(no subject)
Aug. 17th, 2007 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saint_monkeyNew e-conomy hype = dot com bubble
dot com collapse = interest rate cuts by fed
interest rate cuts = housing bubble
housing bubble collapse = discount cut
discount cut = ???
In other news. I 'upgraded' my phone to a razr v3xx, only to find that every single button on the damn thing was charging me for data access, and there were no configuration options to change any of the menu choices. Plus the thing was completely loaded down with demo applications that literally, worked for a second before closing, *and* some of them accessed the internet, which was costing me the data transfer rates.
I was really kind of angry about this, after all, I bought this actual phone, it's mine, and yet every aspect of it is locked down and tied into some network, and dedicated to nickel and diming me to death? This will not do, (and incidently, an example of why any hope for intelligent devices and robots that actually *serve* the consumer in the future, is ill advised. Motorola may make one some day, but AT&T will cut its balls off.) Fortunately, Motorola has a really robust hobbyist-developer community, and a wealth of support files are available on their message boards. A lot of the phone is locked down by firmware controls. (For example, the phone resists being completely overwritten, (or as it is known in the phone community: "flashed.") it reboots if you try to install new software. Imagine if you purchased a PC with Windows on it, and when you tried to load redhat, it rebooted itself and restarted with Windows? Microsoft would be back in anti-trust court in a moment!) But much of the phone is still user configurable, but the menus and settings that control the useful functions are disabled in the software, and you are stuck with "Cingular Video" on your main menu instead of "My Pictures" or whatever else you choose.
So, thank goodness for the internet. I was able to get my IT guy to install a Motorola provided driver on my work PC, and I downloaded a phone editing tool, unlocked and deleted all the demo crap, and overwrote the phone's AT&T branded menu file with the standard stock Motorola menu file for the v3xx, which lets you configure everything to your liking. Not a complete software overhaul, just a selective edit of the menu portion of the software. So all those data apps are still there, but now I can't launch them by mistake.
So the short of it is, it takes an additional 4 hours of labor to actually *own* the phone you purchased.
dot com collapse = interest rate cuts by fed
interest rate cuts = housing bubble
housing bubble collapse = discount cut
discount cut = ???
In other news. I 'upgraded' my phone to a razr v3xx, only to find that every single button on the damn thing was charging me for data access, and there were no configuration options to change any of the menu choices. Plus the thing was completely loaded down with demo applications that literally, worked for a second before closing, *and* some of them accessed the internet, which was costing me the data transfer rates.
I was really kind of angry about this, after all, I bought this actual phone, it's mine, and yet every aspect of it is locked down and tied into some network, and dedicated to nickel and diming me to death? This will not do, (and incidently, an example of why any hope for intelligent devices and robots that actually *serve* the consumer in the future, is ill advised. Motorola may make one some day, but AT&T will cut its balls off.) Fortunately, Motorola has a really robust hobbyist-developer community, and a wealth of support files are available on their message boards. A lot of the phone is locked down by firmware controls. (For example, the phone resists being completely overwritten, (or as it is known in the phone community: "flashed.") it reboots if you try to install new software. Imagine if you purchased a PC with Windows on it, and when you tried to load redhat, it rebooted itself and restarted with Windows? Microsoft would be back in anti-trust court in a moment!) But much of the phone is still user configurable, but the menus and settings that control the useful functions are disabled in the software, and you are stuck with "Cingular Video" on your main menu instead of "My Pictures" or whatever else you choose.
So, thank goodness for the internet. I was able to get my IT guy to install a Motorola provided driver on my work PC, and I downloaded a phone editing tool, unlocked and deleted all the demo crap, and overwrote the phone's AT&T branded menu file with the standard stock Motorola menu file for the v3xx, which lets you configure everything to your liking. Not a complete software overhaul, just a selective edit of the menu portion of the software. So all those data apps are still there, but now I can't launch them by mistake.
So the short of it is, it takes an additional 4 hours of labor to actually *own* the phone you purchased.
