Developer Tidbits

I had been using a Speck FitFolio for my iPad 2 but it was showing obvious signs of wear and tear with less than a year of use. This time, I wanted to get a TPU case for my Nexus 7. A quick trip to Greenhills (last September 2012) yielded nothing. Anything that is not Apple or Samsung will be hard to find. A search on sulit showed several cases that were over P1,000 which I didn't want to pay for. I came across good reviews on Nillkin cases so I hunted for a seller in ebay. I eventually found a Hong Kong based seller http://stores.ebay.com/ecdigishop that offered free shipping in Asia so I ordered one for USD 12.70. Standard shipping would take 2 weeks. True enough, it arrived exactly 14 days after I placed the order. Unfortunately, I would have to claim it at the post office because I had to pay customs (P100) for it. The package was shipped from Singapore. Unboxing follows: Shipment packaging from Singapore TPU case designed for the Nexus 7  Packaging is

The official Nexus S OTA file for i9023 is now out! Google OTA file (MD5 – 12c718dbda2565609db45c9631a25adc) I had used the Nexus S 4.0.4 factory images for my phone and left the boot loader unlocked. Unfortunately, the instructions for applying the official OTA apply only to those on boot-locked stock recovery or custom recovery. I tried doing it but got the "apply_patch_check assert failed" error message. You might want to try it first if you are on stock. Just a tip for going to the recovery menu on stock ROM: 1. While phone is off, press Power and Volume Up continuously until the fastboot screen appears. 2. Press volume down to select Recovery, then press Power to select. 3. The phone will reboot, show the Google logo and show a robot with a red exclamation point. 4. Press Volume Up, then Power to go the recovery menu. I thought the the robot with the red exclamation was an error. Also make sure you press Volume Up first, then Power and not vice versa, otherw

Many users must have encountered a permanent hang in Mac OSX System Preferences because searching "osx system preferences hang" on Google returns more than 300,000 results. OSX isn't so rock solid after all. This happened while I was changing the wallpaper and probably chose iPhoto. The bouncing ball then appeared. I left it like that for about 15 minutes and had to Force Quit. Rebooting the machine didn't help. This makes the entire System Preferences inaccessible so you cannot change any setting on your machine until you resolve the wallpaper issue. The following forum entry had a solution: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1194163 All you need to do is to delete a file in your preferences folder which will reset your desktop to the default. To do this, you will need to open terminal and type the following: rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist Then, reboot your Mac and you'll see the default wallpaper and System Preferences b

The best instruction guide for upgrading the Samsung Galaxy S is in Cyanogenmod's wiki . I followed the Mac OSX instructions using Heimdall Suite 1.3.2. The "Installing the ClockworkMod Recovery" instructions will replace the recovery image of the phone and root it. You may then load any custom ROM to your phone after doing this. The trickiest thing in doing this is holding down Home+Volume Down while plugging the USB cable. I suggest you remove any casing you have on your Galaxy S while doing this. You will need the following files to install the recovery image. The links should be in the instructions. This step only needs to be done once. With Jelly Bean ROMs starting to appear, you will be able upgrade your phone easily using the recovery method. heimdall-suite-1.3.2-mac.dmg (13MB) hardcore-speedmod.tar (7.5MB) After installing the recovery image, you can boot your phone normally and copy the ICS ROMs. There are typically 2 files that you need to install a ROM (

Looking forward to the Nexus 7 announcement!

Doing this now. These instructions should work for i9023 devices (like the one from Globe Telecom). http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/03/28/download-official-android-4-0-4-imm76d-update-for-the-nexus-s-heres-how-to-get-it-right-now/ An new official update IMM76 (Android 4.0.4) is poised to roll out for the Nexus S . The update file, which weighs 18MB, can be downloaded directly from Google's servers and applied only over stock IML74K (Android 4.0.3): UPDATE 1: The procedure didn't work for me. After selecting recovery, it brought me to a blank screen. It turns out the 4.0.3 recovery has a bug that doesn't turn on the backlight but I was able to see the words by shining a flashlight angled from the bottom to the screen. Nevertheless, I got the status 7 error when I tried to flash the zip file. xda member oldblue910 has an explanation: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1445635 A NOTE ABOUT ANDROID 4.X OTAs  Beginning with the 4.0.3 -> 4.0.4 OTA