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By Matthieu, 2012-01-19 11:01

A nice explanation of EDGE/3G/4G/HSPA/LTE

Network Symbols Explained

*As I’ve only had AT&T, I can only speak for how it is with them.*

Firstly, AT&T stock LTE phones always showing 4G is a lie. It will show 4G wether you have HPSA or HPSA+. Technically 4G doesn’t even exist. It’s a marketing gimmick.

According to AT&T here is how the symbols work:

• E(dge): GSM – The slowest of the slow.
• 3G: HSPA or UMTS – High Speed Pack Access and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
• 3G(+): HSPA+ – An upgrade to the HSPA protocal. This is your average network.
• 4G: HSPA+ – Tower upgrade. Enhanced backhaul. (essentially the same tech as 3G+)
• 4G LTE: LTE – Long Term Evolution. On LTE you should typically expect speeds no less then 20mbps.

If you are using the RumRaider ROM (as of 1/3/’12) your symbols will appear as:

• E – E
• 3G/3G+ – 3G
• 4G – H
• 4G LTE – 4G

via General Knowledge Thread – xda-developers.

Bell/Telus/Sprint/Verizon also operate an older 3G network using CDMA2000 technology. 1x, EV-DO and 1xEV refer to CDMA2000 extensions for enhanced data.

Gotta love when marketing brings “technical” terms to the masses.

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By Matthieu, 2012-01-18 22:38

After attempting to use Asterisk for the past little while, I decided to give FreeSWITCH a try.

Following the instructions at : http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Quick_Start to build packages for Ubuntu 11.10.

In addition to the packages suggested, I had to install bison and libsofiasip-dev.

WIP, still compiling right now, will update this post as I go along.

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By Matthieu, 2011-12-13 01:58

My first attempt at a video to GIF conversion. Source material is a “banned” episode of Pokémon, S01E18 – “Beauty and the Beach”.

See the awkwardness that was too racy for American audiences. 😉 There’s worse later on in the episode, but I’ll leave that to you to find.

Text outline : http://www.ehow.com/how_18386_add-outline-text.html
Also, for some reason, Photoshop had to be launched in 32-bit, and the source movie had to be saved in a .mov container.

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By Matthieu, 2011-02-02 00:36

In an effort to consolidate my blog posts (and create content with minimal effort), here are some items pulled from my tumblr trial run of early 2010.

Bear Cloud (by johncavacas) (via Torontoist)

A fun typing experiment

Here’s a fun game.

Click your address bar, then, as fast as you can, go go goggle.com. That’s goggle, as in swimming goggles.

For some reason shelves full of neatly stacked stationery make me happy.

Hyperbole and a Half: This is Why I’ll Never be an Adult

What a year on Earth really looks like. [VIDEO]

"Knight's Tour". From Wikipedia.

Star Trek: Tik Tok

The G20 is just an excuse for a photo-op and a cocktail party, but we’re not invited. It’s unequal and really drives home the point about who has power in this society. We have a fence, the interruption of our lives, soldiers in the streets and armed helicopters in the sky. On one side of that fence is us, the underlings, and on the other side, the, for lack of a better term, aristocracy. They’ve drawn a line right down the middle of our supposedly egalitarian society, told us to pay for it and they’re getting away with it.

— CBC News – Toronto – G20 exodus will require travel plan: police

We can receive the S. Korean TV signal better than its North Korean counterpart in the Haeju area,” Kim said, “TV sets are pre-tuned by the North Korean authorities to limit the access to TV channels. However, that does not bother us because we can use a stick.” (North Koreans call a remote control as a stick) In the border areas with China and South Korea such as Hwanghae and Kangwon Province, the North Korean authorities try to prevent people from watching S. Korean TV by soldering and pre-tuning TV sets to Chonsun (North Korea) Central TV. Lately, the authorities also attempt to restrict the usage of remote control by covering the sensor with silver paper. However, North Korean people circumvent the regulation. Instead of giving away their remote control to the authorities, they purchase an extra and watch the TV as they please after removing the silver paper. After all, the authorities’ efforts to control TV channels turn out to be futile for those who have remote control TV sets.

— Daily NK – North Korean People Copy South Korean TV Drama for Trade

Bayview village - the last mall with trees ?

found on /.

• user 1: Correction: I did this with FOLDING@home, not SETI. I think SETI isn’t as useful.
• user 2: The aliens have already done all of that protein folding nonsense. Once we make contact they’ll share their technology, making your silly Folding@home obsolete.

The Microsoft Live Platform

Microsoft Live platform (by niallkennedy)

Barack Obama, “Yes We Can”: A PowerPoint Deck | shmula

BP Spills Coffee (via UCBComedy)

Life's Good

Kesha Simpsons Intro Tik Tok HD

Who needs a solitare app when you can just run Windows 3.1

Why Our Civilization’s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the MPEG-LA

Imagine knowing you’re pregnant, the moment it happens.

Nipper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mirror neuron – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language…

Emma: yeah, pas mal
organized is a weird word…
me: lol
what makes you say that?
Emma: i don’t know, i guess every word sounds funny if you repeat it enough
even just in your head
me: yes it does
like table
tay-bul
lol organized sounds like it could mean separated into organs
Emma: dude, yeah
words are just weird in general
they’re vocal representations of thoughts and ideas….like, they only convey part of what’s really going on in your mind
CRAZY
(i swear to god i am not stoned)
me: hehe
no i think that’s the mark of awesome people
when you can think of trippy shit without having to be stoned
like holy crap, mass times the speed of light times the speed of light IS energy
Emma: hahaha

(related) Waking Life – Language (via SoupDuBubble)

"Baby" Carrot?

Walk on water (Liquid Mountaineering) (via TheUlfG)

Lamebook – » Time for Type

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-28 21:59

Going through my photo library, I came across this curious shot that I took sometime last year:

Now, this looks curiously like the Google Nexus One’s bootscreen doesn’t it?

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-27 20:35

Je participe actuellement à une pièce de théâtre mise en scène par mes amis Charles et Alina. Je ne suis pas acteur, mais quelques uns de mes bons amis le sont.

C’est une comédie genre “Western”, suggérée par la chanson “Rocky Raccoon” des Beatles.

Billets disponibles sur UofTtix.

Poster par peaz.

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By Matthieu, 2011-01-19 20:16

Here’s how to “de-blur” a Motorola MB502 (aka Charm) from Telus Mobility. The process assumes a stock Telus Charm, and a Windows XP system, although tools exist that allow flashing from Linux.

1. Download and install the Motorola phone flashing tools. This means the Motorola USB drivers (get them from MOTODEV) and RSDlite.
2. Download the “deblur” sbf from Motorola (see http://and-developers.com/sbf:mb502 , download BASEM_U3_01.12.4_DEBLUR_SIGNED) and ungzip.
3. Connect your Charm. Enable USB debugging under Settings > Applications > Development. From the notifications menu, make sure the phone is connected for “Charge Only”
4. Run RSDlite, select the decompressed sbf file and flash.
5. The phone will reboot once it’s done flashing. Wait for it to finish, then hold the power button and power down the phone. Remove and replace the battery, then power up the phone again.

Now, at this point, if you’re lucky, your Charm may “Just work”. If you see signal bars and can make phone calls, then you’re in the clear. Set up your APN and you’re good to go. This happened with one of my Charms, but oddly enough, the other (seemingly identical) device just wouldn’t pick up the Bell HSPA network. I did eventually get it working, but don’t remember the steps and now have two working Charms.

If your phone doesn’t pick up the cell network, then please wait for my next post. I will be intentionally bricking one of my phones using the T-Mobile ROM in order to figure out how to fix it.