模擬其他國家的 Android Market

Twitter 上見到 Fable III 有 Android 手機上可玩的 mobile app, 但香港的 Android Market 無法下載,唯有「走後門」:

注意:以下方法必須先 root 機

  1. 先下載及安裝 MarketAccess
  2. 去 Wikipedia 找出想要模擬的電訊商的編號 (將 MCC 及 MNC 連起來就是),例如: UK Vodafone 的編號是 23415
  3. 開啟 MarketAccess, 先按 “Backup Value”, 跟著在 “Custom” tab 輸入想模擬的電訊商編號, 按 “Set to this value”
  4. 開啟 Market, 應該發現貨幣單位已經轉換
  5. 想變回原狀,只要開啟 MarketAccess, 在 “Settings” tab 按 “Restore Value” 即可 (或 reboot 都可以,除非你選了 “Emulate on boot”)

註:

  • 想 download Fable III Kingmaker, 轉成 UK Vodafone, 去 Market 搜索 “Kingmaker” 就可找到
  • 我在 Kingmaker 裡無法「插旗」。各位知道怎樣做的話,煩請相告。

Applications on my Android phone

自從 HTC Magic 由本地一間無線電話網絡商大規模宣傳後,越來越多人用。我自從去年末已開始用 T-Mobile G1 (當然係水貨啦), 試過不少 Android platform 的軟件,為仍留在我手機中的程式,作個記錄 (不定期更新):

last updated : 24 August 2009

  • 1337pwn.com Xbox Live Friends List — Xbox 360 玩家必備
  • aCurrency — 外幣匯率
  • Advanced Task Killer Free — easily kills apps to free RAM
  • AK Notepad — Best notepad on Android platform
  • Anobiit — Anobii 用家 / 「打書釘」愛好者必備
  • AppManager — backup apps to SD card
  • Astrid — Best to-do list on Android; sync with Remember The Milk
  • ASTRO File Manager — very useful file manager
  • Babbler Lite — best Facebook app
  • Barcode Scanner — MUST HAVE; some applications (e.g. Anobiit) depend on it
  • Battery Widget — battery status on your home screen
  • Bookmark Backup & Restore — backup & restore browser bookmarks on SD card
  • Bookmarker — rearrange browser bookmarks
  • Chinese Eastcalendar — 農曆 (簡體中文版)
  • Doubandroid — 豆瓣 app
  • FonMaps — check FON hotspots near you
  • GeoBeagle — Geocaching 愛好者必備
  • Google Maps v.3.1.2 — self-explanatory
  • GPS Status 2
  • Hi MSN — Windows Live Messenger on Android
  • Hong Kong Weather Alert
  • HKTV Guide — developed by 小影; TV programs list
  • jjReader — nice e-book reader
  • Layar — Augmented Reality program
  • Maize HKG — 高登討論區讀者/用家必備
  • Mark Six Widget — 六合彩 widget
  • NewsRob — RSS reader, sync with Google Reader
  • NubiNews 大牛新聞 — 中港台新聞
  • Picsay — Photo Editor
  • Places Directory — shows interesting places around you
  • Pluroid — Plurk client
  • Qik — streaming live video to Qik
  • Quickpedia — Wikipedia client
  • Radar — some application (e.g. GeoBeagle) make use of this
  • Shazam — identify music tracks
  • SMS Backup — backup SMS to your Gmail account
  • Sticky Memo Widget Lite — “post-it” on your home screen
  • Swapper — set up swap partition/file; Root access required
  • TwitterRide — best Twitter client on Android (in terms of resources)
  • Useful Switchers — MUST HAVE!!! easiest way to change system settings
  • Weather Widget – Free — best (free) weather program (IMHO)
  • WikiMobile — Wikipedia client
  • Wikitude — Augmented Reality program
  • WordMate — dictionary; supports StarDict dictionary
  • wpToGo — WordPress client
  • 流動巴士版圖 1.03 — routes of Hong Kong buses (not available in Market, downloaded from the above link)

Firefox 1.5 & del.icio.us plugin

Firefox finally released its major upgrade version 1.5 today. Do you want this upgrade? Yes, but I do not say it with much enthusiasm.

The first thing I noticed is nothing of the software itself, but the change of the domain name of the project website from mozilla.org to mozilla.com. The new domain name would definitely meet the project’s new marketing strategy.

Looking at its release note, the new stuff in this upgrade are not that attractive. Features like “drag and drop reordering of tabs” have been achieved by extensions (e.g. Tab Mix Plus). The support for newer web standards like CSS3 should be interesting, only if they could show me where I can find a website demonstrating these new standards. Other improvements regarding bug-reporting or automated update are more subtle to the eyes of ordinary users like me.

One of the factors to consider before upgrade is whether the existing extensions are still available. In this aspect Firefox 1.5 does a great job. The only one that cannot work after upgrade is Bookmark Synchronizer. But it should not be missed because of a new tool.

This new, “Featured” tool is the del.icio.us extension. It adds a new item to both the menubar and the right-click menu for easy tagging with the del.icio.us service. This extension immediately reminds of Flock, a browser which is promoted for its integration with tagging and blogging. Flock is obviously superior to the Firefox del.icio.us extension in terms of outlook and user-friendliness. But since Flock is still under development stage, it will be much more secured to use Firefox.

No matter what you are looking for, as long as you avoid using IE, you will be fine.

OpenOffice.org 2.0

 Get OpenOffice.org 2.0 OpenOffice.org 2.0 finally released on 20th October, with numerous new features, including a database software Base, better PDF export, 65536 rows in spreadsheet (one of the most critcised drawbacks in v.1.x, but it never bothers me).

Although I am still using the word processor from that company, I exclusively use OpenOffice.org on my own laptop for a long time, and I have tested beta versions of ooo 2.0 and found it satisfactory.

With the hardware-demanding Windows Vista (together with the new Office, of course) coming next year, ooo will become more attractive to SME.

But you are accustomed to Chinese interface, you will have to wait for the language pack (the English version can handle Chinese).

The Register: OpenOffice challenges Microsoft on XML standards

Saving Windows Media Video Streams

I often get questions like “Why can’t I download the movie trailer from that website?” Because the links on those website only point to video stream files, so the users could not get the video files directly by right-click-and-save-as. Video streams come in various formats, one of which is, of course, Windows Media (ususally with an extension of .asx or .asf). SDP Downloader is a nice little utility to get around this problem.

Previously I used ASF Recorder, but I cannot find its website anymore, except the one with SourceForge.

Another common video-streamling format is QuickTime. It used to be easy to download QuickTime streams: you only need to change the QuickTime Player settings to allow it saving a copy of the temporary file, and then you can make a copy from the “Temporary Internet Files” directory. But I am not able to do the same with the new QuickTime 7.

Reference:
Streaming Media Reccording – a comprehensive list of softwares for downloading audio / video streams. (I haven’t tried them all … those in the QuickTime section will be my first targets).