Ashlyn "All By Myself"

Shooting Ashlyn has become an annual affair. Our first encounter was in Dec 2008 for the photostory "Listen To The Light". Then one year later in Dec 2009, she requested me to shoot another video montage photostory for her wedding presentation, "The Seed of Love".

In Nov 2010, we did this series.

It was shot with direction meant for another photostory, but being rather busy for the past months, I had only managed to process the images over the past week. It would probably take me some time before I could create a photostory out of the images (or maybe I won't). So before I get busy again, here are some selections.

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Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S

This is my second hack-tivity of the week.

I have owned the Galaxy S for more than a month, running on stock firmware. Recently I noticed the performance of the device is degrading. The Galaxy S is known to have lag issues because of the way the cache storage is implemented. Actually, I felt embarrassed about the laggy performance of the Android device despite running on a powerful 1GHz Hummingbird processor.

So on this day, I decided to root the firmware, for 3 purposes:
1. To give the device a reboot.
2. To improve the lag response.
3. To install apps not possible on non-root firmware (e.g. capture screenshots of the Android phone)

This is by far the most smooth-sailing hack-tivity I have ever encountered on a gadget. I simply followed the instructions here (to update to the firmware DXJPE) and  here (for the speedmod root) and I had it done in a jiffy.

Rooting actually does not wipe your memory, but for my case, I also took the opportunity to update my firmware, which restores the phone to factory settings. But, manual restoring of apps turns out to be so much easier than I imagined. All I had to do was to log in to AppBrain website on the PC, copied my old phone's apps list to the new phone's apps list, install AppBrain on Galaxy S, then initiate the sync. Within minutes, I got back all my apps, no less. Backing up and restoring SMS (SMS Backup & Restore) and Notes (ColorNote) are also possible using free apps in the Market. Restoring contacts and calendar is a matter of re-creating my Office Exchange and Gmail accounts and re-syncing my contacts and calendar entries.

This rooting activity improved my Android experience once more, reaffirming my decision to go for this OS instead of iPhone. Having said that, Apple products are certainly more fuss-free and more consumer-friendly, even if that means restricting features and limiting capabilities so that users do not get confused, lost or frustrated over complex interfaces.

Before I sign off, here's 10 things Android do better than iPhone.

My Hackintosh Experience

One day, wifey told me that her laptop was running too slow, and wanted a new laptop.

I remembered making a vow years ago that my next laptop would have to run on a Mac. So I spent a week looking for the best deals.

One evening, I managed to find the laptop recovery discs, which allowed me to reformat the laptop to factory settings. After I did that, the laptop appears to perform better. Wifey was happy.

So it appears I managed to hold off the purchase - yet again.

During this whole purchase process, I came across some online articles about running Mac OSX on Intel-based PC. Upon closer study, it seems not that difficult. So I tried - and only got this far.

Installation got stuck at the Apple logo screen. After troubleshooting for 2 nights, I gave up, attributed to some hardware incompatibilities.

Incidentally, during these 2 days of online troubleshooting, I found another way to run OSX: using virtualisation machine running inside Windows OS. We all know that OSX supports running Windows OS using virtualisation software like Parallels. So the other way is technically possible. The only reason why this is not widely published is that Apple license does not allow.

So I decided to give this method a try. After spending about an hour, I got it running. This method is certainly much more safer as OSX is installed within a virtual environment. However, there exists several incompatibilities, so you can never achieve a full experience.

The objective of this exercise is
1. To experience the process of installing OSX in an Intel-PC hardware setup.
2. To try out the OSX if I do manage to install successfully (which I did).

As this is the first time I am seriously exploring and understanding the interface of OSX, I am surprised at the similarities with Windows 7, and concluded that Microsoft has indeed tried to mimic some of the user-friendly features from Mac. But I don't feel as efficient using OSX.

So would I convert to Mac OS? Certainly not completely, but at least I won't have to worry about not able to get used to OSX when the time comes for the switch.

Whether Mac or Windows, the value of the computer is not on the brand or the OS, but on the apps and the familiarity. Mac is consumer-friendly and idiot-proof, so it's probably good for non-techie users. But I am so used to the Windows platform, so it makes better sense to continue improving my quality of computing through hardware enhancements and software procurement. As of now, I find no tangible advantage of using a Mac.