Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Nokia 5800: cleaning the screen

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

I’ve had my Nokia 5800 for a bit over a year now.  It’s a crazy solid device, and has held up after many drops and bumps and all sorts of conditions.  For a while, I tried out some rather cheap eBay cases.. though for the past few months I’ve been using the phone without any protective covering and not having any problems because of it.  The beveled edge may not be quite as cool in the latest smartphone trends, though it does keep the screen from getting bashed up.

With that said, I did eventually experience some dust that came in between the screen and the touch layer.   It wasn’t all that much, though I kept seeing it and it was a bit of a bother.

Only warning

The only thing you really need to be careful about in cleaning the top insides of the 5800 is that you do not break the ribbon cable at the top of the device, near where the USB port is located.  If you break this cable, the screen will not work and you’ll need some rather major repairs.  Please note that while I’m giving this advice, it is entirely your fault and yours alone if you do any damage.  All electronics are inherently delicate and need to be handled with extreme care.

Method

With the above warning in mind, it’s not too hard to pry open the top part of the device in order to clean the screen and touch layer.  I hope I don’t have to say this, but before you begin you will need to turn off your device and take the battery out.  It will also rather likely void your warranty; and if you’re close enough to a Nokia Care Center they will do this same process for a small fee without the risks.  In the USA, out of warranty without any nearby Care Centers, it’s not so bad to do as I’ve done.

Using the plectrum which came with the device, very gently pry the right side of the top assembly away from the rest of the phone.  By “top assembly” I mean everything above the small line around the side of the phone, directly above the volume keys, camera key, and MicroSD / SIM card ports.

It will not take any amount of real force.  It should sound as if the device wants you to take this part away from itself, and it should also sound like it will easily snap back in place by pressing the top back into the body of the phone.  Please be gentle.  It worked best for me to start at the right side, where the volume rockers lie, and then to work a bit on the left side, where the SIM and MicroSD cards go; then the bottom..

When you release the top of the top assembly, the only thing holding the two parts together will be the ribbon cable, as described in the above warning.  Again, be very gentle and careful.  You can now clean the screen and the touch layer with either compressed air or an incredibly clean microfiber cloth.

The top assembly doesn’t really rest well, and tends to hang off the ribbon cable.  My solution was to gently rest the top assembly on the phone’s battery, so that there wasn’t as much leverage pushing on the cable.  Gently clean to the level that makes you happy, then softly push the top assembly back into the rest of the phone, starting with the  top.  Everything will click together, and it will be as tightly put together as before you started.

Conclusion

While I am urging caution and care, if you take the steps all together there’s really not much to the entire process.  I also should say that the 5800 is actually more dust-free than many devices I’ve owned, though I’m happy I was able to safely tinker and get inside without any special hardware or unexplained mangling of internals.  Hopefully this’ll help at least a few people who are at least as picky as myself.

YouTube video, from ElAmigoCZE

As an extra help, I found this video from YouTube which shows the process:

Straight staring

Monday, November 16th, 2009

I definitely have been writing less in this site as of late.  Entries and the numbers and all of that seem scary, some days.  I don’t want to start in on a post to fall into some other topic and have the trains disorganized on criss-crossing tracks.  That doesn’t make much in the ways of commerce for the mind.

Publish; write; relate; but not when it ends up in drivel and there’s gray matter spilled out the edges.

Respek for my bruva

Friday, October 9th, 2009

!!! Much, much respect for my brother, younger by two years, who just signed on for a new job today, at a salary that beats out my own. He had it in the bag at the start, but he played everything very well and I’m v. proud of him. He currently has a portfolio site for anyone interested in checking out some of his work.

Took down LINKD, added some links

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Today marks the day that my custom, lightweight links system officially is put to rest. LINKD, which you can no longer view, was a small SQL based system I had to keep track of links, both of my own and of my friends. It served its purpose well, though I don’t feel that many people used it all that often.

Anyhoo, WordPress has its own links system which I’m now using, so I imported the content into that, which you can now view at the Links page. If I forgot to add your site and I know you, send me a message and I’ll include it for that page.

Theme switchup: Journalist

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

I started out with this site using the wonderful Arclight theme from digitalnature; today I switched over to Journalist by Lucian E. Marin. It’s a bit more subdued, and rather clean. Who knows, maybe I’ll switch up again in the near future again. I’d really like to make my own at some point, though I’ve been lacking the time to do so in a major way, and the free offerings out there in the WP community are very good. If other people have recommendations, feel free to put your thoughts below.

I’m not looking to pay for a theme at this point, and I personally don’t feel as though that cheapens the content of what I have down on the site. If there are differing opinions on this point, of course, I’d like to hear them.

Warning: Flickr overload

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Whew. This thing is quickly turning into a photo blog. I am limiting myself to posting one photo from my Flickr feed once a day, as I was doing with RINTA, my older quasi-blog. It’s a bit of a visual aid, in some respects, to see how often I’ve been writing, and while it may not turn out that way, hopefully it is a motivating factor to churn out some kind of content. I currently am going through vacation photos from what’s now becoming about a year ago, at the beautiful Yucatan, Mexico.

This is also a good time to mention the Categories systems that are in the site. If you are a Google Reader user (and you should be, if you’re a web nut), there are separate RSS feeds for each category. If you’d like, you can subscribe only to the feeds that you are interested in; skipping, for instance, the Code category, or if you hate pictures, Photography. Otherwise, I hope you find the site enjoyable as I start to flood these pages over the coming days/weeks/months/etc.

New words, travels

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Blau. If this goes like it normally does, I may not be using this software all that long, ending up back to the old system I had before, or just modifying what was into something else that will be easily enough extended into what I need it to do.

Tonight, though, I feel like writing, and currently the tools I have to do so are getting in the way of that. The public / private / etc. options are a bit too much for me to think about.. and what I really need is contained within this system (WordPress) rather well. Ergo, here’s an experiment, and here’s to trying new things.