My updated theme for Cyanogen 4.2.9.1

I've now updated my theme for the latest cyanogen 4.2.9.1, Download HERE
Remember, in order to use this you need a rooted android phone, if you don't have that, you can't have this.

Extras:

Themed Launchers: (click the image to download the zip file, save it in sd card root, flash in recovery)

Lockscreens: (click the image to download the zip file, save it in sd card root, flash in recovery)

For more information on this theme and more updates etc, see the thread on XDA forum - http://tinyurl.com/markstheme

MarksTheme - G1 - for cyanogen 4.1.11.1

I know this is for an older version of cyanogen's ROM but this is still the version I'm running, this theme is for Cyanogen ROM 4.1.11.1, the last release before it all got 'interesting'.

I've called this 'MarksTheme' because I'm Mark, and I made most of this theme.

I say 'most' because I took some from Enoch and EnochX, some from m_blend (loving the red), and added a load of my own Icons.

The wallpaper you see in the screenshots isn't included, it's one of my photographs (I do that kind of photography for a living).

Credits to the makers of both, particularly Enoch and EnochX which got me started :)

I will update this to whatever version of cyanogen ROM I happen to be using, if you want to use it with another version you can strip the icons out of the zip file and put them into a template or another theme made for another version of the ROM.

I will also tweak and play with this version whenever the mood takes me and time allows.

This theme uses the standard launcher with 5 screens, I found the advanced launcher still a bit laggy.

Download HERE

Have google f***ed up?

If you are using a regular google / android phone with an official google / android operating system then this whole issue doesn't affect you. If you've rooted your phone and installed a custom ROM then it does. If you've rooted your phone you'd know you did it.

I like google, I use google mail for all my email, I use google calendar to organise my life, I use google analytics for my websites and google maps for finding my way around. I like google.

I like touch-screen phones too, nice big screens, but I don't like on-screen keypads, too slow and still inaccurate.

I also like open-source software, from gadgets to entire operating systems and everything in between, written by people for people, not by corporations for profits.

When I saw T-mobile advertising the G1 phone I was intrigued, to say the least. Integrated google mail and calendar, touch screen phone but with a slide-out qwerty keypad, and it's a linux-based open-source operating system called android, I was a happy man, so happy I even found time for a damn blog!

The G1 out-of-the-box was a damn fine phone anyone could use, no geek credentials needed, but for the geeks, for the tweakers, for those who wanted a little more (in my case I wanted to make it look nicer, and a little more 'zing' please), this involved 'rooting' and 'flashing' a custom 'ROM' (installing a replacement operating system).

Out went googles official release (of an open-source operating system) and in went Cyanogen's tuned-up version, nothing lost, everything gained.

Until Now.

google have now prevented cyanogen (and effectively anyone else) from releasing android roms containing google's apps, this includes gmail, contacts, calendar, maps (which you can download for free from the market anyway) and any others not at the of my mind. Their justifiable reason is that the operating system, android, is open-source (it's a flavour of linux), but the individual apps are not. Google have every right to do this.

However.

By doing this they are locking-out non-official-google-android users out of the features and apps that make the G1 (and similar) great. The message is, use only our OS or we want nothing to do with you.

Many people chose the G1 over an Iphone because of the more liberal approach, because it's open-source, this is the primary strength of the G1 and the google-android system, without it we might as well go to Iphone, people are already doing so, and many others are threatening to, we're talking about tens of thousands of users leaving, thats significant folks.

I have the latest stable and experimental builds of cyanogens roms, as well as some themes and the themes I make myself. Until google release an OS that is better, I'll be sticking with these (they have all the google integration you'd expect).

Google, you gain nothing by doing this, you lose some respect and support from the open-source community, and you lose alot of customers. Thats just not playing nice.

If anyone wants a copy of the last stable or experimental cyanogen roms then they'd best not send me an email as it'd likely be considered illegal distribution if I uploaded them to a file server for you.

Custom Theme

Most people know that I'm the kind of guy who likes to customise things, tweak things, make things my own, and my phone is no exception. When I had a Nokia I got a copy of CarbideUI to make my own themes for it, when I got a G1 I wanted to do the same, but I had to take the step (leap?) to rooting it (hacking in through an exploit and installing a custom version of the operating system), with that came speed and some nice features thanks to Cyanogen and themes, Enoch by DrPFenderson was the theme I liked the most, but I wanted more, I wanted different, so I tweaked it.

Most of the custom icons and changes can be seen on the screenshots below... (click it to load fullsize in your browser)

I'm currently running experimental versions of the Cyanogen ROM so my theme is kept up-to-date with that, and I'm still watching the EnochX theme and using it as a base for most things (if I had the time I'd make a theme from scratch, but I don't!).

If anyone would like a copy of this theme I can make it available, but you MUST be using the latest Cyanogen experimental ROM and you MUST accept all liability for the wellbeing of your phone.

PS, the wallpaper isn't part of the theme, it's one of my photographs and I can't give it out free.

G1 Themes & Cyanogen ROM

Yesterday I found another cool thing for rooted phones, themes.

Being the kind of guy who likes making things 'mine', I wanted to change even more about the visuals of my phone, I found a Theme HERE which you see below, it changes the look of some basic aspects of your phone, like a nice black bar along the top that blends nicely with my generally 'black' theme.

	My screens, screen 1 is currently empty, mostly using it to try out widgets.
	Screen 2 = web apps mostly
	Screen 3 is in the middle, calendar and weather is THIS ONE Handcent sms just added a widget that shows the number of new sms messages, which is handy, so I'm using that for now.
	4th screen, most of the apps are on here.
	5th screen contains all my little notes using 'sticky note', (they just added a transparency slider, which I like alot).

At some point I'll get around to making a theme myself if it's not too techy, just way too busy with work at the moment.

Rooooted!

Ok so I finally did it, sitting around the other night at 2am, rubbish on the TV, so I rooted my G1.
What is rooted? - it s gaining 'root' access to the phone, like 'admin' rights on a computer, it means I can do anything I want to the phone without the usual safety measures.
Why rooted? - in my case I wanted speed and more features, which means a new ROM (a version of the Android operating system) put together by, someone else.
Which rooted? - Cyanogen ROM, basically because I saw it having consistently very positive reviews online, it looked good, so I did it.
How rooted? - some instructions HERE, which uses some software via an exploit that has been announced as fixed, I received an update on my phone last week (tuesday 18th august 09) that people were saying fixed this exploit, but I rooted by this method in the early hours of sunday (23rd august 09) so it seems it's still doable.

See the above instructions on how-to, and use the latest cyanogen ROM, currently 'CyanogenMod-4.0.2'.

So far I've noticed the phone is a little faster, which I like, has more settings to fiddle with, and now has 5 home screens (which is cool as I was struggling with 3).

Below are screenshots of my current screens.

Firstly the wallpaper, one of my photos, no you can't have it.

The far left screen isn't shown as it's currently empty, I've been using it for testing widgets.

2nd screen (1st shown here) is my 'web' screen, google searchbar, links to some websites and some web-based apps for travel, as I travel every day for my work.

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3rd screen (2nd shown here) is my main screen, being the one in the middle, I'm using Weather Forecast Widget & Pure Calendar, which fits 2 or 3 days of calendar agenda plus weather forecast onto my main screen, below that my most used links to sms (handcent), gmail and email. And Powertime Widget for monitoring battery life with a prediction of how long it's got left.

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4th screen (3rd shown here) is an apps screen, with the 'retro date' widgets at the top and some commonly used apps below, and a link to the market (for more apps!).

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5th and final screen is full of notes by 'sticky note', you tap them to open fullscreen and I have notes for a few things there, as I have a rubbish memory!

The icons on the screens are mostly from the Glasklart icon pack, some I made and some I modified. They were changed using Bettercut.

So far I'm liking the more responsive interface and extra home screens, also apps are now on the SD card which means I won't run out of room, more internal memory available means more of my emails can be held there. More digging may find more good stuff.

Problems?
I had to download and apply the update to the Cyanogen ROM manually as something went wring using the updater, I think I just didn't know how to apply it when it rebooted so I put it on the SD card, rebooted and did it manually.
Also the autorotate doesn't work, I saw some 'fixes' online but when I tried them to delete some files they were 'not found', so I've turned it off for now and it rotates when I open the keyboard and then back again when it closes (the problem was it'd rotate into landscape and get stuck there).
Someone warned me that battery life could be adversely affected, so far I've not noticed a change, will see how the week pans out in a normal useage pattern.

August Update

Update time...

I've been using the Anti Glare screen protector from Boxwave for a while now and it's brilliant, it cuts down reflections on the screen enough to make the phone quite useable even in strong sunlight, it also eliminates those subtle greasy streaks your fingers will always leave on the screen, not a big problem but I'm happier they're gone as I was forever having to wipe the screen, those smudges bugged me!

As for the Invisible Shield from Zagg, I'm disappointed, firstly at the less than perfect fit, which I could live with, and secondly at the peeling edges, a couple of areas of the phone have a few mm's of the shield peeled back, probably caused by the pouch I keep my phone in. I'll be contacting zagg and see what they have to say about that.

Rooting, I've not rooted my phone yet (rooting is 'hacking' the phone so you can run custom versions of the operating system (roms)) but I'm seriously considering it mostly as a performance boost and features gain, now that I hear there will be no more major updates for the phone I still want fancy things!
At some point, when I have the time to transfer my contacts to my old nokia as a backup (just in case! I need this thing for my work!) I'll be having a go at rooting and acquiring a new ROM.

More app reviews coming up when I get the time, my regular work is keeping me pretty busy, and as I'm self employed I have to exploit busy to the full!

App Review: Pure Calendar Widget

I pretty much found what I was looking for in a calendar / agenda widget, Previous versions were not ideal due to only being 4 spaces wide (1, 2, 3, 4 high), the latest version adds 2x2, the same as the built-in G1 calendar widget. It has alot of customisable settings such as which calendars to show, duration, end time, date format, update frequency, text colour and alot of background to choose from, I made a set of my own which are simple red borders...

They are transparent with a slim red border at 100%, 75%, 50% & 25% opacity. Save them in the appropriate folder on your SD card.

I'm still using Pure Calendar Widget, the only feature it really needs is the ability to identify which entries are from which calendar as they are all currently shown in white, different text colour and / or a prefix would make this widget spot-on.
I'd also like to see 2x3 added to the sizes.

App Review: Laik Agenda Widget

I've been looking for a widget that will display my agenda in a nicer way than the built-in calendar widget.
Version 1.1.1 does that well but at a price, it uses up alot of system resources, memory mostly, slowing the whole phone down, as nice as it is and as pretty as it is I can't allow badly written apps to slow my phone down.
I'm keeping an eye on it for future updates that might address this but for now I'm not using Laik Agenda Widget.

(screenshot ripped-off from uk.androlib.com)

App Review: PowerTime Widget

I blogged a while ago about a widget I wanted to have, something that could learn from battery drain and battery level and predict how much time you have left on your battery, sounded like a complicated thing to do, but I found a widget that does exactly that.

PowerTime is that widget, it's a simple 1x1 widget that shows your battery life in % and in Minutes (or seconds when it gets really low). I'm not sure how it figures this out, there is a calibration process where you start with a full battery and run your phone in normal use until below 50% so I guess it's a time / voltage drop thing, but I've noticed that it's smarter than that, pull your phone out of your pocket after little use for a period of time and you'll see the widget tell you that you've got hours left (because it's been in your pocket doing nothing), use it intensely such as GPS or suchlike for a few minutes and you'll see the time remaining change to reflect the time left if you keep-up this level of activity. Pretty smart, I like it alot.

App Review: Weather Widget

Weather Widget by Android Apps, there is a free version, I have the donate version as it allows
skinning of both the clock and the weather icons. I like it due to the information on it, a nice big clock, the date and weather current and forecast (tap it for the next few days forecast) and you can either set it's location or have it check via GPS every x hours. I like it alot.
Though I use it without the clock as even after a few updates the clock is still slowing my phone down, and I can read the time from the top of the screen or the watch on my arm.
A recent update adds an optional additional app for the forecast function, which is visually very cool.

App Review: 3G Watchdog

3G watchdog,
which does a similar job to Netcounter, which I'm no longer using (nothing wrong
with it, I just now prefer 3G Watchdogs way of working). It sits in the
notification bar with a simple Icon and bar which changes form green to amber to
red depending on the data you have pushed through your 3G and EDGE, if you don't
have an unlimited data plan then you need something like this to help avoid
extra fees. The thing I like about this is it's information, you can set your
maximum data allowance, cycle (monthly etc), start date, and it monitors it
warning via an icon if you are using alot, tap the icon and you can find out how
much you have used (in % and MB), and it tells you how much you will have used
by your set date if you continue at the current useage rate, so you can see if
you're overdoing it as you go along. It's also free, I like it, I'm keeping it.

App Review: Bubble

Bubble is a three-plane spirit level, I tried another more complex one which wasn't free but was rubbish, bubble is free, neat, easy to use, easy to calibrate, it's just damn nice for those odd occasions when a spirit level would be needed. As a photographer I do use it occasionally when hanging photos. Looks like the one I saw on an iPhone ad once so probably comes from there. Still using bubble.

App Review: Handcent SMS

HandcentSMS is another sms interface/handler, has that iphone speech-bubbles thing going on but in a more customizable way, it does have settings for read-receipts, I like it alot, recent updates have given options such as background picture (I use the same as on the home-screens f consistency) and customisable profiles for different contacts (ringtones, notification light flash rate and colour, that kind of thing). Still using HandcentSMS

App Review: Chomp SMS

ChompSMS is an sms interface/handler a-la-iphone, I liked the look of it with the whole speech-bubbles thing but I saw no read-receipt settings nor any displayed, and thats a feature I like, also seemed to run slower than the stock sms handler. No longer using chompSMS

App Review: Digital Clock

Digital Clock is a screensaver looking thing that shows the time in a variety of colours with a variety of brightnesses, easily changeable. I tried it as a bedside clock and found it hard to set the brightness to exactly where I wanted it leaving me with either irritatingly bright or too hard to read. nice app but I'm no longer using Digital Clock



Digital Clock Widget is paired with the above clock, but is a desktop widget (tapping it activates the above app), the small widget is 2 squares wide and the large is 4 wide. Displays the time and date on your desktop nice and neat in Black and White. I'd have liked to have seen customizable opacity and colours, as it is it's taking up too much space for little (and ugly) benefit. No longer using Digital Clock Widget.

App Review: BetterCut

Bettercut (there is a free version with less features) I've used this to apply custom icons and text to the icons on the desktop (not widgets, just the icons) so you can use icons from free icon packs for ahome (or others) or save some png's to your sd card and use those. I like making my phone more 'mine', still using bettercut.

App Review: Autolock

AutoLock. The pattern-lock thingy is nice and (implies?) security but it's a pain in the bum if you put your phone down for 10 seconds and then remember you have to do something else, even though I lock the buttons when I put the phone down, AutoLock doesn't engage the pattern lock for another, however long you want, 15 minutes in my case. handy. Still Using Autolock

App Review: Locale

Locale is a great app, I loved it but for one thing, it really chewed up my resources, both the battery (noticibly) and slowed the phone down, the former isn't for long an issue, the latter certainly is, it's a great app which allows you to alter an array of ystem settings based on phone-state and/or location, f example I had it only activating wifi when I was at home and turning off the sound in the evenings and overnight when at home. A great app especially for free but I couldn't stomach the drag. no longer using Locale.

App Review: Twidgit Lite

Twidgit Lite, Is there a better, full non-'lite' version? I don't know, I'll check it out if I find one. twidgit lite sits on the desktop as a widget and shows the last twitter post, tap it and it shows the last few and allows you to post an update. you can set it's update frequency, I set mine to 15 minutes, and it sits there quite happily doing it's thing not noticeable using up your sys resources.
However in an effort so speed-up my phone I stopped using some widgets and switched to a twitter app that doesn't use any resources at all (unless you're actively using it). No longer using twidgit lite.

App Review: NetCounter

NetCounter, one of the first apps I downloaded, on day 1, it records my data use via the network and via wifi (separately) and I've set an additional record my monthly data use from the date of my account with my network with an alarm set at my limit of 1Gb, so it'll let me know, accurately within my account period if I go over my allowance (and thus risk a hefty bill). so far I'm not even close as I download most apps etc when sitting at home and thus via my wifi, but it's nice to have it there in the background, it doesn't reset on a reboot (as some do) and you can add and change the measuring periods as much as you like and it'll always be correct as it's not resetting anything, just reading the data form it's database. for anyone with any limit on their data usage it's very highly recommended. After using it for a couple of months I'm happy that I'm within my data allowance with my usage pattery - No Longer using NetCounter.

App Review: Lock 2.0

Lock 2.0, I loved the idea of this, a nice unlock screen which can have various skins appended to it and I can even make my own, or show the battery level on the unlock screen (as well as on the unlock screen when charging as standard) as a reminder of how much juice is left every time I pick up the phone to use it. a great idea, I bought the donate version, but it turned out it was the app responsible for making my phone a bit sluggish and I actually prefer the (implied?) security of the 9-dot pattern lock. no longer using Lock 2.0

Back In Black

I've liked simple black themes on phones for a while, I made my own themes for my Nokia E51 with CarbideUI before I got my G1, one of the first things I did when I got the G1 was add one of my photos to it....This is one of my photos of model Roswell Ivory (see more of my photography on my website www.MarkVarleyPhoto.co.uk it's my work).

Now I've completed the black look with the help of: BetterCut (for changing icons), Glasklart Icon Pack (most of the icons you see) with the addition of an icon I customised with red trim for Gmail:

And Weather Widget, which uses a flip-clock with a built-in weather display on your main screen
I'm using some custom weather icons which are a mixture of 'Klear' and 'GlossyBlack' (probably breaking several rules by doing so....)
Click on the icon to download the zip file, save it to your sd card and then open it from within the Weather Widget control panel

Another addition to my phone is the Matt anti-glare screen protector, I was using a mirror screen protector and although it was cool it was impossible to use in bright sunlight. I bought an InvisibleShield kit from Zagg but decided to omit the shiny screen protector. After much waiting the Boxwave Cleartouch Anti-Glare arrived (slow shipping form USA), it's a simple single piece screen that fits in seconds (as opposed to minutes for the stick-on Zagg kit), and it works, no greasy fingermarks (I hate that), massively reduced glare (you can still 'see' the reflection of light sources such as the sky when walking around but the phone is definitely usable, as opposed to barely usable without and definitely not usable with the mirror screen protector).

All apps are available in the Android Market, just search for the names as written here.