Monthly Archives: September 2010

How I lost another 4 hours of sleep…

technology,

So a while back, I posted about rooting my phone.

And then mania took hold of me.  Maybe because I took 6 hours to root my own phone and I hoped to help people do it in far less, I undertook the task of creating an all-in-one guide to everything I did to my phone to increase it’s awesomeness: [HowTo] Root, Deodex, and Theme Droid Froyo 2.2 FRG22D.  It only took me 5 hours.  Maybe more.

And since then, I had people asking me for help.  I started to think that my guide wasn’t as helpful as I hoped because people kept asking for help with errors they got, but it turned out that while I had 5 or 6 people asking for help, it had been viewed more that 2300 times in just the last 20 days.  And I have to assume that a lot of those people actually used the guide successfully right?

But last night, I tried helping a guy with a problem he was having.  He didn’t have the same phone as me, so I did the Google search he should have and stumbled upon a guy who had made a script to do the rooting all in one command for the Droid X.  I got curious.  Could this same script work on a Droid?  Before posting it on my thread, I needed to know.  I tested.  Failure.  So I decided to add my name to the list of those who had contributed to the script.  Sparing you the boring details, I changed the script to work on a Droid 1 and put it on the thread.  I tested it accidentally on my own phone (a good sign when my phone still works just like it did).  But I also tested its magic on my wife’s phone with complete success.

And that’s why I went to bed at 3 am.  So now I’m up to over 18 hours of time/work spent helping people legally void their warranties so that they can increase the utility of their phones.  Though, I have to admit, I’m pretty proud of that customized script.

Currently listening to: “Telephone feat. Beyonce” by Lady Gaga

Sometimes things get done backward…

technology

Currently, work has me going through some 10 year-old web applications and changing the code to use MySQL instead of Oracle.

Every so often, I come across just plain bad code.  Here’s today’s first example, a SQL statement:

//get highest round
$value = $db->getOne(
"select value from table
where some_id=$id1
and other_id=$id2
and value >= all
(select value from table
    where some_id=$id1
    and other_id=$id2)
and rownum=1");

Here’s the code after I got done:

$value = $db->getOne(
"select max(value) from table
where some_id = '$id1'
and other_id = '$id2'");

So many times I’ve come across code from programmers who, for one reason or another, have decided that their problem requires a complex solution. And that’s just not the case. There’s usually always a simple solution if you look for it.

About this blog…

musings

So, I have a confession.  I started this blog a year ago to help get a girl.  It worked.  And now that I have said girl as my said wife, I never know what to blog about because she does a much better job documenting our trips and goings-ons that sometimes I just can’t think of anything to write.  So if I end up writing about how to root a Droid or how I rooted my Droid, then please just grin and bear it.  One thing I promise though is that I’ll never become a social media blogger and blog about stuff no one really cares about as if I were the expert on the subject.  And Sav and I have pledged never to combine our blogs, so that’s another thing you don’t have to worry about.

Honestly, I could write about work, but that would either be about coworkers and the silly things they do or about the php scripts I have written that have saved me hours of work.  But either I would end up offending someone through the grapevine that is the internet, or I would bore everyone to tears.

But lately what I’m interested in is learning to develop applications on my phone.  I’ve never done it, and I think it would be super educational and valuable.  So if I do start this, you may have to suffer after all.  Sorry.

Currently listening to “Calle Ocho (I Know You Want Me)” by Pitbull (Pandora)

Because Sav told me to…

escapades,

The other day, Sav told me I hadn’t posted in a month…sorry guys (all 6 of you).  But after my last post, she was more specific about her request.  “You need to post about something not technology.”  So here I am.

Let’s see.  Since my birthday last month, I have successfully aged to 25.1.  I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Engineering.  I applied to the Computer Science Master’s program at BYU.  I started a business and became an independent contractor in order to keep working at my job (but that’s kinda on the D.L.).  And I rooted my phone (and since my last post got that black status bar I wanted).  Oh, and I got Castle Crashers for my PS3.

We’ve also been to family reunions, visited both sides of the family, and gone to our new ward another time.

Well, that was the last month in about 100 words.  But it was a lot of fun.  In particular, visiting Sav’s family, we got to play around in her old stomping grounds up in the mountains.  And we went boating some more with my family, and I’m getting pretty good at that wake surfing.

But anyway, I have to go and delete a bunch of files from a sever, create a panic, and then fix it miraculously.  Should be a lot of awesome.

Currently listening to: “Yeah!” by Usher (thanks Pandora)

How to stay up late…

technology

If you have been a reader of my awfully boring blog for a while, you know that a few months back, Sav and I got Motorola Droids.  Well, after the latest update, I decided that I would root my device just as soon as there were reliable instructions.

Those came out today (here), and tonight I successfully rooted my Droid.

But that wasn’t enough you see.  I wanted more.  I needed more.  I wanted my phone to look as cool as this.  So I started getting all the different apps and widgets I would need.  I got it all — all except the black status bar.  For that, I would have to do something called deodex my system apps and such.  I found instructions here.  Even running on a Mac with Windows 7 in a virtual machine, I was able to run the program to do the deodexing.  I got it copied onto my Droid and everything.  I even rebooted.

Then came the moment of truth: copying over a theme I had found.  It had a really cool status bar.  However, it was not meant to be.  After copying those files into the right directories, my poor phone would not start. 🙁

So now I’m trying to get this one installed instead.  At least it’s black.  And from what I can tell, I’ve got everything I need.  We’ll see.

Unsuccessful.  Maybe I’ll get some help from the forums.

The one thing that saved my bacon: Rom Manager.  Literally saved me from having to lose all my data.  Three times.

So now I have cool menus, cool widgets, but not a cool status bar.

After 6 hours of work, my phone looks like this.

Currently listening to: “4’33” “