Honestly, I wanted to write about another Sony Ericsson today, which is more interesting, but I couldn't install anything on it and I need to do some more research. I'll write about it later.
So I took the C510 out of the drawer. It had been waiting there for a long time and I was able to install whatever I wanted via Bluetooth.
I thought the problem with Sony Ericsson keyboards was just the joystick, which always got damaged after some time on any phone. However, the C510 has a keypad instead of a joystick and is damaged in a similar way to phones with joysticks. It still barely works, but it's a bit tricky. Fortunately, this wouldn't matter for playing games, as they are usually played using the numeric keys. I have installed and tried many interesting games and the resolution is much better than on most of the other keyboard phones I have, so maybe I will spend some time playing them.
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Today, I took the Nokia out of the box of incoming phones. It's a Nokia 500 with Symbian Belle. It's nothing special or particularly interesting, but it still has my favourite OS.
It is in really good condition with no missing parts. It also comes from an age when it could be charged using either the standard Nokia 'needle' charger or a micro USB, which simplifies things a lot.
So I immediately did the jailbreak to get rid of all those stupid 'Cannot install, certificate verification failed' errors when installing any SIS/SISX. It went relatively well, with no problems. I chose and downloaded many interesting games that I wanted to install. I copied them to the mass memory and installed them all. It was a long process, but most of them installed without any problems. More than nine out of ten installed, which was quite a success.
However, when I tried to run them, things got worse. Almost every installed game malfunctioned. Some of them didn't even start. Others were stuck on a black screen. Others completely distorted the screen with random colours, shapes and fragments. Some displayed a runtime error. A few of them caused the phone to freeze and ...
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The next phone I received in the box was the HTC One Mini. It had a completely destroyed top cover and was unable to boot up. After connecting the charger, the phone started displaying a battery animation, but it was still unable to boot up.
I found out that the problem was caused by a damaged power button. I disassembled it down to the flex cable and was able to turn it on by manually connecting the wires.
The next step was to replace the button. At first, I considered soldering wires to the flex and then soldering a micro-button. However, this would look ugly and be very difficult to do. Then I had the idea of using the flex as it is and just finding the right membrane to make it click again. I disassembled lots of microbuttons to find the ideal membrane size, and finally found one that fit really well. I fixed it with rubber tape to keep it in place and tried it out. It worked really well!
The next step was to recreate the ...
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The Samsung Galaxy Y was released in 2011. It has an ARMv6 832 MHz processor, 290 MB of RAM and 190 MB of ROM. It also comes equipped with a 2 GB Samsung micro SD card. As it runs on Android 2.3, I can install apps and games on the external SD card, which gives me plenty of extra space.
The nice bonus is that it came with the original box, which is in really good condition.
The phone is in really good condition and has only a few small scratches on the screen. It is not possible to take a screenshot straight away, so please forgive the photos of the screen. I'm too lazy.
I found some games that run on Android 2.6 and installed them. Finally, I had the opportunity to try a game that I had wanted to play for some time. I found out a few months ago that there is an Android version of Sola Rola. I knew it as an old-school J2ME game on Sony Ericcson phones, and I was really surprised by this version. Unfortunately, it is only compatible with Android 2.X, so I have been ...
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Some time ago, I released the Dailies application and then forgot all about it. I have published it on Google Play and set a very low price. This was the first paid app that I had ever released. Success has yet to appear. It has only been installed on three phones, all of which belong to the testers. So it has not been purchased at all.
The Dailies
web page also has a huge number of views. About ten a month, to be exact.
I'm still waiting for my first customer to buy the app.
However, I am using it myself and it's really funny to surprise someone by sending them a congratulations message on their X thousandth day anniversary of their birth.
But it seems that I am the only one interested...
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I have bought a DELL Wyse 5070 With Intel Celeron 4105 CPU @ 1.50GHz and 8GB of RAM for 900 CZK. It is quite good hardware, in really small case, with around 10W consumption in light load.
And why did I buy it?
I'm getting really frustrated with my current VPS provider. It's becoming increasingly expensive and doesn't even offer the basic functions I need.
For example, it is not possible to create a backup easily. The provider only offers default weekly backups, and then you have to pay 500 CZK to recover them. Each time. This is problematic if you need to experiment with something and then revert to your backup. That's 500 CZK for each try!
Prices are rising by tens of percent every year, so it's no longer worth it.
The biggest problem for me now is hosting HryProDva.cz, as they already require a lot of system resources and are running on an outdated operating system. The operating system is also based on the provider. They only provide their own operating system images for installation and do not introduce new versions of common systems very often. They also modify these media with ...
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Finally, I have an old game console. It's a GameGear handheld from SEGA. But to be precise, I've had that console for more than a year. I got it from a collector colleague who tried to racap it and ended up destroying it. I had no cartridge to test it for a long time, but I eventually got one and was ready to start the repair.
I really struggled to repair it because there were a lot of damaged parts caused by the new capacitors being soldered incorrectly. Even after fixing these, I was unable to get it working.
Then a colleague from work helped me. Now it works! It can only run on batteries as the power supply circuit is damaged. I am going to replace it later as I need to order a special chip for it.
Yes, the console has some issues. For example, the sound control wheel makes a lot of white noise when set, the display is not in the best condition and has more than a few dead pixels, and the cartridge must be positioned very carefully to make contact. However, the most important thing is that ...
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Today, I have something really interesting to show you. Some time ago, I received two tablets from a donor. The first was a relatively modern Surface 3, which I have written about. The second was a ThinkPad tablet.
It stayed on my table for a little longer than the Surface. It needed more care as the battery was almost dead and I was struggling to even boot it up.
So I had to take it apart and disconnect the battery. I short-circuited the input to fully discharge everything. Then I tried to simulate the battery using a laboratory power supply to at least prove that the rest of the tablet was working. This went fine; the tablet booted and worked well. The second step was to try to make it work without the battery. I thought it would work a bit like a mobile phone, which refuses to boot without a battery or with a dead battery. However, I was wrong. The problem I had with normal booting on a Micro USB charger was different. The tablet needs a relatively high current, but the charger I was testing only supplied 1A.
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As my son really likes playing with wooden trains, I decided to surprise him with a familiar one.
I found it on Printables.com and knew immediately that we both needed it. It's a really nice model that's easily recognisable compared to other wooden train STLs that can be found on the internet, and it's really easy to print. As I am lazy and wouldn't do the painting myself, I asked my colleague to print one for me on a multicolour printer, and it went really well!
The model is really smooth and easy to assemble. I like it a lot. In fact, it has inspired me to try multicolour printing on my own Ender 3V2. It's a bit tricky with that printer to change the filament during printing because I've always had problems with the layers not connecting properly when I've switched filaments, but I like the model so much that I might try again just to make another car.
For now, I have found a magnet with a hole in the middle, which I have screwed to the front and back in the hope that it will connect with other cars.
This is the first finished ...
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Finally, I got rid of that stupid Motorola G05! It was the most useless mobile phone I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of stupid phones.
For the first time, it seemed really good. The hardware parameters were quite good, and the promotional photographs taken with the phone camera were also quite good.
However, after a day or two, I realised that the phone was completely worthless. It cannot switch between any two apps, no matter how simple they are, without killing the one in the background. This meant that 2FA codes could not be entered, and the same applied to rewriting bank account numbers, etc.
So I placed my bet on a reliable device and bought the Redmi Note 9 Pro. It's an older phone, but it still has excellent specifications, and the most important thing is that it's still supported by LineageOS, so I have the latest version of Android, which is brilliant. I have successfully tested that all my banking apps work on Lineage OS, so there was no reason to choose anything other than the Redmi. I already have one for my secondary phone, so I knew what to expect.
So now, both of my everyday phones ...
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