Droid 2 Review

It's been almost a month since I got my shiny new Droid 2 at the Verizon store so I think I'm qualified to offer a pretty comprehensive review of the phone.

Obviously this phone has some serious horse power when compared to my old Droid Eris and it's nice to have such a snappy UI and the ability to play any 3D game I wish.

When I first got my Droid Eris I felt I made a sacrifice over the Motu Droid because the Eris didn't have a hardware keyboard. As I got used to the touch type on the Eris I actually came to like some features that you don't get with a hardware keyboard, namely when typing into certain fields you get an appropriate keyboard layout, e.g. number field gives you a number pad ect.. So, it took some getting used to with the hardware keyboard. The hardware keyboard has some advantages too, such as, you get a tactile feel for the keyboard, you save screen real estate and overall you have a more complete keyboard for using when typing text. I think overall I'm happier with the hardware keyboard and closing it to bring up the software keyboard when I need to. Options are always nice.

Another thing I felt I got shorted on with the Eris over the Motu Droid was the LED flash on the camera. Overall the camera on both phones where decent at snapping pictures but having the flash is nice in darker environments even though it does introduce a bit more grain in the pictures than I care for. Another fantastic feature is using the flash as an LED flashlight. For a musician and general hacker it's like aving a flashlight with you wherever you go.

I will have to say that HTC's Sense UI is a bit better than Motu's Blur. Motorola loads substantially more crapware that makes doing certain things on the phone a bigger PITA. For one if you double tap on the home button it brings up a horrible voice command program that take forever to load and works about 1% as good as Google's Voice Search. That being said I really miss the UI that comes with Cyanogen Mod and can't wait to get it on the Droid 2. If carriers had even a bit of brains rattling around in their head they would hire Cyanogen to do their UI.

I rooted the phone in the first 24 hours I had the phone and would have done it the night I got it but I didn't have the time to sit down and follow the instructions. It was fairly straight-forward for someone reasonable comfortable with the command line but not the one click experience I had for the Eris. Rooting your phone is now considered fair use under the DMCA and I consider it a must for any android user.

I find certain things a little buggy on the phone. I experience crashes now and then and some time I get hangs. I think a good ROM will solve all of this but for the average person it would be considered a huge annoyance to watch your phone reboot while using the navigation to get somewhere. I had similar issues with my Eris till I got a custom ROM on it. Also, some times Android will crash and restart and upon reloading the desktop the accelerometer will not rotate the screen or pull up the on-screen keyboard. The only fix I've found for this issue is pulling the battery and restarting, which is a huge PITA.

Overall I think this is a pretty fantastic bit of hardware with a lackluster Android implementation that I can't wait to correct with a good ROM. I'll report back after I make it so.

Google eBooks Rant

Google recently launched their eBooks product that allows you to buy books and read them on a multitude of devices. I've taken a look at the service and felt compelled to make a few comments.

First, google is offering book optionally(it's up to the publisher) using Adobe's DRM system. I understand that this is what most publishers are requiring before releasing digital versions of their product. However, some smaller or more independent publishers might like to offer more flexibility to their customers by not locking them into a DRM scheme. I applaud Google for making this an option but the fact is they don't let the user know what titles have DRM and what titles do not. I would appreciate them letting their consumers know when they get locked into DRM. That being said a nice feature of buying from Google eBooks is being able to read the book across a multitude of devices. You can read a book on the web, on a tablet or eReader, and on an iOS or Android device. They also offer the ability to download the book in ePub or PDF format. Having your book in an open format such as ePub without DRM is really where I would like to see the industry moving towards and informing consumers of what titles have DRM would allow me to better vote with my dollars.

Second, the Android app is pretty bare-bones and now at all close to my favorite mobile reading app Aldiko. It doesn't support landscape mode or changing font colors which make night reading a bit harsh. I would use this service without reservation if I could be sure that the title I'm purchasing could be used in the reading software of my choosing.

Lastly, I can appreciate Google giving new life to older titles as well as offering new and public domain titles. Cross platform usability is a shure plus of the service. I just wish that Google had been able to put more pressure on publishers to stop using DRM in their business model as Amazon was able to do with their MP3 service.

Bliss and the art of root.

I tried to resist, really I did. I fought the allure that comes from the latest and greatest as long as possible. I ignored that newer phones where getting the latest and greatest Android and I was still on 2.1, which I enjoyed and was grateful when the over the air update arrived. However, we have a need for honesty, I'm only human, and I'm subject to wanting the latest and greatest. One option would have been to get a new phone and that would have been a practical one if it wasn't for the fact that I don't want a new contract and I don't have any money. So what's a faithful free software advocate to do but exercise his DMCA given rights and root baby, ROOT!

I have the sad, forgotten by its Android brethren phone, HTC Droid Eris. Knowing full well that it's OTA update future was as bleak as Minnesota's hope of wining an NFL championship. I had little hope of just holding out for Verizon to come through and give me 2.2 OTA. So, I looked into custom ROM options and lo and behold, what should my wonder eyes meet, but a shiny fully functional Froyo port for the Eris on the xda-developers forums by a guy that goes by the handle Kaos.

So, first things first, we need to root. For this I used the one click root also available on the xda forums. It's as simple as running the app, rebooting holding the down volume button and the power, flashing the zip file the app places on your sd card and BAM!, you have root. Now, if all you want is simple things like the ability to tether over wi-fi then this is enough. However, if you want the whole Froyo enchilada it's time to load KaosFroyo.

Kaosfroyo rom is a port of Cyanoginmod 6 to the Eris and overclocked by default to 710mhz. The steps I used to flash are as follows.

1. Download the rom zip onto the SD card(Don't place it in a folder).
2. Reboot the phone into recovery mode(hold down vol-down and power then select recovery from the menu with the track ball.
3. Back up the existing rom using Nandbackup.
4. Wipe the Android and Dalvek partitions.
5. Flash the rom with the flash utility.

There you have it. Froyo on your Eris. What will this give you? Faster, speak to text everywhere, live wallpapers and the ability to tweak your phone to your heart's content. Is it worth it? Hell yeah it is.

After flashing I was given an extremely in-depth tutorial on setting up and tweaking the phone by a very patient and knowledgable IRC user in #droideris on andirc. His handle is the_fly and if you see him in there tell him to get his tutorial on a blog soon so I don't have to remember it all. :)

So, Thank you very much XDA developer, Kaos, the_fly and all the rest of the people behind Android and it's hacker community. You ROCK!

Aleks on Linux

My wife has recently gone back to college to get her bachelor of nursing and I've been worried that we would be required to get a Windows machine for her to complete assignments. I'm going to resist as hard as possible as we haven't had anything but Linux in our house for some years. This however, came under threat recently with the first week of school. The math class she is taking uses a web service called Aleks for homework. The service is a homework platform that uses a java plug-in in browser. I see no need for anything on the web to not be cross-platform. While they don't officially support Linux they do include some information on how to get it working under Linux.

I followed the steps on the site and logged into my wifes account and much to my chagrin was not greeted by a functioning Aleks. So, I resorted to google for help. There isn't much info out there giving any more help than the installation instructions on the Aleks website. There are reports however, that it does work.

The solution it turns out is quite a simple one and is found on the official java website. Basically you need to create a symbolic link to the java plugin to the Firefox plugin folder to enable in browser java to work.

Hopefully, this info will save some poor Linux user from having to suffer too much to get their homework done.

Geostatus

I've been wanting to dip my toes into programing for android and while I haven't made a full fledged app yet my efforts have produced some fruit.

I'm proud to introduce my latest free software project called Geostatus. It's a simple python script that runs in the Android Scripting Environment(ASE). It serves a very simple purpose in that it checks your current location based on the phones gps and compares that to a list of predetermined locations and updates your Google Talk status accordingly. I've created a git hub repository for it and have released it under the terms of the GPLv3.

You can check it out here

Jack Supprort in Mumble

This is an appeal for help in solving the last great gap in the audio tool chain for podcasters. The Linux audio world now has a robust compliment of professional tools to record an independent radio show. We all know that the open source and free software community is under reported on in the media and the effort it takes to put out a show it greater than it should be. Recently on the show Shotofjaq they mentioned Mumble as a possible solution to voip woes that we currently have for podcasting with hosts in different locations. Currently the only solution we have been able to get to work with our Jack setup is an outdated version of Skype and compiling the alsa-utilities by hand to include jack support . That as well as some custom work in .asound to make something that is stable enough to get us through an hour long show without headaches and break downs.

We have tried going the SIP route as well and the issues are thus:
1. Asterisk is a pain in the butt to set up.
2. It's difficult to set up your firewall on the client side to get reliable connections.
3. There are no sip clients that support jack either and no other hacky work arounds have gotten us a reliable setup anyways.
We have filed a feature request for every SIP client we could think of and have been turned down by them all.

Mumble is quick and easy to set up on server and client end. All it is lacking is Jack support.

If it's a question of money or developers, then I would love help in identifying what hurdles need to be overcome. So please, if you have any incite into how we can get this accomplished let me know. I will not let this be the one thing preventing quality content about the floss world.

The new feature request is here.https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3008867&group_id=147372&atid=768008

please show your support in any way you can.

Get That Body Movin'!

Exercising is a place that stops a lot of people from beginning the get healthy. Where do you start? What exercises are best? These can all be things that prevent you from taking the first step to a healthy life. What do the experts say about it? I think the old saying "the best exercise is the one you do" sums it up best. My guiding philosophy is that I won't do any exercises I absolutely don't like. The funny thing is, at first, most exercises are the ones you don't want to do. However, as you get more in shape and able to do other exercises, you might find that all the things you though you hated you really just didn't like because they where too hard for your fitness level.

Everyone has some sort of sport or activity that they like doing. Your favorite exercise might be walking, running, biking, kayaking, hiking, rock climbing. The list goes on and on. So I would pick and exercise that you all ready enjoy and meets your current fitness level. Remember exercises that work out your cardiovascular system are much more important than weight training. Pick exercises that get your heart rate up.

For me, I've always liked riding a bike, so that's where I started. Since you can't ride a bike year-round in Colorado, when the weather turned cold I had to search out other things. I've found many different types of exercise that I enjoy and I refuse to do ones that not matter what I don't like. It's hard to stick with doing something if you don't enjoy it.

As a last reminder I want to encourage you to consult your doctor before taking on any sports or exercise, make sure you are picking exercises that are appropriate for your fitness level and a keep in mind any advice contained on this blog is used at your own risk. I don't need you hurting yourself and blaming me. Keep safe and keep healthy!