I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the Seoul Podcast and they played this commercial. Did Samsung really have their marketing department look at this commercial? I love how the woman is portrayed as clueless and they compare her repair to building blocks, after they mention it that way, she is magically able to install an SSD hard drive. Anyways thought it was a good laugh.
Since I have been working at the cell phone repair shop, I have come to value open source even more than usual. Also when manufacturers give the consumer the ability to either quickly and easily replace broken parts or install custom firmwares should be a definite selling point to the average consumer. Now some of you may be thinking, I don’t care about installing custom firmwares or taking apart my gadget to fix it. The point here is not that you will do it, the point is that you can or have the option. Manufacturers who put these options into devices are not only looking out for the well being of the consumer, but are keeping some of these gadgets out of the landfills. The problem today with a lot of gadgets are they are either limited by software only or designed to be a disposable device.
The Sansa Clip+ has been of interest to me for sometime, but the lack of Unicode support (particularly CJK font support) and AAC playback kept me away from purchasing one. This particular Sansa MP3 player seeemed like a great deal, they are selling for around $25-35 on Amazon and come with a wide range of features. But thankfully while I was searching the web for a cheap alternative MP3 player option, I stumbled across this custom firmware that installs overs the Sansa default firmware. This custom firmware added in all of the features that I saw missing in the original Clip+ firmware, so I decided to purchase it a month or so ago. The install process is a simple click away and can be installed on a wide range of MP3 players. Just make sure you follow the user/ install manual to a very last detail.
As you can see above, my Sansa Clip+ now has CJK font support. Though my Japanese and Korean is minimal, I still enjoy listening to Japanese and Korean music. The song that was being displayed in the picture above was by one of my favorite Taiwanese bands. Now before I end this post, I would like to fill you out on some details that I did find lacking in the installation/ user manuals for the Sansa Clip+. If you want to install the CJK font package to display Chinese, Japanese or Korean script, you need to download a theme called “YellowBarDynamic-Unicode”. After you install this theme, it must be in use or active in order for the fonts to display correctly, so if you were to change the theme, you will loose the ability to view CJK fonts.
The Sansa Clip+ has crashed a couple of times after the installation of this firmware, but for the most part it has been stable. I like how the folder structure that can be customized on the device, how it is multi-platform and the fact that it has an FM radio that can record live radio. Anyways I just want to encourage individuals out there to do some research on the devices you purchase! Go out and be an informed consumer! So these customers that we don’t just purchased items on impulse or because of brand recognition. We as consumers demand good quality, decent prices, and flexibility!
Water Damage Free Board
My summer job has been going great! Within the last two months, I have learned so much. I have learned how to solder, open all makes and models of phones, and other gadget repair. So you might be wondering why I have entitled this blog post as “Hold the Rice Please” and there are pictures of cell phone motherboards.
Phone’s Board After Water Damage
It has been a common belief (of which I believed until I began working on phones that were dropped in water) that if a phone ever got wet, the best thing was to place it in a bag of rice. This makes a lot of sense considering that the rice will absorb all of the excess moisture that leaked into the phone. Believe it or not, the water is not a phone’s worst enemy. The real problem is the other chemicals or contaminants that are found inside the water. The phone above is of a customer’s phone who came to us several weeks ago. She told us that she dropped her phone in her pool and immediately turned her phone off and placed it in a bag of rice for two days. Well when it came to us, I had the privileged of working on her phone. It arrived in this condition.
See the black spots on the connectors?
If you ever experience dropping your phone in water or spilling it, the first important thing to do is immediately turn off your phone. It would be best to take out the battery, but a lot of phones are moving away from removable batteries. A bag of white rice will help to get the moisture out of the phone, BUT DO NOT TURN ON YOUR PHONE. Depending on the water source you dropped it in, there will be certain residues left inside the phone. If the phone was dropped in a pool, there are chlorines, salts, and other chemicals that help keep the pool clean. If it is the local water supply, well different municipalities will put different chemicals in public drinking water to help clean it and purify it for consumption. Here in Cumberland County, they also add Fluoride to our local tap water.
That is the connector for the LCD, see the black spots (corrosion).
There is a severe risk that if you only absorb the water out of the water with rice, these chemicals can create a short in your phone. The chances of anyone fixing your phone after a short is slim to none, especially at a cheap price. Also I want to stress that this phone the customer brought into us had only been dropped in some water ONCE and it had been only TWO DAYS before she brought it in to us. So next time a friend of yours recommends you putting your wet phone into a bag of rice, please educate them that that is not all that is necessary. In fact, I would discourage anyone from doing that. It creates a false sense of security concerning their phone.
By the way, speaking of placing a phone in a bag of rice. I have an excellent story from another customer concerning rice. A guy came in last week who accidentally dropped his Samsung Galaxy SIII into his dog’s water dish. Instead of putting his phone in a bag of white rice, which he did not have, he placed it in a bag of saffron Spanish rice! Needless to say his phone smelled like saffron and there were traces of the seasonings all inside his phone. It was one of the funniest things I have witnessed since I first began this job. So if your bold and have a strong desire to use rice to help dry out your phone, DON’T USE SEASONED RICE! Unless you want to make it into a soup or something.
Some of my friends at Fudan University introduced me to the wonderful world of Vietnamese food! Though my Vietnamese is basically non-existent (I only know Chao and Gam um), you do not need to know Vietnamese to experience some great tasting food! The Ginger Grill has been opened in Fayetteville, North Carolina for some time now and since I first went there a year or two ago, it has been one of my favorite restaurants in the Fayetteville area.
I tried to grab a picture of my appetizer before I started chowing down, but I was somewhat unsuccessful. One of the best things about the Ginger Grill is their presentation. I love how they laid these ragoons on the colorfully decorated plate. The dipping sauce was also unique, I believe it was some lemon grass as a base.
I cannot remember what this particular curry dish was called, but it was an assortment of vegetables and beef. The portion of rice was rather disappointing, but I will say that I was completely stuffed after my meal and I still had enough for a take away box. As most of my friends know, curry is a weak spot of mine. My favorite curries are Indian and Thai, but I would say wholeheartedly that Vietnamese curry is in my top three favorites.
As I have grown older, my palate has grown adventurous and I enjoy tasting a variety of foods. If you have never tried Vietnamese, then you are definitely missing out on some amazing ethnic food. If you are interested in eating at the Ginger Grill, I am including their website.
News Story Available from the BBC Website of Yesterday’s Broadcast.
Lately I have been spending a lot less time listening to the news, because I have been directing my focus to other areas in my life (studying God’s Word, Government and Chinese). I have finally realized that the news can really consume one’s life, but that being said, I still try to catch the BBC World Report broadcast every night before I go to bed. Last night I was watching the BBC and to my surprise I saw Takemura Kiriko as one of their headlines.
The J-Pop Princess has been in the fashion realm of Tokyo since high school. Kiriko “is a Japanese model, blogger, and recording artist associated with the Harajuku district of Tokyo”1. Reporter Mariko Oi reported, “In just a few years, she transformed from normal schoolgirl Kiriko Takemura to being the face and voice of Japan’s kawaii – or cute – culture. Now the 20-year-old is taking off in mainstream music culture too…”. 2 Unfortunately I cannot embed the BBC broadcast, but I would highly encourage those interested to watch it via the link provided at the end of the article.
The music video provided above has been circulating around YouTube and the net for some time now. I watched this bizarre video several months ago and subscribed to Warner Music Japans YouTube channel. Reporter Mariko Oi stated, “Today the 20 year old is often compared with Lady Gaga, her inspiration Katy Perry has praised her songs”.3 She is definitely a cute girl who has an super kawaii personality, there is no wonder why she is popular with the otaku fan cloud.
Modern Japan is not new to the idea of these pop culture fashion statements. After the Japanese economy began to rise to its prominence in the 1980s, the focus of ordinary Japanese had begun to shift from their traditional counterparts. As history teaches us, once economies grow in wealth, consumer’s priorities begin to shift from producing products to consuming products. Japanese during the 80s began to focus more on the latest fashion; transforming Tokyo into a fashion capital of the world. Professor Patricia Ebrey of the University of Washington- Seattle links the economic boom to this culture shift and states, “since many of them [younger Japanese] lived with their parents, their income bought luxury items rather than necessities. They splurged on designer clothes, meals and entertainment”4. These new trends were built up by both disposable income and the ’78 bamboo shoot tribe movement in Harajuku, where “middle and high school students dressed in outlandish and expensive costumes started appearing every Sunday near trendy Harajuku…”5.
Sources
1. “Kyary Pamyu Pamyu,” Wikipedia, Modified 4 June 2013 and accessed on June 4, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyary_Pamyu_Pamyu.
2. Takemura Kiriko. Japanese singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu talks instant stardom. By Oi, Mariko. BBC World Report, June 3, 2013.
3. Ibid
4. Patricia Ebrey, Anne Walthall and James Palais. Modern East Asia: From 1600 (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009), 519-521.
5. Ibid
CPR Hope Mills Site
Schools are about ready for summer and the jobs that were so readily available for substitute teachers a month ago are no longer existent. Fortunately I worked in Cumberland County as a sub until the 10th of last month, so I will be receiving one last paycheck at the end of this month. I have saved my money wisely for the past few months to last me for the summer, but I figured a part time job might prove helpful, especially knocking out that school loan. A old friend of mine started this franchise and he offered me a part time job fixing cell phones.
My part time workspace!
I have undergone two weeks of training in replacing charge ports (usb ports) on cell phones, replacing screens on various types of cell phones and taking apart/ diagnosing cell phones. Our trainer also showed us how to upgrade Android software (I kind of already knew how, but he showed us an easier way) and how to unlock GSM cell phones. Thankfully I am already pretty savvy on fixing the software side of computers. So this photograph is of my trusty work station with all my handy tools! I have been watching videos on disassembling cell phones lately on YouTube and I do not know how those guys do it without these tools! But thanks to them, it’s job security, because more times than none, those guys end up breaking their phones!
iPhones are very VERY tricky to take apart!
I have personally taken this iPhone apart about 4-5 times. This is an iPhone 4 Sprint CDMA and apparently there are different tweaks that Apple did in their wise wisdom concerning the layout of the iPhone 4 GSM model and both GSM and CDMA iPhones 4s models. My recommendation, unless you are gutsy and know what your doing, don’t take this sucker apart. Some of these screws are so tiny they look like a speck of dirt, especially the rail screws!
Taking off a charge port.
Soldering and de-soldering is very very fun! I am by no means a master, but I have been practicing a lot and have gotten pretty good! We are heating up some of these boards to 130 degrees Celsius or 300 degrees Celsius (all you need to know, is thats freaking hot).
Our store just opened June 1st and we are located in the Milestone theater plaza in Hope Mills. If any of you guys have a broken iPhone screen or a bad charge port on a laptop, bring it in! We will be glad to assist you! We are opened from 10-7pm Monday-Saturday. Hope to see you there!
Preserving Traditional Bookbinding Techniques
The DODOcase philosophy is simple, manufacture things locally and help keep the art of book binding alive and well by adapting it to a world of e-readers and iPads. Each DODOcase cover has its own unique character as it was hand made in San Francicsco using techniques developed hundreds of years ago.
Wow, I have so much potential material to blog about! It has definitely been a long time since I was last on here, but I hope to start blogging more again. I was really proud about moving for the most part out of the Apple Universe, but it is definitely hard to stay out of the Apple-verse. I’ve been using my Macbook Pro for about four or five years now and this past Black Friday, I bought a used iPhone 3Gs and unlocked it legally through AT&T. Well at the beginning of this month I purchased an iPad Mini 16 gigabyte model! Needless to say I believe this is probably the best tablet on the market, but I was really tempted by the Nexus 7.
I subscribe to engadget’s RSS feed and I recently saw this company in their newsfeed. Throughout the last few months, I have been going crazy over buying little notebooks for writing notes and taking notes for some online classes that I have been taking. So when I saw this, I thought it was a very clever idea.
We live in a world where everything is mass produced and unlike the mid to late 1800s, items no longer have a story with them. Since everything is made in a factory, we loose a pretty cool aspect with how the products are made individually and personally by artisans. I think the DODOcase for the iPhone is fairly cheap considering the novelty of the product, but the story that comes along with the product is even more compelling. I love how these artisans have taken century old book making techniques and have revived them in the modern age.
I have just ordered my DODOcase and I am looking forward to getting it. Hopefully I will get my case sometime next week. My 25th birthday is this coming Monday, I actually bought it as a birthday gift to myself! Anyways since I have the iPhone 3Gs, I am not sure if it will fit exactly, but I believe the elastic band will keep it in place. I emailed the company and asked them if it would fit, they replied back and were not sure if it would fit. They did tell me that I have a 45 day time period to get a full refund, so if the case does not fit my phone in particular, I can return it. I will let everyone know once I get my DODOcase!
DODOnotes: The First iPhone Compatible Paper Notebook from DODOcase on Vimeo.
My sister told me that she had placed a comment up on Facebook last night when I went to the hospital. I wanted to give everyone an update… Unfortunately yesterday I was involved in an accident where a young woman hit me from behind while I was on the way to meet a friend after work. Once I was hit, my neck was pretty sore. Anyways my mom asked me to go to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor’s prescribed me some muscle relaxers. This is where the problem begins. So I took some anti-inflammatory medicine along with the muscle relaxer toward the evening. I had an allergic reaction and I was having difficulty breathing along with trouble breathing. My mom rushed me to the doctor again and they gave me some medication to counteract the side effects of the muscle relaxer.
Today I am still sore, I’m just trying to take a day for recovery. My students are getting closer to taking the MSL, so I hope I can get back in the classroom tomorrow. I think for the next few days, I will need to take some pain relievers and some anti-inflammatory medication. So thanks for your prayers! They definitely helped! God is good!
The purpose of the internet is to promote democracy and certain unalienable rights. I strongly believe that governments should refrain from trying to dictate at to how the internet should be run. The internet is owned by the people and for the people.
In an age where the freedom of speech is increasingly under threat and the plutocratic powers that have silenced innovation and creativity, the internet is the only viable avenue for individuals to be heard. If you support a free and opened internet, please make a statement today! If you are interested in reading the bill, I posted a link to the American Congress website’s post of the bill.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3523:
My taste in music has taken a drastic turn compared to the genre I listened to even a year ago. Groups like Grizzly Bear, Of Monsters and Man, Mumford and Son, and Wanting are definitely not the rock to hard rock that once filled my iPod. Anyways the group I would like to talk about briefly today is She and Him. This dynamic duo offers a alternative spin or indie approach to music. The main vocalist, Zooey Deschanel has recently gained more popularity because of her new TV show called “New Girl”. Though I am a fan of Zooey’s, I do not really watch New Girl. Don’t get me wrong, I have watched the show a couple of times and it is not bad. But I am more interested in her music than her acting abilities. Well as I was surfing my Facebook feed, Facebook recommended their new single because of the fact I linked my Spotify account with Facebook. I searched YouTube for the official music video, but unfortunately I could not find it. Instead I did find the official song posted on She and Him’s YouTube account. I just wanted to share it with you all. It’s available on iTunes for those who would like to purchase their latest single. Now I’m just waiting for Alizee’s new album “5” coming out at the end of the month! Once it comes out, I will definitely be blogging about it. Anyways hope you enjoy She and Him’s latest single!
branhow.com 