A Sensational Rooting

I have been eagerly awaiting a method to perm-root my HTC Sensation, and recently, that method arrived! If you have an HTC Sensation, here is the post at the XDA website giving a clear walk through. Everything worked perfect for me:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1192300

Before...

...And after! rooted and s-off!

ClockWorkRecovery is flashed!

Benefits of rooting

I have had two android phones: The HTC MyTouch 4G and the HTC Sensation 4G. When I first got the MyTouch 4G I was a bit wary about rooting the phone. There didn’t seem to be a huge benefit to rooting, and the risks seemed high. Every rooting related website has copious warnings about how you will brick your phone if you screw something up, and how you will void your warranty.

After owning the MyTough 4G for a few months, curiosity got the better of me. I took the plunge and rooted the phone and flashed a new Rom. It was like getting a new phone! Everything was so much better. Later, I got the HTC Sensation. I got it the day it came out, and I had to wait a few months before someone figured out how to root it. I am now a firm believer in rooting android phones.

Before I start into my reasons for rooting, let me first explain the difference between rooting and flashing a new rom. Rooting the phones gives you super user or administrator access to your phone. This allows you to modify system settings and have much more control over your phone. However, just rooting your phone won’t make any big changes. You will still be running the stock android firmware that came with your phone, and all your apps and settings will remain untouched.

Once you are rooted, you will have the ability to flash a new rom. Flashing a rom means putting a custom flavor of android onto your device. It’s a completely new operating system for your phone. A new rom is where the most significant performance and battery life increases come from. These first 4 reasons apply to just rooting, 5-7 have to do with custom roms.

This picture of Jabba represents bloatware

Here are 7 reasons why you should root your phone:

1. Ability to remove bloatware crap.
   
   Cell phone companies always put a bunch of apps on that you can’t delete! I hate it. What if I never use Amazon mp3? What if I don’t want to play the Nova demo? Too bad! They are stuck there forever! (I can almost hear the maniacal laughter coming from the cell phone companies.)But no. They are not stuck there forever. After rooting your phone, install titanium backup, and uninstall any bloatware apps that you want. (More about titanium backup on number 3.)
   
   
2. Cool visualizations.
   
   There is a root-only app on the market called Anim Mod. It rewrites files in your system to create really cool transition visualizations. See Anim Mod in action here:
   
   
3. Ability to back up your apps
   
   Lets say you just spent the last year getting 3 gold stars on every Angry Birds level in existence. When it comes time for a new phone, how can you transfer all your games and progress in those games? Or how can you ensure that dropping your phone in the toilet won’t destroy all your hard Angry Birds work?
   
   There is a root-only app called Titanium Backup. With this app you can backup all your apps and all the user data from your phone. This is essential since I like to try out new roms a lot. I just back up all my apps and user data, and flash the new rom which wipes out everything. Then I restore all my apps exactly as they were when I backed them up. Titanium backup will restore other stuff too such as the wifi passwords that were remembered and system settings.
   
   
4. Wifi Hotspots / USB tethering
   
   Rooting allows you to create wifi hotspots from your phone. This means you can make a wifi network that a number of people can connect to and use the 4g internet. My roommates and I actually used to game online through wifi hotspots before our apartment complex upgraded their archaic internet service.
   
   USB tethering is the same idea. It is the ability to use your phone’s internet while it’s plugged into the computer.
   
   Now, it is possible to do this without rooting. You either can pay an outrageous sum of money per month to your cell phone company, or you can buy an app such as EasyTether. However, once you are rooted, there are several good free apps available such as Barnacle Wifi Tether. In fact, I personally have never used a rooting app, because most good roms such as CyanogenMod come with tethering and wifi hotspot capabilities built in.
   
   
5. On T-Mobile, 3g phones such as the vibrant or MyTouch 3g get 4g speeds.
   
   This one probably won’t apply to very many people. My friend used to have a MyTouch 3g. He decided to root it in hopes of speeding up the very sluggish phone. We were both shocked to find out he had 4g speeds after it was rooted! This only works on T-Mobile because the 3g and 4g basically use the same technology.
   
   
6. Faster and smoother
   
   These stock android phones have so much extra crap going on that is unnecessary. After you root and flash a new rom the phone will be noticeably faster. Custom roms are optimized for speed so all the unnecessary bloat will be cut out leaving behind a streamlined android operating system.
   
   
7. Significantly better battery life
   
   I had terrible battery life on the MyTouch 4g. It wouldn’t make it through the day with moderate use. I had to charge it every time I was in the car and whenever I was at home. However, once i rooted and flashed a new rom the battery life was significantly better. I could make it through the day with moderate to heavy use.
   
   Before it was rooted, it drove me crazy how fast the battery life went down when the phone was just idling. After flashing a new rom, the battery life barely went down when it idled. (Battery drain was roughly the same during use however.)
   
   Custom Roms will have many tweaks and optimizations to increase your battery life such as under-clocking and under-powering the CPU when it is not in use.
   

Before I end, here are my counter arguments for the common two reasons NOT to root.

1. ROOTING COULD BRICK YOUR PHONE!!!!! WE TAKE NO RESPONSIBLITY IF YOU SCREW UP YOUR PHONE!!!!!!
   
   Yes, there is a risk of screwing up your phone, but its a very small risk. You will only screw it up if you do something really stupid. Just follow the rooting instructions carefully and you will be fine. Even if you make a mistake, 99% of the time it is fixable. Of all the phones my friends and I have rooted and jailbroken, not a single one has ever been bricked. In fact I’ve fixed a phone or two that were thought to be bricked, but actually weren’t.
   
   
2. Rooting will void your warranty.
   
   This is true. However, Rooting is usually reversable. If your phone starts having problems, just reflash your stock firmware, unroot it, and your phone is back to normal. Go get a replacement if you need. On the other hand, warranties tend to be on the crappy side anyway. If your phone is defective, generally the cell phone companies will send you a refurbished phone and charge you for the shipping. My advice? Be careful with your phone! Buy a nice tpu case for it. Don't use it in the shower. Don't throw it with the GPS on to see how far you can throw. Don’t dangle it over pits of lava. If your phone breaks, its probably obsolete anyway. Go buy a new one.
   

3 great features of Ubuntu and Mac OSx in Windows 7

After I finished quietly weeping from switching back to Windows 7 from Ubuntu, I immediately went to work making Windows more like Ubuntu.

Lets just get this out of the way... IMHO, there is no good desktop cube program in windows. Nor is there any good way to have wobbly windows. The few programs that attempt to recreate these features aren’t nearly as good as in Linux, plus they use waaaaay more resources than Linux uses.

Here are the 4 features I have applied to windows:
1. A good dock
2. 2 finger tap right click and 3 finger tap middle click.
3. Smooth scrolling
4. Scroll with mouse over window instead of having to select the window to scroll

Here are the 3 Windows utilities:

1. Rocket Dock (with stack addon)

Some people like docks, some don’t. I find this one very useful. I don’t use it as a start menu replacement; I put it at the top of my desktop and use it as a launcher. Make sure to use the stack addon to add a fan or grid. This is the link for the addon installation instructions.

One inconvenient thing about the stack addon is that you can't drag new icons into the fan or grid. You have to open the folder, and then drag the program into the folder, and it will then appear in the stack. A minor inconvenience, but not really a big deal. Overall this dock is the best option out there.

I'll give you 2 fingers!
Actually, this is Winston Churchill looking forward to
a day when one could scroll a touchpad with two fingers.

2. TwoFingerScroll

My Synaptics touch pad already has two finger scroll. However, clicking with this touch pad is weird. You have to push down the whole touch pad at the bottom. I find it much more convenient and intuitive to be able to use a two finger tap for a right click and a three finger tap for a middle click. (For example to open a link in a new tab while web browsing.)

This program also does a good job of smooth scrolling. Smooth scrolling is a feature found in Mac OSx, but not in Windows or Linux. Why doesn’t every operating system come with this natively? I mean, what is this, the 1990’s?

In the settings, on the general tab, I have checked “Start with Windows”
On the scrolling tab, I use the “Smart” option under “Scroll mode”
Under the tapping tab, I set Two fingers to be Right button, and Three fingers to be Middle button

I also turned off the normal two finger scrolling settings in the control panel. If this program doesn’t work, try going to the control panel, find your mouse settings, then to the touchpad settings, and turn off scrolling. Just let this program take care of the scrolling.

One more thing. The smooth scrolling only works with my touchpad, not my mouse. I’m pretty sure it is because the normal scroll settings trump this little program, and I don’t think its possible for me to turn off scrolling on a normal mouse.


3. WizMouse

From the WizMouse website:

"WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel."

'Nuff said! I love this feature. Again, I have no idea why Windows doesn’t include this natively. I find it so useful. For example, if I’m following a tutorial for some software, I can scroll the tutorial in the background and stay in the program I am working on. If you’ve never had this feature, you might not understand the significance... but try it!

3 Reasons Why I Switched Back From Linux to Windows

I switched back to Windows. And I quietly wept. (http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fix_computer) You win again Microsoft. Linux, I'm sure I'll come back. I always do.

Here are the 3 reasons why I decided to switch back to Windows

1. graphics card won’t work
1. No HDMI
2. No gaming
2. terrible battery life
3. glitchy and unreliable

I mentioned before that not using the discrete graphics card didn’t bother me. However, as soon as I got addicted to minecraft, I really missed having the graphics card. The lack of HDMI bugged me too. I tried to give my family a slideshow from a trip we went on, but it would not work, and as far as I know drivers do not exist for hdmi on my laptop.

Terrible battery life was probably the critical deal breaker. I need to use this laptop for school. I was looking forward to showing off my sweet setup in class while I took notes and stuff, but what good will this laptop do me if it gets less than half of the time I get in Windows. My CPU’s were downclocked all the way down, the power to the discrete card was off, and yet I still couldn’t get more than about 2-2.5 hours. (I get 5-6 in Windows)

Linux is unreliable. At least on my laptop. I have a second laptop that is older and cheaper, and Linux LOVES that laptop. Everything always works perfectly.

In fact, whenever I try to reinstall Windows, this happens!

But on my nice laptop, everything is glitchy. Stuff disappears from the dock when I boot up, stuff freezes up from time to time, programs will randomly force close, etc. Most of the time everything runs smoothly, but these crazy things happen enough to be irritating.

Check out the trippy green pinstripes from unplugging a second monitor!

On the other hand, I must say that Ubuntu is WAY more reliable than it used to be, but it still has plenty of room for improvement. I am excited with how far Ubuntu has come in just the last few years. I expect to see these problems fixed as Ubuntu improves and as my hardware becomes more obsolete :P

How to fix any computer

This literally made me lol.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fix_computer

The whole website is hilarious. Highly recommended.

Here's another funny comic:

http://xkcd.com/627/

Watching Netflix in Ubuntu

As far as I am aware, the only way to watch Netflix in Ubuntu is through a virtual windows machine. It sounds like this could change soon though. There are a handful of dated posts about an imminent chrome plugin that will allow Netflix in Linux.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/netflix-chrome-plugin-will-bring-on-demand-video-to-linux/
http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2011/05/netflix-coming-soon-to-ubuntu.html

However, it is now August 2011 and there is still no native way to watch Netflix in Linux.

In the meantime, your alternative is windows XP in a virtual machine. I resisted this method for a long time. An entire virtual operating system just to watch Netflix? I didn’t think it was worth it.

Finally I gave it a try. I installed Windows XP using VirtualBox and it ended up working great. It is less than ideal, but if you really want Netflix, this is your option.

I won’t outline a tutorial on this. The internet is full of tutorials for getting Netflix in Linux through a VirtualBox.

Microsoft Office 2007 on Ubuntu 11.04

Installing office 2007 did not work with either wine or winetricks. However, it did work perfectly with playonlinux.

First you will need to acquire an iso of office 2007. Once you have an iso, you will need to mount it. For a really easy and simple mounting tool, install gmountiso in Synaptic Package Manager.


Open up Gmount-iso and open the iso and choose the mount point, then click mount.

Next open up PlayOnLinux. (I have playonlinux 3.8.12.)
Click Install.
In the left panel, select Office
In the main panel, select Microsoft Office 2007
Click Apply
A box will pop up guiding you through the installation. Just follow the instructions.

With a bit of luck everything will install with no problems!

A few notes:
Onenote has a few glitches and error messages, but if you just click ok and pretend nothing happened, you should have no problems.

I had problems getting Ubuntu to open up word docs with Word, or Excel spreadsheets with Excel. I would get a Wine error that said:

“There is no Windows program configured to open this type of file.”

To fix this, right click on the word file > Open With > Other Application...
Then click on “Use a custom command” and type in the box

/usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Office Word 2007"

Make sure to check “Remember this application for Microsoft Word Document files”

Click open, and it works! (Hopefully ;)

You will need to do this with each file type. Here are 3:

/usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Office Word 2007"
/usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007"
/usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Office Excel 2007"

(You may need to tweak the path if this isn’t your correct playonlinux directory.)

Bluetooth off by default in Ubuntu 11.04

A minor annoyance I had was every time I rebooted Ubuntu, bluetooth would be on. I don’t use bluetooth very often, and I want it to be off by default. To fix this:

Open up the terminal, and type:

sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

add the line:

rfkill block bluetooth

Simple. Reboot, and it should be fixed!

Continue Reading: Microsoft Office 2007 On Ubuntu 11.04

Getting Ubuntu to work with dual/hybrid graphics of ATI/AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5470 and Intel HD graphics

Probably the biggest problem I had was getting my hybrid graphics to behave. I have Dual/hybrid graphics of ATI/AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5470 and Intel HD graphics. I spent literally weeks trying to get switchable graphics to work. Here are the problems that came up:

Ubuntu repeatedly refused to boot. It would hang with just a blank screen, and be completely unresponsive. I fixed this by booting into Windows, switching to integrated graphics, and then rebooting back into Linux. Obviously this was no permanent solution, but if you have a similar ATI graphics card and your Ubuntu/Pinguy won’t boot, this could temporarily solve your problem.

The permanent fix is very simple. I just blacklisted the radeon driver on boot. Open the terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and at the very bottom add:

blacklist radeon

This will blacklist the radeon driver at boot so ubuntu will not try to load it and freeze up. I never was able to get my discrete ATI graphics card to work with Ubuntu/Pinguy 11.04, no matter what I tried, and I tried everything. As far as I know, at the time that I am writing this, it is impossible to get my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 graphics card to work with Ubuntu. I always used my integrated Intel HD graphics card, and that worked just fine... until I wanted to play games... but we will get to that later.

The next problem I faced was both graphics cards being turned on and using power, even though only one was in use. Obviously this seriously falcon punched my battery life and made the laptop very hot. The way to fix this is to use vgaswitcheroo to turn off the power to the graphics card that is not in use. Go back to the terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

And add this line:

echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

This line turns off the power to the graphics card that is not in use. For us, this will always be the discrete ati card because the driver has been blacklisted and will never be in use. Putting this line in the rc.local will make it execute on every boot.

Ok now reboot, and the Discrete graphics card will be powered off.

To check if everything worked, open the terminal and type:

sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

The output should be:

0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:02.0
1:DIS: :Off:0000:01:00.0

This shows that the integrated card is in use and powered, and the discrete card is turned off.

Considering the amount of work I did to figure this all out, the solution is pretty simple. Too bad the ATI card is practically unusable. If anyone knows how to get it to work, please let me know.

sites that were helpful for me:
http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1744188

Continue Reading: Bluetooth Off By Default In Ubuntu 11.04

Prepping the HP Hard Drive for Ubuntu Installation

If all else fails

You can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions on a hard drive. When I got my laptop, it was already formatted into 4 occupied partitions. Why in the world would HP waste a primary partition with 100 MBs of stuff that could easily be put somewhere else?

Anyway. The first thing I had to do was delete one of the partitions so that I could use it for Linux. I had a partition called “HP Tools.” I guess this partition is used for HP’s QuickWeb. This feature is for booting up quickly straight into the internet without loading up Windows. Personally, I would never use this feature, so removing this partition wasn’t a problem. In fact, I’m not even 100% sure this partition actually is for HP tools. All I know is I’ve never used QuickWeb and I’ve never had any problems with this partition missing.

I actually have a friend with the same laptop, (except for the graphics card.) He deleted his recovery partition to install Pinguy. I thought this was pretty reckless, but he has recovery CDs to use in case his computer needs a wipe.

To prep the hard drive for install, I first ran a live CD of Ubuntu, opened up GParted, and deleted HP Tools. Next I resized the Primary Windows partition, making it a bit smaller, leaving myself some unallocated space to put Ubuntu in. (I only left about 20 gigs for Ubuntu)

Then I could install Ubuntu in the unallocated space.

Pithy instructions:

1. Open Ubuntu using a live CD
2. Open up GParted
3. Delete HP Tools partition
4. Shrink Windows partition
5. Install Ubuntu in the remaining unallocated space.

Continue Reading: Getting Ubuntu to Work With Dual/Hybrid Graphics

Returning to Linux

I really like Linux. I especially like Ubuntu. I have used Ubuntu on and off for the past years... since 2007. Every time I switch to Linux, there are always a plethora of problems to be worked out. Even though I enjoy solving those problems, inevitably there arises one or two insufferable problems that simply cannot be solved. Usually it has to do with drivers that do not exist but sometimes has to do with functionality that doesn’t exist, or no suitable replacement applications that I had come to rely on in Windows.

You see, me and Linux is a lot like a really bad relationship. It’s like I’m in love with a girl who is really nothing more than a player. I stick around for a while, doing everything for her… but I can only temporarily tolerate her personal issues. And… then I leave her. But after a short while I begin to miss the good times we had together. I forget the turmoil she put me through and we get back together, and thus the pattern continues. What is so appealing that keeps me coming back?
A lot of it has to do with the alternative. I’m all about non-conformity and sticking it to the man. “Screw you Microsoft” I say. “I don’t need your pretentious products.” I like to be different. I like to be unique.

Here are just a few pros and cons of Ubuntu, in order of importance.
1. Wobbly windows

2. The Desktop Cube (Or Cylinder)

3. Really fast and easy on resources


Cons:
1. Nothing works. (Maybe I’m just unlucky.)

Here are the specs of my laptop:
• HP Pavilion dm4t.
• Intel i5 M 460 CPU @ 2.53GHz
• 4 gigs RAM
• Dual/hybrid graphics of ATI/AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5470 and Intel HD graphics
• 500 gig 7200 rpm hard drive
• Webcam, fingerprint reader, DVD RW drive

Continue Reading: Prepping the Hard Drive

Intro to my thoughts and tutorials on Ubuntu/Pinguy 11.04

For the next few posts I’m going to explain the processes I took to get everything set up with Ubuntu 11.04. (Technically I used Pinguy but Pinguy is built on Ubuntu so the results should be identical on both Pinguy and Ubuntu 11.04.) I did lots of research from lots of blogs and forums getting everything to run smoothly, and I want to share all that I’ve found in one place. Hopefully these tutorials will help others to have a few less headaches than I did.

Continue Reading: Returning to Linux