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.

Apps for on the Go

I'm traveling this week, and as I type this I'm in San Diego soaking up the warm, fabulous weather. I head back to Long Island tomorrow, but I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you what my top travel apps are.

TripIt - This is my go-to Android travel app. I make sure all my travel details get uploaded either by forwarding them or letting the site pick the details up out of my Gmail account before I leave to go anywhere. I use it to make sure I know where I'm going, when I need to be there, and what the confirmation numbers are if I run into any trouble. I don't have a pro account right now, but I use this app enough that it's only a matter of time before I get around to upgrading.

FlightStats - There are several flight tracking programs on the market, but I've been using FlightStats for a while now, and I have no real reason to switch. It works, every time, perfectly. Usually it knows if a flight is delayed before they get around to updating it at the airport. I also sprung for the paid add-on that allows FlightStats and TripIt to sync, so now I only have to forward emails to TripIt, and all my details are in both apps. A total time saver.

Google Maps/Latitude - Okay, this one comes with pretty much every Android phone unless you rooted and decided to boycott Google applications. But I like being able to use it to check in where I'm at, particularly since it has a history so I can go back and see where I was when. I should note that I only share my location with a few close friends and family members, so it's really more because I'm interested in looking back and seeing my travel history than anything else.

USB Tether - This is built into my Cyanogenmod ROM, but when I travel, it's a must-have. Too many airports want to charge too much money for an hour layover's worth of Internet access. I much prefer being able to tether my phone and just use the data plan I already pay for on there. I do have wireless tether as well, but I find I usually use the tethered variety mostly because I want to get a bit of a charge on my phone while I can between flights while I wait anyway, and that allows me to do both at once. Plus, I don't have to worry about someone else breaking into my signal and siphoning off bandwidth. I have unlimited data, but there are limits.

And those are my basics. I have other apps I use, of course, but those are my travel-specific apps of choice when I'm on the road. (I don't usually remember to use Latitude at home, only when I'm out and want to document it.) If you have any other suggestions of apps you think I should try, leave them in the comments!

Portable Power

I admit it. I travel with a lot of gadgets on a daily basis, but it's even worse when I'm jetting off somewhere. It doesn't matter if it's business or pleasure, in addition to my phone and Kindle, I usually have my Nintendo DS stashed away, and my laptop is always near at hand. But the catch is that while I usually try to make sure everything is charged before I leave to go anywhere, sometimes I forget, or sometimes it's a long enough trip with no plug-in access that I find myself with tech that's starting to die.

For my phone and my Kindle, in particular, this has been a problem. On the phone, when I'm traveling it gets constant use, from checking emails to making calls to checking my schedule and confirmation numbers. My battery is pretty good and lasts all day with normal use. When traveling, however, I'm lucky to still be on and in use by the end of the work day. For the Kindle, it's usually more that I forget to plug it in, or thing it has more charge than it does. The worst was getting on a 12-hour international flight, pulling out the Kindle, and discovering it was completely dead.

However, some of my worries about power on the go are gone now. At a recent trade show, I came across a small company called Chargeology selling portable power packs. I admit, I walked by the booth a few times, tried plugging in my phone to see it if would actually work, and looked for reasons to walk by just one more time. Finally, on the last day of the show, I decided the $100 was an investment I really needed to make.

I haven't regretted it since.

The power packs come in two sizes. The small one is good for pretty much everything except laptops. The larger one will charge laptops as well. Since the bulk of what I wanted to plug in were small electronics like my phone, and I wanted to be able to carry it with me easily, I decided on the smaller version, although at some point I would like to get the bigger one to keep in with my travel gear for use mainly on long flights.

The small charger is about the size of a deck of cards, maybe slightly larger. It weighs about the same as my phone, and it came in a pouch for storage. It also came with a charging cable for the device, and a 10-in-one cable for plugging devices into it. The 10-in-one actually has plugs for pretty much all my gadgets except my DS, which is sad, but they had told me when I bought it that they actually do sell a 12-in-one that has the correct connection for a DS, but they were sold out of them at the show. It's a minor issue, but I'll probably eventually see about getting the 12-in-one. The cable itself is short, which is good since the biggest use for it is to plug in the phone while you're still using it. I just set my phone on top while it's charging and continue to use it as normal.

The unit has one input port for charging itself, and two USB ports for plugging in and charging devices. This makes it nice, since even if you don't want to use the cable it comes with, or you have a device that uses a different type of connection, as long as it's USB you're good to go. I also like that it has two ports, so you can have multiple things plugged in at the same time, such as my phone and Kindle.

It takes roughly 8 hours to go from completely dead to a full charge on the power pack itself. I've never run completely out of power on the thing, however, so I'll usually plug it in to top it off before a trip, which varies based on how much I used it since the last charge. The company says it will last a few days as the primary power source for a device, and I believe them. From what I've seen, I could probably run my phone off of it for close to a week without any issues. I have noticed, though, that it doesn't give as much power as you could get plugged into a standard type of charging port. Unless the phone is off, I find it tends to hold my current charge steady rather than refill it. I would like to see even a slow increase in the phone's charge over time, but it's a minor issue, since I use it as emergency power when something dies rather than a primary charging source.

All in all, this little device has become something I don't leave home without. There's a great deal of peace of mind knowing I won't be stranded somewhere with a dead cell phone, or on another long flight with no Kindle, ever again. It lets me work and play how I want, without constantly having to adjust my behaviors for a battery. If you do any kind of traveling, and you carry any kind of gadgets, this is an investment you need to make.

Jetblue Update

I am happy to report Jetblue did the right thing. I got a letter in the mail yesterday that they're going to settle my claim for pretty much what I said the laptop was worth. It was a little lower, but not enough to make me scream. It was actually about $20 more than I thought they would give me, honestly. So I signed the agreement form, and it's going back out to them today so they'll cut me the check. Once it comes in, I'll use it to pay off the new laptop I had to put on the credit card. The new one is about $200 more than what they're reimbursing me, but that's okay. It wasn't a huge upgrade, but I did get the best I could afford when I replaced it, and I'm willing to put the little bit of extra into it. I'm just glad they didn't try to deny the claim, or offer me an insulting amount. Jetblue, you have just earned another chance! You'll continue to be one of my top two airline choices because you did the right thing by me!

A Brand New Car!

Okay, other than my horrible Price is Right impression, it's been a good day overall. Last night, I got a new car! I upgraded my 2008 Hyundai Tuscon to the 2011 Hyundai Santa Fe. The Tuscon was still working great, but Hyundai had some great trade-in incentives, and the Santa Fe had some great upgrades.

I won't go into all the "car stuff" here, since that's not what this blog is about. I'll just say it's rides great, and I really do like having that little bit of extra space upgrading models got me. But why I'm posting about it here is the tech upgrades.

First of all, the new models come with Bluetooth integration, which is amazing. I live in NY where it's now not just a fine, but points on your license if you get caught talking on the phone while driving without a headset. I have a headset, but it's dead more often than not. So this is a huge one for me. I have to say, the integration with my phone address book isn't as strong as I would have liked, though. In Gmail, I have all my contacts sorted by last name first, although it's sorted first name first (don't ask me why, ask Google). When the listings transferred to the car, they went last name first, and require you to say it that way. Which is really, really weird. I switched how Gmail sorts my contacts this afternoon, and I'll re-sync it tonight before I drive home, so we'll see if it's as simple a fix as that. If not, my OCD over data organization will probably require me to just program the numbers I use regularly directly into the car so I can avoid having to find people backward.

The second major upgrade for me was the actual iPod integration. I was one of those people still using an FM transmitter to use my iPod in the car, and, especially here in NY, finding a clear station was a challenge. I actually unscrewed the antenna off the Tuscon to cut down on the number of stations I could get, which drove my husband crazy when he took the car. It helped, but I still got a lot of snap, crackle and pop, and it wasn't in my breakfast cereal. So major, major points to Hyundai for that option, which wasn't available on any of the models when I got the Tuscon three years ago. My only real beef with it is that the ability to shuffle songs resets every time you do something like take a call or turn the car off. I always have my playlists on shuffle, so it's a minor annoyance to have to constantly turn it back on, but it's not big enough to make me want to hurt anything.

In addition to the iPod connection, I am digging the steering wheel controls. The car came with Hyundai's iPod cable, so I didn't have to buy it separate, and by using theirs, I can take full advantage of the steering wheel buttons, including changing tracks on my iPod and volume control. It also has all he Bluetooth buttons and cruise control, all right there in reach. Again, this wasn't available on any of the models I looked at in 2008, so I was pretty excited to find them in my new car.

The car also has more power plugs than the Tuscon did, which is always nice. I not only have my iPod, but I also charge my phone whenever I'm in the car (I have the phone set up to automatically turn on bluetooth when it's plugged in there, so it makes it convenient). In the Tuscon, that required having a splitter for the one power/lighter port I had in the front dash. Now, I have the usb/aux port for the iPod, a dedicated power plug for the phone, and a lighter/power plug there if I need it. Plus a few others scattered around the car. So next year, when I go on that long road trip to Florida, I can bring my laptop and watch movies! I already have the car charger for it, I just didn't have any spare plugs when I tried to use it. I still have my splitter, too, so if my husband decided to use his GPS on that long trip, we still have plugs for all.

There are other things I love about the new car, but I wanted to share my thoughts about the new tech here. I sat in the car too late last night playing, and I was out there again at lunch today messing with settings. Lets just hope I don't find a way to root the car, since I'm pretty sure bricking that would have far greater consequences than it would if I break my phone or computer....

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.