THIS BLOG IS NO LONGER ACTIVE

Due to other work and commitments, this blog has run inactive for a long time, and my focus moved towards leading and managing a company called Lionsharp Inc.

Photographic Memories from my mobile of the past 1 year

Entrance of Tumo Center for Creative Technologies (May 2012)

Lecture Room 2 Setup (Dec 2011)

Christmas at Tumo Center (Dec 2011)

3D Cinema in use for old black and white movie (Nov 2011)

Robotics Lab 3 (Feb 2012)

Robotics Lab 1 (Jan 2012)

5 Screen 9600 x 1080 Pixels running Google Earth (Oct 2011)

Game Room Projector Test (Sep 2011)

Final soundproofing of Cinema (Sep 2011)

Peripheral Room Setup for First Use (Aug 2011)

IceAndFire with Honeybread – Samsung Google Nexus S

I purchased my first smartphone after much self-analysing debate back in January this year. I decided to go for the best phone out there so as to not be disappointed about performance etc. At the time the phone which had top rating was the Google Nexus S (GT-i9020) running the new Gingerbread flavour of Android operating system. To be honest I genuinely became attached to the phone, it substituted itself very well in my life and my laptop received far less use because of it.



Google Nexus S, 
My First Smartphone



Sadly I was at work (mid-April) with the phone on the desk and it just became unresponsive, after repeated boot attempts it just got worse and worse to the point it no longer booted up and after a half a day of fiddling I concluded it was a hardware error and it needed to be sent off to repair. The problem was compounded because I am out in Armenia and the phone first needed to be returned to the UK. I shelved the phone until I would have the opportunity to send it back.

This weekend (4-5 June 2011), I decided to give the phone one last try – this was a feeble attempt with no new knowledge or know-how and the phone reminded me how disheartened I had been when I first had the problem. Nevertheless with some perseverance I got the phone to accept a ‘fastboot’ command from Windows command line, A real eureka moment for someone with little hope.

 Step by Step:

1.       I installed Java Development Kit (JDK)

2.       I installed the Android Development Kit (ADK)

3.       I added the Google USB driver to the ADK

4.       I found my way to the folder and tried the ‘fastboot devices’ command

5.       SUCCESS, the phone responded!

6.       I managed to get the phone to run a program called Clockworkmod Recovery

7.       From here I could mount the USB connection and a big highlight for me was that I was able to save my long lost photos from the phone

8.       Soon after hours of reading and mixed success, I played with installing new ROM’s which contained different flavours of Android OS for the Nexus S

After some playing and further breaking of the phone, I needed to ‘Fastboot OEM-Unlock’ which unlocks the phone and voids the warranty, but now I could install clockworkmod recovery onto the phone and further play with different flavours of Android. A huge help was all the great information on XDA-Developers forum which is not for the faint of heart but entirely worthwhile.

I tried the following:

-          Newest version of stock Gingerbread 2.3.4

-          Cynogen(mod) ver. 7.03 which was pleasing because it made me feel all powerful over my phone but crashed after my excessive abuse for a few hours so then i continued my hunt

-          MiUI which is cool and gives the phone a very different feel (turns it into a powerful iPhone alternative with very similar iPhone looks) but little issues and the lack of superuser controls left me wanting for Cynogen again

-          IceandFire v1.2 which is a revamped version of Cynogen Ver 7 with some of the best features from MiUI and a more performance focused interface. First couple of bootups were a little buggy but then it just started working nice J


-          I added the Honeybread Theme Alpha 4 (shown right) which just makes the phone cool and custom, the Swiftkey Keyboard which I just love and paid for, and a bunch of Google Apps to make the phone useful.

After all of this I rebooted back into Clockwork and made a Nandroid (Backup) of the working iceandfire OS

This is just day one, but i’ve lost my entire weekend playing and reinstalling this phone at least half a dozen times. Secretly now that it works, i've enjoyed myself.
I’ll setup my SIP phone on Monday and link it to work’s Quadro box, and then try really hard to not turning this into an every weekend activity.

The T Talk @ Tumo using Prezi

On Friday 8^th April 2011 at the FriTumo session, the IT Team gave a short presentation to the rest of the Tumo teams. The idea was to give a brief outline of what the IT team does at Tumo in approximately 10 minutes. Originally I had hoped to have something like an inspirational Ted Talk, but with preparation time lacking it turned out to be a much simpler ‘Introduction to IT’ for the others. 

I took this chance to try a new presentation creation tool I had seen back at the ArmNet 2010 Awards, called Prezi (found freely available at prezi.com). It allows for zooming and highly interactive interlinked presentations. The learning curve was very small and I managed to get the whole presentation put together within an hour.

Tumo T Talk on Prezi

My biggest complaint with Prezi was adjusting the text size of different parts, I have a habit of zooming in and out with the scroll wheel on the mouse and every time I did the text size would change for a new text object. In defence of Prezi developers, they have done this text sizing intentionally to organise the hierarchy titles, sub titles, body text etc.

Still with a few prepared graphics and well thought out flow, I see Prezi beating MS Powerpoint as a general presentation tool. The free account allows 100 Mb of uploads which is fine as long as you prepare the images in advance. I very much intend to use the online based software again although It’s going to require a bit of a fresh uptake to move away from the structured slide format which has been ingrained into me over the years by Powerpoint. Overall the audience enjoyed the brief presentation and liked the swirly animation that Prezi does so well (naturally the Turkish delight also helped).

And so it begins... Introductory First Post

I do not have a long career to step through or decades of experiences to share, but like any good story a little background information about the inspiration for this blog can’t hurt...

I was a student at King's College London (KCL) from 2004 until end-2009. During that time I studied a surprisingly vast array of topics taught by, or linked with, the Division of Engineering. Initially I completed three year BEng (Bachelor of Engineering) course in Computer Aided Mechanical Engineering, which gave me the fundamentals to feel more comfortable in the academic environment. From this I pursued graduate study in a rare mix of different departments in which I was well known for advocating the engineer's mindset. Highlights for me included Advanced Topics in Nanotechnology, Rapid Prototyping, Digital Culture and Technology (Centre for Computing in the Humanities), Science of Security (War Studies Department), Geographical Information Systems (Geography Department). 

During my final MSc (Master in Science) year at King's College London, I entered the Lion's Den business plan competition in which we were required to build a team (maybe i’ll cover this more in a later post). I quickly recruited Alessandro Mambelli from our shared Agents and Multi Agent Systems course (Computer Science Department) as a person who stood out and asked interesting questions, we competed very successfully up until the last round with our imaginary company Lionsharp Technologies. The company proposed to develop a innovative new piece of Educational Technology named Florb Sphere to be used in schools around the world.

After so many years in London, I fancied a change of scenery and pursued volunteerism. Being of Armenian descent I looked towards the edge of Europe and Asia. I was recruited by AVC (Armenian Volunteer Corps) where I agreed to three months of volunteering in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia. Sitting waiting for volcanic ash to clear the skies before I could fly, I pondered over the information I had on the position. All I knew was that I would be working in a technical role within a teenagers’ educational centre.

Quickly after arriving I realised I had wholly underestimated the project. I was welcomed from day one into the Tumo Project as the Software Development Team's Project Manager. Our team of five were working on an Adobe Flash-based virtual learning environment where users can interact, chat and learn together. The biggest challenge by far was the language barrier, second to which the different work ethics sometimes made the whole day an uphill struggle. During these three volunteer months I became more and more involved in other parts of the Tumo Project.

The TUMO Project

The Tumo Project is an initiative to innovate education in the developing world. Here we are building the world's first Tumo Center (shown above), which also happens to be the world's biggest Creative Technologies Centre. The centre aims  (when fully open) to provide 1000 computers spread over two floors in a very large studio like space, a full 3D cinema, a library, lecture halls, a music studio, dozens of creative labs and the city's largest child friendly green park outside. Our focus is to introduce youths between the ages of 12-18 to four key focus areas; Computer Animation, Digital Media, Web Design and Game Design, whilst we also develop their skills in things such as drawing, music, English language, programming, creative writing etc. In an ex-soviet country like Armenia, these opportunities are simply not available elsewhere and it is the youth who are deprived the most. The entire project is non-profit and I have settled for a salary far less than friends back in the UK, simply because I get to have such an influential role in a dream project.

Architect's visualisation of Tumo Center south side

The added personal perspective which you gain when living and working abroad cannot be underestimated, some of the simplest and most obvious things present challenges that you would never foresee especially when building on such a scale.

I have stayed on for almost a year now, and I expect that I'll be here for at least one more. In that time I have managed to progress to being the Centre's technical systems director and IT project manager, a big role which often challenges my lack of experience. I interface with five different teams daily whilst managing my own IT team in which we have been charged to design and install the network, server and user computer systems. We are working with the latest technologies imported direct from USA and UK (which is not without its paperwork/logistic challenges).

 In December 2010, I managed to convince Alessandro to fly out here and he has committed one year to the IT Team. In these few short months we have completed Phase 1 and 2, which included installing the fastest building network in the country with a 10 Gigabit Fibre Optic backbone, a unified wireless network system, a full building VoIP system (using the Epygi Quadro) and virtualising almost 12 servers. The first hundred Apple iMacs are sitting in a container ready to depart the UK at the time of writing this and really it’s all go go go at the moment.

I am now engaged to be married, taking life as fast as it comes and genuinely enjoying the experience of being somewhere I can make a difference. We hope to open Tumo during August 2011. So in the meanwhile I have decided to start this online blog outlining the variety of challenges I deal with weekly just as a matter of interest and something for me to reminisce over in the future.

I can hardly comprehend where I am now, never mind think about where to go next. I know I need to stay and be here for the grand opening and help the systems settle down. Alessandro is passionate about setting up one of the creative labs as a small robotics studio. I on the other hand see the potential for expansion internationally, building small Tumo Labs linked back via a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to the central hub here in Yerevan.

I wholeheartedly recommend watching this short five minute video outlining the Tumo Project, which can also be found on http://www.tumo.org/

from Tumo Admin on Vimeo.

Please feel free to contact me,

Nigel Sharp

Lionsharp Tech Journal Author

KCLEA Honorary Editor

Technical and IT Systems Director - Tumo Project, Yerevan