We want Indian premium brands.

So,

We Indians cannot make or generate any premium brand? If at all we do can we continue to keep it premium? Come on, what is a premium brand? It is to take a very simple ingredient and add premium to it so that a "common" person does not have or not allowed to have access to it. A leather hand bag is a "hand bag" at its roots. A Macbook Air is a laptop at its roots.

Should we wait for starbucks to tell us what or how a premium coffee should be made?
Should we, Since how long do we know about coffee and tea?
Do we need KFC to come and show us how a chicken is to be sold or made a premium product?

Just look at the variety we have in our presentation of chicken. Just imagine travelling the length and breadth of India and see how differently chicken is prepared at every village. Just imagine.

Cant we have Burgers made of idlis. Cant we find out that secret ingredient which will make idlis remain fluffy and still allow them to be packaged as "take aways"?. Cant we make dosas premium by adding gold dust...(Oh, I just got a little carried away, sorry). But cant we? Why is the entrepreneural spirit existing only in the IT sector. For how many years shall we ape the other biggies? For how many years will we be able to sell chicken currys to the British?

So, you are gonna ask why cant you do it yourself, dude? Exactly. This is exactly the same question all the billion people ask to each other and will continue to do so. Come on guys, Entrepreneurs need ideas, ideas can come from kids/elders alike. I have seen people laugh at my hobbies but I have slogged on with mine. Turn your hobbies into something big. I want to see more premium brands from India. Not the likes of coffee day, which my son doesnt talk or know about. I want it to be like Mc Donalds, KFC, starbucks. There should be an awe and then to continue that, there should be an element of surprise everytime. This element is what keeps the brand going on.

When customers buy the service/product the feel should be that We have consumed something premium. We have consumed something healthy. We have consumed something which was worth every penny. The customer should not think even once before chalking out the required money.

Can we make it happen, or will we have starbucks making us drink coffe and Mc donalds ask us to have breakfast and ofcourse have lunch and dinner at a KFC/pizza hut.

I, for one, would like to have a premium idli/dosa/roti. Can I.

Generics and Specifics

            There are various classifications of the "working" class. When I say working class, I meant everybody. Everbody? Yes. Everybody. Everybody works for "something" It is very difficult to tell the "something" of everybody. The Marxist theory considered only one part of the people who were doing physical work.

           Physical work is the result, byproduct or a requirement for the mental processing. By processing I meant everything from an empty gaze to finding the answers about "everything" and "nothing". Work aganin should not be restricted to what people do for money or to extend their existence. Even shifting a position should be taken as work. In fact if we broaden the scope, anything which changes the entropy of the world is work.

         But according to me all living beings have to do some sort of "work". Let us limit ourselves to Homo sapiens. My classification would be

1. Generics
2. Specifics

1. Generics:  Majority of the worlds population would come into this population. So what do generics do? They do routing jobs which is similar throught their existence on the planet. The job/work the generics do are the result of work done by the specifics. The source of all the generic work can be traced back to the work done by the specifics. Dont ask any examples here. Now, why is the majority of the population doing generic work? Is it that the major work available is generic? Is it because the majority is born that way? Is it because they are brought up in that way? Is it because we are supposed to be like this? Is it because the job/work available in plenty is generic? Is it all of the aforesaid and many other reasons which you may come up? Whatever be the answer, the fact is that majority of the jobs are generic in nature.

              How would you label a job generic? A generic job is easy to pickup, Maybe we already have that capability, You can be trained into it, You observe and pickup, In summation they require a minimum of mental effort and more of physical efforts. But we cannot tell all jobs requiring physical effort are generic in nature. But all physical jobs are to be made generic for optimization. Can the world do without generics? No. Just look around, look inside. There are generic jobs to done throught the life of everybody. Specifics also carry out a lot of generics like eating/sleeping/walking, albeit a little lesser. If we talk about industries generics have one more advantage. Generics are like pluggable modules. We can repair a minor flaw and plug it in once again. The same job can be carried out by another man effortlessly by observation, little training or by using the common sense gained over the years. Scientific management gurus and the japanese took the generics to a whole new level, by optimizing. Generic jobs are normally carrried out in mechanical frame of mind.

2. Specifics:  This is a very small majority of the population. But, they are the reason for all the generic jobs in the world. They normally carry out a very small portion of generics, only for survival. Specifics break new avenues or take the existing generics and take it to a whole new level. They are not pluggable/replacable that very easily. Negligible portion of specifics are born that way. They normally reach the specific mental level by starting from a generic background. They get paid heavily, But that doesnt mean that they yearn for that. They are more bothered about the environment. Some do want to make a "name". Some others would do it for pure fun. They can make the world a better place and at the same time improve on a negative aspect also. Capable specifics can be doing generic jobs owing to other reasons like ease of the job, no load on the brain or they just dont care.

Why dont "all" generics try to achieve that "specific" state of mind?

My answer would be that "They just dont want to do so"

It is my personal appeal to all the generics(including me) to strive towards the specific frame and make the world a better place and in turn motivate other generics to do so.

Freedom and Macbook air(AKA, "opposites attract")

I would loathe the Macbook pros and see that they were whitey, clumsy, heavy and awkward looking compared to the other notebooks in the industry. Of all the notebooks I liked the HP TX1301au for three reasons

1. It had an AMD Turion x2 processor( A processor developed with notebooks in mind )
2. It had a touch screen
3. It could be converted into what is called a "tablet" today by folding the display over the keyboard.

I saw this lappy being used by many users. HP had a very good concept but did not follow up on this( Just exactly what happened to one of the first professional looking GNU/Linux based touch phone, the motoming or a1200. It was a beautiful phone with a flavor of linux called the montavista linux, It was my first smartphone ). But I was happy with my lappy since It played good with GNU/Linux. Debian GNU/Linux ran on this beauty flawlessly. It was light compared to other laptops. It was smaller at 12" compared to other laptops. I went on and succesfully booted Debian GNU/HURD also on this lappy, but after the initial boot screen It was difficult. In summary, my lappy was free of all propreitory software, except for the nvidia driver(I know, I know, RMS is angry)

 It was the "apple" of my eye until Apple released their Macbook air. OMG what piece of hardware. I was drooling all over it. That was the best piece of notebook hardware I had set my eyes on. It was "gorgeous", "drop dead", "Awesome"........ All of a sudden "Light", "Small" and "Air" had a new meaning for me. I just compared the weight of my lappy with the air, it was shocking. I compared the looks, It was like comparing it with Mona lisa and the cave paintings. Evolution took a long time, as we all agree. But the "Air" was a "Revolution". A revolution which all others are trying to digest and cope up. I have still to see notebooks come anywhere near to the air(There have been a few and as Linus torvalds put it, others will catch up. But they will "catch up")

If we observe the Macbook air from its first iteration, nothing much has changed. The basic chasis is still the same. Changes occur when there are competitors and are forcing you to a corner. As of now the air leads the lot and others are catching up.

1. Yes, I know, RAM is soldered ---no upgrade
2. Backpanel is locked by propreitory shaped screws  --not to be opened by ordinary users.
3. No DVD drive --watching movies, opening presentations/documents at office on cd/dvd not possible(I dont know how many still do....).
4. Only two usb ports --Nowadays, I dont know what is the right number of USB ports required.
5. Runs on proprietory software  --A simple bios upgrade can disturb any custom OS on the device.
6. Hard drive capacity limited  --Though on a mid 2011 macbook air, we can still change the hard drives capacity, since it is not soldered.
7. Battery -- can be changed but at an apple store.

Oh, so many negatives. Let us get to the positives.

1. Incredibly thin/light/compact/portable
2. Unibody aluminium chasis  --No creaking
3. Awesome multi-touch touchpad(A very large one)(Clickpad, to be more precise) --The feeling of crossover between a tablet and a notebook with an additional "click" action throught the touchpad
4. Full sized keyboard --Completely relaxed position of the hands while typing, not to be disturbed by the touchpad. The touchpad can be made to respond to only the physical "click", that is, pressing the touchpad down(like clicking a mouse)
5. Lid opened with one hand only --The hinge tightness is just right to open with one hand and perfect enought to hold the display upright.
6. Keyboard backlight -- Intensity of the keyboard light can be changed via shortcut keys on the keyboard. Makes using it in dark environments a breeze(something from the smarphones, especially my sony ericsson mini pro). It is the right place to give sony, credit for the chiclet keyboard.
7. Magsafe charger --I liked the design of the charger, where it gets pulled(magnetic) to its charging point as it is brought near to the charging port(A deft touch, that).
8. Display --The 13.3" screen is just right at 1440 X 900 resolution. It is not the best out there, but ample enough.
9. Except the fan, No moving parts --It is "silent" most of the time. I noticed the fan rev up when flash enabled sites are visited. And the exhaust of the fan is let out at the hinge(I loved this piece of engineering). So your lap is kept as cool as possible.
10. The icing on the cake is an i7 processor clocking at 1.8Ghz with ondie graphics core and 4GB DDR3 RAM.

As a whole, I am just awed by the device hardware. All this comes to a standstill when you will see that it runs Mac osX, which is as propreitory an OS can get over a community developed code. It does make me happy(My happiness is nothing compared to that of the Freebsd community which prides itself whenever its code is being used for propreitory or "freedom" purposes) that it is using contributions from the free software community by using freebsd code and the mach kernel code for the core OS and using other nifty tools like the webkit code from the KDE project. At the same time, the user is completely locked by the propreitory layer of UI and graphics libraries. It is difficult to imagine that the worlds most profit making company is making profits by leveraging community code and returning near to nothing to the source.

So, how do we "Free" this awesome hardware from the clutches of propreitory software?

Run windows on it, ha? Installing windows on a macbook air is a breeze. The drivers are available from apple. Install the OS and install all the drivers. Thats it. Windows runs beautifuly on this device. Hey, wait, now we have locked both the windows and dooors. The ultimate lockin.

No, we are not even considering it. What are the options we are left with? GNU/Linux, GNU/BSD, GNU/MINIX, ANDROID..... I chose GNU/Linux for the obvious.

1. It runs beautifully well on x86 hardware.
2. It is my favorite OS for the past 11 years.
3. I know my way around.
4. Awesome community.
5. Thriving developer base.
6. Strong Ethics
7. Ever increasing user base.

Now, GNU/Linux comes in many flavors. My favorite flavor has been Debian GNU/Linux, the universal operating system. In its goal of becoming a universal operating system Debian cannot cater in particular to a very small group of elite users having the capability of buying mac hardware(I do not mean that they wouldnt do it, But it would not be worth, taking the entire world into consideration). I tried the latest testing build and failed terribly. But, do not go by my experience. There are people who have succesfully installed Debian GNU/Linux on a macbook air. Just search them on the public network.

Come on, then, Let us "free" up this awesome piece of hardware...........................................

Ubuntu GNU/Linux claims to have bettered the UI experience.

So, Shuttleworth has done it again. He once stated that the ubuntu GNU/Linux server market is better than that of Red hat GNU/Linux. Now, recently it got bolder, He stated that the his unity engine betters the quartz UI and engine of the Mac os X. I dont know why somebody should ape a UI. People are already bored of all the present UI's. That is visible by the fact that apple put in features from ios to osX, as much as possible. Why was that done? It was done so as to keep the interest of the apple fans in their desktop version also. But apple should be lauded for keeping the two products seperate as they are "seperate".

I would like to re-iterate that GNU/Linux users cannot be bought just by apeing osX. The GNU/Linux desktop thrives on innovation. You want a claer desktop, why dont you start with awesome. Awesome depends on the user to configure things. Incorporate excellent desktop effects. But the basic phiosophy of a tiling display manager should be kept intact. In this way you can have an existing user base and convice them to shift. Make configuring things easy and you have a winner on your hands. The desktop should be unique easy to scale up and "fun" to use. Mr. Mac shuttleworth you are spending money in the wrong direction. Ubuntu GNU/Linux will sell without unity also, Try it and you will know it is true. People dont buy Ubuntu, people buy Ubuntu GNU/Linux because your PR is succesful in putting out the information that "installing" and "configuring" their GNU/Linux box is easy with this "distro". I request you to use this PR strategy and design a desktop which is like no other. Then you can have UR stamp on it and call it Ubuntu OS(only for new users and who dont want to know what is under the hood. As those new users get industrious, they will definitely land up with Arch GNU/Linux or Debian GNU/Linux. But until then u have won).

If you have won the normal users, the war is half won considering the enterprise market(Here I am basing my assumption on the success of Redhat model). The desktop should be seen with awe. Seeing jus 2 minutes of video on youtube should make users to try it immediately. And stop comparing GNU/Linux UI's with existing propreitory OS. GNU/Linux is unique and it will stay that way. So Mac shuttleworth, "INNOVATE". Dont catch up.

Custom Recovery and Custom roms on Dell streak 5

I nor any devs whose works we are using are responsible for any sort of damage to your phone. It is all your responsibilty!!!!!!!!!

Ok, You have a streak running Froyo(from the dell official channel). The android implementation is buggy. Lets go ahead and install the hardwork of the devs at XDA and spice up our streak.

Prerequisites

1. streak mod recovery from here  http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840326
2. amss.mbn and dsp1.mbn from here (It is better to try the latest version i.e., 407)
3. Basebands with numbers starting with 4 are for Gingerbread roms(android 2.3). Be careful not to use base bands from Froyo roms(Though people liked the last of the Froyo rom i.e., 366 and are using them in GB roms)
4. fast boot and adb tools from here http://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/Tools/Fastboot+ADB.zip Don't install anything. If you followed the previous post every driver required is already there. Just extract it and place all the contents in a folder.
5. copy the recovery.img from step 1 and put it into fastboot+adb/.…../win32/
6. put the amss.mbn and dsp1.mbn also to fastboot+adb/.../win32/
7. Download your favourite custom rom. My favourite rom for streak 5 is by tenontex, here.
Why, because it is easy to install and is based on CM 7.2(Android 2.3.7)

His post lists out all the devs who have sweated in keeping the streak alive. Thanx to all of their endeavours. The procedure for flashing the rom is very straight forward. Once we are finished with flashing recovery, you can follow the procedure in his OP to install the ROM.

8. copy the rom longhorn2.7.zip to the root of the SD card of your device.

Power on the streak while holding the camera button simultaneously. Device will enter into fast boot mode. Now connect it to the computer. Fire up the terminal,  change directory to fastboot+adb/.../win32/ .

fastboot.exe -i 0x413c flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot.exe -i 0x413c flash dsp1 dsp1.mbn
fastboot.exe -i 0x413c flash amss amss.mbn
fastboot.exe -i 0x413c reboot

Once you run the last command, keep your fingers near the volume up and down button. Once the streak reboots and reaches the dell streak logo, press both the volume buttons simultaneously. This will take you to recovery mode. Here you ail have a black and white screen(This is the recovery of stock rom) with options namely,

1. Factory reset
2. Install update.zip ……..
3. ……

Use the volume keys to navigate up and down, Use the camera key to select. Select the second option the screen will turn to black background with blue menus. Now we are in streak mod recovery. Use volume keys to navigate and select advanced and then select nandroid and then select full backup. It will take a long time so, be patient.

Use the back key to go back to the original black and blue recovery screen. Here select update from update.zip and select "zip from sd card". Browse to the longhorn2.7.zip. choose yes in the next option. Wait the rom will get installed. From here please follow the steps mentioned in the tenontex post. Please strictly adhere to the steps mentioned there. It is "important".

Thats it. Its been a long journey, but worth it.

Unbricking a Dell streak 5

In nor any devs whose works we are using are responsible for any damage to you phone. You are on your own!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You have a bricked Dell streak 5.

It happened because of the following reasons
1. buggy android implementation by dell
2. You did something wrong during rooting or flashing custom roms
3. The battery cover is loose and streak rebooted in the middle of an activity which results in corrupted internal partitions(which happened in the case with me)

Now "we" got to unbrick the streak 5 over selves as the model is discontinued since mid 2011.

Let us start......

1. Dell streak is getting stuck at the logo(Fine, better condition, since we can enter into fast boot mode and recovery mode)
2. Dell streak is completely dumb. That is pressing the power button does nothing. That is the real end of the tunnel(or, is it?)

1.  The post which made me write this.
2.  The adb driver.

pre-requisites

1. Press the volume up button and keep holding it after five seconds(approx) connect the USB cable(The other end should always be connected to the computer) while holding the volume up button until you hear a ding sound from your windows pc. Now open device manager and check for driver listing in the "Unknown" section named "Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM". This is required for connecting the dell streak in diagnostic mode which in turn is used by the qdl tool. If not search for the driver and install it as you would install a regular windows driver. That is, right click on "Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM"" in the device manager and click upgrade driver. Browse for the folder you downloaded and the drivers will get installed. The "Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM"" will move from unknown to somewhere up in the device manager tree.

2. Download the driver from the second post and install it. This is the adb driver. This will be used by the qdl tool in the second stage. To check whether the driver has installed properly. power on the dell streak holding the camera button simultaneously. streak will give a white screen with fastboot on the right most corner. touch that area and streak will enter fast boot mode and the screen will tell that it is waiting for usb connection. Now connect the streak to the pc. You should hear a ding and the device manager should show "Android 1.0".

Now we have the pre-requisites for the diagnostic mode and fast boot mode.

Download the two zips from here
1. http://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/Tools/streakflash.zip
2. http://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/Tools/repairtool.zip

Extract the streak flash and run the qdl.exe from here. Now press and hold the volume button while connecting the computer. If the qualcomm drivers were correctly installed you will see that name(qualcomm …) in the port setion. Now click run. Wait patiently. Once all the logs become green close the tool. Unplug the streak and reboot the computer.

Now extract repair tool. Again hold the vol up button while connecting the streak to the computer. Run the qdl.exe from this folder. Again you should see "qualcomm….." in the port section. Click Run. This tool is going to take a lot of time. Here we are carrying out diagnostics and also install Froyo with BB 306. Once all the logs are green and the tool is finished it may take more than 5 minutes. Be patient.

It will reboot several times since it has to enter fast boot mode to install recovery and flash the rom. If at the end, all the logs turn out green, Congrats, you have unblocked your device. Thank google for making and keeping android open and RMS for being adamant on his "free as in freedom" philosophy AND all the awesome devs and users at XDA. Exit the tool, unplug the device and reboot.

The first boot may take a little longer. If you boot your device successfully then you can go ahead and install custom roms which have been made with CM 7.2 as base(i.e., Android 2.3.7). Thank the devs at XDA for keeping the streak live and kicking. Streak 5 looks and performs beautifully on 2.3.7 cm 7.2 based roms.

Update 13/07/2013

Here is a link from the XDA forums related to QDL

custom roms on xperia mini pro with unlocked bootloader

Let me start by stating, once again, I nor any devs whose contribution we will be using are responsible for any damage to your phone. Proceed at your own risk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alrighty then. You have unlocked the bootloader of your favorite phone. With this you have unlocked the full capacity of your device. No need to bother losing CWM after every install of any custom rom. Developing for unlocked bootloaders appears to be easy, since majority of the rom devs initial release will be for unlocked ones. With unlocked bootloaders we will be installing CWM into a seperate partition which will not be touched during custom rom installation. So whatever happens with your rom installation the CWM is still there. Anything wrong with the current installation of the custom rom, you wipe it and install a new one OR restore a previously working, backed up rom.

Now we know the advantage of unlocking the bootloader w.r.t installing custom roms. For disadvantages please refer the previous post. Let us start with the fact that whatever roms were dicsussed in the locked bootloader post are available in the unlocked ones also. Since the rom development for our favorite phone is happening at a rapid pace owing to newer developers taking up the mantle to serve us with their hot-baked versions of custom roms the roms mentioned in the previous post is very minimal. It is recommended to visit this post, to see the recent roms and the pace of development activity on this phone.

It would be apt to talk of few roms which impressed me with their unique abilities. This is a very subjective selection. I live it to you to find the rom which suits your taste. The serial number is also the roms "I" rank in order of my preference

1. When we talk about custom roms we cannot leave out the unlocked bootloader specialist cyanogenmod 10. This is v10 of the cyanogenmod project based on Jellybean 4.1.1. Since it is a very recent project there is a long list of "not working". A working/not working list is maintained by M66B.
I loved this rom for it smoothness(result of project butter) and wifi connects almost immediately. Remember that installing cyanogenmod requires install of their own kernel. They dont play well with other custom kernels. In fact M66B compiles the cm10 kernel with additional drivers. It is a good choice to install his kernel. He releases his kernel in parallel with the cm 10 kernel. If you want a basic jellybean system look no further. And the project releases updates regularly.

2. If ICS is what you want to eat, then the first preference would be cyanogenmod 9 Lot of work has gone into this rom and very much usable. The advantage is it is a basic implementation of ICS.

3. If Ginger bread is your preference then look no further than this. This is developed by shprakash and sandy( I believe they are from bangalore ) called HaSa Rom. Remember this is based on sony's rom with additional tweaks and modifications. For this you can use any of the kernels mentioned in the previous post( choose the GB ones. There will be two versions of the kernels. one for GB and one for ICS.

4. Sandy and shprakash have an ICS offering also it is Xperia icecream pureness. This is again based on sony's official ICS rom with tweaks and modifications.

5. When it comes to UI customization and eye candy nothing can beat the MIUI project, but it comes at a cost of higher utilization of ram and rom space. If eyecandy is what you want then you can choose between
a. Hasa miui ICS. This, as the name suggests is developed by the duo sandy and shprakash. The rom is a very good implementation of miui on a sony base.
b. JB exmiui. This rom is a combo of MIUI JB version and cm 10. It will have the same working/not working as of cm10. But mark my words, It is beautiful.

Some other roms impressed you, Tell me.

Thanx to all the devs, testers and fellow users, sony for allowing to unlock the bootloader, AOSP project and the Linux kernel project.

Rooting and installing CWM on xperia mini pro Unlocked boot loader

Unlocking the bootloader on xperia phones voids your warranty claims. All the DRM keys go out. They cannot be returned back(or, I dont know any method to bring back the DRM keys). I nor any devs are responsible for any damage your phone may suffer because of any implementations of the discussions below.

Here we go. We are now bored with all the hassles required to install custom roms on xperia mini pro with a locked boot loader or your xperia mini pro is now out of the warranty period. Installing custom roms on a locked boot loader is a pain in the neck for the rom users and also for the devs. For a locked boot loader, the CWM is installed in a portion of the rom memory which get over-written during the installation of the custom rom. So, How do we think that our CWM is safe during the custom rom installation? We cant. Only if the devs have a version of CWM in the custom rom zip properly configured and zipped, your options of losing CWM are iminent. For an easy method of getting back the CWM on locked bootloaders please refer my previos post.

Now, we go to the next logical step. Unlocking the bootloader(You are warned again, Your warranty will be void. There have been cases wherein, sony has refused to repair phones with unlocked bootloader. So continue at your own risk). Unlocking the boot loader on xperia phones is a straight forward process and sony should be thanked for making it very simple. Fire up ur favorite search engine and search for "xperia unlocking boot loader". You will get guides and the sony developer site is very user friendly.

See to it that your phone is recognized by sony pc companion. That just shows that all the necessary drivers are in place.

Basically the steps are

1. GO to the sony developer site and click on unlock boot loader
2. Keep the IMEI number of your ready (Dial *#06# on your phone dial pad)
3. Follow the steps on the sony developer site.
4. Note down the unique code given out and then,

follow the procedure given here

After this, installing CWM is a piece of cake. Go to point number 11.
Here ignore everything from point 4.
Download flashtool.
Install it
Run it
Shut down the phone
Now connect the USB cable first to ur laptop and then press and hold the volume up key while connecting the USB cable to phone. The phone LED turns blue and you get info on the flashtool application that the phone is now connected in the fastboot mode. Click on the 'lightening" icon and select fastboot. Here select "flash kernel" and browse the "boot.img" of your favorite kernel. Thats it. disconnect the phone and reboot.

After this step, You get a custom kernel pre rooted and CWM. The kernels available for xperia mini pro(ICS) and known to work with majority of the custom roms and also stock(pre-rooted  plus  CWM)
1. Rage(All drivers within the kernel)
2. Mesa(All drivers within the kernel)
3. kamarush(You have to flash the wifi-modules from CWM)


Thanx to all the devs for making the xperia mini pro a true hackers phone. Thnx to sony for allowing the unlocking of bootloaders. Thnx to all th users over at XDA for testing and reporting.............

Custom roms on xperia mini pro locked boot loader

I, nor any devs or their work can be held responsible for any issues or for damaging your phone. Proceed at your own risk. You have been warned. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



This post is directed at people who dont want to unlock their boot loaders
Refer to my previous post regarding rooting and installing CWM on xperia mini pro ICS. Read further if your device is ready as per my previous post.

So, Fed up with the way your device looked and performed. Let us give your mini pro a facelift with these custom roms.

1. MiniCMSandwich Lite AOSP, Get it here, takes the top spot for custom rom on mini pro. The main reason being the majority of the ROM contains AOSP(Android open source project) a.k.a Vanilla ICS. The shocker is the amount of free space in the internal memory after installing the rom. This is a real barebones, vanilla ICS at its best. He has tried to take the best from cyanogenmod, AOSP and sony software and mixed them to come out with a great and awesome mod. People who want to theme their phones keep out. This is a great rom for people who want to run games n their xperia mini pro and install a plethora of apps. Every aspect of the phone is working fine and optimal. Thanx kamarush for a great rom

2. The second spot is a re-spin of kamarush's rom. CyanogenTimeScape. To qoute from his OP "This ROM is a Hybrid of Android Open Kang Project, Cyanogen Mod, and Xperia S ICS. The ROM is basicaly made by kamarush. I just modified it. The major challenge for me was to make the Sony Sound Enhancements work on the ROM. I could figure out how to do it after flashing the ROM more than 50 times on my device for testing purposes.
Other than these, I have provided some cool Xperia S apps in the ROM, to help increase productivity, and level of coolness of this ROM." It is basically a kamarush rom. If you like what DragonClawsAreSharp has done to kamarush's rom, go ahead and install it. The difference is minimal except for facts explained in the OP.

3. The third spot goes to expeacer's ExMIUI. Anybody who has rooted his phone would know the fork of android caled MIUI. Here is a fork of android which cares only about the looks. Yes, the ram usage is nearly twice that of kamarush rom. But you are looking for the good looks and theming, look no further. You can change the look of your phone just by downloading themes of miui website or from the public network and just apply them. It is an excellent attempt at bringing theis beatiful rom to this cute phone. The animations are superb and the mini pro gets a new identity. The only issue here is ram usage.

We have reviewed the best roms for xperia mini pro with locked boot loader. And one more thing, all thes roms feature the aroma installer(think it as a step by step configuration selection during installation) which is awesome. All the roms look good on the mini pro and the keyboard works flawlessly. I cannot end the post without thanking the devs of these fantastic roms. I just hope that these devs continue to love the awesome device created by sony designers. I would like to thank all the devs associated with the vanilla android, AOKP, MIUI and other forks of android. We love you.

UPDATE: 01/08/2012

I would like to add one more Custom rom to this list. That would be real ICS. It is now at version 5.1. This particular rom is interesting because it's major portion is based on Sony's stock rom. Loaded with many mods to make it a music hub. It has the best from the latest xperia phones and other sound improvement mods. If u like the stock feel, but want to extract the max out of your device, then this is the rom for you. Mind you, it is a heavy rom at around 250MB. and the ram/rom usage is on the higher side compared to kamarush's AOSP rom. With jelly bean around the corner by the same devs, this is good rom to try out the stock feel of sony with all the awesome mods. Since we are discussing devices with locked boot loader, this rom has not mentioned its support for locked bootloaders loudly owing to some caveats. After installing the rom, you may lose CWM. The best way to get it back would be to install x-parts from the market. With this you can install CWM back. Once installed, after reboot during the display of sony logo, the LED will flash blue. Just click any button to enter CWM. Thanx again to all the devs who are keeping the xperia series phones alive and kicking.

Rooting and installing CWM on Xperia mini pro ICS v4.0.4

I, nor any devs, whose work we are going to use, are responsible if anything goes wrong. Continue at your own risk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This procedure is for sony xperia mini pro updated with official ICS v4.0.4. and is for people who dont want to unlock their bootloaders.

Before you start install PC companion and check whether the phone is detected by the sony pc companion. If it is detected then u already have the necessary drivers. You should not proceed if the phone is not detected.

1. Head here and follow the procedure step by step. Read the requirements and preparations very carefully any mistake here may definitely brick your phone. It is a great post and self contained. All the downloads required are excellently linked. Thanks to the dev for highlighting the procedure beatifully with illustrations. At the end of this procedure you have rooted the phone without unlocking the bootloader.

2. Now to the next default step after rooting any phone. Installing Clockworkmod Recovery. This is a part of the ROM manager. This gives you a recovery console, form where you can backup the current rom(Which you should be the first thing after installing CWM), Install custom ROMs(Google is your friend), Install great mods(These are minor modifications to the already installed roms, official or custom roms). Here is the tool you are going to use to install CWM on your rooted xperia mini pro. The tool is windows only and requires .net framework 3.5. Download the zip, extract it and run the .exe in the folder. You get a window as shown in the post. Click the 'select option' drop down box and choose 'clockwork mod....' and click on the install button. Read the instructions very carefully and meet all the requirement specified. Now you have CWM without unlocking the bootloader.

Thats it. Now you have entered the infinite area of customization of your phone just head here to find out the zillion things you can do with your rooted mini pro. Just observe the passion with which the devs give out their hardwork for the general public so that the utility of the device people have bought is maximised.

Thanks to all the devs and users at XDA, MIUI, AOKP and other Android modding communities for unleashing the real power of android phones and bringing this power to the masses.

Thanks to google for keeping the OS open(would love to see it GPL'd so that we could label it GNU/Android)

Enlightenment, aka E17 on Debian GNU/Linux testing

Its been  long time since I tried any other window manager. I gave a thought towards awesome, since it was recommended by the Debian leader himself. But I though it was too minimal to my taste and ability. I came across enlightenment being lightweight and with lots of eye candy. I am typing this in an e17 session on iceweasal. Let me share the problems and solutions to get this light weight DM started.

First things first. e17 is lightening. Within 2 seconds I am in the desktop. That is awesome. BTW, I also want to declare that I am a big fan of G3, which u might recognize by the other posts which I have made. But, the startup time taken by G3 with this version 3.2 on Debian GNU/Linux testing is eternity. So I decided to experiment with other DM's until G3 comes up to its G2.* capabilities. The screen shots of e17 really caught my attention.

Let us get to the installing part

1. E17 is in Debian GNU/Linux testing repositories. Fire up synaptic, select e17 and all the associated dependencies.
2. Create a new user, (prefereably)
3. Logout, select the new user and choose enlightenment in the session drop down box.
3.a. Once you login for the first time, You will be taken through 3 steps to configure e17. You will get a screen wherein you can choose the shortcuts to be placed on the desktop in the shelf.
4. Login and u will be given ur desktop in under 2 seconds.

After login

1. You get three icons on the desktop Home, Root and the temp folder
2. You also get a shelf at the bottom centre. I deleted the entire thing. It was taking up too much real estate on my 12" screen
3. My lappy's touchpad was not working. I used synclient to configure and enable it. create a shell script startup17.sh in your home folder. with the following

synclient tapbutton1=1
synclient vertedgescroll=1

Now create startupe17.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/
with the following content

Desktop Entry]
Hidden=false
Exec=/bin/sh /home/nishi/Documents/startupe17.sh
Name[es_AR]=startupe17
Type=Application
NoDisplay=true
Version=1,
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Name=startupe17



Now, edit ~/.e/e/applications/startup/.order and add this entry

startupe17.desktop

Since there are no shortcuts on the desktop to save real estate, in comes my favorite tool, synapse. Click anywhere on the desktop to get the menu. Here select settings-settings-panel-apps-startup choose synapse from the list(If installed previously, otherwise fireup synaptic and install synapse from the repos). This action will add synapse.desktop entry to ~/.e/e/applications/startup/.order

Now, the most interesting part, Network. If you have a working Gnome desktop(which i had), it is very easy. Loging to your Gnome session, open network manager choose your wifi connection and click on edit. Here at the bottom of the window, click on "Available to all users". Login back to your enlightenment session and add this entry to ~/.e/e/applications/startup/.order

nm-applet.desktop

Logout and login once more. Thats it. You now have a basic "working" E17, lightweight environment. Thanx again E17, G3, Debian GNU/Linux devs, contributors and users.

UPDATE: You are mesmerized with the quality and quantity of themes available for e, hmmm.... No surprises here. I would suggest you to install the bodhi theme pack. Bodhi GNU/Linux has done a great job by combining the best themes available for e, floating over the internet into one beautiful jumbo package. Thanx Bodhi GNU/Linux team for this gorgeous collection. Bodhi has made e look very very fashinable. Download the entire pack and you will end up with this pack "bodhi theme pack.bod" Now extract the entire contents of this megapack by running

./bodhi-theme-pack.bod --keep --noexec

You will have a directory with the name "bodhi theme pack". change into this directory and as root run

dpkg -i *.deb

You may end up with some broken dependencies. study the output of the above command and install the few dependencies manually after downloading the specific .deb's from bodhi repos. Or u can completely forget about the broken dependency error and start choosing from the great themes already installed.

I am enlightened for sure.

Debian GNU/Linux testing Gnome3 on a Dell lappy with ATI Graphics

This is for people having trouble having Gnome3 with its full glory without being dropped to the standby mode which is neither G3 nor G2 and very ugly. Try first installing the proprietory drivers offered by amd on their ati website. Please chose "gnome" while logging in. If not working, go ahead and try the proprietory bundle prepared by the Debian Gnu/Linux devs. For me the Debian GNU/Linux propreitory bundle worked flawlessly.  Through synaptic just search for "fgrlx" and select all the other dependencies to install. Reboot.

So, All Debian Gnu/Linux lovers, go ahead and feel the G3 goodness. G3 is very beautiful and unobtrusive. If you are interested in a little G2 way, like menus, a task bar at the bottom, then I would suggest you the official plugins hosted by the G3 devs. And installing the extension is a breeze. Just remember to open the website with a firefox(iceweasal) based browser. And one more thing, disable any other composting manager you had installed. It will conflict with the composting which is a part of G3.

Thanx to the Debian GNU/linux devs for packaging the ati propreitory drivers in a workable package. And thanx go to the G3 devs and the community for an excellent DE with the added luxury of extensions which is growing day by day.

Tivoization and freedom

What is Tivoisation. I would direct you to websearch for indepth explanation or the text of GPL V3 would be more suitable if you are reallllllly interested in this topic.

As a layman's explanation, Tivoisation is the situation where a hardware vendor though is in compliance with GPL v2(That is, the source code for the GPL'd code used in the hardware is released back to the community in the same license, you could call it the "firmware") does not allow the users or buyers of the hardware to flash the hardware with modified firmware compiled from the modified firmware source.

Let us say, U have bought a dvd player, whose firmware is built up completely of GPL'd software. Now, U download the source published by the dvd player manufacturer and put some programming effort in adding additional functions/capabilities to the existing ones. Yes, U have done a great job. Now u have to flash the device with this additional capability. But, stop, U cant do it. The manufacturer will not allow this and probably if you go ahead you will lose your warranty.

Now, there is one more side to this. A rival company wants to manufacture a similar dvd player. He gets the hardware pieces which are similar form standard vendors. He will take this improved/updated firmware created by the individual and flash his device with this. So, You have a dvd player with additional capability in the market for the same price.

Is this desirable. Yes. It is very much desirable. If the initial manufacturer had a broader view of the word "freedom" he would have accepted the changes and incorporated in all the dvd players and provide a free update to all the existing users. The world is an excellent place to live in. If he doesnt want to do it himself he should allow the programmer to flash his improvements on to the hardware. The user payed for the hardware also. He has all the rights to get the last drop of performance from his device. The manufacturer should not lock the device down for further improvements. The customer should have the right to modify/improve the device he has bought. The customer should be "free" to incorporate the improvements and also share the same with his friends and in turn upgrading his device also.

I am against Tivoization. I understand my device better. I know its capabilities. I know how its use can be extended. If I dont know my friend knows. I want to incorporate his improvements on my device. Its my device. I should be free to use it and improve it. Damn the warranty. I liked the way, RMS thought about the whole issue of tivoization. I know Linus torvalds doesnt like this. He wants the Linux kernel on the majority of platforms/devices. Time is the only answer to these disparity of views. I am happy that RMS detected these issues and added corrections in GPL v3.

"init: Id "co" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes" error in Debian GNU/Linux testing

I think many of the Debian GNU/Linux testing installations are getting this message. This is visible if your are using the terminal and gets repeated every 5 minutes. I have resolved this issue by commenting the line as shown below. As usual, i dont take credit for this. It is just a result of lot of googling of online forums

co:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty hvc0 9600 linux

search for the above line in /etc/inittab and comment it as

#co:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty hvc0 9600 linux

There you go. You will not recieve the message again.


P.S -> I have not seen any side effects as of now(been using my lappy with this change for the past two days). I will update if any issues are found. I would be happy to know if others do have an issue. Thanx to all the Debian GNU/Linux devs and users for a fantastic OS.

Gnome 3.2 extensions on Debian GNU/Linux testng

It is old news now that Gnome 3.2.2 is available for Debian GNU/Linux testing users. If you have not installed reload ur package manager and upgrade to version 3.2.2. So, what are the things you will like in this release

1. The response from the shell is lightning. It is very quick. Once you log into the shell, the responses to mouse clicks and keyboard short cuts is amazing.

2. Installation of extensions is now childs play with Gnome 3.2.2. It is as easy as 1-2-3. GO to https://extensions.gnome.org/  and click on your favorite extension. On this page and to the left of the title of the extension you have an ON/OFF switch. Just slide the button to ON and accept to install the extension in the pop up dialog. Thats it!!. The extension is installed. Repeat this step for all the extensions you would like to install. Then log out and re-login. You should be now running all the extensions you have installed. As a guide for the best extensions, I would point you to  http://justinstories.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/five-most-downloaded-extensions-of-awesome-gnome-shell/   

Thanx to the G3 devs for acknowledging the requirement of the community and supporting the extensions within their main framework and many thanx to all the devs of the awesome G3 extensions.


PS: The user theme extension is somehow disabled for 3.2.2. As per the G3 website it will be available in 3.3 and later. I, for one will wait.

Freedom of Expression, suppressed.

So, what is an objectionable content? How are we going to define the word "objectionable" A search on google gave out "Arousing distaste or opposition; unpleasant or offensive" as meaning. Was that objectionable to post meaning of this particular word since people(kids, adults alike and irrespective of gender) would know about it and start debating.

I have never used that particular word this much in my past. I am now seeing it and hearing it everywhere. They tell we should stop "users" from posting objectionable content about other "users" and ofcourse, the government. Now, what or who is "government" Government consists of the "users" and their representatives who are themselves once again, users .

It is like the hedge is trying to gobble up the farm. The reps are elected to see to it that the freedom of the "users" are intact and in fact, taken to the next level. Not bringing it to an inferior level. When the goverment is talking about objetionable content or "A" user is talking about objectionable content, what is the percentage of the entire population of the world which are asking this?

The governments "represent" the users but are not "all" the users. People form governments and in reality they are users. In this context they are "users" of the public network. The public network is entirely based on "complete and un-adulterated democracy" which is impossible to visualize in the physical world. We users have to stand up to protect this deomcracy. The virtual world crosses all boundaries and unites the whole world as one "monster user base".

Google and related public service providers would not like this because, their model thrives on this philosophy of democracy of the virtual world crossing the frontiers of countries and continents, united by purpose, education, hobbies and many other things which are beyond my comprehension. The public network is based on the true principle of democracy "Of the people, by the people and for the people"

Let us see the stakeholders in this hue and cry about objectionable content

1. Large enterprises
2. Governments run by the large enterprises
3. One particular insatance of  large enterprises consisting of Media conglomerates.

1. Why do large enterprises objet to "objectionable" content.
   The answer lies in the open standards adopted in the public networks. People can cross the strongest firewalls and circumvent them if they are that much interested in coming out with the truth. And does it travel at speed over the public network. In no time, the value of the enterprise changes. If it is a positive news it will escalate otherwise ........  So, if they are given rights of filtering objectionable content, it will be removed in the first instance and the world will never know about it.

2. Goverments run by large enterprises are pawns of the humongous enterprises with more cash than all the money collected if all people pay their taxes properly. The explanation of the previous paragraph holds good. The goverments are PROs for these enterprises. They find it difficult to adjust to the changing times and technology. They are in no mood of learning. They will decide what the public will learn. With the public network enabling knowledge to the general public at their finger tips, they are now face to face with an educated public.

3. The way the public accesses media has changed the time napster clicked with the general public. The democratic network showed the media companies, the model in which they would like the media to be served. The public is bored of putting a CD into the reader just to listen to 7 songs. We dont want to go to the stores and rumagage to come out with our favorite music or movie or books. We still love our movies to be king size(Theatres will never go out of style). But if we want entertainment in our house we want it in the digital form served over the pubbic network, searchable, indexable and what not. Do we want it on CD/DVD/Blue ray/.../.../... NO. We want it served as a media file. But wait, serving movies would work only in the developed countries where the public is not happy with "4G". It will not work in countries where network speeds are pathetic. How do we like it there? We would like it to be provided with bit-torrent tech, so that we donload it and then watch it. Do we want it to be DRM'd, NO. We want it to share with our friends, my sister, my brother, my neighbour, my watchman etc.. Do we want to arrange and index the physical discs, NO. We want u to do it for us. Will we pay for the content, YES. But if u charge exhorbitantly then the public will find means to circumvent this also. With this attitude we are back to square one.

THERE IS NO OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT ON THE PUBLIC NETWORK. THE CONTENT IS WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS. IT IS DEMOCRATIC AND PEOPLE HAVE THE FREEDOM TO "COMMENT". WE REQUEST ALL OUR REPS THROUGHT THE WORLD TO ALLOW THE PUBLIC NETWORK FREE OF "CENSORSHIP"