Project89

Unread Messages from Talk on Android lockscreen

Nina — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:46:07 +0000

In this post I will show you, how to turn your lockscreen into an information dashboard for missed calls and unread sms, mails, chat messages or upcoming events. At the end, it will look like the image on the right. Click on it to get a larger view. (I’m sorry that it’s in German. But I’m sure you can guess what it means.)

The reason for this work quite simple. When my notification LED blinks green, I’ve got either a new mail, a sms or a new message in Talk. But only in the last two cases, I want to react shortly. Mostly I got a new spam mail, so I unlocked the screen and entered the PIN unnecessary. I know that this is definitely some kind of luxury problem – but I want my phone to fit perfectly to my needs and for that, I would even pay.

Prerequisites

First, you need to get some apps.

WidgetLocker replaces your system lockscreen. The ability to add widgets is the big advantage of this app, and exactly what we need here.

WidgetLocker, blocca schermo.
TeslaCoil Software
Free

SiMi Clock Widget is used for the clock, weather and battery information on top of the lockscreen.

SiMi Clock Widget
hateman
Free

MissedIt! is the main app, I use as dashboard. It works with nearly all apps like Skype, Whatsapp, ICQ, Facebook, Twitter, K9-Mail, TeamSpeak or any other app that send a notification to your statusbar. But it can’t difference between e.g., Google+ Messenger and Google+ Notifications, because it’s the same application. Your notifications will be added then. Also notice that you have to grant permissions for reading all notifications in your statusbar.

Missed It!
igece.labs
Free

You want only calls, sms and mails? Then take a look at SMS Unread Count instead of MissedIt!.

The slider on the bottom is SliderBlackMod by OneDeep from xda-developers. It can be downloaded directly from the xda-forum. Use WidgetLocker to open the zip file and install the slider.

The font for MissedIt! is called Eurofurence and can be downloaded at dafont.com.

Create custom wallpaper

The next step isn’t as easy as it sounds. MissedIt! only displays your notifications as text. If it’s sufficient for you, proceed with the next step. For all others, there is some work to do. Save the finished wallpaper as png file to your smartphone.

Open the pxd file from the end of this section in pixlr and insert your favorite wallpaper to the correspondent layer. Then, rearrange or replace icons with the ones you prefer. The layer “Guidelines” may help you, to set them at the right position. If you use less than seven icons, remove the last rows in the template.

If you have chosen a light wallpaper, you may have to select each icon layer, open “Hue & Saturation” with the shortcut Ctrl+U and adjust the coloration to a lighter value. Make sure, you checked the “Colorize” option in the dialog.

Download pixlr.com template (854x480)

App Setup

Primarily, copy the downloaded eurof35.tff to /sdcard/fonts so we can proceed to configure MissedIt!. It works by scanning all notifications in your status bar. This has to be enabled first in the general settings under Accessibility. Then download and import the following configuration file to get all text properties like color, font or padding.

Download MissedIt! configuration

Afterwards, open “Monitored Elements” in MissedIt! and you see some apps pre-configured by default.

Click “Add” in the menu to get a list of monitorable apps. It’s okay, if the first search for apps last very long. They appear just a short time before you want to kill the app worrying that it has crashed. Select the ones you want and open the edit menu of each of them, to translate or correct grammar mistakes.

Click “Output Format – Customize” to define the order, the notifications appear. Define a new line using [nl].

Now you need to put all pieces together. Install the slider or choose one of the default ones and add it to the WidgetLocker screen. MissedIt has a 2×4 widget in the middle section and SiMiClockWidgets consists of three parts (1×2, 1×1, 1×1) in the first row.

Lastly, tap each widget and set it to read-only.

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Solve freezing problem of Google Maps on Froyo 2.2

Nina — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:08:46 +0000

About a few months ago, I got the official update to Android 2.2 from Motorola. Everything was alright, except Google Maps. Everytime I use parts of the app, my Defy freezes a short time afterwards.

Use the navigation: after about 30 km the phone freezes. View, where you are: after the third time the phone freezes. Want to check-in using latitude: the phone freezes. Accidentially swiped to the left in Google+: the phone freezes.

To solve this problem, you’ll have to have your phone rooted and BusyBox installed.

BusyBox
Stephen (Stericson)
Free

The freezes are probably because some apps like Google Maps need to much virtual memory. So, the problem ist mostly solved, when you increase the minimum space that will be permanently available.

Download sysctl and open the app.

Sysctl Config *Root*
JRummy16
Free

Change the first parameter from 2845 to 4096.This will modify the parameter vm.min_free_kbytes.

If you don’t want to install an app, the following commands entered in a terminal will do the same.

su; sysctl -w vm.min_free_kbytes=4096;

I prefer using the app, because it will run automatically after each reboot and I won’t have to change the parameter again.

via

Update preinstalled Swype version

Nina — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:31:36 +0000

When you buy a Motorola Defy and update it to the latest official available version, you have Swype in version 2.25. The lastest official available beta is 3.26, which more than one year of development ahead. The input method has improved a lot, so I understand everybody who demands on a new software update. But it won’t be released by Motorola, at least not for a Defy. So, you have to root your device and update Swype on your own. Here’s a walkthrough of it.

1) Signup to Swype beta and download actual installer

Register yourself on the official Swype homepage
You’ll get a mail with a download link for the installer and an activation code. You have to open this link on your smartphone.
Save the Swype-Installer.apk on your sdcard. We need this later on.

2) Check prerequisites

Activate the Multi-Touch keyboard on your smartphone, so you have a keyboard after uninstalling the old Swype version.

Ensure, you have allowed the installation from unknown sources.

Install a terminal app, like Android Terminal Emulator

3) Uninstall old Swype version

Open the previously installed terminal app and insert the following code:

To request root permissions:
su
Gain read and write access in the system folder:
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock6 /system

Copy the app package Swype.apk on sdcard for a backup:
cp /system/app/Swype.apk /sdcard/Swype.apk

Copy the configuration library on sdcard:
cp /system/lib/libSwypeCore.so /sdcard/libSwypeCore.so

Remove the original Swype files:
rm /system/app/Swype.apk rm /system/lib/libSwypeCore.so

Reboot the device:
reboot

4) Install new Swype version

After the reboot, you’ll only have the Multi-touch keyboard. But don’t be afraid, we’ll now going to install Swype again.

Install the Swype-Installer.apk

Open the Installer and login with your in step 1) defined credentials

Enter the activation code, you’ve got with the mail containing the download link.

Choose the region, you’re living in and download Swype.

Confirm the installation and…

…enable Swype finally.

That’s it. Have fun with Swype 3.26 beta.

via [german]

Root a Defy without a desktop pc using Gingerbreak

Nina — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:00:46 +0000

Rooting a device can be dangerous. It modifies system files, which are intentionally write-locked by manufacturers. They won’t always repair a smartphone, which are broken during or because of a rooting process. So, be aware of what you do and what consequences it may have. The Guys from DroidLessons have posted a nice overview of advantages and disadvantages of rooting.

There are many one-click solutions for an instant root on your smartphone, such as SuperOneClick, z4root and Universal Androot. Some programms work only with a limited number of devices or only for specific Android versions. Please check their websites or threads on xda-developers to find the best solution for yourself.

In this blogpost, I will describe my rooting operation on a Motorola Defy with Gingerbreak. I chose this solution, because I don’t have any Windows PC available. Before you start, ensure you made a backup.

Okay, when everything is saved we’ll start with this setup:

Smartphone: Motorola Defy
Android Version: 2.2.2
ROM Version: Version.34.177.3.MB525.Retail.en.DE (stock ROM)

1) Check prerequisites

Allow unknown sources in Settings – Applications – Unknown sources
Activate USB debugging in Settings – Applications – Development – USB debugging

Insert a sdcard (it may not have to be formatted)

2) Download and install Gingerbreak

Download the actual Gingerbreak.apk from the xda-developers forum (current version: v1.20)
Save the file on your sdcard
Install the package

Check the existence of your backup again
Open the installed app and press “Root device”
Now your smartphone will be rooted and reboot on finish. This might take up to 15 minutes, because the cache needs to be wiped.

3) Check success

After the reboot, you’ll notice a new app called Superuser. This is responsible to grant access for apps on demand.
Additionally you can doublecheck a successful root operation with Root Checker

Optional apps

BusyBox is a toolset which provides a lot of unix utilities. Several apps use some of these utilities and thus requires BusyBox. On the Market are two installer available, both are referencing on the same BusyBox binaries but offers a different number of versions. In some boards you’ll find discussions about that topic – lastly, it’s a philosophy question. If you’re not familiar, I would recommend you the installer of Stephen (Stericson), because it’s more popular.

With a Terminal emulator, you’ll be able to send console-based commands to your smartphone. Basically all of those apps do the same: They give you access to your internal console, sometimes decorated with a modified interface. I use Android Terminal, which is more popular. Alternatively you can also take Terminal Emulator. These emulators can also be used on a non-rooted device, but then don’t provide the full list of commands.

After rooting, you’ll notice that nothing has changed in the phone properties. The Android Version is identical and also the ROM is the same. Custom ROMs like CM7 or MIUI can be installed now – if you want. You’ve just gave yourself the permissions to do administrative tasks, like modifying system files or even install Custom ROMS. As a conclusion: You can have root without a custom ROM, but (mostly) no custom ROM without root. More on this maybe later on.

via

Get a backup! (without root)

Nina — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:11:08 +0000

When you talk about backup and Android smartphones, you will often come upon Titanium Backup. This is unambiguously the most ~~enthused about~~ mentioned app, I’ve ever heard of. The problem: It requires root.

There might be a lot of reasons, why someone doesn’t need root permissions and also I took a long time to think it through. And might it just be the only time before you root your phone for the first time, you should have a backup of your files.

As an all-in-one solution for an export are MyBackup (30-day trial) or PhoneBackup available. But I’ve read a lot of comments in the Android Market about problems restoring files or inconsistent information, so I preferred putting my time and effort into an entire, reliable backup.

1) Create a new folder “backup” on sdcard. I use ES File Manager, but there are a lot of other fishes out in the sea.

2) Export your apps as *.apk files to your backup folder. Mostly all File Managers innately support this feature. If not, App Backup & Restore or AppMonster may help you. Note that some apps can be protected and will be excluded in your backup.

3) Backup app settings, highscores or data containing files (e.g. A KeePass container). This is the most time-consuming part, because I don’t know any app for that. You have to open each app, you want your settings saved from and search for an export function. It might be possible that a lot of apps don’t provide such an interface. In this cases, you either have to write down all settings, search for a specific backup app (there are a lot of for Angry Birds, but no one I would trust) or cross your fingers.

4) Save your photos, music, ringtones, videos or documents. Mostly, they are already located on your sdcard. But I strongly recommend to ensure this. With the default camera recorded videos and pictures of your Defy are stored in /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/Camera. A file manager as mentioned in the first step or an phone explorer software like Motorola Phone Tools on a desktop PC can assist you.

5) Backup other stuff like:
· SMS with SMSBackup&Restore
· Call Logs with Call Logs Backup&Restore
· APN Settings with APN Backup&Restore

If not saved in the cloud…

· Bookmarks with Bookmarks manager
· Contacts (and SMS) with SDBackup

6) Just to be safe, I pushed all files on the sdcard with DropSpace into my Dropbox and copied the whole sdcard as a zipped file on an desktop PC.

via [german]

Considerations before rooting a Motorola Defy

Nina — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:54:54 +0000

I had been struggling with myself for a long time, until I decided to root my Motorola Defy. Usually I “never change a running system” and I would not have rooted the device, if I had not had significant problems.

1st problem: The preinstalled Swype has version 2.25, available is 3.26. Motorola, Y U NO update?

2nd problem: Since the update to Froyo, there are highly increased performance issues to the point of a frozen display after the use of Google Maps. A patch requires root.

3rd problem: Taking a screenshot always requires the installation, configuration and usage of the Android SDK on a second device.

At this moment, I’m not needing a custom ROM or overclocked CPU. I just want the issues to be fixed. Additionally, the warranty will have expired in a week.

I don’t believe that there will be an update to newer android releases. In case of needing features in further updates, root is a mandatory requirement for installing a custom ROM on this smartphone.

Add Widgetsoid buttons to notification bar

Nina — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:28:23 +0000

I’m using Widgetsoid nearly since the beginning of my smartphone career. It’s an essential app for me, and worth trying for everyone, who want to switch settings (e.g. turning GPS on and off) quickly. In fact, I was satisfied yet until I saw a screenshot in another forum. There, the settings are included in the notification bar.

The final result will look like this:

The solution was both simple and easy. Just change the settings as following:

Widget settings

1) Create a new widget on your homescreen and add the icons you need. If you already have one, just load it. In the widget settings choose “Advanced” and check the “Notification” option.

App settings (optional)

Furthermore, some general options can be set in the app settings. This can be displaying an icon or change colors. I don’t want an icon in my notification bar and some custom colors. Take a look at this settings:

2) Hide the notification bar icon
3) Change the colors
4) Activate popups (this is needed, because my Defy can’t differ between the icons in the notification bar. Some other smartphones may behave elsewise.)

That’s it.

Download from Android Market

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GL-35DSR and locked files

Nina — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:43:10 +0000

A couple of months ago, I have bought a NAS to store my digitalized CD archive centrally. I wanted to access my files from my netbook, desktop PC or hotel PC while travelling. The NAS is running some unix-based operating system, what is something I’m not very familiar with. Indeed, I ran into a lot of issues, never anything critical, but this one kept me busy.

Avoid configuring two accounts – and when, never delete the uploader!

I have configured two accounts, one is my personal and the other is an internal admin (but not root!). This is where the trouble started because write permissions are only granted to the account, who have uploaded a file. Others may only read and execute. Okay, it makes sense; just the uploader can delete the file. It prevents an unintentional lost of files. This works very well for a while, but then I deleted the uploader account and all files are now owned by www-data. None of my known accounts could delete a file or folder. They were orphaned.

‘Hacking’ a NAS

A lot of different approaches later, I’ve tried connections via WebDAV, different FTP Clients, HTTP and lastly SSH. There I logged in as admin but didn’t have the permissions to use the chmod or chown utility. Even running su wasn’t allowed. Discouraged I tried to connect as root, neither the knowledge whether the account exists nor a possible password. I was surprised when I noticed that root:root works, but was also surprised that ls returned nothing.

The solution

Finally, one of my colleagues brought me back on track. He reminds me, that root may have had a special login folder – and he was right after all. This can be proved with a short check of my current position via pwd (I thought, it was an acronym for password. But it means print working directory.). Now I could navigate to my Music folder, which is located in ../shares/internal/nas/Public/ on this system. Now, I ran a chown on the locked folder and finally was able to delete it. The complete ssh session was as following:

noname:~ elyon$ ssh root@192.168.2.113 root@192.168.2.113's password: [root@GL-35DSR ~]# pwd /root [root@GL-35DSR /]# cd /shares/internal/nas/Public/ [root@GL-35DSR Music]# chown -R Nina Music

In the last row, Nina is the account to give ownership to. The parameter -R stands for recursive.

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Google Notebook will be closed! – What to do now?

Nina — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:35:22 +0000

A few days ago, Alan Eustace announced to bury some more Google products. This also includes Google Notebook, where I have stored a lot of ideas and post drafts. Other products are Google Pack, where you were able to download popular software (Skype, Adobe Reader, Chrome and Antivirus software) all at once or Google Desktop, to search files locally on your hard drive. A full list is mentioned in the blogpost linked above.

What happens to notes, when Google Notebook is closed down?

“We’ll be shutting down Google Notebook in the coming months, but we’ll automatically export all notebook data to Google Docs.”, is the comment to this question by Google. So in most cases, you don’t have to do anything, except maybe updating your favorites. But take some minutes considering to save your notes elsewhere. Google Docs isn’t Google Notebook and has, in my opinion, a completely different purpose.

Where can I store my notes then?

There are many popular web services, wh aich offers same or better functionalities to fulfill your requirements. Because Google Notebook was a cloud service, I will limit the following services to just that. If you consider, using a client application, I’ll recommend you to take a look at a list of alternatives.

Is there any option to export existing notes?

As mentioned above, there are a lot of services available to store your notes online. Please take a look at the one, which is suitable for you and follow the steps below to import your existing notes.

Evernote is available for nearly all platforms. Besides the basic online functionalities and Quick-Access Plugins for most browsers, they provide apps for iOS, BlackBerry OS, Android and Windows Mobile. For desktop use, you can download an offline client for Windows and Mac. As in Google Notebook, you can manage multiple notebooks, each containing unlimited notes. Labels are called tags in here, but are basically the same.

To import existing Google Notebook notes into evernote, you first have to log into your Google account and export each notebook as Atom. Save them locally on your hard drive.

Then, create a new Evernote account in case, you’ve hadn’t before. Log in and keep moving into your settings. Here you can choose “Google Notebook” from a list of predefined import connectors. After chosing an appropriate name, you can see all your notes, labels and headings in Evernote.

Springpad not only offers a notebook, but extends it with a task list. As I’ve seen in my circle of aquaintances, Springpad is mostly used as an iPhone app. But they have also an app for Android-based smartphones and several extentions for mostly all popular browsers (except Microsoft’s Internet Explorer). Additionally, you can send new notes via e-mail and they will be added to your notebook, too.

To import notes from Google Notebook, Springpad doesn’t offer an interface themselves, but MostMedia have developed an import service. Of course, you have to grant them permissions to your Springpad account. I was starting some quarrels with myself when I decided to test it with a fresh account. First, you have to export each notebook as an Atom XML file.

Visit the import page at http://g-springpad.appspot.com/ (Don’t get confused by the page title. Nobody’s perfect.) Just fill out the formular and after some seconds, your notes are imported into Springpad. Be sure, that your exported XML file doesn’t exceed a size of 1 MB. The service won’t upload your notes then.

Zoho is something like the hardest competitor of Google Apps. They offer a calendar, mail, an online office suite with collaboration features, multiple business apps like a CRM or a bugtracker and also a notebook. Because of the wide range of products, you’ll see a lot of possibilities to insert and format your notes. To tell the truth, I’m a bit overstrained. As far as I concern, Zoho only provides Plugins for browsers but no mobile app.

Importing an existing notebook into Zoho is very easy. Export each notebook from Google into an Atom XML file and save it locally. You may know this procedure from the products before, it’s always the same. Besides that, you have also the option to install a Windows application or install an add-on in Firefox. Both are ways, I won’t recommend just because of my laziness to uninstall them afterwards.

Now, you have to log into your Zoho account and open the notebook app. In the menu bar at upper screen, you will get a direct link to the Zoho import feature for Google Notebook files. The steps explained here are described very detailed. Choose the file from your hard drive and it will be imported with all tags and labels attached.

Last, but not least, you can also export your notes manually to Google Docs. In case, you’ve read the steps for other services before, you may have noticed the first option “Document”. Clicking this link will automatically generate a new document with the same title as your notebook and add all notes below each other. You don’t have to do the export-import-clicking thing. Just for the sake of completeness. ;)

The ultimate alternative for Google Notebook doesn’t exist. All of those services have their individual strengths and disadvantages. For me, this announcement has given me a reason to take a look beyond the rim of my teacup and made my experiences. But I’ve surely forgotten many other great tools online. Do you know any other?

vlc.exe has stopped working

Nina — Tue, 24 May 2011 17:27:02 +0000

For some reason my vlc video player stopped working today. First I got a window over both desktops, but nothing was played. After killing the process, my win7 machine refuses to start the program again. It took me a while to struggle with this issue. Then, a VLC command line param on VideoLAN Wiki solved this problem:

C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\>vlc.exe --reset-config

I’m outta here, have to reconfigure my settings.

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