General

Xbox 360 ‘Reference Levels’

If you’ve got an Xbox 360, chances are you’ve seen the ‘Reference Levels’ setting in display settings. This is a really badly named setting since it’s all to do with the black level the console outputs. ‘Standard’ is the setting you want if you have a quality HDTV, since standard outputs the full range without clipping. If you have a Samsung TV, set the black level to ‘lower’. The ‘Expanded’ setting clips blacks below 16 to 0, and anything above 235 to 255. This is great if your TV doesn’t work properly with HDMI signals, or you’re using VGA. Otherwise it’s actually reducing the range of colour values the console is outputting. In short use ‘standard’ and tell your TV that the black levels are really black. Otherwise if you have a ‘cheaper’ TV use the ‘Expanded’ setting.

Posted by Dan in General, 2 comments

Error: Unable to find fileDFUI.exe please verify your install is correct.

I was getting the error ‘Error: Unable to find fileDFUI.exe please verify your install is correct.’ when trying to run an Azure project locally. MS have a rather hefty workaround here which I really didn’t want to use (especially since the error will come back after a while).

An easier workaround is to backup your ServiceConfiguration and ServiceDefinition files and delete the Azure project from your solution, also delete all traces of the Azure project from your solution directory.

Next add an Azure project to your solution (don’t add any roles). Add the roles manually using your existing projects (right-click on ‘Roles’ within the Azure project and select ‘Add > <X> Project in Solution’.

Restore your backed up service config files and you should be good to go!

Posted by Dan in Azure, General, 1 comment

Honeycomb for Advent Vega (and other ‘Harmony’ tablets) Coming Soon

Update: The community took up the challenge and ported Honeycomb WITH hardware acceleration.

It looks increasingly unlikely that Honeycomb will appear on the NVIDIA Harmony platform, which includes the Advent Vega.

However, that doesn’t mean the community couldn’t make a custom rom, but it’ll take a lot of work. Google aren’t releasing the Honeycomb source (instead we’ll have to wait for Ice Cream), additionally the community will need to integrate the drivers manually from NVIDIA.

While I’m sure we’ll see Honeycomb on the platform, I doubt it’ll ever be a nice slick implementation that you would get from an OEM-based rom. To be frank, if you want Honeycomb, best start saving the pennies for one of the latest generation of Android tablets. The Asus Transformer looks especially tasty. Personally I’m waiting for the quad core Tegra and Ice Cream, Froyo is enough for me for the moment.

Posted by Dan in General, 0 comments

Resetting Android Vega Tablet

At some point you’re going to hard lock your tablet, at least if you’re like me. Only problem is there’s no physical power switch and you can’t take the battery out. Have no fear! Press and hold the Power and Back buttons simultaneously, after a while the tablet will turn off. Press the power button again to turn it back on, and now you’ve got your tablet back to working order!

Posted by Dan in General, 0 comments