Android

Install CyanogenMod 6 (Android 2.2 Froyo alternative) on HTC Dream (ADP1)

Atlast managed to get the 2.2 flavour on ADP1. (this installation is only applicable for root’d Android developer phone HTC dream)

• Requirements:

Tools: fastboot

images:
Amon_Ra 1.7.0 ( http://files.androidspin.com/downloads.php?dir=amon_ra/RECOVERY/&file=recovery-RA-dream-v1.7.0.img )
radio image for adp1 (http://sapphire-port-dream.googlecode.com/files/ota-radio-2_22_19_26I.zip)
update-cm-6.0.0-DS-signed.zip (http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/files/file/95-update-cm-600-ds-signedzip/)
gapps-mdpi-tiny-20100926-signed.zip (http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/files/file/124-google-addon-mdpi-tiny-20101020/)
DangerSPL (http://sapphire-port-dream.googlecode.com/files/spl-signed.zip)

• Procedure:

Ref : http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Full_Update_Guide_-_Android_Dev_Phone_1#Installing_a_Custom_Recovery_Image

- Download and copy all these images to the root of your sdcard except the recovery image

• Install custom recovery image:

- boot the phone in fastboot mode by pressing camera button while rebooting

- From your machine make sure the device is visible

# ./fastboot-mac devices
HT845Gxxxxx fastboot

- flash the cyanogen recovery image and reboot

# ./fastboot-mac flash recovery recovery-RA-dream-v1.7.0.img
sending ‘recovery’ (4594 KB)… OKAY
writing ‘recovery’… OKAY

# ./fastboot-mac reboot

- Once the phone is rebooted make sure  you have the 1.7 recovery image

• Flash the radio image

Now flash the radio once the phone rebooted to recovery RA 1.7.0 by pressing the home button while rebooting
- select install zip from sdcard and choose the radio image , once the installation is done reboot the phone and make sure that you have the 2_22_19_26I base band version

• Flash danger spl now

Ref: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=DangerSPL_%26_CyanogenMod_5/6#Install_DangerSPL

boot the phone in recovery mode, and select install zip from sdcard and select install the danger spl image, reboot

This will update the Hboot to 1.33.2005,  this is required to increase the ROM size to hold the cm6 image.

• flash the cyanogen mode 6 images

Ref : http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=DangerSPL_%26_CyanogenMod_5/6#Installing_CyanogenMod_ROM

boot the phone again in recovery mode, select and install the cm 6 image, reboot the phone and make sure that you can boot in to the new cyanogen 6.

• Install the google addons

The important thing is dont install the full version of google apps on ADP1 just use the MDPI tiny version. otherwise the phone cannot boot properly.

Ref: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Latest_Version#Google_Apps

Now clear wipe the cache and reboot the phone, That is it. Now you have ADP1 installed with Cyanogenmod 6, Enjoy..

./arun

Install *.apk to android phone

It was disappointing that the android devices selling in most of the gulf countries doesnt have market place installed – One of the core and major feature of androis is missing.

Anyway the softwares available in Android Package file (apk) can be installed by downloading it to the pc using adb

eg: to install slide me market place, an alternative for google market place.
download the latest apk from http://slideme.org/.
$ ./adb install ~/sam2.apk
1686 KB/s (506724 bytes in 0.293s)
pkg: /data/local/tmp/sam2.apk
Success


./arun

Android ADP1 Firmware to CyanogenMod

This note is more specific to mac os x, more likely the same steps will works with any OS.

CyanogenMod is a customized, aftermarket firmware distribution for the HTC Dream and Magic cell phones, and the Google Nexus One.

Based on the open-source Android operating system, CyanogenMod is designed to increase performance and reliability over Android-based ROMs , such as FLAC Lossless Audio, multi-touch support, the ability to store applications on the microSD card, and support for tethering.

Here are the steps I followed to get my ADP1 installed with Cyanogen mod.

- Backup your data if required, this steps will completely erase your mobile applications and settings.

Step 1:
Create a source directory:
$ mkdir ~/cyanogen
$cd ~/cyanogen

Download fastboot to your computer:
Refer this url to get the correct fastboot.
HTC Developer site

Download the latest compatible version of Cyanogenmod:
$ wget http://cyanogenmod.com/download/recovery/cm-recovery-1.4.img

Step 2:
Boot the android device in fastboot mode.
To enter fastboot mode, reboot the device while holding down the BACK key.

Once it is in to fast boot mode, flash the Cyanogen recovery image:

$ cd ~/cyanogen
$ ./fastboot-mac flash recovery cm-recovery-1.4.img
sending ‘recovery’ (4002 KB)… OKAY
writing ‘recovery’… OKAY

Then place the phone in to flash boot mode

$ ./fastboot-mac boot cm-recovery-1.4.img
downloading ‘boot.img’… OKAY
booting… OKAY
$ adb shell mount -a
* daemon not running. starting it now *
* daemon started successfully *
$ adb shell
/ # mv /system/etc/install-recovery.sh /system/etc/install-recovery.sh.disabled

Reboot back to fastboot mode.

$ ./fastboot-mac flash recovery ../cm-recovery-1.4.img
sending ‘recovery’ (4002 KB)… OKAY
writing ‘recovery’… OKAY

$ ./fastboot-mac reboot

Download the Android 1.6 Recovery Image (signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip) if dont have:
From HTC (or) android website – This is just to get the adp tool

Download the latest CyanogenMod ROM for your device:
Dream (G1): Latest version (stable)
update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip

Export the CyanogenMod ROM to SD card.
$ adb push update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip /sdcard/update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip


But this was not working properly for me, for some reason the adb tool was not able to detect the device. So i just copied it over.


$ cp update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip /Volumes/SDCARD/

* no need for this step if adb tool worked

Now are all set to install:

- Turn your phone off.
- Get in to recovery mode my holding Home button while booting
- select wipe data/factory reset and press home to confirm.
- select apply any zip from sd
- Pick signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-ota-14721.zip.
- Press home to confirm and wait for installation to complete
- select apply any zip from sd again
- Pick update-cm-4.2.14.1-signed.zip.
- Press home to confirm and wait for installation to complete

- reboot

That is it!

Reference : Full_Update_Guide_-_ADP1_Firmware_to_CyanogenMod

My favorite android applications

Multimedia

From Google
Goggles : Use pictures to search web, just amazing. A visual search application, instead of using words, take a picture and search. Works very well with logo’s. one of my top favorites. More info
Google Goggles

Ringtone
Ringdroid : Easy way to make ring tones from songs we have. More info ringdroid

Picture editor
Picsay : Quick and effective way to add effects to pictures from mobile. More info Picsay

Radio
A Online Radio : Excellent way to listen online radio stations aor

Communication

SMS
Handcent SMS : found it better than the native message application. More info handcent

SMS Backup : useful to backup sms messages to gmail with a separate label android-sms

Voice
Sipdroid : SIP/VOIP client, very useful application especially to connect and make calls with your sip provider like action voip. : More info : sipdroid.org

Networking and System tools

SSH
Connectbot An easy way to establish ssh connection, support ssh key generation and public key authentication.connect bot

Monitoring
NagMonDroid Nice application to connect to your nagios instance and display short summary. I found it very useful to get my server status while i am on road More info :nagios page

CIDR
CIDR calculator Very useful IP subnet calculator. More info : CIDR Androidlib

Browse internet from Mac with android

At last i managed to get browsing working through 3G connection in android (donut 1.6).

Steps:
- Enable root in android
- install android-wifi-tether (http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/)
- configure it either with bluetooth or wireless
- connect your laptop with the android using wireless or bluetooth
- there we go now you should be able to browse internet, if you have netfilter module properly working in wireless tether
- since my kernel doesnt have netfilter module, the natting was not working – I was able to resolve domains from my laptop , but was not able to get the data
- Installed proxoid, and started
- Configured my webbrowser to use proxoid as proxy, it works … charm!!!!

./arun

get the root access back on android development phone ADP1

It seems that after upgrading ADP1 with 1.6 , the root access gone.

It can be recovered with adb tool:

Connect your mobile with the computer,

do adb to the phone
$adb shell
$mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
$cd /system/bin
$cat sh > su
$chmod 4755 su

Worked Great!!!

Ref: http://phandroid.com/2009/04/29/adp-15-initial-thoughts/

upgrade android to 1.5 cupcake

It was quiet trivial to update the android operating system to 1.5 manually,

The instructions for HTC ADP can be found at : http://developer.htc.com/adp.html

./arun

Work with Android SDK on MAC OS X

It is wonderful experiance to work with android sdk and it is straight forward to get it working.
- Install Eclipse : http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ (A Java or RCP version of Eclipse is recommended.)
- Download android SDK to a particular location
- Create a .bash_profile under your home directory (if not existing) with :
- Start eclipse and go to Help > Software Updates > Add Site
Enter the url : https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
and click finish. now you will be able to see the Developer tool listed
- Select and install the Developer tools from the same window.
- Restart eclipse.
- Connect your phone and test running your application.

./arun

Got HTC G1 Android working with Airtel Kerala

It was sad to just keep watching a phone without even switching it on, It took long for me to get HTC G1 development phone shopped to India, and once i got it after long waiting and excitement i was not able to get in to the home screen or basically cant do anyting with it.  G1 needs to have a data connection with the provider to start using, basically we need to login or register new account with google to start working with the phone. I was keep on trying with a BSNL connection with GPRS enabled to get the Android based G1 working. Anyway Atlast i got it working with Airtel connection (Kerala, Kollam) . Here is the APN configuration Information i used. Change the MNC value according to the location you are in.

Name : Airtel (it can be anything, just a name)
APN : airtelgprs.com
Proxy : 202.56.231.117
Port : 8080
Username : <Not Set>
Password : <Not Set>
Server : <Not Set>
MMSC : <Not Set>
MMS Proxy : <Not Set>
MMS Port : <Not Set>
MCC : 404
MNC : 95
APN Type: <Not Set>

That is it, once you have the APN settings entered correctly you will see data connection symbol on the top status bar.
It was hassle for me to get it working. So hope this help someone !!!

./arun