Upgrade your HTC Magic to Android 2.3 Gingerbread

I love my HTC Magic (myTouch 3G in the US). Even though it is a model that was released more than 2 years ago and practically today costs nothing (assuming you can find it in order to buy it), I still love it. Ok, it might not have an Nvidia Tegra in, or 8 megapixel camera plus a front one, or an AMOLED WVGA screen but none the less is a very capable phone that has proved to be an excellent familiar. And lets face it. Spending 500 euros per year for a new model of your favorite smartphone family is plain stupid. Of course 2 years in the smartphone industry is a really long time. When HTC Magic came out more than two years ago it was running Android 1.5. Today the latest incarnation of our favorite mobile OS is 2.3 which is light years ahead of 1.5. Unfortunately HTC and the operators have stopped supporting the phone for many versions now(I am assuming to force us to buy newer models). Only a handfull remain that still provide updates, but for the vast majority of Magic users there has been no official update since 1.6 which was a long, long time ago. Of course many users rooted their phone and upgraded it with custom firmware provided buy the ever excellent community but for more than a year now we are stuck with 2.1.

Finally a stable 2.3 firmware was released by the guys in xda-developers forums. I upgraded last night and I can testify that is working great. Everything works and it is significantly faster than my previous ROM Smoki X2. Do not get me wrong, I was happy with Smoki but it is stuck in 2.1 and it is a bit slow. Being intentionally slow though meant that Magic needed a charge every 4-5 days which was amazing. In addition smoki version included the HTC Sense. Thus if HTC Sense is very important to you do not upgrade to this version since it is the stock Google interface(which I like by the way).

Before upgrading you need to have a rooted phone. If you haven't it will not be possible to upgrade. How to root your phone is beyond the scope of this guide. For rooting you phone search specific instructions on the xda forums. Also make sure you have the 32a and NOT the 32b version of the phone. If you have the 32b version and you try to upgrade you might brick your device.

Assuming you have backed up your data and you have connected it to your computer with a USB cable:

• Shutdown phone
• From you computer: download the new firmware and the Google apps bundle
• From you phone: hold down Home button and press power momentarily.
• Menu:Partition SD card
• go back
• Menu: Select wipe
• Wipe/Factory Setting
• Go back
• Menu:Toggle USB
• Copy the two zip file to your sd card
• Flash the firmware first
• Flash the google apps bundle second
• Reboot your phone(it might take 5 minutes for first boot)
• Enjoy Android 2.3.4

If you brick/damage your phone following the guide above you are the only one responsible so please do not send me your lawyer/boss/mom/girlfriend/boyfriend to scare me.

Enjoy your 'brand new' HTC Magic!!

NOKIA and Microsoft announce partnership for smartphones

NOKIA is one of the mobile phone giants that for the past ten-fifteen years dominated the industry with devices for all ranges. During the past two years, though, something was going really wrong for them as they had a really hard time catching up in the smart phone range with the likes of iPhone and Android devices. Earlier this week NOKIA's CEO, Stephen Elop, admitted in an internal memo that they are sitting in a "burning platform". Today they announced their partnership with Microsoft to fully incorporate Windows Mobile with their hardware.

I am not sure how this played out. It is sudden and happend a few days after the memo was leaked. Does this have anything to do with it? Or maybe the memo was leaked to pave the way for the announcement. Either way I am sure that NOKIA's CEO being an ex-Microsoft executive played a role.

Even though I am an Android user and respect what iPhone has brought to the industry, this is very interesting stuff. Micrososft was struggling for years to get decent Windows phones in the market and utilise(or capitalize on, if you prefer) their existing services. Crappy software and bad implementations was dooming the windows phones to annoying unusable gadgets. This is different though. NOKIA knows how to produce good hardware but they lack the services and the cutting edge software. Developers were limited on both sides since Windows did not have the install base to interest them and NOKIA did not have decent software to produce a wide range of apps like we see on iPhone or Android devices. Bringing them together creates a mobile phone ecosystem that can rival the other two big players in the market, namely, Apple and Google.

In the following video you can watch NOKIA's CEO and Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer , announcing the alliance. It is an interesting watch.

Livin' la Mobile Vida Loca (...or how a smartphone replaced my computer)

I am back! After months, I finally finished my tour of duty! I finally came back to normal life to rejoin my geek comrades who did a fantastic job on keeping allround geek live and kicking. Kudos EraserheadX and Ebenet! Army life was hard on my geek habits especially at first during the bootcamp. The last 6 months, or so, though, I got myself an android phone (HTC Magic) and things were not as bad. I still had very limited access to computers and a proper internet connection but Magic made my life much easier.

HTC Magic is a first generation android phone but has all the goodies on and is a very powerfull device. It features a 320x480 display, GPS, WiFi and 3G connectivity and a 528Mhz processor, but most importantly the android OS that offers all kinds of software packages for day to day activities.

Normally, most people, do all their digital activities using a computer. Many have a smartphone but they are not forced to using only their phone. They will do some browsing on the go, play a casual game while they wait for the train and that's about it. They leave everything else for when they get home or at work. I was like that. I always had a smartphone (I was a big fun of the SonyEricsson P series with UIQ interface) but I have to admit that I was not using more than 20-30% of its capabilities. As any geek out there, though, I loved having such a fantastic gadget. But when I was stripped of the ability to use a proper computer all my digital life's burden fell on the poor Magic.

Obviously, just because I did not have a computer available, it did not mean that I would stop communicating and reading the news. Fortunately for me, android phones sport a webkit based browser that does an admirable job. I had no trouble viewing most websites. Of course the occasional flash heavy site was a bit slow on the rendering but I blame the limited processing power of Magic. Modern android based phones(such as Nexus One or the HTC Desire) wont have any problem. But why am I complaining...iPhone users are not even able to view any sort of flash based graphics. The build-in android browser has tab functionality so I could load multiple pages and navigate through them with ease. Surfing on 3G though is a bit expensive but I got a nice data plan with 10 euros for 300MB per month, which is not bad at all. 300MB were more than enough for serious surfing everyday. Downloading stuff was out of the question though and when I had to download something (such as new application from android market) I had to limit my surfing, or did I? As most people I usually read specific websites, blogs and online newspapers. That is were Google Reader came to play. By adding all these websites on the reader I was able to save a significant amount of data since the reader only loaded the articles themselves and not all the other data and graphics on the websites. In addition, it is very convenient to go through a list of news instead of navigating from site to site and news article to news article. I strongly suggest using the Google Reader on any device or computer really, as it is very convenient to have everything in one place. I alost tried using the Opera Mobile browser that significantly saves data usage (up to 80%-90%) but I did not really like it. I found it more difficult to use and it just did not cut it for me.

Having only a smartphone meant that all my communication needs would have to be sorted using the device. That means emailing, instant messaging, social networking and of course
calls and sms as well. Magic being an android phone is able to organise all your contacts as google contacts. I sorted all my contacts with all their information (name, phone number, email address etc) and then synchronized with my google account. I am never going to loose my contacts ever again! Android offers a very convenient gmail application so receiving and sending emails was a breeze. It is a standalone application that synchronizes with the gmail account so I did not have to use that somewhat inconvenient mobile gmail website and using the application was significantly faster than any website through a browser would be. In addition a standalone gtalk client meant that I could chat to all my google contacts in real time as I would do through the gmail website. Even though I am not a big fun of MSN, I have many contacts there, so, I installed a free msn client (MSN Droid) that did an admirable job and was very easy to use. For my twitting needs the official twitter android application sufficed but I preferred the HTC one. Unfortunately, after twitter changed its login protocol a couple months back, the HTC application broke.

Digital life does not only mean communication and information. It also means entertainment. Not having my playstation console, my music collection, my computer games and my bookshelves what could I do? HTC Magic to the rescue! I can honestly say that this small device managed to keep me entertained and then some! Magic having a microSD is able to load all sorts of media and of course loads of music. The music application on the Magic may not be as good as iTunes on iPhone and iPods, but it performs well and is easy to use. For video I used the yxPlayer with mixed results.

What about games though? The android market is full of small gems to keep you entertained for hours. Of course, it is full of your usual fart apps as well, but finding the good games is not difficult thanks to the rating feature. Being an RPG fun myself I spend many hours playing a fantastic action-RPG named Zenonia. I strongly recommend it for anyone. The game is out for android phones as well a iPhone, PSP and Windows Mobile as well. Honorary mention goes to android chess, Abduction, Robo Defence and Speedx 3D since they are some games I thoroughly enjoyed. The most fun I had with the device though was with snesoid, a Super Nintendo emulator, that offered me countless hours of fun playing this classic console's gems such as Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger.

Donkey Kong Country on a mobile phone. Who would believe it?

One of the most important roles of Magic in my army life was its role as an ebook reader. At first I was thinking that it would not be comfortable reading books from the small screen but, boy was I wrong. I finished many a books with ease without getting tired from the screen's size. I tried a selection of ebook reader applications but I settled for amazon's kindle application. It was very easy to use. I liked the configuration options for brightness, font size and its bookmarking options. Most importantly though I liked its great selection of books and the fact that I could synchronize everything with any device. That means that I can access the same books ,with all my bookmarks still there, from my macbook or any other current or future supported device. Everything is stored on my amazon account waiting to be synchronized.

A few years back all this would not have been possible with a single device and it definitely would not have been cheap. The mobile devices are getting seriously powerful. Most importantly though, the mobile software platforms are getting friendlier and are supported by the developers and, thus, can offer us the tools to cover all our digital needs. I can't wait to see what's in store for the future mobile devices. Thank you HTC Magic, you have been a fantastic familiar. Oh...and it's great to be back!

Geeking out low tech style...

Hello, hello!! It's been a long time since my last post in allroundgeek(the rest of the team is alive and kicking though) and, as eraserheadx explained in a previous post, I am doing my obligatory 9-month service in the Greek army. I am serving as, I cannot tell you what, stationed at, I cannot tell you where. HeHe, I always wanted to say that. Bottom line though is that the army life has certain restrictions and its nature does not endorse, encourage, or help, the use of my geek gear (which got looted the minute I left home, by admission of the guilty parts). I still wanted to communicate with the rest of the world, I still wanted to listen to music and still wanted to be entertained not having a PC available or a super, does it all, mobile phone.

Solving this is not as easy as it sounds. Some one might say, ok just get a phone an mp3 player and a DS....or an iphone for that matter. The question is: ok, which phone and which mp3 player? I first have to explain something; camera phones are not allowed in the army camps for obvious reasons. This restriction tends to fade away after the bootcamp but in bootcamp there is a very strict policy regarding that. Most of the phones today are camera phones. Most phones without cameras are some really shitty ones with no extras (like a browser). In addition a very important matter is talk-time. In bootcamp with shitloads of other people and very little time of your own, charging your phone is never easy (having to fight for a powersocket). Also on my previous phone I had many contacts and I really was not in the mood to enter them one by one. I badly needed some sort of mobile browser so I could tweet my news to friends and relatives in a bulk way. Believe me, it was not easy, but i found a phone that does all that and does not have a camera! Samsung E1130B. No camera, 10 hours of talk time(which essentialy meant I charged it once a week tops), bluetooth to transfer contacts and a small functional browser that I use to tweet and read news. Plus it is water and sand resistant! All that for 50 euros. After the army it will be my main camping phone!

Getting an mp3 player was easier than getting a phone but it had its difficulties as well. The problems arose from the nature of army life again. I needed an mp3 player that does not need some specialized software to be installed to get song as a personal computer was not available in bootcamp(and in other people's computers or netcafes I have no admin rights). Internal batteries are out of the question since it would prove as problematic as charging the phone. USB charging is out of the question again since in bootcamp I had no easy access to a computer. That leaves us with needing an mp3 player that uses normal batteries and when connected to a computer works like a usb stick with no extra software. Well...I found just that...Crypto Colorline 003. For just 20 euros(4GB storage) it is an excellent product for its purpose. Again, this will be my main camping music player for much of the same reasons with the samsung phone.

No. Unfortunately this is not part of army entertainment

As far as being entertained though things were not easy. In order to play games I resort to netcafes (that is when I manage to get out). It is not half bad though, as I have great time going there with my platoon mates and kick each others asses in CoD4:Modern warfare. For more immediate in-camp entertainment I prefer sci-fi books as they help getting your mind off things.

All this though, are about to change!!!! I just got my first Android phone: HTC Magic !!! It kicks serious ass even though it is a year old model. I got it in a very good deal switching between gsm carriers. It will be my main communication/entertainment device here and I am sure it will do a very good job. More on that in a future post.