mudeth

My previous phone, the Moto Milestone, was great, but I had some issues with the touch screen. I eventually got the screen replaced under warranty. A month back, I had the same problems again. This time around, I had been really careful – I’d always carried the phone in a waterproof cover when I was riding or running, never kept it close to my face when I was sweating, used only the official charger and car charger, etc. So I don’t know what the problem could have been. After spending my own money on replacing the touchscreen, I saw symptoms that the problem would recur. so I decided it was about time I got a new phone.

I wanted a phone that would not be as allergic to dust or water (or so I thought) as the Milestone, so I started my research. I narrowed it down to the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation and, of course, the iPhone 4 as candidates. Then I googled ‘phone name touch screen problem’ to see if they had crap screens.

Result? A LOT of phones do! Turns out the problem is not water getting in or salt depositing from sweat or voltage variation, like I had suspected. A lot of factors point to the culprit being a build-up of static electricity in the screen. Now I’m not an electrical engineer, but it seems like the most logical explanation to me considering that a capacitive screen works by detecting variations in the screen’s electrostatic field.

I found people facing similar problems with the Sony Ericsson X10, X10 mini, iPhone, Nexus One (HTC), Samsung Glyde, and of course, the good old Droid. Have I covered every major manufacturer there? No Nokia? Yes, that is interesting, though I suspect it may have to do with Nokia only recently adopting capacitive screens and not selling nearly as many phones as the others. I did find a few videos of the touchscreen acting up on the Nokia X6, which look suspiciously like the same problem I had on my Milestone, but in general, it has a better record.

I found this article interesting as well – http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=39426

So anyway, my theory on why my touchscreen went crazy, twice, is that static electricity built up on me when I was out running or on my bike or even in my studio. Reasons:

• Bikes have rubber tyres, I’m wearing shoes, and I have no contact with grounded appliances or whatever. Bike shirts and shorts are lycra and seem like they generate static (again, I’m no electrical engineer, so my understanding could be completely off).
• Running has similar issues – no contact with ground, shirts seem like they would generate static.
• My studio is fully carpeted and always air conditioned (low humidity). I use a rolling chair. All factors.
• I used to charge my phone next to my pillow. Hair + pillow = static, like we learnt in school.

For now, I’m taking these precautions:

• Using the pouch that came with my new phone – it’s made of genuine leather, and should dissipate static. It is dorky, though. :/
• Keeping the phone on a bedside table overnight while it charges.
• Grounding myself by touching a pole or gate before and after I run or ride.

For now, considering the odds of something going wrong, I bought myself a mid-range Galaxy SL instead of the S2. It’s a nice enough phone, and if I feel it’s developing problems at any point beyond warranty coverage, I can always resell it and buy myself another phone.

Anyone have any knowledge to share? Similar experiences?

Froyo for the Milestone is finally here, and I installed it a couple of days back.

Disaster!

Problem

The phone became terribly slow and laggy. The browser took a long time to start from the desktop (2-3 seconds at least) even when it was already in memory. Switching between tasks was a pain (remniscent of Windows Mobile on my HTC Elfin), and it would constantly run out of memory (LauncherPro would have to reload every time I hit the home button, even if I had just opened the Market app).

A hard reset (Settings > Privacy > Factory data reset) seemed to help at first, but after installing a few apps and switching between them, the phone went back to it’s sluggish ways.

Solution

This worked for me:

Step 1: Settings > Privacy > Disable ‘Back up my data’. When it asks you if you’re sure, reply ‘Yes’.

Step 2: Follow this link to really hard reset your Milestone (thanks, Andrew). I’ll paraphrase the relevant steps here in case that link goes dead:

• Turn phone off.
• Press ‘x’ on the hardware keyboard and turn phone on. Keep ‘x’ pressed, don’t let go.
• You will see an exclamation mark. Let go of ‘x‘.
• Press Volume up, and without letting it go, press the Camera button.
• You’ll get a menu.
• ‘Wipe Cache Partition‘
• ‘Wipe data / Factory Reset‘
• Once this is done, restart.

My phone works great after this. Performance is noticeably better than 2.1.

Update: The problem resurfaced a couple of days after I wrote this entry and I had to get my touchscreen replaced. If you’re facing the same problem, immediately stop using other chargers. In my experience, that is the culprit.

My Motorola Milestone (Droid in the US) started acting really weird after charging it using an external battery.

The Problem

The touch screen would flake out randomly – operating itself, scrolling, dialing contacts, etc. Some people have posted videos of their screens going mad:

Initially, I thought it was because water had gotten in. After reading this thread on DroidForums, I tried everthing mentioned there – drying it in the Sun, keeping it in a book overnight (completely disassembled), discharging and recharging the battery; I even kept it under a lightbulb for a couple of hours hoping it would dry the phone out effectively. I reset the phone twice. Nothing worked.

Turns out that the problem was that I had been charging it using an external battery. Apparently, the Milestone (and the Droid) is very sensitive to voltage. Using other chargers, even quality ones from say a Blackberry or HTC, will cause this problem.

The Solution

Do nothing. It’s been a week since the problem started and yesterday, the phone started behaving all by itself.

Use the phone normally. Make sure that you use only the authorized Motorola charger. Give it a week. If things don’t get better, maybe you really need to take it to a technician.

Last month (November/December 2009), I took off on an impromptu trip to Manali, at the base of the Himalayas, accompanied by a friend from Delhi. It was all quite unplanned and haphazard, but he knew enough about the place that it all fell together quite smoothly.

Statutory warning: Phone camera photos with terrible auto-white ahead.

Sage Manu's temple, after which the town was named.

The Bus Journey

We landed up in a bus stand in Delhi (I don’t know which one, but it was huge and filthy). After asking people and shuttling from platform to platform, we finally found the ticket counter (hint: it’s on the first floor of the bus stand). We bought a ticket from the Himachal Pradesh transport corporation counter. If I remember right, it cost us something like 1,500 INR. Which is a lot for an uncomfortable ‘super-luxury’ Volvo bus with no ventilation (the AC was mostly off because of the cold).

The bus was filled with couples headed to Manali for their honeymoons, and we were the only two guys with backpacks and no plan. The ride took us a forgettable 14 hours. We had had a couple of shots of whiskey before boarding, and that helped us sleep. Dinner was at a nondescript Punjabi roadside restaurant.

Next morning, we were at Kullu, and shortly, Manali. We got off, headed to a nice-looking cafe on the main road, and had coffee and excellent momos. We then walked randomly around, getting a feel for the place. Even though it wasn’t tourist season, there were a lot of couples on the main road, and quite a bit of activity, so getting rooms and transport would not be a problem.

Renting a bike

Research on the Internet had led us to believe that old Manali was the place to be, and we decided to get a motorcycle and ride there. There were a lot of touts trying to sell us rooms, we either ignored them or casually said no, and they didn’t bother us too much. We then walked into a travel agency (Special Tours India) with a board that said ‘Motorcycles for hire’, and they were helpful enough. We negotiated a battered Pulsar 150 for 400 INR per day, no fuel included. After making the deposit and riding out, I realized that it had no brakes. The front disc was pretty much down to metal-on-metal, and the rear drums were soft and unresponsive. If you plan to hire a bike, be a little more picky than we were. Apparently, Pulsars are rare, so finding one in good condition is hard. More common are ancient Yamaha RX-100s and Bullet 350s. I didn’t want the Bullet because it was overkill for our purposes, and the Yamaha was too light.

The Pulsar also had a dead battery. Luckily, headlights were working fine (although there was no horn). The front fork was bent, and both rims were wobbly. It was like riding a mule with Parkinson’s. This wasn’t too much of an issue for us since we weren’t planning on doing any touring, just using it to get around. We filled ten litres of petrol and headed towards old Manali after a brief stop at Vashisht.

The temple at Vashisht

If you’re even half a biker, consider getting a motorcycle in Manali. The roads are well-maintained, weather is pleasant (even though I only saw winter, it wasn’t all too cold), and the views, spectacular.

The road to Solang valley and Rothang pass

A local road in Manali

Old Manali

Old manali is different from the main town. Whereas the main town (mall road?) is a typical Indian tourist place, with hawkers and touts and restaurants boasting 20 cuisines in one kitchen and families walking down the road sharing two ice-cream cones between the five of them, old Manali is sedate and peaceful. It has fewer (and better) restaurants and hotels, and is much more scenic. There are more non-Indians (mostly Europeans and Israelis), and people are more approachable and less out to sell you something. All this in a distance of maybe five kilometers. We rode till the very end of the road, and finally decided to check into this place called Monal guest house.

Monal Guest House, in Manali

It had a beautiful view of the valley and the Beas river running through it, piped water, clean rooms and bathrooms, television, and was pretty cheap (INR 400 per night). There wasn’t a restaurant, but we later blundered into a very cool place called Drifers’ Inn, about two minutes by walk from Monal. There were also a couple of shops nearby selling biscuits, pepsi and chocolates, and a shack where a local made omlettes and tea.

View from our hotel room

The Beas river

We later discovered that Drifters’ Inn had rooms as well, at pretty much the same cost. It looks like a nicer place to stay, too, though the view isn’t nearly as spectacular.

The first night, we decided to get something to drink. We rode towards town, and a couple of places caught our eye, Johnson’s Pub, and Caverna Magica. The bartender at Magica was friendly enough, but the place was empty (maybe because we were there off-season). Johnson’s was much more lively, and we spent the rest of the night there, eventually getting back at 12ish. Food and drinks were, while not cheap, reasonably priced, and really good.

Solang valley

The next day, after a considerable breakfast at Drifers’ (and maybe a beer, I won’t say), we rode towards Rothang pass. It was a scenic ride of maybe 20-30 kilometers through hilly terrain. The pass was closed because of avalanches/landslides, so we just rode on. We were on our way to a place called Solang valley. The climb was beautiful, but the valley itself was a crowded tourist spot. There were guys selling quad-bike rides, hang-glider rides, horse-rides and omlettes everywhere.

This criminal sold us Maggi (Ramen) for INR 50ish

A two kilometer trek took us to a nearby Shiva temple, which was well worth it. You can also get there by horse, but the horses were in such wretched shape that I decided not to, for fear of falling off. We walked. I made my first tentative contact with snow there. It was a let-down. I expected it to be much more magical. With more rainbows and fairies and such.

Shiva temple at Solang valley

By the time we left (five or six in the evening), it was already getting dark. On our way back to Manali, we found this amazing pizzeria (advertised as using a wood-oven) where we had chicken pizza for INR 120ish (and a quart of whiskey from a wine shop next door) and relaxed a bit before heading out. The place itself was very cozy; it had wooden interiors, and reminded me of the wild-west in all the books I’ve read. I’m giving it two cool points just for that feeling.

Not just pizza, wooden-oven god-damned pizza.

The next day, we shopped a bit in the main town, had a nice lunch at Sher-e-Punjab on mall road and headed back to Delhi.

The Goats

All in all, I found Manali beautiful, provided we kept off the well-trod routes. People were friendly, climate amazing, and the place and surrounding scenery made for a very relaxing stay. If you’re a nature-lover, you can just walk any which way, and you’ll find a postcard-perfect orchard, or cliff, or river, or valley. If you like food and drink, you have enough variety to keep you busy for a long time.

I didn’t hear of any parties while I was there, but I’m guessing they happen at a different time of year, and that’s another attraction of Manali. I’m not big on it, but if you are, marijuana use is common, and not a problem, but taking it out of Manali is dangerous (cops have checkposts).

My two days there were woefully inadequate; I’m guessing you need at least a week to travel to nearby places and still have time to unwind every evening, and that’s what I’m going to do the next time I visit. Dharamshala and Ladakh are nearby, and I’d like to do a circuit through all three places, beginning and ending at Manali.

Also, the rumors are true, there are goats.

Goats. What more can I offer as explanation?

Contacts

Contact of Monal house: +91.1902-253848
Contact of Special Tours India: +91.94187-76717, info at specialtoursindia dotcom, stitours at gmail
Contact of Drifers’ Inn & Cafe: +91.99103-33127, driftersinn at gmail, driftersinn.in

Hulu doesn’t work outside the US. I could use Hotspot shield or another proxy service, but they tend to be slow. I use Sidereel instead, which links to videos hosted on various other sites (for educational purposes, of course).

Megavideo links are usually the best ones – they’re fast and reasonably good quality, but you can only watch 72 minutes at a time unless you pay them $10 a month, which I won’t do on principle (and because I’m cheap).

There are ways to bypass it by clearing cookies and restarting your modem to get a new IP address (too tedious), or using a proxy (too slow, too tedious). I recently found a better alternative, the Illimitux extension for Firefox:

Illimitux Firefox extension

Install it, restart Firefox. When you open a page that has embedded Megavideo, you’ll see this:

Click on ‘Remove limitation’, and a new tab will open up which will let you view the video without any interruptions. You can many more borderline illegal things with illimitux. Have fun!

These are some bookmarklets that I use to make surfing easier. To use them, drag them onto your bookmarks bar

Bookmarks bar in Firefox

• Web of Trust – A privacy and security advisor  (mywot.com, toolbar available). A community site that tells you how safe it is to download or transact with the page you’re viewing.
• Search site – Search the site your viewing using Google. If any text is selected, it will be used as the query (via squarefree).
• Translate – Translate the page you’re viewing into english. Uses Google translate, which auto-detects the source language (via squarefree).
• Javascript shell – A command-line for running Javascript (mozilla only – via squarefree)
• Zap plugins – Disable embedded content (flash and the like). Useful if you want to keep Youtube links open for later viewing, but don’t want them to buffer and slow down your internets (via squarefree).
• XRAY – Useful tool for web-developers. Hover over any element to get HTML details. Click to see what I mean. (via westciv).
• Wayback – See archived versions of the page you’re viewing with the Wayback Machine (via Internet Archive).

If you like the concept of bookmarklets, head on over to squarefree, there’s a nice collection there.