Archives mensuelles : juin 2009

Trucs & astuces, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Planet, GNU/Linux

Taking Android screenshots from Ubuntu Jaunty

4 commentaires

I’ve just added a detailed guide on how to take Android phone screenshots from Ubuntu Jaunty to the Ubuntu community documentation.

I kept following other guides and blogs without success until I came across this bug report about a missing udev rule for the Android devices. Ew!

I also noticed many guides indicate Eclipse + Android plugins (latest release, manually installed) are needed for this which is not the case! Dalvik Debug Monitor (ddms) works just fine without any other third-party, manually installed apps. This is what it should look like once it « sees » your phone:

ddms

It’s weird that taking screenshots isn’t easier, as this effectively prevents documenting and illustrating many interesting features. I hope the guide makes it easier for anyone to share their findings in using their Android devices. This should also help prepare training or support material, hint, hint 🙂

device

The above screenshot shows missed calls, USB connectivity status, Change Settings shortcut in notifications, TwitDroid pending dents (despite the name, it supports identi.ca which is what I use it for), Wifi connectivity status, Vibration mode, cell phone signal, battery status, alarm enabled and the current time, all in the status bar.

I also have a few widgets on the desktop (if that’s what it’s called…), otherwise I am using the default launcher and configuration.

Unless something specifically involves Ubuntu, I’ll mostly be posting only to Planet Android, which I recently joined. See you there (or here).

 
Ubuntu, GNU/Linux

Hello Planet Android, from Quebec Canada

Hi there, I just recently got an HTC Dream phone and decided to join Planet Android to maximize the fun & sharing.

I am not going to say getting used to have a full computer + phone in my pocket, and on top of it being always connected was easy! But fun, yes. Useful, yes. Time-sink, yes 🙂

My main operating system both at home and at work is Ubuntu, so I’ll be posting about my personal and professional use of Android withing that context. I’ve started with the wiki page on portable Android devices, and I also post to the Android group in Identi.ca.

It’s puzzling that there don’t seem to be geographic-specific community groups for these, specially when you know they are, well, geographically tied to phone providers and GPS-enabled. If anyone in Quebec province (or in Canada, as Rogers provides service across Canada) is reading me, I’d like to hear ideas on where we can set a local resource: Google groups ? AndroidCommunity.com ?

I’ll start with my list of essentials as I am in week 3 of using this little marvel – which isn’t without its quirks. So stay tuned, and looking forward to read other non-developer stuff in Planet Android.

 
Trucs & astuces, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Planet, GNU/Linux

I can haz an Android phone in Canada – and it plays Ogg Vorbis Too

7 commentaires

Last week on June 2nd Rogers Canada launched their Android-powered phones, the HTC Magic and HTC Dream. « The Revolution is here » according to their slogan.

Well, I got my self an HTC Dream, and my very first reaction after turning on the device was:

HOLY **** IT PLAYS OGG VORBIS MUSIC! AND IT LETS ME SET ANY OF THEM OR EVEN MP3s AS RINGTONES WITHOUT FLASHING SOME RUSSIAN FIRMWARE!

I am happy to give my money to Rogers (and Google), as well as give up some of my privacy so this experiment AND implementation can go further than the OpenMoko has. I never imagined I could someday actually file bug reports against the operating system running on my phone! I know how this sounds. And it won’t be my opening statement about it 😉

htcdreamblack-295-365

So I’ve started doing the free software thing and begun cleaning up a few wiki resources as they were all TMobile G1 – centric:

I managed to brick my phone the next day I had it, apparently there is some issue when you let your battery die while using an app that uses the SD card. Rogers answer… wipe all the data on it, reset to factory settings! That’ll teach me, I should have backed-up all before playing with so many third-party apps.

So my next question to Rogers was « How can this device be backed up ? » Uh… Rogers doesn’t know! And of course « We don’t support Linux ». So they dutifully pointed me to HTC customer support who didn’t even know what Linux was (much less Ubuntu). They only knew about Windows HTC Sync (a bit different than full backup). And guess what, they pointed me to the HTC Wiki! Because, « Sir, that’s where third-party support happens » (actual quote).

In case you are wondering why I didn’t ask the community first, well, I work in a support position at Canonical, and I wanted to find out if commercial support for Android was ready for me 🙂 I am not sure if I am mad because this is a major fail (no one knows how to properly backup this Revolutionary device) or happy because I know the community will figure it out before they do. I’ll try to share about that on either Wiki and on the Android group on Identi.ca.

Oh, and don’t miss Cyrket, a public web front-end to the Android Marketplace.