Changing the outside display logo on a Razr V3XX

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Electronics My RAZR V3xx has two screens, a small one on the "outside" and a larger one inside. During normal phone usage, the outside screen shows the Cingular logo. (Or the Motorola Logo if you have a non-branded phone.)

I decided to replace the Cingular logo with one of my own, so I used P2kCommander-v4.9.9 to replace the cl.gif file in a/mobile/ with my own. (I'm currently using the picture of electronics, which makes the outer screen look like a window into the phone, but I've included a few others you might want to use instead.) Remember to back up your original cl.gif if you ever want to go back!

Other hacks for the v3xx are here and here and my review is here. Continue reading →

Book Recommendation: Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

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U-Boat Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson tells the true story of two American wreck divers who discover a sunken U-boat off the coast of New Jersey where the historical records say none should exist. Over the course of several years they risk death (at least three other divers die while exploring the U-Boat) and their marriages searching for the identity of the U-Boat, both underwater and in historical archives.

Robert Kurson makes this historical narrative an exciting story in addition to being a very well researched piece of true history. If you are interested in WWII or Scuba Diving I strongly recommend this book. Continue reading →

Homemade Bokashi (Kitchen composter)

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Laser cut 1/8 inch acrylic support trayBokashi is a Japanese name referring to intensive composting. This Bokashi bucket was made from a Target brand generic cat litter container, a $5 Coleman igloo spout, and some laser cut 1/8 inch acrylic left over from a picture frame. Similar units sell for over $60, and since we were going to buy the cat litter and acrylic anyways, building our own saved quite a bit of money that my wife promptly spent on 3 containers of special Bokashi starter mix. (I argued that we should just throw in some moldy cheese that we also had laying around.) Continue reading →

Tinfoiling an entire office

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Tinfoiled Office My adviser received a promotion to full professor, so my group tinfoiled his office. It took 12 of us six hours, and almost 3000 square feet of aluminum foil. We individually wrapped books, computer cables, ceiling tiles, etc. The effect is best seen via this Quicktime VR panorama. I really recommend you take a look at the Quicktime VR view of the office, it really captured the ambiance wonderfully. Also, when the sun goes down in the late afternoon, the office gets to be painfully bright.

We also installed a new Port-a-Potty door and a congratulating plaque. Continue reading →

Review: Motorola RAZR V3xx

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V3 Gold The Motorola RAZR V3xx  is one of Cingular's new non-smart 3G phones, and can be purchased relatively inexpensively with a contract. (Amazon sells them for 0.01 with a 2 year contract, cingular charged $79 the last time I checked.) Although it doesn't have a mini-qwerty keyboard and good email support like the Blackjack, 8525, or Treo 750, it also costs $200-400 less. The Motorola RAZR V3xx is in the same class as the Samsung A707 SYNC and the LG CU500 Phone in that it supports 3G, playing music, and Cingular videos, but it's 3G chipset is twice as fast (3.6 vs 1.8). Continue reading →

Best J2ME mobile applications

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j2me logoThis is a list of the J2ME applications that I use and like. To make the list they have to be free to use and not have annoying advertising (open source is also a plus).

NOTE:
If I do not list a URL Link, but instead just have a number in parenthesis such as (7223) the number is a "quick download" link at wap.getjar.com. 

Continue reading →

Laptop Paint Job

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Laptop Paintjob Finished

Ok, I'll admit it. Ever since I saw Hackers I've wanted a painted laptop. I finally got around to finding a good graphic and painting it onto my IBM x31 Thinkpad. The hardest part was cutting the stencil out. I then lightly coated it with mineral oil to keep the paint from sticking to the stencil. After that, I used rubber cement to hold the stencil to the laptop (being sure to keep the rubber cement off of the holes) and gave it six coats of white spray paint. After it dried I used Turtle Wax polishing paste to remove some of the over-spray, and then edged the white with black ink to give it a sharp edge.

LG CU-500 Mobile Phone Review (Cingular)

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LG CU500 cell phone The LG CU500 Phone is one of Cingular's new non-smart 3G phones, and can be purchased relatively inexpensively with a contract. (Amazon sells them for 0.01 with a 2 year contract, cingular charged $50 the last time I checked.) Although it doesn't have a mini-qwerty keyboard and good email support like the Blackjack, 8525, or Treo 750, it also costs $200-400 less. The LG CU500 is in the same class as the Samsung A707 SYNC and the Motorola RAZR V3xx in that it supports 3G, playing music, and Cingular videos.

Continue reading →

Enabling the IMAP4/POP3/SSL email client (and other goodies) on a Motorola v3xx phone via SEEM editing

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Cell Phone Tower

My new Motorola RAZR V3xx phone is Cingular branded, which means that Cingular has added many money making links to it ("Shop Cingular!") and have hidden some of the nicer features that Motorola originally built into the phone. For example, Cingular has hidden the IMAP4/POP3/SSL email client that is built into the phone. Luckily for me, by changing a few bits in the phone's memory I can re-enable the features I want. I have already fixed Java on my phone so that Google Maps doesn't ask for permission to access the network every time I zoom or scroll, which is another hack I recommend you do to your V3XX phone. Now I will describe the SEEM edit I made.

Continue reading →