{"id":2643,"date":"2010-09-24T15:56:57","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T14:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2010-09-24T16:05:02","modified_gmt":"2010-09-24T15:05:02","slug":"geeking-around-with-hardware-plus-some-android-apps-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/2010\/09\/geeking-around-with-hardware-plus-some-android-apps-recommendations\/","title":{"rendered":"Geeking around with hardware, plus some Android apps recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of <em>being good at being a <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/2010\/09\/you-will-always-be-a-beginner-get-good-at-it\/\"><em>beginner<\/em><\/a> &#8211; I need to document and jot down the things I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frogpond.de\/2010\/09\/past-present-and-future-of-ecm\/\">did this Wednesday night for <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.frogpond.de\/2010\/09\/past-present-and-future-of-ecm\/\">relaxing<\/a><\/em>. Yes, I spent half the night modding and messing around with my old and trusted Android Phone, an HTC Magic (aka Sapphire) 32B stuck at Android 1.6.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/stadt-bremerhaven.de\/root-tut-gut-universal-androot\">rooted<\/a>, running a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyanogenmod.com\/\">CyanogenMod 6.0.0 build<\/a> and making its user a very happy camper. And as I&#8217;ve also (re-)added and refactored some apps, I feel tempted to add my own <a href=\"http:\/\/bueltge.de\/meine-android-empfehlungen\/1215\/\">list of Android apps to have<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote>\n<li>Aldiko Ebook-Reader and\/or Amazon Kindle reader<\/li>\n<li>Adobe pdf-reader<\/li>\n<li>Instafetch and\/or HardCopy for Offline-Reading of my Instapaper items &#8211; not sure what I prefer, still testing both<\/li>\n<li>AndReader for Offline-Reading of ReadItLater items &#8211; my previously used (and bought) Paperdroid stopped working after the CyanogenMod<\/li>\n<li>NewsRob for RSS-reading<\/li>\n<li>WikiDroyd for offline Wikipedia-reading (needs a 400 MB \u00a0download, but hey)<\/li>\n<li>Astrid GTD-app<\/li>\n<li>Awesome drop for <a href=\"http:\/\/labs.dashwire.com\/drop\">dropping stuff<\/a> on my Android<\/li>\n<li>Dropbox<\/li>\n<li>Dolphin Browser and\/or Opera Mini Browser &#8211; both will stay on the handset, I like the new looks of Dolphin<\/li>\n<li>Twidroyd &#8211; newly updated Twitter client<\/li>\n<li>buzz widget &#8211; post to buzz easily<\/li>\n<li>tumblr &#8211; need to test this<\/li>\n<li>chompSMS &#8211; I don&#8217;t SMS a lot, but it&#8217;s nicer than the standard fare<\/li>\n<li>Shazam &#8211; &#8220;what&#8217;s that playing on the radio?&#8221;, Compass, Google Maps, Google Sky, Google Skynet (ok, this one&#8217;s a joke)<\/li>\n<li>BarcodeScanner &#8211; &#8220;what&#8217;s that QR\/Bacrcode\/etc.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Titanium Backup<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyanogenmod.com\/\">CyanogenMod<\/a> updater<\/li>\n<li>ES File Explorer<\/li>\n<li>SmartKeyboard<\/li>\n<li>Free Advanced Task Killer<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2644\" title=\"4_ogo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-content\/uploads\/4_ogo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"448\" height=\"110\" \/>Now you&#8217;re right that for modding I didn&#8217;t had to touch the hardware much (besides the sad fact that I needed to remove the battery several times to start over) &#8211; it&#8217;s more of a software thing. Needless to say that this elevates the complexity of the task at hand. Wading through tons of (forum) posts, &#8220;how to do it&#8221; and lifehack-bundles compiled by Windows users does more mischief. So here are my basic steps, done with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 to this HTC Magic 32B:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote>\n<li>Begin with rooting the phone (read above how to do it, easy). You need this.<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then it&#8217;s following the steps in the wiki:\u00a0<a title=\"Full Update Guide - HTC Magic (32B)\" href=\"http:\/\/wiki.cyanogenmod.com\/index.php?title=Full_Update_Guide_-_HTC_Magic_(32B)\">Full Update Guide &#8211; HTC Magic (32B)<\/a> &#8211; and check the md5sum of the to make sure the zip isn&#8217;t corrupted.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote>\n<li>getting ROM Manager (did it with v2.0.3.2) from the Android market onto the 1.6-stuck phone<\/li>\n<li>get the <a title=\"Howto: Install the Android SDK\" href=\"http:\/\/wiki.cyanogenmod.com\/index.php?title=Howto:_Install_the_Android_SDK\">Android\u00a0SDK<\/a> (deb packages provided) on your machine, install and get the fastboot executable, place it in the tools subdirectory<\/li>\n<li>download the <a href=\"http:\/\/forum.xda-developers.com\/showthread.php?t=530492\">latest AMON_RA recovery<\/a> (got RA-sapphire-v1.7.0G) &#8211; the G is suitable for my Google branded phone, HTC brands need the H variety.<\/li>\n<li>download the latest CyanogenMod. Don&#8217;t unzip this. Get the Google apps package too. They aren&#8217;t bundled, no, no.<\/li>\n<li>USB-plug the phone into your machine (enable USB debugging on the handset prior to this)<\/li>\n<li>replace the original recovery image with the RA recovery one (don&#8217;t forget to sudo the fastboot command, tripped over this at first)<\/li>\n<li>reboot into Amon_RA&#8217;s recovery (first step with this image)<\/li>\n<li>make a\u00a0nandroid\u00a0backup (really, make this now and later after you have modded your handset &#8211; I had to restore from the backup already, had a working CyanogenMod backup thankgod and it&#8217;s always a good feeling being safe)<\/li>\n<li>with the phone connect via USB, open up a cmd prompt and go to the second sequence of steps when dealing with the recovery image: 1.\u00a0<span style=\"font-family: Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;\">adb devices<\/span> &#8211; a device name and &#8216;recovery&#8217; should be returned, 2.\u00a0<span style=\"font-family: Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;\">adb push [path to where you&#8217;ve goth the recovery image on your machine]\/recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.x.xG.img \/sdcard\/recovery.img <\/span>and 3.\u00a0<span style=\"font-family: Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;\">adb shell flash_image recovery \/sdcard\/recovery.img<\/span><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then, <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.cyanogenmod.com\/index.php?title=Upgrading_from_CyanogenMod_4.2_to_CyanogenMod_5\/6\">install for the first time<\/a> (this is a kind of upgrading, too):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote>\n<li>copy the Cyanogen ROM and the Google apps package onto the SDCard-\/ (you didn&#8217;t unzip them files, no, you didn&#8217;t)<\/li>\n<li>reboot into recovery (Hold Home + Power)\u00a0(press the buttons together for several seconds and then again)<\/li>\n<li>I made a full wipe, cleared the cache and all<\/li>\n<li>then via Flash\u00a0zip from sdcard I applied 1. the\u00a0CyanogenMod zip-file and 2. the Google apps zip-file<\/li>\n<li>reboot your phone (and yes, the first boot after\u00a0flashing\u00a0a new\u00a0ROM takes longer than &#8220;normal&#8221;. 5 minutes is not unusual. Right.<\/li>\n<li>be happy (and make your first nandroid backup of your handset to stay happy).<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Oh, and messing with hardware and software must wait till tomorrow, that is when the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.actrophp.de\/2010\/09\/mein-neuer-heimserver\/\">25 \u20ac servers<\/a> I ordered have arrived &#8230; promising endless fun on a Saturday night, messing with lighttpd, Nginx and the ARM architecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of being good at being a beginner &#8211; I need to document and jot down the things I did this Wednesday night for relaxing. Yes, I spent half the night modding and messing around with my old and trusted Android Phone, an HTC Magic (aka Sapphire) 32B stuck at Android 1.6. Now it&#8217;s rooted, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,11,4],"tags":[445,600,591,175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2647,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions\/2647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.martin-koser.de\/BMID\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}