K World

I’ve been working on and about Android from last couple of months. I ended up learning few nice things about android from XDA developers and web sites of few other android hackers/developers. Starting with few bad things – No android phone is released in India yet – Google/HTC – WTF ? Ofcourse, Google is selling its ADP1 (Android Developer Phone 1, in other words completely SIM unlocked HTC Dream a.k.a TMobile G1) for Indian crowd, but the phone+shipping can become unnecessarily expensive. But,  anyway few lucky folks with friends coming from US, who went to US or whose company is good enough to provide them with an Android phone (Yay !!) are lucky enough to get their hands on HTC Dream. But, anyway not-so lucky guys can always get the awesome emulator from Android site.

Coming to the interesting things that you can do with your phone, well, these are NOT for guys who are scared of command line, who do not understand terms like root, or people who are just too scared of spoiling their phones and ESPECIALLY NOT for people who doesnt RTFM. If you are wondering what the hell is RTFM, you might want to buy an iPhone

Kidding anyway. Android is awesome platform out of the box, but it can be done more awesome by doing some nicer stuff to it. Now, you should know few things/terms here.

1. ADP1 – Android Developer Phone 1 (Google branded, Black one with fancy design on it) – images
2. G1 – T Mobile G1 (Black/White TMobile branded phone with Google logo on the back) – images
3. G2/Magic/Sapphire (Vodafone branded HTC Magic phone, G2 – is just made up by people. Sapphire is probably HTC code name) – images
4. Google Ion – HTC Magic phone given by Google the attendees of 2009 Google I/O conference

Now, all the above phones + few more phones (chinese stuff like Lenovo Ophone etc.,) run Android. So, if you get your hands on any of the above phones, you can do few nice things with it.

1. Root the Phone
   Rooting the phone – simply means that you get ‘root’ access on the phone. So, unless you possess root you cannot feel the true potential of your Android (linux) phone. But .. wait … what is root ? If that is your question, you wasted 5 minutes of your precious time by reading this useless post. You can simply return your useless linux phone and live with a Nokia phone happily ever after.Rooting is a fairly simple process if you RTFM. But, beware that it can brick(break) your phone if you are careless. So, if at all you decide to root your phone, DO read the instructions carefully on XDA or Android-Dls.com and the try it.
2. Change the bootloader
   This is not a fancy thing that you can do with your phone, but more of an essential thing if you decide to play with your phone. Check this thread on XDA and install the Hard SPL. G1s will have the default G1 Original SPL, where as ADP1 will have Engineering SPL. I’m just not sure what SPL does Ion and Magic have (probably the newer one which is not listed on that page). HardSPL is the recommended one.There is a newer SPL (1.33.2005) which actually bricked many phones. This SPL is the most useful as it increases system and data partitions of your phone by 30 megs each. Which means, you can do more fancy stuff with your phone. If you decide to go with this SPL, – Do check your Board type … and research on which board you can install, Make sure that flashed your phone with latest Radio, And make sure that you will never go back to older radios on the phone.The essential part of modifying SPL is you can apply NBH update files (I hardly did this), and flash nand backups (I do this a LOT). Its simply means, you can take back up of your phone and save them on your computer, and whenever you manage to spoil your phone, *if you have Engg./HardSPL* you can simply flash that backup back on your phone.
3. Install the ‘n’ awesome ‘custom’ android builds
   Simon Walker is maintaining a very good list with all the available Android Builds, features, requirements, dates etc., here. If you’ve time, try out all of them and stick to the one you like ‘teh best’. Each of them is great in its own way.
4. Compile your own ‘Android’ distro
   If you are more into ‘my own’ things, you can always download the android source and build the images for your ‘dream’ (Only Dream is released ADP1, thats why Google has instructions only for building for HTC Dream. But, by the time you play a lot with those Custom builds And your own distro (#3 and #4 points here), you will understand how you can play with your ‘Magic’. And there is XDA all the time.
5. Edit your boot splash screens and theme your distro
   Same as what it tells. There is no better way to show your love for customization than changing your Splash screen or making your own theme for your phone. Well, you can start that by reading stuff here
   
6. Wifi/Bluetooth Tether
   It just means that you can share your phone’s internet (Edge/GPRS/3G) connection to your computer over wifi. The whole process is simplified a lot by few applications. I suggest Android Wifi Tether which is just an awesome opensource application. The whole process needs some  features enabled on your kernel, so, it works only on rooted phones with kernel with iptables and netfilter support
7. And few more
   and just don’t forget to do some kickass things like using applications Shopsavvy, Locale, Wikitude, Twidroid, Barcode Scanner, Google latitude, Google Skymap. You can find all the list of applications available in Google Android Market over web at Cyrket (No, its not Cricket, its Cyrket)
8. …. and try to be a Hero
   This is more related to #3. But, this is so awesome that it does need a separate point to talk about. Install HTC Hero with Rosie UI. This requires you to know fairly enough about Android builds. Anyway, you can see the Rosie demo for yourself on Youtube here

Out of the endless possibilities of ‘awesome’ things, these are few nice things that you can do with your Android phone. Anyway, as usual I take no responsibility for what ever you do with your phone. No, I’m not going to help you with rooting your phone or any other thing here. I gave links to the sources of information and you can learn easily from them.

Technology ADP1, Android, Dream, G1, Google, HTC, Magic, TechTips

Its been long time that I didn’t write anything here. Well, I’ve been busy. Very busy. I was at Santiago, Chile for last month working on one of the nicest things in current technology world. I was working on Android and I truly enjoyed each moment of it.

Coming to my experiences, I have seen too many nice, funny and great things this time. My travel to Santiago was itself a nice experience, its a long journey around 40 hours. I’ve seen arrogance of immigration guys at Delhi Airport. They made one guy stand in a corner for 10-20 minutes, as he crossed the ‘yellow’ immigration line before they called him. And carelessness/faltooness of Delhi Airport guys – They broke my suitcase’s wheel as well as tampered my number lock. Quick tip here – If you are travelling through Delhi Airport, I suggest you to get your baggage plastic wrapped.  Actually, better tip – Try to avoid Delhi airport if you are not a local.

Well, after the long journey via Delhi, Amsterdam, Lima – We reached Santiago some time in midnight of 23rd March. The accommodation provided by my employer was nice. Though, I did a mistake of searching for it’s address once in Google and ended up on an article where couple of guys were killed in the same building because of gas leaks few years before. Coming to my work – it was very nice and challenging. Client was fun to work with, probably one of the best clients I’ve worked with till now.

Coming to Chile, most of its population is based on Santiago (atleast they work at Santiago, the capital city) Santiago is a very nice city, with very good transport, nice roads, pleasant climate (atleast for Indians). Pollution is more compared to other western cities (its a valley surrounded by mountains, there is no air to take away the smoke). It rains very less (once in a year) there. They depend on recycling water (they recycle around >71%) People are very friendly (atleast in the area where I lived). There are few catches. Very few people speak/understand English. If you don’t know Spanish, you might have to depend on sign language. Overall, Santiago is a nice city. It doesn’t feel like a city of a ‘developing’ country.

Colleagues at my company were very friendly. They helped a lot, otherwise, survival there in a non-English speaking country would have been very tough for us. Thanks a lot guys. I went to for camping with them for the first time in my life, and it was fun. Hitchhiking, raising tents, sleeping next to a lake, roaming around during nights were few of the highlights for that camping trip. To be frank, I dint do too much for this trip compared to my earlier trips. The only culprit could be my fear of Spanish. Well, may be, I was just too lazy this time.

40 days passed by very fast, very very fast. And I had to return back. My return journey is even bigger adventure. I’m coming alone, and the journey is 64 hours, with 6 hours wait time in Lima, 21 hours wait time in Amsterdam and 7 hours wait time in Mumbai. I met one Chilean lady in flight to Lima and had a nice conversation. Believe me, she was the only Chilean lady I spoke with for more than 10 minutes/sentences through out my trip. I think I spoke with my HR for 10 minutes :p The other ladies were simply non-Chileans or conversations were just ‘Hi and Bye’. And I forgot to ask for her name ! Then, my wait time at Lima was just boring so as my flight from Lima to Amsterdam. Then, 21 hrs, I stayed at airport hotel in Amsterdam. Schiphol airport was the best airport I’ve seen till now (I’ve seen Heathrow and Frankfurt in Europe) It was a huge airport with a lot to explore. Though I hated it for few seconds when McDonalds there charged me 0.4 Euros for single sachet of ketchup. My flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai was interesting, I met one guy coming from West Indies, and my journey went fast and smooth with his stories from the islands. And yet another time, I forgot to ask for name ! (He even told me that he wants to do MBA in Mumbai, and even then I dint ask for name !!) Then, I met a Telugu couple in Mumbai who were travelling for the first time, and were in a complete panic mode as their flight from Mumbai to Hyderabad was cancelled. I met another Telugu student coming from London for his sister’s marriage there and helped that couple along with that guy to get their boarding passes for the same flight as him. This time, I asked for all the names. (Actually, I forgot to ask this time too … and uncle asked for our names and we got to know our names that time). A quick tip – Never travel without print out of your itinerary. I met another IT guy who got stuck at Mumbai airport as he doesn’t have a printout of his e-ticket/itinerary and the King Fisher counter was closed at the International airport, and the security guys dint let him take the transfer to domestic terminal. His story became happy ending with my brilliant idea (:P) of ditching the transfer and taking cab to domestic terminal, as KF counter will be open there and he can get boarding pass there using his ID proof. With all this community help activities my wait time at Mumbai went very fast. And yeah, all of a sudden I saw a familiar face there at Mumbai airport. She was looking at me as if she knew me, and both of us couldn’t recollect how we know each other. Then, she remembered that she was my colleague back in Santiago who happened to meet me only once on a road and my boss introduced me to her that time. As both of us work at client sides, we never met again after that first meet. It seems, she too started for India, but on a different airlines, and a day after I started. She reached Mumbai at the same time, I reached. Both of us told quick ‘Chao’ and left as she went to Bangalore and I came to Chennai.

This trip, I met a lot of Chileans, few Uruguayans, few Peruvians and of course few Indians. As a whole, this was a very nice trip for me with many lessons, nice experiences in a completely different world.

Chronicles Airport, Chile, Delhi, Immigration, Mumbai, Santiago, Travel

This is the scene …

1. I stopped at Tiruvanmiyur Signal (Chennai)
2. Two guys were sitting on Activa and one guy was in a Chevrolet Tavera
3. They looked like they were having a conversation on ‘why honking’ when there is no way
4. The driver of the car just drove his car to far left (he seemed to be going left)
5. The rider of Activa seemed to have said something offensive (I wasn’t able to understand)
6. The guy in the car – left his car – on neutral and ran back to these guys
7. He was a short but strong looking guy
8. The rider of Activa got down, and he looked huge. Then, his pillion got down and he was another huge guy
9. I was kind of supportive for the two wheeler guy as this total thing was started by the car guy. And I was looking forward for a nice fight and car guy to get his ass kicked.
10. Next scene, One uncle (on another activa) stopped exactly behind the car with a woman behind him
11. The car which was stopped on left side of road in neutral, just came back on to uncle’s activa
12. Uncle’s activa’s front tyre got stuck under the car’s back
13. Aunty slipped down from the activa, but balanced enough to stand
14. Uncle couldn’t balance his activa and started beating the car with his hand
15. The car driver stopped fighting with these guys, ran to car, sat in it and just drove off
16. The guys on activa rode off
17. Everyone left from the place. Uncle, Aunty and their activa were left. Uncle’s Activa’s  front was damaged.

This is what I call as a true WTF moment.

Chronicles, Pseudophilosophy Chennai, WTF

Well. This Sucks. Sucks big time.

Guess you understood what sucks. Battery life time of the my MBP sucks now. A small Google search resulted in few facts. There are so many people who have their Battery Load cycles more than 400 and even then their battery health better than 80%. And few with battery load cycles less than 200 and their battery health better than 80%. I’m in a awkward stage where I’ve lesser and more number of battery cycles than the both groups of people but battery life sucking badly at 45%

Well, there is a bright side of this story. This is NOT my personal laptop *Evil Grin*. This is my from my work. (Ofcourse, battery health and life sucks on my personal laptop too) Even then, its very much irritating when you laptop can live without adaptor only for 1 hour.

BTW, the screenshot is of the software named coconutBattery which does it work exactly as the screenshot next (System Profiler can also help)

Now, why the hell does my (your) MBP shows wrong information on the menu bar about the battery life ? I found some information on Apple’s site about calibrating battery so that it shows correct information in the menu bar. But, Apple help page’s summary tells that its same procedure for obtaining best performance. You can find those instructions at this Apple’s page. Will certainly update you guys if anything goes good after following the procedure.

Technology Apple, Battery, Calibration, Macbook, Performance, Screenshots, TechTips

Yes. Internet has never been safer, but only few things on it. Now, Google shows that everything in the world is a Harmful Site.

As some great fellow told, ‘No computer safe is unless it has been switched off, hidden few meters underground’ – Google has been ‘compromised’.

Edit: Google posted on their blog about the problem and itseems the problem was human error processing the list from StopBadware.org, Once again Google saves the day. It wasn’t compromised.

Technology Bad World, Compromised, Google, Harmful