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You are likely here because you are growing impatient for a slow, unpredictable OTA update to your phone. Or, even more likely based on this post’s tags, you are already unlocked and rooted, possibly running CyanogenMod and want to experiment with Froyo.
Nandroid Backup before doing anything.
Update: After rolling back to Cyan 5.0.7.1 from Froyo 2.2 I encountered issues with video playback and downloading from the market. Froyo uses radio 4.06 which breaks video playback (I assume some changes for streaming video) and for some reason the market was sensitive to having been accessed using Froyo. At the bottom of the post I explain how to roll back to your nandroid image without these issues if/when you want to.
Before I describe just how easy it is to get to Froyo on your rooted Rogers/AT&T Nexus One, it is important to know that FRF50 is an upgrade to both EPE54B (Radio configuration for AT&T,Rogers,etc.) and ERE27 (Radio configuration for T-Mobile,etc.). Knowing that you could brick the Nexus One by using the wrong radio configuration delayed my migration to FRF50 as there was a fair bit of mis-information out there to begin with. It is good to know that bricking based on radio firmware is probably a thing of the past for the Nexus One now that there is a single build for all carriers. Also, moving back from 2.2 to earlier releases, even via nandroid, will break video playback and the market temporarily, so if you need to keep your Cyan Apps2SD partition skip to end to see what issues may arise.
If you have not unlocked and rooted your device; start there perhaps with Amon’s process. It is simple, unlocks great capability and may not void your Hardware Warranty according to some posts I have read. If you are not rooted, then just hang on for the OTA update.
Once you are rooted, simply install ClockworkMod ROM Manager. It is awesome, and makes moving between various system and recovery ROMs trivial. I paid for the premium ROM manager last month which adds some extra ROMs and features; I am not sure what the limitations are on the free version these days.
A Froyo stock image (unrooted 2.2) became an option on the ROM Manager last week, but I didn’t notice it. If you do find a ROM that you like that isn’t on their menu (Cyan, AmonRA and others are all there) then you can just download it, and let ClockworkMod manage the install. This is what I did to install a Froyo 2.2 pre-rooted ROM with radio from Modaco forum I found on the Internet without wiping any data.
Here is how I upgraded my N1 running Cyanogen 5.0.7.1.
- Click here to download the ROM
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Open the ROM Manager app on the N1
- Choose Install ROM from SD Card from the options
- Select the downloaded ROM on the N1 filesystem
- Optionally choose to Backup and/or Wipe the Device (I didn’t)
I have included a series of screenshots below. The first three show the process I executed last week to upgrade to 5.0.7.1 from 5.0.6 installed the old way, and the last three screenshots show the process described above in this post to install the rooted 2.2 Froyo ROM from my sdcard after it was downloaded through the browser. As you can see, it is soo easy and much safer with the ROM Manager.
ClockworkMod manages the entire process using its own Recovery ROM (which it flashes onto your device when you first install or use it to manage ROMs). If you like to do things yourself via the Recovery, you can boot into Recovery, execute Nandroid Backups and load ROMS directly from an update.zip placed on your SD card in a very similar manner to other Recovery ROMS (which Clockwork can flash for you too).
My direct upgrade to a root’d stock 2.2 from 5.0.7.1 appeared to work just fine, except I did not have access to my sd-ext installed applications. It turns out the Cyan Apps2SD method is not supported. So if you use sd-ext, there will be an issue accessing your installed applications, at least for now, as I am not interested in wiping my phone. I will wait for CM6 based on Froyo and for now have reverted to my nandroid backup of Cyan 5.0.7.1. The process was actually non-trivial, requiring a few extra steps I did not expect, listed below, which can be read about here.
- Restore your Nandroid Backup from Pre-2.2
- Use ClockworkMod option Install ROM from SD Card to install the the 4.04 radio downloaded from here
- Use ClockworkMod option Download ROM to re-install 5.0.7.1 with the Google Apps selected and also Wipe Data and Cache selected (Your photos and sdcard data are safe)
- On reboot to the wiped device, re-login to the Android Market. Downloads will be working again (this fixes the market)
- Using Clockwork Recovery Image (power on with volume-down, select recovery, then nandroid) restore your nandroid backup
After this process, you are right back where you started.
More information is in the links below about some of these roll back issues, and Froyo tips.
Froyo Radio update breaks video playback
Issues with the market downloads
Setting Froyo to force apps to install to SD, like in Cyan but not to ext4.
Bernie’s Froyo Workaround Links and Info
There is a growing compendium of Nexus One knowledge out there, to the point where it was a bit confusing as to which instructions were the latest and greatest when it comes to upgrading the Nexus One phone. I call this an upgrade, although not one supported directly by Google, but obviously fully supported by the community. During my upgrade process I made some draft notes; This post represents finally cleaning them up for public consumption.
Doing anything here will void your warranty, and will prevent OTA (Over-The-Air) upgrade directly from Google to Android version 2.2. This upgrade is a significant modification.
In addition to giving you a bunch of new and pre-2.2 features, the upgrade process provides root access which is required to properly backup your phones applications and data. Without root access you so not retain some aspects of the system configuration and data, as well as “Market Links”. This last point, Market Links, describes your phone’s ability to determine if an application has an update in the market. Restoring applications backed-up on a non-rooted device will have no ability to self-update until they are manually downloaded from the Android Market.
I will re-iterate… root your phone before you go installing applications. If you don’t, restoring them onto your upgraded phone sucks, as noted above. aTrackDog solves some of this problem.. but most people will prefer to just “do it right”.
Locked Bootloader, Locked Phone and Locked SIM
When we talk about unlocking the Nexus One, we mean unlocking the bootloader. This is just like a “BIOS Setting” that allows you to load and boot other images onto your Nexus One. It is a fully supported capability of the phone, not some hack or magic set of unpublished keystrokes.
SIM-Locked means something different that does not apply to the Nexus One. This is when your phone is locked, via the SIM card and device settings, to a specific carrier. Phones that are SIM locked generally require a separate process that “unlocks” them from a carrier after which they can operate with “unlocked” SIM cards. Notably to use an HSPDA modem like the Rogers Rocket Stick you need an unlocked SIM card. I have always used Rogers and never had a SIM-locked phone, or a locked SIM card.. so I am no expert in this area. The bottom line here is that none of this applies to the Nexus One, which is shipped unlocked from a carrier perspective.
Nexus One Upgrade Primer
This was my first Android phone, so I had *NO* idea how the device was laid out internally. A little blurb that summed it all up seemed hard to find.. but I was able to string together the pieces after some time on the net. Understanding the basic device landscape was all I needed to have confidence in my upgrade process. I recommend reading this article.
The Nexus One comes shipped with two images (system and recovery) loaded into partitions on the onboard flash, and a bootloader (separate boot partition) that can boot up either of these images. The bootloader is like the BIOS in a computer and allows you to control some features, and optionally enable a manual selection of which image to load (system or recovery).
The system image is the one that boots by default when you power up your phone normally, and the basic google applications (messaging, browser, contacts, home page launcher, maps, mail client, gallery, etc.) are loaded into partitions alongside the system image in the onboard flash. More on this here.
The recovery image can be accessed by manually telling the bootloader to load it, and basically allows you to do some system tasks, such as execute a complete backup (aka Nandroid Backup), or wipe the device, in addition to a number of other advanced things.
ADB (Android Developer Bridge) and Fastboot are two tools that let you do things to your phone. Fastboot is used for moving images (system and recovery) to/from the phone as well as some basic configuration setting (unlocking the bootloader). ADB allows for more advanced commands and phone interaction with the development SDK.
Fastboot is enabled from the bootloader, and ADB is enabled in the phones settings. Both these tools/commands/modes have client software that runs on a computer connected by USB cable. You can launch an “adb shell” from most third party recovery ROMS.
Fastboot is used to *unlock* the bootloader as show below. ADB can be used to remove stock Google applications; I have used it remove my stock Navigation application so that the BRUT Navigation is default for voice commands. As of this writing, the BRUT mod is the only way I know of to get working navigation in Canada.
The Bootloader/Fastboot and Bootloader/Recovery modes are two alternate ways to start your phone, and can be accessed using the following buttons from a powered-off state:
- Fastboot: Hold down the trackball while pressing the power button.
- Recovery: Hold the volume-down button while pressing the power button.
In each case the volume buttons navigate the menus, and the power button acts as the selection key.
The Steps in the Upgrade Process (You will VOID your WARRANTY)
- Unlock the Bootloader
- Root the phone
- Upgrade the Recovery Image
- Perform a Nandroid Backup of the Stock System
- Backup apps in userspace that you want to keep after the upgrade (MyBackup)
- Wipe the phone using the Recovery Image
- Upgrade the System Image
- Repartition the Flash Card for Apps2SD (Optionally move data to a Class 6 chip)
- Tweak settings, enjoy the extra RAM, USB tethering, improved performance
- Install applications to your heart is content
My advice, if this is your first Android phone, is to wake up Saturday morning with a free 4-8 hours. it only takes an hour or so to *upgrade* .. but you will spend the rest of the day playing. A the end of this article I also give you a list of applications to experiment with.. YMMV.
The Actual Process
1. Unlock the Bootloader
I learned what I know for this step following instructions here.
- Download and extract the fastboot tool. As far as I know this has never changed versions. It is a very basic tool and there are windows, linux and mac versions in the .zip file.
- Jump into fastboot mode using the procedure described above (power on holding the trackball down)
- Execute the command ‘fastboot-windows oem unlock’ or ‘./fastboot-mac oem unlock’ or ‘./fastboot-linux oem unlock’. As root user (need USB superuser) on my Ubuntu system I executed the linux version: #./fastboot-linux oem unlock
2. Root the Device
This method for root access is called “Superboot” because it requires no modification to the running applications and configuration. You can actually safely enable the “himem” version of this modification which is a major improvement as noted in my last post. I learned this process reading this post. Get the radio version/build right, or you may end up bricking your phone.
- Download the Superboot zip file above and extract to a directory. Make sure you have the correct one that matches your shipped image. Go to “Settings->About Phone” and scroll down to the “Build Number” to figure out what version you have. I downloaded and installed the EPE54B version with himem for my phone.
- Put your device in bootloader mode - Turn off the phone then press and hold the trackball to enter the bootloader
- Open a terminal window to the directory containing the files, and type ‘chmod +x install-superboot-linux.sh’ followed by ‘./install-superboot-linux.sh’
As an aside, here is some info on the different radio builds.
3. Upgrade the Recovery Image
Originally I used fastboot to load my first recovery image. This is simply because I did not know about the Clockwork ROM Manager tool. Now I use that to load images.. its stupid-simple and impossible to mess up, so I will describe this process here.
- Download the Clockwork ROM Manager tool from the Android Market
- Install the Clockwork or RA Recovery Image
The original process I followed is here. Its just a few more steps with the same end goal in mind.
4. Perform a Nandroid Backup of the Stock System
- Boot into recovery: Power-on holding the volume-down button.
- Select Recovery from the menu. (Volume moves the highlighted item, and power button selects).
- Select Nandroid to make a copy of your phone and all images and data on your SD card
5. Backup apps in userspace that you want to keep after the system firmware upgrade
- Download MyBackup from the Market
- Execute a backup of applications you want to keep. No harm in doing them all as you can selectively restore any of them and/or their data
6. Wipe the phone and Upgrade the System Image
Originally I used the RA recovery image to wipe my phone, and loaded the new system image via fastboot off of the SD card. Clockwork ROM Manager does this all for you now.. pay a few bucks to these guys and you are off to the races.
- Install the Cyanogen 5.0.6 of newer via the ClockWork app
The original process I followed is here and used a Recovery Image installed from here.
The official Cyanogen Nexus upgrade docs are here.
Here is the cyanogen mod wiki.
7. Repartition the Flash Card for Apps2SD
I actually copied my SDcard image to a larger new 8GB class 6 chip at this step.. you can skip these optional steps. There is no loss of data if the process executes without error.
If you don’t need to upgrade your flash, you can do this now through the upgraded system tools provided by Cyanogen.
- Pop your flash card into your laptop
- Boot up a GParted live CD
- (Optionally) Copy your FAT32 SD partition to empty space on another disk
- (Optionally) Copy your FAT32 SD partition back onto a nice new Class 6 chip
- Resize your partitions, creating a 1GB ext4 primary partition at the end of the disk. I noted there are always a few empty megs before the FAT32 partition on all chips I have seen, and I always leave these intact
- Pop your flash back in the phone and reboot
Reboot your phone and enjoy. Tweak settings, enjoy the extra RAM, USB tethering, improved performance… Nothing else out there compares to Nexus-One + Cyanogen.. TODAY.
8. Install Applications until your heart is Content
- Brut Navigation
- Advanced Task Killer
- Live Scores
- OpenVPN Settings
- OI File Manager
- Scan2PDF
- SetCPU
- CamCard
- Barcode Scanner
- ConnectBot
- Locale + Plugins
- Fring
- K-9 Mail
- Google Sky Map
- miTorTV
- Transdriod
- SpeedTest
- Shazam
- PicSay
- Remote RDP and VNC
- Klaxon
- Astrid
- dPod
- Astro
- Documents To Go
- QuickOffice
- AndroRadio
- Soo many more…
The Nexus One, today, is without a doubt one of the best smartphones on the market. Out-of-the-box it is just cool… however to really set it apart from the other smartphones today, you have to move upstream from the Google-distributed firmware. In a nutshell, here are the big ticket items you get by moving ahead of the stock Android 2.1 .. at least until Android 2.2 is available OTA in the next few weeks.
- Access to 100M+ of free RAM - YMMV, but I instantly had on average 155MB free RAM up from approximately 35MB with all my running applications. This is probably the top reason to move upstream, and is one of two things that unlocks the multi-tasking capabilities of the phone. If you run out of RAM quickly, you are much more likely to get a “Force Close”.
- Using Flash for Apps - The Apps2SD feature allows you to automatically or manually store applications on your Flash chip rather than the limited built-in flash. Using my 8GB class 6 chip which cost a mere $15, I can now install an unlimited number of applications with no degradation in performance. Prior to this, I instantly hit low SD space after about 80 applications were installed 2 days into having my phone. The other killer downside is that without prior warning text messages are dropped because they require the same limited free space on the built-in flash. This is the second feature that is key to unlocking improved performance and multitasking. If you run out of disk quickly, your are much more likely to get a “Force Close”.
- Worldwide Turn-by-Turn Navigation - This one is a modification to the core Google apps, not the underlying kernel, but still an upstream version of the shipped software. If you are in Canada, like myself, watching the Navigation load, seeing it work in the background, and then tell you that it doesn’t understand the destination is a bit disappointing. This app update solves this little problem, and also adds some enhancements like storing the tile cache on the SD card.
- USB Tethering - Just what it means. Plug in your USB cable and check a box. Unlimited high speed Internet for your laptop anywhere.
- Colour Trackball Notifications - This one must have been easy, but I really love the non-intrusive colourful notifications..purple for email, green for SMS, blue, white.. etc.
This list goes on and on. The key point here is that most of these features are available in Android 2.2 which is coming out soon and should be on Android phones like the Nexus One by the end of the month. The corollary point is that people using Carrier-specific versions of Android are likely to see the same 3-6 month delay in new features that have plagued the Droid and all non-Google Android variants.
To make this problem worse, Sprint has announced plans that charge for USB tethering on the new HTC EVO 4G.. at $30 per month. Since they customize Android to allow for this pay-for-a-hardware-feature strategy, they can’t possibly move to vanilla Android 2.2 right away. This is the reason that non-Google phones will always be behind in Android releases and features. Ask yourself; Who would want the “eventually more capable” EVO today with its dual-camera over the Nexus One, if it is absolutely inferior in terms of capabilities until Q3 2010. I bet it will be six months before EVO has these types of features (if ever for free).. so go ahead and compare the hardware.. what’s the point if you can’t use it as an everyday consumer.
The Obvious Conclusion: Everyday consumers using the Nexus One will see the market-differentiating Android benefits I see and have today in June. Every other type of Android phone (Incredible, EVO, etc.) will lag to Q3 on stock firmware, if they ever ship these features for free. So if you are not a technical wizard waiting to hack your phone.. Nexus One is the obvious choice for business and personal use.
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As an interesting aside; At Rogers you can buy an iPhone and a contract for a 6GB/$30 per month data plan..Toss the iPhone, or maybe give it to a partner or relative as a gift. Then buy a Nexus One (unsubsidised @ $600 after shipping and taxes) and watch it pay for itself just by having all the productivity, features and 6GB/month data for $30 with Rogers.
I tether on customer sites ALL THE TIME. Native OpenVPN to the office, home, etc.
I consistently download the BOL podcasts … awesome stuff with Molly Wood, at 700-800KB/second every day on my way home for work. And yes, the BOL podcast from yesterday is the inspiration for what I have written here. Rogers HSPDA has to be one of the best networks to have one of these phones on. I really don’t care if I am on Wifi or not.. often the limited upstream on Wifi isn’t worth the slightly higher download speeds.
I have one. I am excited. It is powerful. I want to use it all the time. I am happy to have waited. Surprisingly I do not miss my Blackberry keyboard. The powerful apps, personalization and connectivity make it feel soo much like a micro laptop that I have lost my appetite somewhat for a UMTS netbook too.
I believe Android has the potential to beat out BlackberryOS and AppleOS. For the technically inclined I expect this to happen in the next year or so and for the pure business and entertainment users it could take three years for the interface to mature and differentiating software features to find their way into the stable base platform that companies can fully support within their IT policies. This is supported by Gartner who have their own predictions as well as describing the current market share.
With some 80 apps dowloaded in the first few days, my phone has already seen some new quirks and bugs intermittently that come with all the new functionality I have turned on and off again in some cases. You can make your phone perform poorly with just one bad application. I have un-installed about 20 applications while making comparisons between various VNC, SSH, SCP, RDP, RemoteTorrent, GoogleReader, VPN, FileManager and Application Management clients of the free variety. I am doing MUCH more with my Nexus One than I ever envisioned. It is dreamy for a technology geek like myself. As far as I can tell, the 10K-strong applications Market is delivering way more productivity and functionality to me than I seem to be able to pull down with the 120K-strong applications iTunes Store. My conclusion is the Apple Store is full of games.
In the wake of the iPad, the Nexus One has really not gotten much publicity since the release of its new version March 16th, 2010. This new version allows the Nexus One to operate on the large Canadian carriers (Rogers, Bell, etc.) and AT&T in the US. It would appear that there are now 11 combinations of frequencies used for 3G, and this latest Nexus One is about the best combination you can have in a phone for worldwide compatibility, especially if you live in Canada.
What is with this NEW Nexus One?
When I first started my research on what device would replace my aged Blackberry OS, I found a number of iPhone and Nexus One comparisons. As someone that has promoted the iPhone (my wife loves hers, and I recently migrated my mother to the iPhone) I was surprised at some missing details or seemingly Apple_biased online comparisons. Given there are millions of iPhone users out there, you have to assume there are a few people who want to justify their investment. I am not one of those, and I will state for the record that the Nexus One…:
My hardware differentiators
For me, it boils down to the following
- High resolution 480×800 OLED screen: The screen delivers tremendous colour contrast, and I suspect the increased resolution is where the impressive typing accuracy (compared to using my wife’s iPhone) comes from. I can not believe how great it has been since I figured I would really miss my Blackberry. Needless to say it is much better than the iPhone thanks to double the horizontal resolution. The predictive text also lets you type faster.. keys are instant, and dynamic one touch words appear quickly with the 1Ghz processor. None of which can be delivered this fast on any other phone I have seen. I am soo happy about this.
Hint: The screen is still by far the big power suck on this device. Android OS’s handy tool that tells you what hardware/software is chewing your battery puts my screen in the high seventies when I am actively using it like a computer for hours on end. In the first few days, I was able to kill the battery each day after about 4 hours non-stop of pushing data, installing applications, streaming media, etc. Even though it has the largest battery, and boasts the longest talk time of all the other phones, you begin to realise that the super high resolution screen is power hungry and that moving from 1-minute to 10-minute timeouts on the display can have a significant impact on battery life if you like it on full brightness all the time. (5/9/2010 - Ahead of next post: After burn in, I now get 1.5 days of heavy use .. I still have to charge every day; If I miss a charge, I have to back off to phone-only if I expect to make it through the day.)
- Amazing Voice Recognition: Until I used this phone I did not appreciate voice recognition. It works because of a special voice processor. I just talk anywhere I can use a keyboard, and it throws words down with amazing accuracy. When searching the web casually, this is a great feature, and I am sure once I realize I can always use it with reasonable accuracy, I will start to more. It is a major leap ahead of RIM’s “Call Bob Smith”. It also has some interesting intelligence around swearing.
Hint: I suspect selecting the right language (Queen’s English instead of the US_default for myself) and the correct playback accent (US instead of British_default_for_Queen’s_English for myself) help indicate to the phone what type of use I am, because it works amazing well. When I first chose British english, the phone chose a British speaking voice, which I was able to override to a US sounding one (which is more Canadian believe it or not). I suspect this default mismatch may lead other Canadians to have less than perfect voice settings. A selection by region might better serve the phone when selecting defaults.
- Processing Horsepower: The phone is so processing capable, that you often do not realize that you have loaded 15-30 applications. This requires some new user *mangement* techniques, as generally the first thing I check when I see a wee delay somewhere is the task list _ usually to find 15 or so apps that I have left running in the background. I have learned several tricks through various applications that quickly allow me to one-touch to a *clean* state, but it is very easy to let things stay running which can lead to battery consumption and UI delays as application load begins to challenge the CPU. I believe multiple running apps appear to have hooks and/or delay touching some of the four hardware buttons below the screen, as seen in this CNET comparison. Keeping this multitasking environment from overloading itself is one of the Nexus One user challenges. I just like to note that it has a 1Ghz CPU with 512MB RAM to the iPhone 3GS 600Mhz with 256MB and more than double the desktop real estate (display resolution). A neat hardware comparison chart is here.
Hint: I have found this tool Advanced Task Killer (ATK)
to be invaluable in managing running apps. Unfortunately killing apps without some expertise can have unexpected results, and it is non-trivial to figure out what killing applications can do. I have noticed from time to time my SD mount point is unavailable to other apps, etc. after killing certain applications. Getting command line access will help me better understand these types of things.
My software differentiators
These all seem to follow an “input intelligence” theme, which might be expected.
- Google Goggles: Only for android, this tool does for pictures what Shazaam did for audio. Snap my Heineken beer, and voila I am at http://www.heineken.com/. Just like what those Google guy’s promised.
- Locale:
Apparently this app has some history. This application is what delivers personalization to the Nexus One. Here is what it does for me:
- Prevents my phone from locking when I am at home (when it detects my home Wifi network)
- Sends a Wake-On-Lan (WOL) to my office computer when I pull into the parking lot (when it detects my office Wifi network)
- Sends an SMS to my wife when my phone battery is getting really low (detects my low battery power)
- Turns my flashing trackball and audible notifications off for some services (email) at night ONLY when I am at home
- The list goes on and on, but you can detect any *situation* and launch apps, execute actions and change settings. It can track the hours you are *AT* the office in log through timer apps that use Locale data. You can launch apps when you are in_dock, turn on GPS when you leave your home, etc.
From here, its just pure application power, something the iPhone has too, but it would seem that Nexus One benefits from being Andriod/Linux-based in that some pretty common tools and libraries related to networking and documents/media show up and you know they are just mobile versions of things you might find on an Ubuntu desktop. If you compare the distribution-based package repositories for Debian or Ubuntu to the Apple package repositories for OSX you might begin to understand where Andriod Application Market is headed with less requirement for third party development (Adobe, MS, etc) and more benefits from the existing open source software community. I am really curious to go under the hood and see if there is a package management system akin to dpkg/apt supporting the Market.
A highlight worth mentioning (that may not be unique to the Andriod) is Cam Card. It could be the 5MP camera again, but this thing works *amazingly* .. finds and separates title and departments, converts extensions into proper dialing syntax and gets the name and address information right. The first card I scanned was perfect; no changes; all phone numbers and fields populated. I just picked the category and contact database.
Accessories … Now that I know?
One of the obvious accessories for me is the Car Dock. In addition to the fact that this is now required by law in Ontario to use the navigation features, there is an instant ease of use benefit provided by the fact that the phone can charge and has awareness of its presence in the car dock.
The general awareness the phone has to its current situation, enabled in part by the software Locale, makes accessories much more appealing. The fact that I can have navigation pop-up, change the input and output device parameters, or have the phone automatically enable gps apps and/or operate as a speakerphone while in my car charging is pretty awesome. The same things apply with the dock which can be plugged into the home stereo. Plug it in, and automatically launch your media player of choice.
The obvious and not-so-great
After years of generic white or black earbuds that do not let you identify R vs L in the dark, the Andriod put a textured Andriod on the right ear. Thank-you. Apple pay close attention.
The things that bothered me were:
Although the battery life in terms of talk-time is stated to be the best, the reality is that I find I get only one day of regular Android use out of each charge. There is just soo much you can do on this thing, that the screen is sort of always on. Using locale to turn of GPS and periodically clean up running apps when at home and office, and scaling down CPU when the screen is off all help, but I am tempted to buy an higher capacity aftermarket battery 1600mAh or 3200mAh(larger form factor) from Seidio. We will see if I can optimize this power use some more in the coming weeks.
I read an interesting article in The Economist that describes the relationship between sleep and retaining information and new memories. It basically adds new momentum to believers of the power-snooze, something I practice on busy weekends.
The research was presented in this article from the Feb 25th edition.
The basic premise is that putting things into permanent memory requires a series of steps. These steps are performed during different phases of the first 90 to 100 minutes of stage 2 non-rem sleep. Normally this happens once a day when we sleep, however a Siesta enables an early execution of the process dramatically improving memory performance each day.
The memory management process for the human brain described in the article can be summarized as follows:
- Store the memory in temporary storage (This is the act of actually experiencing what it is we are going to remember)
- Move the memory into long term storage, creating space for new temporary memories
- Associate the memory with other memories in long term storage, improving our ability to reflect back on the memory and associate it with other memories
The last two steps occur in the first 90 minutes when we sleep. The interesting observation or conclusion is that sleep actually does two important things.
- Allows you to remember new factual things by clearing up temporary memory stroage space
- Allows you to use your new memories more effectively by linking them in with other memories
By sleeping mid-day we actually create more room for new memories in the afternoon and establish permanent context for those memories captured during the morning.
If this is all true as suggested by the study, then it would seem pretty silly not to try to sleep after an important learning session, and possibly during breaks between research and writing any sort of document that is going to build upon your established knowledge and experience.
Immediately I think back to the number of times that lack of sleep (often due to celebration and “unloading”) has immediately followed a key learning (exams, sports championships, project go-lives, weddings, conferences, presentations) and the impact this may have had on my retention of experiences to date. There would seem to be a lifestyle correlation between this study, and one that I recently read suggesting that our ability to learn and retain information (outside of language related things) improves mid-life.
A second observation I made is that the behaviour is not unlike certain aspects of computer operating system memory management which has the concept of short term storage (RAM) and long term storage (Disk), and a process that manages availability of short term storage by writing out to long term storage during idle cycles to prevent the risk of data loss or poor performance from running out of short term memory.
The bottom line is that this is just one more reason to get more sleep. Perhaps if you have a snooze immediately following reading this article, you will actually remember why sleep is soo important. (Why they do not suggest this in the The Economist, I am not sure).
A smart professor might actually find a way to insert a siesta in between an important lecture and a following related lab session to ensure maximum benefit from this study.
Recently I received a forward citing a recent “John Hopkins update” on cancer. It turns out it is a Hoax (per the link below), in that it supposedly comes from Johns Hopkins, a well respected US health institution and it also contains non-factual statements mixed with some facts.
I encourage reading the hoax and the response which debunks the non-factual statements. If you have only time for one, stick to the facts in the response. There is lots of good information on cancer and links to related information. Links are at the bottom of the post.
Below are the two interesting things I learned about cancer after reading the Johns Hopkins response,
On Testing and Diagnosis
Diaz and other Kimmel Cancer Center researchers are working on new tests that detect abnormal DNA shed by cancer cells into blood and body fluids and have the ability to find cancers before they cause any symptoms.
Approaches like this could lead to a broad-based screening test for cancer.
Tests like these also are being used to detect cancer recurrences and malignant cells left behind following surgery, and can find cancers that are not detectable under the microscope or in x-rays.
Other researchers are studying cancer stem cells. They are stealth cells that make up just a tiny fraction of a tumor. While small in number, investigators believe they may be the cells that drive certain cancers and lead to cancer recurrence. Therapies that target these cells are now being tested in clinical trials.
A team of our breast cancer researchers has developed a method that could make it possible to detect breast cancer from the DNA contained in a single drop of blood.
On Immune Response
The immune system simply does not recognize cancer. In its complexity, the cancer cell has learned to disguise itself to the immune system as a normal cell. By deciphering the methods cancer cells use to make them invisible to the immune system, Elizabeth Jaffee and team have developed cancer vaccines that have successfully triggered immune reactions against prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and multiple myeloma.
Cancer Hoax Email
Johns Hopkins Response to Cancer Hoax Email
I had checked out the version of Novell’s moonlight linked through Microsoft from CTV’s site, in order to try to get some Olympic coverage on my PC. I obviously did not look hard enough. I stumbled upon the pre-release version just in time for the Super Sunday gold medal rematch series!
http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/prerelease.aspx
Grab it from the link above.. I launched it using instructions from here.
I am using the Karmic 9.10 Firefox 3.6 (You can see my APT sources selected in the post on 64bit Flash just prior to this post). It should work fine on 3.5 (per other posts) but did not on 3.7alpha if you are there. I had some trouble on an Intel i915 adapter, but it worked fine with fglrx on my ATI HD 3400 adapter.
Good to know Karmic users have something working out of the box using this Firefox moonlight add-on.
Enjoy the Olympics.. CTV just moved up in my personal ratings, though I hope they move to something Flash based, or more widely supported using stable platforms.
Other links:
There is now a Ubuntu packaged 64bit version of Flash. This is something that any user running Ubuntu Linux on current hardware (P4/Athlon64 or newer) should be pleased to hear (just skip on over this post if you are running a 32bit OS on your 64bit hardware).
For quite some time there have been manual ways to go about installing cutting edge 64bit flash on Linux Desktop systems. Personally, rather than pollute my system with non-packaged cruft, I prefer to rely entirely on packaged goods when it comes to my applications. Knowing that a packaged version of 64bit Flash has been sitting in Debian Squeeze repos since 2007, and seen a lot of *exercise*, is in support of the stability now present in the 64bit version.
The process is easy if you have Ubuntu Tweak (I strongly recommend this for managing your PPAs and other external APT sources).
1. Select the 64bit Flash Plugin APT Source (this adds it to your /etc/apt/sources.list) and inserts the apt gpg key into your key store.
2. Select the 64bit Flash Plugin Application (this executes an apt-get install flashplugin64-installer) and inserts the apt gpg key into your key store.
Personally, I have experienced the need to *reload* pages with flash for quite some time and become used to the process. Any regular 64bit linux user running the 32bit plugin should be familiar with these issues. It is most annoying when showing my 21 month-old son clips of animals and trucks and such on You Tube, as he does not have the patience for the npviewer.bin crash that results in *waiting* and *re-loading* various YouTube pages. Now with the 64bit version, we can go right from garbage trucks to giraffes without any fear of a big delay.
As a side note, if you are running on an older Pentium 4 you may need to employ a workaround due to a missing LAHF instruction in your hardware. (I have a 2.9Mhz P4 with this issue) You will experience a crash on every flash page, and if you launch firefox from a terminal window the output will state: illegal instruction. If this applies to you, read this post to verify, and follow the instructions there.
Nearly a week into the Olympics, CTV unveiled their Olympic widget. The widget is put together by ClearSpring and can be embedded just about anywhere easily, including any Wordpress-based blog.
Check out the left pane of http://www.theupsons.net for a peek at what the finished product looks like.
The process is automated if you have a Wordpress.com site by navigating the widget self-help wizard. For those using Wordpress on their own domain on a non-Wordpress server, this process breaks down when it presents a form for input of a wordpress.com username and account. Fear not, the process for any wordpress site, wordpress.com or otherwise homegrown is right here.
- At the bottome right of the widget, click the “Grab It!” link on the widget
- At the bottom right of the widget window that pops up, click “Copy Code”
- In the Wordpress administrative panel navigate to Appearance and then to Widgets
- Create a new Text widget by dragging it into your site layout and paste the CTV/ClearSpring widget code copied in step 2 into the text box for this new Wordpress text widget
- Adjust the height and width parameters in the code to suit your placement if required
Great work by ClearSpring. The delay in CTV’s unveiling of the widget could be aligned with some *new* resources managing the web presence at CTV, otherwise I would have expected this long before now. Likely these new thinkers are getting a lot of praise and are clearly a side step from some of the less successful technology choices for the CTV site.
Specifically, it is refreshing to see some best practices in play after a bit of disappointment in CTV’s online implementation of streaming Olympic content (based on the SilverLight platform) which unfortunately meant no coverage for us here at the house and any of my peers and engineering team at the office (who also use an Ubuntu OS desktop platform and who probably share the same frustration that the engineers at that other media company that backed Avatar have with their streaming content from CTV).
It is worth noting that CBC streaming video works just fine, everywhere. If only they had negotiated some ability to rebroadcast online for CTV; If so they would have benefited from being the only provider for a growing subset of the Canadian online viewing market, Ubuntu OS users.
To CTV’s credit, the coverage and availability of content is great; It is just unfortunate that being on the Internet in Canada is not the only prerequisite. If Novell’s moonlight version gets a little bit better (Currently results in Unhandled Exception: System.ExecutionEngineException: SIGILL) then there may be hope.. but probably not in time for the Olympics.
Looks like embedding 3GP video from the Wordpress Blackberry application (or any other source) is fairly trivial once you have completed a few configuration steps. One option is to modify the supported MIME types right in the code. Rather than change code I prefer to stay within the boundaries of the administration panels to ensure the the system can ever-green with package and plugin updates. For myself, running multi-site and supporting a few other users unofficially, this is especially important _ I do not want to spend time upgrading/migrating/configuring if I don’t have to. I have learned this from my experiences easily supporting Debian-based infrastructure through upgrades for decades now.
I found these instructions useful after a bit of googling; Since I didn’t hit the information I wanted on my first or second search, I thought it best to post my learnings.
1) Download the MIME type configuration plugin
2) Add a mime type for 3GP, or any other files that you want to upload that current result in the message “File type does not meet security guidelines.”
Below is a screenshot from the PJW mime configuration plug-in I used to add .3GP.
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