So, my Notion Ink Adam, PixelQi WiFi model, finally arrived, and let me tell you it sure came quick! I got shipping notification on March 28th, that it was travelling from the factory in china to the shipping depot in china. It arrived in Hong Kong on the 29th and UPS dropped it off at my door on the 31st! It was apparent by looking at the packaging that my Adam was returned to the factory and had the update applied, as you can see where they re-stickered the box.
I spent some time messing around with it, but mostly went right into installing and testing apps! So, I’ll get right to it and make a list of what worked and what did not. Then as I get the app pages up I’ll link each one to their respective pages so you can connect and access them. I am looking for a way to link to them on the Amazon app store also (shouldn’t be too hard) and I’ll get links up for both Google and Amazon. Note, this was all done with the stock OS install, I have not modified the OS in anyway.
Had a couple of issues already, I was using a 2GB USB stick to do some app side loading, and when I removed it, added some more files to it, and replaced it, the sniffer showed the used and max size correctly, but was unable to browse the contents, I had already added Android Mate and tried to use that to browse the contents, but it had the same issue. only a complete shutdown and restart got the USB reading correctly (yes I tested it on my Desktop Ubuntu system and it was still working fine from there). Also, all the leaves I open in the Ribbon are closed after switching to the desktop view of the apps. I also have issues getting the notification bar to disappear and when trying to get it back. And having issues getting the leaves view to go away and the desktop/home screen to come up. you are supposed to do a two finger swipe down, but that doesn’t work. If I tap on the time in the alpha leaf, then I get the desktop.
- Android Mate
- seems to work good, only noticed one glitch, when you first start up the file explorer it gives you a standard view, if you go into the SD card, thn go up a level it shows you the Actual view for the Adam (adds the USB device option and the second SD card option, neither of witch are available when it launches to the root explorer view
- SWYPE
- installs fine, settings screen works, can assign it as the default keyboard, but when going to use it it force closes every time.
- WiFinder
- installs and works pretty good, although on first test it appears the Adam has a VERY short range, my HTC Evo picks up 6-8 wifi’s in my house, the Adam found 3
- Better Terminal Emulator Pro
- on first launch it is supposed to download extra components, this process fails. I’ll have to check by reinstalling it on my Evo to see if this is just the app
- Su File Manager and Terminal
- installed and launches with no issues; however I never ended up using it on my Evo, decided I liked another app and never got around to trying this one, so I have no idea how to use it! I did notice that the buttons at the bottom of the screen are 80% off the screen, so I cannot tell what they do without pressing them. I also could not get the on screen KB to display when trying to use this app, so it got uninstalled.
- Remote VNC Pro
- Seems to be working fine;
however the connection was refused when trying to view my desktop. I’ll have to mess with it some more as I use it on my HTC Evo all the time and have not had issues there… scratch that, just tried and it was refused on my Evo also, probably something not running after my last reboot I just need to check my Ubuntu machine. Will update this after I do soOk, so after turning on remote desktop again (must have been an update that reset it, or an involuntary restart of the system , I have had a couple over the last 2 months, and those were the only times my system has been restarted, except after a kernel update… this app is working perfectly, I love the extra large display the Adam gives me over my HTC Evo, making it much easier to see what is going on with my desktop machine. Only issue is that I wish it supported dual monitors, but I think that is a limitation of VNC not the App, still it would be nice to put a switch display option in the app. - Fring
- Installed with no issues, was able to log in and it showed my contacts, will test a call and some texting later
- Bank of America app
- received message “failed to install” from my archived version off my HTC Evo, will try to DL from the BoA website later.
- Flight Director
- installed and played a game for about 15 minutes or so with no issues. It seemed to not want to register my touches when the planes were too close to the edges of the screen, but otherwise worked fine (I just made sure to let the planes fully on screen), also the graphics were just about stretched to the max, edges were just starting to get blurry, but was completely playable.
- Amazon App store
- first thing I installed, of course! And the first thing I noticed, after logging in was that all the apps I purchased for my Evo were sitting right there for me to Download!
- Angry Birds Rio
- Using the Amazon App store, I downloaded AB:Rio and it is fantastic! huge improvement in the game, although most things are subtle. On the Adam I can zoom out and actually see the entire board, on the HTC Evo even zoomed out all the way, I still had to slide the screen left and right on some levels. Have not had that yet on the Adam. plus the larger display is great! I wish I could have a 10.1″ cell phone! It is so easy to see everything on the larger display, no Idea how I existed with a 2.1″ WinMo phone! (I’d use a BT headset of course…) I also put AB:Seasons on my Adam
- Fruit Ninja
- Already bought this from the Google Market, but it was a freebie on amazon, so I added it to my Adam, plays great, but seriously need a graphical overhaul! not made for large screens! made me feel like I was playing an NES on a 55″ display!
- System Panel
- bought this app for my Evo also, I love this app a lot! It is definitively my most used app, a memory manager, CPU/RAM/Battery charge monitor, apk installer/uninstaller, and it does app archiving! However, it is not able to tell me the current CPU speed (blame that on the dual core Tegra2!)
- Battery Time Lite
- Another fantastic App that I have on my HTC Evo, my wife’s old Samsung Moment, and her new HTC Evo Shift, not sure if I can live without it! even though I cannot make a widget on my Adam, having the notification bar information is more than good enough! It even has a setting in the newer version for the Notion Ink Adam so it correctly determines remaining battery life!
- Robo Defense
- The first game I ever bought for Android and either the first or second app too, I love this game, finding out that it works on my Adam is the greatest thing ever. Even though I am on level 1600+ on my HTC Evo, I’ll give it all up to start over on my Adam, just to play on the larger screen! Next I want to play it in windowed mode, so once I get to the point where I can fire it up and leave it sit till the end of the level, I’d love to be able to do something else while waiting!
- Diner Dash 2
- Never heard of it, but it was an Amazon.com freebie, so I gave it a shot. The background graphics are a set size, so it only sets up the top left corner of the screen, the bad news is that anything that pops up in game (the cook, tables, customers) are all set to % of the screen locations, instead of set locations, so you end up with the background image in the top left, tables way off to the right, the cook is hanging out in the bushes, and customers are in the far bottom left corner. All easily fixable by the dev, and issues that can be dealt with while playing. I actually prefer fixed settings instead of stretching as the game retains its look and feel, vs. getting all stretched out and the graphics turning to poo.
- Crystallight
- I really like the concept of this style game so I bought it hoping for some updates, the only thing that has been updated that was useful is the ability to use the search button in place of pressing the trackball to get more info about things. The graphics are very low res and do not stretch to the Adam’s screen size, or ration, so all circles become ovals and the images are very fuzzy, still playable, but gave me a headache after two levels. also the restore feature fails to maintain your place if you exit the game for any reason, so you will have to start the level over. Also wants to connect to the Android Market which I have not installed yet, gave me an error that it was “cannot bind to Market” more or less word for word.
- Network Discovery
- installed fine, took a couple of tries to get it to launch the first time, all of the settings work, was able to download the NIC database with no issues, but the scan finds nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch!
- FallDown 3D
- Fun 3D accelerometer based game, seems to work pretty good, although the graphics could afford to be higher res. A very addicting game, I found myself playing 4 levels at midnight last night before I could put it down and go to bed! Glad I did too, as I learned the accelerometer in in my Adam is not so good… I could not get to center, I had to go left, right, up, down, but could not stay in the center, and diagonals failed to work most of the time too, needless to say I did not get very far in the game.
- Engadget
- The Engadget app works fantastic, except you are stuck in portrait mode… upside down (the Adam grip is on the right instead of the left), everything else worked great!
- Bubbles
- I love Bubbles, great for the kids, or killing 30 seconds for yourself! worked perfectly, the graphics were a good resolution, could be better, but most won’t notice. It also utilizes the entire display, so good job there on the coding! I did play with it a bit to look at the accelerometers and discovered that all directions seemed to work fine, including the diagonals, except down (in landscape orientation with the camera at the top), this seemed to bring me to center and the bubble stopped moving. the diagonals worked fine in the down/left and down/right, but just tilted down did not work at all. may need to calibrate my Adam? after all I had to calibrate my HTC Evo when I first powered it on back on launch day…
- Gem Miner: Dig Deeper
- Great Game, I love it on my phone, killed many hours there, not so great on the big screen, again gives me deja vu of playing an NES on a movie theatre screen… really big and really out of focus… while it would be nice to see a larger area of the map (even though it is mostly black during a majority of the game, I’d be just as happy if the game played at a set size instead of stretching. All features seemed to work however.
- ConnectBot
- Everything seemed to work fine, since I am planning on wiping my Adam and installing a different rom in the next 24 hours, I did not configure a connection, but tried the quick connection and it seemed to work well, but I have the timeout a bit too fast for me to type my password on a virtual KB! so my Ubuntu desktop closed the connection before I could get completely connected.
- Wolfram Alpha
- installed, launched, and connected to the site quickly and efficiently. worked exactly the same as on my HTC Evo, just wish I could do widgets (soon!)
- installed fine, failed to load. Used a version pulled off my HTC Evo, not available on the Amazon Marketplace yet… I tried going to facebook.com to see if I could DL it from there, but the default Adam browser only sends out desktop mode, and has no setting to change to Android, so websites don’t know I am on an android device, just a generic desktop webkit browser, I may take the time to add Dolphin HD (also not on amazon, not sure I feel like pulling it off my HTC Evo at this point) to my Adam before wiping it to see if I can get Facebook direct from the site and if it will work
- Shoot U!
- love it, bought it, works great on the Adam!
- Smart Keyboard Pro
- Much better than the stock one, takes up less space, has transparency mode, but they replaced the enter key with a search key, wtf
- Tricorder
- Installed, worked great until I hit the EM Spectrum tab, as I have no 3G module in my Adam it just hung on trying to contact it. The wifi data continued to update, but all I could do was wait for the force close window (non-responsive) to pop up and kill the app.
- Rainy Days
- Failed to install
- ShapeWriter Keyboard
- Installed and worked great, although I was incapable of entering a highly complex password using the keyboard and had to switch back to one of the other KB’s installed. Also of note, it has a set size and does not stretch; however it still takes up the entire portion of the screen as if it did stretch…
Ok, well I am going to stop testing here and go to a new Rom next. I wanted to use EdenX as my default Rom, as I wanted to keep the Eden UI while also having more traditional Android options available to me, but the recent announcement of the lead hacker on EdenX quiting work on it kind of makes me want to skip it… we shall see, I have everything setup so I can flash back to stock, so I am not worried.
again, I will get back to adding proper reference links to this post in the future, I guess I’ve either been getting lazy on my writing, or I just have more to say than time to say it in!
Still working on some of this, but I’ve been spreading comments across the web about having some of these issues resolved, so I guess I better post it and then update the rest later!
my next problem with Titanium so far (I have not even written one line of code and I’ve already spent 4 weeks trying to get it working! well actually that is not true, I wrote a helloworld java app using the VI editor and compiled and ran it before I even installed Titanium, to test my java install…). While Titanium is running I am constantly getting the following display repeated over and over in my terminal window.
*** Unable to locate valid config! Falling back to auto-detection...
*** Unable to locate PAC! Falling back to direct...
Now, I have no idea what any of that means, and before some idiot says “did you follow the directions on the Appcelerator website on preparing for java programming?” I want to tell you exactly what I think of the “directions” and where you can stick them! After following those wonderful directions, I wouldn’t trust the developers at Appcelerator to give me directions on how to use a drinking glass! And I think I’ll leave it at that, because there are kids out there somewhere on the net that might stumble across this post one day…
**** update – I’ve figured this one out, after viewing over 80 web pages with not much more than people complaining about this issue. A PAC is an internet proxy access auto-configuration file! For some idiotic reason Titanium seems to think that every use is connecting to the internet via a proxy server (I think Internet Explorer 5 and 6 were configured this way too!). I have checked my network settings and by default Ubuntu sets up to connect directly to the internet, so no PAC was ever created. there is a big thread on the support forum for this issue, running on Mac OS X 10.4. Just scroll down about 80% of the way (or search for this term “dropbox” it only shows up twice and both times are on the same comment), and you will see they custom made an SDK that disables the network proxy check, no idea if this will work on Ubuntu. Maybe I’ll test it tomorrow, it is only 2 months old… alternately, I am researching creating a “default PAC file” that will resolve this issue! give me another day or two and I should have it added on here.
The best info on this issue so far, if you feel like a good read, else, you can copy the info below or go see where I found it.
sudo vi /etc/proxy.pac
i – starts edit mode in insert
copy and paste the following, this code basically tells your computer “there is no spoon” and get over it!
function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
// If URL has no dots in host name, send traffic direct.
if (isPlainHostName(host))
return "DIRECT";
// If specific URL needs to bypass proxy, send traffic direct.
if (shExpMatch(url,"*domain.com*") ||
shExpMatch(url,"*vpn.domain.com*"))
return "DIRECT";
// If IP address is internal or hostname resolves to internal IP, send direct.
var resolved_ip = dnsResolve(host);
if (isInNet(resolved_ip, "10.0.0.0", "255.0.0.0") ||
isInNet(resolved_ip, "172.16.0.0", "255.240.0.0") ||
isInNet(resolved_ip, "192.168.0.0", "255.255.0.0") ||
isInNet(resolved_ip, "127.0.0.0", "255.255.255.0"))
return "DIRECT";
// If not on a internal/LAN IP address, send traffic direct.
if (!isInNet(myIpAddress(), "10.10.1.0", "255.255.255.0"))
return "DIRECT";
// All other traffic uses below proxies, in fail-over order.
return "PROXY 192.168.1.1:8080; DIRECT";
}
Now, you may want to change the IP on that last line to match your router (it will make things go faster…) as it will check that IP for a Proxy and if nothing is found it will connect directly. Now I need to figure out how to tell Titanium to use that file…
And on to the next issue I am having, during startup of Titanium I am receiving a number of errors, I’ll list a few word for word incase someone is googling the error message…
** (Titanium Developer:5705): WARNING : Error loading plugin: /usr/lib/enchant/libenchant_myspell.so: undefined symbol: enchant_get_dirs_from_param
** (Titanium Developer:5705): WARNING : Error loading plugin: /usr/lib/enchant/libenchant_ispell.so: undefined symbol: enchant_fopen
and it repeats that 8 times (at least it was 8 times when I checked it just now).
*****solution found.
- cd /usr/lib
- sudo rm libenchant.so libenchant.so.1
- sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libenchant.so.1.6.0 /usr/lib/libenchant.so && sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libenchant.so.1.6.0 /usr/lib/libenchant.so.1
- cd /opt/titanium/runtime/linux/1.0.0/
- sudo rm libenchant.so.1 && sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libenchant.so.1.6.0 /opt/titanium/runtime/linux/1.0.0/libenchant.so.1
that should fix your libenchant errors.
then this follows right after the libenchant issue…
(Titanium Developer:5705): DEBUG: NP_Initialize (Titanium Developer:2861): DEBUG: NP_Initialize succeeded
(Titanium Developer:5705): DEBUG: NP_Initialize (Titanium Developer:2861): DEBUG: NP_Initialize succeeded
(Titanium Developer:5705): DEBUG: NP_Initialize (Titanium Developer:2861): DEBUG: NP_Initialize succeeded
(Titanium Developer:5705): DEBUG: NP_Initialize (Titanium Developer:2861): DEBUG: NP_Initialize succeeded
** Message: console message: app://com.appcelerator.titanium.developer/js/entourage-jquery-3.0.js @36: TypeError: Result of expression 'C.getElementsByTagName' [undefined] is not a function.
I found a bug posting (click the link to see it) about this, it appears that the number after “Titanium Developer” varies and I do not get the email password error mentioned on that site. This bug is listed as new (marked Jan 6th 2011) and has no comments attached at this time. So I added my own comments to the post.
I found a new error in the trace logs while my AVD was running,
[ERROR] /opt/android-sdk/tools/apkbuilder
[TRACE] THIS TOOL IS DEPRECATED. See –help for more information.
I think it means depreciated… The only way to resolve this one would be for Appcelerator to update their code.
I found another issue while hunting the history of my terminal editor:
[Titanium.Host] [Error] Could not load module (/opt/titanium/modules/linux/python/1.0.0/libpythonmodule.so): "Error loading module (/opt/titanium/modules/linux/python/1.0.0/libpythonmodule.so): libpython2.5.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
I did some digging, and this is most likely caused by a lack of Python2.5, I currently have python2.6. So I created a link from 2.6 to 2.5 so it could find it.
- cd /usr/lib && sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpython2.6.so.1.0 /usr/lib/libpython2.5.so.1.0
I have not seen that error since…
I guess I should probably say something about this device, but I have found someone else who can say it better…
————————————–
Engadget has posted a chart; however once again they dismiss the Notion Ink Adam tablet as a relevant contender, possibly since Notion Ink cannot seem to get their act together… apparently they are now shipping some Pre-Order 2 devices when others have not yet received their Adams from Pre-Orders 1 and 1.5… anyway, the information from the Engadget chart, re-written with the Adam included…
| Apple iPad 2 | Motorola Xoom | HP TouchPad | BlackBerry PlayBook | Notion Ink Adam | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | iOS 4.3 | Android 3.0 | webOS 3.0 | BB Tablet OS (QNX) | Android 2.2 plus Eden |
| Display | 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD | 10.1-inch | 9.7-inch | 7-inch LCD | 10.1″ WSVGA LCD or PixelQI |
| Resolution | 1024 x 768 | 1280 x 800 | 1024 x 768 | 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 600 |
| Processor | 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 | 1GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 | 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon | 1GHz dual-core TI OMAP4430 | 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9 w/ULP GPU NVIDIA Tegra 250 |
| Memory | 512MB RAM | 1GB RAM | 1GB RAM | 1GB RAM | 2GB RAM (1GB DDR2, 1GB SLC) |
| Storage | 16GB / 32GB / 64GB | 32GB | 16GB / 32GB | 16GB / 32GB / 64GB | 8GB microSD epansion |
| Front camera | VGA | 2 megapixel | 1.3 megapixel | 3 megapixel | 3.2 MP Auto Focus Swivel Camera |
| Rear camera | 720p / 30p video | 5 megapixel AF with dual-LED flash, 720 / 30p video | none | 5 megapixel, 1080p video | same as front @720p |
| Cellular radio | Quadband HSPA or CDMA / EV-DO Rev. A | 3G with free upgrade to 4G LTE | 3G and 4G | 3G and 4G | WWAN – 3G HSPA |
| WiFi | 802.11a/b/g/n | 802.11a/b/g/n | 802.11 b/g/n | 802.11a/b/g/n | 802.11 b/g/n |
| Bluetooth | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR |
| Accelerometer | 3-axis | 3-axis | Yes | Yes | 3-Axis |
| Gyroscope | Yes | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Battery | 25Wh | 6,500mAh | 6,300 mAh | 5,300 mAh | 3 cell 24.6WH |
| Thickness | 8.8mm | 12.7mm | 13.7mm | 10mm | Thickness: ~14 mm |
| Weight | 601g (WiFi), 607g (Verizon), 613g (AT&T) | 725g | 740g | 425g | ~1.6 pounds – converted ~726g |
some other missing information on these charts about the Notion Ink Adam:
- Ambient Light Sensor
- GPS
- Digital Compass
- FM receiver
- USB 2.0 Host x 2
- Mini USB
- HDMI – full video mirroring
- Micro SD slot
- SIM Card slot
- DC connector
I already know my html skills suck, and this table looks like crap, it does look a little better in Firefox than any other browser I’ve tried… maybe one day I’ll try to learn CSS…
about 5 minutes ago I took the time to write up (yet another) comment post on ZdNet’s blog site, about this technology, formerly known as lightpeak. I just wanted to drop a copy on my site here, maybe expand upon it a bit, and link back to the blog post on ZdNet.
take a quick look at those two links above and you’ll get a good understanding of what this technology is.
I think that Thunderbolt will be best used to support Quad full high definition displays for home theater and AMD’s Eyefinity technology, other than that the only thing it will be useful for is if someone release a “docking station” that connects to a Thunderbolt port and has 10 or 20 other ports on it so you can connect all your devices into this “hub” and run one cable to your laptop or desktop or tablet or smartphone, providing all of the devices connectivity, multiple external drives, multiple monitors, the mouse and KB, data cables for smartphones, media players, camcorders, and digital cameras, your speaker system, and so on…
Every single device would plug into 1 hub that would run 1-3 bi-directional (as thunderbolt appears to be limited to 7 max devices per channel OR 2 display devices), dual channel cable back to your laptop/desktop computer, if they were smart they would have 2-8 output sets and a built in Android OS system with a 4″ LCD screen that allows you to configure each device and direct which output “set” (where set= the 1-3 thunderbolt cables running to each computer) each device would be connected to, while also acting like an ethernet switch providing LAN connectivity and access to a cable modem (connected via ethernet or USB).
That is what Thunderbolt should be used as. You buy a laptop or desktop computer and it has 2 places to plug cables in, the power cable and it’s Thunderbolt cable so you can hook it up to “the hub” forget about changing the billions of devices out there to use the “new” technology, just provide a hub that allows all connection types to plug in and connect.
I would guess the Android “hub” would sell for $50 – $150 separately or be included with your new system purchase. Then when you get home the hub could sit on or under your desk and you’d plug everything into it, then use the touch display to configure the connections. It’s possible the “hub” could be running on a 4 or 6 core Tegra 3 SoC with an 8GB or 16GB SSD drive in it that runs as a small server that acts as a firewall for your network, manages your DHCP, automates your backups to the external drive connected to it, stream your media to your TV. basically the ultimate HTCP while also acting as your peripheral device hub.
But we will probably never see anything like that. It is sad that such a device would be possible within the next 12-18 months, but it will never be made.
- New blog post... Diablo III closed Beta http://t.co/dKC2ChWm
- New blog post... resolving video problems with K-L-Ubuntu and XFX Radeon 6850 http://t.co/H6bXuMqi
- New blog post... Computer upgrades http://t.co/6PWVNy4m
- $7 for $15 Worth of Hand-Tossed Pizza, Calzones, and Drinks at Andolini's Pizza Charleston, SC http://t.co/QnKwPwB
- New blog post... is zdnet.com/news down http://t.co/DThuI4r
- New blog post... Netflix Down? http://bit.ly/q74Svu
