Category Archives: android

android

CyanogenMod on Samsung Galaxy S and 3 Button fix

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I did not brick my phone this time. And now I am on CyanogenMod 7 – with Gingerbread. It looks beautiful and is very responsive ( thanks to the Hardcore’s Speedmod kernel ) – Samsung Galaxy S feels like a new phone once again.

Some of the SGS had the 3 button method ( Volume button  + Home + Power key ) to reboot into Recovery or Download mode disabled –  which is essential to install any kernels or ROMS. 
The trick was to enable the 3 Button Fix and it becomes easy to install ROMS. In my previous failed attempt I tried to accomplish the same using adb and bricked my phone. ( http://venkat2.blogspot.com/2011/09/android-adventures-how-i-bricked-my.html ) 
1. Root SGS
This is quite simple. Download SuperOneClick from shortfuse ( http://shortfuse.org/?page_id=2 ) and root the phone.
2. Enable the 3 button fix
If you can go to download / recovery mode with the 3 buttons you can skip this step. Use the below link and it worked without any hiccups : http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/fix-3-button-combo-download-recovery-mode-in-samsung-galaxy-s-gt-i9000/. Has links to Odin and a PDA file which will enable the 3 buttons.
There is a similar article in androidadvices.com – you can give it a pass.

One word of caution : ALWAYS read the comments before you get your hands dirty. I read horror stories of some Samsung Galaxy S 4G ( newer models ) that got completely bricked as this is not supported.

3. Now I can install ROMs using Clockworkmod. The instructions in cyanogenMod wiki were so straightforward it was as simple as installing Ubuntu ( from Version 6 I guess ) and the whole process was done under 2 minutes.

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S

Here are some screenshots – I could not take the lock screen though – it came out blank. There are 5 “pages”. The one in the middle is the landing zone.

To the left I put my “fun” stuff

Further left is google+, twitter and facebook.

To the right of my home is “work”

Yet to organize better. And guess what – the bottom tray – even that is configurable. The = sign is the calculator – yet another reason why android can never beat iOS. I can drag any app to this dock – something I could not do in Froyo ( don’t know if this is a Gingerbread thingy or Cyanogenmod’s gift )

And so far the phone responds really fast and had no app crashes. I doubt if there is any improvement on battery life – it is already visibly down ( had a 1.2 hour run today morning with GPS and music player on ), and was playing music at home through an amplifier after that. I saw a setting where I can switch the CPU for performance or battery.. right now it is in optimal setting.

And btw – these things void your warranty – but totally worth doing it. If you have a SGS and want it rooted just ping me – I can help you.

Finally – great work Cyanogenmod team – simply amazing.

android

Android Adventures – How I brick’d my phone

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There is one more advantage to Running. It helped me skip a Puja shopping session – citing pain because of my run the previous day – and had a nice 6 hour window for myself.

I have been using Samsung Galaxy S for the last 1 year. It is a fantastic phone and has helped me in my running, exploring unknown places, keeping an eye on the server without booting up a laptop every time.

The PoS called Kies allowed me to upgrade to Froyo ( 2.2 ) from Eclairs ( 2.1 ). However it does not upgrade to Gingerbread (2.3) for whatever reason. While the rest of the Android world is enjoying Gingerbread I am stuck on Froyo. It was a long time dream to understand what this Android ecosystem is all about – and finally I found the time to sit and read about it and perhaps install Gingerbread.

Here are the steps to brick a phone.

1. Root the phone. This is the easy part. It does not brick it – totally harmless.

2. Get ADB. There is a defect in my phone. The hardware way of reaching recovery screen ( Volume Up + Home button + Power button ) does not work. A few SGS phones have this problem. The workaround is to install Android SDK. This gives you Android Debug Bridge ( ADB ) which can reboot your phone into recovery or download mode by running a command from the console ( adb reboot recovery or adb reboot download )

3. ClockworkMod. What an Idea Sirji! – Free download from App Market. It can install any ROM / firmware. You do not need ODIN ( coming up in a minute ) – just install this app, copy the ROM to your SD Card, reboot and install it. Also helps you to do a backup of your existing ROM – so you can revert back to a working copy.

4. Stock 3e. This is the recovery console that Froyo has put – and it is incompatible with ClockworkMod. When you install it will say Unable to verify signature. Lots of googling ( how did people ever live before Google? ) and I had to downgrade it to 2e.

5. ODIN. In order to downgrade to Stock 2e I had to flash a different Kernel. This video has good instructions : http://www.dkszone.net/install-android-2.3-gingerbread-samsung-galaxy-s-i9000-custom-rom-ultibread. Using ODIN is not that hard – and I feel this is the best way to flash ROMs or Kernels.

6. Confidence increases. Still my phone was working after every reboot. For a geek where things keep working one after the other – the confidence builds up. I typically watch for these signs as law of average will kick in soon and something bad will happen.

7. Installing Gingerbread. I was as excited as a child. I downloaded Gingerbread, copied it to sdcard, rebooted into recovery mode ( 2e now ), and started the installation process…and was enjoying reading the messages scrolling.

Removing the crap you installed before….
InStaLin, Hold OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNN!!
Unmounting mount points…
Your phone is now High, ReBo0t .

8. The Brick. The phone didnt ReBo0t after the installation and it went to the 3e console. I should have panicked here but I was ignorant. I happily rebooted the phone and thankfully the SGS splash screen came. But then the screen started going crazy. The phone started making androidish noises. Waited for a while with my BP rising. Powered the phone again and the screen was stuck at the SGS splash screen. 
9. The hardware defect surfaces. The 3 button trick to reboot to recovery console does not work. The phone has to first get picked up by the Laptop so I can run adb reboot recovery. Adb kept saying device not found. After lots of trial and error ( plug the usb cable and power up the phone, plug cable before splash screen comes up, plug cable after splash screen ) some combination worked and was able to reboot the phone. But the recovery mode never came and the phone kept hanging. Here I switched on the fan as I was sweating. 
10. ODIN saves the day. I had left ODIN ON and while I was trying to get adb to recognize the phone – so I can run reboot command – while switching windows I happened to notice that the phone was showing in one of the COM ports of ODIN. This gave me some hope. I downloaded the same Froyo version I had at the beginning of this adventure – it is a 190MB download – while reading more of the How Tos to unbrick a phone. Did a adb reboot download mode – the Android icon with the spade icon showed up, loaded it on ODIN, installed it, phone rebooted and the regular Samsung Galaxy S 1900 showed up and the second animated Samsung Galaxy S icon came up. No I didnt thank God but I thanked the entire Android community for bringing back the phone.
I was too exhausted at the end of this. Now I have the phone in the exact state I started it – ( lost the apps etc. – which is not a big deal anyway ). Since I have everything tied to Google – got all the contacts back. 
You might wonder – why did I download a Froyo ROM and not the Gingerbread ROM – since anyway I was going to flash. Remember the thing I said above about law of averages? I wasn’t prepared to take any more chances. I just wanted my phone in a working condition – I was even prepared to go back to the slow Eclairs with the infamous Lag. 
Quite an adventure! 

android, apple, galaxy s

Breaking the Reality Distortion Field!

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I did it !

I broke the Reality distortion field cobweb of Steveji and joined the Android Brigade! It has been more than a week since I bought my first smart phone – a Samsung Galaxy S ( on the left – yes it does look very iPhoneish ) and it is Enthiranistic ( hehe 🙂 )

It was a tectonic mind shift for me. I love Apple products – my first laptop was an iBook. Then I bought iMac, iPods. When the 1st gen iPhone came I wanted it badly – but as a rule I never buy 1st Gen Apple products ( can’t afford the Apple Tax ).

Recently I decided ( the power above approved rather 🙂 ) to go for a smartphone and my obvious choice was an iPhone. Despite the attenagate I wanted to buy the iPhone 4. However I started reading more and more on the iPhone vs Android wars and found how closed Apple had become.

In the iconic 1984 Super Bowl Ad when Apple introduced PCs to the IBM masses – a lady with a hammer hurls it on the Big (Blue) Brother who preaches :
“Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.”

How ironic. You can now replace the Big Brother with Steve Jobs and the words still apply. You might own the hardware, but you cannot install any applications that you want to. You cannot hack your machine –  you will void the warranty. Want to transfer files – you have to do it with iTunes and nothing else.

And more importantly – Apple for some reason – hates India. The iPhone4 release date could as well be in 2011. iPhone 3 got released exactly after a year it got released in USA. Also Apple’s prices are illogically high in India.

Anyway – here are the things I liked on the Galaxy.

Swype – I am as fast as the Chinese Teenage kids when it comes to texting now.

Google Apps Integration – Whenever I want to add a contact and if I am near a computer, I add it in my Google Contacts – and it magically appears on the phone.

No Brainer Syncing – Since I am on linux I do not have iTunes -in fact my iPod is yet to be updated with Enthiran songs. However with Galaxy S I just dragged and droped the media files.

Internet Tethering – Worked out of the box – on Ubuntu. I did not expect that.

I am not sure how this phone pits against the Retina Display of iPhone. And this phone does not have a flash – which is a bummer.

One parting advice for Steve Jobs – just let it go. You have the best product in the universe. Why create gates and windows?