Well, I’ve gotten over that phase where I’m wowed by everything the Instinct can do, and now it’s just… my phone. I’m hoping to find some cool tricks I can still get it to do, but there’s not a lot of explored territory here. I’d love to get Android or Linux booted on this thing, but I’d be going at it from scratch.
I’ve been messing with my Instinct a lot today, and while I was successful in getting some things to work, other things did not.
Since the MR-4 update, there have been a number of third party apps that will now function on the Instinct. The most notable is Opera Mini, which blows the included browser out of the water. The next app that I managed to get working was Palringo, an instant messaging application.
Unfortunately, the list of apps that work well on the Instinct is very short. I was able to get MGMaps working only after enabling developer access on my phone, and I got an older version of Google Maps running as well. One app I wanted to get working was Strands, as it apparently supports scrobbling songs to Last.fm.
I’ll post again if I get anything of interest working.
This file has been sitting on my server for a little while now, so I figured I’d post the link.
Core i7 is out, so needless to say I’ve been lurking on Newegg even more than usual lately. As much as I’d love to build the new uber-machine, on some level I realize that I don’t really need it. With the exception of the CPU, everything in my current rig is pretty nice (the CPU will probably be replaced with a Q6600 once the prices drop a little bit more), and I’ve yet to really tax this machine.
Should be interesting to see how long I can hold out on sinking more money into a newer machine, but I’m hoping I can hold out at least past the release of Nehalem’s 32nm successor.
A few days ago, I got a final offer to return to VMware next semester. I’ll be flying out early January and starting on the 12th.
A few days ago, I finally broke down and got a new phone. I settled on the Samsung Instinct, because I didn’t want to switch to another carrier. I’ve had it now for just over a week, so I thought I’d type up some of my initial thoughts.
My primary use of my cell phone is text messaging, because I can use it to manage and receive updates from Twitter, Facebook, and Google (including Google Calendar), so it was my first concern. At first, I was hesitant about going with a touchscreen keyboard, but I have been pleasantly suprised with the Instinct. The phone vibrates just a bit whenever a button is pressed giving it a little bit of tactile feedback. The on screen keyboard is also very accurate, and I rarely mistype on it.
The next feature that sold me on this phone was the GPS navigation (though a lot of Sprint phones are capable of that). Turn by turn directions are very good, and the rest of the phone also makes good use of the GPS location feature.
The phone has also replaced my iPod as my primary mp3 player. While the iPod is still a superior player, it’s not enough to warrant carrying two devices. It came with a 2GB MicroSD card, but I’ve ordered an 8GB card that should give me plenty of storage.
I’ll be writing some more in-depth thoughts on the phone over the next few days, for now I have to head to sleep.