Brontoforumus Archive
Discussion Boards => Real Life => Topic started by: Thad on September 06, 2012, 07:52:26 AM
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Welp, decided to take TA up on his offer and buy his old EVO 4G. (Thanks TA!) So I am joining the twenty-first century and will soon be carrying a tiny computer in my pocket that will have roughly the power of that Pentium 3 I got right before college.
So now I'm looking at things I need to ensure an enjoyable Android experience. Brent already named SNESoid, and Ziiro mentioned Swype; these will probably be among the first things I install. Stross (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/09/gadget-patrol-indispensible-an.html) just threw out a good app list too (Spartacus IDE and the Rhythm File Manager both sound like good picks), and of course there's every "essential apps" list on the Internet. Maybe I will finally find out just what exactly it is that made those birds so angry.
Syncing is an issue. At present I've got a primary desktop, a relatively-seldom-used laptop, an HTPC, and a work computer. I'd like to be able to get a good password wallet going, keep my litany of secure passwords stored under one secure password. And I suppose discussing specific apps for this does itself raise security issues as giving a list of ways I might store my passwords creates a smaller list of targets, but I've always found that robust, well-understood security methods are much better than security through obscurity anyway.
On Web passwords: well, there's Firefox Sync. It comes with the advantage that the data is encrypted client-side, so even though it's stored in the cloud it's gibberish without a private key.
That said, the private key is effectively just one more password (albeit a secure one), and if I ever lose my phone it's a question of (1) how quickly I notice my phone is gone and (2) how quickly I can get to another computer with the key stored on it and change my password and then all my other passwords. Which, granted, is a set of problems I will probably have if I lose my phone no matter WHAT locker's running on it.
I've also heard some good things about Roboform (http://www.roboform.com/), which seems to be more fully-featured and less browser-specific.
There's also the potentially-more-secure possibility of not syncing this shit in the cloud at all and just running a different, discrete password locker on each of my devices (really just primarily desktop and phone). This would be more tedious and time-consuming and introduce an additional potential point of failure, but on the other hand I'm a lot less worried about someone stealing my desktop than my phone, and if a service like Sync or Roboform was compromised and my master password changed I'd still have a way to access my password list. And if I ever needed a login on another computer, I could just whip out my phone and type out whichever pass I needed.
Any site that'll offer two-factor authentication I'll probably opt into, though if it's done by text that of course brings us back to the question of what if I lose my phone. (And does it really count as two-factor if my stored passwords are on the same device I receive texts on?)
Not that I'm losing phones all the time or anything; so far the only times I've ever misplaced my phone it's turned up in either the couch or my car. And that's a shitty little free just-a-phone phone; I find it hard to believe I'd be any more careless with an IMPORTANT phone. But, you know, just planning for failure conditions here.
As far as other stuff to sync: well, I suppose mainly it'd be mail and RSS.
I don't really use Gmail, and don't need to add it; all my various and sundry mail accounts support IMAP. (That said, is there a good mail app anyone can recommend? Hell, what about for desktop Linux while I'm on the subject? I've been using Thunderbird for a decade but it's no longer under active development; it Does What I Need It To but I'm keeping an eye out for clients that aren't feature-frozen-forever.) Guess that means I'll probably want a password wallet that supports a standalone mail app, not just my browser.
RSS -- guess I'll probably just go with Google Reader, unless anyone knows of any better solution. I don't much care for the Web interface; does anyone know of a good frontend that'll sync with it? (Or with anything else?) That goes for desktop Linux too. And I realize there's a good possibility that I'll wind up parking my RSS and my E-Mail in the same client.
My main objection to Gmail and Google Reader is probably Google itself. Google presents a bit of a conundrum in that it's got robust security options and some real versatility in the way of features, but (1) it's a huge target (again, insofar as "security through obscurity" is a valid argument, which it only sort-of is) and (2) Google collects data from everybody, everywhere, all the time and is itself one of the major privacy threats in this modern world. I can probably safely bite the bullet and start using Google Reader since it's not exactly a secret what blogs I read anyway, but I don't want to be tethered to Google for everything I do, even if I am running Google's OS and browser.
Other stuff? Emulators (NES, Genesis)? What other neat and/or useful shit should I put on this thing now that I'll be carrying a little Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy around in my pocket?
Also: Any good utilities for transferring contacts from one phone to another? I'm guessing Sprint's probably willing to do that for me and may not charge for it, but if there's a handy Bluetooth-based address book utility I can use instead, that would come with the advantage of doing it myself (and having a backup on my desktop in case my phone ever got lost or fried).
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Throwing out the apps I've got right now that I recommend:
AndChat
Bejeweled 2 (quick and mindless if you can get it free)
Gauge Battery Widget (essential)
K-9 Mail
Lookout Mobile Security (may or may not actually be useful)
Skyvi (honestly never use it but wth)
Urbanspoon
I haven't used it in a while but NewsRob used to be a really good RSS app. I switched to gReader because I was already aggregating my feeds through Google anyway, so it seemed like lower overhead.
Throw in basically any stopwatch and alarm clock thinger and you've got about all I ever use. I try not to load up on too many crapps in general.
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I do all my video-watchin' with Act 1 Video Player (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hyperaware.videoplayerfull).
Before I got my Kindle, I did a lot of ebook-reading using Aldiko (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aldiko.android).
These are most of the best console emulators for Android (http://slideme.org/user/yongzh), except for Playstation, where you want FPse (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emulator.fpse).
The stock Mail app has honestly been entirely fine for me with my campus email.
As for contacts, one nice thing about contacts with Android stuff is that they are synched to your Google account. You don't have to transfer contacts from one Android phone to another, just sync from Google and they're there.
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I find I don't really use that many different apps and unfortunately several of the ones I used to recommend are now slightly buggy for some reason.
Only game I ever play on my phone is Edge EX. (Well, and I tinker in Minecraft for a few minutes each update).
Alarm Clock Plus is great. It has a setting that makes you solve math problems to hit snooze/dismiss the alarm. As for music, I use Ubermusic mostly for the Metro type skin you can put on it. ACV is good for comics, if your screen is big enough.
For file exploration, I suggest Solid Explorer. It's the best one I've found so far.
You're not huge into the social media scene so my suggestion of Tweakdeck doesn't matter.
As for the apps mentioned, UrbanSpoon and AndChat are great.
EDIT: Oh and maybe helpful tip: For most emulators you can set A + B to the volume buttons which gives you physical buttons to press and gives you more visible screen. Of course, this is only helpful for NES or Gameboy games unless you have more buttons on the side of your phone.
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As far as more technical stuff, I find Splashtop Remote Desktop (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splashtop.remote) to be great for remoting in to my home PC, and Root Explorer (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.rootexplorer) to be my file manager of choice.
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RSS -- guess I'll probably just go with Google Reader, unless anyone knows of any better solution. I don't much care for the Web interface; does anyone know of a good frontend that'll sync with it? (Or with anything else?) That goes for desktop Linux too. And I realize there's a good possibility that I'll wind up parking my RSS and my E-Mail in the same client.
OR, as an alternative to Google Reader, there's Tiny Tiny RSS (http://tt-rss.org/redmine/). Akregator (my main RSS reader for lo these many years) doesn't appear to have sync support with either, but Liferea (http://liferea.sourceforge.net/) has support for both and I expect I can find something on Android that does too.
EDIT: Oh and maybe helpful tip: For most emulators you can set A + B to the volume buttons which gives you physical buttons to press and gives you more visible screen. Of course, this is only helpful for NES or Gameboy games unless you have more buttons on the side of your phone.
Good to know; will keep in mind. I was figuring mainly just using it for games I can comfortably play on a touchscreen -- mainly menu-based or point-and-click stuff. But I might see if that works.
If not, I DO have a PSP.
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You'll probably find yourself managing lots of tasks on the phone, so Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en) is a great little app (albeit $6.49) that will allow you to setup rules to automate things on the phone. It's very versatile, so you can do things like have it turn Wi-Fi on and off based on location, or have music play when you go for a run, or turn sound on and off during work.
Also, Lifehacker has a fairly recent post on turning your android into a portable media center (plus games) (http://lifehacker.com/5915083/how-to-turn-your-android-into-an-awesome-portable-media-and-gaming-center) that's fairly robust and worth the time.
Speaking of Lifehacker, I use their Android essential lists (http://lifehacker.com/lifehacker-pack-for-android/) as a starting point for a lot of things. My two main "productivity" style apps are Springpad and Pocket. Also, unmentioned there and kind of less favorable is Swipepad, which allows you to set a hotspot on your screen that can be used to call up a list of 12 apps from within any other app, without having to duck back to the homescreen.
Otherwise I primarily use a lot of customization stuff, such as Widgetlocker (which allows you to build a custom lock screen using widgets and custom sliders) and Minimalist text, which I find to be a simple, elegant clock and system info solution.
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all my various and sundry mail accounts support IMAP.
This turns out to be the case and, not going to lie, pretty fucking infuriating that Cox keeps increasing my monthly bill while stripping away features. (Looks like they USED to have IMAP; at least, that's what the bizarre, random mentions of it on their config page (http://ww2.cox.com/residential/support/internet/article.cox?articleId=38611eb0-bc75-11e1-eb46-000000000000) suggest.)
So, dunno. Either going to have to work around the awkwardness of using the same POP account on multiple machines, not use that account on my phone, route it through Gmail, or figure out some other alternative. Not happy.
EDIT: Course, I DO run my own mail domain; I'm double-checking with the admin to see if it supports IMAP, and if it does, all I really have to do is set the Cox account to forward to it. If I'm really keen on keeping it separate from my website mail, I can always just create another account.
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Any recommendations for a lockscreen alternative? Getting pretty sick of having to play ringtoss just to answer the damn phone.
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Widgetlocker has a lot of alternatives.
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Three dollars? What am I, made of airports?
Oh hey Ur-Quan Masters (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sourceforge.sc2&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLnNvdXJjZWZvcmdlLnNjMiJd).
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Oh hey Ur-Quan Masters (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sourceforge.sc2&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLnNvdXJjZWZvcmdlLnNjMiJd).
I wouldn't want to play it all scrunched up like this (https://lh6.ggpht.com/szGLflcFATyriDa54QxlyUP3TNqSw20iMUhF1b7rB6_flawQkolY0YQ75qOr7rhBG8A).
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So TA kindly sent me the phone kitted out with the latest version of CyanogenMod.
I liked it; it was cool and clean and simple. Unfortunately I discovered in short order that I couldn't sign up for service with CyanogenMod. So I switched to MikG (http://themikmik.com/showthread.php?10338-MikG-v3-11-3-9-2012), which is based on HTC Sense. (I've been thinking about posting a step-by-step howto on my blog, since it took basically a full day's research and it would have been great to have it laid out simply. If nothing else, it'd be good to have in case I ever need to do it again.)
I've found that I like the Sense interface just fine; it's snappy and it's got some good built-in features and I'm amazed someone managed to actually make a seven-workspace layout behave sensibly and intuitively.
But I'm a tinkerer and I'm considering the possibility of trying another ROM. Maybe switch back to CyanogenMod, or try out MIUI (http://en.miui.com/).
It looks like Froyo ICS and even Jellybean are perfectly possible if I don't care about watching Netflix or using my front camera. Which I generally don't.
Anyone have any recommendations? XDA (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1851386) has a pretty comprehensive list.
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... why would you look at being on Froyo? Froyo is 2.2, a downgrade from Gingerbread's 2.3.
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Sorry, meant ICS. The alphabet is hard.
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News360 (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.news360.news360app) for, uh, news.
Office Suite Pro (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobisystems.editor.office_registered) is a pretty good all-in-one office app; of course, if you just want to read PDFs, Adobe has a free version of Reader (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.reader) available.
Evernote (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evernote) for notetaking.
Astrid (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timsu.astrid) for to-dos.
Oh, and there's a Steam (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.valvesoftware.android.steam.community) app too! Now you can see when Brentai is playing Barely Legal Cannibal Queens VI WHEREVER YOU GO
Also, Google Play is running a sale (https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/promotion_celebrate_25_billion?feature=banner#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDIwMSwibnVsbC10b3BfZmVhdHVyZWRfX3Byb21vdGlvbl9jZWxlYnJhdGVfMjVfYmlsbGlvbl9fVVMiXQ..), "top apps" for 25 cents apiece. Not sure exactly how they're defining "top apps", but it seems to be rotating; I got Office Suite Pro for 25 cents this morning, but it's a completely different selection now.
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Yeah, here's a list of today's (http://androidandme.com/2012/09/applications/day-2-the-google-play-0-25-apps-sale-continues/). Snagged World of Goo; wouldn't pay full price for the Android version since I already bought it in the original Humble Bundle, but a quarter's just fine by me.
Are Cut the Rope, Dungeon Village, or any of the others any good?
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Cut The Rope is pretty good, although I haven't played that one, which is the sequel, but hey, it's only a quarter.
Haven't played Dungeon Village; seems like a cutesy JRPG version of Majesty. Again, only a quarter.
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Mass Effect Infiltrator today. Says it's not compatible with my phone. Can't find actual sysreqs, but given that it's got a bunch of 1-star reviews for constant crashes on CURRENT Evo hardware, I guess I won't chance it.
Sounds pretty much like when I try to play ME2 with an nVidia card, though, so points for recreating the desktop experience there.
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SNESoid
I use Sixaxis Controller (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dancingpixelstudios.sixaxiscontroller&hl=en) for my -oid emulators, and it's amazing. I ended up buying a a holder thingy that attaches my PS3 controller to my Galaxy Note, but before that I had a makeshift thing made up with a wire coat hanger (not difficult to make). I've used it to replay Ocarina of Time and now Majora's Mask on my lunch breaks at work. Anyway, yes it's $2, but if your phone is supported I think it's a great app.
Other than that I really just use Aldiko which was already mentioned for book purposes. I'm probably wasting my phone's potential.
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I feel like that really depends on whether or not your phone can play Wind Waker.
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I don't think it plays Gamecube games but I have one at my house anyway
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Still sticking with Sense for now. But if I WERE to experiment with something else, what would I want to do to replace the various preinstalled Sense apps I use? Just basic stuff -- voicemail, contacts, texting, alarm clock, weather, music player (with AAC compatibility), Play Store, off the top of my head, though there may be others.
I also find that my current ROM sucks battery pretty hard when I'm doing something as innocuous as reading an ebook; that juice seems like it's just going into the backlight. Should I consider a white-on-black theme, or just turn down the backlight when I'm running on battery?
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I usually do both, especially if I'm reading for a long period of time. I also got a couple of spare batteries to keep with me on longer trips.
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When reading a book in Aldiko, I used white-on-black and adjusted the backlight to suit the room, yeah.
Most of those apps you mention aren't particularly Sense things - Play Store and probably Music definitely aren't. But any ROM you put on there will have those, the Sense version if it's a Sense-based ROM and the Google ones if it's AOSP.
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I know you don't want Google running your life, but Google Voice is a fairly strong voicemail and texting client. Though you do lose MMS that way. For just texting, though, I recommend Handcent SMS (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handcent.nextsms&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5oYW5kY2VudC5uZXh0c21zIl0.) which is more robust than any default texting app. For my alarm I use Alarm Clock Plus (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vp.alarmClockPlusDock&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS52cC5hbGFybUNsb2NrUGx1c0RvY2siXQ..), though I haven't really found an alarm clock app that I think is killer. It's just an alarm, really.
As for weather, I don't use a dedicated weather app, per se, just using a modified Beautiful Widgets (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5sZXZlbHVwLmJlYXV0aWZ1bHdpZGdldHMiXQ..) that fits my minimalist theme.
For music, your best bet is to drop a little on Poweramp (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxmpz.audioplayer&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5tYXhtcHouYXVkaW9wbGF5ZXIiXQ..), which is robust and plays everything. If you're looking for free, I might suggest Winamp (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiY29tLm51bGxzb2Z0LndpbmFtcCJd). My personal preference is to just Google Music and sync with my desktop. But again, Google.
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Most of those apps you mention aren't particularly Sense things - Play Store and probably Music definitely aren't. But any ROM you put on there will have those, the Sense version if it's a Sense-based ROM and the Google ones if it's AOSP.
Cyanogenmod doesn't bundle the Play Store anymore. I've seen reference to doing a Google System Files backup/restore but it didn't work when I tried it last weekend, so I switched back to MikG because I didn't have time to troubleshoot.
I've seen it as just a package file on a few sites; I guess if it's signed by Google I can probably trust it regardless of where I get it.
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Most of those apps you mention aren't particularly Sense things - Play Store and probably Music definitely aren't. But any ROM you put on there will have those, the Sense version if it's a Sense-based ROM and the Google ones if it's AOSP.
Cyanogenmod doesn't bundle the Play Store anymore. I've seen reference to doing a Google System Files backup/restore but it didn't work when I tried it last weekend, so I switched back to MikG because I didn't have time to troubleshoot.
I've seen it as just a package file on a few sites; I guess if it's signed by Google I can probably trust it regardless of where I get it.
They don't bundle it in the installer, but it's readily had, including from them (http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Latest_Version#Google_Apps). Especially if you install by way of ROM Manager, which you should - then it's just a checkbox.
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Cool, thanks.
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Man, the onscreen D-pad is really terrible. I mean, I thought it would at least work smoothly for stuff like Dragon Quest and Earthbound, but even there it's a chore.
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Virtualized gamepads are universally useless. I think you can Bluetooth sync a Wiimote though?
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Yeah, but that tends to impact the portability of the device. May as well just bring my PSP at that point.
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I think it also depends on whether the game itself has gamepad support. I may be wrong, though.
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Yeah, but that tends to impact the portability of the device. May as well just bring my PSP at that point.
carry a purse
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When a man carries a purse it's called a "messenger bag".
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Switched back to CM7.
They don't bundle it in the installer, but it's readily had, including from them (http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Latest_Version#Google_Apps). Especially if you install by way of ROM Manager, which you should - then it's just a checkbox.
For some reason I never got the checkbox. Is it only in the paid/pro version?
Thanks for the link, though; that did the job.
Reinstalling Sprint VVM turned out to be trickier (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=982966) than anticipated. The featureset of Google Voice is tempting, but yeah I really don't need them running their spiders all over my phone calls. (Even if, judging by the free preview Sprint gave me, they won't get any kind of intelligible information from them. My brother's messages are the best; Google's speech recognition cannot understand a damn word he says. I think my favorite was its transcription of "Aloha" to "Elohim".)
I really quite like the barebones CM look, except the animated wallpaper is irritating and I wish there were a percent on the battery icon. (I can replace it with the Gauge Battery icon but that breaks up the color scheme.) I've been unable to find a theme I like, though I've long found browsing through themes to be a pick-the-corn-out-of-the-shit exercise regardless of the system. Apparently most people do not like simple, straightforward themes.
Will probably stick with it a few days then try my hand at MIUI or something. And then maybe try screwing around with ICS and see what I can come up with.
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You should be able to change out the battery icon to have a percent. Pretty sure the CM7 settings contain that. Wallpaper, of course, can be set to whatever you like.
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Giving MIUI a shot. It's pretty big but the stuff it comes with seems generally useful -- a file manager that will show all the images/apk's/whatever on the SD card, for example.
The default theme's too bright for my tastes, but its auto-brightness settings seem much dimmer than the previous ROMs I've used, so that's probably good for the battery. Tried to grab a dark theme but haven't had any luck yet (the theme manager crashed once, and now it's just downloading really slowly).
It's also really aggressive on security -- it's probably the most thorough, granular system I've ever seen as far as security permissions. It doesn't just tell you what information an app is going to ask for at install time, it does it at execution time, too, and offers you the option to prompt every single time it attempts to access private data. Trust the Chinese to bake that kind of paranoia into their OS.
The version of Sprint VVM I had crashed at runtime, which I found out is a known issue with ICS/Jellybean ROMs. I found an ICS version (http://epicaokp.blogspot.com/2012/05/aokpcm9-fixed-sprint-visual-voicemail.html) that works.
The absence of an app drawer is vexing, particularly the part about dragging-and-dropping launchers across different workspaces.
Anyway, not bad for a start. My favorite so far is straight-up vanilla CM7; I'll probably try out a modified-for-my-phone CM10 next, but I'm likely to stick with this for a few weeks anyway.
EDIT: Weather seems to think I'm in some place called Temperanceville. That's not a DYAC on me typing in "Tempe", either; that's what it automatically set itself to from my location.
I'm trying to fix it but it currently says
Hot city
no city that you want to query
I greatly appreciate the oriental wisdom but I still have to live here, phone.
EDIT 2: Still getting the "You haven't accessed the Google Play Store app on your device" error even though I've been using it for like an hour. Irritating; it's much quicker to queue app installations from my desktop.
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I want to add in here my experience over the past week when tooling around with emulation on my tablet. Might be a bit redundant but I'll throw some stuff out there. I was mostly getting it all setup for a long car trip.
Apps:
Mupen64 Plus (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=trev.android.mupen64plusae)
"Snes9x EX" (.. This is no longer on the marketplace? Weird. I'm pretty positive I didn't side-load it.)
WiimoteController (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ccpcreations.android.WiiUseAndroid)
SNES9X EX actually has Wiimote control scanning/mapping built in to the app itself. So the use of WiimoteController is for all non-SNEX9X gaming purposes. (Mupen64, other tablet games, etC). You reset it and scan it as if you're synching up to a new Wii, and it picks it up just fine. Responsive, good controls like this is what it was meant for. I actually use a classic controller (http://www.gamestop.com/wii/accessories/wii-classic-controller-pro-black/77243) plugged into the bottom of the thing just for that true classic experience. It's great, and because it's a table and not a phone - I don't have Thad's problem of storage. It all fits nicely in my man purse messenger bag
99% of the games on the SNES work fine. I have yet to run into one that gives me any problems but I doubt it's going to be an issue - that's a later emulation generation issue. Mupen64 for example, has some audio and video stuttering. It's not a lack of hardware, I'd think - I'm using an Asus Transformer TF101 (http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/#specifications) which has some decent power behind it.
Then again this is one of those situations where I sit back and look at what I'm able to do with current technology and think "Holy shit." I'm going to dig into PS1 (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epsxe.ePSXe)(Dreamcast?) Emulation next. I'd look into the Generation previous to the one we're in (XBOX/PS2/GCN), but I have a feeling that won't be possible for at least a while longer.
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Nexus 7 made it in; slapped a screen protector on it. (Xtremeguard (https://www.xtremeguard.com/); the guys at xda-developers said they were pretty good, and they had a sale going where I bought 2 for under $3. That coupon's expired but they seem to have deals like that pretty frequently; if anyone's looking for one I suggest doing a search first to see if there are any current codes). My first attempt with wet application. Looks...about like my previous attempts at dry application; I'm hoping the bubbles work themselves out better than they did on my DS.
I've also seen some warnings on Amazon reviews about water damaging components, so I'm going to let it sit for a day or so before I fire it up, just in case.
Meanwhile, Cyanogenmod 7 on my Evo 4G has developed the nasty habit of hanging on boot. I don't typically turn the thing off, but the last couple times I've gone to the movies I shut it down and just got the white boot screen when I powered it back up; had to pop the battery.
Decided to try another firmware; I went with the last AOKP milestone for the device (Milestone 6) but it was fucked up; windows rendered on top of each other and it didn't register my touches on most boxes.
The latest MIUI release is ostensibly much more stable than the last one I tried, but I've opted instead to stick with nice stable fast Gingerbread, so after a fair bit of poking around I settled on Deck's Reloaded (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1661605). Will see how that goes. (If I were going JB, I'd probably check out the latest Evervolv; it's got pretty solid reviews.)
Meanwhile, SwiftKey's released a Swype-style keyboard called Flow (http://www.swiftkey.net/flow/); I'm going to give that a shot. I like Swype in theory but its suggestions fucking kill me; I'm hoping SwiftKey's are better. I've said before that I wish there were a setting between "Automatically replace whatever I typed with the first suggestion" and "Don't offer any suggestions whatsoever"; I would very much like to have suggestions for when I fat-finger it, but I would also very much like for the thing I actually typed to be the default entry. Will let you guys know how that goes too.
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Hey what's the nomenclature for the bar across the bottom of the screen that typically includes the launcher, phone, and browser? Because the one that comes with Deck's Reloaded is some kind of horrific bullshit that is lime green, does not change color even when themed, and does not allow me to move or change the icons (eg swap the locations of the phone and launcher and replace the built-in browser with Firefox). I've been looking for "menubar" but that hasn't pulled up any alternatives.
Also what's a good theme that resembles the Cyanogenmod default? Because the default with Deck's Reloaded is, again, this hideous fucking lime-green thing, and for some goddamn reason I can't find a way to set my background to a solid color instead of a graphic.
On the whole I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with Deck's Reloaded, although it DOES come with a bunch of useful programs baked into it, is fast, and has so far not fucking locked up when I shut it down. It is a conundrum.
EDIT: Actually I found that some themes DO change the appearance of the bottom bar so it's not ugly-ass-lime-green. But I still don't see a way to modify the icons or their order, or change the wallpaper to plain black (without, say, a stupid kludge like making the wallpaper a 1-pixel black image). I also can't find granular settings like for Rosie and such; all the other ROMs I've used (CM, MIUI, and MikG) all had a way to change my desktop layout from 4x4 to 4x5 but I can't find it offhand. Maybe there's more info somewhere in that Deck's Reloaded thread but for Christ's sake it is 501 pages long.
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"Dock"
To get a new one, you usually need a new launcher. Everyone seems to love Nova Launcher.
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I was afraid of that. A search for "android dock" is going to turn up hell of ambiguous results.
Nova and Apex are both no-go on Gingerbread, but I'll see what I can figure out. (Wouldn't mind a new launcher anyway; the one with Deck's uses this irritating OpenGL Cube effect when you scroll.)
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I found ADW to work pretty well.
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Which is what cyanogen 7 uses if you liked that.
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Yeah, I wound up grabbing ADW and am fairly happy with it. Still haven't found a theme I quite like -- white-on-black with blue highlights instead of lime green -- but it's looking all right for the moment.
Used some Christmas money to pay the $6 for NewsRob. I think that's a little excessive, but what the hell, I've been using it for months and like it pretty well.
BTW, Chu-Chu Rocket is Amazon's free app of the day.
-- MEANWHILE --
Spent most of today setting up the Nexus 7. It's interesting so far. I eventually found a simple rooting script for bash (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1813329); ClockwordMod didn't work for some damn reason but fortunately it included Team Win and that one worked okay. (Great, actually -- touch controls and all.)
mtpfs is the craziest fucking thing I've seen all...well, all week, I guess. I was gonna say all month, but it's been a pretty fucking crazy month.
Anyway. mtp. There's an OpenSUSE package but it's a weird standalone command instead of using the mount command; I couldn't even cd into the mounted directory except as root, and that worked for about five minutes before it locked up, I had to kill the whole shell with sudo kill -9, and it wouldn't mount again after that. (Which is consistent with complaints I've read from other users who said they could only get mtp to mount once per boot.) Plugged it into a Windows machine and it worked better, but was still pretty eccentric; doesn't work for shit on a parallel filecopy, there's no "safely remove" option in the tray, and even on refresh it wouldn't show new directories that programs had added (eg after I ran fbreader it set up a Books directory, but I couldn't see it in Explorer, couldn't even access it by typing out the full path, but if I tried to create a new folder called Books it wouldn't do it -- no error, it just reverted back to New Folder if I tried). Now, maybe this is one of those things that if I say "This is better than just mounting the fucking filesystem HOW, exactly?" I'll look like a fool in two years when it's well-supported and the answer is obvious. (Like the mouselook/WASD control scheme in Marathon. Or running system-intensive games in Windows instead of just dropping to DOS. Or texting.) But for now, I don't fucking get it.
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You know, I have never successfully applied a screen protector. I ALMOST got the Persona 4 skin on my Vita, but it had one tiny dust thing I tried to removed and made the whole underside irrevocably dirty.
Hell, just today I tried to put one on my fiancee's cell phone; it actually went on fine, but had a sticker that needed to be removed.... which left sticky residue everywhere.
Screen protectors...!!!!
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I swear by Realook simply because it's an uncomplicated piece of semi-hard plastic. None of this solution-gack junk.
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I haven't bothered with a screen protector on my new phone. Tempered glass is such that unless you keep your phone in the same pocket as your keys, you really don't need one.
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Dunno, I've managed to rack up some light scratches on my/your old phone and I generally keep it in the same pocket as other soft things. Like, I don't know how it got them at all. They're not bad, but they're enough to make me think $3 for a screen protector (well, two, but I don't really intend to use them both) is money well-spent.
Anyway yeah the bubbles are mostly worked out now.
Put a few comics on there, both cbz's and the free first issue of Quantum and Woody. (Obligatory reminder: Quantum and Woody is awesome and you should buy it.) I'm surprised by how readable the things are on a 7" screen, though I don't think either the Comixology app or ACV is ideal out of the box. I think that, in most cases, I'd like to read in landscape, zoomed to width, and scroll down -- guess that's not practical for comics with splashy layouts, which is most of them now (Batwoman: completely fucking unreadable on a tablet!), but for the good ol' simple grid layout it's not a bad way to go.
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Well, that's a 2010 phone. Glass isn't as good as 2012 phones.
When I read comics on my tablet, I put them on there as folders full of images, and read them with Perfect Viewer (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rookiestudio.perfectviewer). Works, well, perfectly.
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On the note of comics, Mango (http://mango.leetsoft.net/) is a fucking fantastic manga reader.
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When I read comics on my tablet, I put them on there as folders full of images, and read them with Perfect Viewer (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rookiestudio.perfectviewer). Works, well, perfectly.
CBR/CBZ support, too, and there's a plugin for PDF. (10MB seems a bit much for a plugin with PDF support, but what the hell.) Looks like it's worth checking out; thanks.
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Can anybody recommend a good cheap keyboard? Physical keyboard, I mean; I do all right with an onscreen keyboard but I'd like to have something I can tap on if I'm ever stranded somewhere with too much free time and a tablet or phone.
Stross keeps talking about the iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim; it looks a little cramped for my tastes but I figure a novelist/hacker with carpal tunnel probably knows what the fuck he's talking about. They're no longer made and go for crazy prices at Amazon so I'm keeping an eye on eBay.
The ZaggKeys Flex seems to be pretty highly-regarded but it runs $70 (EDIT: $55 on Amazon, $40 on eBay); I know Logitech makes a good product but theirs is a little bulkier and still costs $50. Motorola's (http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Wireless-Keyboard-Retail-Packaging/dp/B004L9MBH6/) is only $25 but there are multiple reviews complaining about connectivity issues. Still might be the best cheap solution.
Course, it's not entirely necessary that it be Bluetooth; I can handle a USB keyboard with a dongle, too, if anyone can recommend a good portable usable one of those.
Keyboards are also one of those things I kinda hate buying without actually trying them out first, but the selection at the local Fry's is Not Great -- and probably still the best in town.
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Is there a way to set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine in Chrome? All I can find, including on DDG's help site, is how to do it on the desktop version of Chrome; I don't see a "Custom Search Engine" option in the Android version of Chrome.
And I've installed the DDG app. It gives me a widget on the desktop but not a search option in the browser.
(I'm pretty sure I used to have it as my default search engine in Firefox but I don't see an option to set it there anymore either.)
EDIT: Found it in Firefox; for some reason it's not added as part of the DDG app installation, you have to go to Add-Ons and search for it. Haven't found a similar option for Chrome yet and may switch back to Firefox if I don't.
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I've been creaking along in the stone age with my Blackberry Pearl for five years now. It still works fine, though the screen's gotten a little pitted. Of course I use it as a phone and... that's it. Browsing with WAP2 on a two-inch screen is not something I do except under extreme duress.
But, something happened that never would have believed would come to pass: I... I... I'm actually maybe... excited about the new Blackberry.
It's the right size I've been thinking of, I don't care that their apps are knockoffs or have a shallower selection. I would be very surprised if I buy more than three or four, one of which will be a map app - when I want to do computing I am damn well going to use my home or work PCs, so a paucity of apps really doesn't bother me. And the battery life (which IS very important to me) just flat-out destroys the competition.
I always said I was going to wait until my old phone died, but I might just buy a new one. Also my current provider is crap (no service issues, but just way over priced for basically nothing), and I can either go to a discount provider or a work-subsidized one for easily half the monthly fees, but I need a GSM phone to move.
Apparently the flat cash price will be $550, but I'm sure there'll be a sale in a couple months (not going to be stupid enough to buy the thing in like the first two or three months).
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Google bans adblocking software from the Play store. (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/google-evicts-ad-blocking-software-from-google-play-store/)
Of course, the reason I'm an Android user instead of an iOS user in the first place is because when Google does shit like this I can just download apps from another store.
I use the Amazon store pretty frequently, and F-Droid (http://f-droid.org/) is great for FOSS. Haven't tried any others as yet; feel free to chime in.
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So, the default internet app on my HTC One V has this annoying habit of blackscreening immediately after it loads a page maybe one in five times I launch it. What should I be using instead?
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Unless you use Safari I'd say the mobile version of whatever you use on your computer. Chrome has always worked great for me and I'm pretty sure Firefox and Opera both share the features that let you keep one profile between devices.