Posts Tagged ‘keyboard’

So the Ice Cream Sandwich source code was released a while ago now, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting a port for my Desire Z, or Vision, or G2, or whatchamacall it around the world. By eagerly I of course mean I’ve been constantly refreshing the relevant threads on xda-developers, looking at gibberish git commits, and hex editing keyboardfiles in order to try and help out in any way I can, but still the fickle wench eludes me! I shall now proceed to pull all my hair out of my scalp.

So, why do I so desperately crave this sammich thing? Well, today I’m starting a new tradition: lists: by Bjørn Snoen. Props to any and all who gets the reference.

Why my phone needs a sandwich: a list by Bjørn Snoen

  1. I’m a flash addict. It’s a real medical condition, usually contracted by visiting the xda forums, and once you start flashing, you just can’t stop. The thrill of flashing a new rom, hoping it won’t fail, and that it won’t seriously harm your device, is amazing. Possibly even more exhilarating than crack, but experts disagree. Sadly, or fortunately, few experts exist, as few flash junkies are crack heads, so it’s more like crack experts disagreeing with flash experts.
  2. Remember when Honeycomb came out, and android tablets started getting awesome? It’s like that, but for phones. The UI changes are fantastic, from the subtle tweak of scroll bars, to the less subtle tweak done to the graphics of on/off switches, to the radical, and much anticipated, implementation of hardware acceleration in the launcher. Yeah, it’s friggin epic. At least it looks like it on the devices that, you know, have it.
  3. Tron. That’s right, motherfucking Tron. This entire release looks like something from Tron: Legacy! I know the previous point was kind of about the UI, but this element deserves a point of it’s own. It’s all shades of blue, teal, and black, it has glowy neon edges where it seems appropriate, and it’s matte where it needs to be. This is one geeked out ice cream sandwich, and I love me some geekery. It’s a powerful kind of love. A little inappropriate, actually.
  4. Okay, don’t get mad now, I lied. There isn’t anything else in specific that I’m looking forward to, however from reading about it I’m sure there are a bunch of kick-ass elements I won’t be expecting.

So today a supposedly “working” port of ICS was posted on the forums, so naturally I downloaded it immediately. Sadly, I’d just ordered pizza, and I had to put off flashing it until it arrived so that the delivery boy could reach me… and he was delayed! Agony! But the hour finally arrived when I could flash this magic ROM, and taste this sandwich for myself! And nothing works.

Well, some things worked, but I couldn’t use the ROM, nope, not at all. The software keyboard wasn’t reachable, because the ROM suffered from the same bug as all other ICS efforts for the old Z, it thinks the hardware keyboard is always out, so the software keyboard never pops up. You’d think that was no problem, the Z has a hardware keyboard, so just use that! Except for the fact that it isn’t working! Only a precious few of the symbol keys work at all, even if they do input the wrong symbol. Sadly this is nowhere near sufficient for inputting my passwords anywhere. And trust me, I tried vnc, I even tried a hacky jnlp script, none of it worked, input is fucked up beyond repair in this ROM. If this is a working ROM, I’d hate to see the broken one.

So I restored my backup after butting my head against this ROM for about an hour. Always remember to backup your data kids! At least I’m getting one good thing out of all of this: I’m getting very motivated to learn about kernel and Android hacking, so in a while you might see some ROMs with BRBcoffee branding popping up on a device near you! Or maybe not, but you never know!

 


And now for something completely different

With the birth of a new tradition, I’ve decided to change an old one. The song of the blog must die… Yes, I know you’ve loved it very much, but from the ashes shall arise a new and better tradition! Introducing the album of the blog! I know, it’s totally rad. I don’t even know why I didn’t go with album of the blog to begin with, I always paid more attention to albums as entities than songs anyway, and it’s not like I write an entire blogpost while only listening to a single song, I may be productive, but I’m not a robot. Actually… no, Robo-admin will be another post, I don’t need this post turning into a flying circus! Now, without further ado, or bad html, I give you the album!

 

The album of the blog: A Momentary Lapse of Reason, by Pink Floyd

Insincerely yours
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