Another Android Scare

Yesterday I posted about my near-death experience with my Android tablet (Asus TF201) and how I was able to resurrect it.  I was very happy to have it back, flawed as it has been with slow response and buggy operation with Android 4.1.1.  Nonetheless, I wanted to be able to try other ROM's, just to see if I could make them work.  When I got home and took care of dinner and the dishes, I turned on the TV and sat down with my tablet, holding the power button and down vol  to boot into the bootloader menu.  I clicked over to the RECOVERY icon and it just gave me "the dead Android" image (Android laying down with a red triangle with "!" inside).  It would sit for a few minutes and then it would reboot.  Wash,rinse, repeat.    While the tablet worked, if something happened I would never be able to do anything with it without a proper recovery.

I searched online for a while and realized the issue was that the ORIGINAL ROM I flashed back to had overwritten the "Team Andwook" custom recovery image (heavily modified TWRP recovery image...I think the one I had was for ICS, not Jellybean) and caused the error.  I was a bit unsure of what to do (I am still learning about Android bootloaders, recovery images, boot images, and system images) so again I hit the web and found that TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project) has an archive of all their custom (and well reviewed) recovery images for my device.  All I needed to do was download the correct one (Jelly Bean) and use adb/fastboot to flash the new recovery image.

My tablet is not stock by any means (other than the system image), but TWRP is a good recovery image and now I can (probably) safely research other ROM's if I desire.  I know I will need to be more careful in the future but at least I am a bit smarter now.

Hey, this is how I learned about traditional Linux and Windows...trial and error.  Do you know how many times I have had to re-roll my home machines?

BTW, the  tablet seems to be running very fast now, faster than it ever has.  Time will tell if it stays that way but so far, so good.

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

I am the not-so-proud owner of a gently used, second had Asus TF201 Transformer Prime.  It was released in the US in December of 2011, making it 4 years old. It is my first and only tablet to date.  I was initially pleased with it but over time it has grown very sluggish.  I kept hoping Asus would release an update (it originally came with Honeycomb but was eventually upgraded to Jellybean (4,1.1).  The hardware is gorgeous but the software is  buggy and slow.  I wanted an upgrade.

I heard that once the bootloader was unlocked, it could be updated to a custom,  faster ROM from CyanogenMod so I began the process of doing updating to a customer ROM.  Word of warning kids, RTFM (read the friggin' manual) before you attempt to flash an Android tablet or phone.  Failure to do so could cause you grief.  At least it did for me.

I am not sure where the problem happened.  I unlocked the bootloader,  flashed in a third party one (Flatline), then copied the new ROM to my SD card.  When I booted my  TF201 in recovery mode, it did not recognize the SD card.  That was odd.  Oh well, I just hooked the tablet up to my PC and copied the files to the internal storage to install from.

I booted the tablet into recovery mode, installed the custom ROM, rebooted and .... nothing.  It was stuck at the bootloader screen.  It would not completely boot.

For about 2 weeks I tried to resurrect it and finally today I stumbled across the TWRP bootloader and used ADB to push it to the tablet.  I rebooted the tablet in recovery mode and I had a new bootloader...that had SD card support. So I put the SD card into my PC and copied the ORIGINAL ROM from Asus onto the card and booted back into recovery mode.  I pointed the bootloader to the new ROM to install and started the process.  For several minutes it did not seem to do anything.  Then the machine powered off.  No OS.  I  tried again, this time touching the screen every few seconds to keep it alive.  Finally it completed and even offered to Root my tablet for me.  Oddly enough it still said there was no OS installed but asked me if I wanted to reboot anyway.  I had nothing to lose so I rebooted.

The tablet cycled a few times then finally came to the Android setup screen.  I was back in business!

I don't use it all that much...mostly for books and for Candy Crush, plus watching videos, but I have been lost without it.  I keep it with me to check mail when my phone is charging plus I can surf the web if I need to.  Again, it is not fast but it is all I have.

Now that I have a proper bootloader, I am going to try the ROM's from CyanogenMod if this thing slows down like it did before.  I should be safe as long as I understand what I am doing when I do it :)

Not Much Has Changed

I know, it has been a while since my last update.  I have had a lot of things going on so now that things are simmering (not at a rolling boil) I figured I can make an update.

First off, we (me, wife, newish dog) drove the Taco to the pan handle of Florida for a week of leisure. The location was more for my wife than it was for me.  I like the mountains (you can take the boy out of WV, but you cannot take the WV out of the boy) but the wife likes the salt life so once a year she goes and sometimes I go with her.  A few times over the years she has gone with friends.  Suits me fine.

The week was nice overall.  We were 3 miles from the closest anything (food, entertainment, shopping) and 20 miles from our favorite places to eat.  I was glad I took my bike because not only was I able to keep up with the company sponsored fitness challenge, but I could do some Ingress (what little there was on the island) at the same time.

The trip was a chance for me to try out two new items I purchased on Amazon.  The first and most important was a tonneau cover for the Taco.  I picked up a tri-fold cover for $200 shipped, which was $50 cheaper than I had seen it before.  This was a different brand but  the reviews were all good.  It worked well enough but there is small gap in the back near the glass that caused some water to get in under the cover but it was minimal.

The second item was a bike mount for my mobile phone.  Playing Ingress on my bike is fun but without a mount, it is dangerous.  I have already wiped out once because of this.  The new mount worked very well and holds my Moto G quite securely.  The only complaint I have is the side mount blocks the "down" volume key but that is a minor issue.

The dog did well on the trip, mostly.  She became figitity after a few hours of driving so we had to stop to let her stretch her legs.  A few times she tried to climb up in the front seat,  which was dangerous but my wife,who was not driving at the time, took care of her.  The dog finally began to enjoy the water after only 3 trips to the beach.  She is a hound and we were not sure how she would adapt.  With no place to let her out to do her business, I had to walk her every time she needed out.  It was not too bad but she got me up most every morning at 4 or 5 AM to go out.  I just took my meds, grabbed my phone, a poop bag, and a flashlight (it is dark at our end of the island) and headed out. The one good  thing about the 4 or 5 AM nature call was I could sneak up and hake the portal that was just inside a private area.  During the day, if you crossed the line a guard in a nearby guard shack came out an ran you off, politely of course.  At 4 or 5 AM, it is too dark for him to see anyone 50 feet from his well lit shack, so I did my hacking there at those hours.  I have held that portal for about 3 weeks.  I am hoping to make it 60 days.  Mostly likely I will not, but I can dream.

Almost all  the Ingress portals on the island were in the center and we were at the farthest west public  part of the island.  Any further west was  private.  The far east end of the island is a state park with a few portals but since you have to pay each time you enter the park, I just stayed  out.  Only a small number of portals are there anyway.

So I hopped on my bike each morning and rode to the center of the island, hacked, linked, upgraded, and fielded the portals then rode home, putting in about 10 miles or so each morning.  Those rides, plus the ones I did at home (planing Ingress in evening in the town where I live) allowed me to meet my fitness challenge for biking (240+ miles for the month).

The food we had on this trip (mostly lunch since it was a little less expensive) was OK but not as good as I have had in the past.  I never had the chance to eat any scallops (my fav) but I did have some baked oysters a couple of times.  As a matter of fact, I had seafood every day that week.

Ingress Update:  I am at Level 11, with 6.6 million points.  For the first time since I started playing this, I am short  both points AND badges to level up again.  I currently need two more Gold badges and it looks like unless I either field and link like a madman or I go in search of a lot of new portals, it will be months before I level up again.  This folks, is where it starts getting hard.  I have reached Silver in almost all badges (that I am not already Gold or Platinum in) but I am quite a ways off from getting those two more Gold.

Since I have been busy with work, a week long vacation, a weekend camping trip, and other things, I have not been overly active on the weekends like I normally am.  I noticed a few of the other agents in the Resistance have started working in my neck of the woods,  which I am sure is driving Hockey Family crazy.  A large part of the city is blue and it appears the Hockey Family is fighting hard for a few portals nearby.  I can see HockeyMan does a lot of work south of us, where he works but I don't see any real farms (of any high level)  there.

Our little L7/L8 Cemetery was taken down again the other day.  What I find odd about that was it was not linked/fielded up so the toads would have to waste a lot of get for little return.  I usually avoid taking down farms that don't have links/fields because of this but maybe the people who took it out were bored.  They did not link it up and they did not defend it well so I am not sure of the reason  to take it out.  I had a few L6 XMP's to spare so I unleashed those to kill some resonators (working for my badge) but left it mainly untouched.  Hopefully the people who took it out will continue to battle for it...I could use the points.

One nice thing about my vacation was it allowed me to farm a lot.  I am not sure why but when I farmed lower level (3-5) portals, I got a lot of shields and a surprisingly large number of AXA's and ADA's...enough that I have been using them to flip portals instead of wasting my supply L8 XMP's. There have been a couple I have flipped more than once, simply because I can.  I will slow down when I get low, which might take a while since I have accumulated so many.

I have been farming as much as I can and hacking any portal that I come across, even if it is low level.  Farming nothing but high level portals only gets you high level gear and believe me you will want some L4 Reso's if you run out!  I am currently holding on to several L3 and L4 reso's to help fill our portals.

The biggest surprise for me was all the MUFG containers I have gotten in the past 3 weeks.  I had (at one time)  11.  I know it is just a random chance but it sure has been interesting.  Of course I just recycled most of them...how many can I actually use?

My  ALS has not been bothering me much but my hand is getting weaker and I noticed my left leg slightly give out on me when I tried to run across the street.  That was a little scary but I did not fall.  I just stumbled a little and recovered.

Well, the hand is tired so  I need to give it a break.