It has now been raining solidly for 9 hours or so here in Astana!Welcome break from the on-off heat wave (By UK standards) we’ve been having
Jun 19 2009
Hurricane With Windows Mobile 6.1
For any UK readers, you’ll also find it listed as an Orange C550 (HTC often sell their models on via other networks, and so often each model has a lot of alternative names).
Anyway, despite the down direction on the joystick being a little wonky, since installing WM6.1, I’ve grown to like the phone again. I have learned that EITHER using WM5torage (a tool to enable the phone to be used as a mass storage device, thereby avoiding the need to install ActiveSync on a PC first) OR OMAPClock (a tool to overclock (or in my case attempt battery life improvement by underclocking)) on this particular model, with this particular ROM (selang09’s wm 6.1 – a breeze to install thanks to ubrdave’s helpful instructions here) caused some sort of corruption, leaving my phone convinced that all EXEs were not valid Windows CE applications! I’m assuming it was the underclocking that did it somehow. Anyway, lesson learned, phone NOT bricked, so re-flashed it, and carried on guessing what some of the included Chinese language programs do.
With 6.1 installed, I was able to start using apps that required .NET CF 3.0 or above, like PockeTwit, though live access to the camera does seem to not be possible – don’t know if this is a hardware limitation that the developers haven’t been able to work around, or whether this is related to the non-standard ROM I’m using. I’ve yet to try Barcorama on the Hurricane (a barcode scanner application), but I can imagine the ever present security guards in Kazakh supermarkets getting their knickers in a twist if I attempt any price comparisons/uploading 🙂
Here is a quick screenshot of how the phone looks right now, I miss the ability to easily add/remove components from the equivalent of the today screen, compared to the Kaiser with its WM6.1 Pro, but I haven’t yet had to fall back to my v.old Sony Ericsson K700, so I can’t really complain. Editing homescreens on WM2003SE involved plugins and XML files for the main config, so I’m hoping I can bluff my way through customizing the interface a little in the future.
Mar 13 2008
Shas Party’s MP Lost The Plot
OK, if the country you lived in had an unusually high level of tremors and earthquakes, what would you do? Study, or at least consult experts in the field of plate tectonics? Consider moving further away from fault lines? Look at what the construction industry can do to minimize risk to human inhabitants of their buildings?
Well, Shlomo Benizri took a different route in his logic. According to his addled brain, the quakes have been caused by gay people in Israel, or more specifically the fact that the Knesset had continued to pass laws giving protection and equal rights to those who chose same gender relationships.
Head on over to here for the article. I really hope that as we slowly stutter into the 21st Century, that such ignorant, deluded and partially brain dead wuck fits will become a smaller and smaller percentage of the population, or at least not find themselves with the privilege of being paid to spout such crap in a public forum.
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Mar 12 2008
More Pics From UK Storm
Before I forget, I came across the following pictures over at the BBC News website. Thought you might like to see them?
So, no great surprise that none of my friends got round to reading the previous posts yet, but I see most of them on messenger, so I’ll assume no one’s house or car got trashed by falling trees etc.
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Mar 10 2008
Rain And High Winds Hit Southern UK
How are people? For those readers not in the UK, the south of the country is currently being hit by quite a bad serious of storms. Click on over here for a BBC report on it so far.
So, if you have a moment (and electricity and a working phone line 🙂 ), leave a comment, let us know if your area was affected by the 80mph+ winds or the rain and resulting flood waters.
As you can see from that last photo Cheltenham’s famous race course was hit by the winds, with some of the temporary structures in place for the National Hunt damaged. Swansea was also effected, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and phone around friends and family…
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Feb 20 2008
Further IMPROVement
Following on from the earlier post, we have some more videos connected with ImprovEverywhere.
First we have another pre-arranged freeze, over at Waterloo Station (London). I could be wrong, but I think the British ones were organized via a Facebook group. I had a quick look and couldn’t find one for Kazakhstan yet. Can’t imagine there being many takers here, and flash mobs may not go down to well with the authorities…
Something a little different here – “Look Up More” – this is the extended version of the video, showing the arrangements and co-ordination planning before hand, intermixed with the final result. A lot of effort seems to have gone into this piece of performance art…
Finally, to ensure no claims of favouritism can be made, we have a ‘freeze’ video, taken from Canada’s CNBC news program, with a report on the shopping mall freeze.
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Feb 20 2008
ImprovEverywhere
Came across these (thanks to ‘Boner’ over at VDF) and though some people would like to watch them…
If you have heard of flash mobs before, you’ll already know the sort of activity these people carried out.
The first ‘freeze’ in this post took place in Trafalgar Square (London)
Next we have the first No Pants (trousers for any overly concerned British readers) improv on the subway
Finally (for this post at least), we have another ‘freeze’, this time at Grand Central Station
If you want to read more about the organization, head here & you can find their YouTube channel here.
Jan 24 2008
Flooding Still A Possibility?
Could any of my readers in the Gloucestershire region leave a comment if they know whether the danger has now passed, in terms of flooding near them? As you may remember from last year, Rich (Alex’s brother) posted a video on YouTube of the flooding around Cheltenham. Although I obviously hope no one is as badly effected this year, if things do get a little watery, that our intrepid correspondent will be letting us know what’s what…
Anyway, whether the river is lapping at your front door, or all your neighbours are already getting rid of their sand bags, let us know how things are going.
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Jan 16 2008
Not Again… Please
After last year’s infamous flooding in England, it looks as though some areas are in for more of the same, though most experts are predicting that river levels will not rise as high, meaning even though some properties will be effected, the scale and devastation will not be as large. Check out the BBC article for further information. To all our friends and family in Gloucestershire and Wales, I hope your houses escape the waters, and at the very least you get a day or two off work, with flooded roads or something. Just so long as your cars don’t get flooded again
Anyway, if things get bad again, I’ll try and source some more live webcams and recent photos, as last year’s problems seemed to attract a lot of visitors to this blog…
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Sep 19 2007
Tentative Dates
I have already agreed with MattG and Miriam about meeting up with them, and have some dates in mind for when I visiting each town of my mini-Britain tour.
As you may have read recently (joke, the Amsterdam flood of posts should dry up in a month or two 😉 ) I am visiting Britain, via Amsterdam in a few days time.
The timetable will looks something like this…
Amsterdam 21st - 24th September
Britain 24th September - 16th October
Cheltenham and Evesham 24th September - 3rd October (approx.)
Clydach (nr. Swansea) 3rd October - 11th October (approx.)
Falmouth 11th October - ???
Amsterdam 16th October (8 hours)
Kazakhstan 17th October
So if I know you, and you want to meet up, feel free to drop me a line. If I don’t know you, and you promise me you are not a stalker or other type of psycho, please do feel free to contact me 🙂
This year will be the first time in something like 8 years that I will be in Britain without a car, so to friends who don’t live near Cheltenham, Evesham, Clydach or Falmouth, apologies. Big thank you to Miriam for coming down to meet up, I really appreciate you making the effort. And yes, this is also a not too subtle hint, Emma and Ramon, you have a car, I don’t now, so get your arse in gear 😉 😛
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