freebie Sega GT had already better grapics than Gran Turismo. And everybody who can remember Sega GT will say "ouch" . I was lucky with my XBOX, hacked it about 6 months later. Installed the games to the upgraded HD and used it with XBMP (later XBMC) as a media player. Great! The old XBOX is together with XBMC still in duty . A LAN cable connects my living room, with my computer room. Since 2003 we almost stopped using CDs. Listening to music is this way a lot more convenient. There is no day, where this box is not running for at least two hours!

Two years back, I bought at LowYat my 360. It was already modded. Loved to play the games. Great graphics, great games. Played PGR a lot, was included as original and I used it with my 3 months free XBOX live. Started to think about becoming a paying XBOX live member!

Then the trouble began. My 360 was banned, like thousands of others at that time. Well I know broke the rules in using pirated games, but felt not fair with it. Online I only used my PGR. For me it was ok to purchase originals, when the game is worth buying. Now, after 3 months, I was sure I will never buy an original.

The box was just a year old, the drive started to make trouble. Sometimes, it declined to open the tray. But I found out it was not just that, sometimes it was really like dead. Not aware of a "drive key", I thought I can change it, when it finally dies. Now its dead, the drive key cannot be extracted. Because lack of time and traveling, my 360 was rarely used. Maybe less than 70 hours of usage. The broken part is just a damn drive, easy to change. M$ avoids successfully fixing it. Thanks! This kind of frustration might had other here with the famous RLOD. Which I might have got later, because it was one of the early machines. A known problem from M$. But again, when you are a big global player...

Looking at the PS3, SONY is not treating there customers really good as well. The PS3 is like a "supercomputer at home", with the Cell Prozessor and Rumble is not Next Gen . But today it is - they had just license problems! So many early buyers of the PS3 are now double paying, because purchasing new controllers. The first generation had hardware PS2 compatibility. Later they went on to remove all PS2 hardware from the board, to continue with software compatibility. Nowadays, we have NO compatibility. And btw the Cell Processor together with the GFX chip is not performing so great. The GFX of the 360 is still way better. In the web, there are enough testimonies from software developers, about the capabilities of this machine. Some people claim, the PS3 is way ahead the XBOX, because it was about one year later releases. But the reason of the late release was Blue Ray and technical issue with copy protection, laser diodes... Its not one year more of development in that box.

Luckily, the PS3 integrates a Blue Ray drive. The HD DVD (R.I.P) had btw. more (interactive) features. Blue Ray still tries to catch up. But even I am thinking about buying a PS3. Throwing my old TV and replacing it with an LCD, gonna need a Blue Ray player.

So the outcome will be to buy a new 360, because of better graphics, more choice of games and a lot better online gaming. Because I need a Blue Ray player, capable of doing old DVD upscaling etc., I will buy a PS3. If HD DVD would have been the winner, or M$ would integrate Blue Ray in their 360, I wouldn't need a PS3.

Feeling comfortable in buying a new 360 is difficult. My box was modded, but still feeling fooled and pity so many other, where the 360 died from RLOD!

Holger

MS28 flashing trouble - Somebody can help in PJ?

HolgiB — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:03:31 +0800

Hi Guys,

I am still working on re-animating my 360 with a broken drive. I managed to get a RLOD Box with a Hitachi drive as a replacement, for my broken Samsung MS28. They are reported to be interchangeable.

Days ago I thought its completely dead, but it isn't. There was a problem with the SATA connector of the drive, so I soldered a SATA cable straight away to the board of the MS28.
Sometimes, the drive initializes, sometimes not. But from SATA it seems always accessible. The XBOX doesn't complain with an Error code, but the green light in the middle keeps flashing. So the drive is recognized, but e.g. I cant open the tray. This was the exact problem I suffered in the past.

To solve my problem now, I need to read the ROM of the drive to get that damn drive key and put it into the hitachi. Maybe I am too stupid or just have the wrong VIA controller. I always get "no drives detected". Once when I repeated "mtkflash..." million times, it started to read. But ended at 0%. Checked different tutorials, tried millions things the last days and have no more ideas, what else to try.

So is there somebody, preferrably in PJ area, that can help me to read the flash of my drive???

Holger

Buying a Waja?

HolgiB — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:18:26 +0800

I started to think about buying a second hand car. Why not a local brand and the Waja didnt look that bad!

But is it really satisfying?

http://www.carworld.my/carreviews.php?revi...&modelname=Waja

Well, and I am particularly interested in this one:

http://www.carworld.my/offer_details.php?offerid=74

What do you think?

Cheers
hb

360 Drive broken, replacement needed.

HolgiB — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:28:55 +0800

About 4 monts back, I started a thread on the same problem. I still need a new drive for my 360. Anybody her can offer a sparepart or a 3ROD box, where I would be able to take the drive from?

The story to my problem... After playing a while with my 360 it had trouble reading a disk. Throwing me back to the menu and then power led kept on flashing. Known problem... DVD drive will not open. After pressing the button million times, switching on and off I get Error 64 or 65.

After dissaembling the box I found out, that I dont get any error if I disconnect the DVD drive. So it was always a pain with that drive, I am pretty sure its broken.

Tthe drive model is SAMSMUNG when I check the tray and the pictures on the web.

The "Part No" on it says X800473-019 and its a Ver. A from October 2006 (TS-H943A / MCAH, H/W:007). But I guess all Samsung drives are the same and interchangeable?

Holger

360 drive died - replacement needed

HolgiB — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:51:57 +0800

Today after playing a while with my 360 it had trouble reading a disk. Throwing me back to the menu and then power led kept on flashing. Know problem... DVD drive will not open. After pressing the button million times, switching on and off I get Error 64 or 65.

After dissaembling the box I found out, that I dont get any error if I disconnect the DVD drive. So it was always a pain with that drive, I am pretty sure its broken.

Anybody here wants to sell a drive from RROD box? Or his whole died box for spare parts?

Holger

Any people here playing/collecting classic games?

HolgiB — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:53:18 +0800

Hi,

I am curious if I can find people here, which are interested in arcade games, old computer and all that stuff.

I already collected a lot and brought it all to KL from my home country. In my living room I have a arcade cabinet and around 90 games for it (Galaga, Donkey Kong, Raiden, Time Pilot Gyruss, NeoGeo Titles, ...). My thaught was the some people here having the same hobby. The arcade in malaysia are still alive, in germany they are all dead.

Beside the arcade cabinet I collected the well known classics like SNES, Atari VCS2600, Dreamcast, ... The home computers are never been famous here. Sometimes I am playing on a Commodore 64 or AMIGA 2000. Miss shops to buy Dreamcast or SNES games.

What classics do you own?

--Holger

Astro Settings?

HolgiB — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:35:33 +0800

Does anybody of you here know the settings for Astro satellite TV? I want to use a DBox2 satellite receiver which is basically a dreambox. On my house I already have a Astro satellite dish.

I think what I need is:

* transponder frequency
* symbol_rate
* polarization
* LNB

Thanks
Holger

Routing/Map Software for KL?

HolgiB — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:48:28 +0800

I am looking for a routing software with up to date maps for KL or whole malaysia. Is there anything available? Havent found anything yet... Just something for my mobile, which is something a little bit iconveniet.

Holger

Moving to BU 11/5 - whats available?

HolgiB — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:07:43 +0800

Hi @all,

looked on the Website at Streamyx and was not able to find Streamyx. Hmm I am new in Town and mabye dont know to what Bandar Utama belongs...

Does anybody knows here whats availbale there and recommended?

Holger

Any Hackintosh Users here?

HolgiB — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:19:02 +0800

Last time I visited KL I was surprised to see, that in the computer shops nobody heard about the ability using cheap PC hardware as a Mac.

So I am curious to know if anybody here is using Mac OSX on standard PC hardware?

--Holger