Tag Archives: Android

Search Google – now with your Voice

Posted on by
Reply

Google's Voice Search integrated into the web

Since its debut in 1997, Google Search in general has grown in size and strength.

Since then, the keyboard and mouse have always been a primary tool in searches.

In 2008, the Google Mobile App was released to the Android and iOS operating systems, allowing native and mobile searching of the web.

A few months later, they integrated a new feature that they had been working on into the mobile apps called Voice Search. Voice search was a new idea on how to revolutionize searching. But most Google searches were done on the computer, so even if everyone used voice search on their phones, more requests would be made from a keyboard.

Google took a surprising 2½ years to make their next move. Then about a month ago, they released Voice Search online, using the same microphone input as Gmail chat. However, they confined it the Chrome as an experimental search feature.

I think that Google really has enough “innovations” that they’ve given to us and that using a keyboard is just fine for searches. Personally, I talk faster than I type, but I am so used to typing that a switch to talking instead is actually harder, at least for a while. I see where they are going with the user-friendly ideas, but this is one of their kind of unnecessary ones. The recognition accuracy is ok, but as I expected it doesn’t work well with names, even of well-known people.

If you want to try it out, head on over here in Google Chrome and hit Try It Out.

CyanogenMod 7

Posted on by
Reply

Of all of the ROMs floating around out there, Cyanogen is by far the most established custom after-market ROM available.

CyanogenMod 6 brought froyo features to 2.1, and was later updated to 2.2 It was then very similar to a basic 2.2 ROM, so it became outdated. But CyanogenMod 7 brought us a loaf of gingerbread this time around. This has put it much higher up.

In addition to the new faster and cleaner base operating system, CyanogenMod brought some new interesting features to the table.

Lockscreen Gestures

The name says it all. On the lockscreen, you are able to perform gestures that will do different actions, including enabling the flashlight, unlocking the phone, opening a shortcut, or opening an application.

DSPManager

I have really found no use for this quite yet, but others might. It allows you to modify your sound outputs. You can modify headset, speaker, and bluetooth separately, and in each pane you get options for a bass booster, and you also get a nice equalizer that is quite easy to modify. I don’t exactly know why you might need this, but I guess some audiophiles on a higher degree than me might appreciate it.

Themes Support

The operating system comes with a built in theme chooser and three themes. You can download new themes online on many different forum sites (such as xda-developers) and easily install them. One package includes the theming for the WHOLE operating system, including home screen, highlights, menubar tweaks, etc.

Incognito Mode

This feature is rarely used, but I guess could come in handy. Identical to the incognito mode in Google Chrome, this will prevent your phone from saving cookies, history, cache, or anything.

Installation

Installing this ROM was fairly simple, however it doesn’t come with Google Apps built in.

First, go to http://cyanogenmod.com and select your phone, then download the ZIP for your phone and put it on your SD card. Open up ROM Manager and select “Install zip from SD card.” Select the zip of CyanogenMod, then check the box that says “Wipe Data” and the box that says “Backup current ROM.” Continue with your installation and you will be greeted with CyanogenMod. You may notice, however, that there is no Market, YouTube, Gmail, etc. To install those, download the zip for your phone here and then flash it. To do this, transfer the Gapps zip onto your SD card and boot into recovery by booting while holding the down volume button. In the menu that comes up, select Recovery, and wait for it to boot. In the next menu, select “Install ROM from SD card,” select the Gapps ROM, and let it install. Then, reboot your phone, and you will be greeting with a Gapps enhanced CyanogenMod. Enjoy!

[For more info on installing ROMs and rooting, read my full guide here.]

INSTALLING ROMS ON YOUR DROID INCREDIBLE: FULL GUIDE

Posted on by
Reply

1. Background check and root

If you haven’t yet, click here to read the guide on rooting your droid incredible.

2. Find some ROMs

The first thing you need to install a ROM would be the ROM itself (go figure).

If you have a droid incredible, I highly recommend downloading the fusion ROM from this post. Fusion is an extremely well-done and compatible ROM based off of CyanogenMod7 (another ROM), so you’ll get the dimension-opening power of 2.3.2 gingerbread.

If you don’t want this ROM, you can always do a google search. Not too hard, eh?

2. Download the ROMs

With the example I’m using (fusion), there are two ROMs. It includes first the base gingerbread ROM, but on top of that it also has a ROM for the Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, and Maps applications, as they do not come by default on the Android base operating system.

For now, I am only going to discuss installing the base, but for other ROMs it is sometimes the same situation with the two seperate ROMs. So later on I’ll discuss installing the gapps (dev talk for Google Apps).

There are two ways you can get the ROM to your device.

The first one involves your computer. Download the ZIP file(s) onto your desktop, then plug in your phone and move the zip(s) onto the root of your SD card.

The second way requires an app called Root Explorer (I discussed it in the guide to rooting). On the phone itself, use the web browser to download the ZIP file(s). Then, open up root explorer and navigate to the downloads folder (probably on your sdcard). Then, tap and hold the zip and select move. Navigate to the root of the sd card and tap paste. (Do this with the second ROM if you have one).

3. BACK UP!

This is an extremely important step to this, because if you forget to backup then you will never be able to restore your phone to the condition it was in when you rooted. That means that the HTC sense operating system that came on your phone will be GONE.

So, you’ll need to boot into recovery and backup.

Turn off your phone and turn it back on while holding the down volume button. It will boot into HBOOT, a diagnostics screen. Once it is done checking for update images on the SDcard, use the volume and power buttons to navigate to and select RECOVERY in the menu that you see.

It will show the HTC booting screen, but then boot into recovery (with very small fonts, I might add).

In this screen, scroll down and select backups (you can now use the optical trackball to do this). Then, select create a backup (or something like that).

It might take a while, but eventually a backup should be made of all of your stuff on your phone. So we shall now proceed to the next step.

Install the ROMS

Now is the fun part.

Boot back into the recovery screen by holding the down key and the power button at the same time.

Then, hit Wipe Data/Factory Reset.

This will wipe all of the data off of the phone.

WAIT WAIT WAIT! I STILL WANT MY BACKUPS!

Calm your caps lock keys, wiping the data from the phone doesn’t wipe out the sd card, which is where the backups are.

Now, select install zip from SD card.

Select choose zip from SD card

then, select the zip that you either downloaded or transferred over.

Then, select the yes, and magically, the ROM will install.

Wait a while, and it should be installed and working!

Upon first boot it will take a very long time to load. It has to configure everything and get it working. But every time you reboot the device the reboot time should be less and less until it is less than 30 seconds.

Anything else?

You might have downloaded 2 zip files to your SD card which you downloaded from the site that gives out the ROMs. This is probably because one of them is a Google Apps zip.

Make sure that before you move the two zips on to the sd card, you name them so you can tell which one is the base OS and which is the Gapps. (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to click here and read up on your background info.) Make sure that first you install the Base OS zip, then, after it’s done, select Install zip from sdcard once again and select the gapps zip. Make sure that you don’t hit wipe data/factory reset, because what that will do is wipe out the base OS so you only have gapps and nothing to run it on. Not too functional if I may say so myself.

Where to find these ROMs?

As I said, the best ROM for the Droid Incredible at the moment is the Fusion ROM.

But there’s other ROMS too.

One of the most popular is CyanogenMod. They’ve been releasing ROMs with upgraded features since the dawn of time (or android).

However, after a little mixup with google, they are no longer allowed to have Gapps on their OS. So you’ll have an android phone with…. no android market. Or gmail. Or youtube. Have fun!

One of the easiest ways to find ROMS for your droid incredible is to just google it.

If you google Droid Incredible ROMs, a large amount of different websites will show up. If you are too lazy, here’s a direct link to that google search for ya. You’re welcome.

ROOTING YOUR DROID INCREDIBLE: FULL GUIDE

Posted on by
4

1. Background Check

Please click here and read up all about what it means to root and install ROMs, then do step 2.

2. YOU NEED AN SD CARD!

Make sure you have an SD card in your phone. If you don’t then all hell will break loose and the universe will be sucked into an unknown dimension beyond the horizon of scientific knowledge. Or something along those lines.

3. Enable USB Debugging

On your Droid Incredible’s home screen, tap menu, select Applications, tap developer, and check the box that says USB Debugging.

4. Download unrEVOked

unrEVOked is the limera1n for all HTC android phones (hence the capital EVO in the middle).

Click here and select which operating system you own. The download will begin.

5. Plug in your device and root

The time has now come.

Plug in your Incredible to your computer over USB. You should see a notification that says USB Debugging is enabled.

Also, pull down the notification bar and select the USB connection (not the debugging, the other one). Then, select to have your phone as a Mass Storage Device or something like that (My phone has been screwed over so much that I no longer have the stock htc operating system installed, so I can only be so specific to my knowledge).

You should see TWO drives mounted on your computer, one for the internal phone storage and one for your SDcard.

Then, hit the reflash button and take cover.

Time will pass into another dimension beyond the human eye’s comprehension of life itself. Portals will contradict all possibilities of universal independence. Our very existence will tremble at the rip in the fabric of space and time.

Oh, and you’re device will be rooted. :)

6. Did it work?

After you’re device is rooted it *should* be able to boot into ANOTHER DIMENSION IN SPACE AND TIME…. wait…. into the standard 2.2 htc sense froyo you had before you rooted.

However, if you look in your applications drawer, you should see a new app called Superuser.

Congratulations, you’re rooted!

7. Get root apps

Now, you can run applications that require root access.

A few of my favorites:

Wireless Tether

If you’re on the road and want internet on your computer or iPad, then you’ll have to fork an extra $20 a month to verizon and suffer a 2GB limit.

But not if you have Wireless tether!

With Wireless Tether, you can create an encrypted wireless network with access control and everything, and the bandwidth limit is only that of your phone’s data plan.

You can find Wireless Tether by searching in the android market.

Root Explorer

If you keep getting warnings telling you that your SD card is full, then you’ll love Root Explorer. You can browse your android’s files, and even delete, rename, or move things around from both the SD card and the internal storage. You can delete those huge downloaded zip files, or all of the pictures you don’t want from the DCIM folder. Handy! This is available in the Android Market as well.

screenshot

If you ever do any kind of posting to a blog about android stuff, this application is a MUST. You can easily take a full resolution screenshot by just shaking the device. Then, you can plug it into your computer and transfer the screenshots off of your SD card.

8. Got ROMs?

One of the most amazing parts of having a rooted android phone is that you can install other operating systems. Want gingerbread? HTC hasn’t even released the update. But now that you’re rooted, you can install other operating systems without htc’s permission.

Here’s a full guide on how to install ROMs.

Better alternative to OMGB-6! HELLO FUSION!

Posted on by
2

OMGB-6 is great. It’s a simple, well made Gingerbread build for the droid incredible that worked really well.

But it had a couple problems.

First of all, it didn’t support google voice.

Also, many apps didn’t work. Twitter didn’t work, and the app I am doing testing for didn’t even work. Also, the version of the market was outdated.

Well, if you want a fuller and better and more supported phone, then say hello to the fusion rom.

Fusion is built on CM7, and has a base of 2.3.2. This gingerbread is tasting FRESH.

It boasts a newer version of the android market, FULL app support, and it also supports google voice.

If you don’t know how to install ROMS, then you have a bit of reading to do.

First, click here to learn what all of this means and do your background reading.

Then, do steps 1-4 on this page.

Downloads

BASE

GAPPS

Installation

Put both of those on your SD Card.

Then, reboot into recovery and BACK IT UP. BACK IT UP. BACK IT UP… STEADY….. BACK IT UP…. STOP! Don’t do this with ROM manager. Why, I don’t know. But apparently bad things happen and black wholes open into other dimensions when you use the ROM manager to install this. O.o

Once you’ve backed up hit Wipe data/factory reset in the recovery.

Done?

Ok.

Now, hit “install zip from sd card”, select “choose zip from sd card”.

And in the list that appears, select fusionbase.zip.

Then hit yes out of the large groups of nos.

…

(tic toc tic toc)

Done yet?

No?

Ok…

(tictoctictoctictoc)

Done now?

Good.

Now, go through the same screens, but when you select the zip select the gapps zip and install it.

While that’s installing, I’ll explain why there are two separate zips for this ROM.

Android is a base operating system. It doesn’t include the android market. It doesn’t include gmail. It just includes the base operating system.

So the base zip is the 2.3.2 base operating system without the android market or gmail or anything like that.

So you could just install the base and nothing else. But I don’t think you would be too happy when you can’t download any apps.

Done yet?

Ok good.

Now, select “Wipe cache partition.”

Done?

That didn’t take long.

Now, hit reboot, and wait a LONG time. It will probably be 5 minutes or so of the flashing android logo before it actually boots.

But once it does, you’re in business! Enjoy the new market, full app support, and using your Google Voice account, all without sacrificing the magnificent dimension-opening speed (and bragging rights) of Gingerbread 2.3.2.

Rooting, Recovery, and ROMs: What it’s all about.

Posted on by
Reply


So you’ve got an android phone.

And you can use the stock operating system with all of the manufacturer’s skinning and apps and versions and keyboard and everything.

Congratulations.

But if you are feeling a bit ballsy, then you can really take your phone to a true mobile computing level.

Here’s the steps to this.

  • Root
  • Install a recovery
  • Find ROMS
  • Make backups
  • Install ROMS
  • Use Wireless Tether

Lets explain what all of this is.

Rooting

Rooting means that you can create a way for apps to get superuser access. This is handy for getting to wifi, modifying files, or installing ROMs.

Recovery

For the Recovery, that will usually be installed when you root the phone. The recovery is where you can make and recover backups of the phone, install ROMs, and a slew of other stuff that might come in handy (but could also kill your phone).

Backup

Once you have the recovery installed (you can’t have the recovery without the root FYI) then the first thing you need to do is make a backup of your phone.

This is pretty easy. Just boot into Recovery (just hold down volume on boot and select recovery when given the option), Select backups, and select make a backup now. Your screen will flash many random things, and no matter how long it takes, don’t force shut it down or take out the battery. It will almost always finish.

ROMs

Once you have a backup of your normal operating system, you can go crazy with other ROMs.

ROM stands for Read Only Memory. In android poweruser terms, it is an operating system that can be installed on the phone using the recovery mode.

You can find many roms on the internet all over the place. XDA-developers is a great place to get ROMs. Sometimes a ROM will even be for the next Android version that htc hasn’t released yet.

When you download a ROM, it will come as an easy to handle zip file. And from here it’s simple.

Plug in your phone to your computer and mount it as a disk drive/USB Mass Storage. Then, just click and drag the ROM from your computer onto the root of the SD card. Eject and unplug the phone, then reboot into recovery.

Select install zip from sdcard and select the name of the file that you moved over. Then, choose the yes among the long list of nos to confirm you really want to install it and whabam, you will be installing a new operating system.

Then, reboot your phone, and you will be with your brand new OS that you yourself downloaded from the internet and installed on your phone.

Unfortunately, this process is different for every android phone. Sometimes there is a one-click root. Sometimes you have to use a command line application to open a port on the phone and install the root like that. But once you have gotten the phone rooted, installing zips is a piece of cake.

Wireless Tether

Aside from installing ROMs, another thing you can do is install and use apps that usually wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t rooted.

The one example I am going to use here is called Wireless Tether. And basically, it’s just that.

You can make your phone into a wi-fi hotspot with no hassle, just using verizon’s mobile hotspot plan. But that will cost you an extra $20 a month and you have a 5 GB limit before you start getting overage fees. Ouch.

With Wireless tether, you can connect unlimited devices, the data comes out of your data plan for your phone, and that also means there’s no overage fees.

Once you are rooted, just search for Wireless Tether in the android market and you will be able to install it on your phone and use it. You can change the SSID of the WiFi network, and you can even enable encryption and a password on your network. In addition, it allows you to use access control, where you can disable a device’s access to the network. Very handy sometimes.

Do it yourself

So that is the whole concept of rooting, recovery, and roms. You can find roms for things using google: Just do a search for “[your phone] 2.3 ROMS” or “[your phone] Cyanogenmod” and you should have plenty of luck. If you want to find out how to root your phone, just do a google search for “[your phone] root” and that should turn up some helpful results.

If you have a rooted droid incredible, click here to learn about the stable and functional gingerbread rom by WeDoDroid.

Motorola Xoom Tablet: First Impressions

Posted on by
Reply

While at the Launch Conference, I got to play with Robert Scoble’s Motorola Xoom. Here’s what I thought.

Software:

Honeycomb was quite a bit mesmerizing. It looked beautiful on that tablet’s screen, and it’s 3D rendering capabilities showed on the home screen. The speed was pretty good, and the browser seemed extremely nice and smooth to use. The software side of this tablet really shined in speed and smoothness of effects, and this tablet would have been terrible with anything but honeycomb.

Also, remember when BumpTop was bought by Google?

Well, turns out they used some of their 3D stuff in Honeycomb. Good to see such an awesome piece of software go to a good cause!

Hardware

Lets start off with this: I hated the widescreen layout. I prefer to use my iPad in horizontal mode because when reading you can see a lot more, therefore you don’t have to scroll as much, and the Xoom sideways resulted in a very overwhelming layout that was like a widescreen monitor turned sideways.

I HATED the location of the power button. It’s in a very odd place in the back. Someone had to literally show me where the power button was. If you can’t immediately turn it on without any doubt of the power button location, you know that there’s a problem with your product.

The two cameras? Absolutely terrible. They don’t even have an auto focus, or a focus at all. I would never even attempt to take a picture with this thing.

Conclusion

Overall, it’s a nice product, but the screen annoyed me, the power button takes getting used to, and the cameras aren’t even worth having. They are worse than nothing, because you get to see what it would be like to have a camera on a tablet, but a terrible implementation of it.

And for $800? Don’t think so.

 

Otterbox Defender Case for iPhone

Posted on by
Reply

Otterbox is known for their high quality cases. They have many series of cases, each with their own level of protection, and here I have the series that boasts highest level of ruggedness, the Defender Series (for iPhone).

This case takes heavy duty to a new level. It features multiple layers of protection, starting with a silicone layer the outside, a hard shell inside, then in that soft felt against the phone itself.

In addition to the shock protection, it has rubber plugs to keep dust out of the ports, and has plastic protection over the screen, camera(s), and apple logo in the back (a stylish touch I guess).

Unlike other cases, the plastic protection over the screen isn’t adhesive. The screen protector is actually part of the case. This is definitely very cool (so if you don’t want the case on it then the screen protector comes off too), but there is a downside. If you have scratched up the screen cover and want a new one, then you have to get a new/different case.

Also, if you get dirt on any of the camera protectors, then you can see a bit of a haze over the camera. Yes, this can be solved by simply wiping off the cover, but this is bittersweet. The camera itself ends up being more protected against dirt and scratches, but when you get the cover dirty/scratched you can see the results in your pictures/video.

So who is this case for? I’d think that this case would be for the people who really handle their device harshly. If you’re a construction worker and drop this off a roof, then whoops! The phone should be fine. This is great if construction workers want to have a fancy expensive smartphone but don’t want to replace it all the time because it’s broken.

This is also good for those clutzes who tend to drop their phone all the time. If you don’t drop your phone that much at all, then you might want to go with the commuter series, which still offers good protection but has a little bit more style. But this case seems to be up for some of the worst conditions someone could throw at it.

But I have a droid! Or a Nokia! and I don’t like black! I want pink! No I want blue! No red!

Calm down internetgoer, there’s hope. Otterbox sells this case for a large range of models in many different colors.

The case sells online for $50, which seems a bit excessive but you’re getting protection that’s worth the price.

Otterbox Defender Homepage

Defender for iPhone

Recent verizon support call: the good and the bad

Posted on by
Reply

So my Droid Incredible has been doing some odd things.

First of all, it didn’t update to 2.2 correctly. It tried and failed.

Second of all, it keeps rebooting itself randomly.

So we call up verizon support about both problems. Lets start with the bad:

The Bad:

We called and a nice lady answered who had us go through some simple procedures like a hard reset. We changed some settings to try and help the rebooting. As far as the update goes, she told us to go to our local verizon store because they had “more information”. So the next day we went and waited in line and everything and what does the guy say? There’s nothing we can do. You’ll just have to wait for the update. Now inferring logically, I argued that “The system has the phone marked as upgraded, even though it failed the install.” The guy says “WELL, it takes about a month to roll it out and everything.” He really didn’t get that we HAD gotten the update, it just didn’t install. Once again, “Well, you just have to wait about a month and see.” Thanks for the help. We schlepped all the way over to a verizon store, waited in line, and we get absolutely no valuable information. Great.

The good:

So after that, we call verizon again and someone knowledgeable picks up. We had to wait on hold for 8 minutes but let me say, it was well worth the wait. He asked about the water activation sticker and had us look at the firmware on the device. And he says (finally) “Well, the system has your device marked as upgraded, even though your phone says differently.” THANK YOU. I’M RIGHT. THE TWO OTHER PEOPLE WE TALKED TO WERE WRONG. So he asked if there was any physical damage and hallelujah, a replacement phone is on it’s way.

But the real question is, why did the two other people there have no idea what they were talking about? I mean, come on verizon. Why would you hire them if they aren’t knowledgeable? These are questions that may never be answered, but in the mean time, here comes a device with 2.2 pre-installed. Yay!

Wireless Tether with Droid Incredible

Posted on by
Reply

So let’s just say that you are driving somewhere and you have your computer (or iPad or iPod touch for that matter) along with your droid incredible. Well now for free (actually, the expense of battery life) you can use your Droid Incredible as a wifi tether, so you can have an iPad on verizon.

Sadly, the speeds are dramatically reduced to a groping 70 kb/s. But I think it’s better than nothing. Can load pages, not so great for downloads and video/audio streaming such as youtube or pandora.

Step 1. Make sure your phone is rooted. Just do steps 1-4 of the tutorial HERE (continue the steps to install android 2.2, if desired!).

Step 2. On your incredible go to THIS LINK (try using chrometophone, review on that soon!)

Step 3. Once the link is downloaded open it and install the application.

Step 4. Open the application on your phone.

Step 5: Press menu and go into the settings and change around your preferences. change the SSID, and add a passphrase. Enable access control if desired.

Step 6: Press the big tether button.

Step 7: On your wifi enabled device go to the network selection and select the nework name that you had entered in the SSID preferences. Enter your asscode and Voila, you can connect to the internet!

One of the cool benefits of this is that you can be on the internet while in a car. Cool, eh?

Traitor? I think not.

Posted on by
Reply

Some people have said some hurtful but understandable things about me, as said in the title of the post.

Well, allow me to say, that I’m not switching over to chrome OS. I’m not switching to windows either, I’m just switching over to android.

What’s the big difference between Mac OS X and iOS? Well, I mean other than one is a mobile operating system. Mac OS X allows development to run in the background. Mac OS X also allows applications to manipulate the core of the operating system (although not preferred).

iOS is completely shut off. For example, people can’t even use their own APIs! It is a closed off system and it is completely CLOSED source.

Android on the other hand seems more like Mac OS X. It is open source, so people can use their own APIs to do whatever they want. Apps still need to be accepted into Android Market, but there is an option to allow other applications that weren’t approved by the app store to be installed. And that’s what makes the difference.

So I’m not exactly a traitor, I’m just supporting what I believe in and personally is best for me. I’m sure I’m not the only one…. Anyone?…….. Comments welcome.

Droid Incredible: First impressions

Posted on by
Reply

You may have read the post about me getting a new phone. Well I got it, and after about a day of use I’ve gathered some opinions. First of all, the thing is high off of a 1 ghz snapdragon processor. Even with widgets and widgets running, the thing is still extremely snappy. Another great thing is HTC sense, which allows a cool interface with some added features. HTC also packed in their own keyboard instead of the defaultandroid keyboard and it allows easier typing. Only thing I don’t like is the haptic for the keyboard because if you type really fast you have a buzzer in your hands. Another thing I love is the notification system. It makes a sound and buzzed but unlike the iPhone the notifications are at the top if the screen and you can continue doing what you are doing. Another big plus is the built in gps with turn by turn navigation. Sweet! And that adds geotagging to the 8 megapixel camera with dual led flash. It is now officially my only camera. You can also broadcast live to ustream with it.

Although there us so much good, there is one big bad. Although it’s the Droid incredible, the battery life is not so incredible. I want to get an extended battery but $80? I don’t think so. I’ve never made it a full day even with it off for most of it. The battery life is indeed a failure.

Good phone, camera, gps, and more, but not so good battery life.

Expect more in depth reviews is everything mentioned above!

P.S. I wrote this using the incredible. Sorry for typos!