Opera Mobile on N900

Just reading thru tweet posts I have been following and found that the dev team from Opera had started a hobbyist project that ports the Opera Mobile 10 to Maemo 5. Without much hesitation, I quickly download it and installed on the phone.

Although it is only in Alpha stage, it is pretty much functional. One thing I noticed is that the rendering speed is fast! Best thing is I can now key in URLs, posts on Facebook & forums IN PORTRAIT mode, which will be the greatest wanted feature for N900 users. One more useful working feature is the Opera Link, where my previously saved bookmarks from my desktop Opera is synchronised with Opera Mobile 10.

While it still contain downsides like poor battery power management and lack of flash, this may be my main browser for some time.

Now Maemo has 2 popular browsers in the platform (Firefox Mobile & Opera Mobile), I'm loving this device more :)

Installing the leaked RC PR1.2 for N900

On my usual checking of the Maemo forums, I noticed yet another thread stating that the long-awaited PR1.2 firmware, which consists of numerous improvements to N900, has been released. Going thru the posts, I noticed that the link is directed to a 3rd party host site (chinese site to be precise). As usual, many posters will starting putting the thread down of another trolling thread.

However when a brave soul downloaded the file and flashed his device, he posted his screenshots proving that the image file is legit, the thread went crazy. Every adventurous (insane to some) mind began downloading the image and flash their devices. Yours truly, me, is one of them.

Took the plunge, flushed my eMCMC storage and flashed the new image, I booted up the device and voila! The device boots up with the new firmware! Some of the changes are shown in the pictures below:


The firmware version


Settings panel now have CLEAR DEVICE for full reset of the device, meaning it will flush the mass storage as well I guess


A "Get more from OVI Store" option is now added to theme selection


Data counter is now split into local and roaming record. Good implementation


Night Mode is now available for Camera in both photo and video mode. Awesome.


And more photo resolutions to choose from compared to only 2 in previous version

Additional observations I have seen are:
- better response in the touch screen
- smoother UI
- search for application in HAM as how you search for contacts
- changed NOW PLAYING icon

In addition, I managed to use Titan's custom kernel to overclock the device to 850MHz without a hitch. everything's running pretty smooth.

However this is a leaked firmware so I'm doing at my own risk. Well, sometimes you get good outcome by taking some calculated risk though. Anyway the links are removed from the forums due to copyright infringement.

Looking at the positive side, this means that official PR1.2 release is pretty near. I will suggest most N900 users to hold their horses and wait for official release if you have no idea what you do.

Posted thru N900 using MaStory

Celebrating Tong's Birthday

Yes yes, it's more than a month since it happened and I had only write this up this time due to clearing up some stuffs...nevertheless, better late than never.

Tong Tong, my beloved God-daughter, is going to be 3 years old this year and her parents, my buddy Weiming and his wife Scully, will be holding her first birthday party in HK. Of course, being in Singapore, I had to fly there to celebrate with them and their in-laws.

As with the previous posts, I will let the picture do most of the narrating :)


Taking a shot with the Woon family while waiting for Janice to get off work.


Coaxing her to sleep, telling that I will bring her to Disneyland if she do so LOL


Having Brunch at 澳洲牛奶公司 (in HK of course). It's a very popular restaurant and always have long queues. However, from the time we started queuing to we left the place: 15 minutes. Faster than eating at McDonald's



Scully & Janice buying some clothes from the Disney store while I got Tong a Winnie the Pooh Bear chocolate toy. She loved it.......for a while :/



Dressing Tong up at The Princess Room (can't remember the exact name :/) with Weiming happily snapping away with my D90.....



Dolling Tong up. Don't understand why the make-up artist looked so gloomy, must have missed a number in lottery the previous day... oh well.


Even Scully also felt tempted to try out LOL. Too bad, for kids only :p


Finally done... ah~ she looks just like a cute little princess keke

She didn't have enough sleep and felling grumpy so we took quite an effort to get her to smile in front of the camera. Here's some good ones:






We managed to get Tong to take a shot with Janice but I have to hold her still in order to do that, with me ending up in the picture as well -___-"


Out of Disney hotel after the photoshoot. Tong can ask me about the shuttle coach which she seen it last time. Clever girl she is.




Everyone present in the house (Weiming's In-laws' home) helped to decorate the place for the birthday party


The 2 bo liao dudes.....LOL


Family shot with Tong's favorite custom-made Hi-5 cake


Gadget display LOL


Singing the Birthday song to Tong...


Cutting the cake for everyone (not really, she just drop the first stroke :p)


One complete group photo to end the party :)

So I spent the rest of the weekend with the family for a game of Monopoly
Deal and roam around a shopping mall, chilling out and caught a movie there. I will say for this trip to celebrate Tong's birthday.....


IT ROCKS! LOL

New Zealand Trip 2009/2010 Part 5

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Salmon sashimi lunch bought from Salmon shop in Mackenzie district. Like I said earlier, awesome beyond words


Finally saw my fav muscle car in the flesh @ town of Twizel: the Ford Mustang. Simply classic.


YHA at Mount Cook



Hooker's Valley @ Mount Cook. It's a pretty long walk with strong wind blowing at ~100km/h. We turned back halfway due to uneven path and worry about parents' safety. (Well, got my trail walk kick at Kea Point later on :p)


What does this rock look like? (No prize for guessing right :p)



Alpine Monument, where some tablet bearing the names of climbers who had attempted to scale Mount Cook and perished. They have my respect. Trying to take steady shots of this site while 100km/h-wind trying to blow me off my balance is nothing compared to the feats these climbers had performed.


Closest view of Mount Cook a tourist can get. You have to take a 1-hour walk from YHA hostel to Kea Point and another hour back to hostel. Suffered a sore knee for a week when returned to Singapore.


Just love the traveler quotes in YHA


The locals who camps out uses this as toilet paper. Only available in higher grounds of NZ and trust me, it's soft like a tissue paper.


My sis just revealed how chilly Mount Cook area is (and it's Summer). The area is known for its unpredictable weather (can be sunny in one moment and rainy the next)


A Kea residing at the visitor centre. It's not shy at people at all.


Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo (One beautiful lake with greenish blue water)


Lake Tekapo view from inside the church


On our way back to Christchurch. Rumba likes to stick his head out of the car to enjoy the breeze.



Back to Kaikoara again, this time to try fantastic seafood feast from this stall. No, tourists don't come this far here, so we feel privileged to taste real authentic NZ seafood feast, thanks to Liam & Bee :D

So that's all folk, 2 weeks plus of awesome drive round the South Island, seeing much more than I ever did 6 years back. For more photos, you can always view them at my Flickr site by clicking this link:
NZ Trip 2010