Brick Android – UnBricked!
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I want to pass along my experiences in case others may find it useful. I decided to root my Vortex the other day Ver: 2.2.2. The reason for the root is that I was tired of all of Verizon’s Bloat Apps taking up the little space that there is on this phone. I found an app that did it just find: GingerBreak; Google it. I was really full of myself. I then installed ‘Titanium Backup (root) for Android‘. I backed up the apps I wanted to delete and deleted the apps, which TB allows you to do.
Everything was going fine, but as usual I started getting too brave for my own good. I deleted Bing! Unfortunatley, when you do this, it also deletes some required files and put the phone into the dreaded Verizon Loop.
So, off to Google…. After trying various restore procedures and much searching on the various errors I was just about ready to use it as a paper weight. I came across an article on rolling back the Vortex to Ver: 2.2 which is what it ships with. The procedure has many steps and the instructions need to be followed to the letter. Not an area I have ever been very good at.
The end of the story is that it worked like a charm, I was not back to a clean device with Froyo 2.2. The upside of this is that now the Z4Root app works like a charm to root the phone. I installed Titanium and removed the Verizon Apps, leaving Bing on this time.
The downloads and full instructions on rolling back the LG Vortex to 2.2 can be found at: Rolling Back Your Vortex
Categories: All, Android, Tips & Tricks Tags: TB, Titanium Backup, Verizon Apps, Verizon Bloat Apps
Can Google Un-Seat FaceBook?
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Google is getting ready to release its next venture down Social Lane. The goog has facebook in their sights and they may be the only one capable of giving The FaceBook a run for their money.
Of course I have signed up for an invitation; https://plus.google.com/up/start/?sw=1&type=st. But I will be waiting like millions of other users. I have always believed that Google could make this happen as they already had all of the pieces, all that was required was for them to bring them altogether.
The big question is whether will current FaceBook users jump ship, or will they Google+ at all. I’m not going to get into the actual details of the project but I do want to mention a couple of items that plus will include that is sorely needed in the Social Universe.
- I really like the concept of Circles. Circles is the basis on how Plus will be configured. It is said that you will be able to create an unlimited number of circles (groups) for any type of category. So you will be able to have a Circle for not only Family, but maybe a Circle for Uncles or Cousins. I will leave it to you to let your imagination run wild.
- Plus promises to have very granular security built in to allow you to be very specific on what you share and with whom. But what I’m really excited about is that you will be able to visually look at a circle and see your data as that circle of people will see it. This alone will make a big difference in setting up your social graph.
As you have gathered, I’m a pretty big Google fan, but the real excitement here is that competition is always good as it breeds innovation. If you find the concept of this project interesting then I invite you to:
Google ‘Google Plus Project’ 8-).
Remember its not about who do you trust with your information…Its about who you trust least.
Categories: All, Social, Tips & Tricks Tags: Google, Social
Sony: WTF
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The recent breach in Sony Play Station network has really given Sony a black eye. Whenever you have millions of Names, Email Addresses and Credit Card Numbers hacked it tends to cause quite a stir.
But, this isn’t about Sony, its about security and protecting your wallet. For the purpose of this article we will use the following definition for; Security.
Security: The action of minimizing your exposure or risk.
Zero Risk- If you use the Internet and are looking for Zero Risk, then not only is this article not for you, but you should really consider not using the Internet at all.
The Rest of Us – If you plan on using the Internet to buy products or sign up subscriptions, then this may be of help.
For any of us who has ever had financial difficulties, then you will know that you get bombarded with offers for prepaid debit cards that allow you to re-charge and the credit limit is set at the balance on the card. This may be the perfect solution to providing a measure of minimized risk when using the Internet.
My System – I have set up an account with one of many of these companies. The trick to finding the right one for you may be based on the monthly service fee, which they all seem to have unless you maintain a large balance. This of course defeats the purpose of this plan.
This is the card I use when setting up accounts like iTunes, Amazon, etc. I have arranged through my bank to automatically add a certain amount of cash each month. This is of course based on the monthly fees I foresee needing. This way if someone gets my info, then they are only going to rip me off for what is available on the card, and not my credit limit on my actual line of credit.
Downside – This doesn’t stop you from being nabbed because the people you do business with haven’t secured their servers. But, it will help you minimize your exposure, and in the event that something bad happens, its a relative simple matter of canceling your prepaid card and opening up a new account.
In Conclusion: There are tons of articles about these types of cards from the really bad to the OK. The following article is a good place to start: http://www.creditcards.org/prepaid?lp=1
Good Luck
Categories: All, Security, Tips & Tricks Tags: OK, Security, Sony Play Station, Zero Risk
TwitterFeed – Letting Everyone Know
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When it comes to blogging and using social media such as FaceBook and Twitter, they can be a match made in heven.
I am not a big user of either of the above mentioned platforms, but enough other people are that as a blogger it only makes sense to post new blog updates on these platforms. As anyone who has worked with blogs know there are plenty of widgets/plugins that will allow you to automatically post to facebook and twitter whenever you add new content to your blog.
I have opted for TwitterFeed (http://twitterfeed.com) instead of installing a widget on each blog that I manage. TwitterFeed is:
Twitterfeed is by far the largest publisher to Twitter and Facebook, with over 800,000 users pushing more than 1.6 million feeds to over 2 million Twitter and Facebook accounts, every day.
Twitterfeed is free and works great. Recently they have updated their FaceBook interface which now allows you to send your posts to a FaceBook Fan Page and not just your main FaceBook Page. For those of us who are running multiple sites, this is a real plus. Below is the recent announcement from their blog:
This post will be of interest mostly to our users posting feeds to their Facebook accounts or pages – so if you’re only posting to Twitter and have no plans to post your content to Facebook also, you can safely ignore it.
We have today updated our Facebook Connection code to use the newer Graph API, which – in plain English – has the following advantages for you:
- the “Connect with Facebook” dialog is much simpler, and less prone to problems
- by default, posts to Facebook now include a thumbnail image, something many of you have asked for
If you have any existing feeds set up posting to Facebook, they will continue to work, but will not take advantage of the above, so it is highly recommended you update your feeds. Updating the Facebook connection is very easy:
- click on “edit” next to the feed you want to update
- Under “Step 2”, click on the active “Facebook” account/link
- you should see a note saying your Facebook connection is out of date – to update, just click “Connect with Facebook” again
- Once connected, if you’re the admin of one or more pages, you will also see a dropdown list of pages. If you select one of these pages, we will post to that page, rather than to your own account.
- Click “Update service” and “All done” on the next page, and your Facebook connection is up to date.
A final note: the thumbnail image feature is only available with normal Wall posts, not with the shorter Facebook status updates, so if you want to take advantage of this, make sure you keep the default “post title & description” (under “Advanced Settings”). If you change this to “title only”, we will post a short, text-only status update to Facebook rather than a Wall post.
We hope you like these improvements, but as ever, if you find any problems with it, let us know at support@twitterfeed.com.
Your twitterfeeders.
Give Them A Try.
Categories: Tips & Tricks, Wordpress Tags: Click Update, Facebook Connection, Twitter
Google Web Fonts
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Most people who have messed around with doing their own website have found out fonts can be a big limitation in their design. The issue has always been that you can or should only use fonts that are going to be installed on the viewers machine, which means only the fonts that come pre-installed on Windows or Mac.
Some of Google’s best tools are some of the best kept secerts. I came across this the other day and it really has opened up some creativity. Google Web Fonts is a tool that allow you to set up your pages using fonts on the Google Web Fonts directory. Now when ever someone visits your site you can be assured that they will see the site as you intend, whether they have the fonts installed or not.
This is as easy as including the following code into your CSS file:
You can start using the Google Font API in just two steps:
- Add a stylesheet link to request the desired web font(s):
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Font+Name">- Style an element with the requested web font, either in a stylesheet:
CSS selector { font-family: 'Font Name', serif; }or with an inline style on the element itself:
<div style="font-family: 'Font Name', serif;">Your text</div>Note: When specifying a web font in a CSS style, always list at least one fallback web-safe font in order to avoid unexpected behaviors. In particular, add a CSS generic font name like
seriforsans-serifto the end of the list, so the browser can fall back to its default fonts if need be.
The full instructions are located at: http://code.google.com/apis/webfonts/docs/getting_started.html and you can see the full list of fonts available at: http://www.google.com/webfonts
Wait, were not done!
If you are a WordPress’r, then there is a plugin that makes this really easy for your WordPress site. The one being used on this site is: ‘WP Google Fonts’, here is a screen shot.
Categories: Tips & Tricks, Wordpress Tags: CSS, Google, Google Web Fonts, Windows
A Blogger’s Worst Nightmare.
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I can only speak for myself, but I’m sure that most people who have ran a blog in the present or past will agree with me in saying: It is the endless amounts of Spam in comments. Right now I am averaging between 400 – 600 of these a week. The majority of which are generated by auto bots.
The dilemma is that you don’t want to make your site overly restrictive and make it easy for the user to be able to communicate without opening up the site to tons of bot generated comments. I have found that most of this type of spam involves drugs, sex or the such. I now find myself in a position to either turn off commenting, which defeats the purpose of having a blog or community interaction or require commenter’s to register on the site.
I have decided to tighten security by requiring anyone who wants to comment will need to register on the site. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but in the long range, I hope this will give me added time to dedicate to content and conversations with people who deserve it.
Previously many commenter’s would have to wait till I got around to approving their comment. Now all a site member will need to do is register and confirm their email and your comments should start appearing instantaneously. This will also allow us to have greater flexibility in blocking those who are looking for free advertising or just evil.
I am sorry for the hassle, but going through hundreds of spam comments each week is more than I want to contend with.
Anyway, thanks for understanding.
-Rob
Want To Register Now?
Do It!
Categories: All, Tips & Tricks, Wordpress Tags: Blogging, SEO
RoksBox – Roku On Steriods
Twitter It!NOTICE: None of the information in this article is intended for the use of pirating copyrighted material.
First off, I guess I should make it perfectly clear that I am no lover of Cable or Satellite TV, with all of the packages and tiers. But with all of the on-demand content available on line these services are slowing becoming outdated. It is for this reason I purchased my first Roku set-top box and a $8.99 subscription to NetFlix.
What is Roku: Roku, Inc., is a privately held company located in Saratoga, Calif., and founded in 2002 by Anthony Wood, the inventor of the digital video recorder (DVR). Roku is a leading supplier of innovative and easy to use digital media products. Our best known consumer products are the Roku digital video player and the stylish SoundBridge Internet radio line. In short, Roku; is a set-top box that hooks up to your HDTV and to the Internet to provide a variety of content from NetFlix, Amazon, YouTube and many more content providers.
What Roku has always been missing is the ability to stream or display my own content (Movies, Pictures, Music) across a home network and not have to upload all of my photos, and movies to the cloud.
Enter RoksBox.
Roksbox gives you the ability to play your own videos and movies, listen to your own music, and show your own photographs on the Roku Digital Video player (from now on referred to as the Roku player). Your media can reside on your computer’s hard drive, on an external drive, on a network attached storage (NAS) device located on your home or local area network, or on a USB attached device (XR model only). Although Roksbox requires some initial setup work, once you get your network and media files properly configured, you will be able to enjoy all of your media files on the convenience of the Roku player.
How It Works:
Roksbox is a private channel that you add to your channel list. The short of it is that this is not a plug and play setup and requires you to set up a small web server on the machine that you will be storing your media on. Then the channel will give you a list of your content on your TV and allow you to play it.
The Install:
It took me around 60-90 min. to get everything installed and configured. RoksBox has a very good tutorial that will walk you step by step through the process. I have listed the software that I used which is all included in the tutorial and is Free. Most of the time you will spend will be on converting your media to work with Roku.
| Name | Link | Cost |
| Mongoose Media Server | http://code.google.com/p/mongoose/downloads/list | FREE |
| HandBrake Video Converter | http://handbrake.fr/ | PREE |
| Personal Video Database | http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php?action=down | FREE |
| MediaMonkey | http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/ | FREE |
Resources:
| Roku | http://roku.com |
| Roksbox Tutorial | http://roksbox.com/home/ |
Have Fun
Categories: All, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials Tags: Although Roksbox, Anthony Wood, FREE, NOTICE, TV, USB
Mobile Tethering
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If you have ever consider tethering your smartphone to your laptop, you undoubtedly found out that most is not all cell providers, want to charge you and extra fee for this. WTF? What this amounts to is you paying for the same data usage twice.
Data is nothing but ones and zeros, whether it is Voice Over IP, or using your Browser, and since you cant use your phone for tethering and make calls at the same time…Therefor you are paying for your data twice.
Enter PDANet. For of you who remembers or owned a Palm Treo, this application may sound familiar, as it was originnally developed for Palm by June Fabrics Technology. Since that time, the people at June Fabrics have been busy and porting the application to about every major smartphone platform: BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, and of course PalmOS.
This has been a real treasure for me as it does one thing and it does it well. The install is a breeze; you just download and install to your laptop, and install the associated application to your phone. Each platform works a little bit different, but all the platforms require a USB Cable to connect and some will support Bluetooth as well.
Here are the details:
- Software Type: Freeium Ware – Free for 30 days. After 30 days you can register or deal with occasional nag screens.
- Price: $29.00
- Trial Period: 30 Days
- Developer: June Fabrics Technology
- Website: http://junefabrics.com
Article Originally Published on: FrugalTek.Us. Podcast available at: http://show.frugaltek.us
Categories: Tips & Tricks Tags: Freeware, June Fabrics, Mobile, Palm Treo, Trial Period, Windows Mobile
Our Favorite WP Plugins
We have a group of plugins that we use on almost all of our WP sites which is built on WPMU and now 3.0. Here are the plugins we use the most and can recommend.
TekNews, Raves & Rants
Twitter It!TNRR – The Practical Side of Technology
TekNews, Raves and Rants is our weekly netcast (podcast).
The News – Each week we discuss the latest technology news and how it impacts the world of geeks and non-geeks a like.
Our Raves – Along with the news we will introduce you to software products that we use and have tested. The majority of these products fall under the categories of Freeware and web apps.
Our Rants - Finally, the Rants section of the show is dedicated to what we find ridiculous and disturbing and is our soapbox moment for what’s going on in the tech world.
The purpose of this show is to present the practical side of technology, and present the subject in plain English.
We hope you will start to listen and find the show worthwhile. Teknews, Raves and Rants is available at/on:
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iTunes
You may also call us and leave a message at: 520.762.4819 or
Email us at: rc@tekpedia.net
Categories: All, Tips & Tricks Tags: Freeware
