Archive for August, 2010

It’s a Droid Party

August 30th, 2010

Who doesn’t love their Droid? From left to right, CyanogenMod 6 stable (2.2), Stock 2.1, Simply Stunning 4.7 (2.2).

Update: Droid Incredible snuck into the mix.

Motorola 1820mAh BP7X extended battery for the Droid

August 21st, 2010

The Motorola BP7X  is the 1820mAh extended battery for the Droid 2. Since the D2 and D1 use identical stock batteries, this new D2 extended unit will also work! The battery comes with a new battery cover since it sticks out just a little bit more.

If you have a Seidio Innocase, leave the blue battery door that the battery comes with off. Then snap on your Innocase and you won’t see a difference. Enjoy 5-6 more hours of performance.

Grab yours here! Enter the code FREEOVERNT to get free overnight shipping.

Update: Here are some pics of the extended battery installed. See it after the jump!

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Simply Stunning 4.7 Rom released

August 18th, 2010

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ChevyNo1 has released Simply Stunning 4.7 with a bag full of goodies.

1. Screen lag on any of the launchers should be improved! That being said – I really do recomment another launcher. I’m partial to ADW – ADW.Launcher v1.0.1 standalone Application for Android | Productivity, VERY small memory footprint. It is also now an option in RM, which also installs an ‘mvadw’ script. If you DO use another launcher, use my tools to DELETE the stock Launcher2 (it will back up to SD). Otherwise, it will still take resources even though you don’t run it.

2. You can now control your tunes (Media Player, Pandora tested) while the screen is off! Longpress volume up/down to skip tracks. Camera focus (lightpress) to pause/play. Camera shutter (hardpress) to toggle the extended media controls on/off (not permanent like Tools UI which sticks beyond a reboot). I did NOT add graphical controls to the lockscreen. To me it seems pointless.

3. Google fix for Pandora (all streaming AAC) included – this is NOT the hack that disabled stagefright; this has FIXED stagefright

4. Ability to change the carrier text to whatever you want! Should not affect any other apps.

5. Now when you ‘delete’ system apps, they are backed up to SD. So just in case you want it back .. you can get it back

6. rstapps has had a few fixes – you should see no FC’s while restoring, or much less than the past. Also, there is a fix to prevent future market update errors (ie. insufficient storage).

7. Extra low dimness now available. Check out Settings -> Display

8. OTA patch capability – yet to be tested (on YOU )! I can now push out updates to all phones running my ROM. Everything EXCEPT a full ROM update. That is better left to you or Rom Manager. But any other updates, including patching APK’s, I can now do automagically

9. Chrome To Phone now included

10. Bypass lockscreen option added in Tools

11. MORE things to hide in the statusbar – alarm clock, cell signal, 3g signal, battery, adb, usb. I have heard you all ask for being able to customize images themselves. I will get there

12. All options (ie scripts) selected in Tools are remembered, at least until a reboot.

13. I’m told I don’t promote this enough – you can change pretty much ALL colors in the statusbar, ON THE FLY. No reboot, no xml hacking.

I just loaded this over SS4.6 and everything is working like it should. The audio controls mapped to the volume rocker and camera button are top notch. I also really like the menu key as unlock option. This was in CyanogenMod, which I sorely missed.

Download the rom and load via recovery or find it Rom Manager!

New slayher Droid kernels

August 18th, 2010

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A user by the name of slayher over at the CyanogenMod forums has released his kernel compiles to the public. Included is the very neat interactive governor.

The CPUfreq governor “interactive” is designed for low latency,
interactive workloads. This governor sets the CPU speed depending on
usage, similar to “ondemand” and “conservative” governors. However
there is no polling, or ‘sample_rate’ required to scale the CPU up.

Sampling CPU load every X ms can lead to under powering the CPU
for X ms, leading to dropped framerate, stuttering UI etc..

Scaling the CPU up is done when coming out of idle, and like “ondemand”
scaling up will always go to MAX, then step down based off of cpu load.

There is only one tuneable value for this governor:

min_sample_time: The ammount of time the CPU must spend (in uS)
at the current frequency before scaling DOWN. This is done to
more accurately determine the cpu workload and the best speed for that
workload. The default is 50ms.

Running the 1200 low voltage version, my Quadrant score shot up to over 1700+. This is about 270 points more compared to running ChevyNo1′s 1250 low voltage. Wow.

The CPUfreq governor “interactive” is designed for low latency,
interactive workloads. This governor sets the CPU speed depending on
usage, similar to “ondemand” and “conservative” governors. However
there is no polling, or ‘sample_rate’ required to scale the CPU up.

Sampling CPU load every X ms can lead to under powering the CPU
for X ms, leading to dropped framerate, stuttering UI etc..

Scaling the CPU up is done when coming out of idle, and like “ondemand”
scaling up will always go to MAX, then step down based off of cpu load.

There is only one tuneable value for this governor:

min_sample_time: The ammount of time the CPU must spend (in uS)
at the current frequency before scaling DOWN. This is done to
more accurately determine the cpu workload and the best speed for that
workload. The default is 50ms.

Root your Droid

August 14th, 2010

Our Droid rooting guide has been posted! Here’s the direct link or just click the menu link up top.

Make your Motorola Droid charger longer

August 11th, 2010

As many Motorola Droid users know, the included micro-usb cable is really short. Unless you have an extension cord, it’s most likely not going to reach your nightstand for bed time charging.

You can of course grab a new 6 foot cable from Best Buy or any major retailer. However, expect to pay almost $30 for it!

I prefer going directly to an online retailer that sells a huge amount of cables, Monoprice. I’ve shopped here for years and they sell quality cables for just about everything at ridiculous prices. I found a 15 foot micro-usb for a whopping $2.02. Yes, two pennies over two bucks. You can’t even find this length at most brick and mortars. Shipping was only about $2.50 to New York. You just can’t beat this quick “fix” for the price.

Customize your Launcher Pro dock

August 6th, 2010

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We’re on a Launcher Pro kick over here since it’s such a great home replacement. One great option for LP is the ability to set a dock background. You can create anything that will fit the allocated space and load it up to match your theme. The above screenshot is from a quick mash up of a dock I found in this great LP custom dock forum thread.

It’s pretty easy to set it up, just follow these directions.

  1. Save the downloaded dock image to your sdcard.
  2. Open up LP preferences and go to Appearance Options.
  3. Choose the dock background -> custom option.
  4. Navigate to your downloaded image and select it.

Update: Here’s a site dedicated to LP Docks, there’s even an app!

Make SetCPU settings stick

August 4th, 2010

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After upgrading to CM6RC2, I noticed my SetCPU settings were not sticking after a reboot. It would revert back to the default CPU speed of the kernel and clear my Advanced settings (32000, 50, 0, 0). A simple tap on the speed bar in SetCPU and it’ll bounce right back up, but this was annoying for someone who flashes roms and reboots constantly.

To fix this, you’ll need flash su (superuser) from the supplied version 2.2 in the rom with version 2.1. After loading up your rom, download su 2.1 below and save it somewhere on your sdcard. Then reboot into recovery and install the zip via the update.zip method.

You’ll now just need to save your default speed in SetCPU one time and it’ll stick after a reboot.

su versions 2.1 – Login Required

Update – SetCPU version 2.0.2 appears to have fixed this problem!