Reminder: Why I don’t use Windoze

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So, for reasons I won’t go into, I needed to install the latest version of ActiveSync on my old Windows XP Home system. Seems that there is a problem though with InstallShield and SP2 on some systems. Rather than installing the software, it justs exits with an error about a wizard being interrupted. Should send it to Hogwarts I guess. What annoys me more than anything is that this is a Microsoft product, downloaded from their own website.

In an attempt to solve this I have tried uninstalling everything I’ve added recently, uninstalling SP2 (which was recommended by MS in one of the pages I found) and even a whole array of command line options for the setup tool. None of these work. Even worse, this has been a known problem for over a year now. How come software that is being released in the last few months by Microsoft is still doing this. Are they incapable of fixing errors in their own products? Of course not, they simply do not care.

Jingu-Bashi Bridge

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The scene on the Jingu-bashi bridge as I was leaving to walk over to Shibuya. In addition to the crowds of Harajuku Girls and tourists, you can also see some more evidence of autumn in Tokyo. Everywhere I went there were trees showing their autumn colours. It really was a beautiful day too – mostly clear skies and sunny, but still relatively cold.

Harajuku Makeup

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Sitting on the side of the Jingu-bashi bridge, just outside Harajuku JR station, methodically applying makeup as the first step of her transformation from a teenage girl into a Harajuku Girl.

Update: I found another photo of her taken the same day, but once her makeup was complete and she was posing for the cameras. And I wasn’t even looking for that – I simply followed some links and found the photo by chance.

GSM Phone in Japan

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So, this time in Japan I needed to have text message capabilities in order to keep in touch with my girlfriend who was also travelling in Asia (and not able to get to landline phones or a computer with internet access to check email very easily). With a little help from my friends in our Japan office, we discovered that NTT DoCoMo rents 3G GSM handsets that will work with the SIM card from my Cingular GSM phone, and they are pretty reasonable price-wise too, especially if you can book in advance using their online form.

The phone that they have is a Motorola A835. On the positive side, it worked in Japan, the screen is really good (and large) and the predictive text learns the words you use and auto-completes them in future. On the negative side, it is huge, has a really poor quality camera (well, two of them actually) and perhaps the world’s second worst user interface (e.g. the key to confirm an action will change from one confirmation to the next, even within the same application). It also kept dropping off of the NTT DoCoMo and either telling me it was on Vodafone or that it was in emergency call only mode (I don’t know how that came about since I assume it needs a network for that still). In many cases it would splash the list of networks on the screen and wait until I picked the one I wanted. Not useful when it was sitting in my pocket so I didn’t know it was needing my help. I am still not clear whether it was offline while this screen was displayed, or whether it auto-connected in the background and just didn’t have the smarts to take the question screen away.

That said, both calls and text messages worked to and from the phone using my US number while I was in Tokyo. Hopefully the next phone I get will be 3G capable (assuming the US networks get their act together sometime soon), then I won’t need to rent a brick to do this.

Shimbashi

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Walking around outside my hotel in Tokyo on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving looking for a Starbucks that was open (the one right next door to the hotel was closed), I walked past this building. I think it is probably the most unusual building I’ve seen in Tokyo, and I cannot fathom why anybody would build anything like it. Still, it makes for a fine photo opportunity so I can’t complain 🙂

GP2X Personal Entertainment Player

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I ordered one of these a while back from the UK in fact (I have since found a US distributor). It arrived in the office yesterday, so I thought I would provide some first impressions:

Opening the box, the first thing you see is that they don’t bother to finish the manufacturing process. The LCD still has a protective sheet across it and the plastic screen protector that is meant to be fitted (and can be seen in the photos) is in the box with its protective sheets over it still. So, task number one is to get the film off the display, and then, without letting dust get into it, affix the screen protector to the front of the device. Why this could not be done at the factory is beyond me.

Once that is in place, and the two AA batteries supplied are inserted, the device powers up. The screen looks bright and the unit feels reasonably good. The little joystick is perhaps a little cheap, but the remainder looks and feels good. The batteries are at the base of the unit too, so the weight feels right when you’re holding it.

On the software front things are very different though… It boots up OK and presents the shell shown in the photo. It had trouble recognising my SD card (a Kingston card). While I can get it to read music, photos and software from the card, I cannot get it to update the kernel from the card (at least I don’t think it does). The irony here is that the fix for the SD card problems is to update to the new kernel, which is only possible using an SD card. It won’t recognise my older MMC card at all either.

The USB connection is also non-operational. I can get my Windows and MacOS X boxes to see the device, but nothing more. Again, this is supposed to be fixed in the new kernel.

The music player works well (and even has an option to turn off the screen to save batteries which is nice). The sound is not too bad even over the built in speakers either. I have not yet found a movie that the movie player will play (including the one that was on the included CD-ROM, although my Windows box refused to play that AVI as well so I am not surprised).

As for the games, I have not managed to get any to work yet. I did discover that some need an additional library (downloadable from here), but even with that most do not run at all, or die very soon after they start.

If you are looking for a platform you can develop on I would say this one is interesting, but it is a long way from being ready for general consumer use. Sony and Nintendo have very little to fear from this one.

Black Screen of Death

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Was walking around a Target store last week when we came across the demo setup for the new Xbox 360. I’d heard that there were people reporting all kinds of problems from overheating power supplies, overheating units to regular crashing. The Target system seems to be in the latter group; hardly a great ad for the system (and because they had it in a sealed perspex box it couldn’t be reset by anybody without the key).

I also notice that Microsoft has chosen to move away from their famous blue screen of death, which was seen on the original Xbox (most famously, on stage at a trade show when Bill himself was trying to demo something new on it). Black is the new blue it seems, and as luck would have it the abbreviation that most people used for the blue screen, BSOD, still works fine with black as the background 🙂

Apologies for the quality of the photo – I only had my cell phone with me and it doesn’t do so well on indoor shots.

Update: Stopped by the same store last night and once again the unit had this message displayed on it. I did see somebody playing a game on it a little later, but midway through his game it crashed again. This looks like another MS quality product – let’s hope Sony’s offering next year is more stable.