I have recently spent much time researching and experimenting for a solution to a problem with the Flash component UIScrollBar where the scrollbar shows up only as a rectangle – no up or down arrow, and no thumb slider. The dynamic text can be scrolled by using the mouse wheel scroll once you click inside the text field. The publish settings for the project was ActionScript 2.0 and for Flash Player 8.
My searches on Google turned up nothing really pertinent or useful. So here is how I resolved the issue. Somehow, the setting “Export frame for Classes” among settings for Actionscript 2.0 was set to 5 which worked before when the project was being published for ActionScript 1. And now, the project was being published for AS2 and used a relatively newer UIScrollBar component, this setting made the component not to work. Changing it from 5 to 1 fixed the problem with the UIScrollbar component for me.
Tags: actionscript, AS2, component, flash, uiscrollbar
The Telus outlet in Scarborough Town Center is not answering calls and I cannot leave a message because their voice mail box is full. Guess there are many unhappy customers calling for help. Stay away from Telus if you can wait for other carriers to offer Milestone. These days I totally cannot use my “new phone”, even when plugged. Arghhhhhh!
Tags: Android, Milestone, mobility, Motorola, phone, problem, telus
In a week and half since Milestone became available from Telus stores in Canada, I went from the awe and joy of being able to blog straight from the phone to the despair of not being able to use my phone on the road or anywhere without a power outlet. Basically my phone is on life support – it has to be always plugged with the charge cable; when it is unplugged, a few minutes of use or even seconds sometimes, the phone will switch off with no warning, and I cannot power it on by long-pressing the power button. The only way to get it back to life is to plug it to an external power source. And even when plugged with the charge cable, there is no guarantee that I can use it – it still sometimes shuts off automatically, triggered by a simple action like sliding the bar to unlock the screen.
Here is the chronology of the problems that I ran through since I owned the phone. On the first day, things seemed mostly OK, although I did notice that the phone rebooted by itself. That is even before I tried to install any application. I dismissed it as a freak occurrence. In the next few days, I noticed the phone would power off sporadically, but I was able to power it on when I found out it was off. I was always monitoring the power level of the battery all through these days. And there is no way it was because I did not charge it. Since a couple of days ago, I was not able to turn the phone on when I found it was off. Again, the only way is to plug it into externa power source.
The wierd thing is that when the phone is on life support, I can turn it on and check its battery level, it would report a high level like 90% mostly, 80% a few times. And yet, as soon as it is unplugged, it will soon turn itself off. When that happens and I plug it in, the screen will display the Motorola logo for a moment, and then display an almost drained battery – a red battery at 5%. A few seconds later, it will show the battery at 20%, and then in what seems like less than a minute, it willl show a battery at 60%, and it will stay at 60% for a long time. And if I power the phone on at this point, the home screen will show the battery at 90% and charging. I think some of these reading must be wrong because they conflict with each other. I don’t really think the battery can be charged from 5% to 60% in a minute or so. And if I disconnect the charge cable, try to use phone for a bit, the phone will go dead suddenly without any warning, and I cannot turn the phone on without first putting it on “life support”. Somewhere the system must be getting the battery information wrong. I certainly tried to take out the battery and put it back in and then try to power it on. A few times, I could and other times that did not work. And even if it worked, the phone would still switch off by itself very soon. Finally, I wanted to check whether there is the correct voltage from the battery. I found that there is voltage of 3.9v only from two out of the four contacts – the outside contacts. I thinking the battery is dead. But why so soon?
I am also very annoyed at the support quality from the Telus outlet in the Scarborough Town Center. The support people don’t have the tools to test the battery and they don’t even have a replacement or even a test battery that is known to be good. This keeps customers having to come back and wait and come back and wait some more. What they should be doing on the spot is to test the battery to eliminate battery out of the equation or find fault with it. At minimum, replace the battery with a good one for the customer. That can either fix the issue for the customer for good, or if the customer comes in again, at least you know it is most likely not a battery issue. The only thing the service folks did was to suggest wiping the phone clean and resetting it to factory settings as they suggest some applications may be causing conflicts or something. But look, have some common sense, if the phone is not starting, the applications are not running, how can they have conflicts when they are not running? Well, theoretically there is some possibility, but most likely it is a power issue. At least start with the easy things to look at like the battery. Resettings everything will cause the customer to lose hours of work like entering todos and lots more. These service people seem incompetent and ill-equipped; the one thing I praise them for is they stay calm, but they don’t solve problems and keep you coming back and wait. I finally got him to order a replacement battery for me, and it will take 7 business days to arrive. How inefficient these people are.
Hopefully, the battery to come will resolve the issue. What if it does not, is my months of waiting and holding high expectations for the release of Milestone going to end as a big disappointment?
I am in awe as I write my fisrt post from my new Milestone. The WordPress Android app works so well. I love the real hardware keyboard, so much better than iPhone’s tiny virtual keyboard that I tried today at the BestBuy store. Some say that Motorola should remove the navigation key on the right; I thought the same until I got this phone and actually tried to write something. I say “No, No, No, I can’t do without the navigation key to move around in my text. So Motorola, you made the right decision to place the nav key there on the right.”
I am so happy with my Motorola Milestone. Now I need to learn to touch-type with my two thumbs. It is hard but still possible.
Tags: Milestone, Motorola, smartphone
Google has been a great IT startup that have grown steadily over the years, even during the down times of a recession, to reach its zenith. In my circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, there is no one that I can think of that does not use Google for search. I think Google has reached this kind of dominant market share in Americas, Europe, and pretty much every country on all continents, with a few exceptions like China. When a search company has reached that kind of market share, where would be the room for its future growth? Naturally, from the exceptions where it is still not dominant.
And yet, it made this ridiculous blunder of demanding not to abide by Chinese laws and yet wishing to operate within the border of this sovreign country. I would say the majority of Chinese people within China and overseas have been offended and alienated by this move. Additionally, it unwisely brought into focus its role as an cyber intelligence gathering tool for the US, as an arms from the IT sector to subtly imbue US ideology and values and manipulate public opinion in foreign countries. All this, combined with the revelation about its partnership with the spy agency, has put sovreign countries, not just China, on the alert as to whether it is wise to open their doors wide-open for such an company.
All of these events that happened would make it harder for Google to expand in foreign countries where it does not have a dorminant market share currently, at a time when it needed just that for room to further growth. Now it looks like, due to its own bloated ego and folly, January 12, 2010 might turn out to be the turning point in its own growth path – that is, when you have reached the top, there is only one way to go, Down. This is because the Google China event would serve to close the door for Google’s ambitions in China, the country in the world that has the most internet users. And not just that, other countries watching the drama unfold would also likely to put up road blocks (perhaps in a low-key manner) and put Google’s operations in their territory under harsher scrutiny. And I am sure those harsher scrutinies and regulations won’t bode well for Google at all. Google’s stock price has so far served as pretty good indicator of such a trend – that January 12 was a turning point.
Some analysts and so-called China experts say that China’s government did not have any harsh reactions or words for Google, so they must be wanting to down play the Google incident and want a compromise with Google so it won’t leave the country, so it will not damage the government’s image, or so it will not lag behind by technologies. These “experts” need to be fired on the spot because they have been stealing their employers money with shoddy work and incompetence. It’s obvious they don’t understand China at all. To my knowledge, so many of the so called China experts don’t even speak or read the language, have not visited the country in the past ten years, and only get their information from a biased, propaganda-driven sources, contributed to probably by many people with similar incompetence. So many predictions and intelligence reports have been wrong on China. The worst of such horrible intelligence on China was the conclusion some 60 years ago that China would not dare to fight the US in Korea war in any meaningful way. And the cost of such shoddy work was the loss of tens of thousands of US soldiers’s lives and almost a million wounded soldiers on a remote peninsula in a war that could not be won.
The truth is China’s government did not have any really harsh words and only had mild reaction in the public statements, not because they feared Google would leave, but because Chinese rarely would ever say anything extreme. Not like the ultimatum delivered by Google. All things said by Chinese government leaves room for interpretation, even when they would be really glad to see Google pack up and leave. So please, Google, wise up and fire your swindling incompetent advisors, and don’t be evil. Remember?
Tags: geopolitics
