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| By Nathan Chantrell, on September 12th, 2011  Nearly a year on from its initial launch the Advent Vega is still one of the best value Android tablets on the market, especially when deals such as this come up, but the stock install of Android 2.2 (FroYo) is getting a bit dated now, even with the sterling work done by Paul and others at MoDaCo.com who made some huge improvements to the stock Android image within days of the tablet being launched.
As you may be aware, Google has been working on a new 3.x branch of Android codenamed Honeycomb which is specifically designed for tablets. Unlike the older 1.x and 2.x series of Android the source code for Honeycomb is not yet available but naturally that hasn’t stopped the hacker community from bringing it to tablets other than the few that have so far been released with it and it wasn’t long after Honeycomb first launched on the Motorola Xoom earlier this year before the first unofficial versions for the Vega, known as VegaComb, started to appear. Without official support it has been a rocky road to get it to the point where it is now with pretty much everything is working as it should, there was even a problem recently that could cause permanent damage to the speakers but with that now solved and all the important things working it seems to have reached the stage where it is now ready for daily use, there are still a few issues but nothing that is a deal breaker for me. Installing VegaComb on the Vega is a doddle although it will mean a clean install. First you need to flash the ModdedStock firmware image, a procedure which is identical to flashing an official update, this installs a modified stock ROM that changes the partition sizes to those more suitable for Honeycomb and adds the ClockworkMod recovery system. Once the ModdedStock image has been installed reboot the Vega, connect it to your PC and copy the VegaComb zip file to the root of the Vega’s Micro SD card. Then run the “Recovery” app which will reboot the Vega into ClockworkMod where you can then install the VegaComb ROM using the normal recovery method. Having used the Vega for the best part of a year I was initially sceptical as to what benefits Honeycomb could bring, I didn’t feel that the FroYo experience on a tablet was bad at all but Honeycomb really is a huge improvement, little tweaks like the task switcher make all the difference and the new on screen navigation makes the Vega’s shortage of hardware buttons even less of an issue than before. There is also improved handling of widgets and notifications, improved copy and paste and a much better browser. Graphics performance seems to be very good and I’ve seen none of the video artifacting or tearing that was common on the MoDaCo modded ROMs and the handling of wi-fi is much better, you can leave it connected when the screen is turned off which was always something that bugged me about the stock based ROMS. Overall it’s definitely a slicker and more tablet oriented experience. VegaComb definitely gets the thumbs up from me, if you’ve got a Vega and haven’t already tried it, now is the time. By Nathan Chantrell, on June 25th, 2011  In early 2000 TiVo launched their revolutionary Linux based PVR in the UK in partnership with Sky TV and it soon picked up a loyal fanbase. Unfortunately due to a lack of marketing it never took off as it should have and TiVo pulled out of the UK in January 2003 and Sky later went on to develop their own PVR with Sky+ but it was a poor substitute for a TiVo. The UK TiVo, manufactured by Thomson was originally launched at £300 plus a monthly or lifetime subscription, I picked mine up in November 2002 for £99 as Curry’s were clearing the remaining stock out and went for the £199 lifetime subscription which turned out to be a good move saving me over £800 in the 8.5 years I’ve had it.
Late last year Virgin Media announced they would be partnering with TiVo for their new PVR, nice to have new TiVo hardware in the UK after all these years but not everyone wants or can get Virgin cable. Still, we had our old series 1 boxes still didn’t we… but not for much longer if TiVo had their way, in a spectacular show of disregard for their loyal fanbase they made the unfortunate decision to cut off all existing monthly and lifetime subscribers, rewarding them for their loyalty by effectively leaving them with a useless box. The King is dead. Long live the King. Step forward the AltEPG project. A team of people from the tivoland forum decided this wasn’t going to be the end of our beloved series 1 TiVo so they got together to set up their own EPG service, gathering data from free sources around the net and compiling it into a compatible format. Getting modified TiVo boxes to connect to the new service would be easy but what about all those unmodified boxes out there that could only dial up to the preconfigured TiVo number? Well fortunately the TiVo software allows the entry of a dial prefix, eg. a number the box might have to dial to get an outside line, this prefix will take enough digits to allow a full phone number to be entered, the TiVo then dials the prefix and connects to the new number with the original number being dialled afterwards but ignored by the phone system. A nice trick. With only one line available during testing it was hard to get connected but since then several individuals who run their own companies have stepped forward to provide lines for use with the AltEPG project with one recent number having 60 lines meaning you should no longer struggle to get a connection. To connect your unmodified TiVo to AltEPG follow these steps.
Continue reading The TiVo AltEPG Project By Nathan Chantrell, on May 28th, 2011  Build a computer from components in an afternoon? How could I resist?
Using only 3 chips and only 46 components in total, the FIGnition is a brand new 8-bit computer designed by Julian Skidmore that you can build yourself. It runs a variant of FIG-Forth and is based around the Atmel AVR microcontroller (an AtMega168), along with 8Kb of RAM and 384 Kb of flash storage and is controlled from an 8 key onboard keypad with video output by way of a PAL composite video output. Despite its simple construction and minimal components the FIGnition is a fully functional computer, you can write programs on it in Forth using the onboard keypad and save them to its Flash chip; access the AVR’s hardware registers, video RAM, system clock and you can even define your own graphics characters. Thanks to the ability to upgrade the firmware over USB you can look forward to new features and performance improvements in the future and the entire hardware design, PCB layouts, firmware and documentation will all be release under an open source licence very soon. FIGnition features: - A Boot-up time of <1s!
- 8Kb of RAM, enough for around 2000 lines of Forth code.
- At least 384Kb of Storage. You can edit your programs and store them for later use, building up your own libraries of code.
- User-defined graphics! – FIGnition is designed to be used practically (within its hardware limitations), it’s not a crippled machine designed to let you print “Hello World.” FIGnition allows you to write a variety of games using your own graphic designs.
- Upgradeable firmware – simply download the latest firmware from the Fignition website and upload it on your FIGnition via USB and avrdude.
- A fantastic 4 spare I/O ports for you to attach your own electronics! Control your own power station eh?
- FIGnition is already 4x faster than the definitive Forth computer, the Jupiter-Ace (which routinely sells on eBay for hundreds of pounds) and seriously faster when running Forth than any early 80s home computer. It’s fast enough to run some classic games and it’s not even optimised yet!
- Programmable in-situ using an efficient 8-key keypad!
For more information see the FIGnition website and the FIGnition Google Group. FIGnition was also featured on the BBC News website last month. FIGnition kits are currently available on eBay for £19.95 inc P&P but don’t hang around, the first batch sold out very quickly. The kit includes the PCB and all the components and is very easy to build using the online instructions, it took me just over an hour to finish the soldering and it worked first time. It’s always very satisfying to build something yourself and see it working and the FIGnition would be a great introduction to electronics for kids, I hope it is a great success and look forward to more interesting developments from Julian. By Nathan Chantrell, on May 13th, 2011  I’ve just received one of these wonderful little I/O boards for Android. The IOIO connects to an Android phone or tablet via USB allowing it to act on external inputs and control external devices, no modification of the Android device is required and no firmware programming is necessary, just ordinary Android application authoring with a very simple API for controlling the pins on the board. Optionally it can also provide power to charge the phone or even run some external devices such as small servos.
By allowing you to use all the computing power and connectivity of an Android device along with its built in sensors and devices such as the display, camera, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, gyroscope, accelerometer etc. for interfacing with external peripherals the IOIO opens up a whole world of possibilities. I don’t have any specific use in mind for mine at the moment, I’ll just be experimenting for now but there is obviously huge potential there. IOIO Main Features: - 48 I/O pins – all of which can function as digital inputs and outputs
- Up to 16 analogue inputs (10-bit)
- Up to 9 PWM outputs
- Up to 4 UART channels
- Up to 3 SPI channels
- Up to 3 TWI (I²C-compatible) channels
- On-board switch-mode regulator providing up to 1.5A of 5V supply.
- Can charge the Android device as well as power a couple of small motors
- Bootloader on the board pulls firmware off phone, enabling OTA firmware upgrades and application-specific firmware.
- Pulse-width measurement, capacitance sensing and more (will be pushed with first OTA firmware upgrade)
The Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) recently announced at Google I/O has some similarities but for the hobbyist the IOIO has some major benefits compared to the ADK as it currently stands. The IOIO is a lot cheaper for starters (50USD v 400USD) and is easier to use since you only will need to write code for your app, no embedded programming in C++ is needed and whereas the ADK requires Android 2.3.4 or higher the IOIO will work on 1.5 or above so recycling old handsets for use in a project is possible. It is hoped that the ADK protocol can be added to the IOIO in future. The IOIO is open source (both hardware and software) and was developed by Ytai. It is available to buy online from SparkFun here. There is an online user guide available, a discussion group and a great beginners guide from SparkFun here. By Nathan Chantrell, on January 6th, 2011 By Nathan Chantrell, on December 3rd, 2010  The Advent Vega is a £250 Android tablet from the DSG group which has been hotly anticipated since its announcement a couple of months ago. The specification is high for the price point with a 10.1″ widescreen LCD with capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, front facing camera, HDMI output, USB port and Micro SD slot. The processor is a dual core Nvidia Tegra T20 running at 1 GHz and the custom Android 2.2 (Froyo) install runs brilliantly on it as you would expect.
Hardware
Battery life is great with a claimed 6.5 hours of HD video playback and early testing seems to back that up. Build quality is very good and the 10.1″ LCD is bright with vivid colours and a 16:9 aspect ratio making it ideal for video, it is only let down slightly by the viewing angle which isn’t great in the vertical plane but is still perfectly acceptable. Unlike most tablets in this price range the touchscreen is capacitive, supports multitouch and responds very well. There is no oleophobic coating so it can be a bit of a fingerprint magnet.  Unusually for Android hardware there are no hardware home or menu buttons, just a back button on the top right hand edge next to the orientation lock and power button, instead the home, menu and another back button are on the customised notification bar at the top of the touchscreen. Additionally, a long press of the hardware back button also functions as menu and a long press of the power button brings up the shutdown menu which also includes a home option. Holding the power button for 6 seconds or show shuts the unit off straight away.
The lack of dedicated buttons is a strange design decision and possibly a sign that the hardware wasn’t originally designed with Android in mind. I would certainly have preferred the three standard hardware buttons but it is something I was aware of and can live with. To the left of the power button is the built in microphone which I’ve tried with the Skype test call feature and it seems to be quite decent. Continue reading Advent Vega Android Tablet Review By Nathan Chantrell, on July 26th, 2010  After over 18 months as a very happy iPhone 3G user I decided it was time to make the switch to Android with the wonderful HTC Desire. As a long term Linux user Android would seem to be my natural place and with the Desire the hardware seems to have pretty much caught up with the Apple world so there was no excuse. Having this great new phone without running the latest and greatest release of Android seemed silly though and not wanting to wait for HTC and O2 to pull their fingers out and release an official update the only answer was to root it and install an unofficial ROM. I was pleasantly surprised how easy this was.
So here is a guide to how I installed Android 2.2 with HTC Sense on my HTC Desire using unrevoked3 and AdamG’s “Official” Froyo HTC Sense ROM (version 1.0c). Obviously I take no responsibility if you follow this and anything goes wrong but it worked for me on my Desire with HBOOT 80. Rooting using the new unrevoked3 is a breeze and a Goldcard is NOT required and as long as you are careful to make a Nandroid backup of your original setup before flashing a replacement ROM then you can’t really go wrong. Note that by doing this you will void any warranty you may have.
Requirements:
Linux PC (Ubuntu 10.04 in my case)
HTC Desire
USB Cable
Titanium Backup from the Android Market
Unrevoked3 from here (16.1 MB)
Updated Radio ROM from here (11.3 MB)
Froyo Sense ROM from here (134.4 MB)
About 30 minutes Continue reading Installing Android 2.2 Froyo on a HTC Desire By Nathan Chantrell, on February 27th, 2010 In the last post I described how you can use XBMC Live on the Acer Revo but as well as that works it seemed a waste to restrict the Revo to just XBMC so I’ve since installed the 64 bit version of Xubuntu instead and run XBMC on top of that. I chose Xubuntu as it is a light weight version of Ubuntu using the XFCE window manager instead of the Gnome desktop environment so has the advantage of having all the Ubuntu repositories available without the overhead of running Gnome or KDE (in the case of Kubuntu). I installed the 64-bit version of Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) available here. As with XBMC Live I used unetbootin to create a bootable image on a USB flash drive (actually an SD card in this case). Once this is done insert the flash drive or SD card into the Revo and turn it on, pressing F12 during boot and selecting the USB drive or SD as the boot device. I installed it into the unpartitioned space on the Revo drive leaving the factory Linpus install in place. Linpus is added as an option to the Grub boot menu allowing you to choose between it and your new Xubuntu install should you need to (I can’t see why you would). Once you have installed Xubuntu and booted into it you will see a popup within a few minutes prompting you to install the proprietary Nvidia drivers which you will need to use the Revo’s ION GPU for HD playback (you will also need to change the “Render Method” to VDPAU in the XBMC settings later on as with the Live setup). Continue reading Xubuntu on the Acer Aspire Revo By Nathan Chantrell, on February 13th, 2010  XBMC Live on the Acer Revo Earlier this week I bought an Acer Aspire Revo R3610 to replace my original Xbox based XBMC system which has provided sterling service for the last 7 years. I’ve been a big fan of the Xbox version of XBMC and its predecessor Xbox Media Player (it was the only reason I bought my Xbox) but it’s getting a bit limited now due to its 733MHz CPU and paltry 64MB RAM. By contrast the Revo R3610 has a dual core Atom N330 CPU and up to 4GB RAM as well as a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 Ion GPU. As a result XBMC on the Revo is capable of playing full 1080p HD video without problem. It makes a perfect media center; it’s small, low powered and if you have a MCE remote control it will work straight off, just plug the USB receiver in. I’m currently using the XBMC Live release which is a self contained install built on top of a minimal Ubuntu installation. Installing XBMC Live on the Revo is a breeze: - Download the Camelot 9.11 repack version of XBMC Live
- Extract the iso from the zip file
- Use unetbootin to create a bootable image on a USB flash drive
- Insert the flash drive in the Revo and turn it on, pressing F12 during boot and selecting the USB drive as the boot device
- At the menu you can select to run straight from the USB drive (option 1) or you can select “Install XBMCLive to disk”
- Once that is done just reboot and it will boot straight into XBMC
You will then want to go into the settings and change the “Render Method” in the video section to VDPAU. This allows XBMC to use the Revo’s NVIDIA Ion GPU for video processing. If you are using HDMI for your audio output you will also need to go to the audio section and change the output to Custom and enter plug:hdmi It makes a fantastic media center and the Revo R3610 with dual core Atom N330 CPU, 2GB RAM and 250GB HD is currently on offer for £199 at ebuyer which is a great deal. By Nathan Chantrell, on November 17th, 2009  I’ve had my eye out for a compact digital camera for a while and after a lot of research I finally bought the 12 mega pixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. It has a great feature set, the price was right and virtually all the reviews said it was a good choice. They were right.
I was after a compact camera and that’s certainly what this is, and lightweight too, 138g with battery and SD card. The build quality is excellent, it feels very solid and well made and the brushed metal casing looks great. I went for the black one but it is also available in blue and silver for around £10-£15 more. It’s incredibly quick to start up from power on to being ready to take the first picture and produces some fantastic results, with strong vibrant colours and excellent detail plus very good low light performance. It’s a great all-rounder and has really exceeded my expectations. The great results will be in no small part due to the superb 29mm Leica DC Vario-Elmar lens which has a 5x optical zoom (equivalent to 29-145mm on a 35mm film camera). These Leica lenses are renowned for their quality and it is a big plus point for this camera. For point and shoot photography it has a fully automated “Intelligent Auto” mode that works really well, detecting if you are shooting scenery, faces, close up macro etc. but it also has a range of preset scene modes and control of ISO modes and exposure. Other features include macro zoom, burst mode, image stabilisation, face detection, red-eye reduction and AF Tracking to keep a moving subject in focus. It can also record video at 30 fps in motion jpeg format in 4:3 or 16:9 up to a resolution of 848 x 480. The quality isn’t bad but there are a couple of downsides, namely the maximum amount of time you can record a single video is 15 minutes and once you have started recording you can’t zoom in or out. It’s a nice bonus feature to have on what is really a still camera though. In use it’s very user friendly, the controls and on screen menus are intuitive and the 2.7″ screen is exceptionally bright and clear and the rechargeable lithium-ion battery gives you over 300 images per charge. Mine also came with a free Lowepro Apex 5 AW case which is also of very good quality, very rugged, well padded and a nice snug fit for the FS15. It took a couple of days to discover there was also an integrated waterproof cover hidden in a flap at the bottom! Although I suppose this camera is really intended for point and shoot it is capable of quite a bit more and overall it is a very impressive bit of kit for the size and cost. Check out the Flickr page for some sample images. Verdict: A great buy and highly recommended. | |
Nearly a year on from its initial launch the Advent Vega is still one of the best value Android tablets on the market, especially when deals such as this come up, but the stock install of Android 2.2 (FroYo) is getting a bit dated now, even with the sterling work done by Paul and others at MoDaCo.com who made some huge improvements to the stock Android image within days of the tablet being launched.
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