Replacing a Zune 80 glass screen

My Zune has a history of breaking itself while I'm fixing it. Last time I took it apart, I got it to WORK again, but cracked the screen. This weekend when I was in a portable-electronics-screen-buying-and-replacing mood, I decided I'd grab a Zune glass as well.

So, let's get started. For the sake of completeness, I'll go through the entire process, even though it's partially documented here.

Required

• Zune 80/ 120 (I guess the HDD size doesn't matter. Second generation or above, non-flash, non-HD (where HD stands for High Def, not Hard Drive))
  
• New screen
• T4 screwdriver
• Tiny electronics flat head screwdriver (I prefer size 2.5 - 4.5) or a case opener tool

Procedure

1. Remove the plastic clip from the top of the Zune with the flat screwdriver or case opener tool
2. Unscrew the two T4 screws at the top of the Zune
   
   
   
   
3. Carefully, take the flat head screwdriver and gently pry, starting at the top where you just removed the T4 screws, and work your way all the way around. What you're doing here is undoing the clips all around the casing. **This is the part where I cracked my screen last time**
   


4. At this point, you should be able to remove the entire aluminum back, and see the Zune's nasty internals.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Remove all that #$%@ tape!
6. Take out the 6 screws holding down the motherboard. There are three pairs, each pair is a different size. Keep them in order! *Note - when you take out the screws on the side, a metal clip will also come loose.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. For safety's sake, I removed the hard drive at this point. Lift the black flap on the ribbon cable connector. Use the flat head screwdriver to gently pry this up. Start from one end, and work your way to the other. This is a long tab, and will likely take more than one (probably two) pry-points to lift. (I know the picture shows the screwdriver in the middle. . . . disregard that :-|. . . . it was only for illustration's sake)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Now, gently pry the board up with the flat screwdriver. Go evenly and CAREFULLY all the way around until you can lift the motherboard out of the case.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Whew. . . . now for the hard part.

Removing the Glass Screen from the casing

I won't post the failed attempts and pictures of me trying to get this glass out; I don't wanna upset those who get queasy at the sight of blood. . . .

Nah, just kidding. Bud it did take me some time to figure this out. The glass is held in with a strong adhesive. I tried pushing it out, scoring around the edges, and prying. Some of these worked better than other, then I realized that I could just heat it up with my heat gun! Then I realized that I don't have a heat gun. Then I realized that my wife does!

HA! lookit the guy on the box

Apply heat to both sides, pressing the glass out every so often. After the adhesive melts enough, you're in business!

Remove the white tape from the new glass, replace the old one with it, and heat to activate the new adhesive. Put everything back together, and you're in there like swimwear!. . .

. . . . unless you put the hard drive ribbon cable on backwards. In which case, you'll get this screen. Fix it, and you'll get this one!

Replacing an iPhone 3G glass screen

So lemme tell you about my crappy weekend. It all started Thursday night. I had just come back from a lovely night out with the Missus. I took my iPhone out of my pocket and threw it down on the bed. Unfortunately, I missed the welcoming, soft mattress, and hit the cold, hard, unforgiving wooden corner of the bed. The result: a shattered glass screen AND LCD.

To make a long, sad story short, I just opted to buy a new iPhone from the Apple store for $199 the next day instead of paying $150 for new glass and LCD. I traded them the broken one and they gave me the discounted price. I was in a rush when I left the store, so I couldn't stop by Micro Center and buy myself any screen protectors. And I wasn't going to pay the ridiculous prices for any accessories in the Apple store. I didn't want my screen to get smudged, so I didn't put it in the old case I had. So I just went home, happy with my new, unprotected iPhone.

Saturday, I was with my 2-year old nephew. I leaned over to pick him up, and out of my shirt pocket slides my brand new iPhone 3G (no S), kissing the cement floor face first. The result:

So, in a matter of 2 days, I had managed to destroy two iPhone screens. This time, since it was just the glass, I just bought it and decided to install it myself. Here's how:

Required:

• Broken iPhone 3G or 3GS (The glass and LCD are separate on the 3G models. On the OG, they're glued together, making replacement difficult)
• Replacement glass screen
• Flat head screwdriver, size 1.5 (or a case opener tool if you're so fortunate to have one)
  
• Phillips screwdriver, size 000

Procedure:

1. Turn off the phone. This is to prevent shorting of any circuitry once we start digging in the iPhone's guts.
2. Using the Phillips 000, remove the two screws from the bottom of the iPhone

3. Use the 1.5 flat head screwdriver or the case opener tool to pry the screen up. Place the blade in between the chrome and the glass and separate the screen and LCD assembly from the back of the case.
   

4. Carefully tilt the screen/ LCD assembly up so you can see the numbered connections on the board. They are numbered 1, 2, 3. Remove these from the board in order. 1 and 2 are relatively straightforward, just use the flat screwdriver to pry them loose. The connector for 3 has a tab you must lift before it slides out. Proceed carefully.

5. Once the cables are disconnected, we can separate the LCD from the glass. Using the 000PH, remove the 5 screws indicated in the picture below. Some are covered with black tape, so you'll have to remove that.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Slide, then lift the LCD out of the glass. If you lift it without sliding, you may bend or break parts of the assembly.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Replace the broken glass with the new one, replacing all the screws in their proper places.
   
8. Reconnect the ribbon cables.
9. Slide the glass/ LCD assembly back onto the phone's back.
10. Replace the two screws.
11. Use protection! Don't wanna get burned again. . . 

Microsoft Interview Results

I got an email from Microsoft today. Although I knew I didn't perform well on the phone/ LiveMeeting interview last Friday, there was still that small bit of hope that maybe I displayed something that they liked. . .

The Microsoft interview is easily the most grueling technical interview I've ever endured. But it was also the most FUN! (Speaking of the process in Redmond). The problems given are designed to make you think, and they sure do. I understand that they don't expect a candidate to get the problem 100% correct right off the bat (or at all, for that matter). They're really observing problem solving skills. My head hurt so bad after that interview, I went back to the hotel and just slept for like 5 hours. Then I got up and went to the bar.

This phone interview is my third meeting with Msft. I had a preliminary interview at a national convention this past March, and was flown to Redmond the next month. I thought I gave the performance of a lifetime on the six (6) (yes, s-i-x) interviews I had that day. I left Redmond feeling really good about my chances, but was sorely disappointed a couple of day later. That was a really tough disappointment - I did my absolute best, and it was still not good enough. Eventually, I got over it and decided to reapply as soon as I was eligible again.

Back to the present. . .

As I opened the email, I braced myself for the imminent rejection, expecting to see an "unfortunately" right near the beginning. When I got to the fourth sentence, and there was still no "unfortunately," that little bit of hope began to shine brighter.

And then I read the second half of the fourth sentence:

we will be pursuing other candidates whose background and abilities more closely match our needs at this time.

And things quickly went back to normal. The world didn't end. As I said, I knew I didn't perform very well in this one. I'm not upset or discouraged; but I know what I have to do now. I'm on a mission to become a better programmer. I have dedicated myself to learning as much programming as I can. I'm going to immerse myself in so much code that by the time I'm eligible to interview again, I will be able to better display what I know, and be the ideal candidate.

Here's the problem I was given. . .

For an array of size n, choose the range of numbers which yields the greatest possible sum.

For this one, it happens to be array[0] through array[6], which equals 23. 

But these are just random numbers I came up with for this example. It doesn't always end up where it is the entire range.

I managed to explain a brute-force method of finding the solution. But drew a blank when asked to describe the efficiency of it using Big-Oh notation. So, I faltered there. Anyway, I have been working on my CS basics, so that should be sharper next time around. 

Very sleepy now. Good night!

PSP Programming

Still very excited about learning PSP Programming. Today, I completed another tutorial, which dealt with outputting different colors and formatted text to the screen.

Although right now, I'm just following steps, it's still a great learning experience. I'm commenting my code so that I can look back at it and tell what each block does. These tutorials are really good. I wish they were available in a nice little PDF instead of just on the website.

Here's the tutorial I did today. The final product is an application that looks like this

RED: 0

GREEN: 0

BLUE: 0

And using the direction pad, I can control the values of Red, Green, and Blue, respectively. As the values change, the number updates, and the background color changes accordingly.

My wife humored me by telling me how "cool" it was. She's obviously very good with children :-).

PSP Programming Progress

Hello World.

That phrase has never looked so good to me. Those 12 tiny characters in the top left corner of my PSP (Playstation Portable) screen represent, to me, a level of achievement I have been (mostly half-heartedly) trying to reach for over 3 years.

In 2006, I first began my interest in PSP Programming. I downloaded Cygwin (the Linux environment emulator for Windows), but had some trouble when compiling the PSP toolchain. I put it down and didn't resume again until 2008. I tinkered and read about it for a couple of weeks, then the same thing happened, and I again brushed it aside.

This time, I dug really deep, researched the exact problem I was having, and found a way around it. Apparently, the toolchain is broken, and I had to either download someone else's entire Cygwin setup, which already had the PSP Toolchain compiled, or download a precompiled solution. I opted for the first, then read a quick "Hello World" tutorial, and was up and running!

I know "Hello World" is generally hardly a means for celebration, but this has truly brought me some joy lol. . . . it's the little things. I'm especially happy that I got this accomplished just after one day of REALLY deciding to put my mind to getting this done. My goal for this week was to have a PSP development environment set up. Now that I've gotten that accomplished on MONDAY, I have to set a new goal lol.

Now to make it do something useful!

Microsoft Interview Preparation

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to fly to Redmond to interview with Microsoft for an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) position. To prepare, I read a couple of books, reviewed my materials from Cem Kaner's Blackbox Software Testing course, and went over some technical programming examples. This was the most intense, brain-squeezing, mind-bending interview I had ever been on. . . . but it was really fun! And although I performed what I thought was exceedingly well, I was still not offered a position. I was disappointed, but not discouraged.

My Microsoft recruiter consoled me and said that sometimes it takes people upwards of 3 tries to get hired. She said that I should work on my skills and try again in six months or so. I made it up in my mind that I would have that job, and that next time around, I would be more prepared, and give an even better shot than the first time.

Last week, I was scheduled for another phone interview (YES!!). Since that time, I feel that I have gained some very applicable knowledge directly pertaining to the type of positions I'm seeking. In addition, I've decided to take on some other projects. Among them are:

• Reading Pro .NET 2.0 Extreme Programming
• Learning basic operation of NAnt
• PSP Programming - just to get some more OOP experience from another perspective. I enjoy writing programs and debugging them myself.
• Re-reading The Art of Software Testing (which was recommended to me at my very first Microsoft interview, to prepare for the Redmond shindig)

I should have a firm grasp on (at least 2 or 3 of) these things by the end of this week. In addition, I'm going to read peoples' blog posts of their experiences dealing with the grueling SDET interview and what skills they chose to polish and highlight during the process. I have a couple of friends who work there too, so I'll try to get some of their input as well.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me, but I'm determined!

Installing Windows 7 on Acer Aspire 4330

I am a self-proclaimed MOOS - Master of Operating Systems. I like to install, reinstall, uninstall, and break operating systems. Eventually, I would like to build my own OS, for some reason or another. . .

Anyway, recently (almost a year ago), my sister gave me her laptop to fix, because she had FUBAR'd it with viruses. I went through great pains (finding a USB FLOPPY drive to install SATA drivers) to put Windows XP back on it, but she preferred Vista, oddly. Vista never acted right, so she ended up giving it right back after I did that. Instead of fooling around with either of those, or torturing her with OSX86 or Linux, I just decided to wait on Windows 7 to become available.

I have my 100% legal copy of Windows 7 now (via MSDNAA!), and it has JUST finished burning. Now I can get to the install process. I'm going to go through a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate on a hard drive. Let's go!

Formatting the hard drive.

I have traditionally preferred using a separate disk editing tool than the one included in the Windows installer. For this task, I generally use GPartEd (Gnome Partition Editor) Live CD. Download it and burn it to a disk. I won't go over how to do that here. But here are the steps for using it.

1. Start up the laptop which you want to install Windows.
2. While booting, enter the BIOS. On the Acer Aspire, just press F2 when prompted during the boot process.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Once in the BIOS, move over to the "Boot" menu and ensure that your CD/ DVD drive has higher boot precedence than your hard drive. Otherwise, the system will try to boot from the hard drive first. If there is a current operating system on there, it will start that up. If the drive is blank, you will receive an error message. To change boot priority order, highlight the desired drive, and press the appropriate key to move it up or down in the list. In my BIOS, it is F6 to move up, and F5 to move down. Press F10 to Save and Exit.
  **Note - I like to keep my boot options where the computer boots from the CD/ DVD drive whenever a bootable disk is present. If you prefer, you can change it back to HDD first after the install is complete.
4. You can usually roll with the default settings with Linux Live CDs. If you're not familiar with terminals, don't be intimidated. Just read the prompts, Live CDs are generally pretty user-friendly.
5. Think. . . are there any files on there that you really want? There's no turning back after this; they're about to disappear forever.
   
6. Select any unwanted partitions and press "Delete." 
7. Think some more. There's still time before you send all your files into oblivion.
8. Hit "Apply" to make it official.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Double click "Exit" and press OK to restart the computer
10. Remove the GPartED disk when prompted.
    

Installing Windows

1. Your boot order should still be CD/ DVD drive first, so insert the Windows disk right after removing GPartED, but before restarting.
2. Press Enter to restart (as prompted by the GPartED live CD)
   
   
   
   
   
3. After the installer loads, select your Language, Time and currency format, and Keyboard format.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click "Install Now"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Read and accept the software license. Check "I accept the license terms." Click Next
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click "Custom (Advanced)" since we're installing a fresh copy of Windows, and not upgrading.
7. Select your hard drive or partition from the list.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   **I won't go into how to partition here. This guide is just for a single-partition, single-boot system.
   
   
   
   
8. (It looks a lot like Vista, but don't worry; it's definitely not. . . . I hope)
9. From this point on, it's pretty much auto-pilot, until it's time to fill in your user details.
10. After the system reboots, type in your user information.
11. Type in product key (this may be the last step for some of you posers out there heh heh heh)
12. Finish the rest of the options using your own preferences and common sense. I'm done here.

P.S - I recommend antivirus software. Avast is wonderful, and I don't just say that because it's free. . . . OK yes I do. No, it's really wonderful. I use it every time someone asks me to "fix their computer" cuz they downloaded a virus. Home version is 100% free. Professional is a free trial. Home is perfectly good, even if you're a professional.