Reluctant Galaxy S-5 Owner

Ha! No, he was a little before my time. He was convicted in '87, when I was there, but the espionage took place earlier in the 80s. It was a fascinating time to be there, though. Gorbachev was in power, and all we heard about was glasnost and perestroika. I came back to the States 6 months before the Berlin Wall came down.

You must've helped with the Rebuild 2.0. Wasn't the first construction attempt found to be riddled with listening devices, etc? And hadn't the Embassy dismissed all the Russian local hires by the time you got there, since no one knew who was a spy and who wasn't? Ah, the Cold War...good times.

Jake

I was in that timeframe, but I wasn't directly involved with the rebuild. There had been some diplomatic back and forth between the US and USSR (sending spies home), and it ended with the Soviets pulling all their workers out of the embassy the winter of 86-87, I believe. It was a bitterly cold winter, and all the professional embassy staff had to cover the support work the Soviet workers had been providing (food service, labor, maintenance, etc.). The company I ended up working for was contracted to fill those positions. I worked in the cafeteria initially, then ran the mailroom. I was in the old embassy building to start, then moved to the new complex when the mailroom was moved there. We occupied just the residential and common areas; the main office tower was unoccupied. For my entire 1 1/2 years there, Navy seabees were finding and removing bugs from the tower. My understanding was that during the detente period in the Nixon administration, an agreement was reached that allowed the Soviets to pre-fabricate sections of the office tower off-site, with no monitoring by the US. By the time they arrived, they were riddled with listening devices (audio and video), which we then spent years discovering and removing. They were still working on it when I left in '89, and I'm not sure when (or if) they finished. The residential and common areas were probably bugged as well, but no sensitive work was done there.

Sorry to take this off-topic....just couldn't resist a stroll down memory lane.

I lived in Romania for three years in the 90s and the Embassy was always warning us that our residences were bugged (on the other hand, it turns out we're bugged in the States, too )

On the other hand, we did win the Cold War, so Romanian bugs can't have been that good...

I doubt the Embassy was sorry to see the Russian FSNs go--probably more of "you can't fire us, we quit." For some reason, I seem to remember that they had to tear down the tower; it was too compromised. What were we thinking of?

Jake

Sorry to get off topic...but I think everyone and everybody won the cold war...that is we managed to make it part of history without blowing ourselves off the face of the earth...

That is so true. Let's hope we're not in some sort of reversal.

Jake

It looks like they did eventually tear down the tower, and are going to replace it. This article has some interesting details on the extent of the bugging:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900618&slug=1077770

Here is a preview of the replacement structure:
http://www.hok.com/design/region/europe/united-states-embassy-new-office-annex-/

The new annex is pretty amazing compared to the old structure. So much more open and inviting. When I was there, the entire complex was surrounded by a high wall, with Soviet military guards stationed at regular intervals. They wouldn't even allow pedestrians to walk on the same side of the street as the complex. I remember walking to work around 8:00 a.m. one cold, dark winter morning (the sun didn't rise till around 9:00 in the depths of winter), and I was walking on the complex side of the street to get to the main gate. One of the Soviet guards stopped me and told me (in Russian) that I had to cross to the other side of the street. Well, it was dark, bitterly cold, and I wanted to get inside. So I told him (in English) that I didn't understand (tho' I did). He repeated himself (in Russian) with gestures, and I said I didn't understand. This repeated a couple more times, till the guard threw up his hands, walked away muttering to himself, and I went to work.

In renderings #1 and 4, the low red brick structures connecting to the new building are the existing residential units that were occupied when I was there.

Yeah, that whole get-on-the-other-street-side is typical of many US Embassies. The guards will flag you even for snapping pix. But, as you point out, it depends on the guard.

Such policies do not put us in good with the locals. But we lost a friend in the US Embassy bombings in Africa, so it's a sad, complicated mess.

Jake

The keyboard/case arrived and for 20 bucks, I have no complaints. It paired right away and afterwards, when bt is enabled on the S5 and the keyboard is turned on, it connects fast and without complaint.

As for the keyboard itself, it ain't no J720. The keys are rubberized and own a certain mushiness and obviously, it's a smaller layout than any h/pc.

I would compare usability to the Psion Revo keyboard. The tactile sense b/w the two is literally hard and soft, but their sizes are similar and the typing vs mistakes is roughly equal for both the Psion and this.

The phone casement is velcro-ed and to enable a quasi laptop mode, you loosen the phone's bottom half to set it at a slight angle.

The External Keyboard Helper Pro saves the day: I programmed a second Shift key, key-mapped many punctuation alternatives (mostly smart quotes, etc). Everything was done without root.

You can tell by its thickness that the case/keyboard/phone will not fit into a jeans' front pocket, which is where I like to carry my S5. I would imagine it would fit into the front pocket of dress or business pants, but noticeably so.

Whether this rig actually acts as an h/pc that makes/takes phone calls remains to be seen...

Wish me luck posting these pictures,

Jake

Keyboard link: http://www.cellphoneshop.net/s5btokey.html

Edited by Jake 2014-07-16 2:54 AM










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It looks cool - like a mini-HPC.

Am I correct in assuming that you can't really touch-type? I can touch-type on the Jornada, but with more errors than usual. This keyboard looks like it would be two-finger typing.

Yes, it's a two-finger deal. Still, considering how lousy I am on the on-screen keyboard, I'm at lightening speed w/ this thing

But no predicate text selection and I do miss that. External KBH lets you key-map apps as well, so alt-w, for example, could bring up your word processor and so on.

I can't see this thing acting as my go-to case, so for now, I've run a dark shoestring under the keyboard and up the sides to tie off the top and allow the case to open to 135 degree angle. Then I just rest the phone against the supported angle and type; I don't actually have to mount the phone inside the case.

The things we'll do to make the h/pc stagger on like a zombie

Jake

Edited by Jake 2014-07-16 6:53 PM

Late reply, but BlackBerry is definitely still making phones -- smartphones, even, which can run both BlackBerry and Android apps. If the U.S. government wants smartphones, they could buy new BlackBerries. They could also move to iPhone and Android devices, and continue to use BlackBerry services.

I had an iPhone for work and bought a slider-type bluetooth keyboard case (I think there were similar keyboards for the Galaxy S3 or S4). It functioned quite well, but the feel of the keyboard was fairly poor, and it was easier to type on the screen.

Never used a Wang, but I considered DOS warm and friendly once I was able to avoid EDLIN.

Love the sense of humour (Bold 9900!) in the pic!

Holy crap. I can't believe C:Amie has compromised his principles and uses Android now!?
What is this world coming to?

(I've used Android devices too but I feel so DIRTY after using them.)

Edited by TFGBD 2014-09-21 7:56 PM

Hey, even I use Android from time to time (though I'm still not that impressed with it).