Well..."hate" maybe not hate, but here are the reasons I won't part with my hard earned money on an iPhone or any other "i" apple product.  I'm writing this down because I'm tired of having to explain this to my iSheep friends.

1. No Flash. I'm a flash developer and can't get past this one.
2. Battery. Come on, I'm an adult, give me a removable panel where I can replace my own battery.
3. Memory. I expect a microSD card slot so I can add up to 32gb of memory.
4. iOS developer license.  Really? I have to pay $100 just to have the privileged of compiling an iPhone app...I don't think so. I don't mind buying a license to sell in your market, but to compile, come on.
5. iSheep cult. It used to be easy to stir up the iSheep, because they thought that all things Apple were the only way to go.  Anyway, the way I see it, it's technology, I use what I need to get a job or task done. It's not a life style.

Well. I did again....got the bug to flash a new ROM(Paragon RC5.1), started researching and found Paragon ROM. Read through many , many pages of forum posts about how great it was, so decided to give it a try. I document it here, not for you, but so I have a reference of what I did.

1. Backed up with TiBU
2. ODIN to Stock
3. ODIN Master clear
4. OneClickRoot
5. Copy ROM and update.zip to SD Card.
6. Reboot into recovery.
7. Choose Reinstall packages (did this twice).
8. Choose Install zip from sdcard.
9. Choose zip from sdcard.
10. Restore from TiBU, apps and userdata.
11. ENJOY

It's like getting a new phone everytime I flash, sometimes a nice new phone...sometimes a awesome new phone. So far this rom gets, "awesome". GPS lock takes just a few seconds and locks within 10' in less than a minute. Everthing works like butter...nice and smooth.

Not being the type to leave well enough alone...I started looking at the new ROMs being published on XDA developers forum. I noticed that designgears was no longer developing the Cognition 2.xx version and had moved on to Cognition 3.x.  I appreciate that he is trying to keep a 'pure' capivate ROM and not a generic i9000 ROM. This one is based on the Roger's Canadian Samsung Froyo ROM.

So far this is the smoothest and fastest  my phone has operated. Looking forward to some gingerbread goodness for my cappy one day.

 What I did:

1. [Download mode/USB Debugging on] Flashed back to stock with Odin one click. Also,  Had to install drivers as I just rebuilt my laptop (Windows 7 pro 64bit).
2. Rooted stock ROM with SuperOneClick root.
3. Downloaded/Installed ROM Manager from Android Market.
4. Downloaded Cognition ROM 3.0.2, copied to root of internal sd card.
5. Ran ROM Manager, "Install ROM from SD card" and found zip file I just copied over.
6. Had to remove the battery during flash because the process hung at "finding install package". Replaced battery and flash resumed as expected. *whew*
7. Retored apps using TiBU, "apps and user data".
8. Done

One other note worthy comment, I unplugged my phone ~8am....look at that battery meter! 70% with moderate use, wifi, data, few calls, etc

I have had the AT&T Samsung Captivate for about 6mo and watching the Froyo 2.2 update get pushed back 30days every month I decided to take my froyo fate into my own hands. I began by reading xda forums on the "superoneclickroot" process. Feeling confident that I can root my phone with out creating a brick...I proceed.

I downloaded the v1.5.4 of SuperOneClick, extracted to the desktop, connected my phone, making sure not to mount the sd card and click. "Samsung Captivate", "Get Unlock Code". Runs, get an affirmative response., Then click, "Root" on the other tab. Runs for awhile, then looks like it hangs when it gets to "Installing Superuser.apk", but it had actually finished, just didn't respond the way I expected.

Rebooted the phone, and now I'm "rooted", yippee....so now what, right?

Installed ROM Manager by Clockworkmod, created a backup of my current ROM, then backup my SD card to an external harddrive. At least now I think I can revert, if needed.

Next, find a Froyo 2.2 ROM that I like. After searching unlocker.com I found Cognition - Voodoo ROM, read through the forums, seemed like lots of happy ROM users, so I downloaded. Changed the name of the zip file to update.zip, place in the root of my phone internal SD and Click, "Install ROM from SD card" in ROM Manager, point it to the update.zip file, and sit back and watch in amazement(and nervousness) as my phone does the rest.

Reboots, into 2.2 and done....well not yet. I install appbrain from market and sync all my apps back to the phone. I'm sure there is a better backup method for apps, but I didn't look into it.

Was it worth it???? Well, of course it was!!!! The phone is much snappier, apps load much faster(MUCH)..well at least noticibly faster. Plus, I don't have the AT&T bloatware anymore. On top of that...I have gained some knowledge(albeit useless), still more knowledge :)

My Quadrant Standard score: 1554

[UPDATE]

Decided to flash to the newest 2.3b6 so...here's what I did:
 

• Download/installed Odin One Click. Open, Odin, Booted phone in 'Download' mode, plugged in usb cable(usb debug mode on). Odin does it's thing and flashes back to stock.
• Rooted phone using SuperOneClick root 1.5.5. Ran, click get Unlock Code, then 'Root', wait till finished, done, rooted with superuser.apk installed
• Download ROM Manager, install.
• Copy new ROM to SD card of phone, renamed update.zip.
• Open ROM Manager and "install ROM from SD", click OK, then, "back-up existing ROM", I choose not to, I did check Clear Data.
• Phone reboots, click 'install', wait for ROM to finish.
• Download Titanium Back-up(TiBU), yes I paid for the Pro version. Did the Galaxy S fix, (Prefs, App processing Mode, AUTO/Indirect), then reboot phone.
• Run TiBU,  Backup/Restore, Batch, Restore missing apps + all system data.
• Enjoying my fresh ROM!

My Quadrant Standard score: 1520
not sure why I'd drop 34 pts.

In attempt to play Tiger Woods '09 golf online today, I had to change some configurations on my router. It wasn't that difficult, but I'm sure the average user won't be playing online, unless they have a 'tech' friend to open ports on their router.

Hardware:

• Wii
• Netopia router(Type: 0x69, Model 3347.02)

Configuration steps:

1. Click on Configure in the upper Menu bar.
2. Click on Advanced.
3. Under the NAT heading in the Network Configuration box, click on the Pinhole selection.
4. Click on the Add button.
5. In the Pinhole Entry box, enter the parameters for your pinhole. For example, to add your Wii:
   1. In the Pinhole Entries table, in the first line, type the name you would like associated with the pinhole. For this example you might call it Wii EA Sports for the EA server. PLEASE NOTE: Each pinhole you configure must have a unique name associated with it. If you should duplicate the pinhole name in a subsequent entry, it will overwrite the first entry.
   2. Protocol Select is TCP by default. Different protocols can be selected from the drop-down menu when appropriate. Select UDP.
   3. External Port Start is 100 for this example.
   4. External Port End is also 3700 for this example.
   5. Enter the Internal IP Address of your Wii. ex. 192.168.1.4
   6. The Internal Port is 3678.  From the nintendo website.
   7. Click on Submit to save the changes.
6. Save and Restart router.

 There's more info on the ninendo website regarding firewalls:  www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/onlineFirewall.jsp

I had this problem on my Blackjack, and I was ready to return it!  I went to my Cingular store, and the rep told me that the issue is with the stability of the 3G network, not the Blackjack per se. 

The fix is to force the phone into GSM mode.  There is a *# code you can use for this - it's the same one used to help with power savings. 

1. Dial *#1546792*#
2. Hit 3
3. Then 5
4. Select GSM
5. Hit Done
6. Then end

As an alternative create a shortcut in \windows\start menu to \windows\adminsettings.exe. adminsettings.exe give the same menu as the number above.

You can also create a shortcut to bandsel.exe the same way, and select GSM850.

Prior to this trick, I was dropping over 50% of my calls.  Since forcing GSM mode, I have not dropped a single call.  As an added bonus, the battery life is much better.  Even web surfing works fine in GSM Edge mode.  The only time I would switch to 3G (WCDMA) is if I were tethered to a laptop.

OK, I did it. Not sure why...still not sure, anyway I did it. I followed the instructions on the Samsung website and resources from myblackjack2.com. Thought I'd put the steps here in case I need to do it again for some strange reason.

Steps

• Step 1: Backed up my stuff on dashwire.com. Thanks Dashwire!
• Step 2: Downloaded the Windows 6.1 updater from Samsung's website. Thanks Samsung!
• Step 3: Removed my SIM card and microSD card(why? just in case) from my BJ2.
• Step 4: Powered up BJ2 and ran the updater, followed all the prompts, clicked were needed.
• Step 5: Rebooted BJ2
• Step 6: Reinstalled everything

Issues

• Had to modify registry to allow ICS:
  • * Find the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\ConnMgr\Providers
  • * Under one of the GUIDs you'll find a Connections folder that will have an entry for each of your connections
  • * Under each connection, find the ReadOnly key and set its value to 0 (zero).
  • edit my AT&T ISP connection, changing the Access point to wap.cingular

Benefits of Windows Mobile 6.1

• Really cool sliding home page
• Voice Command, not bad...might prove useful
• Threaded SMS, I guess...but I don't 'text' much.

That's it, not sure it was worth the time involved, but it's done.

This article will cover some of the changes we are able to make to our Windows mobile devices, through our devices registry.
Disable menu animations

To disable menu animations (sliding in/out) and speed up performance of the UI a bit:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Menu\AniType = 0 (DWORD decimal)
To change it back to the default:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Menu\AniType = 6 (DWORD decimal)

Disable window animations

To disable window animations (minimizing/maximizing) and speed up performance of the UI a bit:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Animate = 0 (DWORD decimal)
And to switch them back on:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\Animate = 1 (DWORD decimal)

Increase font cache

To increase the font cache, speeding up font rendering at the cost of a bit of memory:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\limit = 16384 (DWORD decimal)
To change it back to the default:
HKLM\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\limit = 8192 (DWORD decimal)
You can set the value to pretty much anything you like

Enable FileSystem cache

To enable the FileSystem cache, speeding up overall performance at the risk of the cache not being written on a sudden reset:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\EnableCache = 1 (DWORD decimal)
To disable again:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\EnableCache = 0 (DWORD decimal)

Note that by default, the cache size is zero, and you will see no effect. See "Increase FileSystem cache" to incease the cache size

Increase FileSystem cache

To increase the file system cache:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\CacheSize = 4096 (DWORD decimal)
To return the file system cache to zero:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS\CacheSize = 0 (DWORD decimal)
You can set the value to pretty much anything you like

Increase FileSystem filter cache

To enable the file system filter cache, speeding up overall performance with file mangement:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\Filters\fsreplxfilt\ReplStoreCacheSize = 4096 (DWORD decimal)
To return the file system filter cache to zero:
HKLM\System\StorageManager\Filters\fsreplxfilt\ReplStoreCacheSize = 0 (DWORD decimal)
You can set the value to pretty much anything you like

Change the thickness of scrollbars

To change the thickness of the scrollbars at the right/bottom of documents larger than the screen, adjust...
For the horizontal (bottom) scrollbar:
HKLM\System\GWE\cyHScr = 9 (DWORD decimal)
For the vertical (right) scrollbar:
HKLM\System\GWE\cxVScr = 9 (DWORD decimal)
The default thickness is 13. You can set the value to pretty much anything you like

Change the length of scrollbar arrow buttons

To go with changing the thickness of the scrollbars, you may wish to change the length of the scrollbar arrow buttons...
For the horizontal (bottom) scrollbar arrows:
HKLM\System\GWE\cyVScr = 9 (DWORD decimal)
For the vertical (right) scrollbar:
HKLM\System\GWE\cxHScr = 9 (DWORD decimal)
The default length is 13. You can set the value to pretty much anything you like

Enable ClearType in Landscape mode

To enable ClearType in Landscape mode:
HKLM\System\GDI\ClearTypeSettings\OffOnRotation = 0 (DWORD decimal)
To disable:
HKLM\System\GDI\ClearTypeSettings\OffOnRotation = 1 (DWORD decimal)

Bold = hacks I've used