Few weeks ago I wrote a post regarding the Samsung T400 dissected and the screen was brought back to life. However as posted there, the keypad of the phone was slightly cranky and had to be modified a little. Well modifications don’t really match the quality of a real working unit.. The keys were still a little hard to press and each key would require different amount of pressure to make the input work.

Oh anyway, let’s get to the point. I managed to get the replacement unit for this phone at a local flea market. The phone was pretty much screwed up with its flipping parts broken into 2. LOL. The unit was from Vietnam though.. (says the firmware when it was booted up).

Ahh, the two keypads together. Look at the hinge where the other phone broke. *ouch*.

(“new” and old)(rev 3.3 and rev 3.2)

The two mainboards together. The keypad of the phone was actually soldered on the main board of the phone so it would be a little messy if the keypad was replaced. Instead, the easier way was to simply swap the main boards and plug everything back in. The “new” board was a rev 3.3 board while the original one was rev 3.2 . Didn’t notice any difference in performance though. I accidentally broke the volume button ribbon during the brain transplant. Such a waste, no more volume control for the phone but then the other functions works good. If there’s a need for the volume control in the future, I shall perform another surgery to transplant the volume control ribbon from the working unit.

Now the phone is working great. Time to get another sim card and get it back to duty.

Total cost of repair: RM2.

Oh yeay! Finally, a real hackintosh Snow Leopard running on my $300 desktop pc.  QE/CI on the graphics card works perfectly here, we have sound, wifi, etc.  Performance wise? Between the 21.5″~ 27″ iMacs.  The real iMac’s costs $1199 (the cheapest). I’ll post up a guide on the installation soon.

My specs:

3.2ghz Core Duo (yeay!)
4gb 1066mhz ram
500gb 7200rpm hdd
512mb ATI HD4670 (256mb more!)
Cheapo USB Wifi
6 USB ports (yeay! we have more than the iMac)
Razer DeathAdder

A real iMac specs? here!
Well, in the screenshot it shows there 800mhz ram. Its actually running at 1066. Have to fix it..

Sound output is at 2 channels currently. Don’t intend to get 7.1 running unless I have the speakers..

and all I need now is an Apple Cinema Display… =P

Alright, there was this Samsung T400 phone lying around because the screen was supposed to be “not working” . Sent it to the repair shop for a checkup and was told that RM80 would be needed to get it fixed. The ribbon connecting the main board to the LCD screen was “supposed” to be broken.

Heck.. for a 7 year old phone, RM80 isn’t worth the money. So lets get dirty and break it up.

The Samsung T400 was only secured by 5 screws on the lower part of the phone while only 2 screws held the screen in position. Unscrew them, un-clip the plastic holders securing them together and its open. Easy huh?
The phone consists of only 2 parts which are the screen and the main-board. LOL.

Once opened, the whole board looked like a “forest” of IC’s and pins. I’m no expert in this so I’ll just have to do it the usual NBTD way, which is to remove all removable pins/plugs and simply clean the device. The chances of getting your stuff repaired this way are close to ZERO but then what else can be done? Just trying my luck.

The phone was simply powered up to see what comes out and *pooof*
It lights up!

Before assembling back the parts together,  the keypad of the phone was slightly modified by adding some supporting pads on some of the keys. Due to wear and tear, some of the keys are no longer that sensitive and they needed more contact pressure to work.

There you have it, another device brought back to life!  My X1 would be having a good rest now while I’ll get this Samsung T400 up to a good stress test.

Happy New Year!

I have 16 14 12 11 10 9 8 6 invites to Google Wave to give away. Anyone wants them? Just drop a  comment here with your email address and wait for the confirmation email from Google. =)

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Click here to learn more about Google Wave.

Hmm.. finally I have Android 1.6 running on my xperia x1. Thanks to the guys at xda forums..  Though its not complete yet, with the screen orientation messed up, no vibration, no sound but phone calls and sms seem to work. Gave it a try since it requires only a 80MB+ download. Practically, it is not able to do anything.. Currently it can be considered as a preview to what android offers as I cant even turn the screen off. But stuff like wifi and 3g does work. The stuff displayed on android sure does look and runs smoother compared to windows mobile.

Screenies below~

Malaysia Airlines recently launched its mobile services for its customers and it was named flymas.mobi. Came across this at first in newspapers but then when Nuffnang did a promo for this, I decided to dig further on this new service. In their advertisements, they used the iPhone to promote this.. it looked more like they were promoting the iPhone itself rather than their flymas.mobi service. Anyway, it did state in their blog that it works on many mobile device.

All major operating systems and manufacturers are supported including Blackberry (RIM), the iPhone, Android Google phone, Symbian (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson) and Windows Mobile (HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson). flymas.mobi supports any screen above 128 pixels.

And so I decided to load this on a Windows Mobile powered device and see how well it goes =). If you do have the need to have a larger image of the site, simply click on the thumbnails.

Launching flymas.mobi on the Opera browser would bring you to the main menu, pretty straight forward and light in graphics. The site loaded up fast and that’s a good thing. This brings out the menu of options ranging from flight booking, my booking, check in, flight status, flight timetables, contact numbers , tracking baggage, and the latest deals from Malaysia Airlines. At the bottom would be the share feature which allows you to inform your friends about this service, the frequently asked questions, legal stuff and privacy policy. Nothing mentioned about the flight booking security standard though. Let’s dig deeper into the site one by one.

Book Flight

To book a flight, one has to get though 5 different pages on the mobile site. First would be of course, selecting the departure and arrival destination, date, return or one way journey and the number of tickets. Tapping on the sub menu would bring out a drop-down list of the choices available. I chose Sydney =P.  The flight time would then be displayed on the screen together with the price. I’m not too sure why the time and the MHflex did not display out well on my phone. Bug detected perhaps? Anyway it did not cause any serious problems, just a little glitch there. The next page would bring out the final price of the ticket and then if you would like to purchase the ticket, simply press purchase or to hold the ticket, press hold. I’m not sure what does the hold function do but then I stopped at that page because I did not really want to book a ticket. Perhaps MAS could sponsor me to Sydney? hehehe..

My Booking

This page allows passengers to allocate their seats positions according to the MAS website. I did not have any bookings with me to test this out.

Check In

Users would be able to check in for their flight using this system. Minus the paper, saves the Earth. However, currently the mobile check in service is only available for domestic flights departing from Alor Setar, Langkawi, Penang, Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu, Kuantan, Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Sandakan, Tawau, Miri, Sibu, Bintulu, Labuan; all flights from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore; all flights from Singapore to Langkawi, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. If I’m not mistaken, passengers would have to snap a picture of the bar code and it’s good to go.

Flight Status

This handy feature allows users to check on their flight status in real time. Select the departure date, destination or the flight number and submit.

Timetable

This section is for users to find out more about the timetable of the flights. I found this section somewhat similar to the flight booking area. However the process is easier and more detailed because the time is stated.

Contacts

Have an important question to ask about flights and not knowing who to contact? Search for the nearest MH office and a whole list of MAS offices around that area would be listed out together with their addresses and phone numbers respectively. But I noticed that all of them uses the same phone number! haha.

Baggage Tracer

Haha! Missing luggage! Track them down here by keying in the relevant details.

Deals and Offers

Here’s something interesting. You’ll be able to check on the latest deals on MAS flights on the go without having to go to the main site which is heavily loaded with graphics. An advantage if you do not have a fast connection like me.

Overall, I found the site to be quite user friendly and fast. Surprisingly fast on my rusty EDGE connection.I’ve yet to really book a ticket from this service though. Other than the minor bug at the flight booking area, the other sections loaded fine. This site loads in Bahasa Malaysia too if you prefer it in another language.

flying with MAS, on the go~

Brace yourselves! bla bla bla~ publicity crap.

Astro HD is coming to Malaysia .. FINALLY. Hmm, if I’m not mistaken HD transmission has already been launched elsewhere around the world since urm.. 5 years ago? Wow.. finally we can have HD transmission here in Malaysia. Worse of all, it doesn’t come for free. Astro has been monopolizing the satellite tv rights here and bloodsucking more than a few million subscribers here with their somewhat below par services by packing more and more channels into its limited bandwidth which causes the poor image quality currently (around VCD quality) to be even worse.

However, this doesn’t really bring much impact to some users as they have already been enjoying HD contents via HDD media players. Hong Kong dramas in HD, TV series.. just to name a few.

I wonder where will they source the decoder from this time. Would it be transmitting at 1080p/i or just 720p? Anyway it doesn’t really matter as long you sit far enough from the screen and its not larger than 42″ . The difference would simply be unnoticable. Make sure it outputs as HDMI and not component outputs. Argh..

I bet Astro would hike up the price AGAIN for this HD “premium” service. They are experts in this field.. more because of them being the monopoly here. Not sure whether I would become one of them to get lured into this premium thing though =P.

The rain issue. Come on, get those tiny satellite dishes out and bring in larger ones! Screw those Ku band dishes. Didn’t you know Malaysia gets rain almost 3 times a week or more?

Anyway, this shall all be revealed this Friday. =)