Olografix Tech Blog

It seems the SGS (Samsung Galaxy S) Vibrant on Bell is running into Internal SD failures. It is a problem  reported by many and they have to send their phone in for repair (4-5 weeks they are told!!). I thought I was in the same boat (and maybe I am). After a call I received, I put the phone down and all of a sudden it started vibrating randomly. So I wake it and it keeps on vibrating. Then, I start seeing "Force Closed" messages for different apps. Can't open Facebook app, Twitter and even can't manage applications. I knew of the Internal SD problems so I figured I was doomed. I shutdown the phone, even then the phone was vibrating, odd. I restarted. No dice. I got pass the Samsung animation and the screen went black and more vibrations (is this why they call it the Vibrant?). I pull the battery and figure I'll try recovery mode. So I press Volume Up + Home + Power for about 10-15 seconds (past the Samsung intro screen) and am presented with the recovery op...

This was something else to setup. Not because of Android, but because of software developed by Samsung called Kies. Kies is a pretty sad piece of code, it takes ages to install, requires .NET framework, takes ages to open and provides features that you'll never use when you plug your phone to your computer. These features are possible from your phone anyhow, that's why you got a smartphone, right? I got the dreaded "MTP Application" error that could not install. It just kept looping and would not recognize my Galaxy S. Well the problem seems to reside in filenames with extension that contain more than 16 characters after the last period. That's right, as much as it seems ridiculous, it seems to be true! Someone wrote a program to find those Evil  files. And here  are the instructions I found to make this happen. If that download link does not work, Google " FileSearcherforKiesFix.zip " and you can find it easily. In the end, I still had to factory rese...

I know this cannot be correct, but still, it is my theory right now! But seriously, what I did notice when being in the US (Philadelphia area) is that cell reception seems to be much better than what we have here (Montreal). I had my Samsung Galaxy S set to disable data roaming of course so maybe that made a difference too and would  have access to wireless data when at different family member houses. I am presuming that because there is better cellular service, the phone does not have to "look as hard" to find a network and maybe this saves battery. What I did do recently is purchase a few alternative power cables. I now plugin at work, at home at night and in the car on long travel. It is very seldom that I run out of juice now. But to get back to my "battery lasting longer", it seems to be true. For example, I forgot to plugin last night so the phone was unplugged from 4:30pm to when I picked it up in the morning (7am) and I check my battery and it was at 84%...