My son keeps on playing with my htc phone until the batteries run dry. People can barely contact me because if my son answers the phone he doesn't want to pass it on to me. What's a techie to do? Why, get his son something else to play with of course.. :P So I scoured the low yatt plaza looking for something that would be cheap enough that if my son breaks it, I wouldn't mind, but fast enough that he can play his games on it. After searching high and low, the best I could find was the android pocket pc. It's basically just a very cheap android tablet that comes with a casing with a keyboard in it. Funny thing is, the keyboard is usb, the tablet only accepts mini usb (not even a micro usb) and so they also give an adapter from usb to mini usb. It costs rm 699 a pop. If it's still running by the year end, I'd consider that already as ROI. They claim the cpu is 1.5 Ghz and memory 1 GB. I haven't installed any diagnostics software to make sure, but the internal storage is 1 GB just by looking at the application management settings. It doesn't have a back facing camera to take any pictures, but it does have a 1.3MP webcam you can use to video chat or something. And it comes with a somewhat customized android 2.3 (customized as in it looks like a tablet interface, something like the original galaxy tab I think).

So I just had to do it. This morning I was already ready to try installing ICS on it. Mmmmm... manufacturer... none that I can find.. model.. oh err... damn these cheap things... How on earth am I going to find info on how to go about flashing it and all. Finally I just googled the build number, and I come to this gem of a post..

So basically the steps are, download the ics image either from:
MOMO9c ICS v1
build #1
Model 97FC
Kernel Version 3.0.8+ inet_dada@Inetsoftware #1 (without market, still has bug)
Build Number 97F1-D1-H2-H01-N412-20120105
- Momo9c ICS v1
Kevin Custom build 12
Model 97FC
Kernel Version 3.0.8+ inet_dada@Inetsoftware #12
Build Number 97F1-D1-H2-H01-N412-20120111
- Momo9c ICS v2
build #15
Model MOMO
Kernel Version 3.0.8+ inet_hxj@Inetsoftware #15
Build Number 97F2-D1-H1-H02-1553-20120113

I tried both the #12 and #15 build. Both seems to work fine.
After the image is downloaded, download the LiveSuitPack.
Run LiveSuitPack_v1.07.exe first,
then run LiveSuit.exe. (Yes, I did this in windows. Since it involves hardware, I would highly not recommend you try it in wine or something).
Running LiveSuit.exe will automatically run the wizard, if not click the third icon (the gears).
Click on "Yes",
then "Upgrade Mode",
then "Format",
then "Next",
then "Yes",
browse to the image you downloaded,
click "Finish".
Once that is done, there will be a progress bar but does not move. Now for the tablet.

First, switch off the tablet.
Then press the + volume button,
while keeping it (the volume button) pressed, connect the usb cable to the computer,
press the power button 6 times,
then let go of all the button. Fuh...
I had to go here to find out that.
Once that is done, the dialog box to confirm will pop up 2 times. Answer yes for both, and soon the progress bar will start moving.
Once it's finished, disconnect the table, turn it on, and there you have it, ice cream sandwich on the cheap.

Note about the build #15, it's in Japanese.
So you should first go to the settings page (flick the screen to the left to go to the pan on the right, it's the black box with control setting on it).
There choose the language options (it's the one with a capital A next to it),
click on the first option,
and select whichever english language you're comfortable in.
Then you can start playing around.
Both the build #12 and build #15 already has the market in it but I wasn't able to find the icon. What you should do is search for market, then you will find the market app. Install whatever you need.

Well, that's all for now. Time for me to keep on learning (playing) more about the ICS I've just downloaded.. :P

/usr/bin/perl: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libDrakX/auto/c/stuff/stuff.so: undefined symbol: Perl_Gthr_key_ptr

wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &

 dhclient wlan0

I just read that about 100,000 most likely Malaysian Facebook accounts have been cracked. Well their passwords are available for all to see in pastebin. Upon checking, I only saw a little over 75,000 since the third file has been compromised. From that sample, I quickly derived that the most popular Malaysian passwords are:

1. 123456
2. sayang
3. brokenheart
4. 123456789
5. rozaliqa75
6. effaluve
7. akucintaallah
8. zzz999
9. pradeebkumar123$%
10. 12345678

The least popular ones in that sample set include having spaces, hashes, brackets, and more. So there are some secure ones!

Using one’s phone number seems to also be popular. Sometimes appending or pre-pending a string (like a name) to it. Using birthdays seems to also be quite common, sometimes also appending or pre-pending a string like a name to it.

And for those wanting to “further analyse” the dataset yourself, I just quickly used standard Unix tools, and you can do it too.

grep "Password:" part_* | awk -F":" '{print $3}'| sort | uniq -c |sort -n

Pipe to less, use head/tail, etc.

Related posts:

1. Malaysian politicans need to focus on the economy, not power plays
2. Pompous Malaysian Minister discourages immersion in Western-created sites such as Facebook, Twitter
3. learn2scale – what’s up with Malaysian news sites? Will the cloud work for them?

Paul Graham recently published a new request for startups titled Kill Hollywood. It is definitely worth reading. The motivations behind such thoughts are clear. Filesharing is not killing the movie & TV industry.

“What’s going to kill movies and TV is what’s already killing them: better ways to entertain people.“

Better ways to entertain people. This thought has been sitting in my head for the last couple of days while I’m just a stones throw away from Hollywood & have a pretty good view of the Hollywood Hills from outside my window. The RFS goes into more detail about games, apps, the possibility that exercise might take over, but to think broadly and figure out where the entertainment of folk are going to in the next twenty years.

The studios are making less profits because the way Hollywood is structured. This is why Sarah Lacy says to kill Hollywood, you’ve got to learn their game. Someone like Ryan Kavanaugh is using math to beat Hollywood at their own game — you may have seen Relativity Media, and that’s the company who’s funding many successful movies today. Sarah Lacy sums up the content game that will help us win against Hollywood fairly well:

“The lesson: Eyeballs aren’t equivalent to one another. For Hollywood to be killed, the Internet needs to focus on a metric other than eyeballs. It’s not about mass, it’s about good. That’s absolutely anti-YouTube and anti-Farmville and any other content which we expect to be rapid, mass and disposable. Disposable content isn’t bad, it’s just not everything. And as long as that’s all that the Valley is putting out, we won’t kill Hollywood.”

There is an experience of going to the cinema in where I am happy to pay USD$12 or RM25 for a seat. In the USA I believe in the ratings system, but in Malaysia where I watch most of my movies I feel cheated by the censorship board. But I still go and spend cash because there’s an experience. However I’ve noticed my TV & movie watching habits have changed — I wrote about how I consume Hollywood in 2011. I believe that in Malaysia (and most of Asia), one is forced towards looking at content via filesharing. Because Hollywood hasn’t grown up and they believe in making money from regions, delaying releases by regions, etc. Traditional models.

Of late I’ve quite enjoyed watching the Sundance channel on cable. On Friday in the USA Today, Robert Redford, founder of the channel and the film festival had this to say: “With the new technology creating all the voices and noise from bloggers and tweeters, it’s chaos,” Redford says. “Where are you going to get the real truth with so many loud voices barking? I look to documentaries as almost investigative journalism.”

That covers a set of genres. But independent films rarely cover comedy, action, etc.

People get entertained by different things. At different times. Some days a romantic comedy makes sense. Some days a chick flick is all that gets you going. Then you’ve got days when action is all you crave. And the list can go on…

So what are better ways to entertain people? Games? Interactive movies? How does everyone get paid fairly when you get away from the big studios? Do production costs then go down when you bypass them?

This is why people love the Cheezeburger Network. Or 9gag. These are new ways for people to entertain themselves. However the metric there is eyeballs and the content is disposable. People need substance to entertain them. I once said that paying $10 for Plants vs Zombies provided me with a lot more entertainment on my iPad than going to maybe 2-3 feature length movies.

I’m still thinking about different ways for people to consume media. Different ways for people to sink their time in. And I presume I’ll be thinking about this for long.

As an aside, don’t assume that independent media folk get “new media” either. Classic examples in Malaysia would be Nasi Lemak 2.0 and Relationship Status. Nasi Lemak 2.0 stars the controversial Namewee, who not only made the movie on the cheap (independently), he went on to getting it in cinemas and also at the same time did the entrepreneurial thing of in tandem getting it showing on cable TV. This subsequently got his movie pulled from the cinemas in question, rather abruptly. He disrupted the cinemas and the cinemas reacted in their traditional methods to pull his movie. But even today, you can’t buy a DVD or download a digital version… Even if you’re willing to pay for it (I know I am). More recently, Khairil M. Bahar made Relationship Status; however still with the traditional model of going to the cinema. No DVDs. No downloadable digital version. Its worth noting that I’d pay RM35-40 for a digital download (though I don’t think that might be everyone’s price point – experimentation needs to happen clearly).

Its sad to see that even young independent film producers aren’t moving where their audience is moving to. They’re thinking like studios are thinking. They need to be disrupted. After all, these Malaysian producers are forgetting that there is such a large portion of the Malaysian diaspora spread across the world whom are unlikely to step into Malaysian cinemas anytime soon. Imagine a day when I can read a review about the show, then automatically click on a link that allows me to either stream the movie now or download a copy. If it is a service that has my credit card details on file, this is a seamless process; if its individuals, I just checkout via PayPal, and am either seeing the movie on my TV or waiting half an hour or so for the download so I can pop it on my iPad.

Back to the drawing board. There are better ways to entertain people. There are better ways for consumption of media & content.

Related posts:

1. How I watch TV/movies in 2011
2. Digital Media Consumers
3. qotd