eye-candy

http://android.modaco.com/topic/318375-how-to-manual-mod/page__view__findpost__p__1412215

eye-candy
the aim is to eliminate as much eye-candy as possible, and replace all colours by black, as much as possible. this should regain much space and some speed + battery.

customise

http://android.modaco.com/topic/318375-how-to-manual-mod/page__view__findpost__p__1412214
customise

ring delay
The ring delay was getting me very frustrated, as I would only find out who was ringing on the 4th-5th ring. These tweaks below will eliminate the ring delay. But I still find a delay for the contact/number coming up by the 3rd-4th ring.

stock apps

http://android.modaco.com/topic/318375-how-to-manual-mod/page__view__findpost__p__1412213
stock apps

I found stock apps from elsewhere. Refer post# 8 from starkos for the contacts apps.
Contacts.apk
ContactsProvider.apk
Gallery_1.1.30682.apk
Music.apk

Resource Utilisation & Capacity

http://android.modaco.com/topic/318375-how-to-manual-mod/page__view__findpost__p__1412212

capacity & utilisation
It is very important to understand the capacity & utilisation! This is mine, with ~100 apps that I've added, including CoPilot Live. Previously, I couldn't even install the CoPilot, which was supplied included in my t-mobile contract. Now, I can install another similar humunguous app, and still have some free space...

how-to manual mod

http://android.modaco.com/topic/318375-how-to-manual-mod/page__view__findpost__p__1412211
how-to mod any firmware or mod on your phone step-by-step

I have learnt a lot from this forum and a few others. I think I should document where I am and how I have modified my firmware, if it helps others. I suppose this is the ethos of open source - learn from others, build on it, and pass it back.

screen unlock

Unlock your screen remotely! adb can connect via usb or wireless. No need for root either.

colour

http://android.modaco.com/topic/317682-theme-elegant-steel-cm61-update-13112010/page__view__findpost__p__1401023
/system/build.prop customisation


#use black buttons
ro.config.BlackButton=true

#notification bar
#black time and date
ro.config.hw_isCustomize=false
ro.config.hw_customizeType=01


android boot animation

i took the t-mobile stock bootanimation.zip and removed all images. having no animation reduces the disk usage, and speeds up boot.

http://android.modaco.com/topic/310040-androidmodaco-custom-boot-animation/page__view__findpost__p__1296104
then i happened upon this simple, not too large, neat animation by fusion0306. now, i'm split between the two, ie having no animation or having a simple animation.

rooting the pulse

two steps:

1. flash the recovery image
amon-ra

2. flash the system image
http://bit.ly/dyA33l

custom rom

http://android.modaco.com/content/t-mobile-pulse-pulse-modaco-com/309645/trimmed-vanilla-2-1-rom-v9/

Check the link above for a fantastic post#5 in the thread, looking at the innards of android. I hit this very late after, I had rooted and hacked my android, removing unnecessary built-in apps and tweaking some configs. I am a fan of minimalism. I need to revisit this...

android fonts

I can't view any non-english characters. I am told that android 2.2 resolved this issue. I won't be able to get Froyo soonish. So I have to live with this issue for the time being.

My workaround has been to use Opera Mini with fonts being rendered on the server. I can read many sites, though not all.

Huawei U8220

Herein begins my Android adventure. As it is based on linux, I incorporate it in this blog.

Yesterday, I ordered a new phone - the T-Mobile Pulse - on contract. I have just picked the package from Royal Mail delivery office. The phone came with android 1.5, co-pilot satnav software and other accessories. Well pleased with what I have received.

Well done to T-Mobile and Google!

Poor man’s SSD

re: Poor man's SSD, K.Mandla's blog post, and my comments:

Inspiring article, Mr Mandla!

I have been using a 256M usb key, loaded with damnsmalllinux, for the best part of 4yrs now. I have a Citrix client on it for work purposes. I converted to TinyCoreLinux last year.

This USB would boot where ever I could, despite concerns voiced by fellow experts about the doom-and-gloom for continuous writes to flash devices. Till date, I haven't known any data issues.

Perhaps, I’m just lucky with this drive, but I've also had no data issues with any of my usb keys yet. And I have a dozen plus, used for different purposes. And btw, before you ask, mine is one of those cheap usb keys. I think it was the cheapest I could find at that time.

So, I have my PC on a key, which just needs some hardware to boot. How cheap can you get? I don’t care what I hardware I am working on, if it can boot usb. I travel around fairly frequently, and I find this very useful, along with your Plop Boot floppy. Thanks for that article too!

rtorrent force-upgrade how-to

debian stable might not have the latest versions of some software with features that you want right now. here's how to upgrade in-place. tip: http://lizardking.biz/2009/12/rtorrent-11-on-debian-5/

install rtorrent

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install rtorrent


remove rtorrent and libtorrent, leaving dependencies installed

apt-get remove rtorrent libtorrent10


download latest versions from

http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/r/rtorrent
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libt/libtorrent


install, force if necessary

dpkg -i libtorrent*
dpkg -i [--force-all] rtorrent*


Re: Dear LazyWeb, please help persuade my dad to move to Linux

"I get the feeling that my dad would be more inclined to accept advice from a PC World salesman than he would from me."

If that is the case, my advice would be to take your dad to PC World! Show him some of the Linux netbooks, and get the salesman to convince your dad why he might like them. :-)

Re: Dear LazyWeb, please help persuade my dad to move to Linux

I just stopped giving free support to them if they run Windows. I don't run Windows. I don't care about Windows. If they want to keep running Windows, they can do so and there are a number of places they can buy support or they can bug someone else to fix their problems for them. If, on the other hand, they want to run Linux, I'll gladly do the support.

openwrt kamikaze x86 install

http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=18297
http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=19551

download the {latest} x86 ext2 image and the necessary packages
http://downloads.openwrt.org/kamikaze/{latest}/x86/
openwrt-x86-ext2.image
packages/ nic dropbear

boot from live usb. then write the image directly to drive, not partition.

# dd if=openwrt-x86-ext2.image of=/dev/sda
# e2fsck /dev/sda1
# e2fsck /dev/sda2

http://downloads.openwrt.org/docs/openwrt.html
http://wiki.openwrt.org/

irc chat

i have long evaded this extremely useful service on linux, as i couldn't get linux irc clients to work properly.

long ago, i was hooked on irc in windows using a multitude of clients, but primarily pirch and mirc.

linux and my recent fascination with minimalism have precluded me even looking at bloatwares. i started off on tinyirc, imho just perfect. but, for the life of me, i couldn't figure out how to make it work. it seemed to work, but i couldn't connect to any network.

then i started using scrollz, which worked for me. but i didn't feel comfortable enough, as i couldn't get use to scrollz and a lack of documentation floating around.

i recently tried irssi... eureka! i remember my days with pirch/mirc and i'm suddenly back in business. i need to learn a bit more about getting mileage from irssi...

i seemed to be gradually moving from smaller to larger irc clients. i've even managed to make the quirky tinyirc work now, and it is just perfect for me. i'll be going back to tinyirc later, and use it exclusively. for now, it is irssi and tinyirc!

irc servers
http://irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/servermap.html

irssi startup doc
http://irssi.org/documentation/startup

newbie docs
http://irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html

Response: A cascading effect

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/a-cascading-effect/

Hi K! I have been your fan for a while now. Perhaps this might help you.

While I was in Germany over Christmas/NY spending time with some family I hadn't seen in a few years, I offered to help them with their computer woes. My tactic was to wipe out windows and replace it with ubuntu netbook remix. Though, my preferred flavour is debian, I opted for ubuntu as I was not conversant with that hardware. Ubuntu detected everything cleanly.

SSH From Behind a Firewall via HTTP Proxy

Terminally Incoherent wrote a fantastic blog post, which I want to file away.

SSH From Behind a Firewall via HTTP Proxy