iCE Breaker’s Noisy Android!

Posted by Timothy on Nov 30, 2010 in Android

Here’s a ringtone / notification pack for your Android phone (and others, I’m sure). They’re ‘android-like’ female voice-prompts you can use for notifications. You can also use some of these with Tasker for certain Android related states/events.

iCE Breaker’s “Noisy Android”

Android UI Collaboration Community

Posted by Timothy on Jul 30, 2009 in Android, Programs

I’ve been really unhappy with a lot of the Android apps and their UI. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is a simple input line for a username or password where pressing enter makes the input line expand. Another issue I’ve seen a lot is when a configuration/settings screen doesn’t auto-format when in landscape mode. How are such simple UI mistakes made?

I’d really like to get community feedback on the best practices for UI development. Make this a common ground and ‘go-to’ place to help out developers who aren’t so ‘UI-savvy’.

By creating common behaviors users can anticipate what’s going to happen next because– well, it’s the same across all applications. This is one of the reasons why iPhone apps pretty much rock. The UI is silky and things ‘act’ as the user expects them to. There’s no guess work involved. Android needs this to become a stronger platform and even more popular across hardware vendors.

For those of us who’ve been following the ‘Android/G1 hacking scene’ have witnessed some of the UI development that HTC has produced. (Rosie/Hero). None of that would be slick if it weren’t for HTC taking the time to think about the users experience.

So, please help me in getting the ball rolling and lets begin defining the specs for Android UI development!

http://www.android-ui.com

Must have G1 Android Apps

Posted by Timothy on Mar 16, 2009 in Android, Gadgets, Programs, Software

I’ve checked out most of the available Android Market– I go through it almost nightly to see what’s been added. The options are a bit limited, but here’s a good list of apps I’ve found very useful and hopefully you will too.

 
 
 
 
Power Manager

This application adds NEW power settings to the phone (e.g. how long the screen is on during a call, if device stays on while the keyboard is open, etc.) and allows you to quickly view and change other phone settings depending on different conditions (e.g. turn off the GPS when the battery level drops below 30%, lower the brightness of the screen when on battery power, change the screen timeout if on A/C power, etc.)

It comes with a set of predefined profiles and automatically starts working after installation.

Unless you want to change any of these definitions or use advanced features nothing else has to be done after the program is installed.

http://nettogo.net/powermanager/

StarContact

StarContact allows you to search for contacts in so many different ways. It really should be built into Android. You’re given a few different search methods along with an on-screen t9 like keyboard which is easy to use without fat-fingering letters.

http://mobile.starobject.com/starcontact/index.html

Useful Switchers

Useful Switchers is great for quickly turning on/off G3, Wifi, GPS, and all the other commonly toggled items on the G1. There’s a few extras included such as screen brightness and it’ll even give you a little display about your battery and memory usage.

http://www.maximyudin.com/

Missed Call

Missed call allows you to actually use that tiny little RGB LED in the ear piece for different types of events. Such as a missed call, incoming SMS or Calendar event. It also allows you to configure custom ringtones for each event and even periodic reminders. Now you don’t have to pick up your phone to see if you have any pending events.

K-9 Mail

K-9 Mail is a fork of the original email client that ships with Android with a bunch of bug fixes and a number of extra features. The bug fixes along are reason enough to install this app.

http://code.google.com/k9mail

ConnectBot

This one is for the techies! ConnectBot is a complete SSH Client for Android. ConnectBot allows you to SSH into a linux/solaris or (other unix flavor) machine and remotely control it, read email with mutt/pine/elm or even IRC or MOO.

http://connectbot.org

Android G1 Firmware Hacking

Posted by Timothy on Jan 3, 2009 in Android, Gadgets

Most if not all of my friends know that I can’t leave things alone. I rarely run software/hardware/gadgets in any sort of ‘default’ or ‘factory’ setting. I have to always dig in there and see how things tick and usually find others do the same. My iPod runs RockBox instead of the standard Apple Firmware to allow me to by-pass the usage of iTunes to get music on the device. So with that said– and you already know I’ve traded in the old Sidekick for a spiffy new Android G1 phone. It was time to hack the firmware on there as well. There’s been many articles posted about RC29′s ‘root’ exploit and RC30 fixing this hole. I haven’t really been interested in hacking my G1 up until now. I’ve been reading about other builds of the Android OS and getting a bit curious about trying a community built version of the firmware.

So tonight I took some time to do some research on reverting back to RC29 ( I let my phone upgrade to RC30 ) and then gaining root access and keeping it. Reverting back to RC29 was fairly simple. But upgrading back to RC30+Patches to keep root was a bit more difficult.

Loading RC30+Patches

Turns out if you follow the directions, all ends well with a newly installed RC30 that’ll allow you to keep your ‘root’ access. This allows for flashing new boot/startup screen images along with replacing the T-Mobile G1 splashscreen when you first power up the phone.

IZ IN YOUR ANDROID STEALING YOUR ROOTS

Android Speaks IRC?

Posted by Timothy on Oct 30, 2008 in Android, Programming, Projects

So, I’ve been literally hacking away at the Android SDK/API trying to figure out all the cool stuff. I’m no way a Java developer. Matter of fact, I can’t stand Java. So with that aside, Android is really cool stuff. I’ve been missing a few applications from my Sidekick and one of them is a home-grown IRC app. It’s pretty nice to have around when I was bored and waiting around doing nothing. SO! I’ve threw an XMPP (also known as Jabber) client together using Smack and then linked to IRC via eJabberd’s IRC-Transport. After a few days of hacking… I have results.

I’ll continue work and hopefully I’ll be able to release this into the wild. Still needs a login dialog and status dialogs, etc.. etc.