Tuesday May 27
 
22:45
 
PC On Mac On PC

How cool is this? My LG LW25 laptop running NATIVE Mac OS X - ie, running Mac OS X on a plain old PC.

Not only that, but within Mac OS, my old PC setup (C: drive) is now running as a “Virtual PC” under VMWare Fusion.

PC on Mac On PC. Lovely!

This is all thanks to Kalyway 10.5.2 (one of the ways to install OS X on a PC) and VMWare Fusion (virtual machine software). The only pain is internet access - I can’t get the Mac to talk Bluetooth PAN with my phone. I can, however, get Bluetooth running under VMWare Fusion and access the internet via my phone that way. I need to work out a way to let Mac OS share the internet connection.

Notes for anyone with an LG LW25 wanting to attempt this (and who has found this page from Google):
- The keyboard does not work during installation - you need a USB keyboard.
- After installing and booting into Mac OS X, you need to Sleep and then Wake Mac OS X. The keyboard will then work. All LG laptops have keyboard issues with Mac OS X at the moment.
- Internal Ethernet LAN and Wireless LAN do not work. I believe there’s a project in place to get drivers for the Wireless LAN working (it is standard Intel). Most people simply buy another LAN card (one that is known to work) and install it.
- Sound is working.
- Sometimes hangs during shutdown - not a big deal.
- I tried Leo4All and others, Kalyway is the only one that I could get to work with the keyboard, sleep, and sound. Make sure you click Customise when installing to select the correct drivers (eg, Intel 950 graphics card).

Tuesday April 29
 
01:21
 
Tonight McDonald’s Called The Police On Me

Why? Because I asked for mayonnaise on a Big Mac.

I kid you not. I have a 30 minute video to prove it, where I’m told by McDonald’s staff that it’s “impossible” to put mayo on a Big Mac - that if I want it, I have to buy a burger which has mayo AND buy a Big Mac and then they will put that mayo on the Big Mac. When I refused, they said “wait a minute” and five minutes later, four, yes FOUR, policemen turned up.

I’ve got to work out how to upload videos onto YouTube. Almost arrested in Japan for asking for mayo on a Big Mac. It’s ridiculous.

It almost reminds me of when I was trying to buy an S11HT - the big Bic Camera in Shibuya argued and refused to allow me to return it if there was no signal at my home or office, so I couldn’t buy it there. I then went to the small Bic Camera in Shibuya and they said “Sure, no problem” and even wrote on the contract that I could return the phone in 14 days if I had a problem getting a signal. Completely ridiculous. Just like McDonald’s calling the police because I wanted mayo.

Thursday April 10
 
09:59
 
Still Two Left

I solved one of my last two frustrations with Windows Mobile 6 EMonster this morning - I found out how to turn off the “beep” sound of systems alerts. The answer was staring me right in the face all along - unfortunately it was staring me in the face in Japanese, and my face doesn’t respond to Japanese.

Anyway, to turn off the “beep” of system alerts and the “beep” when you tap on the wrong place on the screen, go to the sound options and uncheck the first box. The reason I didn’t spot this before is that I took イベント (e-be-n-to) to be related to calendar events rather than system events. Should have looked up the kanji, I guess - but I can’t look up the kanji for everything, there is just too much.

I should be down to one frustration now - how to scroll a line/half page at a time rather than a page at a time - but I discovered a new one this morning: after downloading an MP3 to my phone, I can’t find out how to make it into an alarm or ringtone. It should be easy, right? I probably need to do some conversion to WAV or cut the MP3 short or find come obscure option, however.

As an aside, I really wish Microsoft would provide language packs for WM6. It can’t be that difficult - can it? They have experience making Windows multi-language, and Vista has language packs. Even the iPhone and iPod support multiple languages. 

Even if Microsoft dont want to bloat ROMS with English and multiple other languages, at least make them downloadable. Being forced to use Japanese rather than being allowed to switch to English is as annoying as doing a PC Windows Update and then having a pop-up remind you every 2 minutes that you need to reboot your computer… grrrr….

Tuesday April 8
 
11:32
 
Netfront For Windows Mobile 6

I’ve just downloaded and installed the Windows Mobile “Concept Version” 3.5 of Netfront.

Netfront is a web browser used in many Japanese mobile phones - there’s a version of it in my Sharp phone, and in my Samsung phone. I don’t know how prevalent it is elsewhere in the world.

Initial impressions:

• Netfront renders webpages on a “virtual desktop”, eg. 800×1024. Scrolling around the page is smooth and fast - a big improvement on the jumpy and “screen at a time” implementation of Pocket IE.
• In addition to arrow-key scrolling and finger scrolling, double tapping on the page shows a small thumbnail representation, you can use the stylus to move around.
• Default sizes (Text Size of Medium, Zoom of 100%) renders images and text too large, needing too much scrolling around the page. Setting Text Size to Largest and Zoom to 50%, graphics are nicely downsized, and text remains just large enough to read. Text smoothing is used, so even small text is readable - unlike Pocket IE.
• Lick The Lard doesn’t render properly - the entire right hand side is missing. Pocket IE doesn’t have these problems. This blog (Lemon Soju) seems to render correctly.
• When it doesn’t find fonts, eg the Verdana font used here, it renders in Courier. Not pretty. Update: I fixed this by going to Tools -> Browser Settings, then playing about with the settings and then restarting the browser. I can’t say specifically what I did because Courier isn’t even listed in the font list - potentially an uninitialised variable caused Courier to become the default?
• There’s a built in “Infoseek Japanese to English” page translation option - not yet tested.
• Websites recognise the browser as an English language desktop browser, which means I no longer get Japanese “optimised for mobile” webpages. I like that a lot - Google, for example, always presents Japanese pages with no option to change to English. I should try downloading Google Maps again and see if I get one with English.
• It’s nice to have English menus again :)

The trial expires at the end of May. Looking at the Symbian page, Netfront seems to require payment for keeping its browsers long term - not good. Still, they seem to be releasing new “concept” versions every few months at the moment, so maybe it will continue to be useable until Mobile Firefox becomes available.

Update: When Netfront is running, it seems that some applications, such as Mobile Outlook, are no longer are able to access the internet. Other applications, such as the Gmail Java application, work fine. Opera Mini seems unable to access the internet at all after Netfront is installed. I need to test this more to verify.

Update 2: After rebooting the S11HT, I could access internet with Opera Mini again. I then closed Opera Mini, run Netfront, and tried starting Opera Mini again - no connection. It definitely seems that Netfront is making a change somewhere that prevents other applications from using the internet connection, even when it is not running. As a side note, I uninstalled and reinstalled Netfront - after reinstallation, the previous settings from the first installation were restored, so Netfront isn’t particularly good at cleaning up after itself.

Tuesday April 8
 
11:01
 
Final WM6 Frustrations - Help Please!

There are two things which are currently annoying me about Windows Mobile 6:

1. I cant seem to find a way to remove the sound associated with alert popups unless I turn off all sounds. There must be a way to do it - right?

2. When I use the arrows or scroll wheel to scroll a page up/down or left/right, it always moves a page at a time. I can’t see an option to change this - but I may have missed it in Japanese.

If anyone can help with these, please contact me!