Now let’s talk about this Huawei Mediapad, also known in the USA as the T-Mobile Springboard. The first impressions are very positive, the build quality is surprisingly good. The aluminum body gives the device a excellent look and feel. Just two plastic pieces for the antennas (where the back camera is located) and the let you access the SIM card and microSD slots are present if you want to use the 3G or expend the 16Gb of internal storage.

Screen: the screen resolution of the tablet is 1280×800 like on most 10″ tablets available on the market, this high resolution compressed in this small form factor gives the image a sharpness that only the iPad3 would not be jealous about. Also the IPS technology used for the screen gives this device excellent viewing angles as well as a very good image quality, colors and contrast.

GPS: I personally use CoPilot because the software perfectly adapt to all devices’ resolutions and also because I prefer to have all the maps on-board and not pay for additional data usage. Using it on the Mediapad was a pleasure, the fix was fast, no disconnection and very reactive.

Camera: Probably the weakest point of this device. The two cameras are to be used ONLY as a last resort. The front camera will be perfect for Skype but font ask any more than that. The images are poor in color and contrast, very grainy and the absence of flash will not help you in case of low light conditions.

4G: As for T-Mobile in the USA, we have to be clear, this is not a REAL 4G device but a boosted 3G (HSPA+) now does it matters? Yes, and no… what I care is not the technology used but the speed I can browse the web or access my files online and here, nothing to complain, T-Mobile is doing an excellent job providing a stable and speedy network.

Interface: Here two versions, the orginal Mediapad providing a 99.9% Google experience and the Springboard a T-Mobile branded Google Experience, with its load of bloatware and apps that most of us really don’t need. the good thing is that you can remove most of it, but most is not all…

Also on the T-Mobile side of things, no Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) has been announced while the international twin tablet already has it. T-Mo you really, REALLY have to wake up and do something about that.

Power Supply: Here is something I found disappointing first but… the power supply uses a specific connector to charge the tablet and this is in my opinion very bad. A lot of effort was done on phone to standardize to microUSB and the same should be done with tablets. Indeed why can’t manufacturers agree on such a simple thing that each of them come with their own connector or power cable that can be used for only on devices? If there is a reason, I want to know it.

Anyways, it is not all bad. Indeed after leaving my tablet plugged to my computer (using the microUSB cable) for an hour, I realized my tablet was charging… I decided to give it a try and plugged it over night on my USB charger and in the morning… the tablet was fully charged. I don’t understand why Huawei or T-Mobile don’t let you know that, maybe to sell you a new charger but beware, you don’t have to.

Support: I had several phone calls with Huawei in the USA, and I have to admit, the person I talk to was friendly, willing to help and knowledgeable (the rarest quality in all Help-desks I had to talk to). Of course, you’ll need to have your invoice in you need repair (why?? why don’t all companies have a system like Dell or Apple to know your warranty status based on the serial) and they do not seem to be as fast as HTC for shipping and fixing, but they will help you and that is not always the case.

Community: Here is the second weakness of this device (probably due to its lack of popularity), the community for this device is not very active and even CWM is not fully functional, a shame because this small tablet is really worth it in my opinion. Still we have root"root" is the default username/account created by linux/unix OS. The "root" is the administrator of the machine, it can run all commands and can access any files. access and an easy way to install ICS even on the SpringBoard.

To conclude this tablet is a great choice for those who want a speedy and updated tablet with a great screen, a more than decent battery life and 3G+ capabilities. It will replace my HTC Flyer (due to the lack of support from HTC) but I am very happy about that, the only thing I would miss is the pen, for the rest Huawei did a great piece of hardware.

It seems this is a forgotten engineering tool and it should have been removed in the production rom but still be aware and careful when you install any new app. Please, read the statement from shabbypenguin:

problem is as you can see from the pastebin all it requires is just a simple password and rooted shell is handed over…at this time there is no evidence to even support that this can even remotely being activated, however this is a big security concern regardless. for all intents and purposes this could be a debugging tool left in, however just seems oddly convenient for multiple software versions on separate phones on separate carriers

Of course, in front of this huge security risk, ZTE promised a quick patch to resolve this problem but in the mean time I invite you to be extremely cautious!

It is a general (but WRONG) belief that doing a full wipe or your phone using the internal “Factory Reset” is going to make your data unavailable for the future owner of your device. Tools like Recuva and plenty of others will allow any user with a minimum of knowledge to retrieve most of your precious data.

Why is that? Let’s me explain you quickly. When you “wipe” your device, you basically do the same as a quick format on your computer, you delete the file system. The file system is basically the way “data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device(s) which contain it“.

Basically, when you wipe your device, you don’t delete the files you just delete the “table of content” giving the appearance to the OS that the drive is empty while it is NOT.

Fortunately a lot of tools also allow you to protect you from that. Those tools will randomly write data on your data partitions, making information extremely or impossible to retrieve depending on the algorithm you use and also the time you have.

The more secure the algorithm is the longer it takes to wipe the drive but also the safer your data is!

I strongly invite you to check those tools, they will protect your private life and allow you to cell your smartphone without the fear to give your holidays pictures with it

1. Disk Wipe: Portable, no installation needed, uses several advanced shredding algorithms (Dod 5220-22.M, US Army, Peter Guttman) to securely wipe data, supports all popular Windows file systems, NTFS, Fat, Fat32.
2. Eraser: advanced security tool for Windows that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann’s paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory and are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive
3. Freeraser: function on three levels:
1. a fast destruction (standard 1-round filling of random data)
2. a forced destruction (3 rounds of filling according to DoD 5220.22M standard)
3. an ultimate destruction (35 rounds of filling with data according to Guttman algorithm).

Let me know if you’re using any other tool and feel free to leave your comments.

Now how does it work, every time you turn on your phone, like every in network a hand shake is made between your device and the network you are trying to connect to, in this case your phone provider. During this hand shake, the IMEI as well as your SIM card details are sent and checked. at least that is the theory. This means also that your provider knows every simple time you switch your SIM card from a phone to another.

In Europe, a lot of countries already have a system in place to share a blacklist of stolen phones, the list of participating countries can be found here.  Unfortunately so far, the USA was not on this list and stolen phones could be used in the US without any problem or risk for the thief. The good news is that it is about to change and people suffering of being ripped off will at least have the consolation their devices will not be able to be used and this is why carriers agreed:

Wireless carriers agreed to disable stolen smartphones after pressure from U.S. regulators and a police chief who told the industry “shame on you” for not helping to stem a spike in violent robberies.

But, this is partially true, in Europe the problem being seen is that we’ve seen a migration of the stolen items to countries that were not using this database to check on the device used allowing full benefits from a stolen device. So if this decision is already a good step forward from the North American carriers it is still far from being perfect and the GSM Association should enforce some rules and policies to all members.

Let me know what you think and if you believe it is going to stop larceny.

So here I go driving, GPS on my tablet and plugged to my car charger when the tablet is cordial enough to let me know that the charger does not provide enough power to recharge the tablet while I am driving. And indeed when I arrive at destination I realize my tablet lost 25% of power. So here I am looking at the original charger of my device to realize that it need 1.67A and 9V (against the 0.5A / 5V provided by any “normal” car charger).

I read a bit on the web and learn that some car chargers can provide 2.1A and charge iPads. Happy to read that I am going to the closest electronic store to buy one of those, go back home take my car keys and decide to give it a try! No luck, the charger states 10W (probably 2A and 5V). Anyways I don’t give up and decide to buy three other ones, different brands, different packaging but same results. No way, how come, why me?!

First let’s do the maths: Watts = Amps x Volts so my HTC Flyer needs 15W to charge (it does not when not in use but with GPS and phone functions on, it seems to be energy-vore. All the chargers I tried had a USB output of 10.5W (5V @ 2.1A).

Now I don’t really understand, this seems to be enough to charge an iPad (every version) but not a Flyer, it just does not seem possible to me, so back on Google looking for the WHY and it seems the answer is actually quite clear and disappointing: the charger is “talking” to the device and if it is not an Apple product it only delivers 5V @ 1A. Really ????? So why is it not CLEARLY STATED ON THE PRODUCT???

Sony, HTC, Toshiba, Samsung and all others, can’you agree on ONE AND ONLY ONE way to charge our tablets as it was done for the phones? It will produce several things that I am sure you never expected:

1. Be nice to the environment and produce less plastic material and helps recycling
2. Make your customers happy as they will not have to buy new accessories for every new device
3. Help you spend less as you will not have to create device specific accessories
4. Allow the accessory market to actually take off, let me explain
1. if Apple has so many manufacturers building for their devices it is because they all use the same connections and they don’t need to reinvent the wheel when new devices are launched
2. if Android does not have the same kind of ecosystem, it is because manufacturers can’t agree on a single way to make devices communicate, charge or simply place the USB port on a single agreed location

So tell me about your personal experience with your device and those car chargers and let me know if you find a solution other than buying the HTC specific cable.

Some of you may actually do the same thing and if you are familiar with what I am talking about you probably also know Titanium Backup or MyBackup Pro. Unfortunately those two tools are not free if you want to do batch backup and batch re-install of your apps.

One down side of using a application on you device is also the fact that you have you backup locally, if you loose your phone, your backup is gone and you can also only restore on the device where the app is installed and where the backup has been done.

APK Batch Installer is the Windows based tool solves most of these issues:

1. Plug your phone to your PC
2. Start APK Batch Installer
3. Choose “Batch backup APKs” – you can choose to backup the data too
4. Select the location where to backup

The dev could not have done something easier and more practical to use. This tool is the most simple and useful Android backup solution have have yet used. The restore function is as simple and let you choose what to restore.

The batch rename function is great to have your APKs stored with a name you can actually understand and do some clean up if needed.

A few thing missing to make it perfect but this is already a must have!

If GMail is free is because they grant Google the right to spy on every single email you write and receive. Google Docs, same things, they are reading your files in order to know you better and send you relevant  advertisement.

Did you ever wonder why Google+ forces you to put your real name? It is simply because they want to know who you really are to profile you even more efficiently.

So now, let get back to this new patent from the Mountain View firm! They want to listen the background noise from your cellphone to serve you better advertisement!!

Imagine, you are in a farm, your phone can hear the sound of this cow next to you and serve you with some advertisement on milk or veterinarian… Same thing, you are home having “fun” with your partner(s??) and Google sending you ads for condoms… Not sure I like the idea and of course Google is not describing it like that but this is the idea. Listen to background noise to send targeted ads.

Where is the limit? I don’t really know and I have to admit, I dream of the day where those Google, Facebook, Apple and others will have a REAL privacy policy.

Look around the multitude of service Google is proposing you, they store your pictures, straight from your phone (is you use G+ and authorize it) or using Flickr, they analyses them, faces, places, weather conditions and God knows what else, they read your email, they also know your friends and your “circles”, if you have an Android phone, they know where you are and when you are there. With  Google Voice, they know your voice messages and study your voice-mail messages, soon, they will be listening too everything around you…

Now remember, if a private company gives you something for free, you are going to have to give up something, in this case, more of your privacy, ready for this?

I invite you to watch the following video pointed by Android and Me

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Slaves of a new time… Smartphones’ users become slaves of their “toys” and we ask for more…

This morning like every morning, I wake up, kiss my wife, turn and check my mails on my cellphone… scary, no?! Indeed but it seems I am not the only one in this situation! And if you believe your company offered you a new smartphone to give flexibility and allow you to get more time for yourself, rethink about it.

Those “gifts” have you chained to your work, whenever and wherever you are, you don’t have any more excuses not to check your mail and answer. This invasion of our private time is now common and I don’t know anybody who dares to object it, and always with the same bad excuse: “if I don’t reply I’ll get in trouble”.

What about, “If I don’t reply, the world will simply continue to turn”? I tried a few times, turning of my phone, or simply disabling the data connection for the week-end, I survived, my company too and I had some really great quality time.

The problem with technology is mainly always the same, it goes so fast that we don’t take the time to reflect on it, think about how it affects us. Every coin has two faces, and what can free you my also enslave you.

I love technology, my devices and all those gadgets but I know I have an addiction so I can work on it, what about you?

Here is it, the first illustration done by my friend Nicolas. Every other week, he will try to share with us his vision of the geek world.

For this week a famous one, the user, the main source of problems.

But let’s go a bit in details and talk about some of the issues users are facing and also often responsible.

Some basic security… On our beloved cellphones, tablets and computers, all operating systems allow to lock the device as soon as we are not around, pin code, pattern, passwords, a lot of solution exist out there to restrict access to your private data but how many persons around you actually do it?

The answer is always the same, “I have nothing to hide“, “I don’t care“, really??? I do, I don’t want anybody to read my emails, access my pictures, read my contacts details, access my apps or do purchases using my phone.

On Android, I also know some apps that allow you to put a pass-code on an individual app, like the gallery app or the SMS app, this way is not as secure but allow a second layer of security.

Now tell me, how many people around you do you know who use a pin code for their SIM card?? In the US, nearly 0% around me, so if I steal a phone, I may not be able to use it but I can put the SIM card into another cell and start calling my my in France!, By the way, DO NOT STEAL PHONES!

Another point, on Android, most of the data is stored on a micro-SD card, do you encrypt it??? if not, anybody who find your phone, can see your pictures and all other information stored in this card.

How many users around you know they can remotely wipe their phone if it is lost or stolen? Once again, not a lot. Still they will all complain about security when their device is misplaced.

Scary, no? Indeed! Users have to learn to protect their privacy, it is NOT a given and they are too often the only cause of a problem. All the tools are there, for us to use. Of course, using three password to send a text message maybe a pain but it is you who must decide how safe you want you data to be and to find the good balance between useability and security.

This tool is really done to build user awareness about the way he/she is followed on the web and trust me, you would be surprised. Al you have to do is to open a new session of Firefox, click on the icon and let the Collusion tab open while you are browsing.

Doing that a graph will automatically being build and updated and let you know the relations existing between the different sites you visit but also with the site you do not visit but that still acquire one way or another some of the information you leave about you.

If you have privacy concerns or simply want to know more about the sites you use and how they are sharing YOUR information feel free to download and install this extension. Finally one important point I realized, the extension does not seem to be able to retrieve information for the sites you visits using HTTPS protocol.