Tonight I had some time and wanted to load the latest version of Android on my g1. This was one reason why I got it, even though I skipped over the 1.5 update and was still running 1.1. I haven’t been bold enough to load any custom ROM images yet so I go to the Android Dev Phone 1 site at HTC and grab an updated radio and recovery image. As time goes by I might go another route but for now those versions do the trick.
It has been a while since I blogged about the g1 and some things have changed. The T42 I was using fell victum to the well documented ThinkPad GPU reflow problem, probably the result of a fumble while at the Avis rental counter in the Denver airport back in April. I replaced it with another T42 from ThinkPad Depot a couple months ago and have been happy with it so far.
Interesting those sound like topics worthy of a blog post but there are none !!! Will try to rectify that in the future.
So needing to start over I first grabbed the Eclipse for RCP and then the Android sdk. I followed the upgrade instructions and managed to have a problem with the adb tool that I think I ran into when I first got the phone and flashed it with 1.1. None the less I did some googling and found where the SD card should not be mounted and adb needs to run as root.
The “needs to run as root” can be resolved with the right tweeking I believe but I haven’t spent enough time one it yet.
That said the flash went without a hitch for both the radio and recovery image. I’m looking forward to some of the new features, although I’m not sure about the virtual keyboard since it eats up half the screen. The nice part is if it’s a bust I can always try something different or go back.
For the last month or so our internet connection has been going down after a few hours of use. The fix was to do away with the splitter between the cable modem and the TV. One might think a permanent solution is to replace the splitter or cables, but that didn’t prove to be the problem. If I didn’t need access for work a few hours of use might be good enough but with no internet when working from home means not getting anything done and messing with it every other day needed to stop.
I was frustrated enough at the beginning of the week I ran another line from the junction box in the garage to get away from splitting at a TV. There are three lines that run from it to various parts of the house and one of those runs is split a second time. If I didn’t run another line I’d always be splitting the signal again and that was the only piece I hadn’t replaced or taken out yet. I figured it wouldn’t be to difficult since the splitter in the junction box already had four outputs, one was empty, and I had a quality cable long enough for the 25ft run. I guessed it would take 20 minutes, it was more like 2 hours.
The delay was a first for me, stripped connection on the splitter after threading the cable leaving pieces of the male connection from the splitter still in the cable end.
In other words thread a bolt onto a nut, cut the head off then drill a hole through the bolt (long ways) leaving it still threaded on the nut.
After about 15 minutes of trying to unthread what was left on the cable end I gave up. It was off to Home Depot to get a new splitter and cable end. The only problem with what I picked up was the cable end is to be crimped on and I don’t have a crimper…. needle nose pliers didn’t work either, but that could have been operator error. So I’ll have to replace that end at some point with a twist on. For now it is doing the job (I couldn’t get just one end as they come in packages of two or more).
I don’t know what changed to start this the cable modem was in the same place for months before, but none the less there has been no down time this week. The only draw back is it puts the router in the basement and I work two stories up. The signal is not bad but if I have to switch to VOIP, via Cisco’s Soft Phone, for work that might put a kink in things. So if your having problems keeping you connection up limit the number of splits between the junction box and the cable modem, it has worked for me.
Note the change to the side bar and link to the pics posted on Flickr, there is no more list of 10 below the tags. I don’t have all the albums created yet but that will come. Didn’t realize the widget offered that look until after making some changes I lost it on the side bar. After “paying attention” to the options, vs just fixing it, thought it’d be a nice change. Now we just have to keep the pics current !!
