Todoleo Tech Blog

Three Web Cube - Easy WiFi

2012-02-23T20:04:00.000Z

After a week of regular use, today I'm reviewing the Three Web Cube.

The Three Web Cube is a wireless internet access point for the home. Rather than connecting to the internet through a normal phone line, the Three Web Cube connects to the internet through Three UK's mobile broadband network. This means no line rental or lengthy contracts with traditional broadband providers. If you need to move you can easily take the web cube with you: all you need to do is unplug the device from the power socket, take it with you and plug it in at your destination.

You can connect up to five devices to the Three Web Cube at once. This is now quite a likely scenario, since most people have more than one device that connects to the internet through WiFi (smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks etc...). I successfully had five devices connected at once. For all basic application and web browsing needs there was more than enough bandwidth to cater for all devices.

Shiny blue light: it must be good!

As I already mentioned, the Three Web Cube connects to the internet through Three UK's mobile broadband network. At time of writing, the Web Cube is on trial in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds. I'm lucky enough to live in an area of Edinburgh where there is very good coverage from Three UK, that's one of the main reasons I use Three's network for my smartphone too. Setting up the Web Cube and getting online was a piece of cake: I just had to follow the simple instructions that came in the box.

The Nokia Lumia 710 connected to the Three Web Cube (@fatoldgingercat assisted with the testing and review)

The Web Cube I was sent came with a Three UK mobile broadband SIM card. Once that was popped into the Web Cube, I plugged the device into the mains and it lit up with a cool blue light. Deep inside me I always think that if it has a cool blue light it must be doing something very clever. All my devices could see the Web Cube as a wireless access point. After connecting to it, I was prompted to enter the network access key, which is printed both on a sticker at the bottom of the Web Cube and on the instruction booklet. All my devices connected to the Web Cube without hiccups, apart from my Nokia Lumia 710. It turned out that the Windows Phone 7 autocapitalisation was interfering with my WiFi key entry...

Not bad during rush hour: that's faster than many people's home broadband

At peak times of the day (rush hour in the morning and rush hour in the evening) the internet connection was slightly slower than during the rest of the day. That's probably due to the fact that I live near a main road in a densely populated area of Edinburgh and that's when most of the mobile web is used. Even so, at peak times I was getting consistently good connection speeds of between 3 Mbps and 5 Mbps for downloads and between 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps for upload. Three say that potentially the device should be able to handle up to 21 Mbps download and 5 Mbps in optimal network conditions.

Once connected to the Web Cube, all my devices operated as usual. To get into the Web Cube's administrator control panel, all I had to do was type "http://3.home" into my web browser address bar.

The Three Web Cube's web interface control panel

From the administrator control panel you can check the status of the Web Cube, read and send text messages (it's technically a mobile broadband device...), find out how many devices are connected and manage advanced settings. I decided to mess with the neighbours a bit and renamed the web cube to "NewsInternationalSurveillance" for a while...

An easy way to mess with the neighbours...

The Three Web Cube is a capable device, essentially a MiFi for the home. For many people it could quite easily replace a basic home broadband connection, considering how competitive Three's mobile broadband packages can be. It could also be handy for people who travel a lot, or just don't want to commit to a lengthy fixed line broadband connection. While not being as fast a connection as my Virgin Media fibre optic broadband one, the Web Cube performed very well and didn't really leave me wanting for anything more. So as a conclusion to this review, I'll give the Three Web Cube a big thumbs up!

A quick disclaimer: I was not remunerated by Three UK for this review, and the Three Web Cube I reviewed was on loan and will be sent back. All opinions expressed on this blog post are my own, are subjective and the speed test run is probably flawed and should not be taken as an objective result. OK, Leo Laporte vs Mike Arrington situation averted...

You can find out more about the Three Web Cube and if the service is available in your area here.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Samsung Galaxy Note - Prone To Screen Burn?

2012-02-16T21:48:00.001Z

I was in a Carphone Warehouse store today and saw a display unit of the Samsung Galaxy Note with visible signs of screen burn. Screen burn is when a screen has a static image (such as a menu/icon) burnt into the screen. The pixels in that section of the screen lose the capacity to display colours properly so you end up seein shadows of the static image (usually on white backgrounds).

Screen burn - annoying once you notice it...

Screen burn seen from a different angle

Apart from the screen burn, I really like the screen of the Samsung Galaxy Note. Fantastic pixel density!

As usual, feel free to ask questions and/or leave comments below.

Bada OS To Be Folded Into TIZEN

2012-01-27T09:24:00.000Z

Samsung's Tae-Jin Tang (Senior Vice President of Samsung’s Contents Planning Team) has revealed that Bada OS will be folded into the Tizen open source project. Bada OS is Samsung's own mobile operating system, which has not been as successful as Android globally.

Tizen is the new name for the MeeGo open source Linux based OS (itself formerly known as Moblin and Maemo). Backed by Intel and Samsung among others, Tizen may be found on some Samsung handsets released by the end of 2012. Interestingly Tae-Jin Tang indicated that Tizen would be used on Samsung's lower end smartphones, while the higher end ones would be running Android or Windows Phone 7.

Source: Forbes.com

Tech Vending Machines At Milan Malpensa Airport

2012-01-25T10:35:00.001Z

I'm waiting in a queue at the gate for my flight back to Scotland. I'll just quickly post these pictures of tech vending machines I saw at the airport.

Archos G9 Tablets To Get Android 4.0 In Early 2012

2011-12-13T08:02:00.000Z

As reported on The Verge, the Archos G9 tablets will be getting the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update in early 2012. I'm looking forward to this as the proud owner of an Archos 80 G9.

Source: The Verge

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. Will Archos be the first manufacturer to release an update to ICS for their existing tablets?

How To Unlock An Orange Monte Carlo (ZTE Skate) [Tutorial]

2011-12-07T10:54:00.001Z

In this tutorial I hope to guide you through network unlocking an Orange Monte Carlo (ZTE Skate). This tutorial is based on the one by tilal6991 and many others from the MoDaCo forums and they deserve all the credit for the achievement. Credit for the unlock process itself goes to All I am doing here is trying to give you a beginner (Noob) friendly tutorial on how to xiaoxyaoswim network unlock your device. I will try and keep the tutorial as simple as possible and include as many images as possible.

Lets make this a little less Orange...

Network unlocking your device may (probably does) void the guarantee on it in many different ways. There is a risk of total and utter failure of the procedures in this tutorial. I am not responsible for:

your phone ending up being unusable and unrepairable
the retailer you purchased the device from refusing to take it back as a return, no matter how much you argue with the staff...
any tears or tantrums because of your bricked device
your ban from aforementioned retailer because of the tears and tantrums
you punching kittens in a tantrum
the RSPCA prosecuting you because you punched kittens
any other of your actions
global warming
the banking crisis
the low number of Jennifer Paige hits in the history of music charts

I am writing this tutorial with the masses in mind. I'll run the tutorial so it can be done on Windows. If there is sufficient demand I may also write a tutorial for Linux users too. (Leave a comment at the end of the post if you would like a Linux tutorial). Ready? Here we go!

To unlock an Orange Monte Carlo you will need a computer running Windows (preferrably Windows 7, but Vista or XP might do) with a spare primary USB port, and an Orange Monte Carlo with its USB cable.

Step 1
Create a new folder on your desktop. You can call it as you wish.

We're going back to IT Skills 101...

Step 2
Download "QPST 2.7 build 366" and install it. You may need an unzip package to do that. Once you have installed QPST, you should be ready for step 3.

Step 3
Download the file from here by clicking on the big green Zip link. The download may take a while because it is approximately 150MB in size.

Once you have downloaded the file, unzip it within the folder we created in step 1 on your desktop.

Step 4
Set your phone up for USB debugging. [Menu=> Settings => Applications => Development] and make sure the USB debugging option is ticked.

Make sure "USB debugging" is ticked

Step 5
Connect you phone (switched on) to your computer through a primary USB port. In Windows, you should have the drivers installed automatically by Windows Update. You may have a problem getting this step completed if your firewall is blocking software from accessing your phone. Try looking through this MoDaCo Forum thread if you have problems with drivers (hopefully you don't...)

Step 6
Run (double click) “install-recovery-windows.bat” from the preparation folder in the folder from step 1 on your desktop.

“install-recovery-windows.bat” running. No need to try and catch it...

You should get an old style black window that looks like this with text popping up. When the program finishes running, the window will automatically close and your phone will reboot. Don't be alarmed, it may also vibrate.

Step 7
Disconnect the Orange Monte Carlo from your computer, and then remove the back cover and the battery.

Step 8
Wait a few seconds and then reinsert the battery and put the back cover on. Hold the phone and make sure you are pressing the volume down button on the volume rocker on the side when you reinsert the USB cable. Your phone will turn on. Keep holding the volume down button as the green android appears and keep it pressed until a white square with FTM appears onscreen (as in the image).

Step 9
In step 2 you we installed QPST on your computer. Go to your Windows Start button, click it, go to All Programs and there you should have a folder called QPST (you might have to scroll down a bit to find it). In the QPST folder open Software Download.

Step 10
In the Software Download window, select the Backup tab near the top (third tab from the left). In the Port section, select your phone (which should appear if it is in debugging mode and connected to a primary USB port). In the QCN File option, select where to save the .qcn file you are going to generate (I recommend the folder we created on the desktop in step). Once that is done press the Start button just below. The process will take a few seconds and then you will have created a .qcn backup file of your device in the folder you chose.

Close QPST Software Download, but don't forget about it copmpletely, we'll need it again later on... (Thanks to dibbles from the MoDaCo Forums for the feedback on this and many other points of the tutorial!)

Step 11
Double check that the .qcn file has a size larger than zero. This is important, so just go to the folder where you saved the .qcn file, right click on it, go to properties and check the size there. It should be approximately 150Kb in size.

Step12
Now go to the Unlock folder on your desktop and run Download.exe. A new window will open which should look like this:

Step 13
When you are ready, click the START button and the program will run. This may take a while, and your phone will reboot a few times in during the process.

Once it is done (Ratio 100/100), you will get a popup window saying that the download was successful. You can close that program and go back to the QPST Software Download program.

Step 14
Open QPST Software Download, as we did in Step 9. Select the Restore tab near the top (second from left).

Step 15
In the QCN File section choose your .qcn file from your folder on the desktop and then click the Start button just below and wait for the process to run.

Step 16
Once that is done, close the QPST Software Download window and disconnect your phone from your computer. Your Orange Monte Carlo should now be network unlocked and able to use any SIM card.

This tutorial is mainly based on tilal6991's tutorial on MoDaCo forums. I've tried to make it fuller and more newbie friendly by adding pictures and filling it out. Please leave feedback and let me know what goes well and/or doesn't with the tutorial. Thanks to tilal6991 and all involved in the effort at the MoDaCo forums.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions either here or on the relevant post in the MoDaCo forums. Please bear in mind the disclaimer at the beginning of the post.

XBOX Live, I Don't Live There! Fail! [Rant]

2011-12-07T08:27:00.001Z

I live in many contradictions. The biggest contadiction is probably being an open source software enthusisast and user while also being an Microsoft XBOX Live gamer and user. While I detest Microsoft Windows in its various incarnations on PCs, I love my XBOX 360 and gaming on it. As things stand at the moment, I'm luke warm in relation to Windows Phone 7 but more about that in another post.

I love my XBOX but...

Today I am writing this blog post because I'm annoyed at Microsoft for not letting me change my XBOX Live Gamertag (the account used to purchase content and play games online) from the original country setting (Italy - accidentally set in 2008) to my actual country setting (UK).
Until recently I hadn't been to bothered by the Italian XBOX Live account. My girlfriend was quite annoyed by this, because when movies/trailers/game demos were downloaded they were either dubbed into Italian or had Italian subtitles. Now I want to take advantage of XBOX Live and my XBOX to use all the newer cooler services available (in the UK) such as Last.fm, the on demand TV and video services. Because my XBOX Live gamertag is set as Italian, I can't access these services. Now I'm annoyed.

I have a XBOX Live gamertag with almost 8000 points on it, 100 unused MS Points in the account and would like to carry on using my Todoleo gamertag without losing it. I definitely don't want to be paying for two concurrent XBOX Live subscriptions, I already hate myself inside for paying for one.
There is no way I can change the country setting to my XBOX Live gamertag, I have tried in many ways. This morning I called the XBOX Live customer service number listed on the XBOX.com website and got through to a customer service representative who very politely told me I couldn't change Todoleo from an Italian account to a UK one, and that the best solution would be to create a UK account. I then asked to take things further to make a complaint about this and was told it was not possible. I was however asked for my email address and told I would be sent a link to a form for feedback on the matter. About an hour after the call I still have not received the link.
It is absurd that in this day and age I can't change the account settings from one country to another. Why is this? Why can't Microsoft recognise the fact that people move around, change the country they live in? All that is happening is that people who do move and are inconvenienced are getting angry and probably less loyal to the services and products. I definitely am!
Anger and hatred are flowing through me at the moment, I feel the dark side of the Force coursing through my veins... I'm going to go and play some Star Wars The Force Unleashed to get over this. Offline.
As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. Let me know if I should ditch my XBOX and opt for a Sony PS3 instead (or is that just as bad?)

New BBC Homepage Is Live! [BBC]

2011-12-01T08:12:00.001Z

Yesterday evening I went through one of the things I do most often on my laptop/netbook/tablet/desktop/smartphone: I visited the BBC website to browse the news/sport/iPlayer content of the day. In this particular instance I was on my laptop (which is happily running Linux Mint 12). Low and behold the BBC Homepage has switched to the new interface!

The New BBC Homepage (First Page)

I like the new BBC Homepage on www.bbc.co.uk . The top bar remains static, with links to the main sections of the website (News, Sport, Weather, iPlayer, TV, Radio, More...). The bar beneath the top one is static as well, but contains an analogue clock, the date and weather snapshot (you can personalise this feed for wherever you are by simply entering your postcode). Below the two static bars at the top, content from the website is displayed as tiles with snapshot previews and easy to read symbols of the type of content contained within the tile. This user interface is in many ways similar to the Windows Phone 7 Metro UI (tiles). I like it!

The lower section of the New BBC Homepage

If you scroll down on the webpage you are presented with sections (tiles) specifically for the iPlayer, popular content on the website and a fuller selection of sections of the website. The website is designed as a 3x2 panel canvas so you can click on one of the large arrows at the right or left of the page to scroll through the content. The 3x2 panels are on a loop so once you click right from the 3rd panel you go back to the first one. The lower panels of the homepage are all populated by the same content as the first bottom one.

The New BBC Homepage (Second Page)

The lower section of the New BBC Homepage (it's the same throughout)

The New BBC Homepage (Third Page)

As I have said in the past, I really like what the BBC have done with their website homepage. The new design is clean, sleek and magazine like. I love using the new website on my Archos 80 G9, the new design is particularly well suited for touch interface devices. Using the service and browsing the content easier and more intuitive. Well done to everyone involved in the redesign. I'm happy to see my TV License money being spent on improving the BBC services I receive.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below or on the Google Plus link. Let me know how you get on with the new BBC Homepage.

Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" Released!

2011-11-28T09:03:00.001Z

Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" is now available to download! You can download it directly, or via torrent from here.

It was a pretty fast turnaround from Release Candidate status to final release. Well done to all involved in the development of the Linux Mint distribution.

I'll use Linux Mint 12 for a few weeks and then write a proper review of it.

Spot the T-Mobile Vivacity! [Game]

2011-11-27T07:28:00.001Z

Here's a simple game: spot the T-Mobile Vivacity among the Apple iPhones...

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. Do you think the T-Mobile Vivacity is KIRF (Keepin' It Real Fake)?

T-Mobile Vivacity AKA ZTE Blade 2 [Preview]

2011-11-25T22:59:00.001Z

Today I picked up a T-Mobile Vivacity. Uncertain what type of Gingerbready goodness I was going to find in the magenta box, I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a ZTE Blade 2 in T-Mobile dress.

The T-Mobile Vivacity is an inexpensive Android smartphone, currently priced at £99 in the UK from T-Mobile. It features a 5MP camera with LED flash at the back, a 3.5" capacitive multitouch display at the front with four capacitive buttons (Menu, Home, Back, Search) beneath and a front facing camera above.

Right side with volume rocker.

Left side with Micro-USB connector.

3.5mm audio jack and on/off button on the top side.

There is a volume rocker on the right hand side of the device, an on/off button on the top next to a 3.5mm audio jack and a micro-USB data/power socket on the left side. The casing of the device is quite plasticky, much the same as the one found on the Orange Monte Carlo / ZTE Skate. Just like the OMC/Skate it is a fingerprint magnet.

The Android version on the T-Mobile Vivacity is a pretty much stock version of Gingerbread (2.3) with a few extra T-Mo apps and wallpapers but nothing too intrusive (unlike the Orange bloatware on the OSF/OMC/OSF II).

Here are some comparison photos with other devices I had lying around on my desk:

T-Mobile Vivacity with HTC Wildfire

T-Mobile Vivacity with ZTE Skate [BAP]

T-Mobile Vivacity with Samsung E1080i

T-Mobile Vivacity with Orange Mont Carlo (with case) [BAP]

T-Mobile Vivacity with Nokia 1100

T-Mobile Vivacity with Samsung Galaxy Pro

T-Mobile Vivacity with HP Palm Pre 2

I hope these pictures give you an idea of the size of the T-Mobile Vivacity.

The device has been pleasant to use so far. After logging in at the first start up the device took all my usual settings (including homescreen background) and ported them onto the Vivacity. Great stuff!

I ran quadrant and got the results I posted here. Essentially the T-Mobile Vivacity is a T-mobile Version of the ZTE Crescent aka Blade 2. That makes it the magenta sibling of the Orange San Francisco II, which is trickling out in stores at the moment.

I'll eventually get round to a full review of the device, only once I get the tricky Orange Monte Carlo/ZTE Skate one out though. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below or at the ZTE Crescent forum Crescent.MoDaCo.com .

Farewell Google Wave!

2011-11-24T09:25:00.001Z

This morning I received a sad email from Google which outlined the closure dates for Google Wave.

Waves will all be switched to read-only on January 31st 2012. Wave services from Google will be switched off on April 30th 2012.

Here's the complete email I received:

Dear Wavers,
More than a year ago, we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.
If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project calledWalkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.
For more details, please see our help center.
Yours sincerely,
The Wave Team

It is sad for me to see the service Wave off into the sunset (pun intended). I'm sure Gina Trapani, author of the now freely available book The Complete Guide To Google Wave, has already come to terms with this.

Farewell Google Wave, best of luck in your new incarnation as Apache Wave.

You can still read Gina Trapani and Adam Pash's The Complete Guide To Google Wave here.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Google Music! Indies Rejoice!

2011-11-16T22:19:00.001Z

Today Google held their November 16th Event in LA. It was all about Music and I'll try and summarise what was announced.

Google Music, the cloud storage and playback service for... wait for it: ...music is now open to all in the USA and free to its users. There is a new Android application which ties into the Android market and allows easy shopping and purchasing of tracks. Once a music track has been purchased it is available to stream, play and store on Android devices, and also to be streamed through a web browser. (there is an up to limit of 20000 tracks) There is also the option to share your music with friends on Google Plus.

I popped onto my Google Music Beta account during the announcement and saw a few changes. Firstly the main logo has changed from "Google Music Beta" to "Google Music". Secondly in the top right hand corner there is a new "SHOP" button. The "SHOP" button leads to a dead link. (This may be because I am accessing Google Music from the UK, where the service is not officially supported)

The other big news for the whole music industry is what Google Music offers to independent artists. As well as launching with content form Universal, EMI, Sony Music, and many independent labels, Google offers a direct distribution platform to artists. Independent artists therefore have direct access to audience therough the Artist Hub. Jump for it young unsigned musicians!

Indies, rejoice!

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below!

Ice Cream Sandwich Released [:-)], MoDaCo Down [:-(]!

2011-11-15T07:35:00.001Z

As reported on The Verge, the Android Open Source code to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has been released! This means that anyone can start playing about with the open source code and using it in custom ROMs and ripping out some of the Ice Cream Sandwich goodness, if they wish to...

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Has Been Released!

My first reaction when reading the news was "Quick! I need to get over to android.modaco.com and see if any of the clever people have ported Android 4.0 to the ZTE Skate/Orange Monte Carlo/BAP!". Sadly at the time of posting android.modaco.com is down. Hopefully it will be back up soon and porting will be underway.

MoDaCo Down! :-(

On Twitter I noticed a couple of interesting tweets from CyanogenMod, the leader/bacon lover of CyanogenMod fame: the first tweet reads as follows: "..and we're off. check back in 2 months :) #cm9 #ics" This means that the CyanogenMod community has already started working on CyanogenMod version 9 based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. They may have it ready in a couple of months. Why not check the ETA with them... (that's just a joke. The first rule of CyanogenMod is to never ask for ETAs).

The second tweet "We're still going to get CM7.2 out the door while CM9 is being worked on." means that the current version of CyanogenMod is not deprecated, there will still be one last hurrah for the Android 2.3.x Gingerbread based ROM.

[UPDATE] MoDaCo is back up and running. When I got back from work everything was where/how it was supposed to be.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. Enjoy Android 4.0 if/when you get a taste of it!

Linux Mint 12 Is On The Way!

2011-11-14T08:40:00.001Z

One of my favourite Linux distributions, Linux Mint, has just entered the release candidate phase.

The Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" Desktop (from LinuxMint.com)

Linux Mint 12 is much more revolutionary than Mint 11 was (I dare say that Mint 11 was evolutionary).

Mint 12 is revolutionary for Linux Mint because it comes with a brand new desktop, built with GNOME 3 and MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions). Essentially what the Mint team have done is take GNOME 3 and changed the pet hates many users in the Linux community had and get rid of the causes. The new Mint desktop uses GNOME 3 as its base, and then reverts certain tasks/activities back to something more similar to what people are used to and love from GNOME 2.x. As a result you get GNOME 3 with:

A panel at the bottom of the desktop (as there was in classic Mint desktops)
An application menu (a bit shinier, but just like in classic Mint desktops)
A window list
A task-centric desktop (you switch between windows, not applications. This will make many users very very happy)
Visible system tray icons (I can hear GNOME 3 hater cheers...)

An Application Menu! (from LinuxMint.com)

These are just a few of the GNOME 3 improvements that MGSE brings. There are many other smaller and less visible improvements that in my opinion make the Mint 12 experience much more enjoyable than Ubuntu 11.10 (with Unity).

As usual with a new release of Mint, there is new artwork and theme tweaks. Shininess is always good in my opinion.

The default search engine in Linux Mint 12 will be Duck Duck Go. (I'm still waiting for Leo Laporte to start a new show on the TWiT Network called This Week in Duck Duck Go...).

You can read about all the new features of Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" here.

You can download the release candidate of Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" here.

Thanks to everyone involved in bringing us the Linux Mint distribution. It is probably the best Linux distribution for Linux newbies, and still one of the shiniest and most easy to use out of the box/liveDVD/liveUSB!

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below and let me know how you get on with Linux Mint if you give it a go.

Orange Monte Carlo Unlock Achieved! [MoDaCo]

2011-11-12T07:51:00.001Z

The Orange Monte Carlo Android smartphone, Orange's rebranded version of the ZTE Skate is now sim unlockable. This means the phone can be used with any network's sim card after the procedure explained in xiaoyaoswim's post on the android.modaco.com forums.

SIM Unlock Achieved!

The Orange Monte Carlo is currently being sold in Orange stores for £119, and now that there is a free procedure to unlock the device it looks like an even better buy!

Credit to xiaoyaoswim and the rest of the MoDaCo Android community for delivering a very useful service. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Links:

My own guide to network unlocking the Orange Monte Carlo / ZTE Skate: http://www.todoleo.com/2011/12/how-to-unlock-orange-monte-carlo-zte.html
How To Unlock Your OMC/Skate: http://android.modaco.com/topic/-how-to-unlock-your-omcskate/
xiaoyaoswim's profile on MoDaCo: http://android.modaco.com/user/942603-xiaoyaoswim/
MoDaCo Android Forums: http://android.modaco.com

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Goodbye Flash Player For Mobile

2011-11-11T07:46:00.001Z

Adobe has announced that it will be discontinuing support of Flash Player for mobile.

In a statement posted on the official Adobe Blog by Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager of interactive development, Adobe conceded that HTML5 is "the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms."

Goodbye Flash Player For Mobile, for a while you were an extra competitive advantage of some mobile platforms (QNX, Android, WebOS, etc.) over others (Apple's iOS).

Feel free to leave comments and/or questions.

The Verge Is Here!

2011-11-09T09:52:00.000Z

I follow technology and consumer electronics news and views a lot. The internet is a great tool to do this, and as in real life the sources are important.

News collection, communication and redaction are of paramount importance in an industry as open, manipulated and secretive as it is. For many years Engadget used to be the first site I went to, and I even started listening to the Engadget podcast. Earlier this year Engadget went downhill. The Engadget protagonists Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel and Paul Miller and their "Special Guests" (among them Joanna Stern) left AOL (parent company of Engadget) and went off to start their new venture with SB Nation, as I blogged in this post.

The Engadget Fragmentation (it's a podcast meme applied to the team) lead to SB Nation and a site called ThisIsMyNext.com was started as an interim home for the crew and their new content and excellent new podcast. Later this summer a name was announced for the new venture: "The Verge".

The Verge is now live and it is an impressive new site. Much thought, effort and work has gone into the creation of The Verge, which is definitely something new. As well as a consumer electronics news site it is also a community hub (you can register and join in the forums), device database and covers more than just consumer electronics. The design is clean and magazine like, definitely easy to spend time reading and skimming.

Well done to everyone involved in the launch of The Verge, my new first click website for news and views on consumer electronics!

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Bing For Android [Not Reviewed], Fail!

2011-11-05T08:44:00.000Z

I was going to review Bing for Android, Microsoft's search engine's app for Android. I can't do the review and this post will explain why.

I would love to install the Bing app on one of my many devices...

I tried searching for the Bing application on my current main Android device (a ZTE Skate also known as the BAP) and it would not appear on the Android Market. Having had no luck finding it, I swapped phone and used my Samsung Galaxy Pro. No luck with that device either. Thinking all this was very strange, I then picked up my Archos 80 G9 Honeycomb tablet and searched for Bing in the Android Market. I was relieved to fing "Bing - Microsoft Corporation" but when in the Android Market description page was faced with this:

"This item is not available with your operator."

I was quite annoyed by this. I logged onto market.android.com on my laptop and found the Bing application. When trying to select a device to install the application to I was faced by a list of 11 devices the application is not compatible with.

"This app is incompatible with all of your devices." Bing Fail!

So that's how what was going to be my review of the Bing app for Android turned into another blog post about Microsoft failure. I hope this is covered in the Linux Outlaws' Microwatch segment next week because it is really worthy of it in my opinion.

Microsoft have seen some sense (HTC pun not intended) and decided to get their search engine onto the fastest growing and soon to be dominant smartphone/tablet platform (mostly open source too!). They are not doing too well if their app is not compatible on my 11 devices which range from low-end low-res screens to high-res tablets.

I look forward to Microsoft sorting this out and being able to review the Bing app for Android at some point in the future...

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

HTC Wildfire S - Inexpensive Sense [Review]

2011-10-29T09:37:00.000+01:00

I've been using the HTC Wildfire S as my main phone for most of the last few months. The small smartphone is HTC's follow up to the incredibly successful Wildfire, and the improvements on its predecessor are impressive. Android Gingerbread and HTC Sense are a delight in this small package.

It is difficult to review the Wildfire S and ignore its predecessor, the original Wildfire. Compared to the original HTC Wildfire, the HTC Wildfire S is smaller, has shed the optical trackball and gained a slightly faster processor, a higher resolution screen and a bit of polish. The Wildfire S feels good to hold, and I like the semi rubberised back, it gives you a sense of confidence while holding the phone.

The 5 Megapixel camera is as good as, if not better than the original Wildfire's for still images. As a former HTC Desire user it is a small step down, but in the sub £200 handset market segment I think it is second to none. On the downside the video recording is not great. Resolution of videos maxes out at 640x480 resolution, probably due to the slow chipset on the device. It would have been nice to have 720p recording.

An example of picture taken with the Wildfire S

HTC Sense on top of Android Gingerbread (2.3) maximises the possible efficiencies that can be obtained with the 600 MHz processor while still delivering plenty of HTC's eye candy UI. I hate to imagine how clunky Sense would be like on top of Android FroYo (2.2) or Eclair (2.1)... As a Vanilla Android UI user (even on the HTC Desire) HTC Sense (version 2.1 on the Wildfire S) takes a little bit of getting used to. For someone who hasn't used Android before it would be easy to get used to and simple to live with.

Battery life is pretty good with the standard battery that comes with the device. Due to the fact that I am a "Power User" of Android devices, I invested in a high capacity extra battery for the Wildfire S so that I could get through overnight trips and holidays. It is fairly easy to find reasonably priced extra batteries for less than £10 on eBay. I also picked up a cheap screen protector and gel case for less than £5.

Internal storage on the Wildfire S is fairly limited (512MB), but thanks to the version of Android it is running (2.3 Gingerbread) it is pretty easy to transfer your extra applications to the memory card (through Settings => Applications => Manage Applications). The Wildfire S also comes with a 2GB MicroSD card and will accept larger capacity ones up to 32GB.

Angry Birds (the Litmus test of smartphones nowadays...) runs smoothly and looks great on the 320x480 display. Multitouch and responsiveness are excellent.

If you like tinkering with Android smartphones and loading custom ROMs, the HTC Wildfire S may not be for you. HTC have made it incredibly difficult to root the device and change the bootloader. I hope the clever crowd at MoDaCo and XDA Developers manage to get the device rooted and get CyanogenMod running on it one day.

The Wildfire S is an exellent value for money smartphone that will no doubt be very successful. It may not be for the ROM hackers and uber geeks, but it is the sort of smartphone the average smartphone user will find simple and useful and probably get a couple of years use out of without being too frustrated.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions either here or on the MoDaCo forum here.

GreenHughes.com reviews the MiFi 3

2011-10-27T09:22:00.000+01:00

Check out GreenHughes.com's excellent review of the MiFi3!

BBC Beta Homepage

2011-10-22T07:45:00.001+01:00

For a few days I've been forcing myself to use the new BBC Website's beta homepage to get an idea of what it is like in everyday use.

The New BBC Beta Homepage

It is a bit like the new Blogger Dynamic Views pages, and very html5y. Pages seem to adapt to screensizes (great if you are using a netbook or a tablet) and are a simple roll of 2 vertical/many horizontal to the right panes.

Lower section of the front page of BBC Beta Homepage

Next panel to the right. Note more iPlayer links and content.

I'm quite liking the new BBC Beta Homepage and am sure I could quite easily get used to it. I hope the clever people dealing with this at the BBC give us the chance to change our location on it (I live in Scotland and am not particularly interested in the London weather or the London local news).

Lets see how this BBC Beta hompage evolves... I am already noticing more iPlayer links and content. You can try it out yourself by visiting http://beta.bbc.co.uk/ Please also use the feedback option to let the people at the BBC know what you think about it.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Archos 80 G9 With Apple iPad 2

2011-10-19T20:47:00.000+01:00

Today I snapped a few shots of the Archos 80 G9 with Picc0110's Apple iPad 2 to give the readers of the Todoleo Tech Blog a better idea of its size next to Apple's current tablet.

Granted the iPad 2 is made of better materials and has an exceptional industrial design. The Archos 80 G9 has much more built in functionality, expandibility, a more open OS and comes in at less than half the price of the entry level iPad 2. I'll be writing more about the Archos 80 G9 soon.

As usual, fell free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Three UK To Sell Galaxy Nexus

2011-10-19T09:16:00.002+01:00

I just read on the Official Three UK Blog that 3 UK will be selling the Galaxy Nexus, the Google phone running Android Ice Cream Sandwich!

Good times! My favourite network stocking what may well be my next favourite phone!

You can read the full post here.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below or on Three's Blog.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich [4.0]

2011-10-19T07:35:00.000+01:00

Sticking to Google's tradition of naming versions of the Android OS after tasty desserts, Android 4.0 was officially unveiled today and it is called Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS for short).

As written on the Official Google Blog:

"With Ice Cream Sandwich, our mission was to build a mobile OS that works on both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and intuitive. We created a new font that’s optimized for HD displays and eliminated all hardware buttons in favor of adaptable software buttons. We also dramatically improved the keyboard, made notifications more interactive and created resizable widgets."

ICS will be the default OS on the new Google Galaxy Nexus smartphone, and Google also announced that the ICS OS should run on any device that runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3). I'm looking forward to seeing what the vibrant communities at MoDaCo and XDA Developers come up with for handsets such as the HTC Desire, the ZTE Skate and the Samsung Galaxy Pro...

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. I would also advise popping into the MoDaCo Android forums and seeing what will be brewed up in the Android kitchens there...