Another great film

The wife and I watched, Lawless last night. This was a very good movie. Shia Laboeuf is great in it and I loved the setting. A quick prep: the film is set in prohibition Virgina where moonshine is flowing and the gangs of Chicago are killing each other over the profits. A small family of moonshiners, the Bondurants' are doing fine. They have an honest but tough reputation and are not interested in the gangs or their corrupt politicians. Especially not the police coming in setting up moonshine networks. As a consequence they are confronted with the corrupt police and have to respond accordingly.

This movie is based on a true story and a great book called, The Wettest County In The World. I recommend two things, one, read the book. Two, enjoy the movie, we did.

The Book

Samsung has released a hot new update for their Galaxy S2

If, like me you are a happy Galaxy S owner then you are about to get more happy, eh- or happier…
A pre-release of Samsung’s new JellyBean firmware 4.1.2 has just hit the net and it is smooth, real smooth. If you have a Galaxy S2 get out and test this Rom. I have been running it for a few days now and I love it. Google’s project Butter really shines here. This thing is fast, smooth as silk and has some really nice functionality built in. And most of all, it is nice to see that the S2 still has some fight left in him, and can be competitive on the market. With 4.1.2 installed my device feels like a new smooth handset. It is easily as smooth and the new quad core Tegra devices I have played with. The best is still yet to come. This is a pre-release, and is so smooth I just can’t imagine what the full release will bring. This is easily good enough as a daily driver- so read the instructions below, install it and have fun. Oh, and when the final comes, I’ll make sure you know. Below is news and details from Sammobile.
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We of SamMobile would like to give you the latest I9300XXLSJ Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean Test firmware for the Galaxy S II. I9100XXLSJ is the first ever Jelly Bean leak for the Galaxy S II and surprisingly it’s really stable as well. This TEST Firmware was leaked by Forum Member izap of XDA-Developers.
This build is very much near perfect so we believe that Samsung will actually start rolling out the Official Jelly Bean update for the Samsung Galaxy S II very soon. The day Samsung starts to roll out the official update you will be able to install the latest update through Kies or OTA update.
Some of the Enhancements in the new Jelly Bean Update:
- Buttery Smooth Performance & Great Stability (Thanks to Project Butter)
- New TouchWiz Nature UX (Same UI as of the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II)
- Samsung’s Cloud services
- Direct Call, Smart Stay and Pop-up Play Features
- New Widgets From the Galaxy S III
- 2 Home screen modes
- New Notifications bar
- Google Now

This is a PRE-RELEASE version so not official from KIES.
As this is a PRE-RELEASE firmware so expect some minor bugs.

Firmware Details: 
Android Version: 4.1.2 – JZO54K (Jelly Bean)
PDA: I9100XXLSJ
CSC: I9100OXXLS1
MODEM: I9100XXLS6
Changelist: 462349
Build Date: 6th November 2012

Download: http://www.sammobile.com/2012/11/15/i9100xxlsj-%E2%80%93-galaxy-s-ii-android-4-1-2-jelly-bean-test-firmware/

Happy Birthday Motorola Droid

Today marks the 1-year anniversary/birthday of the Motorola Droid. When we look back at the success of the Android platform over the last 12 months, a lot of the credit goes straight to the device that was the inspiration behind the current Android phone and Tablet line-up. The phone that took off with a brilliant marketing campaign, a huge holiday push, and as a choice for those not wanting to go to a certain other smartphone is one that shall never be forgotten.

Happy birthday Droid. We still love ya.

Android, One Mobile OS To Rule Them All

With Android moving onto tablets there is just no stopping this mobile operating system. As we celebrate Android's 2nd birthday I'm pleasantly surprised at how fast this OS was adopted. It's amazing the amount of buzz generated. Android based phones have surpassed all sales expectations and there is no end in sight. So what did Google do right and what are their next steps in securing their mobile empire... (Rubbing hands together rapidly)

What did Google do right -- just about everything. Google purchased a small company with a slick mobile OS and pampered and supported it though the initial transition phase into Google. Then they ensured success with an approach freedom, flexibility and openness. This was a simple recipe for success.

Next Google sunk bundles into marketing and quickly found mobile providers and hardware OEM’s to get one board. Once HTC and T-Mobile were in the game the odds for success went up dramatically. And once we saw the first release of combined hardware and software we were all surprised at what a solid package it was. Certainly not perfect, but none the less solid. It was instantly attractive to the technically savvy due to its open and free OS. Most young developers love freedom and they especially love free SDK’s and phones. Google started giving them out by the pallets and within months the apps started popping up.

Google quickly set up the Android AppStore with guidelines that makes Apple blush. Ah – how free and open it was, no big brother Apple monitoring, censoring and basically heavy handed controlling of everything. This brought even more developers- and they were coming on board in hordes.

Once the Hardware OEM’s got wind of a good mobile OS they could use for free – well, it’s not hard to figure out what happened next.

To be continued:

Android Games Getting Better - No Memory ?

As Android phones receive the wonderful game ports from iphone, we see the need to directly address the SD card. These new games are just amazing, with wonderful graphics and fast action play. They are also between 10 and 20 Mb in size.

With our 256 Mb limitation we desperately need SD access to ensure room for more games on one device. If I put 3-4 games on my Droid / Milestone I run out of space because my standard apps also take up space. This limitation needs to be addressed immediately!

The iphone can address all of it’s memory making it a great game tool. We have the same, if not faster speed and 3-D chip set, our screens are better, but we can only address the damn 256Mb.

Google, get busy and fix this major issue!