Notification Toggle on HTC Desire (Evervolv Turba 3.0.0p10 custom ROM by Nikez Lente)

First of all, I must say that I was excited when I found there were quite a few Jelly Bean (JB) custom ROM for my HTC Desire!

I first flashed the ROM by Vijendrahs (https://sites.google.com/site/androidromporting/downloads) as I have enjoyed the MIUI ROM. Unfortunately, my joy did not last very long as I soon discovered that everything works perfectly except for GPS. I have use Waze daily and so when it could not get my location (waze kept on showing me that I am somewhere in Ecuador and not Malaysia!), I got very frustrated. Tried also the AOKP ROM ported by Vijendrahs and it was the same problem.

Thus this was what triggered me to look for other JB ports, since I have nothing to loose. I come to accept that some things may not work on alpha/beta builds and I can live with it. So I found the ROM by Nikez Lente (http://nikez.nu/releases/). At first, I wasn't quite happy with it as I was so used to features offered by MIUI ROMs. So I nandroid the phone and restore back to MIUI ICS by Marange. Only then I realised that the ICS ROM was very much slower in response and everything seems to lag. I have forgotten that I use to have so many "App not responding" messages in ICS while I get none of it in ALL the JB build.

I then decide that I should restore the ROM by Nikez and get used to it. I must say that this ROM is very responsive and other than known issues, I find that it performed better than anything I had before!

Now, one thing I missed is that I can toggle wifi, mobile data and GPS via the notification bar. I believe it was purposely removed from this build, but it is so useful I started to find if there are any apps out there that could overcome this lack. And I did find some very nice apps, but among them all, "Notification Toggle" fits my needs the best. It may not have the best icons, but I can customize my own icons if I choose to. I can even download via another app built by the same developer. While design was something I can ignore, I was really annoyed that I can't toggle my GPS directly. The developer did mention that as long as my app is installed as a user app, it will only pull out the location settings and not toggle the GPS directly. I would need to move the apk to /system/app if I fix that.

Now comes the problem. Since the internal memory of HTC Desire is so small, I needed to use A2SD script to move all my apps to the SDCard so that I have more space to install more apps. So the conventional way of copying/moving the apk from /data/app to /system/app was impossible. It failed when I use ES Explorer. When I use command line (via Terminal Emulator), the error message was "out of memory".

I was at my wits end when and idea struck. If I can only make the app installable via a zip file, then I can install it like how I install my gapps. So I downloaded app2zip and zip up the app for Notification Toggle. Sadly, it installs back to my user app space.

Then, I figure that if zip a system app, I can restore it back to my /system/app. So I got my colleague to help me install all the necessary app in his SGS1:
1. Notification Toggle
2. /system/app mover
3. app2zip

I get him to move the Notification Toggle to /system/app (using /system.app mover) and create the zip file (via app2zip). Once the zip file is created, I get him to send me the zip file to be installed via clockworkmod recovery like how ROMs are being flashed and how gapps are installed.

Voila! Now Notification Toggle is a system app! I can now toggle GPS directly via the notification bar and no longer need to go via the location settings page! :)

Reading up on DNSSEC

Came across this article and think the observation are interesting regarding TLD that implemented DNSSEC.

http://www.potaroo.net/iepg/2012-03-ietf83/IETF83IEPGLewis.pdf

Accident: A case of hit-and-run... by cows!

This is gonna be a short post.

An unfortunate event happened to me today. After picking Hannah from kindergarten, I use a "kampung" road to go back to office. For the first time in that area, I notice some cows.

I suspected the cows may wanna cross over from the other side of the road, and they did looked like they were walking, I judged that I can keep my pace and be ahead before they crossed over.

To my horror, and when it is to late to do anything else, I realized that the cows were running! So, one of them (about 4 cows, I think, and I think only one of them) hit my car! I jammed my brakes but the damage was already done. Driving a little ahead with the intention to assess the damage, I first readjusted my mirror (which was hitted) and I realized all the cows were gone. Really a hit-and-run case. :(

Below are the pictures I took of the car when I reached office. What an experience! Such a "historical" day.

Lesson learnt: Never cross a cow. You can't win.

Installing custom ROM MIUI

After rooting the phone, now to install a custom ROM. There were many reviews on various ROM and so far, I have tried MIUI (did not bother testing others... MIUI did not give me a reason to leave, anyway :p)

Before you do anything "real" in wiping your current phone clean, it is always good to do backups. After all due diligence (backup contacts, pictures, music, SMSes, and whatever sort of data that is deemed important), you also may want to do a NAND backup of your stock ROM as well, in case you decided to revert back. To do this, I think the steps provided at http://theunlockr.com/2010/02/06/how-to-backup-and-restore-your-android-phone/ is quite complete.

So, to do the custom ROM installation:

1. First, download the ROM from http://miuiandroid.com and take a look at the list of supported device (for me, I download the ROM for HTC Desire).

2. Then, copy the the zip file of the ROM to the SD Card

3. Boot the phone into Recovery.

4. Wipe the data clean (both the user data (factory reset) as well as cache)

5. Install the "update" from SD Card.

Done!

* Sorry not able to put sample pictures here as this is a quick update.

Rooting Android

This was intended to be my first post, but over time, I really have forgotten how to root the phone and install a custom ROM... until today when my sister asked me to root her phone.

So, here are the resources I have used to root the phone.

Before I list the steps, it is really an odd thing when I thought I have had all the necessary drivers to the phone, but yet, I think I had the same troubles when I first rooted my phone.

First, I need to root the phone. Below are the sites / links which I viewed to know how to root the phone:

1. Check out this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JgsiexY7l0&feature=related. There are a lot of other videos, but I after running through a few, this looked decent enough.

2. The steps below (sourced from http://theunlockr.com/2010/09/20/how-to-root-the-htc-desire-unrevoked-method/) is helpful, but I suggest to follow this alongside with the youtube above.
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1. Download the Unrevoked Rooting App
Unrevoked (Updated 09.20.10)*If the above version of Unrevoked doesn’t work, try this one, Unrevoked 3.31.
2. Double click the Unrevoked program you downloaded. If using Windows, then click on the file that appears called Hboot Driver and follow it’s instructions to install the modified HBoot drivers OR click here and download the drivers and install them manually.
3. Once the drivers are successfully installed, double click the Reflash program to open it.
4. Once the driver is successfully installed, turn off the phone by taking out the battery and putting it back in. Then push power to turn it on and get it to the normal home screen.
5. On your computer, right click the Reflash file and run as administrator. It should open Unrevoked and say “waiting for device”.
6. On your phone, click Menu > Settings > Applications > Development > and make sure USB Debugging is checked ON.
7. Plug in your phone into your computer via usb cable.
8. It should automatically locate your phone that is plugged in and you can just follow the prompts to continue.

9. Done! You are rooted and have a custom recovery image!
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Do note however that both the times I have used Unrevoked latest app, it could not root my HTC Desire. After scourging the web (again!), the best Unrevoked version to root a HTC Desire is by using version 3.21. You can download the application at http://downloads.unrevoked.com/recovery/3.21/reflash_package.exe (source: http://androidforums.com/desire-all-things-root/221212-faq-rooting-updated-11th-november-2011-a.html)

How to Install Apps to the SD Card by Default (on Android 2.2 Froyo, and beyond... I think)

Source: http://androinica.com/2010/08/how-to-install-apps-to-the-sd-card-by-default-on-android-2-2-froyo/


To install an app to the SD card on Android Froyo, the application itself needs to support it. In my experience though, most current apps can be moved to the external storage. However, the Froyo system (works for my Gingerbread as well :)) installs all new applications on your device’s internal memory by default, except for those that explicitly request external installation. Luckily, it’s possible to make your Android 2.2 phone put apps on the SD card by default instead. Here’s how:

1. First you have to enable USB debugging on your Android device from Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.
2. Now you need to download and install the Android SDK on your computer from http://developer.android.com/sdk/. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the package to the folder of your choice, run SDK Setup.exe and click on Available Packages to the left. If you get an error message at this point, enable “Force https://…” in the Settings. From the list of available packages, select “Usb Driver package”, click on the Install Selected button in the bottom right corner and follow the prompts. 
3. Connect your phone to your computer with a USB-cable. Your OS will prompt you to install new drivers. Choose to install them from the android-sdk/usb_driver folder. Do not mount your device; you only need to plug-in the cable.
4. Next, run a command prompt and navigate to the Android-SDK\platform-tools folder. In Windows, this is done by selecting Run from the Start Menu (or by pressing Win+R) and typing cmd. You change drives in the command prompt by entering the drive letter followed by a colon (:), and change folders with the CD command. For example, to enter the Android-SDK folder, simply type cd android-sdk.
5. In the Android-SDK\platform-tools folder, type in adb devices and you should get a serial number starting with “H” in return. All you have to do next is entering adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2. Voilà, you’re done! Android will now install apps to the SD card by default.
6. To switch back to storing software on the internal memory, enter adb shell pm setInstallLocation 0.

I should point out that it’s preferable to install certain apps to the main memory, since it will take a while before the SD card becomes available when you start your phone. Applications installed on the memory card will also be unavailable to the system each time you mount your phone as a disk drive. The internal storage is probably quicker as well, even though Google claims that “there is no effect on the application performance so long as the external storage is mounted on the device.” In general, apps that integrate with the Android OS and that often run in the background is better to install on the internal storage, while games and most other applications will have no problem chilling outside on your SD. Homescreen widgets should be installed to the internal storage as well. I noticed that LauncherPro, for example, won’t recognize widgets stored on the SD card when you start your phone, because when the app is launched, the memory card is still unavailable.

Based on my personal experience, apps that runs as a widget MUST be installed in the internal memory. If not, each time your phone restarts, all these widget will be missing and you can't even run them manually (as you don't see them in the apps drawer). The only place where you can see them is in the "manage application", which you can do nothing. In order to make sure your widget works, you may want to switch back to storing apps on internal memory, then install your widget app, and then switch back to install to SD Card by default.

A Great Android to listen to sermons

I have been listening to Christian music via my android phones for a while now. Not that I always do that, since it drains the battery of my phone, but when I want to, I would listen to KLVV MyPraise FM (http://www.klvv.com/praise.asp). There is also the sister station, HouseFM, but I prefer Praise FM. :).

Then I decide to explore and see if I can find alternative radio station so that I can change my "channel" whenever I like and not stuck to a single one. Well, I did not quite put a lot of effort in looking, but through Android Market, I found this excellent app "Bott Radio Network" and I tried it. At first, I was waiting for songs and music.. and later I realised that this station has sermons mainly! In a way, exactly what i WAS looking for! :). It does not solve the problem of draining my battery, but I have decided to plug my phone in the charger each time I listen so that I would not be caught with a dead phone.

So now I am enjoying this new app. So, if you are one who is looking for resources to hear sermons, give this a try. Just search for "bott radio" at your Android Market. :)