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!