• Category Archives Uncategorized

  • SREU Star Party

    Posted on by micha Comment

    Up early for a 6:30 departure.  Had a pretty good run down to Folkestone, and still made my scheduled train despite stopping to top up the tank.Chatted to a Harley rider on his way to Karlsruhe for his sons wedding anniversary.  Said the Route 43 in France is very nice. 

    Made a brief stop just after Antwerpen in a village for petrol.as I was getting pretty low on fuel and didn’t know how far to the next highway services. 30 miles earlier there was a rather nice highway services but I saw it too late to pull off. Tried to find lunch in the village as well but the only place which looked to be open didn’t sell food, only beer. Oh well, lliquid lunch.From there it was another 200km or so to the Ponykamp, the last bit of which I did on country roads as I was sick of highways by then. After another fuel stop in Balkbrugg I quickly found the Ponykamp and the WSFH welcomed me to the party.

    While setting up camp Robert (rally organiser) brought me a big rissole in a bun – fantastic chap!  First food since the Chunnel. Next tent over were a couple of germans, Micha(!) and Bernd, who I had a good chat to, and ended up spending most of the evening in their company with their mates.

    Dinner was in the big hall, afterwards party in the smaller barn with a live band of high-school students.  Pretty good going for a couple of kids, blasting out a believable repertoire of the classic rock songs.  Rounded out the night with another hour or so at the fire. Had a fanstastic day and met a great bunch of people.


    Motorbike Travel Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Upgrading my Samsung Note II (N7100) to Android 4.4 “KitKat”

    Posted on by micha Comment

    A friend posted to let me know that Android 4.4 “KitKat” had just been released for the N7100.

    Install:

    So I backed up all of my data on the phone (using a combination of Titanium Backup, SMS Backup+, and LifeSaver), and downloaded and flashed the firmware the new firmware using Odin.

    Lo and behold, a (very slow) reboot later, pretty much everything worked.  All my apps and settings are still there, which is nice.

    Tweaks:

    * Reinstall a custom recovery (TWRP)

    * Re-rooted

    * Deleted startup sound (/system/media/audio/ui/PowerOn.ogg)

    Issues:

    ADWLauncherEx is quite laggy; so perhaps it needs updating for the latest Android. For now I’m using the updated TouchWiz (the Samsung launcher), but it’s still limited to a ridiculous 4×4 icons per screen.  Ridiculous, at least, on the Note 2 which has a very nice large display; might make more sense on a smaller phone. Should be configurable though.

    Impressions:

    None yet, really.  Will need to use it for a few days to see whether there’s any real differences..  So far most of the advertised differences aren’t visible, such as the camera button on lock screen, nor does it feel significantly faster than before.


    Android Technology Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Android VOIP clients

    Posted on by micha Comment

    For years I’ve used CSipSimple but lately it stopped working properly on my Note 2 after the last system update.

    Looking around I found Zoiper, another free client,  which seems to work.

    I’ll update this post as and when I try out other clients.

    For now:

    CSipSimple
    Integrates well with Android dialler. Many  calls, usually good quality. Worked very well up to Android 4.3, since then dodgy. Tried the nightly builds but not much better.  Free and no ads. Worked with DrayTel.

    Zoiper
    No dialler integration but can read address book.  2 calls so far,  one great quality the other shoddy. Free and no ads. Works with DrayTel.


    Uncategorized 📎and tagged