This past weekend I switch from running EdenX Rom to The Beast Rom v2.2, as I was not even 70% happy with EdenX, although it was much better than stock Eden! It still left me wanting more! I just felt that there was an issue with the Eden UI that was causing me problems and I really wanted to just get away from it entirely. (I just had this weird deja vu moment where I kind of remember that I never added reference links in my previous posts… it happens a lot, I’ll sort through it this weekend maybe as it looks like I’ll have some time then.) With a new release of Beast I decided to go for it! although, my original pla nwas to not try beast until after I did Utopia and the performance Rom, as I have been thinking that “Once I go Beast, I’ll never go back!” But I couldn’t resist anyway.
well first things first, I noticed after flashing that my boot logo for Notion Ink changed to White text on Black, instead of Black text on White. (according to what I have read most people say white on black is the way it has always been, I’ll put some pics up of both) I also was immediately stuck in a boot loop, and yes I cleared my data cache and user data before flashing, getting out of the loop required me to hold down the power button for a good 10-15 seconds, if I let go too early it would loop again. I also flashed from the internal SD card. Total flashing time was about 3 minutes I think; although flashing EdenX was almost half the time. I went back into recovery mode and I saw that my Notion Ink bootup logo was back to Black on White! Cleared my data caches and user cache again, rebooted and I was greeted with a lock screen showing the beast background! (after a really long bootup, which is normal on first boot with a new rom)
Titanium backup and I are not the best of friends, and as such I spent the next hour or so reinstalling my apps, but not installing the apps I did not want from the old rom, as somehow I managed to do a all rom batch backup the first time I ran it, so every app from EdenX as backed up and I could never get that to work again! So I have been doing my backups and restores 1 app at a time, which isn’t that bad, since I don’t actively use, update, or add data to 70% of the installed apps on my device anyway. I tend to get a couple of apps that I spend a huge amount of time in and stick to them for weeks before moving on to something else.
Then it was off to testing apps, of course the first thing I did was go through apps that I used the most, and those that failed to run on EdenX (again I think it was a UI issue, as they would run, then disappear and I never figured out in Eden or EdenX how to do the hold home for 3 seconds to get a list of the last 8 apps you ran. Which I was sure would get e right back to the ones that kept “disappearing” and I would be able to use them. I had a couple of apps that would not work, until I turned on/off my wifi, sometimes several times, and it did not always matter if the wifi was on or off for most of the apps, just started working after I toggled it, sometimes… But to tell the truth, the last straw with EdenX was that Gmail would never show me my new emails, it would say there were (example) 36 new messages in label “inbox” but when I opened that label the newest email it would show me would be from (example) 3 days ago, even after multiple refreshes. Even worse, if I cleared through my emails on my HTC Evo, Gmail on the Adam would update very quickly to show the changes (except it still would not show me the new messages. After 2 weeks of this I finally gave up and that is why I moved to Beast, if I cannot check my email regularly then the Adam would have been on Craig’s List (actually I did try to post it, I got so fed up with issues trying to just use it, but the posting got flagged for violation of terms and they asked me to verify my account by phone, so I cancelled the posting).
Gmail is working great, my Bank of America App is working fine as well (both had issues in Eden and EdenX and I use them more than 7 times per week each), it did take me 7 tries to get The Akinator to launch, but after that it worked fine (had my wifi off, I believe was the cause and the app requires inet access). I’ve actually been spending a lot of time playing pirates and traders lately, although the graphics are very low quality, and stretch based off the Adam’s orientation (yes the game rotates if you tilt while playing, on all 4 sides!), it also could use several additional features, but is still a fun play with promised updates coming!
(sorry to do this again, but I have been sitting on this post for 5 days now. I’ll get around to the links, I swear!)
After this post I should catch up to the here and now pretty quick…
right, so I had (finally) Ubuntu running with all the hardware working, and started messing with wine and trying to get World of Warcraft and DDO to run. no good that was. both were requiring the newest video drivers from AMD (I think that was what was wrong, never quite figured it out…) the games would both load but would fail at some point, and have other issues… including not allowing me to login or play… 
Well the video driver issue ended up being that (yes it did install fine) the on-board video on the laptop had just (and I do mean within a couple of weeks/a month or two) been taken out of the newest updates, and had been placed in the “legacy drivers” list. mean while, before I actually figured this out, was installing dot net (nearly every version) into wine, and flash, and java, and all kinds of stuff. I Was getting really excited, the laptop was working great, even if not with the OS I really wanted. especially since I could not find this model on the inet anywhere as being functional in linux. (the wireless and audio is what normally fails to function, and I had both working in more than one flavor of linux)
then one day at work a co-worker was looking into selling an old IBM T40 laptop and we were shocked to see people paying $150 or more for them. so I decided what the heck… I put my laptop on Craig’s list one after noon about 3pm. I had 4 emails and 3 phone calls before 8pm that night. decided to sell it to the first caller, they wanted win XP, so I wiped it (oh well, good learning experience) and set it up for them, then they had to postpone coming to get it, because of a dinner party they had forgotten about, then they were not sure if they could get it, and told me to not hold it for them anymore. well I did not get it sold, and now had win XP barebonez’d on it and login ID’s setup for people who would never see it, let alone use it.
oh well, not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I started having some wierd HDD errors on my semi-new desktop PC. failed writes, ticking noises while the drives were spinning, drives disappearing, then coming back after rebooting… it looks like I may have 2 or 3 bad HDDs. I get all the data moved off the Seagate that was reporting bad sectors and I get an RMA setup, quick and painless… now I just need to find a box, or “original shipping packaging” anyone who has not had this on hand and has had to look for it will know. it’s not real easy to find a custom fitted HDD packaging that perfectly fits the box you plan on sticking it in, and has a minimum of 2″ of foam on all sides. So I decided to ask around at work… I also submitted a tech help request with ECS, the manufacturer of my motherboard, as I was having both video problems AND HDD issues at this point.
on to the next issue that was going on…
so I had to go to Pittsburgh for training for work, 1 week, 2 semi-high level virtual server training courses taught by an IBM instructor (AU72 AU78 and AU73 the AIX Virtual I/O Server training. I’ll check at work tomorrow and will update if wrong on those –updated). had an awesome time in Pittsburgh, got to meet the team I was working with virtually, and learned a tonne of stuff. (I prefer the metric tonne to the American ton, so much more useful, and a conversation piece when used in writing… 
pictures are available on picasaweb there are not a whole lot of images (50 something), I was working (and no I did not take any images of where I was working, but there is a hint about for whom I do work. sorry folks I might slip somewhere, but company policy severely “suggests” that I do not disclose anything about my employment that is not necessary…) most of the time (working that is, I got distracted and used one of my parenthetical explanations that I am overly fond of and are truly not necessary, nor wanted by most. HOWEVER, and this is the good part, I am writing this, not you, and you are not paying me to do so!! SO!! I will use excessively long descriptions/mental overture if you will, at my discretion. I sure hope WordPress has a good spell checker, cuz I make up words all the time) umm… now where was I?
oh yeah, I was working most of the time, and so only took a few pictures, now that I no longer have a semi-pro DSLR (Canon 20D) I am stuck taking pic’s with a semi-crummy Kodak 6mp point-and-shoot. Back to the point.. The weekend I got back from Pittsburgh, and I had to move, across the hall from a nice 1150-ish sq ft 2 BR apt to a kinda cramped 950-ish sq ft 1 BR apt. Things got switched around, and now my Sheeva Plug fails 80% of the system checkpoints during bootup (not that I blame the move, just that I had no problems with it before this). it still functions (ie. turns on and I can log in via the console), except the network port interface is kaput… (defined as “ka·put also ka·putt (kä-p t, -p t, k-) adj. Informal. Incapacitated or destroyed.” at www.thefreedictionary.com/kaput ) (fyi I still have not gotten around to reflashing the ROM on it, which I learned back in early june, is necessary to allow the usage of SD Media Cards.)
HA! not sure what I talked about in this one, was a little distracted (doing some things on my desktop in preparation to RMA the MB…) but I’ll go ahead and post it as I hit 1k words.
- 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
