Absolutely amazed by the IPAD

Steve Jobs has just unveiled the Apple's long-awaited product called the "IPAD". It very much resembles the Iphone and Ipod but with a much larger display and a fantastic design.

I've never been a fan of any Apple's products but this one is a definite revolution in the history of tablet PCs and E-book readers.

"Bricked" my HTC touch Diamond - HELP!!

A couple of weeks ago I was flicking through various cooked ROMs on XDAdevelopers and after trying out several windows mobile versions, I happened to turn my HTC Diamond into a luxury piece of furniture.

Well, it turned out that I flashed a wrong version of ROM (intended for CDMAs) into my GSM phone.

My phone switches on normally, but it freezes on the Diamond logo and doesn't go any further (as above).

I tried all sorts of hard reset options and I hard-reset it many times by pressing different keys, however it still freezes on the Touch Diamond logo at the start-up after a brief vibration.

Simply put it, when connected to usb port, it only starts charging and the circular lighting starts flashing but obviously my pc doesn't detect anything being attached to it.

As the warranty is still valid for 5 months, I posted it to the HTC service centre and surprisingly enough they invoiced me for £280 as "the fault is caused by unauthorised software update".

Well obviously I gave up on the whole repair thing and my phone was returned to me intact.

I've been searching many places for a possible solution and so far the only reasonable idea is 'JTAG'ing the NAND chip which needs some soldering, a cable and some software to flash an original ROM directly onto it. I'll be grateful to anyone who can refer me to a possible solution.

New Books on my shelf

I'm so excited to read these fantastic books by the end of December.

HTC HD2 vs Apple IPhone

Gadget freaks are holding their breath for the launch of the most ground breaking Windows mobile phone, HTC HD2.
For those of you who are still very much in love with your IPhone, I don't recommend you to watch this video as you might end up betraying your loyalty to the Apple and opening your heart to a new lover.


Unless you are fully prepared for a long love affair, be warned that It will not be a one-off.

Behavioral Modelling & Human Cognition

Today I came across this fantastic source on behavioural modelling of embedded systems.
Although it's way pricey on a tight student budget, I believe the extensive definition of such complex topic is worth every penny. I got hold of it for a couple of hours only, but I'm still very much impressed by it.

Behavioral Modeling for Embedded Systems By Luis Gomes, Joao M. Fernandes Link to the book on Amazon

Also, I've been reading this book for a few weeks now. It is very exciting to see how human cognition works or in other words "philosophy of the mind" and it helps to utilize some of those concepts as abstracts into designing embedded systems.

Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind By Robert D. Rupert Link to the book on Amazon