Tuesday 18 December 2012

BMW 116ed fuel consumption

Just did a business trip to Bolton. Lots of stop/start from Leeds, bits where I was cruising at good Motorway speed and lots where I was sitting in traffic so expected low mpg.
So impressed with this every time I see it. I am saving £££'s on fuel.
Even though i'm 1/2 full I've got enough to go home, come back and probably go home AGAIN. When I passed this junction in Avensis on way to Blackpool I had almost used 1/2 a tank in the same mileage, I've done something like 280+ and hit 1/2 tank on the BMW, I wasn't counting really.
I find I don't need to look any more.
Miles covered now, just coming up to 7000 since May.
 
Just done the return trip and I was not hanging around, in fact drove at the same speed as everyone else.

I actually got 65.5mpg for most of the trip, dropping a little when I hammered the final few miles due to people hanging on my boot at 70mph or cutting up, popped in sport mode and pulled some extra speed, it would have popped back up nicely I'm sure as I did see 65.8 at one point but 65.5 was pretty stable for a good 40-50 miles.

Considering the cars rated maximum economy is 74.3mpg if my maths is correct this is 88% of the maximum economy, when you look at what I used to get with several Avensis or Passat then this is staggering.

I would even say if someone was gentle on the throttle and not lead footed like I am then I see no reason they would not get this even higher.

Absolutely staggering !


Friday 14 December 2012

Not More Reasons to Shop at Morrisons

Last week my Brother was in Morrisons while we were, my daughter was talking to him as he went through the checkouts, the staff issued him through their challenge 25 process and point blank refused to serve him alcohol, despite the fact he worked in that store until 6 weeks ago and they knew him by name.

I sent Morrisons a complaint, he's written his own, it's the implications they stated that are total rubbish, beware if you have any children and intend to buy anything they will challenge you on as they point blank will not back down.
Here's what I wrote, further on is their useless reply.


I believe the store did not exercise sensible use of their over 25 rule tonight. I, My wife and daughter (12) went in the store to get a few supplies, my brother (who previously worked for this store) was with us, he picked up his shopping and in there was a bottle of alcohol, along with coffee and other supplies, my wife and I went through one checkout, my brother went through another and my daughter was with him. She was helping him pack his bags and the store refused to serve my brother alcohol unless she could prove she was above 25. 
I believe the supervisor was Lisa ? They 100% refused to serve him even though he told them my daughter was not with him, just standing with him while he got his shopping.
In the ensuing argument Lisa and another staff member insisted they had done nothing wrong and despite me saying in that case you CANNOT sell alcohol to anyone who has a child with them as in your own words you were not sure if she would drink any.

I pointed out the store thought nothing of selling 6 large cans of Monster drink to my daughter and Lisa said "that's because it is not illegal", however that drink can have serious impact on your health so the rule seems simple, the store recognized my brother and simply wanted to be obstructive. 
I asked Lisa and the girl at the cigarette counter, "OK , if she was with him and he wanted to by himself some cigarettes would you serve him ? ", the answer "NO", I declared then is is blatant and simple discrimination, of course you can challenge someone purchasing, and I back this 100% but as I tried to point out you cannot under any circumstances sell any family or person alcohol, cigarettes or sharp items if they have a teenager with them, lest they touch, consume or otherwise partake of these items outside the store.

At the end of the day I saw other families packing shopping without challenge, I asked "What about scouts and young children packing for charity ?" - The answer "they are different" - NO I disagree, you cannot make the rules up as you go along, why is it OK for a 9 year old scout to handle 10 bottles of wine, knifes or solvents when a supervised member of your own family cannot ? 
It's clear to me that although they thought they were following the 25 rule they simply wanted to make a point that in fairness only serves to embarrass Morrisons.
I've no doubt Lisa will put a totally different side to the story but there's nothing to stop someone buying a bottle of alcohol and handing it to minor outside the store, or what if my brother had packed the bag and my daughter inadvertently carried it ?
As I clearly said to Lisa you're being a Jobsworth, your taking a problem that does not exist and bending the rules to suit yourself.. If this is your policy then I will make sure I keep an eye out over the coming weeks, if I see ANY family with children who look suitable then I will challenge Morrisons staff to ask why they have not refused to sell them the alcohol, surely this is just as stupid and pointless ? 
You are coming to the busiest time of the year, surely families cannot bring ID around for children, nor will they be able to separate bags at the checkout so minors do not see or touch such items, we cannot logically exist in such a state, the controls need to be sensible and meaningful otherwise these rules are worthless and no one will benefit from the obvious positives in stopping people buying such items. 
Perhaps even the most absurd part was when I said my daughter was now coming home with us, my brother was going his own way, would you now sell him the alcohol the answer was an abrupt "NO", it was clearly stated "We CANNOT reverse or change anything once a challenge has been issued", common sense it appears does not apply to these people ? 

We ate at a pub earlier in the day, perhaps they should have refused to serve us alcohol as well seeing as my daughter was with us, in fairness they are not to know that she might or might not touch the glass. Lisa will no doubt say I swore at her, I clearly said the issue was "Bo!!ocks" and stand by that, I have never ever heard such a jobsworth answer and simple attempt to obstruct someone, singled out amongst an entire store. 

I also clearly told her that she cannot discriminate, the store MUST challenge every single parent or person in this situation to satisfy her answer that they are following the rules they MUST follow in all instances, you cannot single someone out and then say one thing is ok and one thing isn't, the next step if we don't use common sense is not selling someone a clothes line in case they use it to end their life - the limits need to be common sense, not opinion and it will do little for customer loyalty to deter people from buying things because their children of nieces are with them. 

The irony is that perhaps in a year my wife and I might have one drink, so out of all the people you could have an argument with the most teetotal is not the one to pick. 

I welcome a response on this but I accept you won't do anything, you will believe Lisa and the checkout operator at the time acted in the correct interests and you'll do it again and again, upsetting people who did nothing more than buy a present for someone else (or attempt to) and happened to have someone with them in the store, although it's not safe in my mind to leave them outside in the dark. 

I've seen this issue many times tonight in news articles returned in a quick Google search, perhaps it's time you advise the stores to use a bit of common sense. 



Morrisons - very predictable reply


Thank you for contacting us.

I was most concerned to learn of the poor service you received from our staff members at our store when your brother attempted to purchase alcohol.
  
Our aim is to make your experience at Morrisons as pleasant as possible and on this occasion I am sorry that you feel that we have let you down and I would like to take the opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If we believe that the customer is under 25, or we suspect, or knowingly know that the alcohol could be bought for anyone under age then the cashier has the right to ask, challenge or refuse the sale.

I can only apologise that you feel we may have been over zealous in our approach. I can assure you that no discourtesy was intended however, I hope you now understand our reasons for the refusal .

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us.  We really do take the utmost care to look after our customers well and I do hope that we can be of service to you again in the future.


Kind regards,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Customer Services Department
Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC


This reply is actually wrong, they don't understand what happened , have not read the full letter and don't give a shit.

The under 25 rule is voluntary, the stores do it because they are at risk of loosing their alcohol license, perhaps they think a few customers who walk away is a small price to pay, however the quote about refusing to sell cigarettes just shows they have no idea.

Although it is illegal to sell them to a minor there is no legal age for smoking in the UK, they cannot stop an adult if they chose to give a cigarette to anyone under 18, in fact if a parent wanted to give wine to their child that is also legal in the UK, you cannot give alcohol to under 5, you cannot give spirits to under 18 but Morrisons have no right to adopt a high and mighty self styled moral high ground simply because they think you might possible just might give some to a minor.

What's next ?
Refusing to sell you peanuts in case you give them to someone with a nut allergy ? 
Refusing to sell you cling film in case you put it over you lovers face and suffocate them ?
Refusing to sell you a TV in case your children watch 18 rated films ?

Come on Morrisons GET A FUCKING GRIP and realize you are being over zealous and you are totally out of order just because you wanted to upset an Ex-employee.
Ask yourself why did he leave? That might help you understand what's wrong with your store.

Everyone else, brace yourselves if you get challenged, they will NOT back down despite the staff not knowing the UK law.

HERE is the UK Law on both aspects, Morrisons, you should get your staff to read it particularly the very unhelpful, arrogant and morally self centered Lisa who I hope I never speak to again.

Before the age of 18, you are not allowed to buy alcohol in pubs or shops, drink alcohol in pubs or outside in public places.  It is also unlawful for anyone else to buy alcohol for you if you are under 18 and the drink will be consumed in a pub or public place.  
However, if you're aged 16 or 17, you are allowed to drink wine, beer, or cider (but not other alcohol) with a meal in a restaurant, hotel or part of a pub set apart for eating meals. You can only do this if someone aged 18 or over is with you at the meal and buys the alcohol.
Any child aged five or over can drink alcohol at home or on other private premises but it is usually against the law to give alcohol to a child under five.
It's illegal to sell cigarettes, tobacco or cigarette papers to anyone under 18, but it is not a criminal offence for a person under 18 to smoke.
I rest my case that Lisa is incorrect in her statement not to sell cigarettes if my brother chose to buy them and my daughter was with him, how can they possibly uphold this?
One really funny part was when I asked how they thought my daughter could possibly pay for any alcohol when she has no funds or means to do so, apparently that's not important, she had no ID (being 12) and so they refused to sell a 31 year old man some.

I laugh at the stupidity and overall ignorance of Morrisons for their attempt to Police our lives at this level when it is not justified.

I really think the World has gone mad !

Wednesday 3 October 2012

T-Mobile, the trials of getting a Pac code

It's always been fun contacting T-Mobile if you have a Pay As You Go phone or as I call them a scum of the Earth phone.

They don't advertise any numbers and make it almost impossible to contact them but our Daughter was switching to a GiffGaff Sim as she uses a lot of texts and some Internet so at the moment it's costing us about £13 a month, on GiffGaff that would be £10 and she gets more benefits.

So we set the GG sim up nice and easy, made an account etc but she wants to keep her old number.

GG kindly publish a list of contact numbers so you can call vendors to arrange PAC codes.

My wife called from her T-Mobile contract phone to save money, she was then subjected to a 20 minute argument that they insisted on talking to our Daughter despite the fact she is a minor.
This is not the first time they have done this I told them previously they are in breach of law by insisting they talk to a 12 year old, as her parents they must deal with us but T-Mobile seem oblivious to this and kept insisting they talk to her.

My Wife explained she pays the bill and the phone account even has my Wife as owner and says our Daughter is not the owner of the account and phone, the stupid person at the other end said after 20 minutes they will put us through to a department to get a PAC code.

After 24 minutes on hold we then found they had put us through to totally the wrong department, come on T-Mobile, we can't be the only people ever to request a PAC code ?

Finally they put us through to another department, they seemed to be in the UK, understood what was going on, agreed quickly they didn't need to talk to our Daughter and even agreed the GG offer was better than they could possibly do.

So after a total of 54 minutes we got a PAC code.

In fairness T-Mobile that is an utter disgrace, you should hang your heads in shame.

A perfect example of out sourcing your company off shore to people who simply have no idea, no training or perhaps don't care less.

Anyone else going down this path needs to make sure they have a fully charged battery, some drinks and is sitting down as I'm sure this is by no means a record or a one off event.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Rocksmith and Ubuntu

Got nipper Rocksmith for Xbox 360 and it comes with a 1/4" jack to USB converter so being inquisitive I plugged it into my ubuntu 11.04 laptop.


No downloads, no Windoze installers or complaints about missing this and that, I literally plugged it in, went to the sound settings and there it was, it also shows in the hardware tab.




Open the sound recorder and it records fine !

Obviously if you install Audacity or similar then I'm sure it will give even more control and editing etc. It might even be worth checking it out on Ubuntu Studio which is geared for multimedia recording.

So for the money nippers not only got Rocksmith on the Xbox but a USB converter that works fine in Ubuntu - Totally amazing.

I love linux !

Wednesday 26 September 2012

BMW 116ed Efficient Dynamics, the journey so far....

I must remember to check my next post when I write it on my Android phone.....

I've now covered 4500 miles, almost all of it on twisty country roads and town i.e to work and back.
Saying that even on the B roads my worst is 48mph compared to my last car which gave under 34.
As soon as I hit cruising roads the mpg just climbs and climbs, it's still great to hit 300 miles and see 260 left.
This figure just gets bigger the more A roads and motorway you do.
I notice the less frequent trips to the pumps, in fact my Avensis and Passat would get me to and from work (150 miles) exactly two weeks.
I filled up, did 40 miles, almost week driving to work (120 miles), a trip to Telford and back (200 miles) and hit 1/2 a tank left !!

Perhaps the best part, it's been a long time since I had a car you sit in and drive. This is a better drive today than yesterday, you feel the car around you but more part of you than something sitting under you that imposes it's own rules.
Even in the torrential rain it never skips a beat, road holding is staggering at the minimum rising to supreme and onwards.
The brakes are still amazing me, you simply cannot use the full force, your spine would come out.
I think they dry themselves as even in the heaviest rain they work immediately with none of the typical split second pause where nothing happens, other cars shoot past, their brake lights on in anticipation of something happening soon. I've already stopped, I then locate my eyeballs and pop them back in.

A minor problem with the blower fan, BMW Stratstones in Chesterfield ensured this was a smooth and painless experience, excellent service from them.
The stereo by the way is great, tons of volume and very clean sound. Not tried the USB plug yet.
Bluetooth is perfect, most people unaware I'm in a car.

So all in all it's still going great, fuel economy is excellent and for me I have plenty of power available.
I can't praise the car enough and I'm sure in the hands of someone more gentle the mpg would be even higher, but then they could miss all the fun in between?

Saturday 18 August 2012

root recover and root a bit more

I'm sure it's an omen but after the G300 I got a HTC desire (as my wife upgraded her phone this week) and as my Brother got his G300 working great he passed on his San Francisco (ZTE).

The Desire runs a (for me) a nice Android interface and has been a great workhorse so I just wanted to root it and put a bootloader.

The rooting needs the S-Off so I used Revolutionary which is available for Windows and linux - I also got myself the AmonRa image (recovery-RA_2.0.1.img)

Revolutionary requires a beta code (if you look on HTC developer site they do a similar unlock through a code), this was just a case of putting the phone in debug mode and running revolutionary from the linux terminal, put the code in and the S-OFF mode was immediate.

Put the phone in Hloader (hold Vol-down and power) and you see a new purple header for revolutionary.

Next step was to pop AmonRa on which needed you to select Fastboot from the recovery menu, it then shows "fastboot" - plug the USB cable in and this changes to say "fastboot USB", I used the fastboot files with the CWM and just executed the AmonRa manually from linux terminal "./fastboot-linux flash recovery recovery-RA_2.0.1.img"

This puts the recovery image on, you can test this by holding Vol-down and power to Hboot and then select "Recovery" the screen will pause 2 or 3 seconds but then the AmonRa loader will load.

I used AmonRa as I just prefer it, no other reason, CWM would probably have been just as good.

Finally I popped the root  file "su-2.3.6.3-efgh-signed.zip" into the root of the SD card, then use the option to install from SD card and the HTC is rooted.

Time from start to finish, about 20 minutes tinkering.

I've not updated the Android itself but can now make a Nandroid backup, run root apps like Link2SD and so on, which is all I wanted.

The ZTE was already rooted and had CWM installed, with CM7 Android, the problem was the battery life was terrible so I looked for alternatives.

I located Swedish Snow and got that, with CWM this was just a case of putting the zip onto the SD card and installing from there.

Only time will tell if the battery life is better, the interface is fine though and works great, everything's there and I can't find any apps that don't work.

I rounded the afternoon off by replacing the left hand screen hinge in my brothers Laptop !

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Hauwei Ascend G300 ADB rules.d files for linux (Ubuntu 11.04)

Just in case anyone needs the rules.d files for the linux adb here are my android rules files.

They reside in /etc/udev/rules.d

I'm not sure which one actually activated recognition of the G300 but it doesn't seem to upset anything having both these in.

In the rules.d folder create a file called 99-android.rules (note the character after the 99 is the minus sign)

If you're in a terminal and in the folder /etc/udev/rules.d just type

sudo gedit 99-android.rules

Paste this into it

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", SYMLINK+="android_adb", MODE="0666" GROUP="plugdev"
#Google
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"
#Acer
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0502", MODE="0666"
#Dell
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="413c", MODE="0666"
#Foxconn
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0489", MODE="0666"
#Garmin-Asus
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="091E", MODE="0666"
#HTC
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
#Huawei
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1", MODE="0666"
#Kyocera
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0482", MODE="0666"
#LG
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666"
#Motorola
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="22b8", MODE="0666"
#Nvidia
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0955", MODE="0666"
#Pantech
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="10a9", MODE="0666"
#Samsung
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666"
#Sharp
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04dd", MODE="0666"
#Sony Ericsson
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0fce", MODE="0666"
#ZTE
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="19d2", MODE="0666"

Save the file and if you ls-al you will see the file 99-android.rules there.

chmod the file so it's executable

sudo chmod +x 99-android.rules

ls -al will show the file and permissions as (in my example)

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1106 2012-08-12 15:49 99-android.rules


The file name in green is to highlight the fact it's executable.

At this point you could try rebooting and see if the phone is seen by adb devices, if not then try adding the next file.

in the same directory I also have 51-android.rules so make a file with that name and edit it as before, paste these lines in....

## SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="12d1",ATTRS{idProduct}==”1030”, MODE="0666"
## BUS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="d00d", GROUP="plugdev", MODE="0660"

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="618e", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="d00d", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", SYMLINK+="android_adb", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="d00d", SYMLINK+="android_adb", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="22b8", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0502", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="413c", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0489", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="091E", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0482", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0955", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="10A9", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04dd", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0fce", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="19D2", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0451", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",
ENV{PRODUCT}=="e79/*", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="e79", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0e79", MODE="0666"


Save the file, again make it executable by

sudo chmod +x 51-android.rules

 ls -al should show the 2 files as...

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1576 2012-08-12 15:14 51-android.rules
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1106 2012-08-12 15:49 99-android.rules

The G300 identified itself to adb and that allowed me to run the bootloader unlock and the root file.

Hope this helps anyone searching for the adb files.

As I say I'm not 100% sure which file was needed (or both), one file was put in to recognize my pulse mini, different Ubuntu versions need these files differently i.e one might only use the 51-android.rules while another might need the 99-android.rules one.

But my system doesn't mind they are both there and for the 3 minutes it takes to make the files and paste the contents in it's hardly hard work.

You can restart the services for udev and adb but to ensure the files are read fully etc I just rebooted my server, I try not to reboot it too often and almost went a whole year without a reboot (although in linux terms a year without a reboot is hardly worth speaking about, I spoke to one customer who has genuinely not rebooted fully [power cycle boot] in 15 years and still runs the exact same system configuration, it's never been updated and he runs fine).

For info my brother got an unlock code for £2.99 and his G300 is now unlocked from Vodaphone and working perfect on Giff Gaff, he had to enter the service numbers manually for SMS etc but they only took a couple of minutes, the phone appears very nimble, has an excellent display and ICS looks great on it.

Don't forget by the way you need your phone in debug mode (in the android settings) so that it does not mount as a USB storage device but stays active as a phone - the G300 notifies you it is connecting as a debug device.

Then when you type "adb devices" you should get a response from whatever phone is connected and you can continue.


Sunday 12 August 2012

Hauwei Ascend G300 bootloader B926 ICS Rom

My Brother bought one of these as there is an ICS update, the instructions on
http://www.modaco.com/topic/355583-guide-how-to-install-ics-403-b926/

are very good but we had one or two problems.

There have been one or two queries if you can unlock the bootloader with linux.

Although I have one PC in the house still running Windoze I had already done some updating on my pulse mini and installed Amon Ra so we had a go at putting CWM on and unlocking the phone more.


The modaco guide is pretty good, steps we took were...

We Rooted the phone using superrecovery, this is easy enough in linux and this link has Windows, Mac and linux versions.

Put the phone in the fastboot mode by holding DOWN and  POWER, after a few seconds the phone vibrates and you get the hauwei screen, release power but hold down for a couple of seconds - we found if we didn't do this the phone carried on and booted.

If it stops with the Hauwei logo then plug in the USB cable and in a terminal run the superrecovery file.

This just involves making sure the shell file (.sh) is executable as with linux no files are automatically executable.

If you're sitting in the superrecovery directory type

sudo chmod +x ./install-superrecovery-linux.sh
then type
./install-superrecovery-linux.sh

In linux "./" means "here" - when you use DOS it effectively does the same thing but you don't need to type ./, linux is an implicit operating system so will do whatever you tell it.


Once done you get a message to restart the phone, I had an error but the first two lines said

sending 'recovery' (5074 KB)... OKAY
writing 'recovery'... OKAY

As long as they say OKAY then you're fine.

Remove the battery and USB cable, wait a couple of seconds, reinstall the battery, hold UP and Power this time to get into the recovery mode.
It should say "reboot phone", press the power button.

Once the phone has loaded, scroll through your app lists to see if SU (Super User) is there, if it is then it's rooted.

We followed step 1 to back up the IMEI as we found later this was important to get the loader screen back etc.

I got mine from here  don't worry it says downgrade guide I just used the link to get the program APK (you don't need to copy the file structure to your SD card just the APK).

You also need the phone set to allow 3rd party applications to install (in the settings) or you cannot run the 5irom application.

To run the APK install something like Astro file manager, run it and locate the toobox5irom.APK when you select it you get the option to install it and then the root (SU) will pop up for you to grant SU permission, once you do you can back up the IMEI.



Once that was backed up we made a security copy of the 5imei folders onto NAS drive.

Next step was to download the ICS update, you notice if you unpack this that it has two directories, one says dload, the other Vendor, you do NOT need to apply the Vendor update, if you do the phone will switch to Chinese (you can if you're lucky change it to English which is what we did but it causes a big delay).

You apply the dload update by simply copying the dload folder to your SD card so you can see the dload folder itself.
Hold both the UP and DOWN keys, and Power, the phone responds very quickly to say it's applying an update and takes about 2 minutes to apply.



As long as you're not in Chinese mode now you let it boot into ICS, make sure USB debugging is on and we also turned off fastboot in the settings - this caused some problems with Link2SD for example as it starts the phone up without applying new mount points etc.

NOTE - Don't confuse "fastboot" with "fastboot" - the phone has a fastboot option in the Android settings, this is the one we turned off, it ensures SD card etc are scanned fully on boot up, the difference is only a few seconds. It's just a toggle, On or Off in the settings section (sorry no screenshot :-( )

The other Fastboot is holding Down and Power to get the Hauwei loading screen. It's a bit confusing but if you're this far I don't think you will have any problems. 

The phone will boot into ICS as below.


By the way the pictures here are from Hauwei so not fully in English but they show pretty much what you will see.

Anyway at this point we are really neck and neck with Modaco instructions, the next step is to re-root it and unlock the boot loader.

The link to the unlock file keeps dropping or saying invalid link but I got a copy and I would say it fills me with dread seeing it run on a Windows system, it even shut the PC down so I might be looking at a reload on that machine.

Needless to say it failed to unlock the phone anyway despite everyone saying it was the "only" way to do it.

I downloaded bootloader from here
The file is b926-root-bl.zip.

Now I need to point out that I have adb (Android Debug Bridge) installed on my linux machine just in case anyone has problems etc.
Also to do this step you keep the phone in ICS i.e not in bootloader or recovery mode, just normal phone mode - plug in the USB cable and it says "USB installer mode" or similar on the top, the debug mode prevents the phone mounting as a USB memory device.

Don't mail me for help on this as I know literally nothing on ADB I just know it's installed and when I type
adb devices

in a terminal I see (the phone was in recovery mode at the time)

List of devices attached
C8D15E99DD97    recovery


If you see no devices it's important you make sure this works or you can't send the bootloader over.

You need to have the phone set to enter debug mode which is in the settings, if you didn't do this then test again.

Once you see your phone then you should be good to go.

In the bootloader folder you need to make the root and the bootloader shell files executable.

type

sudo chmod +x  bootloader-linux.sh
sudo chmod +x root-linux.sh

And to run them just type (while you're in the directory)

./root-linux.sh

The terminal should show the file progress as below.
735 KB/s (10324 bytes in 0.013s)
451 KB/s (22364 bytes in 0.048s)
4453 KB/s (831313 bytes in 0.182s)
9 KB/s (386 bytes in 0.040s)

And the bootloader unlocker

./bootloader-linux.sh
Again the terminal shows the file progress.
3335 KB/s (4194304 bytes in 1.228s)
4839 KB/s (4194304 bytes in 0.846s)
8192+0 records in
8192+0 records out
4194304 bytes transferred in 2.169 secs (1933750 bytes/sec)
8192+0 records in
8192+0 records out
4194304 bytes transferred in 1.579 secs (2656303 bytes/sec)

At this point you have ICS, Root (check in the applications that it shows SU) and you have the bootloader unlocked.

Now to install CWM, you put the phone in the fastboot mode by holding DOWN and power (remember to unplug USB, remove battery, put battery in, hold the buttons and when it's stuck on the hauwei logo plug the USB cable in).

I downloaded CWM easy installer from here

As with most of these files they have Windows and linux version in the zip.

Again, you make the installer executable within linux.

Move to the cwm directory and type

sudo chmod +x install-cwm-recovery-linux.sh

and to run it

./install-cwm-recovery-linux.sh

You can see the two errors I kept getting but the main bit is the OKAY .

sending 'recovery' (5212 KB)... OKAY
writing 'recovery'... OKAY
./install-cwmrecovery-linux.sh: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `('
./install-cwmrecovery-linux.sh: line 3: `echo Now reboot to recovery to root your device (pull battery, then hold volume up and press power).'


Now if you remove the USB cable and battery, install the battery and hold UP and Power you boot into CWM.

I then copied the google apps installer (zip file) into the SD card available here

Keep the file as a zip.

Boot into CWM, select install a zip file from sd card.


and locate the google file(gapps-ics-20120429-signed.zip), the center button on the G300 acts as "select" by the way.

CWM will show it installing the Google apps package.

Finally you press power to go back to the main CWM screen and select "wipe data/factory reset".

Once done I removed the battery and powered up to a fully working ICS with the Google sign in screen, a quick "about phone" will confirm ICS, you can check SU (we installed Link2SD which requires SU so the root worked fine), we also booted into CWM and made a full recovery backup.

A nice note, Hauwei also offer 16gb Cloud storage which pops up.

I hope this helps anyone in the same situation I have been in, after a few hours messing I found my issue was adb was not seeing the phone - I updated my rules.d files to include the google phone identity and rebooted my server, the phone was seen straight away.

The adb part is perhaps the most critical and it was interesting the phone was seen fine before we did the ICS update but no after - no idea why but these are all the steps I did to resolve it so I hope you enjoy this phone as well.










Friday 10 August 2012

The Promise of things to come....

The recipe was alluring and offered the taste of home cooked Macaroons quickly and easily.






Queue £5+ spent on ingredients by my enthusiastic wife.....

The harsh reality soon hit home ...


Thankfully I don't like Macaroons, I had a Vanilla slice instead...

And now you know why I do most of the cooking at home.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Running Great

Had the 116 ED for a few weeks now and took it for a run to Telford 100 miles away, it just breezed there, almost felt like I'd only done 30 miles.

So I took it to the East coast a return trip of 196 miles, its a combination of many twists and turns, almost constant gear changes etc.

The Avensis would have used about 3/4 of it's tank on this run, the Insignia 1.6 SRI used almost an entire tank (about 8 gallons) so nearly £50 of fuel with the best I had being 21mpg, the Avensis climbed a little on it's run to almost 40mpg but both were very costly to pop to the beach and back.
The Passatt would have returned almost identical to the Avensis so they were about £35 in fuel (About 6 gallons I think)

The BMW did it in 1/4 of a tank of fuel, lets say it did it the trip on 4 gallons and the computer was  advising me it still had over 300 miles left, almost enough to go there and back twice more.

This is pretty amazing considering the stop/start, accelerate/brake and challenge the journey gives, MPG suffered due to this, returning just over 51mpg but when your comparing it to the previous cars it's easy to see the clear winner.

The country roads didn't represent much of a challenge, in fact you could get to cruising speed very quickly with little effort compared to previous cars and the road holding showed itself in that you could go around corners at previously untried speeds.

So far it's great, I'm getting about 3 weeks out of a tank running to and from work instead of 2 weeks, even now after coming back from the beach I've pottered around for 4 days and it still says 300 miles left so it's returning economy and performance where normally you get one or the other.

The Insignia for example was badly under powered with it's 1.6 petrol engine, you had to rev rev rev to get anything out of it, a burst of activity at the top end then a gear change and drive it hard to get any speed.

With the twin turbo in this engine you get your Diesel torque and turbo push early, then as that one starts to fade in comes the big boy and you get lively and demanding acceleration, it's almost constant from start to red line.

With almost 3k on the clock now and 15k until service due it will be interesting how it goes over the coming months.

Friday 22 June 2012

Raspberry Pi time

I've had my Pi about a month now but due to holidays etc not had much time to play with it.

They need a good power supply, so I got a HTC charger from at £3.96 from Day2Day accessories on Ebay, this was a genuine HTC charger with nice long cable so an excellent product at a good price. Delivery was really quick so I recommend them if you need a Pi power supply.


http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Day-2-Day-Accessories?_trksid=p4340.l2563

Added to this I got an 8GB Kingston SD card and my first task was to get XBMC running as I'm keen to check out the Pi as a media system.

This turns out to be very easy thanks to the guys at http://www.raspbmc.com/

I don't think I can commend them enough for their work and installation is so simple it can be done by anyone.

You don't really need to visit their site to download and install the system but here's what I did.

1) Format the SD card as FAT 32 (I use Gparted which only takes a minute)
2) Locate the drive id (type "mount" in a terminal), my card was /dev/sde
3) in a terminal type three commands.


  • wget http://svn.stmlabs.com/svn/raspbmc/testing/installers/python/install.py
  • chmod +x install.py
  • sudo python install.py

You are then asked for the device id for the SD card, in my case I just typed "sde".

This will install a 49mb loader, you're then prompted to remove the card, so unmount it and pop it out.

Install the card in the Pi and connect it to the internet with a network cable.
Power up and it will download and install the files.

On my 110mb Cable it took about 10 minutes to download and install the operating system and files.

Quick reboot and your running XBMC.
Everything works using a mouse which is great, the next step is to look at using a remote control or even perhaps the Wii remote, I had this working on Ubuntu in about 5 minutes and have a couple of bluetooth USB modules so this could be interesting.

XMBC has web control interface as well so all I might need to do is control it through my Android tablet.

Raspbmc have done an amazing job getting the installer to work flawless and the XBMC interface is great.



Sunday 3 June 2012

Avensis 2.0 D TR versus BMW 116 ED (Efficient Dynamics)

Having driven almost 6000 miles in the Avensis I believe that qualifies me to give a fair review on it.

The Avensis was on hire while I waited for my new company car, the model supplied was the 2.0D TR Saloon, previous to this I had a 2.0D Passat (Saloon) and 2.0D Avensis D-4D Saloon.

Compared to the last Avensis saloon the differences are noticeable, the boot lid for example seems considerably smaller, a trip to Ikea soon confirmed that, whilst I would easily slide wardrobe doors into my last Avensis and the Passat saloon (by dropping the double rear seat, on this model I couldn't unless I put the passenger seat fully forward and then moved the seat back until it was touching the dashboard.

The boot lid is not very high so although it has a big boot its not a tall boot and getting things in and out need you to stoop low and almost climb into the boot to reach items, the Passat boot was noticeably larger, you could slide long items and through to the folded rear seats with considerable ease.

Inside the Avensis is OK, you notice it appears smaller than the previous models, more towards Astra size than the other direction, you're not cramped but you do notice it's not a large cabin, rear passenger has a fold down center arm rest with 2 cup holders in, door pockets which soon fill up with sweet wrappers and junk.
Front passengers get a center storage compartment/arm rest.

Perhaps it's strongest features are the 6 inch touch screen radio, phone, sat-nav system and the auto climate control (which was the same as the climate control on the previous Avensis).

Bluetooth is standard and you can register plenty of phones but can only connect to one at a time.

Sat-nav is on memory card and was OK to use, some issues with the menu's not being intuitive, setting a destination for example you got to the point where you just needed to confirm the destination, instead of an "OK" icon you're faced with a "dot" symbol, canceling a destination required a combination of pure luck and witchcraft.

You soon realized although it looked snazzy to start with the display was just a phone, radio and sat-nav so nothing to write home about.

Handling on the Avensis was OK, you noticed it was a heavy car, it took quite a bit of effort to move it but it held the road fine with no great problems, perhaps the biggest and most important complaint was the fuel consumption.

Almost immediately the Avensis settled to 35mpg and stayed there for 6000 miles, my previous Avensis would do 36.6 on the run to work (1/2 town driving, 1/2 twisting B roads), the Passat would give 35.5 so the drop in consumption was noticeable on the rising fuel bill.

Even on motorway (where I normally expect Diesels to return the mpg) the Avensis barely budged on it's consumption, a trip to Blackpool returned almost 40mpg with careful driving, dropped straight away to 33.5 on arrival and cost a fortune in fuel.

With 4 people in and light hand luggage the car felt heavy, you could feel it on turns and bends, you also felt considerable resistance on acceleration.

Cruise control was needed to try and relieve the stress of driving what felt like a heavy lumbering car.


After covering almost 6000 miles I can't say I was sorry to see the car go, the only device I used on it and will miss was Bluetooth and I was getting fed up banging my head on the low, small boot lid.

So last week (24th May) I took delivery of a new BMW 1 series 116ED (Efficient Dynamics), I chose this as the choice of other cars was not inspiring to say the least and I thought to hell with it, I've been offered a BMW so might was well give one a go.

The car came with just 140 miles (delivery) on the clock, I was intrigued as the MPG already said more than 50mpg.

The car has i-drive on a 6.5" display which is clear to read, navigation by the i-drive controller near the gear lever, very easy to use and no problems with that.

No sat-nav on board but I've got one anyway so no issue plugging that in, the car has a center armrest with storage and a USB plus 3.5"" audio in jacks hidden in there which is a nice touch.

This model comes with Bluetooth so within a jiffy I had my phone connected which was nice, on the i-drive system the car has things such as a built in user handbook (the Avensis did as well but the BMW version is deployed in both an index and photo style so you can read it like a book or search for the picture of what you want to get info on), the first item I looked up, Gearbox, Manual, reverse gear.






The ED display can be enabled on the drivers console, it shows additional savings by using the ED technology, this appears to indicate that on it's first 140 mile drive 33.5 of these were gained by using the ED technology.

If this is correct then me and this car are due for some serious personal time together !


Now I had my gear located it was a case of getting some miles on the clock, I kept the car in ED mode, this controls air vents for example on the car front, closing them when not required, throttles the air conditioning to reduce fuel consumption, altering throttle response and invokes the Stop/Start technology (which can be turned off easily).

Start/Stop is simple enough, pull up to some lights and pop the hand brake on, the ED display (which recommends which gear you should be in) says "N", put the car in neutral and as soon as you lift your foot off the clutch the engine will turn off and sit in "Ready" mode. To restart the engine just press the clutch pedal.

Engine start is by push button, no key required other than to unlock the car, for the next 2 days I return 53mpg on country/urban driving, I make a mental note to get a lanyard for the key fob as I you only need to unlock the car, sit in and press Start.

Now it's off to Devon, we load the car up for 3 people, literally filling the car up - the boot (although smaller than the Avensis) is bigger than the previous year model and we easily got a large and medium suitcase in, 2 laptop cases, a large stacker box full of cooking stuff for the beach, and beach bags. With the Avensis I would have fitted the 2 beach chairs in the boot as well, I had to put these behind the drivers seat. Despite the 1 series being a compact car we were surprised how much we fitted in.

You do notice the car is smaller than the Avensis, the windscreen for example seems tiny but you soon adjust to it, on the reverse side of the coin it was nice to have a rear wiper for a change so you gain on one point and perhaps lose on another.

Inside it's roomy enough, you always have a tunnel through the car regardless of front or rear wheel drive so even on Avensis/Passat you have a limit to your left leg movement, the seats are simple but comfortable, rear passenger unfortunately doesn't have fold down arm rest in the middle.

Fill the car up an we scoot to Devon a mere 275 mile drive, despite being full of 3 people and luggage the car feels well balanced and surprisingly light, you notice the car is very nimble and the 1.6D feels far bigger in performance than it's size says it should be.

Even with the ED enabled the throttle is fine, zipping away at lights and reaching motorway speeds with considerable ease.

The car is considerably quieter than either the Passat or the Avensis and the 1.6 engine simply wants to accelerate until you can go no further, for the first 50% of our journey I didn't realize I had turned off some of the ED features so the car was not running as efficient as it could be, a quick twiddle of the i-drive and I had the ED system on full efficiency 4 hours later we arrive in Devon with an MPG reading of 57mpg, this is at a steady 74mph (Sat-nav says this is 71mph in actual speed).

This BMW does not have cruise control but has an LIM button on the steering wheel, this activates a speed limiter, you can adjust this whilst driving and I found it every bit as good as a cruise control, you set a speed, when you reach it the throttle relaxes and you can move your foot around the gas pedal considerably without the car changing it's speed.

If you need to accelerate you can dump your foot to the floor, the car will over ride the limiter and respond, unlike cruise control you can change gear, brake etc and just return to your preset speed.

I liked this and felt I had more control than a cruise control simply accelerating me to a speed, I could do what I needed below my limit then hold the car at a preset speed with no effort for 4 continuous hours.

We got out the car with no complaints about numb legs, sore bums etc, I was surprised how relaxed and fresh we were, the front seats are noticeable thinner than the Avensis and Passat (and almost any other car) but seem perfectly comfortable, the rear passenger never once complained about any comfort issues.

I notice as well the car has used (depends how accurate the fuel gauge is), that I had used 1/3 of a tank - the Avensis on a full tank would show a range of 297 miles so I would have expected the Avensis to be sucking on Vapour now - my calculations say the Avensis would have used about 8 gallons, the BMW less than 5, whilst I accept the Avensis would have climbed a little bit I see nothing to suggest the Avensis ever went close to it's quoted 63mpg, I believe it could only do this if you dropped it from the International Space Station and kept it in neutral.

At £1.38 a gallon, that works out at about £51.50 for the Avensis versus £30.27 for the BMW. After driving around for a while I topped the car up (I forgot to keep a note of how much it was but I think it was £40), this lasted the whole week, topping it up again before the run home.
It was interesting that despite driving 275 miles to our destination the BMW showed 291 miles remaining in the tank ,effectively showing double the range of the Avensis.


After unpacking the car I noticed even more how light and nimble the car was, with just 3 adults in the car delivered almost sports car handling, the steering was light enough to use finger tips, the response was immediate and urgent, this was going to be a fun car to drive.

Beside the gear lever you notice the Eco/Comfort/Sport button, tap this and the center console changes to indicate comfort mode, Sport (the i-drive display changes to red) or the Eco mode, unlike some cars i've driven you notice the change from one mode to the other.

Prodding the button into comfort mode gives a balanced drive, more throttle response, eco functions turned off and you have a good lively drive, enter sport mode and you notice Devon simple does not have roads long enough for sport mode, it's a very lively drive, delivers some giggle factor and it's great to see this in a car that can offer such amazing economy.

For the entire week I left the car almost 100% in Eco mode, once or twice prodding Sport mode when I noticed an enticing hill or section to release the horses.

Despite the twisting, stop/start and continuous throttle/gear changes required for Devon roads I returned a consistent 52-53mpg.

Considering the continuous work needed to drive these challenging routes the car performed above and beyond my expectations, handling superbly, never diving into a corner or scuttling out with the traditional "foot to the floor" front wheel drive strategy, instead you simply drove into a corner and exited with a quiet sense of purpose.
A slight press on the throttle and in many cases tail gaiters were left as a speck in the distance, the Eco mode is more than enough power for almost all of your day to day driving.

Considering the Avensis would return (at best) 33.5mpg on these roads (and I have seen the Avensis drop as low as 31.9mpg) it was nice to know this car was returning almost twice the mpg with better performance and handling.

One thing to bear in mind, most engines have fairly poor economy when they are new, they normally get better and better through age, an Insignia SRi for example drove pretty crappy until the speedo hit a magical 1000 mile marker, the engine then changed considerably but the fuel economy started shitty and remained dismal afterwards.

The Avensis came to me with 5000 miles on the clock so should have been run in fine, the mpg gauge only even counted down, I reset it numerous times, ensured I changed gear when the prompt appeared, tried driving the Avensis as carefully as possible (getting 33.6mpg for my troubles), driving it hard (and getting 33.4mpg) nothing seemed to make any difference.

Motorway driving was not much different so my conclusion was the current 2011/12 Avensis is not an improvement on the previous models.

Putting that to the back of my mind and after a week of superb and enjoyable driving we return home, again I set the limiter and I must admit to using the sport mode several times to dispense with tail gaiters (and just for a laugh), this dropped a few points on my mpg, I did beat 60mpg and this is at 70mph - that's sixty miles per gallon at a speed that would return nothing near this on the Avensis - in fact I think the only way to get any economy out of the Avensis would have been to drop to the industry standard 56mph which normally returns maximum economy.

I drove a steady 4 hours and the mpg simply climbed and climbed, i'm sitting in a car here where the mpg figure simply climbs and the only reason it stops is you run out of road, I'm used to seeing the figures go down and stay down.

On the return I did drop my mpg significantly as I could sense the home run, once you pick up your local radio stations and want a nice cup of tea your foot develops a certain amount of lead and finds the floor of the car.

I dropped out of the high 59mpg and 60mpg margin to what I consider a very respectable 58.7mpg overall 261 miles and 4hr 8 mins of driving.

The first 30 miles of the trip were country roads to join the main A38 but I feel the average speed shows this is an accurate reading. I still show 324 miles remaining so thats already 585 miles out a tank and this should increase as the engine runs in.



Taking £1.38 as the fuel price, this would give a return price of £27.89, let's put the Avensis as giving 40mpg on the return (as a gesture of goodwill) this would still have been £40.94.

So would I go for the Avensis with the larger (but difficult to access) boot and the on board sat-nav or the BMW 1 series 1.6ED - there's no choice, I've declared this car is great fun to drive, I love it and intend to investigate the Sports mode considerably.

All I know is I had an almost effortless drive to Devon, a week of fantastic cruising and perhaps my easiest and least stressful drive back and all for a fraction of the price I would have spent doing the same trip in the Avensis.

Distance covered was 916 miles, approx £97.90 cost, if I assume the Avensis would have given 40mpg on the motorway (which it never did so I'm being VERY generous here), and 33.5 on the country roads that makes a cost of £155.23, if I used the Avensis 33.5mpg average as I'm doing on the BMW here that would give a cost of (sit down first) ...... £171.54, a saving of £73.64.

Finally the ED, it shows savings i.e extra miles your gaining by using the ED, this seems to work out about 25%, on the 261 mile drive home this equated to 53miles extra.

If this is correct then i'm looking at saving 43% on the fuel costs.

Oh and finally (really) the BMW is road tax exempt as it emits 99g of CO2, London Congestion charge exempt and is only 13% company vehicle tax.

BMW - if you read this, it's a winner, it drives and feels much bigger than it is, has both excellent economy and fun factor performance, can cruise all day or just whiz around in city traffic, I've now covered exactly 1000 miles with an average 51.7mpg and have completely forgotten the car I had before .... erm ... Avalon ? Revensis ? nope it's gone.




Tuesday 3 April 2012

The code word is ... "Malicious"


As usual when you see a strange mail appear in your mail box you should be hearing little alarm bells.

This one even came from an obviously suspicious source in this case "MISSY Clayton "
The mail title "Fwd: Scan from a Xerox W. Pro #348663"
And the content .. dear oh dear ... it's a HTM file

Strange, in all my 30 years working on printers I've not worked on an MFP that scans documents and converts them to HTML !

The HTM (when viewed as a text file shows)
(I've done it as a JPEG, if I paste the code in it executes... doh)



Now I'm not a Java or scripting chappie, I understand the header is announcing it's HTML 4 format so the bit that interests me is the script below, it's obviously there to do something ?
I can see it will put up a "Loading .... Please wait" message

Moving forwards, checking the mail address, project honeypot says "The Project Honey Pot system has detected behavior from the IP address consistent with that of a mail server and dictionary attacker."

IP address given is 95.215.159.14 not surprising that this comes up as an unknown IP address when you look up the domain.

Looking up hotel-heinz-gbr.de does yield a result which appears to be in a hosting service just here.....


My spider senses tell me this emails not legitimate ????

Honeypot further warns on some of the mail tags used previously but not an exhaustive list. Hmm the mail titles look familiar.


It would be interesting if anyone knew what the code did, If it's something nasty I might need to edit this post and delete some code so no one else can use it?

I suspect it's running a keylogger or virus or just something nasty ?

Sunday 18 March 2012

Using Multisystem to create Multi Boot Pen drive

Multisystem used to be called Multiboot and worked well, however with linux versions changing it had issues on many versions.

Here's how to install multisystem and create a multi boot pen drive, instructions here are for Ubuntu.

First, if you have multiboot, remove it, it doesn't matter but I like to try and keep my system clean.

I found a downloadable install script for multisystem and this does all the work for you.

Download the file (in this case to my desktop), right click on it and extract here.


Now we need to run the installer.

Open a terminal (Applications, Accessories, terminal)

In this example, my shell script is on the desktop so if it's elsewhere navigate to that folder.
All we're doing here is issuing a command to run the shell script.
./ means "here" i.e "this directory" and then we append the full name of the file, exactly as it's written.

A pop up window will appear asking for Super user permissions, put your password in and it will continue.

When closing the installation it might bring up a warning that "gtkdialog" needs to be version 2.0.8.0

If you launch package manager, mine had a little star next to gtkdialog, if you right click you have an "update" option, this worked fine for me on Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04

If you look in package manager it should show as below once updated.



The script puts multisystem into the repository so it will check for updates, when you launch multisystem it will check as well.

Creating a multi boot drive is easy.
Erase the pen drive and have it formatted as FAT32.
Plug your pen drive in and launch multi system


Confirm the drive to continue, you can now drag and drop ISO images to the drive, do one at a time, let the dialogue box finish then do the next.

 
It's pretty self explanatory what does what, the bottom of the screen shows (from left to right) the icon to backup/restore the entire usb pen drive, the drag and drop window (you can also click the green circle with the white arrow) and the Quit button.

If you want a particular choice to be in a different place just use the up and down arrows to move items etc.

If you need to check for updates or update multisystem the option is on the bottom of the Menus tab.


 

On my 8gb pen drive I have (click the distro for the download link)