Previewing Android L on Nexus 7 2012 through MultiROM!

Disclaimer: Before you start anything, you must know that I take no liability for anything that would happen to your device as a result of you following this guide and/or any of the instructions from the links that will follow.

The new Android L (5.0) has been recently announced by Google, and if you own a Nexus 7 2012 tablet, than this is your chance to try the newest version of Android on your device. Please note that this is nothing official, it is just an port from the Android L emulator with the proper Android 4.4 binaries included. Therefore, you should expect frequent force closes, poor performance overall and lots of other problems.


Here are the general steps you need to follow:

1) First of all, the tablet must have an unlocked bootloader, with a custom recovery installed on it. This is a great guide that'll help you achieve that: link.

2) Then, you must install MultiROM, it will allow you to boot multiple ROMs on your tablet so that if you feel Android L is too unstable, you can easily boot the other ROM: link.

3) Finally, download the Android L files and gapps, and flash everything in MultiROM by following these instructions: link.


If you see a .zip file named repacked-something (repacked4.zip at the time of writing this article), then it needs to be flashed in MultiROM, unless the last link states otherwise. Do not follow what other websites or articles say (they are not even giving direct links to the original authors, which is unfair), some of them advise to flash repacked4.zip directly through recovery, that will not work and you risk bricking your device that way.

So that was all I had to say. I am currently running Android L myself, it is unexpectedly stable, I've seen relatively few force closes, but performs poor in terms of speed. There is probably barely any acceleration whatsoever (YouTube videos won't start at all). The animations are probably accelerated at less than even 30 frames per second and with more than several programs in the multitasking menu, you are going to see huge performance issues.

For the apps that are not available (Chrome, Facebook etc): go on Google, and search, for example, "Chrome apk". It will give you the apk for that app, which can be easily installed. Yes, it can be altered/have malicious code injected but.. this is the only way you can get these apps.

Good luck!

How to install Frash (Flash) on your Jailbroken iPad (the easy way).

One of the biggest disadvantages of browsing the web via the iPad is its total lack of Flash, which makes it not that web-friendly. Apple claims that Flash sucks, that it uses enormous resources, that it is slow, it drains battery fast and many others. That's why they probably won't ever accept Flash on the iPad.

Actually, Apple is that one which sucks here, because Android shows that Flash can run decently on smartphones. OK, without counting on what's on YouTube, I can tell you that Nexus One is compatible with 99% percent on what's out there (yes, on the internet), and on over 90% of all websites containing Flash content, Nexus One is capable of playing that content smoothly.

Returning to iPad and Flash, there's a way of installing something like a Flash, named Frash, on it. But firstly, you need to know that you must have a jailbroken iPad. And you can jailbreak it only if you're on iOS 3.2.1 or below (sorry if you're on 3.2.2). For the right firmwares, just use http://jailbreakme.com/ (I hope I don't need to tell you that you're doing it on your own responsibility).

Then, after you finished jailbreaking your iPad, you must start Cydia, go to Manage | Sources, and there add http://repo.benm.at . After you've done that, just search for "Frash" on Cydia. Install it, and, bingo, you have....Flash, on your iPad. You just need to type on what's Flash content on websites in order to display it, but, unfortunately, it isn't as compatible as it should be.

I mean, stuff like ads work perfectly, but where we are talking about games or videos, you'll be disappointed. Mainly, they won't work at all. So, even with this trick, iPad's style of browsing is still far away from where's Android's browser.

Nexus One trackball flashing in different colors (Android 2.2, -no root required-).

If you own a Nexus One, you probably know that there is a conflict between Google on one side, and developers and users on the other side. This happens because users and developers want the trackball to flash in different colors, and it is not known why, but Google doesn't want this. 

I don't know if this is a feature brought by the Android 2.2 update, but, without any root, the trackball from the Nexus One can actually flash in different colors. You can have any color you like: Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Cyan, White, Magenta, Purple, and if you now the hex codes of the colors, almost any other color (or a combination between them). I'm not sure, but what I think is that there is only a single LED, capable of flashing in different colors, and not more LEDs, every flashing in its own color. But this doesn't matter.

What's important is that this feature is working well on Android 2.2, FRF91 Build, without root. I'm now asking myself were the hell are the developers, and why they didn't develop yet their applications with this feature. They can make the trackball to flash blue when you receive a reply or a DM on Twitter, and yellow when you get a message on eBuddy, for example. 

Search for "LED Tester" into the Android Market (it's the second result, that one with the blue trackball at its icon). 

if it doesn't work work for you, please leave a comment telling the version of Android, its build, and if your device is rooted or not. 

Android 2.2 is coming in a few weeks.

Android 2.2, also known as Froyo, is coming up in a few weeks for Android fans. What is known is that, if now everybody agrees that it's extremely fast on powerful devices (e.g: Nexus One or Desire), the next version will be much faster. Google developed a new JIT compiler (just-in-time compiler) which accelerates programming languages from 2 to 5 times faster. Yes, you read correctly, Java is going to be accelerated up to 5X.

The new version will have Flash 10.1 support integrated, this means that you don't need anymore to root your phone and get another ROM in order to have Flash, it will be integrated into the OS. Moreover, with this new update, you will be able to transform your phone in a Wi-Fi hotspot. This means that you will be able to share a mobile data connection (from carrier) with another computers/devices, either via Wi-Fi or via USB.

The home screen (launcher) will have near the "menu" button, a phone shortcut (on left) and a internet shortcut (on right), being available in whatever screen you will be. Installation of applications on the SD card is (finally) going to be supported on this new version of Android. You will be able to install as many applications as your SD card can store. An update is coming to Market too, making it able to update all apps with only one tap.

It is know that it will come in a few weeks, and as soon as Google will announce an exact date, I will let you know.

Play Flash video content on your Android device! (including Nexus One, already).

Skyfire is a free complex browser, designed especially for mobile devices. It's clearly the best browser for terminal devices. You're probably asking now what is the connection between flash and this browser. It is capable of displaying webpages on their entire, with all scripts and players (and whatever else) included. And the Android version has just came out today!

I've installed it on my Nexus One, and what I have to tell you is that: in normal browsing, Android's default browser is quite at the same level with this browser, but if you need to play Flash on your phone, Skyfire beats anything. Flash content is not automatically played, as you have to go in menu and select "video". A new window will open, playing the requested video.

The advantage of this is that you don't need a modified rom in order to try playing Flash (I'm not sure if it can be done like this), which is done by rooting your phone, which will void your warranty. But with Skyfire, you can enjoy Flash (and other scripts that Android's browser isn't capable of running), risk-free.

Download it now from http://get.skyfire.com/dl_android.php, or directly on your phone from http://www.skyfire.com/ (if you can't download through Market, where it says "Don't have Android Market on your phone?", select "go here").

Opera 10.50 Alpha for Mac is here.

The Alpha version of Opera 10.50 is available for Mac, and Opera promised that they're working for the Beta version (which is already available for Windows). Their motto for 10.50, "The fastest browser on Earth", seems to be completely real. I've downloaded the Alpha version for my Mac, and it loads any webpage definitely faster than any other browser (Chrome 5.0.322.2, Firefox 3.6 and Safari 4.0.4).

Being a Alpha version, it is nothing special about the large number of bugs present. So, some of the known bugs are here:

• No video support (?! I don't know what is Opera referring at by this)
• Impossible to post on Blogspot (not found, error 404 - this is weird)
• No SilverLight plugins
• No printing of forms and frames
• No Java
• Incorrect window behavior for some pop-ups
• Flash is incorrect displayed (videos are still playing)
• HTML 5 (from YouTube) loads forever (can't be started)

But that's not all. It might have many other (severe) bugs, which even may cause crashes or data loss.Consider using Opera 10.50 Alpha at your own risk.

More details here: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2010/02/11/windows-beta-released-and-more

Download link:

http://www.4shared.com/file/224744894/f322843f/Opera_1050_8249_Intel.html

Transform your iPhone into a flash drive.

Managing files between iPhone and PC/Mac has never been easy, since these tasks need iTunes, which we all know that is not an expert. However, there are available some applications for iPhone that can transform it into a wireless flash drive.

The application I'm going to talk about is named "Discovery". This works only if the computer and the iPhone are connected on the same Wi-Fi. You can download and upload various content between your computer and your iPhone, without need the use of any cable. You can view documents, video, music, pictures and more.

It has a function named "Nearby", which will detect any iPhone that is around and has Discovery service running, allowing you to share files with them. After launch, the application will tell you what address to type into your browser in order to access the iPhone. It's compatible with any OS. And the best part, it's FREE. (commercial version also available, but the only difference is that it removes advertisement)

Search it in App Store: "Discovery".

YouTube turns to HTML 5 (no flash needed anymore).

If you want to view YouTube video content, you don't need anymore Flash Player. And this is because the videos from YouTube can now be played on HTML 5, which runs the h.264 video codec. This plays the content faster and uses less resources, compared to the older way (with Flash). YouTube says that it's just an experiment, and from what I've already seen, the videos are running on the whole black area (which makes, because of the bigger image, its quality lower), and are playing faster than before. And I like the idea.

What do you need : Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed (Download Chrome Frame here). Anything else you need to know is that there is no fullscreen viewer and some videos that have ads can't be currently played using HTML 5.

Join HTML5 Beta from here: http://www.youtube.com/html5

Skyfire. The best browser for Windows Mobile.

I ever wanted to have the ability to run different content/scripts on my Windows Mobile based HP iPAQ 111 PDA, including Flash Player. For YouTube I got a little program, but there are many other good sites for music/videos that are using Adobe's Flash Player. But I never got Flash working natively on any browser for Windows Mobile. As Internet Explorer can't display almost anything as it should, I tried browsing the internet with Opera, but due to reduced RAM memory of the PDA (64 MB), it remained frequently without memory and crashed. And there was still no Flash Player...


But recently, I discovered SkyFire. It has, so far, any scripts that I needed. My blogs are both displayed perfectly, and so any other site. Flash Player works without any problems, on all the sites I navigated through until now. If you are viewing a page exactly like in a computer/laptop browser, it's quality will be reduced in order to keep the device running fine. While zooming in, page quality will increase, because the power needed to display the page decreases as the area that needs to be displayed is getting smaller. The only problem I found is that the browser hits for desktop version on pages, and if you try to view a mobile version of a site it will generally turn you to its desktop version.


So, if you're satisfied with Opera, you'll love SkyFire. Available for download from the official site here (Symbian version also available): http://get.skyfire.com/