Zit Seng's Superwall

I was preparing to write a preview of CyanogenMod 6 (CM6) before it became officially released. But alas, by the time I got around to it, CM6 is now officially released. The pre-release alphas, release candidates and nightly builds have been circulated around for quite some time now. I’ve been following the development and for the last several days, noted that activity, in terms of updates, had been slowing down. Seemed like things were winding down for the final release. Well, CM6 is now ready.

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It’s a tussle between individuals and the wishes of business organizations wanting to protect their data. The “problem”, is that phones nowadays are so powerful, so ubiquitous, and used so much for personal and work needs. The “problem” is that individuals want to own the phone, because it’s personal; At the same time, work organizations want to own the phone because it contains work secrets.

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Apple’s just-released Magic Trackpad and Multi-Touch Update 1.0 finally brings inertia scrolling to recent models of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks. Inertia scrolling, if you don’t know about it, is the feature where a scrolling action on the mouse (or the trackpad in this case) can continue even after your fingers have left the surface. It’s sort of like trying to spin a wheel… the wheel continues turning even if you stop exerting force.

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Sometimes, I think we’re doomed. Our IT, our cyberspace, they all belong to hackers. Hackers of the bad sort. The world is at their mercy. It’s one thing for the layman to be lost and give up in defeat. But it’s quite another thing for an IT professional to think of computer viruses as part and parcel of IT.

Okay, I know, computer viruses are indeed rampant and everywhere. But if it is on your own computer, you don’t just give up and surrender, do you? I’m talking about IT professionals here.

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I’ve been struggling to build CyanogenMod ROM from source for my Nexus One. It’s actually not very difficult once you’ve figured out how to do it. That’s the biggest hurdle: figuring out how to do it, because it is not easy when the various guides on the Internet are often incomplete, inaccurate, or just simply out-dated. So, I’ve decided to put together what I’ve learnt into a how-to guide for the benefit of other like-minded users. Of course, given that Android is evolving so rapidly, as are the various mods, I shan’t be surprised that some day I might also run out of steam keeping my guide up-to-date.

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So say crisis communication experts, Professor Matthew Seeger and Chris Lehane, quoted by mainstream Consumer Reports. The widespread complaints about the iPhone 4 antenna problems were confirmed in a lab experiment by Consumer Report, leading to their recommendation against the iPhone 4.

The lab experiment, which involved connecting several iPhone 4 to simulated cell towers in a radio frequency isolation chamber, showed that signal levels fell as much as 20dB when the lower left corner of the phone was covered.

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There are 10 screws on the underside of the MacBook Pro. These screws hold the bottom cover that upon removal, reveals the battery and hard disk. For some time now, there is this little screw in the corner that has been causing me some discomfort. It pokes out slightly, and because the edge of the screw head is quite sharp, it scratches my skin when I slide my hand/finger over it. It’s not bad enough to cause injury, of course, but you’d expect Apple products to have a nice smooth finish and this protruding screw just seems wrong.

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No, it’s not the dessert. Well, actually it is, but it isn’t the real thing. So there’s nothing to worry about. I suppose only Android users will understand what I’m talking about.

Yes, that means I’ve caught up with the bleeding edge again. Android 2.2, in the form of CyanogenMod’s 6.0.0 pre-alpha2, is finally in my phone. Oh, I’ve been trying various builds previously for like just 10 minutes or so before I revert. But now it’s working quite well, so it’s staying.

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I finally got to lay my hands on an Apple iPad. It looks nice, and it feels light. I couldn’t feel the bare metal though, because the owner refused to take off the protective cover. But I’m sure there would be no surprises, seeing how much the iPad has already been described in tremendous details all over the media. I still remain unmoved, however. What in the world would I use an iPad for? It’s not going to replace a MacBook Pro, and it’s not something compact enough to bring around outside of work when I don’t have a bag to stuff it in.

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The new iPhone 4 has been announced at WWDC 2010. Right on cue, as everyone expected. It also looks exactly like what we expected, since we got a preview thanks to a leaked prototype got into the hands of Gizmodo earlier. As I skimmed through the keynote, the renaming of the “iPhone OS” to “iOS” briefly caught my attention. I wonder if Cisco will take issue with Apple over that name. After all, “IOS” has been the Cisco software since forever. I was beginning to wonder if the iPhone 4 would be anything exciting at all.

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