It's official!

The official release version of cyanogenmod 7 is out now! I just installed it, and I'll post here if I find anything "hinky". I didn't have any problems with RC4 once I stopped messing with it, so hopefully this stable release version will be smooth. I haven't poked around too much yet, but it doesn't seem like too much, if anything, has changed from RC4 to the stable. If I find anything, I'll update here!

Spoke too soon...

So, my wireless connection was being a little flaky today too, so I decided to just go ahead and re-flash the radio. Big mistake. All the problems I had before with the connecting-disconnecting loop came back and I couldn't lock on to wireless at all. After flashing the radio twice with no luck, I had to revert back to the backup I made before I flashed RC4. Wireless working again, I'm now on round two of RC4 installation, with another full wipe.

UPDATE: And crap. Getting the same wireless problem in RC4 now. GAH! This is very frustrating. I have nothing but mad respect for the CM dev team, but I really, really wish they would figure out why so many people are having so many WiFi problems with CM7 and get it fixed. Sigh.

UPDATE2: Ah ha! Got Wireless working! (As embarrassing as it is, I had the wrong WiFi password... But it was right for the flash, so that wasn't the problem there! Just for the update above.) So, now on to getting everything installed again!

UPDATE3: Okay, everything re-installed and it seems to be working. This time, instead of accidentally hitting  "yes" to Google asking if it wanted me to restore everything, thus having it try to download every app I had from the market all at once and crash me, I said "no". I just grabbed Titanium from the Market, then restored everything else from my backups. I was actually being a lot more picky this time around with what I installed. For example, I had an App2SD app, but Titanium will do that as well, so why take up the space? I also decided that, while I love LauncherPro, I wanted a change. So I'm giving GO Launcher EX a try. It has the features I liked from LP, but with additions I'm really liking. The ability to organize the app drawer is a serious plus. After I've had a chance to use it for a few days, I'll write a review, so keep an eye on this space!

RC4, Amazon Apps and cell jammers, Oh my!

I installed the RC4 of cyanogenmod yesterday, and overall, I'm really impressed. I had been having some memory problems (in that I had none) with RC3 - I had about 20MB of free memory on RC3 versus more than 50MB on RC2. That 30MB difference was causing the hated "running low on space" message to pop up quite a bit. Now, I can't give all the credit to RC4. Admittedly, I don't wipe my data and cache every time I install a new ROM. Well, I do if it's brand new or major upgrade, like going from 6.1 to the 7 RCs. But between RC versions, I just installed over the top of the current version. But this time, because of the memory problems I was having, I did the full wipe. So I'm honestly not sure if it was that or the new version that solved the problem. But either way, I'm back up to 50+MB of free internal storage, so I can go back to installing random apps to try and play with at will. Whoo hoo!

One thing that is driving me crazy, and again, not sure if this is CM or the app, but even with CM, there are things included in the installer that I don't want. I use the full version of Titanium Backup, which will allow you to uninstall system apps. So I just went through and took out all the stuff I was reasonably sure wouldn't break my boot. However, on the next reboot, there they all are again, back on the phone. This is driving me crazy. I even wiped all the backups of those apps, but somehow, they keep coming back. I actually suspect it's a CM problem and not a Titanium problem because of that. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on, so when I pinpoint the culprit, I'll post an update here. In the meantime, after every reboot, I go in and uninstall those useless apps that just take up space.

In other news, the Amazon App store officially launched! I have to say, I was a bit skeptical, since it now means I have to manage apps in two places. (AppBrain, if you want to put out an update that will let you manage third-party app stores, I'd actually pay for that!) So originally, I was curious and thought it would be good for competition, but I wasn't really planning to get my apps there. Until I discovered that, like for their eBooks, they offer a lot of paid apps for free for limited times.

I am a sucker for free.

Free digital anything I will take. I grab every free Amazon eBook they offer whether I plan to read it or not because I like to have them, just in case. The same is holding true for apps. And while the majority of the offerings so far have been things I didn't keep installed or already had paid versions of, there have been a few notable exceptions. Angry Birds was the first. All three versions. This is the only place Rovio is offering a paid, ad-free version, and until this week, was the only place to get the new Rio version. I hated the ads and they actually caused some lag, so those were snagged on the first day of the store opening for business. Soundhound was another one I enjoyed, although, admittedly, I uninstalled it later. I knew I wouldn't use it enough to make keeping it installed worth it, but I like knowing I can quickly install and use it when I know I want to ID a song. I also was happy to see Weatherbug Elite today, since I've been a user of the free version for a while now as my weather app of choice, I just never got around to upgrading it. Now I don't need to worry about it anymore.

Yesterday's Fruit Ninja, however, has proven, thus far, to be the biggest draw. This is like app crack. I had heard of it, first as an iOS game, and later people talking about it on Android, but I thought they were crazy. I apologize to all those people for thinking there could be nothing fun about slicing fruit. It is like a Zen moment. In fact, I got my best friend to grab it yesterday on her phone, and then went and actually paid for it on my husband's iPod Touch so we could all compete for high scores. In a day, I have become a Fruit Ninja junkie. If you haven't checked it out, do so at your own risk, as it will consume many, many hours of your time. Although, if you're already giving that time to Angry Birds, like I was, then it's not so much losing time and diversifying. And that's a good thing, right?

The final thing I wanted to talk (rant) about today is cell jammers. I have a feeling someone near my house is using one, and it is really pissing me off. I used to get a full, steady signal with no problems, then all the sudden, in the last few weeks, my signal has gotten really erratic. I loose it at the same point driving home every day, and in my house, I fluctuate between a full signal all the way down to none. And then back. And that will happen in the space of minutes. I stood last night, waiting for an important call, and almost missed out on it because the signal choose then to get bad enough to drop the calls, then come back as soon as I had hung up. I love my phone, but I was ready to throw it out a window.

I thought maybe it was RC4 causing signal problems, but then I realize everywhere else I go, there are no problems whatsoever. So either T-Mobile has something going on with the tower in my town, or someone is using a jammer and my house is right on the fringes of the signal range. This makes me incredibly glad I'm buying a house where, I am happy to say, I tested the signal and it works just fine. (More on the house at a later date, I don't want to jinx it since we're in contract, but you never know what could go wrong.) In the meantime, I will just have to live with it, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Cyanogenmod RC2

Once I got everything working correctly, was I content to leave well enough alone? Of course not!

The second release candidate for Cyanogenmod 7 came out yesterday, and I, of course, had to rush out an install it. I would like to point out that I am learning from my trials, however. Before I did anything, I made a new Nandroid backup, just in case.

Using ROM Manager, I still had the same problem that Google Apps wouldn't download, but since the actual ROM seemed to download fine, I went ahead and flashed the new version.

WiFi and GPS worked fine. My Google Apps, however, did not.

Most of my Google suite of applications were immediately giving force close errors, so I manually downloaded the latest apk from cyanogenmod itself, dated 3/7/11, and flashed the new gapps package. Unfortunately, I was still getting the force close errors on the majority of my Google apps, with the exception, fortunately, being the Market. So before I did a full wipe and re-flash, I decided to try uninstalling all of the Google applications, and re-downloading them from the Market.

Fortunately, that seems to have worked just fine. I opened all my Google apps after using this method, and they all appear to be working without problems. And my WiFi and GPS are still up as of right now as well.

There are some bug fixes in this version, although I don't notice too much of a difference in speed versus the RC1 I was running. I did notice that there is an option now for Profiles in the Cyanogenmod settings menu which I intend to explore and report back on. I use Tasker to automate settings changes for things like when I'm at work or at night already, so we'll see if I prefer the profiles method better once I have a chance to see what you can change and how well it works.

CM7 Problems...

Hmmm, I wasn't having any problems with RC1 since I installed it, but today it started acting screwy with my wireless. So, although I probably know better, I am going to try flashing Nightly 12 to see if that fixes the problem. Don't worry though, I have Titanium Backups of all my apps that updates three times a week, and I've learned to keep a minimum of 4 nandroid backups from various points on the SD at any time. So hopefully, if the nightly is too buggy, I can reflash and try a prior version. I'll update once I know if this fixes the problem!

UPDATE: Okay, nightly 12 didn't work to fix the wireless, and GPS decided not to work on that one as well. (I didn't go check out anything else other than wireless and GPS on the build, so I can't speak to any other changes/improvements.) I'm trying to restore my nandroid I made just before I left on this trip where everything worked fine. So we'll see if that works...

UPDATE 2: Okay, restoring seems to have gotten my WiFi sort of working again... It's still doing a lot of Connecting.. disconnecting.... routine but it is seeing the networks again, and it is eventually connecting to them. GPS I'm trying to test, but I'm also sitting inside a ballroom, so I won't count that out until I have a chance to test it outside.

So far so good with CM 7RC1

Well, there are a few small hiccups, but overall, I'm still really liking CM 7.0RC1. I did have to find and flash the newest radio for my phone to fix a wifi and gps connectivity issue, but that's been the biggest bug. I am also experiencing a bug that has supposedly been fixed in a later nightly version where my rotary lock screen and the gingerbread buttons both appear over one another on my call screen. Not a big deal since it hasn't caused any problems yet, but it's not enough to make me want to flash a nightly to fix it. I'll be content to wait for RC2.

Cyanogenmod 7 - First Impressions

With the release of the official RC version of Cyanogenmod 7 this week, I figured I would post my initial impressions of the new Android ROM for those of us who eschew carrier ROMs for those of our own choosing.

First of all, installation wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. I first tried ROM Manager (I have the premium version) to apply the update like I did to go to other versions of CM6. I found it installed CM7, but not the latest Google Apps (gapps) package. After a few tries and restores to a backup I had made before starting anything (always do a Nandroid backup before mucking about with anything!) I finally decided to stop trying to use ROM Manager. I downloaded the files for CM7 and gapps, and put them on my SD card before booting into Clockworkmod's Recovery mode. From there, I applied the ROM, and then gapps, then rebooted.

Still not working.

So after a fresh restore, I tried it again, this time clearing the cache and factory wiping the data before applying the updates. This time I got everything installed, but my wireless was flaky. I was getting an error that, if you do a little poking around, comes up from time to time, where WiFi goes into a Scanning > Connecting > Disconnecting > Scanning loop. I rely heavily on my Wifi, so that was a problem.

Getting frustrated, I restored back to CM 6.1.1, and set it aside for a bit. Of course, I couldn't leave it there, though, so I went looking for solutions, and found a suggestion for a previous version of CM with this problem to try restoring the WiFi Access points from the TItanium Backup version, since it could just be the file getting corrupted somewhere along the line. So I made sure my Titanium Backup (again, I use the pro - I like to support the devs of apps I use a lot) was up to date for that file, then did the manual wipe and install version again.

I have no idea if the Titanium fix might work - because of course, my WiFi worked perfectly fine this time.

So on to my actual impressions. First of all, whether it's a point for Gingerbread or CM7, I LOVE that everything, absolutely everything, can be moved to the SD card now. Even the Google Apps. Before, anything deemed a "system" app would return an error if you tried to move it. Now, there are no problems at all, and I just freed up a TON of space on my phone hard drive. Yay! I also like that some of the things I don't use, like QuickOffice, that were part of CM6, are no longer part of the install. Overall, it's a much more streamlined package, so you can just install the things you want, rather than having to deal with extraneous stuff hogging the drive space.

Second, I love the new overall look of CM7. I use LauncherPro as my home replacement, which I like over ADW because One: I paid for it; and Two: I live and die by my calendar, and LauncherPro's agenda widget rocks. So some of the look and feel is the same on my phone simply because I'm using the same skin over the top. Where I notice the biggest difference is in the notifications bar. It's now black with white text instead of the reverse, which actually makes it easier to read. I've never been a big fan of darker themes, so I was skeptical about that, but it really does make the little icons stand out much more, making them easier to see at a glance. The bar has also tweaked the icons themselves, making them smaller, with a uniform grey/green color scheme that I actually like.

The overall performance so far on CM7 definitely feels much more responsive and zippier. I never had much lag to begin with, but now it just feels like it's flying. I'm looking forward to playing more with some of my more processor-intensive apps to see how they work, but just basic performance boosts is a nice little treat.

I'm a Tmobile customer, so part of the ROM for my phone (MyTouch 3G Slide) is the ability to very easily enable/disable WiFi Calling. I get pretty much no reception at my desk at my day job, but I have a full WiFi signal, so the fact that I can now, with one toggle, tell my phone to use the WiFi network to route calls means I won't have to worry about missing important calls at work ever again. It's a small thing, but a big one, for it to be so seamlessly built in to ROM.

Another nice upgrade is the overall look and feel of the UI. The fonts are cleaner and crisper, and the whole thing just feels more slick and polished. I'm a font junkie to begin with, so seeing them make what to most would probably be a minor or unnoticeable change makes me very happy. I don't think people always realize how big a different fonts make to how you perceive a UI.

That's all for now, but as I play with it more, I'll update here about the pros and cons of CM7. I have to say, right now, I can't see any cons to upgrading other than a few installation hiccups. If you're a root user and/or a Cyanogenmod lover, this is definitely going to be an upgrade that makes you happy!

Rooting my Android Phone

So, this past week, I rediscovered how much I love the Android platform. I've been a believer since the G1 was first released, and this year, the poor thing was starting to die. So I needed a new phone, and decided to go with the Tmobile MyTouch 3G Slide. I wanted the hard keyboard, but I've found with SwiftKey I never use it. But that's a post for another day.

I had been running the stock OS on the G1, and since it was basically as pure Android as you could get, I never really felt the need to root. The MyTouch Slide, however, is another story. I had been frustrated with the sheer volume of bloatware on this phone that couldn't be uninstalled, and to make matters worse, Tmobile has been promising an update to Android 2.2 Froyo - with the ability to move applications to the SD card and free up some space - since last summer. Guess what hasn't happened yet.

This week, I finally got fed up with the whole thing. I couldn't run all the apps I wanted to, and I was annoyed with various other things, such as the really horrible contact manager Tmobile was forcing on users of the phone. I did my research on the Web, and ultimately decided to go with CyanogenMod 6.1.1, which had released a root version for the Slide.

As a side note, "root" is a deceptive term. Every phone is a little bit different. The basic process of rooting is the same across pretty much all of them, but the ROMs with all the OS information is different for each phone. Please, please, if you're going to root, make sure you find a ROM that is specifically configured for your phone.

Anyway, I decided to root, and got myself all ready. I can tell you, it was not without trepidation that I began the process, since, frankly, it's not impossible to completely brick your phone doing this. The various developers have created methods that are pretty idiot-proof, but still, you're messing around with things that weren't, strictly speaking, supposed to be messed around with.

I won't go into all the steps I took, since there are some great guides out there (I linked to the ones I used at the bottom of this post). I will say that even having a general idea of coding and what I was doing, I still had some major heart-stopping moments. It also took me the better part of three hours to get it right, since it only takes one mistake to render the process moot and have to start over. (incidentally, those were the times I was terrified I had bricked the phone. It is a horrible feeling to be staring at your phone and not know whether it will boot, or if you've done something irrevocably wrong to it.)

The end result, however, was totally worth the late night of worry. As I mentioning in the beginning of this post, I have rediscovered how much I love Android. The CyanogenMod ROM gives me about as pure a 2.2 experience as you can get, while also offering some fantastic features. For instance, I think I am in love with whomever coded the power widget into the notification bar. Genius! It has also given me access to applications and functions that are impossible without root. My favorite is Titanium Backup, which I got a premium license for. It backs up all the apps AND their data, which is a great feeling for a tech tinkerer like me. I also like that you can link it to dropbox and keep a backup there as well, for some extra insurance.

I also now have access to Apps2SD, which, while not really a root program, does require Froyo, and so was unavailable to me until I took matters into my own hands. I am absolutely loving that I can now keep all the apps I use, even the ones I pull up infrequently, on my phone. It was really a pain to have to constantly uninstall and reinstall applications based on what I needed at the time.

I can't say enough happy things about my phone now. I'm spending more time futzing with it now than I ever did before. If you're on the fence about rooting, I have to say, just go for it. You won't regret it!

Resources I Used:
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=TMobile_myTouch_Slide:_Full_Update_Guide
http://richard.gluga.com/2010/08/complete-guide-to-rooting-and-hacking.html