Well, my first day at my new job in Sydney went swimmingly. I feel like I met a billion people and spent the day just chatting. Read a little bit about how the company works and how linux works. I'm going to be working in the Lexicons group, or the TransLex group, which might be the same thing. I'll be starting working on languages I know nothing about, but that rather excites me - it's time for me to learn something other than Germanic languages for a change!
I'm already sick of the travel - to get to work this morning, I walked to Eastwood train station (the suburb I live in), took 21 mins, just like Google said! Took exactly 9 mins to wait in line and buy my train ticket cos I had a few questions to ask, which meant that I arrived on the platform exactly as the doors to my train were closing. Oh well, that's why I aimed at the earlier train, right?! Waited 14 mins for the next train to Epping, got off there and was wondering where to go for my connecting train to Chatswood, when the very helpful voiceover said, "For trains to Chatswood, take the escalator down to platform 5." Seriously, it was like the voice of God, reading my mind and answering my question perfectly!
Had to wait 9 mins at Epping for my train, and when it arrived, I got a seat, and 15 mins (not 18 mins as advertised) later we emerged from the new tunnel in Chatswood. It took a few wild guesses and hopeful sign reading to get out of the labyrinth that is the Chatswood train station/bus interchange/mall, but I successfully navigated to my building and made it into the office at 8:58, perfect timing for a 9am start :)
As soon as I can get my bike tyre pumped up I'll be riding directly to Epping station I think, since it'll cut out at least 9 mins of waiting around, and it's not that far, give me a bit of exercise and allow me to get home earlier too, I think. I also think I'll need to work out a good route to ride to work, since that is seriously on the cards too - I have a spot for my bike right by my desk, cos I'm right at the end of the row of desks up against the wall and window, looking out to the coast I believe (but all I see is high-rise buildings, trees and smog), and there's a shower on our floor that no-one uses before work, but apparently gets full after lunchtime soccer, which I have been roped into already. Training on Thursday, grand final on Monday. I tried to tell them that I'm an ex-basketballer, ie I have learnt to use my hands and not my feet to connect with balls, but no-one seemed put off by this in the slightest. Oh, and I've been enlisted in the choir, too, which will rehearse at Friday lunchtimes I think. I did warn them that I'm more enthusiastic than talented, but again, no-one seemed put off by this.
Chatted with Brent all lunchtime, seems like everyone I know is job-hunting or starting new work - Ási just started in Akureyri and Linda is trying to work up there too. Like I said - practically everyone I know is job-hunting or starting new work at the moment. Hey wow, I'm finally doing what everyone else is doing - I'm in fashion for once!
Everyone I spoke with today seemed really nice, and even through all of the politeness (so many 'welcome aboard's and 'nice to meet you's today!) I felt like I genuinely liked about half of them, rather than just a couple seeming to have personalities in there somewhere. My supervisor seems very motherly and really really lovely, and I think she'll take good care of me.
Apparently there are drinks on Thursday evening, I can't remember if they're in my honour or not. The head of something or other told me I could drink as much as I could hold, so I think it might be. I hope they serve chocolate non-dairy milkshakes!!
Got home at about 6:15pm, so a 10.5 hour day for my first day at work. Worked 8 hours, but only need to work 7.5 hours a day. Learnt how to log my hours, looks like it will be easy to be a bit flexible with times (I promise to be as unflexible as possible in the beginning!). Made a yummy beef stroganoff for dinner, the recipe from the Women's Weekly basic cookbook. It had lemon juice in it, which provided a super yummy tang, I highly recommend it. I need to work on cooking the meat though - it wasn't as tender as it should have been. Maybe I didn't sear it quickly enough, or let it simmer on low for long enough - anyone know anything about this?
I know this is no longer about me in Iceland, but I'm the Icelandic representative at work now, so I'm still Iced T :p
Monday, 1 August 2011
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Going home again
Okay, that's it, there's getting to be an almost-completely-dark nighttime here now, I've had enough! It's no longer summer when it's neither hot nor light - I'm going back to Australia! Seeing as how my new job starts in 10 days, it's probably just about time, too :) Bye, Iceland, once again.
PS, finished watching the Harry Potter movies tonight (number 7 this afternoon). They were fun to watch, apparently they work as movies separately from the books, but the last movie in particular reminded me of how much interesting detail about wands and so on was in the book, quite different from the movies. 19 years later in the movie was fun, the kid playing Albus Severus was cute as, and solemn, just like he was meant to be :)
PS, finished watching the Harry Potter movies tonight (number 7 this afternoon). They were fun to watch, apparently they work as movies separately from the books, but the last movie in particular reminded me of how much interesting detail about wands and so on was in the book, quite different from the movies. 19 years later in the movie was fun, the kid playing Albus Severus was cute as, and solemn, just like he was meant to be :)
Friday, 24 June 2011
Midnight run 2011, Miðnæturhlaupið
Hahaaaa! I won third place in the Midnight Run last night, and WON the 19-39 year old age group, with a time of 22:17 for 5 kms. I spent the first three k thinking, "Oh God, I started too fast!", then rested a little for most of the fourth k, then just let my legs stride out for the whole downhill final k, passing lots of people. The last 80m or so are on the driveway to the Laugardalslaug/Laugardals swimming pool, and one guy I passed swore and muttered, "No way!" I said, "C' mon, let's finish it!", and we sprinted flat out towards and across the finish line, giving each other a high five at the end. He turned out to be from my running group, so that was extra cool that we finished together :) [Edit: I have found the official results, here they are below. No pic yet :p ]
overview of winners
5km overall times, men and women
5km overall times, women
5km times per age group
overview of winners
5km overall times, men and women
5km overall times, women
5km times per age group
Monday, 28 February 2011
VIM in Eclipse
Okay, so this blog is morphing (for the time being) into a log of my dramas and achievements in Android developing. Today I added a VIM wrapper to Eclipse, to allow VIM-like editing in the text editor in Eclipse. It's a little button that you can toggle on and off (also accessible under the Edit menu). You can get it from http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/update-site/stable/
*like* :)
*like* :)
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Hello World!!
Yep, I have arrived in the Android "programming" world!! Click on the title of this blog to download my first Android app :)
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Flashing Samsung Galaxy S to 2.2.1
Okay, this will be very boring for most people, but I bought a new android phone (Samsung Galaxy S), which I love, and here's how I went about flashing it from 2.1 Eclair to 2.2.1 Froyo, from the point-of-view of someone who feels tough typing things in VIM :p
1.
I firstly followed instructions on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=785201 to fix the 3-button combo to be able to enter download and recovery modes. This is crucial, cos while you can enter download mode using software, if the phone hangs, you need another way to get the hell out of there!!
## copied from that forum:
Preparations: Make sure you have the drivers installed (i.e Kies is recognizing the phone), adb [android development something] available and "USB Debugging" turned on in "Settings -> Applications -> Development" menu. Type *#0228# in the dialer and check Voltage value (without USB plugged in) is at least 3800(mV).
1. Unplug the phone from the computer (if connected)
2. Kill all Kies related software (tray agent, etc)
3. Start Odin3 v1.3 Downloader
4. Plug in the phone to the computer
5. Start a new command prompt and navigate to the folder / drive where adb is located.
If you haven't downloaded adb yet, get it here.
6. Type "adb reboot download" to the command prompt and press enter.
7. Move to Odin3 v1.3 downloader and select the "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5" as PDA file. Make sure "Phone Bootloader Update" is ticked and re-partition is unticked. Do not select any other files but "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5".
8. Press "Start" button to launch the update process. It will take around three seconds to complete. After the update phone will reboot automatically.
Download the fix: GT-I9000_P-SBL_RCVDL_FIX_ODIN.7z
##
That all worked a dream, was very exciting to see the yellow men-at-work triangle appear finally on the volumedown-home-power hold combo! :)
2.
Then I used the JPO_JPO_U_JPP.tar file on second flashing, in order to update OS to froyo (2.2). I followed instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ but not completely - I actually only flashed the PDA (ie the Os), not the PHONE (ie wireless chipset) nor the CSC (customer specific customisation), because I read on some forums that these would probably work with each other, and I was scared of messing with my phone and wifi etc which all seemed to be working perfectly. But this was a very bad idea, it turns out, don't do this! Instead, just follow all of these instructions, cos they work :) (ie, do follow step 2 instructions properly, else you'll land in the quagmire of step 3 like I did, which was NOT fun).
##
How to Install/Upgrade To Android 2.2 Froyo on Samsung Galaxy S: Instructions
1. Remove the battery, SIM card and MicroSD card from your phone and reinsert the battery.
2. Hold down the Home + Volume Down buttons and press the Power On button.
3. You should now see a download screen
4. Open Odin 3 v1.0
5. Click on the PIT button and load the “s1_odin_20100512.pit” file
6. Click on the PDA button and load the “I9000XXJP2-REV03-PDA-CL464213.tar” inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
7. Click on the PHONE button and load the “MODEM_I9000XXJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
8. Click on the CSC button and load the “GT-I9000-CSC-MULTI-OXAJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
9. Click on the “Re-Partition” checkbox
10. Connect your Galaxy S to your PC with the USB cable and set USB Debugging On (System > Applications > Development > USB Debugging.)
11. Click on the Start button in Odin and your Galaxy S will be upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo.
##
Not happy Jan! It seems that I do need to do it all - I thought my phone and GPS settings etc wouldn't be stuffed with if I didn't flash PHONE, but it's all gone to shit :( Lots of processes don't run, everything takes aaaages to respond, and I managed to make a single phone call to Luce only - it was pretty stressful. I actually put my sim back in belle, in case toby took days to recover.
Not happy at the mo! And it looks like I'm dl'ing I9000XXJPU.rar again, which I thought was the 2.2.1 kernel. Hmm...
3.
Faffed about a bit, got cocky thinking I could just reflash with the 512 pit or something, dunno really what I did. But whatever it was, it did NOT work! I managed to get stuck on 'Downloading... Do not turn off Target!!!' screen for bloody ages, closed Odin, and was still stuck. Freaked out a bit, did some restarts, then got stuck on a phone - ! - computer little icon. Reconnected to jason, but no cigar. Started to freak out, people with this problem on forums were being advised to send the phone back to Samsung - nei!! But then someone said 'no problem, just do the volumedown-home-power combo anyway, and lo and behold, it worked!
4.
So now I have just flashed following instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ this time using all of the files to flash the PDA, the PHONE and the CSC. Toby is playing Samsung music to me as I type this! :D Odin is giving me the green 'pass' light :) Just reinserted sim and sd card again. Toby wasn't impressed with how I did it, and asked me to remove the battery to insert the sim. I removed the battery, and waited for a bit. Then long-pressed the power button again and toby rebooted.
And oooh! New background picture - wow, where the hell is that, Venice? And SOOOO responsive!! WOW! Let's hope this is the new toby, and those few hours of unpleasantness will have been worth it! Yes, I love the world! :D
5.
Yes, so in the midst of all the celebrations, I thought I'd see if I could use MiniDiary again. Couldn't seem to find the backup using MyFiles on toby, but when I usb'ed in to jason, I found it as a .gz file (easier to see on the bigger screen - hahaha, jason has a bigger screen than another device!!!). So I knew it was there, but toby had 'no program to open the file'. It *finally* clicked that I needed to restore the MD stuff with Titanium Backup, ie the program that made the backup in the first place. No worries, except TB needs su access, and flashing to 2.2.1 unrooted toby. I'd been reading that 2.2 was hard to root, but those messages are a few months old. Finally found SuperOneClick, that supposedly works with all kinds of phones, cos it's based on the ADB rather than some other thingy. Anyhow, people reported successful roots with it, so I gave it a burl. Had to do a bit of USB debugging/undebugging/debugging, which meant I had to unplug toby from jason and reconnect them several times, but it worked! Well, I thought it did, until I went to open TB and it couldn't get root access! D'oh! But then I remembered that I hadn't restarted toby, so I did that, and ta-daa :) Opened TB, restored MD files (it deleted the entry I made today, but that's fine), and I'm good to go :D
I AM all-powerful, I AM superuser! >:)
5a. So, must-have apps, once the phone is rooted: Titanium Backup, AdFree Android, ShootMe for screenshots >:) , Universal Password Manager,
Other apps I think I like: Skype, facebook (while the hell not?!), Note Everything, OI Shopping for lists, Multiling keyboard and Icelandic language pack, SlideIT demo keyboard and Norwegian language pack, BOM weather from the guy at monash.
6. NEXT: þarf að færa swype fyrir norsku á toby - passa á að ég sé búin að gera það rétt!
1.
I firstly followed instructions on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=785201 to fix the 3-button combo to be able to enter download and recovery modes. This is crucial, cos while you can enter download mode using software, if the phone hangs, you need another way to get the hell out of there!!
## copied from that forum:
Preparations: Make sure you have the drivers installed (i.e Kies is recognizing the phone), adb [android development something] available and "USB Debugging" turned on in "Settings -> Applications -> Development" menu. Type *#0228# in the dialer and check Voltage value (without USB plugged in) is at least 3800(mV).
1. Unplug the phone from the computer (if connected)
2. Kill all Kies related software (tray agent, etc)
3. Start Odin3 v1.3 Downloader
4. Plug in the phone to the computer
5. Start a new command prompt and navigate to the folder / drive where adb is located.
If you haven't downloaded adb yet, get it here.
6. Type "adb reboot download" to the command prompt and press enter.
7. Move to Odin3 v1.3 downloader and select the "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5" as PDA file. Make sure "Phone Bootloader Update" is ticked and re-partition is unticked. Do not select any other files but "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5".
8. Press "Start" button to launch the update process. It will take around three seconds to complete. After the update phone will reboot automatically.
Download the fix: GT-I9000_P-SBL_RCVDL_FIX_ODIN.7z
##
That all worked a dream, was very exciting to see the yellow men-at-work triangle appear finally on the volumedown-home-power hold combo! :)
2.
Then I used the JPO_JPO_U_JPP.tar file on second flashing, in order to update OS to froyo (2.2). I followed instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ but not completely - I actually only flashed the PDA (ie the Os), not the PHONE (ie wireless chipset) nor the CSC (customer specific customisation), because I read on some forums that these would probably work with each other, and I was scared of messing with my phone and wifi etc which all seemed to be working perfectly. But this was a very bad idea, it turns out, don't do this! Instead, just follow all of these instructions, cos they work :) (ie, do follow step 2 instructions properly, else you'll land in the quagmire of step 3 like I did, which was NOT fun).
##
How to Install/Upgrade To Android 2.2 Froyo on Samsung Galaxy S: Instructions
1. Remove the battery, SIM card and MicroSD card from your phone and reinsert the battery.
2. Hold down the Home + Volume Down buttons and press the Power On button.
3. You should now see a download screen
4. Open Odin 3 v1.0
5. Click on the PIT button and load the “s1_odin_20100512.pit” file
6. Click on the PDA button and load the “I9000XXJP2-REV03-PDA-CL464213.tar” inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
7. Click on the PHONE button and load the “MODEM_I9000XXJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
8. Click on the CSC button and load the “GT-I9000-CSC-MULTI-OXAJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
9. Click on the “Re-Partition” checkbox
10. Connect your Galaxy S to your PC with the USB cable and set USB Debugging On (System > Applications > Development > USB Debugging.)
11. Click on the Start button in Odin and your Galaxy S will be upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo.
##
Not happy Jan! It seems that I do need to do it all - I thought my phone and GPS settings etc wouldn't be stuffed with if I didn't flash PHONE, but it's all gone to shit :( Lots of processes don't run, everything takes aaaages to respond, and I managed to make a single phone call to Luce only - it was pretty stressful. I actually put my sim back in belle, in case toby took days to recover.
Not happy at the mo! And it looks like I'm dl'ing I9000XXJPU.rar again, which I thought was the 2.2.1 kernel. Hmm...
3.
Faffed about a bit, got cocky thinking I could just reflash with the 512 pit or something, dunno really what I did. But whatever it was, it did NOT work! I managed to get stuck on 'Downloading... Do not turn off Target!!!' screen for bloody ages, closed Odin, and was still stuck. Freaked out a bit, did some restarts, then got stuck on a phone - ! - computer little icon. Reconnected to jason, but no cigar. Started to freak out, people with this problem on forums were being advised to send the phone back to Samsung - nei!! But then someone said 'no problem, just do the volumedown-home-power combo anyway, and lo and behold, it worked!
4.
So now I have just flashed following instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ this time using all of the files to flash the PDA, the PHONE and the CSC. Toby is playing Samsung music to me as I type this! :D Odin is giving me the green 'pass' light :) Just reinserted sim and sd card again. Toby wasn't impressed with how I did it, and asked me to remove the battery to insert the sim. I removed the battery, and waited for a bit. Then long-pressed the power button again and toby rebooted.
And oooh! New background picture - wow, where the hell is that, Venice? And SOOOO responsive!! WOW! Let's hope this is the new toby, and those few hours of unpleasantness will have been worth it! Yes, I love the world! :D
5.
Yes, so in the midst of all the celebrations, I thought I'd see if I could use MiniDiary again. Couldn't seem to find the backup using MyFiles on toby, but when I usb'ed in to jason, I found it as a .gz file (easier to see on the bigger screen - hahaha, jason has a bigger screen than another device!!!). So I knew it was there, but toby had 'no program to open the file'. It *finally* clicked that I needed to restore the MD stuff with Titanium Backup, ie the program that made the backup in the first place. No worries, except TB needs su access, and flashing to 2.2.1 unrooted toby. I'd been reading that 2.2 was hard to root, but those messages are a few months old. Finally found SuperOneClick, that supposedly works with all kinds of phones, cos it's based on the ADB rather than some other thingy. Anyhow, people reported successful roots with it, so I gave it a burl. Had to do a bit of USB debugging/undebugging/debugging, which meant I had to unplug toby from jason and reconnect them several times, but it worked! Well, I thought it did, until I went to open TB and it couldn't get root access! D'oh! But then I remembered that I hadn't restarted toby, so I did that, and ta-daa :) Opened TB, restored MD files (it deleted the entry I made today, but that's fine), and I'm good to go :D
I AM all-powerful, I AM superuser! >:)
5a. So, must-have apps, once the phone is rooted: Titanium Backup, AdFree Android, ShootMe for screenshots >:) , Universal Password Manager,
Other apps I think I like: Skype, facebook (while the hell not?!), Note Everything, OI Shopping for lists, Multiling keyboard and Icelandic language pack, SlideIT demo keyboard and Norwegian language pack, BOM weather from the guy at monash.
6. NEXT: þarf að færa swype fyrir norsku á toby - passa á að ég sé búin að gera það rétt!
Monday, 7 February 2011
melbourne
Yep, it's been quite a while. Did a lot of dancing and travelling in Iceland, and am now back in Melbourne. Have a massive backlog of photos from May 2010 onwards still to process, but am in the process of finding a job, so may not have oodles of time to do this too rapidly. Am enjoying the warmth of summer again, although one does run rather more slowly in the heat than in the cool air of Reykavík!
Monday, 30 August 2010
happy and exhausted on the penultimate of august...
Sorry to misquote The Lucksmiths like that, but it's true. Tango on ICEland ended last night, it was a whole weekend of tango lessons, milongas/dances, meeting new people, listening and dancing to both live music and the old stuff, and finishing with a roadtrip to the Blue Lagoon (where we also tried our hand at AquaTango ;) ). Wow, I am one happy (but exhausted) little camper! I literally danced until I could no longer stand, like the princesses in the fairy tales :) and the main result has been that I REALLY want to dance and learn more! 'Nice' is the word I have used most often about the feeling of dancing tango, but, as you might know if you've ever tangoed, 'nice' really doesn't begin to cover it...
And I'm also still reeling from how different tango is to what I thought it would be - it feels NOTHING like it looks. Or rather, I thought that tango was the kind of thing 'other people' did, not me. Wow, how wrong could I be! The person who convinced me to learn to tango, Helge the German who I met dancing salsa, was back here for the festival, it was great to see him and tango with him :D Yay for learning how to dance! And yay for tango nuevo music, and yay for the Icelanders who love to dance too and are willing to dance with me. YAY!!!
And I'm also still reeling from how different tango is to what I thought it would be - it feels NOTHING like it looks. Or rather, I thought that tango was the kind of thing 'other people' did, not me. Wow, how wrong could I be! The person who convinced me to learn to tango, Helge the German who I met dancing salsa, was back here for the festival, it was great to see him and tango with him :D Yay for learning how to dance! And yay for tango nuevo music, and yay for the Icelanders who love to dance too and are willing to dance with me. YAY!!!
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
running training coming along nicely
Huh. Luce thinks we're 'not running for competitive reasons'. Whatever. I finally looked up my time for the midnight run this year - 5km in 23:52. Which puts me equal 13th, in a field of 454, but 21st according to gun time. Maybe I shouldn't be so shy and keep thinking that I'm a slow runner, and just start closer to the front. (Luce ran 23:55, cos he started earlier, but waited for me, putting him approx. 43rd.)
Anyhow, I'm aiming to run the 10km in the Reykjavíkur Marathon on the 21st of August in under 50 mins. Just did a practice 10km and made 49 mins, so I'm looking forward to a good time in the actual run! I was pretty tired today - did a 50 min swim on Saturday, which made me pretty tired. :) The glorious weather is having a most excellent effect on my training!
Oh, and I mustn't forget to mention that our first guests in our new flat have been and gone - Elisabeth and Ingrid. I didn't blog while they were here, I was just flat out loving having both of them around!
Anyhow, I'm aiming to run the 10km in the Reykjavíkur Marathon on the 21st of August in under 50 mins. Just did a practice 10km and made 49 mins, so I'm looking forward to a good time in the actual run! I was pretty tired today - did a 50 min swim on Saturday, which made me pretty tired. :) The glorious weather is having a most excellent effect on my training!
Oh, and I mustn't forget to mention that our first guests in our new flat have been and gone - Elisabeth and Ingrid. I didn't blog while they were here, I was just flat out loving having both of them around!
Sunday, 6 June 2010
A quick stopover in Reykjavík
Well, New York was actually pretty awesome. The people were lovely, our friends and acquaintances were lovely, and I had a frozen yoghurt or soy or almond milk drink every day. Until I started reading about the weird non-foods they add to food in the US. Apparently all milk in the US has lactating hormones in it, 'high fructose corn syrup' really IS the first listed ingredient in many 'foods', and the stuff that makes drinks and icecream lovely and creamy is indigestible gum made from seaweed. Great. Eating actual food in the US seems even harder than in Iceland!
Oh, and Eyjafjalljökull seems to be erupting again. Health regulations say that 50 micrograms of particles per cubic metre is described as 'bad air'. We had 136 here in Reykjavík yesterday, and people with asthma and other lung problems were advised to stay indoors and not do too much. Not a good day to let the fresh air in from outside. Our roof windows were literally caked with ash:
Oh, and Eyjafjalljökull seems to be erupting again. Health regulations say that 50 micrograms of particles per cubic metre is described as 'bad air'. We had 136 here in Reykjavík yesterday, and people with asthma and other lung problems were advised to stay indoors and not do too much. Not a good day to let the fresh air in from outside. Our roof windows were literally caked with ash:
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