Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8EL_kRJcsI

I never thought i’d say this, but this new rapid release scheme, is beginning to get to me, with what now feels like an update every other day, for what is in most cases, absolute trivial and minor updates, that would be far better off being gathered up in a bigger release.

In fact, it is getting so annoying now, that even me, one of the most avid FF fans, are considering alternatives.

If any of the guys at Mozilla came across this, which is extremely unlikely, and not that i think they would care anyway…

A release cycle of a year, is too long. what now feels like a few days inbetween, is just a major fail, and a quarterly update,  would be about right.

A lot of business users are moving away from Mozilla, and the reason for this, is one single reason – the rapid release scheme, as nobody has the time or stamina to keep up with mozilla, screening and deploying a new update all the time.

Even as a private user, very politely expressed, getting extremely annoyed with it, and trust me, this didn’t come easy.

Mozilla, change your ways, or you will have lost yet another user…
Do you really think that the recent drop in popularity and the introduction of your new rapid release scheme is a pure coincidence?

Think again.

When I got my Galaxy tab, among the first thing I did, was to root it, simply because I wanted to “root around” and see what was there.
Later on, I went one step further, and installed the Gingerbread (2.3.3) on it, and i had been looking at having a custom boot animation on the thing, as i wanted to “brand it” my own way.
I found the Samsung 2.3.3 release from Samfirmware.com and installed it on the tab using Odin.

Much to my dismay, I had found that Samsung uses a custom format – .QMG, which literally nobody knows what it is, apart from Samsung and their suppliers.

However, shame on giving up.
After looking for solutions on the net, and ending up with zilch, I decided to have a closer look at the init.rc script that brings up the system, and it did give me a few ideas.
I started off with testing the commands manually, after connecting to the tab with a SSH client (install sshdroid – you want to do this, as you need to send CTRL C to break out of the boot animation while testing), and I found a simple solution to get it working.

Yes, you CAN have a bog standard boot animation on your tab!

[EDIT] Now, this MIGHT work on the 2.2 version as well, but i have not tried.  [/EDIT]

First – Your device MUST be rooted.

Secondly – the disclaimer -
You do all or any of the things below, at your own risk. If you mess it up, don’t blame me, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
If you mess anything up, or something else decides to break, the brick is yours to keep – you did it – not me =)

Seriously, worst case scenario would be having to do a few adb lines or to re-flash a few files on the tab, and it will be working again.

So, let’s get started and get custom boot animations working on the thing!

First off, we need to get root acess, so just do, once connected to the ssh server;

su

and allow the shell superuser access.

Following this, we want to make the system partition writeable.

mount -o remount rw /system

Then, we want to place ourselves in the correct folder.

cd /system/media

Now, to get rid of the Samsung boot branding,  we need to rename a few files, you might want to keep them on the tab, just in case you want them back..

mv bootani.qmg bootani.qmg_X
mv bootstill.qmg bootstill.qmg_X
mv samsungani.qmg samsungani.qmg_X

Next, we need to drag in the boot animation you want, and have placed on the SD card (internal memory).

cp /sdcard/bootanimation.zip bootanimation.zip

Now, if you want, you can test it by typing “bootanimation“.

To get out of it, as it will loop indefinitely, you have to press CTRL C.
If you want to change the boot animation, just copy in another one, and test it as above.

Once you are happy, do the following.

mount -o remount ro /system

Now, it is time to view it – restart your tab, and the Samsung boot animation should be gone, and your new shiny standard format boot animation be in place instead!

How to make your own boot animation file??

Simples!

1. Create PNG images for your animation.
Make sure they are the same size as your devices screen.

2. Rename those PNG images starting with a 5 digit number for the first frame and ascending for each consecutive frame.
It is preferred that the pictures are saved as 8-bit PNG.
Create a folder named “part0″ and an optional folder named “part1″.
Place your animation images in the “part0″ folder.

The images in part1 folder should start where the last image in part0 folder has ended.

For example the original boot animation in your droid phone has images from 480_427_00000.PNG to 480_427_00075.PNG in part0 folder and 480_427_00076.PNG to 480_427_00091.PNG in part1 folder.

The images in part0 folder is played once, and the images in part1 is played in a looped manner.

3. Create a custom “desc.txt” and add the following in it.

480 427 30p 1 0 part0p 0 0 part1

Here’s what the parameters means:

480 Stretched width of the animation.
427 Stretched height of the animation.
30p This controls the speed of the animation (both parts).
1        Defines how many times the part0 is looped.
0        Not used.
part0p – folder containing the first animation.
0        Number of times the second folder is looped. (0 = infinite)
0        Not used.
part1 – folder containing the second animation.

4. Place part0, part1 and desc.txt in a folder renamed as ‘bootanimation’.
Zip the folder (using an archiving utility such as 7Zip).
Set the ‘Compression level’ setting to ‘store’ (which means no compression), before you archive.
Compression will make it unreadable for your android.

5. Copy bootanimation.zip file from your PC to your SDCard root.

6.  Mount file system read/write

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

7. Now copy the bootanimation.zip file from your SDcard to your phone’s memory.

cp /sdcard/bootanimation.zip /system/media/bootanimation.zip

Enjoy your custom boot look!

After all, the Irish state is a majority owner of AIB, and as such, and up until now, having guaranteed all the debts by the major banks, but now, seems to default on their promises to the lenders, by defaulting and demanding a 80-90% haircut, which is according to finance minister Michael Noonan, was the minimum burden-sharing acceptable by the government.

This simply means that the banks does not have the capital needed to repay the bondholders in full, that the banks remain troubled, and that the state are not able to back their obligations in relation to the lenders to the banks, as they need new capital to cover losses and repayments to more senior bondholders.

If the market were skeptical about Ireland before, this certainly won’t help the Irish, and the recent talk by government ministers about the need for a second Irish bailout, has made the open market even more jittery about Ireland.

It is a truly sad story, and a big mess, for everyone involved – especially for the already hard-pressed Irish people, because little or nothing good can come out of this.

Little known thinking, is what is being described in an article in The Post.ie, where they question:
Are depositors in the firing line?

The basis of the article is that the political parties, whoever comes into power after the election on February 25th, they will have to have a bondholder bonfire to save the Irish banks.

In reality, this means burning the Irish people and businesses, once again.
Not just by increasing the taxes, but simply confiscate about 40% of any deposits above €100,000 in the bailed-out financial institutions, regardless of them being bond holders or plain savers.

About 50% of the current bondholders, is Irish people, who will see their bonds raided.
This is a very badly thought through idea, and one that is too little too late.

One thing that they forgot to mention, is that many company’s accounts, especially larger ones, holds accounts worth more than €100,000, and if these accounts are raided, not only will the companies find themselves in acute liquidity problems, but also risk becoming insolvent, as a large part of their money to pay wages, suppliers, withheld income tax and VAT liabilities will be gone.

I don’t believe that the tax man would agree to being given only half of what they are owed, just because the company bank account got plundered by the state to bail out the banks, nor do i believe that the people working for the company would agree to have only half their wage paid out, or their suppliers only getting half their invoice paid.

This is not just a depositor BBQ, but of the people.

We will see if this happens, is massive amounts of companies hitting the wall, or simply saying – Enough, and moving out.

The politicians says there is no difference between bondholders and depositors, but there is.
A bondholder, is someone bought bonds for their money, knowing that it is a financial instrument that carries gains, but also potential risks.

A depositor, is someone who holds a shoebox (account) where they stuffed their money, in a supposedly safe place – a bank, in order to have easy ways of paying and getting paid, and they did not put the money in the bank, for the bank to play around with it, and putting it at any kind of risk.

The politicians also talks about re-negotiating the loans with the EU-IMF, but i believe they can forget it. The IMF loans are of the kind – take it or leave it, and if you take it, you agree with our rules. End of story – a perception that is backed up by a statements from the EU commission, as well as Ollie Rehn, as expressed in an article in the Irish Times.

What the Irish political establishment is going on about, renegotiating a deal with EU/IMF that includes a partial or full default on bondholders, is just not going to happen, and is nothing but wishful thinking among, what can no longer be describes as anything but delusional Irish politicians.

The two options available to Ireland, is pretty clear:
Either Ireland owe up to the debt disaster, and deal with it, or the Irish state goes it’s own way, ending up in a massive default on Irish state debts.

I don’t know what would be the most tolerable, but the way Irish politicians handle this, I believe the later case, will be, while all painful and in many ways a disaster, the preferred option, as what comes out of the ashes, will come out sooner, and in a better shape than taken the other alternative.

My short-term suggestion to any Irish individual or business is – move your money out of any of the bailed out banks, into one that has not been bailed out, preferably abroad.
This way, your euro’s will still be there, regardless of what happens in the Irish banks and economy.

This way, you can escape at least this part, and then start looking at what your options are, longer-term.

I have been subjected to enough consistent lying on a more or less daily basis lately from Irish politicians, to develop a bunch of very strong antibodies against their talk, and I no longer buy what they say, because they say one thing, and then do something completely different, and whenever they can, they stick their grubby little hands in your pocket, and take whatever they can get away with.

Nothing has changed.

Fianna Fail election campaign poster

Just a little tidbit that I came across.

Fianna fail lambasted the leaving government in Ireland back in 1987 for their shortcomings, and claimed that their policies would be a complete and utter disaster.

I think the history shows that the government back then, wasn’t too successful in their dealings with practical politics and economy, and this brings us to the current politics and the proverb

“People who live in glass houses, shouldn’t throw stones”

If we look at what the past and current policies of the up until now current government, this description of their foes applies with an almost perfect fit to their own results.

Let’s tick some boxes…

• Astronomical debt,
• Country bordering insolvency,
• Higher spending (well, perhaps not in traditional meaning, but from the tax payers view, state spending has certainly gone up..)
• Refusal to revisit croke park agreement, resulting in higher spending,
• Borrowing until they no longer CAN borrow,
• Increasing taxes beyond taxpayers means,
• Increased mortgage rates,
• Decreased mortgage tax reliefs,

I think history shows that the Irish politicians ain’t exactly the brightest sparks in the bunch, and that the Irish people will suffer immensely for decades to come, because of their politicians past and current actions, many of which, unfortunately seems to be directly or indirectly linked to personal interests and personal gain.

Severe election warning

A raging bull appears to be on par with a calm stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon in comparison to the continuous and instant twists and turns in Irish politics.

The recession has hit Ireland hard, and the politics has gone from “We need no stinkin’n bailout!” to “EU-IMF – Our god and savior!” in a few short months, followed by a joint Irish-IMF austerity plan to finance the bailout, dubbed “the finance bill”.

EU agreed to bail out Ireland, provided that a number of austerity measures were put in place to rectify the disastrous economics of Ireland as well as to provide some long-term stability in for Ireland in the international markets, based on a joint and broad political decision to drive through these measures.

No such luck.

The Irish currently have (as of the time of this article):

• A general election that has been called for on the 11th of March,
• A cabinet that consists of the minimum number of ministers allowed by the Irish constitution, following the resignation of 6 of the ministers.
• A taoiseach that has no real power after resigning from his role as the party leader of Fianna Fáil, buit will remain in power until the election,
• A taoiseach that is effectively violating the constitution, as it requires the taoiseach to resign if he lacks the support of a majority of the government,
• The greens has withdrawn from the coalition government, leaving Fianna Fáil in an absolute minority position, without power to do anything, and with no support
  from anyone else,
• A train-wreck of a finance bill waiting to be voted through, that will for most people mean that they are better off on welfare or as unemployed,
• TD’s that apparently thinks canvassing is more important than current dail work to solve the existing problems in the country,
• Forget the first point – it’s now general election on the 24th of February.
  Who knows when it will be, tomorrow…

The list goes on…

This is a turkey of a play, and a tragicomedy at that.
Comedy in watching the actions of the politicians, as they try to outperform Ministry of silly walks, and tragedy in that everyone else suffers as a result of their actions.

Mildly put:
I’m frustrated, and I am not alone, and the longer this goes on, I fear that this will not end well.

Take a bite of this one;

Some of the developers and banks that got bailed out by the state, and got their bad loans transferred to NAMA, a debt collector for the state, owns a large chunk of that very debt collector.

In other words, the state takes the loans off the banks in return for giving them money (bailing them out), and the state has said that the NAMA is a recovery vehicle for the state, to recover the money for these bailouts of the banks, but since the banks (and developers) that caused the whole disaster, owns a large chunk of nama, they effectively retained ownership of the stuff they already got paid for, and that they will get paid for again.

The state owns 49% and private interest 51%, just so the state can keep the debt off it’s books.

I know this is rehashing and re-reporting of what others has written, but this is important and needs all additional exposure it can get.

Gavin Sheridan has done some research and written a piece called “NAMA and the Master SPV” on his site thestory.ie.

I am lost for words…

Euro bill

First, the Irish government bailed out the banks, saving them from their homemade destruction,  as they couldn’t pay off their lenders.

Then, the Irish government bailed out the banks, saving them from their homemade destruction, as the banks had lied about how much they owed their lenders.

Now, they think that after having poured about €96 billions in total into the black holes that is called “banks”, money that we will never see again, that this is all “done and dusted”.

NAMA says that they will recover the money, but that would be based on a year on year economic growth of about 10% for ten years.
The economic growth next year, is expected to be around 1.5%, give or take a bit, which is a far cry from what NAMA needs to ever be able to recover the money (before the properties has fallen to bits).

I just happen to think that they forgot something, which may very well be the undoing of Irish economy.
Either that, or they are not talking about it, for fear of what is to come.

The Irish unemployment is very high, the economy is struggling, and now, they plan to take 10% of the money out of the economy, making bad things worse.
There are about 800,000 mortgage holders in Ireland, and 36,000 are in arrears already.

Recent estimates reveal that 1 in 5 mortgage holder are on the line of running into difficulties, and the extra burdens put on the people and companies through taxes and levies, will push many of these people into the red, where they will simply have to chose between food, heating and other essentials, and paying the mortgage.

With a total mortgage stock of about  €118 bn, and if 20% of that stock fell into arrears, as an expected result of taking 10% of the money out of the economy, which is the net effect of the austerity plan, this would mean that the banks, who borrowed short to lend long, would eventually be unable to repay the bonds as they matured, and this would be another hole of about €24 billion, to be added to the by then, already swallowed pile of €96 bn.

But NAMA will recoup the money you say?

Well, anything is only worth something, if there is a buyer.
The banks will have ceased to lend as a result of this, because they won’t be able to find capital on the open market, unless they pay extorsionate interest rates, so there will be no mortgages to be had, and where mortgages are offered, the securities required, will be so high, that it will hardly be worth the hassle approaching a bank.

This lack of funding, will in turn depress the market even further, and with a housing stock in Ireland, that covers the expected needs up to 2067, there will be no buyers for the excess stock.
NAMA is already talking about large-scale firesales, and this will depress the market even further, and firesales has already been done in the west of the country, apartments that at the boom would have cost €200,000-300,000, went for €17,000.
Why should anyone sensible put in for a mortgage for a house on the market, if they can get a NAMA firesale offer, for a fraction of the price, and where does these sales leave NAMA in terms of recovering the money?

NAMA, will mostly be a case of a complete write-off.

What are the banks to do?

Now that the banks realize that some €24bn of mortgages won’t get repaid, and they will be sitting with worthless houses on their hands, what are they to do?

They will have very few options, because the scale of these losses will yet again scare off bondholders, leaving the banks without funding, and trading insolvent.
One option they have, is to start pulling in short-term credits, such as overdrafts, credit cards and other types of loan facilities, something that has already begun.
It will only to some extent finance the banks, at the cost of businesses going under due to the immediate cash-flow problems this will create, and if the banks start pulling the credits, the problems will escalate outside the banking sector, with even more people being unable to pay their mortgages due to being made redundant etc. It’s an evil downward spiral.

The other option is for the banks to go cap in hand to the taxpayer yet again, for yet another bailout.
The problem with this, is that the state will at this point, be essentially broke, as they have used up all their existing internal resources in terms of pension funds and other assets, to fund the banks in the second round, and the state will not have the capacity to borrow more money from the EU/IMF.

The only option left, is to hang he banks out to dry, forcing them to default on some of their senior debts, and the majority, if not all of the junior debts.
The net effect of this, will be that the banks fail and drags the Irish state down with it, robbing the taxpayers for all that has already been taken from them, and then some.

By this time,  we are looking at a minimum of €120bn plus interest gone, money that will never be recovered, simply due to the way the whole thing was set up.
Add to this, the interest premiums that the tax payers will have to stump up for the borrowed money, to “bail out” the banks.

After all, a bail-out, is supposed to be a permanent solution, but the Irish banks has proven time after another, that they are nothing but black holes, and the only reasonable treatment of a black hole, is to leave it alone, and not to poke around in it, even with a very long stick.

I said it before, the only way to save the economy, long-term, is to allow the banks to fail.
Banks are private entities, who has borrowed money from willing lenders, who understand the risks, and therefore charge interest in return for taking that risk (some you win, some you lose), and it is NOT the taxpayers job to keep private interests safeguarded at any cost.
A loss of a bank, will be costly, yes, but managable, and over time, cheaper than to bail out the banks time after another, as the banks will learn not to take the risks that kills them.

The only way for the banks to survive, long-term, from where they are now, is to re-negotiate the terms of the existing bonds, and start trading their way out of the hole they have dug for themselves, paying off their debts from trading profits, like any other private company has to do, or go under.

The option?

The Irish banks holds about €120 bn in savings, and this would be the cost of letting ALL the banks fail.
What would be the better option?

Save ONE or TWO banks, transfer all the savings acounts into these (which, will no longer need a bailout, as the deposits will secure the banks needs for covering their outstanding bonds).
There will be losses as the savings guarantee will have to kick in in the failing banks, but the overall losses will be limited compared to what we are seeing now.

Add the costs of the full savings guarantee, and we would have an equal figure, or less, compared to the total cost of the “bailout” to day.
We would know what it would cost – €120bn.
Add to this, the cost of all the businesses that will fail simply because of the banks actions, refusing loans and pulling agreed credits for no other reason but be able to repay their own loans, sacrificing the base of the economy along the way.
Also add the social costs that falls on the state as an immediate result, and you will soon see that the costs will stretch much further than just the banks balance sheets.

If the politicians had taken the bold step right from start, and let the banks fail, or perhaps saving a single bank, the cost would have been manageable, around a ceiling of 100-120bn.

Unfortunately, today, we no longer have this option of letting the banks fail, as allowing this to happen now, would mean that there would be an additional cost of about 100-120bn, on top of what has already been sunk into the banks, taking the costs to a minimum of €240bn, far beyond any capacity of the state.

The only option left, seems to be going “la la la la la la – don’t hear ya! la la la la….”", and hope for the best, all thanks to incompetent Irish politicians in power and the weak authorities looking the other way, all while everyone else has been effectively sold-out and blatantly robbed, leaving the bankers laughing all the way, as they got away with it, yet again.

I sincerely hope i am wrong.